D&D 5E Asking for a bit of recent D&D history

[Oofta]

Another aspect of 5E's success is not trying to lock everyone in to one way of playing. While no game is perfect, it's better balanced (especially at higher levels) than pre-4E versions without going to the extreme "powers" structure of 4E.

I also remember watching a video of people playing 4E as an intro to the game and the best way I can describe it is that the people were simply not having fun. Instead of engaging with the scenario and each other they kept going back to their power cards.

I get that shows like CR get a lot of credit for 5E's success, but I think the emphasis is kind of off. Mercer and company started a home game for a friend using 4E rules but decided they didn't like how the game played so they switched to PathFinder. Once 5E came out they switched back to D&D before they started a stream.

I think about that 4E video stream when I watch streams like CR. I don't see how CR could have worked with 4E, it just lacked a certain natural flow of play.

In any case it's not just 1 thing, it's many. People want a social activity that requires relatively little specialization (a big issue with 3.x) that can also be easily run to fit the desires of the group like 5E does.

 

[Mannahnin]

4E achieved its goal of attracting the 'WOW' type of new gamer, but it also alienated a large portion of its predecessors fan base, and fractured the gaming community, with the defectors all heading over to Pathfinnder. Accordingly for the first time in history, an RPG that was NOT DnD (Pathfinder), became the top seller, overtaking DnD in sales.

Very solid post overall, but a quick caveat on this historical point about sales, which a couple of folks have mentioned. To my recollection PF only passed 4E for a year or so, late in 4E's lifecycle when WotC had very few books come out, and the splintering of the players was well-established. Despite PF's definite success, Paizo still wasn't trouncing WotC for most of the PF 1E/ D&D 4E period by any means.

 

[billd91]

Very solid post overall, but a quick caveat on this historical point about sales, which a couple of folks have mentioned. To my recollection PF only passed 4E for a year or so, late in 4E's lifecycle when WotC had very few books come out, and the splintering of the players was well-established. Despite PF's definite success, Paizo still wasn't trouncing WotC for most of the PF 1E/ D&D 4E period by any means.

I think people forget that PF first achieved parity with WotC the very same time that some of the 4e Essentials were coming out. That's in 2010, just 2 years into 4e's lifespan. It's not just a late 4e phenomenon.

 

[darjr]

5e was a hugely surprising successful launch. It sold out immediately at Amazon, not once, but several times. So much so they redirected the printer to delay other projects to print more PHBs post haste!

it stunned and shocked WotC. Amazon was screaming for more prints.

I think the original print run was supposed to last a year. Gone in mere days.

The streaming was a huge bang for D&D, but remember PAX games and the launch were already HUGE.
Critical Role put it into another whole stratosphere, yes, but D&Ds 5e success was already phenomenal one.

 

[Mannahnin]

I think people forget that PF first achieved parity with WotC the very same time that some of the 4e Essentials were coming out. That's in 2010, just 2 years into 4e's lifespan. It's not just a late 4e phenomenon.

Thanks for the clarification/correction. I was thinking more of the late 2011-2012 period, when WotC put out what, 5 books for 4E? Which seems like a relatively robust schedule now, but was a big dropoff, and that's the period in which I recall Paizo really exceeded WotC's sales.

 

[Marc_C]

The only thing I'll add is that after playing D&D4e for a while, not wanting to play Pathfinder or Old school Revival games (or prior editions of D&D), I switched to Savage Worlds. No sure what portion of the market I represent but there was a definite shift towards non-D&D fantasy systems during that period.

I returned to D&D with 5e. It is a good edition but I've outgrown D&D. Now I play Fantasy AGE by Green Ronin. I don't see how a 6e would bring me back to D&D.

 

[Flamestrike]

Very solid post overall, but a quick caveat on this historical point about sales, which a couple of folks have mentioned. To my recollection PF only passed 4E for a year or so, late in 4E's lifecycle when WotC had very few books come out, and the splintering of the players was well-established. Despite PF's definite success, Paizo still wasn't trouncing WotC for most of the PF 1E/ D&D 4E period by any means.

Agreed, but that was still a monumental moment in RPG history. PF was the quintessential Fantasy Heartbreaker that actually (for a brief period) not only competed with the elephant in the room in DnD, it actually overtook it.

Nothing else had ever come close before. Back in the day DnD was so synonymous with RPG's that 'playing DnD' was how you used to say 'gaming', even if you were playing a totally different system like Rolemaster or Shadowrun.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

The only thing I'll add is that after playing D&D4e for a while, not wanting to play Pathfinder or Old school Revival games (or prior editions of D&D), I switched to Savage Worlds. No sure what portion of the market I represent but there was a definite shift towards non-D&D fantasy systems during that period.

I returned to D&D with 5e. It is a good edition but I've outgrown D&D. Now I play Fantasy AGE by Green Ronin. I don't see how a 6e would bring me back to D&D.

I think that if D&D Next was not announced when it was I would have tried to persuade my group to try Savage Worlds

 

[darjr]

I switched to DCC. And of coarse the playtest itself.

 

[Flamestrike]

In any case it's not just 1 thing, it's many. People want a social activity that requires relatively little specialization (a big issue with 3.x) that can also be easily run to fit the desires of the group like 5E does.

It was precisely that specialization or insane amounts of system mastery that was 3.Ps success.

As a former devotee of both systems, I've lost track of the amount of time I spent trawling through the SRD's of each system and slapping together 20 level 'builds' using feat, prc, subsystem, class, trait, race etc options that were 'optimal', and I've also lost track of the number of tables I've sat down at where there was a marked disparity between the classes of the same level (with some guys making the classic rookie mistake of 'playing a Monk' or a Fighter, Samurai, Knight, Soulblade, or similar class, next to some Halruaan Adept/ Incantatrix/ Eldritch theurge or Ruby Knight Vindicator with Divine Metamagic persistent or similar) and the game immediately disintegrating.

In hindsight it was incredibly toxic, and you could almost argue 4E's drastic changes intended to combat that rubbish was the 'recession we had to have.'