Grognard view of One D&D?

[John Lloyd1]

Of course, my way is a bit different: Make a Fun Game.

Of course D&D needs to be fun.

But, what is fun for one person is not always fun for another. You can see that in the thousands RPGs, board games, books, media, etc. Most of them were fun for someone. None of them were fun for everyone. You can see that in the arguments between edition fans. You can see that in the arguments about what is OSR.

In a sense, they are trying to maximise total population 'fun-ness'. And, like speed of light, you will never reach 100% total 'fun-ness'.

 

[GreyLord]

My thoughts on it...

"Yeah...Right."

Interpret it as you will.

 

[Lanefan]

This thread confuses me.

You don't think D&DONE will bring you 'back into the fold'.
You're 'not the audience'.
You're 'not a 5E fan'.

But you'll 'buy the PHB' anyway? Why? If you don't like something, why would you buy it? It makes no sense to me. If I don't like something, I don't buy it. Why would you?

To mine ideas from, for my own game. Spells and monsters, mostly.

I've bought the core three for each of 2e 3e 4e and 5e at around the time of their release, and have never* DMed any of them. I have, however, swiped or tweaked some ideas from each, and having the core books gives me a better idea of what to expect when I convert that edition's adventures. I didn't buy 3.5e or PF and probably won't bother with 5.5 unless it's hella different from 5e, which is not the current projection.

* - other than three sessions of 3.5e when I briefly took over an existing game as a shared joke on the other players by me and the main DM.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I’ll look at it. But it’s facing 2 obstacles:

1) 5th was the first version of the game that I purchased nothing of. So if it’s too much like 5th, I won’t touch it.

2) I’m not actively gaming right now (for several reasons, with 5Ed not being one of them), so there’s less reason for me to buy it.

So, if I get into it at all, it probably won’t be within the first year of its release.

 

[Jahydin]

I'm not so much worried about the rules, but the push to own it all in their monetized "walled garden".

 

[Lanefan]

I don't think that creating a game that everyone wants is that easy. If you tried to do that you would end up with a camel that no one wants.

The way I see it, there are three design goals for D&D:

• It needs to be a gateway game. Because it is an order of magnitude larger that any other RPG, it can't get most of its new players from other RPGs. They need to be players who are new to RPGs.

This can be achieved by releasing two versions - dare I call them Basic and Advanced - with Basic as the simple ready-to-roll gateway.

 

[bloodtide]

Of course D&D needs to be fun.

But, what is fun for one person is not always fun for another. You can see that in the thousands RPGs, board games, books, media, etc. Most of them were fun for someone. None of them were fun for everyone. You can see that in the arguments between edition fans. You can see that in the arguments about what is OSR.

In a sense, they are trying to maximise total population 'fun-ness'. And, like speed of light, you will never reach 100% total 'fun-ness'.

Note in your whole reply in your last post, you did not type the word fun.....not even once. You were much more concerned about so many other things. You say it should be fun, but don't seem to have that on the mind.

And it's still the problem: just make a fun game and ignore the rest.

 

[John Lloyd1]

This can be achieved by releasing two versions - dare I call them Basic and Advanced - with Basic as the simple ready-to-roll gateway.

Sure. It still wouldn't cover everyone's desires and wouldn't fun for everyone even if more people were pleased.

Supplements can address those niche desires without impacting the core. They don't need to meet those design goals and can focus on different things.

 

[John Lloyd1]

You say it should be fun, but don't seem to have that on the mind.

It was an unstated assumption. I'll rephrase it if you like:

I don't think that creating a game that everyone finds fun is that easy. If you tried to do that you would end up with a camel that no one finds fun.

 

[Sacrosanct]

I'm sure Wizards and plenty of players think the way you think too.

Of course, my way is a bit different: Make a Fun Game.

See how mine is so simple? Long, long ago, back in the Time Before Time, when D&D was created it was "make a fun game", not your paragraph of things. And it worked.

And how do you do that, specifically.