D&D (2024) Does anyone else think that 1D&D will create a significant divide in the community?

[DEFCON 1]

Im sort of with this. I would say outlier instead of outcast. Normally, not a big deal you just grab a game and system that does suit your preferences. However, with D&D's oversized impact on the hobby in general, it makes having a committed concern to its direction, and thus disappointment when it moves away from you, a popular opinion. Nobody wants a tiny pool of players to choose from. So, that anger gets placed at the feet of WotC.

I think the above was much more drastic back in '08. Now with the rise of VTT, crowdsourced indie games, etc... It's becoming less of an issue with every new iteration of D&D. YMMV.

Your point about VTTs is exactly why I find complaints about not being able to "find players" to be silly. People can find players for all editions and games of D&D and others so much more easily than they ever could before VTTs and the internet.

But I think what we're finding now is that because the total player pool is so much wider... players have begun condensing it themselves by getting more and more nitpicky about every single little game facet that they want. It's not enough to just say they want to find 5E players (which is quite easy in these days of VTTs)... but now they are saying they want 5E players that won't use Tasha's, will only play non-magical characters, no races other than these 5 specific ones the DM has chosen, and are okay with using the X, Y, and Z house rules the DM wants to incorporate into the game because they don't like how WotC's rules do them. And then when all these contingencies do not produce a viable player pool... then they complain that WotC's rules changes have made it harder to find players.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Wishing popularity wasn't a goal of a design that for a company as big as WOTC is, well, a take.

I don't expect it to change, i just don't like very much. There's no way to know if this is the game they want to make, or just the game they think will be the most financially successful.

 

[gorice]

That is 100% what is going on here.

There are lots of design decisions made in 5e (and really in any game) that I don't like, and would not have made had I been in charge. I would greatly prefer other systems, if my friends also did. But does that make D&D "bad design"? It would be arrogant of me to say so. Also wrong.

I challenge anybody here who thinks D&D is bad design to offer an objective, universal definition of what makes good game design.

If I may butt in here: I think that's a tricky thing to define, though 'good design' in general can abolutely be defined. It can be true that different people can have different tastes, and that a given instance of design or artistry can be good or bad, simultaneously.

In the case of RPG design, I think a good definition would involve something like 'facilitates the experience that it promotes' and 'contains no extraneous and confusing details'. 5e D&D certainly fails on the latter (separate attributes and modifiers come to mind). The former is tricky, because...

But I think it requires a selective reading of any place where people do like the basic structure of D&D to not see that there are repeated complaints about some of the same things. They just either aren't important enough to harm their overall appreciation of the system, or at least there aren't enough of them to significantly impact the overall success of the system as a system.

...In my experience, no-one can actually agree on what the 'basic structure' of D&D is. I'm really starting to believe that it's all just projection.

 

[Clint_L]

That is 100% what is going on here.

There are lots of design decisions made in 5e (and really in any game) that I don't like, and would not have made had I been in charge. I would greatly prefer other systems, if my friends also did. But does that make D&D "bad design"? It would be arrogant of me to say so. Also wrong.

I challenge anybody here who thinks D&D is bad design to offer an objective, universal definition of what makes good game design.

I can't offer a universal definition, but I can offer an objective economic argument that 5e is great design, because it has been incredibly successful. So from Hasbro/WotC's perspective: 5e is good game design.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I can't offer a universal definition, but I can offer an objective economic argument that 5e is great design, because it has been incredibly successful. So from Hasbro/WotC's perspective: 5e is good game design.

That's my problem: I don't consider making a lot of money a definition of good design. I know others do, but its not on my list.

 

[Clint_L]

Well, but what we are here to discuss is whether OneD&D is going to create a schism. WotC expressly wants to avoid dividing their player base, which is why they are sticking to 5e as the basis of D&D going forward and just adding incremental tweaks to it. So the argument about "what is good design" is settled, from their perspective: good design is 5e.

We can argue about personal taste all day (I just ran a game of Dread yesterday, fused with a touch of Call of Cthulhu; that might be my favourite game design), but it seems like it probably won't go anywhere.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Well, but what we are here to discuss is whether OneD&D is going to create a schism. WotC expressly wants to avoid dividing their player base, which is why they are sticking to 5e as the basis of D&D going forward and just adding incremental tweaks to it. So the argument about "what is good design" is settled, from their perspective: good design is 5e.

We can argue about personal taste all day (I just ran a game of Dread yesterday, fused with a touch of Call of Cthulhu; that might be my favourite game design), but it seems like it probably won't go anywhere.

Accepted. But I still think re-writing the core books with substantial game element changes (which is what I see here and expect to continue) will lead to a schism of some degree, and WotC not calling it a new edition won't, IMO, change that.

 

[payn]

Your point about VTTs is exactly why I find complaints about not being able to "find players" to be silly. People can find players for all editions and games of D&D and others so much more easily than they ever could before VTTs and the internet.

Yeap, I dont think its necessarily silly, but folks do tend to back themselves in a corner and act entitled. "I live in a rural town, refuse to use VTT, so D&D must be my way since my pool is so small" is something I see on occasion. I do understand preferring face to face gaming, but the more limits you put on yourself, the fewer options you have and folks should be mindful of it.

But I think what we're finding now is that because the total player pool is so much wider... players have begun condensing it themselves by getting more and more nitpicky about every single little game facet that they want. It's not enough to just say they want to find 5E players (which is quite easy in these days of VTTs)... but now they are saying they want 5E players that won't use Tasha's, will only play non-magical characters, no races other than these 5 specific ones the DM has chosen, and are okay with using the X, Y, and Z house rules the DM wants to incorporate into the game because they don't like how WotC's rules do them. And then when all these contingencies do not produce a viable player pool... then they complain that WotC's rules changes have made it harder to find players.

I think this has been the case since at least 3E, but agree with you about the more recent "WotC did this to me" idea that has become popular.

I was just thinking about how funny the edition changes have been. It was popular to think 4E was a WotC screw job. I always felt it was more the hardcore vocal social media folks at the time that drove the direction. Folks often talk about "fixing" the game when really items were removed wholesale as opposed to tweaked. Though, when 5E came around, folks seemed to blame the player base for not liking the direction when I think WotC had a lot more to do with that particular change. Guess it just looks differently depending on where you are sitting.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

I can't offer a universal definition, but I can offer an objective economic argument that 5e is great design, because it has been incredibly successful. So from Hasbro/WotC's perspective: 5e is good game design.

Yes, I think success implies good design (in as far as the game's design didn't get in the way of its success) but it doesn't mean that it couldn't have better design, or greater success. Unfortunately, it does tend to make publishers loathe to change anything, even for the better, in case that element is somehow miraculously responsible for a portion of the success.

Which is why I think that the 50th Anniversary Dungeons & Dragons books (the only thing that I can imagine them being called in the end) will not be drastically different than the 5e ones. Any changes made will naturally be too much for some, and not enough for others, but both ends will be outliers, and the vast majority will adopt them with no more than a shrug (at worst).

 

[Micah Sweet]

Yes, I think success implies good design (in as far as the game's design didn't get in the way of its success) but it doesn't mean that it couldn't have better design, or greater success. Unfortunately, it does tend to make publishers loathe to change anything, even for the better, in case that element is somehow miraculously responsible for a portion of the success.

Which is why I think that the 50th Anniversary Dungeons & Dragons books (the only thing that I can imagine them being called in the end) will not be drastically different than the 5e ones. Any changes made will naturally be too much for some, and not enough for others, but both ends will be outliers, and the vast majority will adopt them with no more than a shrug (at worst).

You think the majority of 5e players will just shell out another $150 to re-buy the core books, especially if the changes are all as minor as you claim? Even minor changes need to be accounted for if you intend to use them.