D&D General Does WotC use its own DMG rules?

[Paul Farquhar]

You think any design philosophy they choose would result in WotC losing 80% of their audience? Come on man. Not even 4e did that.

90% of statistics are made up on the spot.

Whatever, it’s going to be more than half - there are a lot more than the two different ways to play D&D.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Sounds like a core flaw in that design philosophy then. Maybe they should pick a side?

Given the success of 5e it looks like a strength, not a flaw to me. 4e proved that picking a side was the the flawed philosophy.

 

[DarkCrisis]

I cant count the # of timesa battle in an Official Adventure popped up where I looked at the encounter, looked at my players and their power level, remind myself that easy healing and short rests make any small damage they take pointless and just said "You guys easily dominate them. Moving on...."

I hope goign forward WotC fixes that

 

[Micah Sweet]

90% of statistics are made up on the spot.

Whatever, it’s going to be more than half - there are a lot more than the two different ways to play D&D.

True, but I suspect a lot of folks will go along with whatever WotC says regardless, because they just want to see "D&D" on the box. So the actual percentage of paying customers lost (let's focus on what WotC actually cares about here) will I think be considerably smaller than you suppose.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I cant count the # of timesa battle in an Official Adventure popped up where I looked at the encounter, looked at my players and their power level, remind myself that easy healing and short rests make any small damage they take pointless and just said "You guys easily dominate them. Moving on...."

I hope goign forward WotC fixes that

I would be very curious to see if and how they do.

 

[Scribe]

Sounds like a core flaw in that design philosophy then. Maybe they should pick a side?

1. They dont have to. Most people seemingly will buy it regardless.

2. I believe they have at the very least flipped both legs over to one side of the fence with 5.5 anyway. Maybe they are still sitting on it, but its clear where they intend to land if/when they jump off.

 

[Micah Sweet]

1. They dont have to. Most people seemingly will buy it regardless.

2. I believe they have at the very least flipped both legs over to one side of the fence with 5.5 anyway. Maybe they are still sitting on it, but its clear where they intend to land if/when they jump off.

1. True, but I see that as merely an excuse for poor design practices and poor transparency.

2. I agree that 5.5 has shifted more towards one side than the other in a very noticeable way (especially noticeable if you are a fan of the other side, but still). That's why I wish they had admitted it isn't the same edition really, since by my estimation the spirit has significantly changed even if the math pretty much hasn't.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

True, but I suspect a lot of folks will go along with whatever WotC says regardless, because they just want to see "D&D" on the box. So the actual percentage of paying customers lost (let's focus on what WotC actually cares about here) will I think be considerably smaller than you suppose.

Again, 4e proved that brand loyalty isn’t that strong. People don’t need to buy anything from WotC in order to play D&D.

I certainly never bought any 4e products. Read it, said “nope” and bought Pathfinder.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Wasn't 4e the edition where "exception-based design" actually got first invoked?

General rules hold unless specific rules countermand them in narrow cases.

That'd be 3e where a lot fo the new designers were big on using computer design terms such as why 3.5 is a .5.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Again, 4e proved that brand loyalty wasn’t that strong. People don’t need to buy anything from WotC in order to play D&D.

4e was a successful game. It's "failure" was due to Hasbro's ridiculous expectations more than anything else.