D&D General Ray Winninger on 5e’s success, product cadence, the OGL, and more.

[dave2008]

It is so sad that even today people still lack soo much knowledge in gamedesign, that they think "encounter abilities" and "cooldowns" are the same... yes on a superficial level "both make you wait for abilities to be useable again", but they fulfill a completly different job.


More in detail can be found here:
But in short:

• Cooldowns create rotations. Repetition of the same things in fixed order. Goal is perfecting your rotation.
• Once per combat and once per day abilities do the opposite. They make that you cant do the same thing over and over.
• Per combat and per day abilities are extremly easy to track in real table play with cards. (which were sold for 4E and could be printed for powers). You put them down when you used them. This is easier to track than spell slots and clearly with real table play in mind. (Also Magic the gathering is a big 4E influence. Even the golden rule from mtg is in 4E book, and wording of abilites and layout etc is clearly inspired by MTG).
• There are lot of better ways to implement cooldowns and or rotations. A good example is 13th age with the monk class, which has almost the same rotations as the monk class in final fantasy 14

EDIT: And here you can read an explanation of how WoW was NOT trying tactical gameplay: D&D 4E - The D&D 4th edition Rennaissaince: A look into the history of the edition, its flaws and its merits

I really have no skin in the game as I don't play MMOs and so I never understood the comparison. However, I have noted in your response that you keep mentioning WoW, where the said influence was actually more generically MMOs.

 

[dave2008]

I dunno, I think there's a real, important difference between "The DM determines..." and "Here are some elaborate, game-jargon-y, and very specific conditions you need to fulfil for the DM to even consider it!", especially as in fantasy fiction, people often hide without meeting those conditions. I feel like this is really a place where "less is more". I think most people have pretty reasonable ideas re: hiding, and 3E-esque rules-waffle about 3/4s cover and so on isn't helpful.

The text says the DM determines if you can Hide. If so, you can use the Hide Action. The Hide Action then has a bunch of constraints. Seems simple to me. What is giving you an issue?

 

[Hexmage-EN]

I don't deny that the designers from 4E got the direction to try to appeal to WoW players and could have drawn some inspiration from MMOs, but the end result for 4E was a tactical RPG that emphasized round by round turn-based tactics while MMOs like WoW by their very nature are real-time games that can't support the level of granularity that 4E's mechanics created.

EDIT: If anything, 4E might have been too complex of a tactical RPG to get broad adoption, what with its plethora of reactions with highly specific triggers and one round buffs. I don't know if any video game tactics RPGs are as complex as 4E could be, and with video games you have a computer to track such things for you.

 

[payn]

Poor DDO everyone forgets about thee.

 

[Imaro]

I dunno, I think there's a real, important difference between "The DM determines..." and "Here are some elaborate, game-jargon-y, and very specific conditions you need to fulfil for the DM to even consider it!", especially as in fantasy fiction, people often hide without meeting those conditions. I feel like this is really a place where "less is more". I think most people have pretty reasonable ideas re: hiding, and 3E-esque rules-waffle about 3/4s cover and so on isn't hehelpful.i

I don't see the contradiction... The DM determines because the DM has an overall picture of everything happening... (including things the PC may not be aware of)... whether the Hide action can be attempted.

It then gives you the conditions for success or failure when using the Hide action.

While I agree with your point about less being more apparently there's a contingent that feels theu can't or won't adjudicate stealth without this type of specificity...

 

[Velderan]

Is it me or does it feel like WOTC is strangely silent on the 3d VTT? It feels like I haven't heard anything about it in months.

I'll make a big hairy prediction you can call me out on later. I don't think the 3D VTT, if and when it comes out, is going to be a big deal at all for one major reason -- it requires installation on a PC. D&D Beyond works on everything without needing to install anything. It works for in-person games and online games. The 3D VTT is super niche just by needing a PC client. I'm pretty sure I can't even run it at all and I'm a pretty big D&D nerd.

I don't know how we would measure this when our insights are very likely to be opaque, but I don't think the 3D VTT is going to be successful at all. About half of the DMs I've surveyed use D&D Beyond. What percent do you think will be using the 3D VTT a year after it comes out? I'd bet 5%.

I think it was super smart for WOTC to put more resources behind the 2d "Maps" part of D&D Beyond. It was a very smart hedge on the bet on the 3D VTT when you absolutely could have seen an executive questioning why you'd have resources for both. I think Maps is going to be far more successful than the 3D VTT simply because it runs in a browser.

Currently I use Foundry as my VTT and the biggest complaint I saw while researching it prior to using it was it can be very resource intensive and doesn't really support being played on a tablet. Neither is an issue for the group I play with since all of us also play PC games and have PCs with good specs, but I agree that this could end up being a pretty big hurdle for the wider audience for the 3d VTT to overcome. A mobile app to be able to use an iPad would help a lot, but I guess we'll see how it goes.

 

[Tigris]

Another forum I frequent was full of people who absolutely loved 4E and could generate hundreds of pages of discussion a year about it in a single thread. The enthusiasm for 5E there is much more tepid (the OGL debacle also killed a lot of good will), and when 4E discussion does come back up it's a common talking point that Essentials heralded the beginning of the end for 4E in terms of quality of PC option game design.

I personally love Essentials in general. Even if some classes are a bit weak, I like most of Essentials design. I love how flavourfull some classes are. I think its a great idea to have some simpler classes for other kinds of people.


Heck I like Essential so much, that I tried to create slight revisions of Essential classes improving their power level WITHOUT changing their gameplay: (This post is about the seeker which never got more powers because of Essentials, but the linked posts are about Essential classes:

)


Still the first Essential book was an extremly bad move.

• 4E was lacking simple classes. So it made sense to make some simplified classes for beginners or people who like to not think too much in a beer and bretzel game etc.
  • However, the first book only contained 4 classes of which only 2 were simple classes
  • 1 Class was even more complex than the original one! Thats not beginner friendly!
• 4E solved the "martial caster" disparity
  • especially for the "1 encounter day" where casters just have way more spells by giving everyone daily abilities. This first book reintroduced it, by having classes without daily powers (or any other similar daily ressource)4E was loved by lot of people because finally they could play martial characters which are as cool as caster. And this book made again Casters complex with options, while martials can only do basic attacks
• 4E actually had a lot of non combat parts, but people felt 4E lacked that. Well Essentials made it look like 4E had less non combat options:
  • Then the Essentials got rid of Rituals. One of the biggest critique of 4E was that it lacks cool non combat spells, because people did not find them in the Wizard Spell list. They were in rituals and people overlooked them, but they were there. Just needed some highlighting (and giving some for free like for the bard). Now this book got rid of all the non combat spells and made 4E into the direction of "all about combat"
  • On top of that the development before tried to give martials more non combat things with the martial rituals. This book gave the Wizard cantrips for non combat. Meanwhile what is with the fighter? Lowest number of skillss possible 0 other non combat utility.
• The simple classes were also just not as good designed as later ones:
  • The knight had a pure damage attack as a defender as encounter attack. WHY?!
  • The rogue needing to use movement ability while the ighter need to use minor actions to get their "class features" while only doing basic attacks remembers a lot more about the too simple martials of the past, while also taking more actions away which could be used for utility features (from theme, utility powers etc.)
  • The cavalier paladin from the 2nd book is actually more simplified than the knight fighter. Having 2 at wills is simpler than passive stances. Having auto damage is simpler than opportunity attacks. And getting still dailies but just later is a great way to start simple but not end simple.

I really have no skin in the game as I don't play MMOs and so I never understood the comparison. However, I have noted in your response that you keep mentioning WoW, where the said influence was actually more generically MMOs.

Well I use WoW as an example since it is the best known one. And it was the breakthrough success in the years before 4E released.


It is also the one MMORPG which most people compare it to normally like with the "cooldowns" and the "roles". It is also from all MMOs which I played (together with FF 14 which is equally close) the one which is most similar to D&D since it is the one which is most team based and similar fantasy. Pretty much all "comparisons" people bring to MMOs (including "taunt") can be found in WoW. (Like even the mearls post I quoted said: "The core game play of WoW was portable to other games. It wasn't." )

WoW is for MMOs what D&D is for RPGs. For a lot of people the only game they know exists.


Other MMOs are even farther away by being

• Not fantasy (maybe even about vehicles)
• About survival and crafting
• Having no roles /less focus on teamplay
• Being not/less fighting focused
• Have less D&D influence in them (WoW has lot of D&D influence. The classes are taken from D&D mostly)

 

[WinningerR]

So my question for you and @WinningerR is do you think it's possible that the key to 5e remaining stable is maybe not in the sales of books, but rather the success of the new VTT when that launches? From my understanding, WotC has allocated a lot of resources into creating it and to me it seems like the type of product that the folks in the C suite making decisions are going to expect a big return on. There was a lot said by previous folks in charge about the brand being undermonetized and their desire to see the type of recurring spending you see in video games, which a VTT could potentially fit that model from a few different perspectives (subscription fee to use it, separate transactions to buy digital minis or maps, etc).

I believe 5E can remain stable without the "3D VTT."

 

[Ruin Explorer]

The text says the DM determines if you can Hide. If so, you can use the Hide Action. The Hide Action then has a bunch of constraints. Seems simple to me. What is giving you an issue?

Pick a lane mate lol.

 

[dave2008]

Pick a lane mate lol.

I feel they did and I am driving on it safely!