D&D 5E (2014) 15 Petty Reasons I Won't Buy 5e

[Tequila Sunrise]

This hyperbolic stuff is what creates edition wars. We are tired of it. Please stop.

Yes, lets. 5e isn't supporting my play style either, but there's no need to take it personal-like, or to envision some grand scheme to change the hobby forever.

 

[Mistwell]

At this point I'm pretty sure I'm not buying 5e. I just don't feel like supporting a company that pretty much ignores the martial healing concern. I don't want that company to thrive. I'm not even going to buy minis from them. It's total Wotc boycott.

Bravo, and excellent sarcastic display of petty reasoning!

That's what you were doing, right?

All because they couldn't include one or two options to avoid martial healing. Yet on the other hand, we do have optional rules for Thac0. Wow.

Uh, I think they are including options to avoid martial healing. And have said they are including them. Did you miss those tweets and comments, or is this more of the performance art. Hard to tell in a thread like this.

 

[billd91]

By that logic, Rice Crispies are in competition with dish soap. They're for sale in the same market, and cannot be paid for with the same dollars - and time you spend washing dishes is time you can't spend eating cereal! This is a very simplistic view of competition.

For some people, deciding whether buy food or cleaning products is actually a concern. But I suspect you knew what I meant when I said they were in the same market and it's not the whole market but the hobby game market. You just couldn't resist knocking down the straw man.

I would suggest, instead, that two things are in competition when purchasing one greatly reduces your likelihood of purchasing the other and that lack of purchase impacts progress to the company's goals.

As an example - imagine there are two concerts in town on the same night (let's say, Aerosmith and Postmodern Jukebox). There's significant overlap in their fans. If you buy a Jukebox ticket, you aren't going to the Aerosmith concert. Does Aerosmith care? They're going to sell out whether or not they're sell the ticket to you. And Postmodern Jukebox is trying to sell out a much, much smaller venue - if they can do that, no matter what Aerosmith does, there's no issue. So, in this case, the overall market is large enough for everyone to meet their goals, and there is no effective competition.

You don't think WotC has a goal of selling as many units and getting as many players as they can? You don't think Paizo has the same goal? You don't think that one of those reaching its theoretic maximum in the market will affect the other one? I don't know about you but I don't have an unlimited number of dollars to spend. Money I spend on one I can't spend on the other and I can't simply expand my gaming budget either in dollars or time to pursue both to the extent I can pursue one.

Aerosmith and Postmodern Jukebox are in a somewhat different position. While both WotC and Paizo can create more units to sell if demand runs higher than supply, Aerosmith and Postmodern Jukebox have a different scarcity issue - the number of tickets they can sell. If demand runs high, they can't simply print more tickets. The venues have limited seats. They could add more show dates, but the scheduling and contracting are going to limit that in ways more complicated than printing books or selling PDFs. And if they both try to add more dates in the same local area (the same market), I bet they'd start to feel the competition - but in this case it would be competing to get the venue.

I don't know what this obsession is that people have with denying that WotC is in competition with virtually every other RPG company out there. That competition may be collegial in the sense that they're all working in the same, small, incestuous industry and they're often fans of and friends with each other. But that doesn't mean they aren't in competition for their slice of the market pie. WotC wants to see a return on its D&D R&D and that means growth over recent performance. Paizo wants to thrive and certainly not shrink or lose marketshare. The market may grow overall as a result of WotC getting back in the ring with a major release, but it can't do so infinitely and I doubt it can grow exactly as much as WotC sells without causing someone else to lose some sales they could have made had WotC not released.

 

[Wolfskin]

I don't know what this obsession is that people have with denying that WotC is in competition with virtually every other RPG company out there. That competition may be collegial in the sense that they're all working in the same, small, incestuous industry and they're often fans of and friends with each other. But that doesn't mean they aren't in competition for their slice of the market pie. WotC wants to see a return on its D&D R&D and that means growth over recent performance. Paizo wants to thrive and certainly not shrink or lose marketshare.

I agree both companies are competing to sell RPGs, but I contest the idea that WotC and Paizo are trying to compete by selling the same product ("same" as in a Coca Cola/Pepsi analogy). If WotC wanted DnD to directly compete with PF for the same audience, 5e would have a rather robust system, grid-based and highly tactical, which is something we know it doesn't.

That doesn't mean WotC isn't trying to sell 5e to PF fans, but I think they're trying to sell a very different kind of game.

 

[billd91]

I agree both companies are competing to sell RPGs, but I contest the idea that WotC and Paizo are trying to compete by selling the same product ("same" as in a Coca Cola/Pepsi analogy). If WotC wanted DnD to directly compete with PF for the same audience, 5e would have a rather robust system, grid-based and highly tactical, which is something we know it doesn't.

That doesn't mean WotC isn't trying to sell 5e to PF fans, but I think they're trying to sell a very different kind of game.

Which basically means their markets aren't a 1:1 mapping. They were never going to be. But they are both trying to sell a fantasy RPG. Moreover, WotC is trying to sell one that will appeal to D&D fans of all stripes... including the stripe that is Pathfinder fan. Meanwhile, Paizo has got a variety of splashy alternatives to the new D&D to tempt PF players send their dollars their way this summer including the Advanced Class Guide and a new AP with a very different feel from traditional D&D.

 

[Umbran]

You just couldn't resist knocking down the straw man.

When the straw man is the argument, yes, because straw men are flawed. Straw men are useful when you are trying to start a *constructive* discussion: "I want to do X. I was thinking of starting with Y, though I haven't thought it really through yet, please help me work it through," because they give a framework for the discussion, for others to build upon.

I don't see strawmen as useful as a starting point for critique or criticism, though. Those need to have a strong basis from the get-go.

You don't think WotC has a goal of selling as many units and getting as many players as they can? You don't think Paizo has the same goal?

I think modern business tends to have far more nuanced goals than, "Sell as many units as possible." They tend to have desires to drive sales within specified target markets, through specific channels, to drive up metrics that aren't directly related to unit sales of individual products, develop certain sales patterns over time, and the like. I don't know what WotC's goals really are, but I don't expect them to be that bog simple, no.

The fact that Basic is going to be free kind of indicates that their approach as some subtlety and strategy, not just, "Get a PHB in everyone's hands, stat!"

I don't know what this obsession is that people have with denying that WotC is in competition with virtually every other RPG company out there.

It isn't an obsession. I don't seek such arguments out and knock them over. But when I see one, I feel it useful to point out that things aren't necessarily as simple as it is usually described.

If nothing else - I, personally, run two different campaigns, in two different systems. I, personally, am living proof that buying one game does simply preclude buying a different game. Yes, my entertainment dollars are limited, but the situation is not so simple as, "Buy X and you'll never buy Y." That means the situation is not simple and straightforward competition. The ecosystem of hobbies and fandoms is more complicated than that.

 

[Emerikol]

Oh? Like, a 5e PHB is going to don ninja gear, sneak into your house, and slip iocane powder to your other game books, or something? When Mearls has even outright said that they don't feel 5e is in competition with Pathfinder (and by extension, other games)?

No game is out there trying to "extinguish" anything. No release of any RPG has ever "extinguished" a playstyle! It may not include your particular favorite, but "not support" does not equate to "actively trying to remove from the universe". You don't like what 5e does? That's okay. Don't play it! Just stop trying to insinuate that its mere existence is somehow a threat to your personal way of play-life! Because it isn't!

This hyperbolic stuff is what creates edition wars. We are tired of it. Please stop.

Okay perhaps I really was unclear. I meant within D&D not the world. Obviously I can play the games I own right now forever if I wanted to do that. So your right on that point. Sorry for the lack of clarity. I'm saying that Wotc does not want those with my playstyle being part of their community.

And no the sky is not falling. I'm not on the ledge no worries.

 

[Emerikol]

Bravo, and excellent sarcastic display of petty reasoning!

That's what you were doing, right?



Uh, I think they are including options to avoid martial healing. And have said they are including them. Did you miss those tweets and comments, or is this more of the performance art. Hard to tell in a thread like this.

Actually Mike Mearls confirmed very recently that they will not offer an alternative for second wind. It's houserule it or use it as written. I was under the same impression as you until he made that announcement.

 

[Lwaxy]

Is he perchance from Florida? Does he possibly have long flowing locks of golden hair? Might this guy have written several pop rock songs?

Because I think that only one man is that Petty.

Muahahahah... no but his name is Thomas!

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Actually Mike Mearls confirmed very recently that they will not offer an alternative for second wind. It's houserule it or use it as written. I was under the same impression as you until he made that announcement.

I would like to have an alternate ability there too.

But the last statement was something like: "we have a module that changes how the underlying principle works. And this is how it ripples back to those abilities"

I am not sure what that means, but it may affect second wind in a matter that works better than switching out individual abilities.
I do still hope, that second wind is somehow adressed in some form.