5E on the horizon?

[BryonD]

I think where WotC stumbled is that they focused too much on the two birds in a bush and lost track of the bird in hand, which fractured and split into multiple birds, some of whom flew off...err, you know what I mean!

That's right.

This is not to say that it is not possible to find new players and expand the game, but that it has to be done from a strong core, and WotC lost that - or at least they didn't make up for players lost with players found (afaik, of course).

I've said this before, and I always get disagreement from all angles......
But I'm still right.....

The portion of society that will ever be table top role players is more or less fixed. Most people will NEVER do it. At least not as money spending on-going parts of the market. Even most people who play WOW will never be table top gamers. And people who play WOW is still a clear, distant overall minority.

Growing the fan base is possible. But you have to be realistic about your prospective market. I think WotC's reach on this one greatly exceeded their grasp.

Now the problem with a new edition is that it is a high risk, high reward thing. The point would be to get lapsed players back AND find new players, but without losing current 4E fans. In other words, what they wouldn't want to do is further dilute the community with lots of unhappy 4E holdouts. It is a weird thing, because in order for 5E to be a success it would have to either turn 4E into a "lost edition" that nobody plays or it would have to compatible enough with 4E to make all of the material still valid and usable, ala 1E and 2E.

That is a very real problem.

I still say that 3E was a vastly bigger tent. And the success of 3E and the "golden age" as described by people in the market are evidence of it. A lot of people who love 4E were quite happy with 3E. But, that was before 4E came in focused like a laser on their personal sweet spot. That genie is not going back in the bottle. There is a segment of gamers who will never go back to a game that I will go to. And I don't say that as a critical comment toward either side.

The successful big tent of 3E is an amazing achievement in its own right. It would be completely unrealistic to expect that result under the best of circumstances. And now the deck is deeply stacked against it. Trying to repeat that unification would be a lost cause. Who knows, maybe two years from now WotC will have me eating my words. But I doubt it.

If my paycheck depended on D&D, I'd ride the 4E horse till it fell over. That doesn't do me any good. But it is the correct move for WotC.

And the "lost edition" may still come even without 5E. As the board game, card, etc... spin offs become more the focus and the RPG becomes a token reference point, the difference becomes less and less important.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

snip
....
Now the problem with a new edition is that it is a high risk, high reward thing. The point would be to get lapsed players back AND find new players, but without losing current 4E fans. In other words, what they wouldn't want to do is further dilute the community with lots of unhappy 4E holdouts. It is a weird thing, because in order for 5E to be a success it would have to either turn 4E into a "lost edition" that nobody plays or it would have to compatible enough with 4E to make all of the material still valid and usable, ala 1E and 2E.

I think your time line is too accelerated and there is little need to call it a new edition. IMHO editions have become battle standards that grognards gather around and lob stinking clouds on all and sundry, much to the irritation of moderators everywhere.

I would guess that they would go for the latter approach, that they would try to play up compatibility with 4E through DDI. So when we talk about "5E" coming out in some sense we may see something more akin to a new print run of core rulebooks that manage to be both a new edition but also a revised version of 4E.

Why not wait another couple of years until ereaders are ubiqitous and public 5e as a completely electronic edition compatible with 4e chargen?

That is not at all what I'm saying. Actually, I find it irritating when people immediately polarize any such discussion into whether or not one likes or dislikes X-edition. I like and play 4E; I have problems with it and I would like to see a 5E that addresses those problems, but I do like the game - and more than Pathfinder, 3.5, 1E, or any other version of D&D.

Fair enough.

snip
...
2011-12: Further "fishing" from Mike Mearls; WotC prints little product, maybe one new item every couple months, plus board games and other non-D&D products. At some point 5E is announced, although perhaps not as "5E" but as "Advanced D&D" or the "40th Anniversary Edition," but everyone calls it 5E anyway.

2012-13: 5E elements are gradually introduced via DDI.

2014: 5E is printed in conjunction with the 40th anniversary.

What about circa 2016 or at least after the Kinect 2 is out they announce a 5e compatible with 4e chargen and pen and paper rules but playable via Xbbox and Kinect 2 on 3D tv's using the Kinect gesture recognition plus some gismos that will act as implement/weapon plut Kinect voice recognition.
For the pen and paper rules, it brings back verbal and somatic componens to spells.

2015: Realizing 5E is a massive success, Paizo introduces a line of 5E product and a new OGL is negotiated.

I do not see a new OGL ever. I am pretty sure either WoTC senior management or Hasbro sees it as a disaster. Probably Hasbro given the way they hang onto IP.
I also cannot see Paizo hitching their wagon to another companies licence again.

2015-20: A new Golden Age of D&D as the community is united under 5E.

If it is that successful I am sure Paizo will produce stuff but taking a more cautious approach and at arms length.

2019-20: Rumors of 6E start emerging.

Round about the time of the first post-5e layoffs.

2021: 6E emerges as a fully virtual, immersive computer game run on solar energy.

2022: The world ends when it is realized that the Mayan Calendar was off by a decade and an asteroid impacts the earth, destroying it. Luckily the central computers that run 6E survive the impact and float off into space on a new asteroid named Gygaxia. As the game is run on solar energy, thousands of D&D players remain alive in a virtual D&D setting. Gygaxia begins a new orbit around the sun.

LOL

 

[Gargoyle]

Hey James, Long time....

It is no secret I think they stumbled* in 4E.

* - stumbled in this case meaning in (a) making a game that offers what *I* am looking for and (b) making a game that held together and grew the fan base. Specific cases of finding 4E awesome are not challenged and I 100% agree it is awesome at certain, specific things.

Heya back at ya.

I think you hit the nail on the head there. 4E turned out not to be the game for me either, at least at first, and apparently we are in good company since the fan base is so split. Unfortunately my group couldn't agree on a schedule to play anyway, so we haven't played any edition much at all.

I am, however, running Essentials for the wife and kids and we are having fun with that. And I plan to run a short campaign again for my regular group in the fall, and it will likely be Essentials, since I'm so rusty on everything else. It's simple, yet has enough options to satisfy me, so I'm probably going to stick with it.

If 5E were to come out tomorrow, I would be interested in seeing what they did, and would probably buy it out of curiosity, but I wouldn't play it for a long time, probably a year. I just don't have time to learn a new system anymore and to relearn it when extensive errata comes out a year or two later. And I will be letting my DDI subscription expire, as it has disappointed me too many times, so I need a system simple enough to support pencil and paper character and adventure generation.

I guess that's part of the splitting of the player base; we are getting older too, and we are changing. My lifestyle just doesn't support weekends with 16 hours of gaming anymore, or buying all the books and subscribing to DDI no matter how fond I am of those days. D&D is still a favorite hobby of mine, but I have a much more balanced life now, and I'm happy with that.

 

[El Mahdi]

Lan-"looming over us ready to pounce in just over a month"-efan

We tracked down 5E...and the call came from inside your house!

 

[Dannager]

For those who rely only on rational thought to engage the world, a personal realization of, "Huh, rational thought cannot explain everything, nor is it a complete way of engaging the world, so maybe I'll open up to other aspects of my being in the future," is an acceptable substitute.

I wasn't suggesting that rational thought was capable of explaining everything. Merely that some people ought to give it a try sometime.

Really, though, rational thought's pretty great at explaining nearly everything.

Seriously, Dannager, I'm not sure what you're beef is with people having hunches about 5E coming out soon (by "soon" I personally mean within the next 2-3 years; 2012 could happen but is unlikely, imo). Does this sort of talk offend you in some way? Why?

I'm not offended beyond the very minor quibble that some of these people predict the doom of 4e/WotC/D&D/life as we know it every couple of months, when anything noteworthy happens at WotC. And I just know that when 5e (probably) inevitably comes around, they'll be the first to jump up and down and shout "Told you so!" And then I'll have to roll my eyes, and point out that this is no different than if they played roulette a bunch of times and finally landed their pick.

If you predict it's going to rain tomorrow every single day, you will eventually be right. It doesn't mean you can predict the weather.

There's nothing really in this thread to be offended by, but this is about as worthwhile a discussion as can possibly be had in this thread.

 

[ggroy]

If you predict it's going to rain tomorrow every single day, you will eventually be right. It doesn't mean you can predict the weather.

It's always easy for someone to keep on making the same forecast all the time. Some day they may turn out to be right, just like how a dead analog clock is always correct two times every day.

 

[Bedrockgames]

It's always easy for someone to keep on making the same forecast all the time. Some day they may turn out to be right, just like how a dead analog clock is always correct two times every day.

I agree it is one of those perpetual predictions, and i really would be surprised if wizards put out 5e any time soon. At the same time bill s leaving is huge news and i think it must indicate some change of direction ( though that could be any number of things). I dont think ghis is just another firing. He was the head of rnd.

 

[caudor]

It's always easy for someone to keep on making the same forecast all the time. Some day they may turn out to be right, just like how a dead analog clock is always correct two times every day.

Like myself, I suspect many of the folk sharing hunches are not doing so every day or trying to take themselves too seriously. Playing on a hunch is just expressing a feeling. Trying to be right isn't the point--sharing a hunch with others and getting it off your chest is more the point.

In my case, if I'm wrong, I'll feel no loss of dignity, but I may mumble to myself (in my Texas accent): I sure ain't no Nostradamus

 

[drothgery]

Even if 4e had been pretty much universally embraced, it's pretty clear after 3.0, 3.5. and 4e that WotC can produce about three years worth of stuff for D&D before they start scraping the bottom of the barrel (second supplements on the same topic, niche settings, lots of setting-specific supplements, books for obscure campaign options, books repackaging older stuff). But the reaction to 3.5 at launch (even if we almost all ended up playing it eventually) strongly suggests gamers are not willing to embrace a new edition of the game after only 3 years.

So my guess is that WotC will launch 5e as soon as they can do it without provoking a major backlash (and I like 4e). This year is probably too soon to announce things, but I definitely wouldn't be surprised if they announce 5e next year and launch it in 2013.

 

[ggroy]

Even if 4e had been pretty much universally embraced, it's pretty clear after 3.0, 3.5. and 4e that WotC can produce about three years worth of stuff for D&D before they start scraping the bottom of the barrel (second supplements on the same topic, niche settings, lots of setting-specific supplements, books for obscure campaign options, books repackaging older stuff). But the reaction to 3.5 at launch (even if we almost all ended up playing it eventually) strongly suggests gamers are not willing to embrace a new edition of the game after only 3 years.

At times I wonder whether 3.5E D&D would have lasted 4+ years, if Eberron was never created by WotC and/or 3E/3.5E Forgotten Realms was discontinued early on.