D&D 5E 5e's big problem - Balancing "Being D&D" versus "Being Not D&D"

[Arlough]

I know you are wrong. Evidence? 4e.

The people who play it, swear it is fun. It's being replaced sooner than normal because it's not selling. It split the player base immensely.

What is a HUGE complaint? "It doesn't FEEL like D&D"

I would rather have a good game that feels like D&D than a "better" game that doesn't. There are all kinds of "good" games out there I could play. I want to play D&D.

I would add, since you didn't, that HUGE complaint is coming from those who don't like 4e. A very self reinforcing argument you have there.

And with regards to it "being replaced sooner than normal because it isn't selling." Unless you have some sort of evidence to back that this isn't proportionally hitting the same sales targets as the previous editions, this statement will not hold water.
Maybe it just isn't fitting Hasbro's model, or maybe a full change every 4 - 6 or so years is Hasbro's model. Or maybe the grace period has expired, or maybe they don't like the GSL and it is easier to start over, etc.
Fact is, we don't know why and chances are there are many reasons for a business to make such a large and far reaching decision.

Mostly, it's the art and "feel" of it.

This may be one of the most amazing "...it's not D&D." arguments I have heard to date. Could you elaborate?

 

[Janaxstrus]

I would add, since you didn't, that HUGE complaint is coming from those who don't like 4e. A very self reinforcing argument you have there.

And with regards to it "being replaced sooner than normal because it isn't selling." Unless you have some sort of evidence to back that this isn't proportionally hitting the same sales targets as the previous editions, this statement will not hold water.
Maybe it just isn't fitting Hasbro's model, or maybe a full change every 4 - 6 or so years is Hasbro's model. Or maybe the grace period has expired, or maybe they don't like the GSL and it is easier to start over, etc.
Fact is, we don't know why and chances are there are many reasons for a business to make such a large and far reaching decision.

Right...people who don't like 4e, because it doesn't "feel" like D&D, say it doesn't feel like D&D. Makes sense to me.

"Well, the only people who say they don't like nachos are the same people who indeed don't like nachos. That's quite a self-reinforcing argument"

 

[Mallus]

The biggest problem with "being D&D" is that there isn't one D&D. Setting aside different editions, there are a host of divergent play styles --which is to say effectively different games-- to be found among groups using the same edition.

That said, there are some solid reasons for the designers to be looking backwards.

First, there is a large body of excellent and, more importantly, basically interoperable supplemental material made for pre-3e editions, not to mention great new material coming out of the OSR. Leveraging it would be a smart idea. I'm not suggesting 5e be a retroclone (well, not exactly...), but the more WotC can do to keep that mountain of old IP (plus the OSR material) useful to 5e players, the better.

Second, if nothing else, they should be shooting for a lower level of complexity than 3e/4e/Pathfinder. Especially Pathfinder. Complex D&D with lots of options/bells/whistles is Paizo's game now, and competing for their market segment doesn't sound like a smart idea to me.

If they are creating a simpler (baseline) game, then the choice between designing a system that's similar to a prior version of D&D vs. one that's significantly divergent is a no-brainer.

I like new (ie, I enjoy both 3e and 4e). But now seems like a great time for what's old (in a modified form) to be new again.

 

[Dimitrios]

The biggest problem with "being D&D" is that there isn't one D&D. Setting aside different editions, there are a host of divergent play styles --which is to say effectively different games-- to be found among groups using the same edition.

That said, there are some solid reasons for the designers to be looking backwards.

First, there is a large body of excellent and, more importantly, basically interoperable supplemental material made for pre-3e editions, not to mention great new material coming out of the OSR. Leveraging it would be a smart idea. I'm not suggesting 5e be a retroclone (well, not exactly...), but the more WotC can do to keep that mountain of old IP (plus the OSR material) useful to 5e players, the better.

Second, if nothing else, they should be shooting for a lower level of complexity than 3e/4e/Pathfinder. Especially Pathfinder. Complex D&D with lots of options/bells/whistles is Paizo's game now, and competing for their market segment doesn't sound like a smart idea to me.

If they are creating a simpler (baseline) game, then the choice between designing a system that's similar to a prior version of D&D vs. one that's significantly divergent is a no-brainer.

I like new (ie, I enjoy both 3e and 4e). But now seems like a great time for what's old (in a modified form) to be new again.

Back in the 80s, between differing interpretations of the written rules (because they were sometimes vague), house rules, the various "unofficial" rules and classes in Dragon magazine, and just differing play styles, different groups were often playing what amounted to wildly different games that would probably not have been compatible with each other.

Nevertheless, everyone was playing "D&D", and everyone was buying stuff from TSR.

The best case scenario for Wizards is a return to those days.

 

[seregil]

I agree with many posters that are saying, in essence, that there is no 'one' DND game.

I disagree with the OP that WOTC should not concentrate on 'traditional' DND and go all out for 'better game'.

I would propose that DND 5E be a continuation of things that have worked in the past. And this is what WOTC is saying they will do.

Now, some people here like 4E and more power to them.

However, I think it is evident, from the amount of uproar 4E has created and how sustained it has been, that 4E did something wrong.

You might like the game but many don't. Enough, in fact, that it shows in sales and the general disposition on public avenues like this one.

The term 'edition war' was perhaps not created after 4E, but it certainly has been given a much longer life span by it.

This would indicate that something that 4E did was different and, I submit, it was that it went too far in the changes to the basics of the DND game.

Vancian magic, similar classes, the list goes on and on. In the end, however, the recurrent comment is: 'it's not DND' and WOTC needs to look at that.

Based on fan reaction, 4E got it wrong even if the game is good. Therefore, 5E will need to get whatever 'it' is right and still produce a good game.

My recommendation is to produce a game that starts from the last 'good build' (in terms of fan participation) and extrapolate from there. Meaning, in essence, build from 3.5 and see where you can go. Many ideas from 4E could be reused but I think they should back up to the last 'happy place' and start from 3.5.

This is, however, my personal opinion and is worth what it is worth: the same as yours.

 

[ArmoredSaint]

This may be one of the most amazing "...it's not D&D." arguments I have heard to date. Could you elaborate?

I'm not making an argument; just stating a preference. To be honest, I think the OP's first post didn't really make much of a coherent argument either--essentially, it amounted to a very long-winded statement of his own preferences.

The point is that my notions of "not D&D" aren't any more objective or logical than his tastes in what makes a "best RPG."

I've witnessed several people on different messageboards worrying about the drive to preserve a classic D&D feel to 5E getting in the way of "progress," "moving forward," and "innovation" in gaming design, or in the way of "creating the best RPG." They always give the impression that they seem to naively think that their idiosyncratic notions of what constitutes good/progressive/innovative game design are universally shared. I want them to recognize that their views are likely limited to themselves alone.

 

[Arlough]

owever, I think it is evident, from the amount of uproar 4E has created and how sustained it has been, that 4E did something wrong.

You might like the game but many don't. Enough, in fact, that it shows in sales and the general disposition on public avenues like this one.

The term 'edition war' was perhaps not created after 4E, but it certainly has been given a much longer life span by it.

This would indicate that something that 4E did was different and, I submit, it was that it went too far in the changes to the basics of the DND game.

Vancian magic, similar classes, the list goes on and on. In the end, however, the recurrent comment is: 'it's not DND' and WOTC needs to look at that.

Based on fan reaction, 4E got it wrong even if the game is good. Therefore, 5E will need to get whatever 'it' is right and still produce a good game.

I am not taking a stance against going back to a previous edition, or completely changing it from all editions, for that matter, I would like to point something out.

It would be silly to say 4e has not created an uproar, and indeed, an edition war raged on this very site. But do you think that may have had something to do with the availability of these sites?

You state that 4e did something wrong, and submit that it went too far in the changes to the basic game. But didn't 3.x fundamentally change the nature of how D&D was played with the D20 system?

Finally, do we have figures for sales of the various editions? I hear people say that 4e sold poorly, but whenever I ask for references, nobody seems to respond back.

 

[Libramarian]

I started with 4e, and it was very off-putting to find that it didn't match anything I had been hearing about D&D through nerd culture--no Chaotic Neutral, no Hold Person, no saving throws, weird power system, healing surges, action points, cosmology, etc. The few perfunctory nods to tradition were pretty clearly shoehorned in (Turn Undead as a burst damage attack, saving throws as the Pokemon "flip a coin" mechanic, half-assed Wizard spellbooks, etc.).

Oh man! I knew people who started with 4e would be bothered by that. I brought this up over on RPGnet and they were all like "I doubt new gamers care about what some old grognards are saying on the internet". But people do care. D&D is not a computer game you play alone in your bedroom. It's a communal thing. If people feel like they're missing out on a "secret language" of old editions that's going to cause problems.

The health and harmony of the *community* is very important to how much fun a D&D edition is through its cycle.

If you're to take a meat cleaver to the language and culture of a game with a new edition, then at least EXPLAIN in the book what you are doing! Talk about how older editions did things differently, and why you're making the changes! Don't just pretend they don't exist. UGH.

So glad we appear to be beyond that approach now, with WotC actually reprinting the 1e books.

 

[Savage Wombat]

Good lord, it's an edition war thread without the editions.

 

[Sunseeker]

I agree, and disagree. I play D&D over other RPGs for well, most of it's tropes. I enjoy them and in my experience it's the best fantasy RPG out there. It doesn't wrap itself up in trying to get too particular and it doesn't attempt to broaden itself to the point where it might as well be anything.

I think some of the initial posters got it right in the comparison to video games. I love the Command and Conquer series, I love the Sim City series, but CnC Renegade and Sim Societies were absolutely NOT part of those series, no matter how many logos you slap on them. They weren't entirely bad games, but when I sit down to play CnC or Sim City, I'm expecting a certain experience.

If D&D Next comes out of the pipe as a great game, but feels like I'm playing Monopoly or it feels like I'm playing Call of Cthulhu, which while both are great games in their own regard, they're not D&D.

There are so many types of RPGs, just as there are video games and board games, and their commonalities are so minor, suggesting they need to make a "good RPG" instead of a "good D&D" is sorta like saying they need to make a good movie. Well duh they need to make a good movie, but what kind of movie should it be? Action? Horror? Sci-fi? Fantasy? Wizards should make a "good RPG", specifically, they should make a "good D&D RPG", because frankly, a good RPG can be anything. A good D&D can only be a few things.