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

[enigma5915]

This being the case, make the best RPG possible. Frankly, you're the only RPG company in the world with the history, tradition, and corporate backing to truly move the needle forward in RPG game design. Indie games and self-publishing are neat--but the industry moves with you.

QUOTE]

This is exactly how I feel. Make the best RPG it will be D&D regardless. In 30 years I've never bought a D&D product because the just rules contained within the books. D&D is the result of the rules, fluff, history, and branding…not just some old rules…

 

[enigma5915]

[QUOTE=GX.Sigma;5885032]4e was the one where they threw away all the traditions and tried to make the best game they could. Everyone saw how that turned out, and it's pretty clear they're not doing that again anytime soon.[/QUOTE]


Actually 4th edition did not throw away all of the old traditions. A lot yes, but not all. And many traditions were just altered to feel different but really were not. Hit points are there, the game is still classed based, saves are still there in a way, levels are still there, Vancian concepts are still there. 4E was an example of trying to change but not fully committing. The result was, well excrement IMO and that’s just MO.


[QUOTE=GX.Sigma;5885032]
It turns out D&D is a pretty specific thing. It's not like a videogame, where each sequel can be totally different from previous ones and be good for different reasons. It's a hobby that people heavily invest in for certain reasons. It's like if there was suddenly a "new edition" of knitting where you don't use a needle, or a "new edition" of basketball that doesn't have a basket. People would be pissed.[/QUOTE]

I have to disagree here as well. D&D is not any one, two, five, or ten things. It is everything and nothing at the same time. It is completely different to every person based upon each individuals unique experience with the game. With that said, I don’t believe anyone can say what D&D is except that it is a product branded Dungeons & Dragons. (it can or cannot have miniatures rules, it can or cannot have AOO, it can or cannot limit levels to 20 or 30, and so on indefinitely) No one can really compare D&D to anything else…it sure as hell is nothing like knitting or basketball.

 

[enigma5915]

Originally Posted by innerdude
Create a game people will love. Very few people will care if it "feels like D&D" at that point, because they'll be to busy playing it.


That is false and you know it.

I think innerdude is dead on with this. The end product, if fun, will become new D&Disms.

 

[FireLance]

The gamer in me hopes that the 5e development team won't leave anything out. Let's have vancian spellcasters, AEDU classes, healing surges, and new, innovative rules, and leave it to individual groups to decide what they want to leave out.

The only people who will be disappointed and upset will be those who define D&D by what it excludes instead of what it includes, and frankly, I could not care less about people who have such narrow perceptions about a game that is built on imagination and creativity. (Imagine that. You can imagine that, right?)

On the other hand, the businessman in me will be scrutinizing the 5e rules like a hawk, and, the 5e OGL/GSL permitting, anything that they don't include in 5e will be written up for sale on RPGNow as an optional module within a month.

 

[pemerton]

The Frankly, you're the only RPG company in the world with the history, tradition, and corporate backing to truly move the needle forward in RPG game design. Indie games and self-publishing are neat--but the industry moves with you.

I'm not sure I agree with this. 4e seems to have been pretty heavily influenced in its design by a number of indie games that preceded it.

 

[Bedrockgames]

If 4E isn't enough change for your taste, then i don't think D&D is the game for you. My question is why even call it D&D if you want them to make something that doesn't feel like D&D.

Also, "the best rpg" as a design goal is super broad. I sense what the op thinnks would make an rpg "best" may not align with my notion of "best".

If you are looking for a better game with more innovation why are you waiting around for WoTC to make it? Tons of other (ofte better) companies are working hard trying to make the best rpg they can. If you really want to support innovation, try out other games and advocate for ones you like. I hardly ever play D&D anymore because there are so many other games i think are better.

 

[mkill]

Honestly? If I was on the D&D design team, and some WotC manager came into the room yelling "make the best RPG ever!" I'd quit on the spot. Can't you be just a little specific? Ask 100 gamers what the "best RPG" is and you get 400 answers.

And worse? "The best D&D ever" isn't better. D&D has been around for so long, and played by so many people with so many different preferences, you'll never get everyone to agree. If the discussions on this very forum in the last months weren't any clue to that I don't know what else to say.

And frankly, I think that everyone, Gary Gygax, Dave Arneson, Frank Mentzer, Jonathan Tweet, Skip Williams, Monte Cook, Rob Heinsoo, Mike Mearls, and everyone who should be in this list but isn't, thought that they made "the best D&D ever".

 

[Blacky the Blackball]

Give us something that we, the fans, want to pick up and proudly march with ourselves. Something we can point to as being a high achievement in game design, regardless of whether it "feels like D&D."

Don't shove us along with some half-baked cocktail of rules that's more the product of pandering than innovative thinking.

These two paragraphs sum up the whole discussion.

You seem to want WotC to simultaneously:

(a) Give us what we want ("...something that we, the fans, want to pick up...").

(b) Not give us what we want ("...the product of pandering...").

That's a direct contradiction. They can't give us what we want without also pandering to us.

Unless, of course, the "we" in (a) means "people who agree with innerdude" and the "we" in (b) means "people who don't agree with innerdude".

But if that's the case then you're merely saying "Don't give other people what they want! Give them what I want instead!"

 

[Ratskinner]

What makes a good RPG is subjective. What you are saying is that you want something that you want, and if everybody else wants something else, they are wrong.

On the other hand, study after study indicates that consumers really don't know what they want...which seems weird, but .

 

[ArmoredSaint]

Frankly, you're the only RPG company in the world with the history, tradition, and corporate backing to truly move the needle forward in RPG game design.

I submit that there is no universally-recognized "forward" direction in RPG design. I don't think the development of RPG mechanics has ever taken place on some sort of easily-measured linear scale. It's all over the place, this huge, chaotic, spidery thing with abominable tentacles reaching hither and yon every which way.

There is not clearly-defined forward progress in gaming design, and there never will be--and not simply because of the fact that its evolution isn't at all simple and linear. You're never, ever going to get everyone to settle on a single definition of exactly what constitutes forward progress. What might be Grand Progress to you might be a Complete and Utter Step in the Wrong Direction to me. What is a "mediocre RPG" to you might be my favorite game in the world.

I think there does indeed come a point of wide-open weirdness after which D&D is no longer D&D. For me personally, it's not a firmly delineated boundary so much as a fuzzy patch into which the game wandered at some point in the lifespan of 3E and emerged looking less like classic Western literary medieval-esque Fantasy and more like the spiky-haired, emo-kid bastard lovechild of Dragonball and Mad Max/Junkyard Wars.

I don't think it's rude to ask that people who are more attracted to the latter go seek something like Exalted--if you don't like the classic elements of D&D, why are you playing it? There are other games out there that cater to your tastes. Since there are other options for you out there, why are you trying to spoil the fun of those of us who do like D&D in its classic form, with all its familiar trappings? I don't get it; it just seems overbearing and selfish to me.

It is impossible for D&D to be all things to all people. At some point the designers are going to have to realize that the direction they're taking the game is going to alienate one or the other extremities of the fandom. Some factions of gamers are inevitably going to feel left out in the cold by the new version.