D&D 5E 5th Edition Goals?

[ren1999]

..to capture the feeling of the earlier editions.

Which edition was the most popular?
2nd Edition with over 680 officially published books.
2nd Edition Players handbook - 255 pages

..reasons why 2nd edition was best edition in terms of sales?

My opinion,
video games didn't take over RPG interest yet.
feats and skills started to get confusing.
the system started to get confusing.

How can we make 5th edition the best edition?
Return to 2nd edition and stay true to traditional spells and powers.
Unite rituals, feats, skills, utilities, etc.. into a standard power system.
Exploits for fighter types
Rogue Skills for rogue types
Spells for Wizard types
Prayers for Cleric types

Powers(including skills) any character can have such as Bluff, Appraise..

Organize powers by what they do and how hard they are to learn so that they can be used as rewards. A fighter can learn to use an off-hand weapon or gain a new weapon proficiency exploit/feat power while a wizard learns a new spell power. A rouge can gain a new thievery skill power.

2nd edition is great. We should look back at that player's handbook and apply reasonable improvements from 4th edition and Pathfinder to it.

 

[MortalPlague]

I don't have any numbers, but I was always under the impression that 3rd Edition was the most successful?

I think 2nd Edition was a great game, and some of my fondest memories are from gaming with 2E. But I don't think it's the be-all and end-all of Dungeons and Dragons. The designers are looking at every edition for inspiration, 2nd included.

In fact, one of the problems with 2nd Edition from a 'success' standpoint is that it published too many books. There were dozens of setting-specific books that simply didn't work with anything else, and so the potential market for said book was a fraction of the actual D&D community.

 

[am181d]

I don't think the purpose of 5e is so much to capture the feel of any one previous edition as it is to allow folks of various previous editions to all play the same game. (Either side-by-side in the same group or broken into separate groups by option.)

That said, I suspect there will be a version of play that will hit most of what you're looking for. I mean, they've more or less come out and said they'll group skills into backgrounds and feats into themes and that they'll both be optional. That just leaves class abilities and spells. It seems relatively straightforward to me, but then I thought 3e was pretty simple.

 

[TimA]

I believe the goal of 5th edition is make lots of money. Everything else is secondary.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Which edition was the most popular?

D&D reached the height of it's popularity in the early 80s, when it was a veritable fad.

So AD&D, 1e.

Going back to 1e design would be a huge mistake, though. The audience is different today, the market is different, the media are different.



The goal of 5e is to bring sales up to a level Hasbro will accept as a reason to keep publishing the line. Clearly, the only way to do that is to 're-unite' the fan base. The fan-base was 'fractured' with each new ed, most dramatically 4e. The logical inference is that those who broke off are the ones that need to be brought back, because those who adopted 4e have remained 'loyal' all this time. That means giving the 3.5 holdouts everything they want (because Pathfinder already is giving them everything they want, except the D&D name-plate), waving vague nostalgia in front of fans of earlier eds (who are at just the age for that to work), and trusting that 4e fans are just habitual early-adopters who will buy, enthuse over, and defend the latest thing, every time (which is a perfectly reasonable assumption). It has a chance of working, and being a successful product.

Another thing that could really help is expanding organized play, and further pushing the OGL. The OGL was very successful in turning competitors - who take some sales away with alternative goods - into partners - who increase demand for your product by producing complementary goods. The GSL was a dismal failure in that respect, since it amounted to little more than a clumsy attempt to kill the OGL 'golden goose.' The OGL is still alive, but it's not WotC's golden goose, anymore. It's Paizos. WotC has to take it back by building 5e off the OGL the same way they did 3.5, and thus re-establish their position of dominance with other publishers. Fans hardly come into it. The key is to convince 3pps that the (safest) way to make money is to make stuff for 5e, not alternatives to 5e.

 

[trancejeremy]

And I think going back to a cleaned up 1e (or B/X or 2e) model would be a great move, making the game accessible to everyone, not just people who are heavily into "character optimization" (or whatever the PC term is today) and "system mastery".

The market is difference, because I think the rules drove many people away - either to other RPGs, or just not playing them anymore.

Focus on the adventuring part, not on juggling around the numbers on the character sheet.

I really think they should consider two versions of D&D - one OSR style and one "modern" with lots of number crunching and combat options.

 

[Daztur]

D&D reached the height of it's popularity in the early 80s, when it was a veritable fad.

So AD&D, 1e.

Going back to 1e design would be a huge mistake, though. The audience is different today, the market is different, the media are different.

Basic D&D outsold 1e. It was the one that was sold in mainstream toy stores all over the place and given to lots of random kids as Christmas presents etc. etc. etc.

 

[the Jester]

Which edition was the most popular?
2nd Edition with over 680 officially published books.

Product glut killed 2e. If it had been the most popular edition, some of those products might have sold better.