7 Years of D&D Stories? And a "Big Reveal" Coming?

When asked what he was working on, WotC's Chris Perkins revealed a couple of juicy tidbits. They're not much, but they're certainly tantalizing. Initially, he said that "Our marketing team has a big reveal in the works", and followed that up separately with "Right now I'm working on the next seven years of D&D stories". What all that might mean is anybody's guess, but it sounds like there are plans for D&D stretching into the foreseeable future! Thanks to Barantor for the scoop!

 

[BryonD]

It wasn't 2nd Edition, although some parts of 2nd Edition were problematic.

snip

all of the above.

It is impossible to say how much longer 2E could have lasted without all of the other baggage.
It does seem quite clear that 2E itself was being bungled from the management side.
So the case may be that it should have been addressed much sooner than it was, but there was enough financial backup and brand value to keep it plugging along.
Or it may be that despite the overprinting and poor planning it was still hanging in there, just not well enough to make up for a warehouse of Dragon Dice and old BR stuff.

IMO 2E was already well into becoming obsolete as the TTRPG market started to truly evolve.
The creation of D&D itself was obviously revolutionary and awesome. But going on two decades later, other companies were starting to build better mousetraps.
But there is no way to know if that was having any impact or not. Too many other (and bigger) factors in play.

 

[Hussar]

Just a point about "irrational hatred of 4e"

The truly ironic thing is, so much of 4e appears in 5e without the slightest quibble, despite causing huge outcry in 4e.

Here's 5 examples:

1. The Battle Master Fighter and Superiority Dice. A Battle Master gains 4-6 Sup Dice over the course of his career. Now, I could, quite easily, spend 4 Sup Dice in a single round - 1 die for Feinting attack, 1 die for precision attack, 1 die for trip attack after the hit, and then burn Action Surge to take a second attack and spend one more Sup Die on another trip attempt. There, I've blown my Sup dice. Now, for some bizarre reason, until I rest, I've forgotten how to feint (and gain advantage) how to aim better (Precision attack) and how to trip on an attack. How is this not disassociated? Never minding that since this is a non magical character and these are "skills", I now have basically an Essentials Fighter from 4e. But, because it says 5e on the cover of the book, everyone loves it.

2. The Barbarian and Rage. When a Barbarian rages, he takes half damage from all physical attacks. Huh? How does that work? Suddenly I'm really angry so weapons bounce off me? What's going on in the fiction here? When 4e introduced this kind of stuff in non-magical characters, critics when ape. 5e completely gets away with it.

3. Attunement. All characters are limited to 3 attuned items. How video gamey is that? I mean, why 3? Why not 2 or 5? How dare WOTC tell us how many magic items we should have. They are stomping all over people's play styles by dictating how we play the game. Oh, right, this is done in 5e, so, it's perfectly ok. When 4e introduced the idea of "slots" all we heard were cries of "Video game!" and "MMO". But, 5e does virtually exactly the same thing, and WOTC gets a pat on the back.

4. Bounded Accuracy. The whole point of Bounded Accuracy is that the numbers don't really scale very much. A typical challenge for a character yields about a 60% success rate. So, the AC's for typical opponents fall around that range, save DC's too and difficulty levels for skills. It's 4e written backwards. Instead of everything scaling equally so that you always had around a 60% success rate for typical actions, they've simple done away with the number inflation and flat out given you a 60% success rate. It's not tied to the game and it's certainly not tied to the game world. 4e gets vilified constantly for this, while, again, 5e gets a pat on the back.

5. Healing Rates. While there has been some rumbling about the healing rates in 5e, it's been pretty low key. Despite the fact that 5e healing is virtually identical to 4e mechanically (while the numbers are different, how and when you spend healing dice are virtually identical) and you fully heal over night in both systems. Yet, again, we heard nothing but criticisms about how 4e healing was totally unbelievable and hurt suspension of disbelief. It was video gamey and the worst thing ever for role play. 5e does it, and other than a few die hards, you can hear the chirping of the crickets as far as criticisms go.

So, yeah, when Mercurous talks about the irrational hatred of 4e, I think he has a pretty strong point. The fact that 5e is getting pats on the back for stuff that got 4e vilified shows just how irrational a lot of the criticisms really were. People didn't hate the mechanics of 4e. They just hated 4e and used the mechanics as a scapegoat.

 

[BryonD]

The fact that 5e is getting pats on the back for stuff that got 4e vilified shows just how irrational a lot of the criticisms really were. People didn't hate the mechanics of 4e. They just hated 4e and used the mechanics as a scapegoat.

This is just completely false.

 

[Kramodlog]

I don't see any difference between intransigence and indifference in this context. If you don't care to buy it, then don't! It seems pretty simple to me.

In any context there is a difference between intransigence and indifference. Especially when you ascribe them as the motivators of people's actions or lack of actions. One is very negative and the other is not.

It is like you are saying that everyone who didn't like 4e was some hateful radical.

 

[Kramodlog]

So, again, where is the evidence that 2e caused TSR to go bankrupt? If anything 2e carried the company for a decade before it finally succumbed to chronic miss management, under priced products and over runs in non-rpg product lines.

You are mostly correct. 2e is not the direct cause of TSR's money problems. It was TSR's bad business decisions during 2e's rang that sunk it. Not how 2e was received and liked by players.

The nuance is important.

But they also produced too many RPG products too, just too clarified. It wasn't just non-RPG products.

 

[delericho]

It is like you are saying that everyone who didn't like 4e was some hateful radical.

Wait, we're not? Crap. I must have missed that memo.

 

[BryonD]

I've seen a lot of 4E fans say they are not happy with 5E because it is way too much like 3E, or other reasons that boil down to 5E takes away a lot of the innovations of 4E. And this is completely fair.

But if the mechanics are identical, then everyone who liked 4E should like 5E just as much.
If not, then your argument doesn't hold water.

The only point on your list that comes even close to addressing anything on my 4E issues list is healing. And I dislike 5E's RAW healing every bit as much as I dislike healing in 4E. But 5E is vastly more open to houseruling. And because the rest of system is not loaded with problems, the effort of houseruling is worthwhile. It isn't even close to the same.

But, as is so typical, your whole case rests on being able to put words in other people's mouths. You declare a list of things that you approve as the issues other people had with the game, then you shoot down the list that you yourself created.

We discussed numerous issues with 4E back when it mattered. You have not resolved any of them and not a single one of them appears in my 5E game.

And, ultimately, just step back and think about how rational your position sounds. You are actually stating that there was this vast group of people who didn't have anything they actually disliked about the game and yet hated the game itself "just because". That is absurd.

 

[Kramodlog]

Just a point about "irrational hatred of 4e"

The truly ironic thing is, so much of 4e appears in 5e without the slightest quibble, despite causing huge outcry in 4e.

Here's 5 examples:

1. The Battle Master Fighter and Superiority Dice. A Battle Master gains 4-6 Sup Dice over the course of his career. Now, I could, quite easily, spend 4 Sup Dice in a single round - 1 die for Feinting attack, 1 die for precision attack, 1 die for trip attack after the hit, and then burn Action Surge to take a second attack and spend one more Sup Die on another trip attempt. There, I've blown my Sup dice. Now, for some bizarre reason, until I rest, I've forgotten how to feint (and gain advantage) how to aim better (Precision attack) and how to trip on an attack. How is this not disassociated? Never minding that since this is a non magical character and these are "skills", I now have basically an Essentials Fighter from 4e. But, because it says 5e on the cover of the book, everyone loves it.

2. The Barbarian and Rage. When a Barbarian rages, he takes half damage from all physical attacks. Huh? How does that work? Suddenly I'm really angry so weapons bounce off me? What's going on in the fiction here? When 4e introduced this kind of stuff in non-magical characters, critics when ape. 5e completely gets away with it.

3. Attunement. All characters are limited to 3 attuned items. How video gamey is that? I mean, why 3? Why not 2 or 5? How dare WOTC tell us how many magic items we should have. They are stomping all over people's play styles by dictating how we play the game. Oh, right, this is done in 5e, so, it's perfectly ok. When 4e introduced the idea of "slots" all we heard were cries of "Video game!" and "MMO". But, 5e does virtually exactly the same thing, and WOTC gets a pat on the back.

4. Bounded Accuracy. The whole point of Bounded Accuracy is that the numbers don't really scale very much. A typical challenge for a character yields about a 60% success rate. So, the AC's for typical opponents fall around that range, save DC's too and difficulty levels for skills. It's 4e written backwards. Instead of everything scaling equally so that you always had around a 60% success rate for typical actions, they've simple done away with the number inflation and flat out given you a 60% success rate. It's not tied to the game and it's certainly not tied to the game world. 4e gets vilified constantly for this, while, again, 5e gets a pat on the back.

5. Healing Rates. While there has been some rumbling about the healing rates in 5e, it's been pretty low key. Despite the fact that 5e healing is virtually identical to 4e mechanically (while the numbers are different, how and when you spend healing dice are virtually identical) and you fully heal over night in both systems. Yet, again, we heard nothing but criticisms about how 4e healing was totally unbelievable and hurt suspension of disbelief. It was video gamey and the worst thing ever for role play. 5e does it, and other than a few die hards, you can hear the chirping of the crickets as far as criticisms go.

So, yeah, when Mercurous talks about the irrational hatred of 4e, I think he has a pretty strong point. The fact that 5e is getting pats on the back for stuff that got 4e vilified shows just how irrational a lot of the criticisms really were. People didn't hate the mechanics of 4e. They just hated 4e and used the mechanics as a scapegoat.

Sounds like someone's Pa was killed by h4ters.

Anyway, maybe those who were vocal about their disatisfaction with 4e just do not care about 5e and D&D and have gone elsewhere?

 

[Kramodlog]

Wait, we're not? Crap. I must have missed that memo.

Dude! There were all sorts of seminar at ShadowCon, the Shadow Government's conventions. That year we decided to target D&D as our whipping bitch, sanctify Paizo and elevate Monte Cook as a RPG genius. Do people really think he could have raised 500k$ on kickstarter by himself?

 

[fjw70]

Wait, we're not? Crap. I must have missed that memo.

You are of course. Just not everyone that dislikes 4e.