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!

 

[pemerton]

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.

[MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION] did not assert that 4e and 5e are identical. He did, correctly, point to mechanical features of 5e that are derived from 4e, and particularly the Essentials variation.

 

[pemerton]

In any context there is a difference between intransigence and indifference.

<snip>

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

I feel you have missed my point. When it comes to the purchase of luxury consumer goods, the concept of intransigence has no work to do.

Describing someone as "intransigently" refusing to buy 4e books can't mean anything other than that a person chose not to buy those books.

This is what happens when a judgment label (like "irrational") is applied to a given reason, and then argued over.

People have reasons to like or dislike 4E. Why is it important if it's rational or not?

<snip>

Unless there's some unspoken criteria for rational behaviour underpinning the roleplaying of elves with pointy years that I'm unaware of.

Absolutely. Some people chose not to buy a luxury item for leisure consumption. End of story. It's something that has interesting commercial significance for WotC, but it has no moral or normative significance.

pemerton, here's a question for you: Why do you think there was such vitriolic edition warring around 4E? What is your explanation? Or do you question the assumption that 4E was particularly prone to edition warring?

What do you mean by "edition warring"?

Do you mean "Why did some people not buy 4e products despite having a history of buying WotC/D&D-branded RPG books?" If that is the question, then I've already answered it - because they didn't care to do so.

Do you mean "Why did some people make lots of internet posts setting out reasons for not liking 4e, or criticising WotC for publishing 4e?" then I'd rather leave that alone. I don't think it's a profitable topic of conversation, and it's not one that I've pursued in this thread.

I think there are two general areas in which people didn't care for 4E (to whatever degree): 1) the game itself, the rules, how it played; 2) the vibe of the game, the aesthetic, how it "feels." In a way, it is the analytical and aesthetic aspect of the game, or intellectual and emotional. Some people disliked it purely for 1, some for 2, and some a combination of both.

This may be so. There are any number of other RPGs, too, which generate response (1) and/or (2) in prospective players. That's why people don't buy them.

Of course, some other people may buy them. From the fact that some people have response (1) and/or (2) we can't tell whether or not a game made profits for its publisher.

that's what the industry of criticism - whether of movies or books or anything else - is all about. Someone publishes an opinion and people who trust that opinion react to it.

It may also be difficult to differentiate between intense dislike for an edition vs giving off intense emotion when discussing said edition vs another's interpretation of said feeling.

I think these posts both point to the true character of the "edition wars". Neither is an observation about a game's commercial prospects, nor an observation about WotC's financial health. They are observations about the social practice of expressing an opinion about a game.

Analysis of the "edition wars" belongs to the same broad genre as understanding why some novels or paintings or movies or TV shows generate pages and pages of controversy in Time magazine, while others which seem superficially comparable draw comment only in some boutique or avant garde professional journal.

 

[pemerton]

[MENTION=55961]goldomark[/MENTION], thanks for the XP - I've quoted you in my following post, and I hope that I've managed to make it clearer to you what I'm saying.

 

[Kramodlog]

I feel you have missed my point. When it comes to the purchase of luxury consumer goods, the concept of intransigence has no work to do.

Describing someone as "intransigently" refusing to buy 4e books can't mean anything other than that a person chose not to buy those books.

Interesting logic. So, if someone said that they were indifferently refusing to buy 4e books, it can't mean anything other than that person discriminates against 4e books?

 

[BryonD]

[MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION] did not assert that 4e and 5e are identical. He did, correctly, point to mechanical features of 5e that are derived from 4e, and particularly the Essentials variation.

He said that people who were unhappy with 4E should also be unhappy with 5E.
If this is true, then people who are happy with 4E should be every bit as happy with 5E.

If the changes in the derivation process are such that the systems are no longer identical, then the entire argument collapses. As it does.

In completely typical fashion, he wildly overstates and misrepresents the equivalence of the final comparison.

He ignores the difference in the context of the overall game system.
He ignores the changes in specific implementation.
He ignores the huge fundamental difference in a game in which individual retooling is a root design presumption, as opposed to 4E which was easy to reskin, but the core math was "fine tuned".

There is not one thing on his list that doesn't EASILY fit into a 3E feel game at my table. And yet 4E doesn't come close to matching that achievement.

I ask you, as a fan of 4E, do you equally love 5E because of his list?
If the changes are so minor that you must feel the same way towards them, that must apply to you as well.
Do you love 5E as much as 4E? Or do you disagree with Hussar? Or are you simply being hypocritical?

 

[BryonD]

Interesting logic. So, if someone said that they were indifferently refusing to buy 4e books, it can't mean anything other than that person discriminates against 4e books?

I must confess, I am a My Little Ponist.

I'm sorry.

 

[Umbran]

Or do you question the assumption that 4E was particularly prone to edition warring?

I can handle this one. 4e was prone to edition warring, but *NOT* because of anything related to the game's design.

Remember that the communities required to support the edition warring we saw didn't exist at the time 3e rolled out. There was a goodly bit of arguing over 3e at the time, but there was not what we think of today as a solidly established online community of players highly invested in 2e. The lines of communication that enable such displays just didn't exist in 2000. They did exist in 2008 - so 4e was more prone to it because of the internet environment and social habits to support the conflict existed.

 

[Umbran]

I think these posts both point to the true character of the "edition wars". Neither is an observation about a game's commercial prospects, nor an observation about WotC's financial health. They are observations about the social practice of expressing an opinion about a game.

You are correct. Edition wars are a social phenomenon among fans, not a game-design or a business phenomenon. They are about how we communicate on the internet, not about the innate quality of games or companies.

 

[BryonD]

I can handle this one. 4e was prone to edition warring, but *NOT* because of anything related to the game's design.

Remember that the communities required to support the edition warring we saw didn't exist at the time 3e rolled out. There was a goodly bit of arguing over 3e at the time, but there was not what we think of today as a solidly established online community of players highly invested in 2e. The lines of communication that enable such displays just didn't exist in 2000. They did exist in 2008 - so 4e was more prone to it because of the internet environment and social habits to support the conflict existed.

I don't think this is an accurate summation.

There was a ton of arguing as 3E rolled out. I doubt anyone would dispute that.

But the ENWorld forum (once it came into existence) was a forum. And a lot of evolution is structure aside, it is a lot the same. And it had a very very healthy population from early on.
The debates and ability and tendency to argue were no different.

But (A) the population of ENWorld was overwhelmingly pre-3E and (B) the nature of 2E was so chaotic that it seemed like no two people had the same history with it.
So there were vast debates about implementation and interpretation (and whether a fireball pea could go through an arrow slit). But it was a free for all with a largely common goal.

The 3E to 4E "wars" had two sides.

(Yes, there were people who hated 3E, but they were either no present on ENWorld or very lighthearted (and welcome) exceptions.)

 

[pemerton]

Interesting logic. So, if someone said that they were indifferently refusing to buy 4e books, it can't mean anything other than that person discriminates against 4e books?

Maybe - I'm not sure how you're using the word "discriminate".

I'll try and give another illustration.

I saw the first two Hobbit films at the cinema, but not the third. Why not? Well, I have two young kids, so going to the pictures requires a bit of pre-planning and organisation. I had a one-week window where they were away with grandparents, but during that time my partner and I went to see a different, and I would say better, film ("Winter Sleep").

Does it make sense to say that I was "intransigent" in not buying a ticket to the Hobbit. Or that I was "discriminating" against it? Or that I was "indifferent" to it? (I assume you are not using "indifferent" in the technical economist's sense.)

Personally, I don't think it does. It's a luxury purchase, and for a confluence of reasons I chose not to make it.

RPG books are in the same category. Some people buy some of them, some people buy none of them, no one buys all of them. For a variety of personal motivations, not enough people were buying 4e books from around 2011/12 on to make it worth WotC's while to write and print them. Hence - being a relatively sharp commercial operation, as far as I can tell - they did something else.