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!

 

[Mercurius]

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 meant the latter, so I guess we'll leave it at that. But why would you think I meant the former?

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.

??? Again, I think you are defining a very narrow parameter for conversation - continually coming back to sales and profits. I mean, clearly the financial reason behind 5E was because 4E was no longer as profitable as WotC/Hasbro wanted it to be and they wanted the cash-cow that a new edition cycle brings. But this doesn't touch upon the "human" elements - psychological, creative, community, etc. Obviously that stuff is harder to define, but it is what pushes the more definable stuff like sales.

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 hear and somewhat agree with you here, Umbran, but this only works with regards to "edition warring" as an internet phenomena and to what degree it brings awareness to disgruntlement. Clearly edition warring was more prevalent with 4E simply because the internet was more established in 2008 than in 2000, or at least social media platforms like EN World, etc. But if we extend "edition warring" to the underlying causative factors, and the degree to which the D&D community embraces a new edition, then I don't think the internet is a sufficient explanation - it only tells us that the "battle field" was there, but it doesn't tell us if the underlying "hostilities" were more or less than in previous edition cycles.

I personally think that the D&D community embraced 3E far more fully than it did 4E, and all signs so far seem to point to a fuller embrace of 5E. Now why that was the case (assuming it was the case) is a matter of debate and, at the least, a very complex issue. I certainly think the online social media environment had a large role to play, if only for providing the "breeding grounds" for hostility, but I do think there are other factors - some of which have to do with the game itself and how it differed from previous editions. I'm not making a judgement call here or saying anything pejorative about 4E, mind you.

 

[BryonD]

But still have a decent chance of success (eg 30% against DC 15, which seems to be the median DC for the system).

The real difference, as I see it, is not the mathematics of bounded accuracy.

The two systems may have the same standard / typical target percentage. But the bell curve of expected variations around that are critically different.

5e does not have the same default story structure.

And mechanically it is very inclined to work differently as a result.
I tend to suspect you COULD CHOOSE to make it follow the 4E bell curve. But that ewould be something the players are adding to the system, not something the system is bringing to the game.
This is a critical difference.

Healing is different because I can, and in fact have, house rule to a completely 3E style. The "math works" does not conflict with this.

Barbarians and damage is nothing new. I have LONG debated (with you and others) that I demand a mix of real and abstract damage without a fixed narrative description. The barbarian damage simply modifies where on the scale I will be, but I'm still using shades of grey and never black or white. Again, in a FULLY abstract system it still works, yes. But it is critically different that in 5E I can do this with a blend, fully abstract is 100% removable.

The PHB (and even moreso the DMG) make it clear that anyone can try all kinds of things with ability checks. The battlemaster's ability to use superiority dice to do things BETTER does not mean that others cannot try, nor does it mean that a fighter out of dice cannot try without the extra bonus.

None of it stands up to inspection.

4E fans seems fixated on the fact that these things CAN work they way they do in 4E and seem completely incapable of seeing that they can also work (very well) in ways that 4E does not promote.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Sorry but a capped +6 proficiency does not compare to a +15 from 4e or a +20 from 3e.

In fact Bounded Accuracy is actually getting off the treadmill.

Say you're a top-level 5e character. You have a +6 proficiency bonus and an 20 stat, your buddy has a +6 proficiency and a 12 stat - you're +4 better than him. At lower level, when your proficiencies were both +3 and your stats 18 and 10, respectively, you were already 4 better than him. The kinds of DCs you're going to face go up. Your proficient saves get better, but so do save DCs. Similarly, in 4e, if you're both trained, the difference in stat is going to be the main difference.

You can also think of it as being similar to 3.5 with smaller numbers. Instead of +23 for fully investing in a skill, you only get +6. The difference is that, in 5e, as in 4e, untrained characters can still make a check with some small hope of success. In 4e it's because of the treadmill, in 5e, it's called bounded accuracy. Both solve the 3.5 problem.

 

[BryonD]

Say you're a top-level 5e character. You have a +6 proficiency bonus and an 20 stat, your buddy has a +6 proficiency and a 12 stat - you're +4 better than him. At lower level, when your proficiencies were both +3 and your stats 18 and 10, respectively, you were already 4 better than him. The kinds of DCs you're going to face go up. Your proficient saves get better, but so do save DCs. Similarly, in 4e, if you're both trained, the difference in stat is going to be the main difference.

You can also think of it as being similar to 3.5 with smaller numbers. Instead of +23 for fully investing in a skill, you only get +6. The difference is that, in 5e, as in 4e, untrained characters can still make a check with some small hope of success. In 4e it's because of the treadmill, in 5e, it's called bounded accuracy. Both solve the 3.5 problem.

What about the Level 20 rogue with 20 dex and +6 (+11) and the Level 20 fighter with 10 Dex and no prof bonus to the skill save in question (+0)?

5E takes the solution to the 3.5 problem and then solves the 4E problem.
Excellent.

 

[Hussar]

Wait a second, there is no way that 5es Bounded Accuracy comes from 4e.

I could understand the argument that it comes as a result of the lash back against the outrageously large accumulating numbers from 3e and 4e though.

It's pretty much the same as 4e, simply with the level increases stripped out.

A 1st level 4e character generally has about a 60% chance of success for most typical actions. Yup, there's exceptions, but, by and large, it's around 60%. At 20th level, doing typical things for a 20th level character - facing CR 20 monsters (or thereabouts), CR 20 challenges, etc - the character will have about a 60% chance of success, again, there is variation here.

A 1st level 5e character, doing typical 1st level things will generally have a 60% chance of success. The 20th level character, again, doing typical 20th level stuff, will still have around a 60% chance of success, and virtually never a 0% chance of success (only hit on a 20 or save on a 20, things like that).

This is very, very different from 3e, where due to scaling, many checks hit that 0% success rate very quickly and because of how the classes worked, by about 10th level, you pretty much auto succeeded skill checks, or auto-failed. Even attacks suffered from this. Sure, you first attack might hit, but, iterative attacks, without major enhancements, were subsequently very unlikely to succeed. With 3 attacks, if your first attack was at anything less than 90%, your third attack was an auto fail. In order to actually be effective, your first attack pretty much had to auto succeed (yes, yes, fail on a one, I KNOW) as did the second attack. Which mean massive numbers of modifiers to attacks. Thus the Excel Spreadsheet caculations for high level PC's.

The brilliance of 5e though, and I stand in awe of this, is just how much they've brought into 5e, but because of the way they've handled the fandom this time, they've managed to convince people that it's completely divorced from all things 4e. It really is absolutely brilliant. There's a bright direct line from 4e mechanics to 5e mechanics. Sure, there are differences. Of course there are. But, the baseline concepts for much of the mechanical framework for 5e is pure 4e. 4e is where they perfected the math of D&D. The problem with 4e wasn't in the mechanics, it was in the presentation.

 

[Rygar]

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.

4th edition's edition warring was the direct result of horrifically bad decisions on WOTC's part. When complaints about 4th edition arose a wise company would've issued a "We're listening!" statement, kept a tight lid on their forums by banning radicals on all sides, and would've adjusted course as sales numbers and feedback poured in.

Instead WOTC permitted a vigilante force to organize on their message boards and supported it with extremely biased moderation, presumably expecting that they could just silence the unhappy and everything would be ok. The result of this was that they created a highly insular echo chamber with 0 tolerance of criticism and fanned fan frustration/anger by permitting certain groups to be attacked without consequence while denying those groups any chance to respond.

This then causes an association between the product and the treatment the person received by it's fans. Having people gloat that the product you enjoyed for decades is now gone, insult you endlessly, and the mods ban you the moment you respond causes a person to associate 4th edition with people who demonstrate negative behavior. Exacerbated by the fact that most of the people being maltreated had been faithful customers for decades. It didn't help that WOTC was hellbent on shooting themselves in every foot they could find, they didn't earn themselves any brownie points by killing the Dragonlance novels for example, and it was widely known that 4th edition was the reason Dragonlance was cut.

WOTC should've handled their community instead of empowering a vigilante group to do it for them and they shouldn't have waged a war against their decades old customers both actively and passively. As I think Goldomark said previously, WOTC acted arrogantly and their community management demonstrated that. There wouldn't have been an edition war if WOTC had managed their community appropriately.

 

[BryonD]

A 1st level 5e character, doing typical 1st level things will generally have a 60% chance of success. The 20th level character, again, doing typical 20th level stuff, will still have around a 60% chance of success, and virtually never a 0% chance of success (only hit on a 20 or save on a 20, things like that).

This statement is not remotely accurate.

A 20th level character can easily have +0 or low single digits bonus to many things, and 20th level DC can be well over 20.

 

[Hussar]

Y'know, I gotta go with Rygar to some degree on this. WOTC's problems with 4e were, in large part, WOTC's own damn fault. It was just so frustrating to see them self implode like that. It just never ended. Started with the massive reaction to the ending of the print Dungeon and Dragon and just rolled down hill from there.

 

[BryonD]

But, the baseline concepts for much of the mechanical framework for 5e is pure 4e. 4e is where they perfected the math of D&D. The problem with 4e wasn't in the mechanics, it was in the presentation.

I guess we should not hold our breath for you to go back and address the range of rebuttals.

Because your statement is flat out wishful thinking.

 

[pemerton]

Yes, this is the 4e treadmill. You always have the same 55 to 65% chance as long as you boost all the right abilities and constantly upgrade your items etc.

You do not have that in 5e.

No. Instead there are very few bonuses available (stats capped at 20, proficiency bonus grows from +2 to +6 over the course of 19 levels gained, magic items are optional).

A fairly steady range of success rates based on growing numbers, and a fairly steady range of success rates based on no growth in numbers, are functionally the same thing.

If 5E a character can EASILY be way outside of the target range and the game is built to create these situations.

I don't think a character in 5e can EASILY be way outside the target range at all. What sorts of examples do you have in mind?

At higher levels the gaps will grow, but this is equally true in 4e.

In 4e, the difference between trained and untrained is +5 for skills, +2 for non-AC defences (before feats), plus stat spread which can be beween -1 and +6 or 7 up to 20th level, and +0 and +9 or 10 at epic. Glomming all those together gives typical spreads in the neighbourhood of 10 before feats and items (the latter typically are more relevant to skills than to NADs).

For my 28th level party, the biggest spread in NADs is 10, for Fort (invoker/wizard 32, sorcerer and paladin 41) and Reflex (paladin 35, ranger/cleric 44) - for Will the spread is 9 (fighter/cleric 39, sorcerer 47). For skills, the biggest spread is in Arcana and History (invoker wizard +42 to both, next highest being the sorcerer at +20 Arcana and +15 History), then Endurance (fighter/cleric +34, next highest +18 range/cleric). The only skills in which the spread between best and worst is not at least 10 are Heal (+23 vs +16) and Streetwise (+23 vs +15).

In 5e, the difference between trained and untrained (ignoring the expertise class feature) is +2 to +6 for skills and saves, plus the result of stat spread which can be between -1 and +5. At 20th level we can expect plenty of wizards with -1 to climb walls, and fighters with +11. That's a spread of 13.

DCs in 5e range from Very Easy (5) to Nearly Impossible (30). Easy is set at 10. The spread between Easy and Hard in 4e is 8 vs 19 at 1st level (comparable to 5e's Easy vs Hard) and is 24 vs 42 at 30th level (a comparable spread to 5e's Easy vs Nearly Impossible).

The level, in 4e, at which the gap between Easy and Hard roughly corresponds to 5e's Easy vs Very Hard is around the beginning of paragon tier: at 11th, Easy vs Hard in 4e is 13 vs 27.

So 5e played in such a fashion as low level characters encounter few or no DCs above Hard, middish-to-low-upper PCs encounter few or no DCs above Very Hard, and Nearly Impossible tasks are confined to upper level PCs, will have DC spreads pretty comparable to 4e.

The fiction might be different, but the mechanics won't be.

Also, any comments on the spread of DCs in the published adventures would be welcome!