A difficult question

[BobTheNob]

I want it to be the absolute bare minimum rules to make the thing work, which can (easily) be pushed to the side when non-rule tabletop play is the most appropriate way to get things done.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

To go further, if 5E appeals to you, is it ok if it doesn't appeal to others and a(not necessarily the current) schism in the community continues? How much are you willing to sacrifice, or are you willing to sacrifice at all, getting what you want for the sake of the game appealing to most everybody?

The schism is with us, has always been with us, and will always be with us. The only question on that front is how well a version of D&D deals with it. I'm not willing to make any sacrifice that won't accomplish anything, merely to create an illusion of no schism. I'm also not willing to ask anyone else to sacrifice on that count, either.

Sacrifices for playability, page count, etc? Sure, you'll always have those in any game by its very nature--an inexact model of shared, imagined worlds. There will be enough of those necessary sacrifices anyway, to make additional ones nothing but dead weight. The last thing Next needs is some cement shoes in a deep lake.

 

[Li Shenron]

In regards to what a given person wants out of 5E, is it more important that 5E delivers the D&D you want or that it delivers everyone else playing the D&D you want?

**EDIT**

To go further, if 5E appeals to you, is it ok if it doesn't appeal to others and a(not necessarily the current) schism in the community continues? How much are you willing to sacrifice, or are you willing to sacrifice at all, getting what you want for the sake of the game appealing to most everybody?

For me it is more important that 5e delivers the D&D I want, because otherwise I am most likely not going to play it, at least not on a regular basis.

I hope the fanbase unites, but honestly if this happens at the expense of 5e not being something I like, then I'll be happy for the fanbase but I still won't buy and play the game.

I am not willing to make a sacrifice that means to play something I don't like, but definitely I am not asking the game to be perfect because it doesn't make sense to me (I am always interested in trying out variations of rules and setting, there is no such thing as "one" way I want the game to be). But I have very little time for playing the game, so if it doesn't clearly appeal to me I'll just dedicate my limited free time to something else and I'll be more happy than forcing myself to play an edition I dislike.

I've been a DM for about half of my gaming time, and most of my players have been friends I convinced to play the game in the first place, so hypothetically if 5e appeals to me alone while every other gamer hates it, I can still play it with some non-gamer friends as usual; but if all gamers love it and I hate it, I am not playing (why would I?).

But obviously in general I hope a lot of people like it. Since I have little time, it's better for me to join a game as a player in which case I need other non-casual gamers, at least one to be the DM, and I'm generally much more open to compromises as a player than as a DM

 

[Pickles JG]

Noone seems to be willing to acknowledge that "unite the fanbase" means squish Pathfinder, 4e et al so that everyone is playing D&D next. Anyway....

It has to appeal to me & some others or I will not get to play it. So I guess it has to appeal to me as much as possible while delivering a thriving play group.

If the game does not appeal to me then I don't really care what anyone else thinks. In some ways if I do not like it I would like it to tank so that people have to play the games I like.

I am a broad spectrum gamer that plays CCGs, Miniatures games, boardgames (euros, wargames & ameritrash) as well as RPGs including D&D. My fanbase is never going to be united, if people play Pathfinder but not 4e that's the same to me as them playing Warmachine but not Agricola.

I am a fussy gamer too. I rarely play things I do not like (without complaining) & find play groups of the games I do like rather than trying to play everything with the same bunch of friends. I do still get into games with a view to playing them with particular friends though & (try to) stand shy of ones I do not see me getting to play at all, I am not much of a collector.


So if 5e is a game I like I will want it to be popular so that it is easier to get a game of it. If I do not like it then I do not much care. I am a bit of a neo-phile so if the game feels shiny & new it will get some love from me that I might not give to an older game so I can compromise on my "core" likes if the game feels new.

This is one reason I am so disappointed with Pathfinder. It is just 3.5 with nothing I found problematic or irritating addressed & with massive amounts of new chaff. (That's my impression which I know is a bit unfair; it's not an attack on the players of the game after all I loved playing 3.0/3.5 for the best part of a decade.)

5e seems to be hovering on whether it is going the same way or not, though starting with a more 1e base. If everything feels rehashed I will not be excited about it but if there is a solid core of interesting new stuff it will get my interest, even if it is not exactly to my taste, which FWIW you can take as being, to a very good approximation, "like what 4e is".

 

[Steely_Dan]

I'm already into it, the edition I've been waiting for since 1st Ed, I just hope they don't change too much from feedback.

 

[amerigoV]

I consider that an easy question. I got limited game time. So its all about me. If it works for me, I really do not care about you. If it does not work for me, I do not care about it and I will play something that works best for me (and I still do not care about you).

That's with a grain of salt, of course. But its a very small single grain.

 

[Steely_Dan]

I consider that an easy question.

It's a fishing/skewed question, IMO; but, hey, let's play!

 

[MarkB]

I consider that an easy question. I got limited game time. So its all about me. If it works for me, I really do not care about you.

The tricky part, of course, is if "you" includes all the people you like to play with. Having the most perfectly-adapted system for me is meaningless unless I can find nearby people who want to play/run it.

 

[Ratskinner]

The bad situation, as far as I'm concerned, is if D&D collapses and brings down the entire tabletop gaming industry with it.

Given that Pathfinder and even Marvel's current incarnation can be had off-the-shelf at Barnes & Noble and BAM, I'm not sure that this is the certain doom that it once might have been. I also wonder how self-sufficient the pdf publishing thing is.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

I thought about this a bit, to try to give an honest answer (rather than deluding myself into thinking I'm more inclusive than my feelings really are).

It's important to me 5e that it supports the majority of D&D players from past editions.

It's not important to me that it supports components that were exclusive to either 3e or 4e at the expense of supporting multi-edition standards. I don't think there is usually going to be a need to choose, because of modularity.

In general, I think that 95% of players (and a somewhat smaller majority of DMs) are going to get basically what they want enough to be interested in switching, and that rarely are sacrifices going to need to be made.

Specifics:

• I'm not willing to sacrifice the Planescape/Spelljammer unified cosmology as an officially supported and fleshed out option that include relevant rules for using it in all the standard campaign settings to which it was originally connected with (Everything in 2e).
• I am willing to sacrifice that cosmology as a default option.
• I'm not willing to accept 4e setting displacing previous edition setting (including presentation of core subraces and classes).
• I am willing to grudgingly sacrifice my "purist" desires to allow core modular inclusion of some innovations I don't like (such as 4e added races), because others do want those.
• I am not willing to sacrifice what I consider distinctive features of D&D (traditional races, classes, alignments, Vancian casting, etc) to make it what I objectively confess might be a better game. I want the best D&D, because there will, IMO, always be better games out there than D&D, but there shouldn't be better D&D out there than D&D.
• I am willing to sacrifice pages of the books to rules I don't need or want to make happy people who do want them.
• I am not willing to sacrifice what I feel is the "essence" of pre-3e D&D for a wider audience.
• I am willing to accept support for some of that essence relegated to modules.

All those considerations aside, I honestly don't care if the game continues to publish new product after establishing the basic material that I want (which includes core, old-school campaign settings, rules for planes, deities, psionics, oriental adventures, and mass combat).

I don't believe the hobby will collapse if D&D folds. As long as I have friends willing to try this "role-playing thing," I don't care about the popularity of the hobby.