D&D 5E A Modest Proposal to Unify the Fanbase without D&D Next

[Mallus]

Current AD&D players are happy with AD&D.

I think the operative word is "current".

Right now I'm running a campaign full of happy AD&D players. But we were happy 4e players before that, and happy 3.5e players before that.

By the time 5e is released, who knows what we'll be playing? I certainly can't, at this juncture, rule out 5e.

 

[Kabluey]

Actually, if WotC's business plan is to only pick up players unhappy with other systems then they will go bankrupt. It's clear they intend to poach players back from rival (indeed even their own old) systems. The market is a lot more flexible than you think - just look at the number of posters who have said on these forums that they will probably pick up a copy of 5E to see what it's like.

What they hope is that the number of converts they can grab from current 4E players plus current Pathfinder players plus players plus any new players that will naturally pick up a 'new' edition over any others.. (breath) ..is larger than the number of current 4E players they can hold on to.

I think they made such a great leap from 3.5 to 4 in terms of style and gameplay that they found themselves in the *wrong* market, as far as they were concerned. They want something with larger mass appeal, and if it's true that Paizo is selling more than WotC, clearly they are in the minority market. They hope to get back into the majority market - a bit like when a political party loses an election (ok, not in the US), they can either realign to the centre or current politics or drift further to their left/right wing. The question is, will 5E appeal to the majority of the market, or are they trying to capture a minority again (be it 4E or old-school players)?

This.

Plus don't forget that the rpg market is not a zero-sum game. A lot of gamers play and support multiple systems. My group contains a player who is a big Pathfinder fan, yet he enjoys (and has purchased) Savage Worlds for our main campaign, and thoroughly enjoyed the two DDN playtests I've run. I would be surprised if he didn't purchase the 5E books when they come out, but that doesn't mean he's going to abandon Pathfinder either. It is possible to enjoy and support more than one game - even editions of D&D - at the same time.

Honestly, I think the chances of 5E not selling well in the short term are pretty slim. It's freakin' D&D! People are going to buy it just out of curiosity, just like they have with all other versions. It's really the long-term prospects that will be decided by the game's quality.

 

[El Mahdi]

Well, the edition war happened and 4e is dead, so the correlation is certainly there.

No, the correlation is not there.

We had a saying in Aircraft Maintenance: "Just because a Pilot was scratching his butt when an indicator malfunctioned, doesn't mean that the Pilot scratching his butt had anything to do with the malfunction."

A Correlation means that the end of 4E and the edition wars are reciprocal, parallel, or complimentary to eachother, and there's just no evidence of this. Just because they happened concurrently does not prove correlation, cause and effect, or even contribution. If you had data (or anybody had data) that showed a significant amount of potential 4E fans didn't buy 4E or stopped buying 4E because of the edition warring - then you'd have proof. Without it, all you're doing is making claims with no evidence to support them - and making them as if they are self-apparent fact.

They aren't.

As with depraved indifference, I don't believe correlation means what you think it means...

There's been an edition war with every edition change, and the people waging that war are a vocal minority. 4E is dead simply because an overwhelming amount of gamers voted with their wallets. Period.

C'mon Man. Your declaring this stuff from thread to thread to thread is nothing more than salvo's in yet another edition war.

If you're so against edition wars, why are you insisting on continuing them in this manner...?

I think the OGL and Pathfinder probably had more to do with it than the relentless, if disorganized, campaign of hatred and dis-information that characterized the edition war. But, I'm sure both contributed to 4e's "failure," and colored the 'lesson' WotC learned from it.

Relentless edition wars are not new with the advent of 4E. There is no proof that edition warring had anything to do with the demise of 4E, just as there is no proof of the same for the demise of 3E, 2E, 1E, and every other edition. Editions have natural life cycles based on the interest it garners among the fan base...but every edition will eventually reach a point where it's no longer a money maker through the sales of new books. That's just the way it is, and just what happened to 4E.

The edition wars are nothing more than a sideshow...a very unpleasant sideshow, but a sideshow nonetheless. They'll always be present, with each and every edition.

But if you don't like them so much, stop contributing to them.

The GSL makes cloning 4e on the level that Pathfinder cloned 3.5 impossible (well, illegal). And, while some sort of vague immitation using the OGL might stand the legal test, it's unlikely any 3pp would have the resources to carry through on the necessary legal defense to get there.


With nothing to 'rally around' the 4e fanbase will either feel forced into 5e or away from D&D altogether, there's not enough non-WotC 4e resources to make a go of it. That will, of course, be taken as final proof of the edition's failure.

With the use of the OGL, there can be much more than just a "vague imitation". The OGL has been used for some very good products. And those "retro-clones" are far from "vague imitations".

You're making broad assumptions and wild forecasts based on little or no evidence, and doing so as if this was fact.

It's not fact. But it is edition warring.


1. Nobody knows if WotC will keep 4E materials available for sale as electronic downloads or not...nobody except WotC themselves. They may even make them available for POD. With what WotC has been saying lately, I'd be very surprised if elctronic versions of all the old materials (the previous pdf's, though not necessarily in pdf format) didn't start becoming available again before the release of 5E. They've straight out said they are working to bring them back.

2. DDI is going to continue 4E support at least up through the release of 5E, and most likely longer, and possibly in perpetuity. If they don't get enough 4E fans to switch to 5E, I can't imagine them not wanting to keep those fans as customers. The best and easiest way is simply to continue DDI 4E support: as all it requires is maintenance and not development, and can garner a continuous revenue stream.

3. If WotC doesn't continue 4E DDI support, and doesn't make 4E books available through download (or POD), I'm certain that somebody will make an OGL version...if not many someones. And I honestly do not think there would be any legal resistance.

4. As long as anybody is playing 4E, which I'm certain people will, then 4E will never, ever, EVER, be a failure. I think you're going to be looking for that "final proof" you seem so looking forward to appearing, for a very very long time. Seems to me, that time would be much better spent playing and talking about games you like, rather than waiting for an "I told you so" moment. I find this to be a very unenjoyable way to participate in such an enjoyable and wide ranging hobby as ours, and I think that's very sad.

 

[Vyvyan Basterd]

Current 4e players are not happy with the plan for 5e.

Speak for yourself please. I am a current 4E DM and player and I am happy with the plans for 5E. There are some elements I don't like and give feedback to let them know of my dislike, but overall I think the goals and direction of 5E are worthy of following.

 

[Harlock]

Has anyone pointed out that the OP's premise is flawed? If D&D Next is looking at unifying players from all editions, why couldn't there be a module that added the 4e overlay to the simpler core rules? Or 3.5, 3, 2, 1, BECMI, B/X, OD&D? In this fashion, D&D Next could very well do what the OP's petition claims to want: supporting all 8 editions of the game (not four, OP).

Also flawed is the assumption that "numerous OGL/3.5 fans and Pathfinder converts who have refused to transition to 4E is a sore spot with Wizards of the Coast, representing a substantial loss of revenue and support for the current edition of D&D." Despite your claims at being inclusive, you sure are excluding a great many fans of other editions of the game who didn't support 4e. D&D is more than 3rd and 4th editions. The OSR and retro-clone movements show that there is still substantial revenue to be gained from appealing to those audiences. That is to say nothing of the thousands of players who buy up out of print TSR titles and simply continue playing their favored edition.

If WotC does D&D Next correctly, they can appeal to about as broad an audience as you imagine! The real question becomes this: can they win back the audience they lost or alienated? That will take marketing and a caring and concerted effort. Speaking for myself, it would take a lot to lure me from Castles and Crusades and put my faith in WotC again. It would also take a commitment to keep D&D Next around more than 5-6 years, which at this point, I don't think we'll see.

 

[Umbran]

The OSR and retro-clone movements show that there is still substantial revenue to be gained from appealing to those audiences.

With respect, that may depend upon what one considers "substantial".

 

[Harlock]

With respect, that may depend upon what one considers "substantial".

With respect, well duh. That there are, albeit, smaller companies than Hasbro sustaining themselves on the OSR, retro-clone movements is a fact. Given today's economic situation, is it really wise to not try and actually include everyone? If I didn't feel it was substantial enough a market for WotC to go after, I'd not have mentioned it.

 

[the Jester]

With respect, well duh. That there are, albeit, smaller companies than Hasbro sustaining themselves on the OSR, retro-clone movements is a fact. Given today's economic situation, is it really wise to not try and actually include everyone? If I didn't feel it was substantial enough a market for WotC to go after, I'd not have mentioned it.

But 5e is WotC's attempt to appeal to the retroclone market, without having to pay for parallel development for multiple systems.

 

[Harlock]

But 5e is WotC's attempt to appeal to the retroclone market, without having to pay for parallel development for multiple systems.

Right, and as I expressed in my post above the one you quoted, along with the OP, I'd like to see WotC being inclusive of all editions through modules.

 

[trancejeremy]

But 5e is WotC's attempt to appeal to the retroclone market, without having to pay for parallel development for multiple systems.

If that were the case, they would have hired an old school game designer to work on it.

I think it was mostly an attempt to go after the Pathfinder people, which is why they brought in Monte Cook (and look how that worked out).

Old school people are old school people because they like their editions - they just want them supported (which 5e does not do). Not a new one to replace it.

Indeed, one of them made a post very much like the OP did

UAD&D: Dear Wizards of the Coast...

 

[Tony Vargas]

If D&D Next is looking at unifying players from all editions, why couldn't there be a module that added the 4e overlay to the simpler core rules?

Well, the way it's set up now it couldn't, because critical aspects of 4e rest on a common advancement structure for all classes, and 5e already has multiple advancement schemes. In that sense, it's already more complicated than 4e, and you can't overlay consistency and balance on inconsistency and imbalance.

Or 3.5, 3, 2, 1, BECMI, B/X, OD&D?

0D&D, AD&D 1&2, and BECMI/BX are all pretty similar and 5e is starting out pretty similar to them, so that'd be easy. 3.0/5 would be more of a challenge - the biggest part of the challenge being 3e-enough compared to the SRD and Pathfinder.

Also flawed is the assumption that "numerous OGL/3.5 fans and Pathfinder converts who have refused to transition to 4E is a sore spot with Wizards of the Coast, representing a substantial loss of revenue and support for the current edition of D&D."

That's certainly true. There are also fans of earlier editions who rejected 3e and never tried 4e or Essentials (though that last was specifically targeting them). :shrug:

 

[Neuroglyph]

Has anyone pointed out that the OP's premise is flawed?

Also flawed is the assumption that "numerous OGL/3.5 fans and Pathfinder converts who have refused to transition to 4E is a sore spot with Wizards of the Coast, representing a substantial loss of revenue and support for the current edition of D&D." Despite your claims at being inclusive, you sure are excluding a great many fans of other editions of the game who didn't support 4e. D&D is more than 3rd and 4th editions. The OSR and retro-clone movements show that there is still substantial revenue to be gained from appealing to those audiences.

Please check out my blog where I referenced bringing back support for ALL EDITIONS of D&D... I never suggested that I was only looking for support for 3.5 or 4E, but somehow the discussion trended that way.

I find it strange that folks keep arguing that the content-provider business model is unprofitable, claiming that WotC can't make enough money doing it. First, WotC is more than just D&D... it has MtG and its boardgame lines to draw money on.

So as other posters have pointed out: How much profit is enough?

Point is, none of us have the hard data from WotC and Hasbro to be sure that the old model is a huge success over a new model. But considering how many 4E gamers will be alienated by D&D Next, how many AD&D, 2nd Ed, 3.5, and Paizo gamers will likely ignore it, isn't trying to unite the fanbase under one edition rather counter-intuitive to simply reaching out to all D&D fans with support and new products?

 

[El Mahdi]

Well, the way it's set up now it couldn't, because critical aspects of 4e rest on a common advancement structure for all classes, and 5e already has multiple advancement schemes. In that sense, it's already more complicated than 4e, and you can't overlay consistency and balance on inconsistency and imbalance.

Lack of a common advancement structure does not necessarily make a system inconsistent or imbalanced. It just makes it's underlying structure different and incompatible with the structure used in 4E. 5E is simply using a different concept for balance and consistency. BTW, a consistency and balance that is still under development. It is not a finished product, and should be spoken of that way. Not spoken of in absolutes.

The above characterization of 5E as having an inconsistent and imbalanced advancement structure, especially as we've only seen incredibly small glimpses into what that structure is: are grossly premature; an oversimplification or just straight-up wrong evaluation of 5e's design; and seem to me as derogative simply for the misguided purpose of denigrating it compared to 4E.

Less subjectiveness and veiled denigration (and not so veiled denigration), and more openness and objectiveness would be a wonderful breath of fresh air to these conversations.

 

[El Mahdi]

Please check out my blog where I referenced bringing back support for ALL EDITIONS of D&D... I never suggested that I was only looking for support for 3.5 or 4E, but somehow the discussion trended that way.

You're right. It may be that since you seem to be advocationg that WotC should not be making a 5th Edition, when many people (including me) seem to want it (for varying reasons), and you seem to be emphasizing support for 3E and 4E; people are percieving your motives as pro-3E/4E and anit-5E. Their perception is not entirely true, however your statements and your petition are anti-5E...and to many, that's a problem.

I find it strange that folks keep arguing that the content-provider business model is unprofitable, claiming that WotC can't make enough money doing it...snip...

I however do share the belief with you that WotC can make money supporting older edtions. I think it's foolish not to. But for whatever reasons (truly known only to them), they haven't. However, with the release of the AD&D core reprints, the coming 3.5E core reprints, and hints at returning pdf's (or at least a form of ownable, dowloadable, electronic format for previous edition materials); they seem to be at least dipping their toes into it and trending in that direction. That's a very good thing IMO, but I'm expecting it will be series of very small steps toward what you and I would like from them. However, we may need to be prepared for it may be a painfully slow process; but at least they seem to be showing progress.

 

[Neuroglyph]

You're right. It may be that since you seem to be advocationg that WotC should not be making a 5th Edition, when many people (including me) seem to want it (for varying reasons), and you seem to be emphasizing support for 3E and 4E; people are percieving your motives as pro-3E/4E and anit-5E. Their perception is not entirely true, however your statements and your petition are anti-5E...and to many, that's a problem.

I however do share the belief with you that WotC can make money supporting older edtions. I think it's foolish not to. But for whatever reasons (truly known only to them), they haven't. However, with the release of the AD&D core reprints, the coming 3.5E core reprints, and hints at returning pdf's (or at least a form of ownable, dowloadable, electronic format for previous edition materials); they seem to be at least dipping their toes into it and trending in that direction. That's a very good thing IMO, but I'm expecting it will be series of very small steps toward what you and I would like from them. However, we may need to be prepared for it may be a painfully slow process; but at least they seem to be showing progress.

Well personally, I question the need for D&D Next - a game which is mostly 3.0, with 2nd ed monsters, and house rules thrown on top - if we are going to have support for all previous editions? I mean sure, I suppose you could play the game that's being cobbled together from spare parts, but I would think most people would prefer to stick with the edition that already speaks to them from among the previous ones.

As to my support of the 3.5 crowd, yes, I want WotC to especially support that group again, because I think the way they handled the release of 4E caused the Edition Wars, and generated alot of bad blood and hurt feelings in the gaming community. While I don't play OGL anymore, I feel that the d20 D&D crowd deserve some luvin' after WotC kicked them to the curb, and to me, D&D Next is what I would call "making up" with that part of our community.

 

[Morrus]

Well personally, I question the need for D&D Next - a game which is mostly 3.0, with 2nd ed monsters, and house rules thrown on top - if we are going to have support for all previous editions? I mean sure, I suppose you could play the game that's being cobbled together from spare parts, but I would think most people would prefer to stick with the edition that already speaks to them from among the previous ones.

But I like some things about all editions; I dislike some things about all editions. Not one of them claims that place you designate as the one that "already speaks to me". All of them speak to me. None of them do quite enough.

I hope that D&D Next will be that edition. The one that has those things I like about previous editions, and few of the things I dislike. Maybe it will and maybe it won't; but I'm willing to take a look and see.

I get a petition that says "Neuroglyph doesn't like 5E; stop him buying it!"; I don't get one which says "Neuroglyph doesn't like 5E; stop Morrus buying it!" If you want to support all editions, why can't you support this new one, too? Why not have a petition which says "Support older editions AS WELL" instead of your current one which says "support older editions INSTEAD"?

 

[Scylla]

Two weeks ago I proposed something similar to the OP in my own blog:

"At this point, for better or worse, the D&D market is dreadfully splintered. Getting everyone under one tent is impossible, methinks. It's my own personal belief that WotC should, despite the splintering of R&D staff resources and ad budgets, try to support two editions. And by that I mean actively support them via regular new adventures and supplements (though I loudly applaud their reprinting the 1e books this month). They should make a true 4.5e, to keep the hardcore 4e fans happy, because ultimately that's all a good portion of those folks will accept. And they should make a real old-school D&D, a 2e with some important (but not flavor changing) innovations culled from the newer editions."

I don't feel WotC should stop their development refining the system, but clearly a lot of folks were happy with 3e and didn't move on to 4e, and now it's also clear to me that a lot of 4e fans don't want a 5e (but rather a 4.5). (I base the former on Pathfinder's success and the latter on numerous posts at the WotC boards.)

I think supporting every edition including white box and red box, etc., is impossible, but thinking harder on it, I three-branched approach might work:
1. doing a revised/cleaned up 2e (think of it as 2.5e if you like)
2. doing an improved 4e (call it 4.5e)
and
3. a brand new edition (which would probably look very different from the recent playtest, as it would now no longer have to be a "unity edition")
(I'm not trying to exclude the 3e crowd, but Pathfinder has already filled the "revised 3.5e" model rather nicely).

And at the same time, they should make available PDF versions of past products for all editions (and perhaps reprint extremely popular books or supplements). A tall order? Perhaps. But Baskin Robbins wisely doesn't try to sell everyone on just one flavor at a time (bad analogy, true, but I've worked in publishing for years and believe me that a company can support multiple creative brands with a frighteningly small staff). It is doable. And at the end of the day, all that $$ coming in from 1, 2, and 3 can all be placed collectively in the "D&D" box and shown to Hasbro.

 

[Dungeonosophy]

Content Provider plus D&D Next

Mike Evans, that list of Product Suggestions for a Content-Provider Publishing Model is genius. The one thing I'd add is this: release D&DNext and all the TSR/Wotc content. That way, even the people who are looking forward to D&D5e won't be fragmented off.

 

[Dungeonosophy]

Convert modules and campaign settings originally published under one edition, and publish them under all other editions.

Yes. Convert every campaign setting and adventure into every rules iteration.

One thing to watch out for is that the world fluff was actually depicted differently in different editions. For example, in the BECMI depiction of Mystara, it has its own unique cosmology, but in the 2e depiction of Mystara, those various planes are divvied up among the Great Wheel.

There is a canonical explanation for this in (D&D Brand Manager) Bruce Heard's Dragon magazine article "Up, Away, and Beyond". That article implies that that the various campaign settings are slightly, but significantly different in the various "game universes" (also called "Realities"). And that deity-level characters are actually aware of the existence of different "game universes".

The "Reality" concept is laid out here.