D&D 5E A new Golden Age for D&D

[BryonD]

I think pejorative is pushing it, a negative connotation, sure, but not an unwarranted one, and inevitable the wider the net you cast.

Interesting position.
I'll note that the claim that 5E needed to cast a bigger net than 4E was often slammed when I proposed it because it was outrageous and "h4ter" talk to suggest that 4E didn't cast a large net.

Further, I think there is little rational evidence to support the claim that 5E's wider net is connected to a LCD approach. Quite the contrary is true.

4E was over and over praised for lower the entry barrier and for being the game that was going to break the mold and bring vast hordes on new fans into the TTRPG hobby. It *tried* to throw a wider net by reaching out people who wouldn't be inclined to play 3E. Again, the whole "lower barrier" for starting, particularly with regard to DMing was trumpeted over and over. It just failed to work. And at the same time a lot fo existing fans found the end result of that effort failed to live *UP* to their demands. So while I don't think LCD really fits the 4E experience, it comes far closer to applying there that it does to 5E, which really leaves a great deal of demand on the DM to craft a solid but spotty base system into exactly what a given group in looking for. And the "spotty" nature is not a bug, but a feature because one groups "spots" are another groups "foundation" for building.

So bottom line, 4E is the game that "cast" a larger net, it just ended up casting most of that net on dry land.

 

[Tony Vargas]

LCD usually implies a dumbed down version.

I can see how it could, yeah, that does make it a less useful way of putting it. The LCD for the D&D crowd needs to feel 'smart,' though, because, hey: nerds.

But I do think that 5E is minimalist compared to at least 3E and 4E, which I think is a good thing, personally.

There's less to 5e, at release, than to 3e or 4e at end of life, certainly, and that's something that fans of 3e and/or 4e notice and are maybe even dissatisfied with, if they're not inclined to be patient.
But, aside from that 5e core-3-books aren't particularly less complex/complicated than any prior ed's core 3, back to 1e AD&D. D&D has always been a complex game by it's very nature, and 5e continues that tradition.

No, inclusiveness does NOT mean "including what everybody wants" - at least in an all-encompassing way, because that is simply not possible. Or perhaps we can only ever attain "relative inclusivity", because someone is always going to feel left out or marginalized.

"relative inclusivitiy" would be yet another way of saying LCD, I guess. But, yes, with a modular/variant-friendly approach, you can include quite a lot of what people want, without worrying about what people don't want, because the don't-want crowd can ban or not opt-in to whatever they don't want. That's really the key to 'inclusive,' not so much including everything even one person wants (impractical, but not at odds with inclusivity), but not excluding things just because some, or even a plurality or self-proclaimed majority, want them /excluded/.

 

[Hussar]

[MENTION=996]Tony Vargas[/MENTION] - you do realise some of the irony here. The criticism you are levelling at 5e is almost word for word identical to criticisms 2e players made about 3e. "They've simplified the game" "It's pandering to the lowest common denominator". If you scroll wayyyyy back to the release of 3e, what you are saying is virtually identical.

Funny how things stay the same. Give it a couple of more editions, and we'll see 4e being put back up on the pedestal, just like 2e is being done now.

 

[Sacrosanct]

[MENTION=996]

Funny how things stay the same. Give it a couple of more editions, and we'll see 4e being put back up on the pedestal, just like 2e is being done now.

It is? Funny. I don't see THAC0 anywhere. Or save or die. Or % abilities. Or priest spheres. Or level drain. Or psionics point system.

 

[Tony Vargas]

[MENTION=996]Tony Vargas[/MENTION] - you do realise some of the irony here. The criticism you are levelling at 5e is almost word for word identical to criticisms 2e players made about 3e. "They've simplified the game"

I thought I just got through explaining how not-simplified/minimalist 5e is.

"It's pandering to the lowest common denominator".

3e's theme was back to the dungeon, 5e's is trying to be all D&Ds to all D&Ders. You can see how one of those calls for finding commonalities more than the other.

Maybe LCD wasn't the most politic way to put it. 5e did go through ostensibly looking for the best bits of each edition, and mostly came back with the less objectionable bits. (Not that the two never coincided, nor that a few good, but occasionally controversial bits, like 3e-style modular multi-classing didn't make it in as options...)

 

[Hussar]

It is? Funny. I don't see THAC0 anywhere. Or save or die. Or % abilities. Or priest spheres. Or level drain. Or psionics point system.

Before the release of 4e, you'd almost never hear any comment about 2e in a positive light. 2e was the red-headed stepchild of D&D. it was what you played while you waited for 3e to come out. At best, it was the "setting" edition. Other than that, everything was bad. At least, that was the general consensus.

Now, 2e is cool again. Give it another ten years and another edition or two, and 4e will be in the same place. The edition that gave D&D better math and mechanics.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Now, 2e is cool again. Give it another ten years and another edition or two, and 4e will be in the same place. The edition that gave D&D better math and mechanics.

There's doubtless a nostalgia cycle, yes. The OSR phenom was that cycle getting to 1e & B/X, and fans of 2e seem to be having a pleasant reaction to 5e in their turn, which is all to the good for now. We'll likely see 3e further canonized in another 10 years, but, with only a 2 year run, the cohort of kids who started with 4e getting nostalgic for it 20-30 years later is going to be exceedingly small...

 

[epithet]

Before the release of 4e, you'd almost never hear any comment about 2e in a positive light. 2e was the red-headed stepchild of D&D. it was what you played while you waited for 3e to come out. At best, it was the "setting" edition. Other than that, everything was bad. At least, that was the general consensus.

Now, 2e is cool again. Give it another ten years and another edition or two, and 4e will be in the same place. The edition that gave D&D better math and mechanics.

I doubt that. It seems to me that 4e is the edition with the most unique mechanics to it. You have 30 levels broken into tiers, you have "powers" for even mundane character classes, you've got an important character background element at each tier of advancement that can change the character mechanically... It just seems like a different game than the versions of D&D that went before, and since 5e seems the harken back more to those editions I think 4e will retain a unique status.

What I do see as likely is an entirely "new" game built using the 4e mechanics. Just as Pathfinder picked up where 3.5 left off, I think there will probably be a game that capitalises on the the years of development and play that went into 4e. They will be limited to using D&D terminology covered by the existing OGL, but that shouldn't provide much difficulty.

 

[Tony Vargas]

What I do see as likely is an entirely "new" game built using the 4e mechanics. Just as Pathfinder picked up where 3.5 left off, I think there will probably be a game that capitalises on the the years of development and play that went into 4e. They will be limited to using D&D terminology covered by the existing OGL, but that shouldn't provide much difficulty.

Terminology isn't the only problem. While you can't copyright mechanics, per se, all the text in 4e books is copyrighted, so it'd be a prodigious exercise in paraphrasing, at minimum, to try to clone it. I doubt anyone'll ever try it, but even if someone does and does everything just right, WotC could still make it hot for them with a legal challenge (even a failed challenge could bankrupt some kickstarter project). It's just not like Pathfinder, where the SRD was just sitting there, free to use as a basis for a clone.

 

[Umbran]

5e's is trying to be all D&Ds to all D&Ders.

I don't think that is true.

Way back when the game was still under development, I recall Mearls and other official sources saying things to that effect - that there will be tight tactical wargame stuff for some, and light rules for others, and modular, modular, modular, so you can make the game you like. But, sometime during playtesting I think, they stopped making those claims. Probably because they realized that wasn't going to be practical, at least in the short term.

In original concept, maybe it was trying to be all D&Ds to all players. But plans change, and instead they (wisely) chose a more practical target (and successfully hit it) - be many D&Ds to many players.