D&D 5E Coming Around on the "Not D&D" D&D Next Train

[innerdude]

Yes, but...

Soccer is Football! (association football)

American Football is Football!

Rugby is Football! (union football)

Arena Football is Football!

Canadian Football is Football!

Australian Football is Football!

Gaelic Football is Football!

...the point being that just because it has the same name, doesn't mean that it's the same game, or that it's equivalent or interchangeable. Just because there's a common ancestor doesn't mean that it's all the same.

The reason we have so much D&D market fragmentation is that the "editions" of D&D have effectively split into different games. They may have the same name, they may have a common ancestor, but they're not the same game anymore.

Which is exactly the whole point of my OP. OD&D, B/X, BECMI, 1e, 2e, 3e, and 4e are not the same game, and they don't need to be, and 5e doesn't NEED TO BE ANY OF THEM.

I think the biggest trouble we as a D&D community are having with 5e is that we WANT to point to one of them and go, "Oh, yeah, it's most like Edition X. I get it." We've convinced ourselves somehow that being able to pinpoint 5e's "common ancestor" means we're more likely to like the game when it's done, and to a point this may or may not be true. 4e players have a particular vested interest in "the metaphorical essence of D&D" working more like their preferred edition than any of the other "common ancestors."

But it doesn't change the fact that ultimately Next is going to be its own game. In reading much of the preview material for 4e, it's the same mindset WotC expected the greater community to take regarding 4e--"This is its own game; accept it as such."

I think what I'm getting at, is if you/me/we as players aren't willing to accept D&D Next for what it is on its own, then it's probably going to be a failure no matter what, because in the end, it will never be the thing we're comparing it to. If D&D Next is only allowed to be compared to 3e, or 4e, or 1e, then it's never going be it's own thing.

And I really, really want D&D Next to be its own thing, and be successful at it, and if it just happens to fall in line with most of what I hope to get out of a "D&D experience," great.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I kinda dig the football analogy, because it cuts both ways.

As pointed out, despite the similar names, the various kinds of football* are all different games.

However, some of those games called football differ very little in overall play and feel from certain other ones- say, American, Canadian and my asterisked inclusion below- due to substantial similarity of rules and equipment, while others are VASTLY different. Arena League is pretty close, but its compacted playing field and other elements make it play very differently. OTOH, Gaelic Football combines elements of a lot of sports, including some that are not even on the football family tree, as it were. Even so, you can see certain commonalities.

So, like with football, its fair to say- subjectively and objectively- that a particular edition of D&D may or may not be D&D, depending on how you look at it.





* we should have included NCAA, since it, too, resembles but is not identical to American or Canadian football

 

[pemerton]

What power of skill does is reduce the actual room or alley or environment your PC is in to a set of squares, and everything within them, other than "difficult terrain" or monsters are fluff.

Whose 4e game are you describing here? Yours? Then I'm not going to contradict you. Mine? Then you're just wrong.

The simplest example - a stalactite is not just difficult terrain, but something on which a beholder can be impaled using a power that conjures icy winds (a true story from my game: damage, at 18th level, was 2d8+something and immobilised). That's not just "fluff". That's fictional positioning.

"Plot coupons", no offense, sounds like a terrific way of describing a gameplay mechanic that I wish had never been made a part of D&D.

There's nothing wrong with it, it's just not D&D. DMing is not a collaborative affair, because players and DMs are not both privvy to the actual state of the world and the locations of key items, the true purpose of items or villains. I'm sure it can work in a completely different game, but I don't want to tell a story except through my character, that's how I roleplay.

<snip>

I will accept that other people on here have had much better success than I have at improv

<snip>

I just don't want a "fruit cart knockdown" power to even exist, anywhere in D&D 5.0. It is unnecessary and superfluous, and relies on a bunch of baggage that does not make the game more fun.

Again, whose play are you talking about? I don't roleplay in the way you describe. As a player I want to contribute to the game, and not just by playing my PC in first person. As a GM I want my players to drive the game, and not just by playing their PCs in first person.

"Plot coupons", metagame abilities, are a modest part of this. They play other roles too: because they are limited resources, the players - by choosing when to spend them - get to push hard when they want to (as opposed to having to hope they roll high on their dice), and thereby contribute importantly to the pace of play, and its rising and falling tension.

Say what you will in favor of 4e, but being able to play without a grid on the table is not possible.

Once again, this is not true for me. I have run plenty of encounters using TotM, or a quick sketch on paper.

 

[teitan]

I'd say the 2e and 1e are pretty close enough to be the same game if you turn some of the optional rules off like specialty priests. Sure thieves and rangers are different but overall the same just simplified and explained better.

 

[WheresMyD20]

I'd say the 2e and 1e are pretty close enough to be the same game if you turn some of the optional rules off like specialty priests. Sure thieves and rangers are different but overall the same just simplified and explained better.

Some editions are more closely related than others. Like football, you may have some, like NFL and NCAA football that are different versions of the same game; while others, like soccer and American football are two different games entirely. There's some gray area and some subjectivity.

In my opinion, there are 4 distinct D&D games (including Next), some with multiple versions and sub-versions.

1. "Old School"
1a. "Original" : OD&D without any Supplements (and retro-clones like Swords & Wizardry WhiteBox, Delving Deeper)
1b. "Classic" : OD&D+Supplement 1, Holmes Basic, B/X, BECMI, and RC D&D (and retro-clones like Labyrinth Lord, Basic Fantasy)
1c. "Advanced" : OD&D+All Supplements, AD&D 1e, and AD&D 2e (and retro-clones like OSRIC)

2. "Third Edition" : D&D 3e and D&D 3.5e (and retro-clones like Pathfinder)

3. "Fourth Edition" : D&D 4e

4. "Next" : D&D Next

I think that the difference between AD&D 1e and 2e is like the difference between NFL football and NCAA football. The difference between "Advanced" and "Classic" is like the difference between American football and Canadian football. The difference between "Old School" and "Fourth Edition" is like the difference between American football and soccer.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Some editions are more closely related than others. Like football, you may have some, like NFL and NCAA football that are different versions of the same game; while others, like soccer and American football are two different games entirely. There's some gray area and some subjectivity.

In my opinion, there are 4 distinct D&D games (including Next), some with multiple versions and sub-versions.

1. "Old School"
1a. "Original" : OD&D without any Supplements (and retro-clones like Swords & Wizardry WhiteBox, Delving Deeper)
1b. "Classic" : OD&D+Supplement 1, Holmes Basic, B/X, BECMI, and RC D&D (and retro-clones like Labyrinth Lord, Basic Fantasy)
1c. "Advanced" : OD&D+All Supplements, AD&D 1e, and AD&D 2e (and retro-clones like OSRIC)

2. "Third Edition" : D&D 3e and D&D 3.5e (and retro-clones like Pathfinder)

3. "Fourth Edition" : D&D 4e

4. "Next" : D&D Next

I think that the difference between AD&D 1e and 2e is like the difference between NFL football and NCAA football. The difference between "Advanced" and "Classic" is like the difference between American football and Canadian football. The difference between "Old School" and "Fourth Edition" is like the difference between American football and soccer.

Yeah, I think your groupings are pretty much the way I would group them, everything pre-3e is to a large degree fundamentally one game, with some generally minor rules differences, though later on starting with UA in 1e it starts to shade in the direction of a more toolboxy game that ultimately leads through late 2e into 3e. Even so, even the last few years of 2e in a lot of ways is not all that different from stock 3 books plus GH OD&D.

However, there's a fundamental commonality that plainly runs through ALL of them, right up to 4e and DDN. You can clearly take any adventure ever written for any edition of D&D and any two people can agree that a specific conversion to some other edition is 'the same adventure' (though they might disagree on the best way to do such a conversion). The recent Dragon Mountain 4e conversion thread here is a pretty good illustration of that. The resulting adventure is pretty different from the original in a lot of details, arguably it is maybe even more of a re-imagining than a strict conversion, but it still retains the essential elements of the original module in recognizable form. Clearly ports like Chris Perkins' G-series 4e conversions are VERY close to verbatim, you can take any given element of the original modules and recognize its equivalent in the 4e version. Now, you could do reasonable ports of the G's and other old classics to other systems. I'd guess conversions to SW or FC would not be super hard. You could probably do something with GURPS, RM, etc too, but I suspect it wouldn't be straightforward. Despite changes to the mechanics, there's an essential core of game play and genre expectations, and stylistic elements of various kinds that remain common in all editions such that you can reimagine the same adventures, the same characters, and the same settings into any of them and it will all retain much the same character. I think that's a bit closer than saying OD&D and 4e or DDN are like NFL Football vs soccer. That's almost like saying they're no closer than any 2 RPGs, clearly not the case.

 

[El Mahdi]

deleted

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I get you, and I am usually cautious enough in my posting to add that little "to me" when I distinguish between the editions of D&D in discussions of edition variance.

However, the editions' rules & design imperatives vary enough that, looking objectively, the games feel and play differently enough that someone new/outside the hobby, playing sessions with the serial numbers filed off, might not see the connection between 1Ed and 4Ed.

It's not an insult, just an empirical observation.

As things evolve, they take on new identities. Even though we can trace them back hundreds of millions of years to their earliest ancestors, we don't classify finches, bluejays and ducks as dinosaurs.

RPG design evolution just happens on a much faster pace.

 

[WheresMyD20]

Every one of those editions is undeniably and objectively D&D

You forgot to add "for me".

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I get you, and I am usually cautious enough in my posting to add that little "to me" when I distinguish between the editions of D&D in discussions of edition variance.

However, the editions' rules & design imperatives vary enough that, looking objectively, the games feel and play differently enough that someone new/outside the hobby, playing sessions with the serial numbers filed off, might not see the connection between 1Ed and 4Ed.

It's not an insult, just an empirical observation.

As things evolve, they take on new identities. Even though we can trace them back hundreds of millions of years to their earliest ancestors, we don't classify finches, bluejays and ducks as dinosaurs.

RPG design evolution just happens on a much faster pace.

Well, I think this is one of those things where there's just no one who is right vs wrong. Objectively of course 4e and 1e are not identical, there are substantial differences in some respects. So it would be pointless to try to say there's any specific amount of difference that makes one 'not the same game' anymore. I mean most people in the US would call Canadian Football the same game as American Football, but it would be perfectly correct to point out the fairly small but not insignificant differences and say they're not quite the same game. Is 4e too different from 1e to be in this sense 'the same game'? That's a call so subjective its pointless to even debate about it IMHO.