Convincing 4th Edition players to consider 5th Edition

[TwinBahamut]

They didn't realize that people who like 3E existed? Didn't they have, like, sales figures for 3E books and stuff?

I really don't know how else to say it if every way I've tried to explain it has fallen short for you.

Communication can be really hard sometimes...

But, keep in mind that when I say "people who complaints about 3E" or however else I said it, I am talking about people who played 3E, bought its books, enjoyed playing it, but had various complaints that they wanted to see addressed. The kind of person who has many fond memories of playing 3E, but can't stand the idea of getting stuck as playing the Fighter in a core-only game because of balance issues and such, or the DM who is mostly okay with the rules but would really prefer less prep time.

So they were customers, but they were also customers who were demanding improvements to the product. Customers who were then happy when WotC turned around and said it was going to improve the product just like they asked it to, and have since moved on to a product they enjoy more.

I won't really agree with Nagol's "echo chamber/projection" way of describing it, though. That implies that the 4E designers failed to listen to their audience and just went with the game they wanted to make without caring what the fans wanted. That really isn't true, since 4E really is built to address all the problems raised by the fans who were actually complaining about 3E. The real problem is that, prior to the release of 4E, a lot of the current discussions about what fans want out of an RPG were not taking place. I don't think anyone really is at fault here, and I don't even think that 4E's designers really made a mistake (they created a very well made game, after all, even if it isn't perfect). It is more the case that many D&D players (particularly the anti-4E bunch) simply didn't know what they wanted until they suddenly didn't have it anymore. People often don't consciously know such things, after all.

 

[LostSoul]

This is a common myth about 4E. 4E's DC chart is based on what would be a challenge for you at that level. It does not determine that everything you encounter will be a challenge for you at that level. An oak door is an oak door, but a DM who wants to make a door that is hard to break isn't going to use an oak door at level 24.

What I'm trying to say is that the game defines mechanically what a challenge is at 24th level, but it doesn't define the colour or fiction of that challenge the way 3E does. It provides hooks - the tiers, Paragon Paths, Epic Destinies, the level distribution for monsters in the various MMs - but it leaves the exact colour up to the group to define through play.

Similarly, specific tasks often have a set DC. The DC to jump a certain distance does not change with level, nor does the DC to heal someone. The DC to cure a disease is determined by the level of the disease. The DC to hear a loud noise at a certain distance through a stone wall does not change with level.

That's true, so I could be wrong. But: given a certain development of the campaign's colour through play, I don't know if I'd have a problem with a Feytouched Paragon Path Warlock saying "I listen through the stone wall by casting my mind half-into the Feywild, hoping the stone wall isn't mirrored in that alternate world."

 

[TrippyHippy]

I really don't know how else to say it if every way I've tried to explain it has fallen short for you.

Communication can be really hard sometimes...

But, keep in mind that when I say "people who complaints about 3E" or however else I said it, I am talking about people who played 3E, bought its books, enjoyed playing it, but had various complaints that they wanted to see addressed. The kind of person who has many fond memories of playing 3E, but can't stand the idea of getting stuck as playing the Fighter in a core-only game because of balance issues and such, or the DM who is mostly okay with the rules but would really prefer less prep time.

So they were customers, but they were also customers who were demanding improvements to the product. Customers who were then happy when WotC turned around and said it was going to improve the product just like they asked it to, and have since moved on to a product they enjoy more.

I won't really agree with Nagol's "echo chamber/projection" way of describing it, though. That implies that the 4E designers failed to listen to their audience and just went with the game they wanted to make without caring what the fans wanted. That really isn't true, since 4E really is built to address all the problems raised by the fans who were actually complaining about 3E. The real problem is that, prior to the release of 4E, a lot of the current discussions about what fans want out of an RPG were not taking place. I don't think anyone really is at fault here, and I don't even think that 4E's designers really made a mistake (they created a very well made game, after all, even if it isn't perfect). It is more the case that many D&D players (particularly the anti-4E bunch) simply didn't know what they wanted until they suddenly didn't have it anymore. People often don't consciously know such things, after all.

I had intended not to post on this thread again, as I don't want to get wrapped up in a heated argument. But how about this:

Why don't we all stop trying to attribute the problems that D&D currently has with it's fan base to value statements about game design, game styles, marketing, who's fault it was or whatever, and simply agree that the major problem with the last edition was that it was divisive.

My point being that whatever they choose to do with the next edition, they don't want to make the same mistakes again.

 

[Stormonu]

Actually, you're the one who's in error.

If you hit 60% of the time (on a d20 roll), and get a +3, you will now hit 75% of the time. That is a 25% increase in your hit rate (1/4 of 60% is 15%, and 60+15 = 75%). In other words, when previously you hit 4 times, now you will hit 5 times. Hence a 25% increase in DPR.

ah, my mistake. Well, as my teacher used to say "it always helps to show the math."

 

[billd91]

Do you honestly disbelieve the idea that objective measurement can be made of subjective thoughts and feelings? You do realize this means that you disbelieve in the legitimacy of statistics, polls, market research, psychology, sociology, linguistics, and medicine, correct? It isn't like the idea of measuring "fun" or "happiness" by adding up a bunch of subjective opinions is remotely controversial outside of places like ENWorld where people refuse to believe that game design is a real thing. People accumulate data like this all of the time throughout the world. How on Earth is it suddenly a questionable act when it comes to the tiny little world of tabletop RPG enjoyment?

The faultiness is that it doesn't provide an objective measurement of game design at all. It provides a measurement of how people feel about it but since those feelings are subjective in the first place, you're really not getting to any objective metric of one game design approach compared to another. And pollsters and statisticians know quite well that when they're measuring opinions, they're not measuring any objective validity of those opinions.

 

[Minigiant]

The very first edition of D&D was not perfect.

The fans filled the holes in it when they felt they could.
The next edition wasn't perfect but it filled some of the holes of the previous edition. It also opened new holes. And fans filled some holes. And some fans reopened the holes they liked.

And the process repeated with each new edition.

What 5E has to do is have all the holes and fillings so each group can open and close holes to their liking.

Each hole or filling missing means an angry group of D&D fans will be created.

 

[Harlock]

Each hole or filling missing means an angry group of D&D fans will be created.

Which is inevitable. I guarantee people who love 5e, and use a particular module will complain at length on this very forum that that module wasn't core, or that it wasn't released sooner, or that it came in a book that was geared mostly toward (insert grouping they dislike, i.e.) martial powers or players rather than DMs.

I do sometimes long for the pre-internet days when I was blissfully unaware of how nit-picky me and my fellow hobbyists are. And yes, I did include myself in that! I think I may be mellowing in my old age. Or I get tired of nagging, whining, and in-fighting from my kids. Alas, if they didn't game, I might have sold them to gypsies.

 

[Libramarian]

You know, as a 4E fan the last thing I want to see is a 4E clone. Clones of any kind are the last thing I want to see as a new game. I have very little respect for the people who try to profit off of them (unless they change the game around so much it becomes a totally new game, but then it would hardly be a clone). I'd much rather see a game that emphasized good game design and brought some actual innovation to tabletop RPGs.

This is what bothers me so much about 5E so far, really. It's trying to be a retroclone. Everything it does is based on copying older editions of D&D as much as possible, without creating anything new. 3E and 4E have their problems, but at the very least thwy brought new things to the table and tried to expand the game, make it more accessible to new players, and tried to fix what was wrong with older editions. They broke a few things along the way (3E broke any semblance of balance and ignited a fanbase split, 4E apparently finished the splitting by primarily appealing to only a more limited subset of 3E's fanbase), but at least they tried to move the game forward. 5E doesn't seem to want to do that, and that's a problem.

Overall, if WotC has to choose an audience, I think they should choose the audience that cares about good game design, rather than the audience that cares about nostalgia or tradition. Appealing to tradition and nostalgia (making a game that "feels like D&D") works in the short term, but it will slowly kill the brand because it leads to a rejection of broad appeal in favor of appeasing an aging and limited group. A game focused on good game design (who cares if it "feels like D&D" if it's fun) would have a much easier time of appealing to young new audiences, which would help it in the long run. The new fans will eventually outnumber the old fans before long, though it will probably take more time than WotC gave 4E.

Anyways, I guess my opinion is influenced by the fact that I really have no nostalgia for D&D. I like the game, sure, but it isn't anything I have a strong emotional attachment to. Certainly I have no strong emotional attachment to particular rules or races, like some here do. D&D is just a game to me, albeit one it is strangely fun to argue about on forums, so even if the brand is shelved by Hasbro and only exists in the future as a movie license it wouldn't matter too much to me. I'd just find a good fun game to play instead. If WotC wants my money, they need to focus on making that fun game, rather than hoping I stick around for a game designed to appeal to a bunch of old guys' sense of nostalgia.

I think what's causing a lot of the rancor in the edition wars is that we all feel that we're arguing for something larger than just our own gaming preferences. We're arguing over the future of D&D, and maybe the entire hobby of tabletop RPGs.

I think what would help, at least to make these discussions a little less intense, is to recognize that everyone has a strong tendency to assume that their personal preferences represent the preferences of new players. We all think that what we like is what new players would like. I've gathered that many 4e fans feel this way. They think they're the only ones arguing for the future of the hobby, while those who prefer older editions want the hobby to wither and die for the sake of nostalgia. What needs to be understood is that the people who don't like 4e also feel this way.

For instance, I am also very interested in growing this hobby and drawing in new players. But I disagree that 4e was a step in that direction. From my perspective, 4e is in fact the most esoteric and least newbie-friendly edition of all. A lot of it doesn't make sense unless you're in a very specific group of people burnt out on 3e.

Case in point, take another look at the OP of this thread. None of these supposed features would make any sense to someone new to D&D. They're all from the perspective of someone who's already neck deep in this weirdo hobby.

It is my considered opinion that quick, bloody Gygaxian gamism has a broader base of appeal today (yes today, in 2012) than purist-for-system balance-worship. I don't really care at the present time to buttress this opinion with argumentation or even to explain it further; I am sharing it for the purpose that I mentioned: to increase your awareness that 4e fans are not the only people who care about growing the hobby and drawing in new players.

 

[slobo777]

"The DMG doesn't say whether the PCs are expected to have magical items, so they're not necessary" is a fairly common perception, but I think it's another case of illusionism at work. Gygax, Arneson and TSR designers may not have written WBL charts or parcel guidelines, but they sure designed dragons, demons and devils that require +X weaponry to hit. To me, that makes it pretty clear that magical items have been an assumed part of character growth from day one. Personally, I'm not even convinced that Gygax and Arneson didn't more or less assume that higher level PCs would have +X armor too.

But to each their own. Who am I to say that the illusion is badwrongfun?

IIRC, gargoyles were one of the lowest-level monsters that could TPK a party without sufficient magic weapons. To me, they pointed to an assumption of +1 weapons somewhere between 4th and 8th level.

There was also a "high-level starter" table with %age chances for +1 or better armour or weapons and other items depending on class (in AD&D 2E I think) . It was all percentage rolls, you'd have to be fairly high level to guarantee a +1 weapon, but it is as close as AD&D came to "expected wealth" in the core rulebooks.

 

[Libramarian]

If that's the case, then 5E is really going down the wrong path right now, and taking a few lessons from 4E's core design would really help it.

I think your logic is full of holes too. Audiences change. Pac-Man, a game controlled by a single joy-stick, used to be the most popular videogame in existence. These day, Call of Duty, whose sales utterly annihilate anything that came before, requires mastery over two joysticks, over a dozen buttons, an RPG-like character customization system, and vastly more complicated strategy and three-dimensional spatial navigation, not to mention it is required to co-ordinate with your fellow players over voice-chat.

Every single genre of gaming (and by this I mean both traditional board and tabletop gaming and videogaming) has demonstrated a tendency towards much greater complexity and intricacy over time. Over time, audiences become more sophisticated, and develop tastes for more complex (and at the same time easier to use) game systems. At the same time, they develop a more critical eye towards things like game balance, with fanbases full of people willing to use spreadsheets calculus to analyze every element of a game.

I would wager that if 1E was released in today's RPG market, without nostalgia, novelty or name-recognition to prop it up, it would be dead on arrival. Both game design and the tastes of the audience have grown more sophisticated over the years.

1e is pretty damn complex, really. I'd like to run fMRI scans of people playing 1e and 4e, and see which game is actually more taxing on the noodle.