D&D 5th Edition!!! (WITH POLL!!!)

[Dannager]

How do you reconcile that with the larger encounter areas in 4e? For example, the DMG recommends a 16 x 20 square map for a big encounter, and D&D battlemaps are generally 20 x 30 squares. What you describe sounds like th Microsoft Surface, a pretty clunky thing which isn't easy portable.

Surface 2.0 is slimmer, smaller, more powerful, and has a surface detection that is accurate to the individual pixel level. It's very impressive stuff. The original Surface technology was the first entry in a new computing format. Things naturally improve.

As for the larger encounter areas in 4e, Surface-like displays have no problem with this. Because it's a digital battle mat, you can drag the viewpoint around, zoom out, zoom in, and do all of those nifty things that digital displays let you do. If anything, a digital play area makes the larger encounter areas of 4e much easier to handle.

Or do you mean to imply miniatures would be digital too, so you could just reduce the map scale to suit your screen size?

Miniatures could be digital, but Surface can recognize and track real-life physical objects placed on its display. The Carnegie Mellon SurfaceScapes project did exactly this with physical miniatures. You should Google them and watch some of their demonstration videos for an example of how well this technology suits a game like Dungeons & Dragons - even when it's developed by a bunch of students on a tiny budget in one year.

 

[Dannager]

Put another way, you'd prefer to see WotC survive at the expense of the local gaming stores who make their money by selling hard copy products. Why?

WotC doesn't enter into it, except circumstantially. I want to see the hobby evolve, because I feel strongly that what it will become is better than what it has been.

And no, I don't really think that the idea of a friendly local game store is a sustainable one, at least under the current model. It is structured for obsolescence. The hobby will eventually outgrow much of its need for the FLGS, and it is incumbent on the FLGS to innovate in order to make itself attractive to gamers.

As for the hobby being cleansed and purified, in the process it would also be largely destroyed.

No, you just have a mental list of things that you consider vital to the hobby that includes many things that people like myself do not believe are vital.

I want my game materials on paper and damned if I'm going to wear out my printer printing 'em.

Like this. Given that I refer to practically no physical books during my games, and given that my games are still very much D&D and a healthy example of the hobby, I find your assertion that going digital would ruin or destroy the hobby to be ridiculous.

Don't get me wrong, I've no issue with the printed product also being available online for the convenience of thems as wants it that way as long as the online content never exceeds that which is in print.

Right. It's your belief that print ought to be primary, and digital secondary. It's my belief that this is not a sustainable outlook, it is not the direction the hobby is moving in, and that the number of people who feel the way you do shrinks by the day.

Hmmm...so to play the game this way I'd need to buy a tablet (or e-reader), a touch-screen table, and a better computer; while each of my players would have to buy a tablet (or e-reader).

Yes, at whatever point in the future it is that this imagined version of the game would exist. Naturally, of course, this imagined version of the game would not exist until pretty much everyone already owns these things.

This completely defeats one of the better aspects of the game as is: a relatively low cost of entry and a potential near-zero cost after that.

No.

You're missing the whole point of an evolving hobby. It evolves to match the contours of the time.

The future version of the game that I am imagining would not exist until it is as feasible to run that version of the game as it is to run the current version of the game right now.

Yes there's an initial outlay to pick up some books and a few supplies (dice, maybe some minis, etc.), but after that you can play long-term for very little ongoing cost - and that's the way it should be.

Similarly, the version of the game I'm imagining will have a low (or non-existant) initial cost and a low ongoing cost, commensurate with the amount that your typical group probably pays for new supplements currently.

Again, people will not need to buy a Surface-esque digital table, tablets, smartphones, or new computers in order to play, because when the game gets to the point that these things are required to play it, everyone will already own these things. The hobby - as all hobbies do - will evolve to fit the market. If the market cannot support the sort of setup I am imagining yet, the hobby will not require that setup to play.

This is simply where I see the hobby headed. I can't guess at when the hobby will get there - the technology needs to reach a certain level of accessibility, the people making top-tier decisions for the hobby (read: at this point basically WotC, but not necessarily exclusively) need to get on board with it, and the gaming community needs to accept the direction it's taking. But I think it's a matter of when rather than a matter of if.

 

[Jon_Dahl]

In my opinion we need Custom Class as a base class.

No matter what the edition of D&D, we will always have guys who want to create home-brew classes. And this is really fine, how can we expect all the base classes to cover all possible campaign worlds? There's almost one per DM, I guess.

I don't know about 4e, but 3e offered some creative choices in UA and in other book and some customization was attempted in PHBII.

Here I'd like to go back to AD&D 2nd edition Players' Option, where you could buy class abilities. The level of customization was very high. And very broken also.

So a decently made shopping chart where class abilities have prices, with good amount of play-testing, would make me extremely happy. How much should you lose abilities as a fighter to gain Trapfinding? What would wizard have to do get 1d6 hp per level? This could be done, it's possible! However I'd still like the traditional core classes to remain as the most appealing classes, but someone who wants create 20% fighter, 10% cleric and 70% roque, should be pleased without breaking the game-balance.

 

[Balesir]

In my opinion we need Custom Class as a base class.

Sorry, but this (among several, similar, posts around) just gave me a "facepalm" moment.

It's not that wanting a game like this is unreasonable - in fact, it makes perfect sense to me for a whole class and style of play. But why use D&D for it??? I could barely imagine a more ill-fitted starting point if I tried. It's like saying "I really fancy a little, open top runaround - a sporty number - so I figure I'm gonna buy an SUV and modify it..." Huh??

There are loads of good games out there that don't even use the concept of "character class". There are old games, new games, current games and games long out-of-print. Why the heck do you need to try to imitate (probably poorly) these games with D&D?

 

[I'm A Banana]

I'd start with 4e as a base, as I want to move forward, not backwards. There are some important lessons learned in 4e, and I wouldn't want to loose them.

I'd look back for inspiration, however.

• More LTR Focus: Instead of being organized around the combat encounter, my 5e would be organized around the adventure. Adventures would be designed to take ~ 3 sessions, at about 4 hours each. Parties could succeed or fail them. There might be combat, or there might not be combat. This brings back the way older editions rewarded finding treasure more than killing goblins -- the point is the success, not the combats on the way to success. Among other things, this means redoing HP, healing surges, and AEDU structure.
• Less Detailed Combat, More Detailed Other Things: With combat forming one major pillar of the game, rather than the ONLY major pillar of the game, it must be more fluid, flexible, and cinematic -- more abstract. The tactical level is expanded from the individual combat to the entire adventure -- you must think creatively about how to succeed this adventure, which means combat, but it also means (more detailed) Interactions, Explorations, and Discoveries. Your fighter gets interesting attacks, but also interesting abilities to use in those other situations.
• Power Source = Power List; Class = Class Features: The abilities you get come from the list of abilities relevant to your power source -- all clerics cull from the same list of prayers as their paladin friends. Your class affects how you use powers via your role, so Fighters use their martial abilties different than Rogues use them. "Martial" classes become tied to equipment: fighters and rogues and the like get awesome magical weapons and armor while wizards and clerics are getting awesome magical spells. This ties into the idea below.
• Treasure Is Random Again: Since all necessary maths are accounted for in the class itself, you don't HAVE to give out any specific treasure to anyone. What you get, instead, is the freedom to award goofy, random, possibly useless stuff that is simply just magical and neat. Since your fighter automatically gets, say, a +1 Sword, you don't need to award that. You can, in fact, award a sword that deals fire damage, but that also has a pryomaniac personality inside that the party can lay to rest (or not).
• Monsters Are Interesting Again: Since not everything has to be a combat, monsters can fill roles other than "sack of HP to beat up." MMs are filled with combat monsters, trap monsters (hazards, or critters like the Rust Monster), social monsters (fey? other NPCs?), even ally monsters and reward monsters (instead of treasure, you got a magical angel to follow your party around!). MMs are also filled with challenges for other areas of the game, such as tough regions to Explore, or difficult mysteries to Discover, and interesting folk to Interact with. MMs are "books of encounter ideas" again.

That's the short list, anyway.

 

[Raven Crowking]

I'd start with 4e as a base, as I want to move forward, not backwards.

Here's the thing; I don't believe that any edition is "forward" or "backward". They are experiements, IMHO, each of which has good points and bad. Go back to THAC0? No thank you. Keep going along the track of Two Million Feats? No thank you.

If you want to create a 5e that really rocks, what you need to do is parse through every edition, see what is there, figure out why it is there and what it adds to or subtracts from play experience, decide what parts you find to be the best, and begin the job of amalgamating ideas and rules from all those games. And then you need to playtest, playtest, playtest to make sure that you haven't caused some new problem.

Ideally, you have a combat system that allows for strategic decision making, but plays quickly, feels "right" (or a close approximation thereto), and can accomodate a grid...but does not need one.

You have a flavourful magic system that includes some risk for casters.

You have a system that retains a motive to explore/adventure beyond the GM saying "Here's the AP we're going to use".

You have a system that rewards investment in the game, and good play....no more wandering treasures that keep popping up until you find them.

You have a system with real risk but where the characters are not so fragile that they drop like flies.

You have magic items that are wondrous and do interesting things....and that means that they are selcted and placed by the GM rather than bought from MagicMarts.

(I mean, really, how can you have a default PoL that also, for some reason, also has any magic item you might want to buy available? Civilizations have collapsed. There are vast stretches of evil and unsettled lands between isolated outposts. But each of those outposts has the resources to sell you an item you might desire. )

You have a system where it is relatively easy to gain levels 1-3, then slower for 4-6, slower yet for 7+.....characters do not rocket to Epic level in less than a game year!

You have a game where there is an actual "Normal Man" standard again, so that relative values may be judged, and so that character growth means growth, rather than simply ratcheting up all numbers so that the players have an illusion of character growth against relatively static math.

YMMV, of course....but that is what I am aiming for!


RC

 

[TwoSix]

Again, people will not need to buy a Surface-esque digital table, tablets, smartphones, or new computers in order to play, because when the game gets to the point that these things are required to play it, everyone will already own these things. The hobby - as all hobbies do - will evolve to fit the market. If the market cannot support the sort of setup I am imagining yet, the hobby will not require that setup to play.

This is simply where I see the hobby headed. I can't guess at when the hobby will get there - the technology needs to reach a certain level of accessibility, the people making top-tier decisions for the hobby (read: at this point basically WotC, but not necessarily exclusively) need to get on board with it, and the gaming community needs to accept the direction it's taking. But I think it's a matter of when rather than a matter of if.

I can't XP you right now, but you're definitely not alone in believing this is the only logical direction for the hobby.

 

[Quickleaf]

Surface 2.0 is slimmer, smaller, more powerful, and has a surface detection that is accurate to the individual pixel level. It's very impressive stuff. The original Surface technology was the first entry in a new computing format. Things naturally improve.

Surface 2.0 is 40" wide, 4" thick, and weighs over 100 lbs. And the price tag is, depending on the website you trust, going to be in the $7k to $12k range. How can that compete with my battlemaps which fold into my laptop bag or backpack when I go to my friend's place for game night? And could any FLGS afford one at that price?

As for the larger encounter areas in 4e, Surface-like displays have no problem with this. Because it's a digital battle mat, you can drag the viewpoint around, zoom out, zoom in, and do all of those nifty things that digital displays let you do. If anything, a digital play area makes the larger encounter areas of 4e much easier to handle.

Says you My group has enough trouble keepin track of what's right there in front of us without worrying about tactical things "off camera."

Miniatures could be digital, but Surface can recognize and track real-life physical objects placed on its display. The Carnegie Mellon SurfaceScapes project did exactly this with physical miniatures. You should Google them and watch some of their demonstration videos for an example of how well this technology suits a game like Dungeons & Dragons - even when it's developed by a bunch of students on a tiny budget in one year.

Impressive work - I just watched the 2009 video narrated by Mike Cole of the SurfaceScapes project. I enjoyed how they linked the kingdom map to the battlemap with a zoom-in feature. The animated dire wolf and pop up dialog wheels had a very video game feel to them. Not sure about rolling digital dice but still Very interesting stuff.

When they come out with something portable and affordable I'll have to check it out. Until then paper and pencil still rule - I do my best creative work that way and it's fast. I'm sure the next generation of gamers who grow up with this stuff will sail through SurfaceScapes and be as comfortable as can be.

 

[Wiseblood]

[MENTION=20323]Quickleaf[/MENTION]

Not 4 core. 3 Warrior, Wizard and Priest. 3 Hybrid Druid, Gish (for lack of a better term) and Cleric. Rogue had to go. Anyone can be a thief. Two fairly short flavorful spell lists.

 

[Dannager]

Surface 2.0 is 40" wide, 4" thick, and weighs over 100 lbs. And the price tag is, depending on the website you trust, going to be in the $7k to $12k range. How can that compete with my battlemaps which fold into my laptop bag or backpack when I go to my friend's place for game night? And could any FLGS afford one at that price?

It can't, obviously. That's why I said I can't predict when this will reach the point of mass accessibility. But it will eventually get there. It will probably take two more generations of refining (so Surface 4.0, perhaps), but as with all new technologies, it'll get there. It's not like the underlying technology demands that it be kept out of reach.

Says you My group has enough trouble keepin track of what's right there in front of us without worrying about tactical things "off camera."

When it's as simple as touch-and-drag to see what's "off camera" I don't think you'll run into many "Oh, I forgot that monster was even there!" moments. Especially if each player has their own handheld screen (tablet or smartphone) that they can use to refer to their character sheet, look at the map, take notes, or queue up their next action.

Impressive work - I just watched the 2009 video narrated by Mike Cole of the SurfaceScapes project. I enjoyed how they linked the kingdom map to the battlemap with a zoom-in feature. The animated dire wolf and pop up dialog wheels had a very video game feel to them. Not sure about rolling digital dice but still Very interesting stuff.

Rolling digital dice was a necessary evil that sprang from the limitations of Surface and the resources of the team. The only real way for the table to read dice rolled on it is to: assume that all dice rolled are standardized 1-on-bottom-so-20-on-top dice (since it can really only read the bottom face, and thus has to infer what the top face reads), be programmed to recognize dice on its surface and "read" numbers (in a variety of styles), and have camera resolution capable of doing that reading. It will eventually be possible, but they did the next best thing by making rolling digital dice a tactile experience all the same.