Celebrim
Legend
I would like D&D Next to basically be D&D Last.
I could see adding an Advanced Rules Supplement down the line that complexes up the game for people (who like me) find the 5e game a bit too much inspired by BECMI and a bit too little like a modern version of AD&D, but way too much of the hobby is invested in rule smithing up new approaches to existing approaches. It's complete narcissism and wasted effort. If you are good at rulessmithing, actually tackle hard problems for which the system doesn't have a good approach. And if your good at story telling, your efforts would be better spent telling good stories in existing systems rather than reinventing the wheel. Forty years into the hobby, we have a ton of systems that ought to work well enough for whatever story you are wanting to tell, and our hobby has gotten advanced enough that these rules engines come with licenses many of which allow you to drive for free.
I'm a rules smith myself. I'm currently in the process of rewriting or creating all the minigames and subsystems that back (or should be backing) the Skull & Shackles AP, so that they support the story better, because it's really obvious to the less experienced GM trying to run the AP that despite it being an AP it's less a how to guide than a rudimentary framework to inspire a highly experienced DM. It's kind of embarassing to the whole hobby how vague the text is or how little detail is actually there compared to the verbiage. But some of the ideas here are really good, and I haven't read the text yet (because I'm a player right now), but it feels like with some refinement this could have been a classic.
It's almost never the core engine that is really the problem with a system. (Unless you are doing something with dice pools and number of successes, which in practice tends to always be pretty terrible no matter how elegant it sounds.) I have some problems with the 5e core engine but I think mechanically its good enough that if your game isn't fun, it's probably not the core engines fault. It could be subsystems, in that your trying to tell a story that isn't focused on the expected core gameplay (in the same way S&S is focused on running a ship, ship to ship combat, mass combat, and a bunch of subsystems tangential to the Pathfinder core engine) and I think modern systems eschew subsystems to their detriment rather than trying to build them. But much more likely, any problems a game has now aren't in the science of gaming, but the art of it.
So tl;dr - D&D Next, D&D Last, D&D Forever, and whatever you do it ought to be modular plug ins for people who need that mechanical support because they've drifted from the core gameplay the core rules support. Much more than a new edition, I want to see companies putting out good examples of play.
I could see adding an Advanced Rules Supplement down the line that complexes up the game for people (who like me) find the 5e game a bit too much inspired by BECMI and a bit too little like a modern version of AD&D, but way too much of the hobby is invested in rule smithing up new approaches to existing approaches. It's complete narcissism and wasted effort. If you are good at rulessmithing, actually tackle hard problems for which the system doesn't have a good approach. And if your good at story telling, your efforts would be better spent telling good stories in existing systems rather than reinventing the wheel. Forty years into the hobby, we have a ton of systems that ought to work well enough for whatever story you are wanting to tell, and our hobby has gotten advanced enough that these rules engines come with licenses many of which allow you to drive for free.
I'm a rules smith myself. I'm currently in the process of rewriting or creating all the minigames and subsystems that back (or should be backing) the Skull & Shackles AP, so that they support the story better, because it's really obvious to the less experienced GM trying to run the AP that despite it being an AP it's less a how to guide than a rudimentary framework to inspire a highly experienced DM. It's kind of embarassing to the whole hobby how vague the text is or how little detail is actually there compared to the verbiage. But some of the ideas here are really good, and I haven't read the text yet (because I'm a player right now), but it feels like with some refinement this could have been a classic.
It's almost never the core engine that is really the problem with a system. (Unless you are doing something with dice pools and number of successes, which in practice tends to always be pretty terrible no matter how elegant it sounds.) I have some problems with the 5e core engine but I think mechanically its good enough that if your game isn't fun, it's probably not the core engines fault. It could be subsystems, in that your trying to tell a story that isn't focused on the expected core gameplay (in the same way S&S is focused on running a ship, ship to ship combat, mass combat, and a bunch of subsystems tangential to the Pathfinder core engine) and I think modern systems eschew subsystems to their detriment rather than trying to build them. But much more likely, any problems a game has now aren't in the science of gaming, but the art of it.
So tl;dr - D&D Next, D&D Last, D&D Forever, and whatever you do it ought to be modular plug ins for people who need that mechanical support because they've drifted from the core gameplay the core rules support. Much more than a new edition, I want to see companies putting out good examples of play.
