First I don't agree with you that 4e is some sort of failure or that it was 'rejected' in some way. I think the reactions were polarizing, but that doesn't mean I think that 4e had the problems you imagine. In fact WotC put out over 30 supplements in 5 years for 4e, that hardly sounds like a failed product to me! YOU didn't like it, that's a LOT DIFFERENT.
Actually, I'd argue that the 30 large supplements in 5 years was a big reason it did fail. Too much content too fast. They saturated the market and no one would buy the content.
I've done a blog post on
why 4e failed. The solid majority of the reasons have nothing to do with the system itself.
Did it fail though? Well, I discuss that in my blog but they fired the man in charge of 4e (Bill Slavicsek) and decided to spent three years racking up debts and making a new edition rather than continue to publish 4e, so that's a bad sign. And the company lost its position as market leader to a company essentially dedicated to re-publishing an abandoned edition of the game.
Did I like 4e? I found it okay. It was adequate. I rather liked what they were doing with the later books post-Essentials.
I was initially rather anti-4e. Or rather, I was really supportive of the changes during the design but disappointing by the final product. Initially just by the pure combat focus and needless symmetry of the classes. As I played and ran the game I mellowed to some aspects but saw other problems more and more.
Still, even when running and playing it wasn't my preferred edition and did not let me tell the stories I wanted to tell. I always found myself compromising my adventures to accommodation the needs of the game. With well over two years of 4e experience under my belt I could probably do better, and have a better idea of the stories that would compliment the system. There are stories that 4e would have been good at telling, but they were never high on my list and my main group wholeheartedly rejected 4e so considering them was a moot point.
The point is A) Mike Mearls has every incentive to SAY that he can make a game that suits everyone, but he has offered neither an example nor a plan for such that sounds viable to most of us.
I don't think he can.
He's the manager of D&D (he's in charge of the entire brand but isn't technically the one making the game), but there's more than a couple levels of bureaucracy above him. What can and cannot be revealed is pretty heavily controlled and WotC as a company has a pretty serious problem with secrecy and control.
Plus I think they're still working on the details. They can't get into specifics because they haven't solidified yet because they're still tweaking the base game. They have ideas and know how it should work but they haven't actually written it enough to say for sure.
B) He's got every incentive to try to find neutral ground, but he's actually failed to do that, whether because he isn't REALLY interested, or because he just doesn't know how/it is impossible.
Clarke's first law states:
When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.
Given how totally and completely different
d20 Modern felt from 3e or
Gamma World felt from 4e, I say it is quite possible.
Frankly I think it is just impossible, and I'm not even close to alone in that opinion.
However you're also not even close to unanimous with that opinion.
Keep in mind the surveys. (I assume you're actually filling out the surveys and not just ranting on message boards that will never be read.)
They're reading the surveys. They can see how many people are happy and how many are upset. And they've stated they're willing to make major changes if as little as 10% of respondents are unhappy.
So there are a few likely options:
a) they're ignoring 4e fans outright
b) they're lying and don't care if people like the game
c) they're hoping when the tactical modules are released more 4e fans will be happy
d) the percentage of unhappy fans is smaller than 10%
Now, if the answer is a) or b) we're pretty much screwed. And so is 5e. But they'd have to be pretty silly to do that and risk killing a game they grew up playing
and sacrifice their jobs (especially as jobs in the RPG industry might be hard to get if they're seen as the people who killed D&D).
C) is a possibility. I included it out of fairness. It's worrisome as it means they might be in for disappointment if the tactical module goes up like a lead balloon and is hated by ardent 4e fans. This is the most-likely bad scenario.
But it does mean the
worst case scenario is a tactical module that doesn't appeal to a fraction of a fraction of the total audience.
The most likely scenario is d): people
like 5e and the majority are satisfied with what they see or are optimistic about the game. Let's face it, forum goers are a pretty niche sampling of the audience and people complaining on message boards are not likely to be a representational sampling. Casual players or those content with what they're seeing are unlikely to spend their free hours ranting online. And, frankly, the majority of players will likely play whatever game is set before them.
While the surveys are likely skewed as well, favouring those who want to comment or are interested enough in the playtest to, well, playtest, there's a far better chance of an even sampling there than here.
If DDN cannot incorporate, as an integral part of the game, the things that make 4e popular, then clearly there's a serious problem. You cannot honestly dispute that can you?
Umm.... well... kinda.
I don't there's a single thing that you can point to and say "this makes 4e into 4e." Some might say AEDU powers. Others might say the focus on encounters as the core of combat. Others might point to tactical gameplay. Some might view the strong party roles as defining of 4e. And others still might say something like the Nentir Vale, Primordials, and dragonborn.
Some of those things are easier to integrate into 5e than others. They've already discussed a module that makes PC resources into Encounter resources. And there is the tactical module. Those two options together might satisfy a large percentage of 4e fans.
Will they satisfy every single 4e fan? No. But neither will they satisfy every 1e or 3e or PF fan. This is the gamble of 5e.
4e gambled that it could try and satisfy a large majority of 3e fans and make up for lost fans with new fans, such as MMO players. Instead, it satisfied a minority of 3e fans and an unsustainable number of new players.
5e is trying a very different tactic, focusing first on appealing to actual fans of the game rather than potential fans (read: theoretical fans). The alternative, the 4.5e, would be a huge mistake as; just like 3.5e, it would not pull in all 4e fans nor would it attract fans from previous editions. 4.5e would target a very, very niche audience. 5e at least has the
change of attracting a larger audience.
However, I don't see a way to start with that architecture and make it easily expandable to fit different playstyles. Since that's a big part of 5e's design goals, I don't see it happening. OTOH, the team may yet have something up their sleeves to recover some of that 4e feel for folks that want it. I think supporting 4e's tone is easily within the possibilities there, given what we've seen so far. (Some of 4e's other advantages....less so.)
