D&D (2024) Does anyone else think that 1D&D will create a significant divide in the community?

[overgeeked]

I actually am a published board game designer: I designed the educational game Up the Creek: The Salmon Survival Game as a side gig back when I was in grad school. I got paid a whole 3 grand, which was a bit of a windfall at that time of my life. So there! It is minimal experience, but it is experience.

Right. You have experience as a freelance designer. Not the main designer or creator of an original idea and taking that from idea to finished product. As already stated in the thread by people with more full design experience, that’s not how it works. Art isn’t democratic. Being a freelance designer isn’t democratic either. You get hired, do the work to the satisfaction of your employer, then get paid. No democracy involved.

 

[Thomas Shey]

...In my experience, no-one can actually agree on what the 'basic structure' of D&D is. I'm really starting to believe that it's all just projection.

Eh. I think there's been enough common elements from all the way back to OD&D that you can point at them, and a number of them are pretty rare (levels, classes, significant hit point advancement over time) outside of D&D and its clear offshoots that you can call them that. No one of them says D&D per se, but as a set that structure has been fairly consistent.

 

[tetrasodium]

The what is what must be path of near deckchair moving stagnation is the same one KFC took a couple decades back with the domestic (US) market even while competitors like popeyes zaxbies raising canes & so on were establishing & growing a foothold. Coincidentally KFC's international wing continued to focus on innovation quality & experience in markets where they took the competition seriously. Today US KFC is pretty much synonymous with mediocre yet pricy offerings from a tired & overplayed menu while the international offerings are anything but & international competitors are using that to make inroads in the US market.

Spoiler: Here is a good video on it

 

[Bill Zebub]

Right. You have experience as a freelance designer. Not the main designer or creator of an original idea and taking that from idea to finished product. As already stated in the thread by people with more full design experience, that’s not how it works. Art isn’t democratic. Being a freelance designer isn’t democratic either. You get hired, do the work to the satisfaction of your employer, then get paid. No democracy involved.

I am totally picturing a black beret and a fake French accent.

Needs more Sartre references, though.

 

[Aldarc]

The what is what must be path of near deckchair moving stagnation is the same one KFC took a couple decades back with the domestic (US) market even while competitors like popeyes zaxbies raising canes & so on were establishing & growing a foothold. Coincidentally KFC's international wing continued to focus on innovation quality & experience in markets where they took the competition seriously. Today US KFC is pretty much synonymous with mediocre yet pricy offerings from a tired & overplayed menu while the international offerings are anything but & international competitors are using that to make inroads in the US market.

Spoiler: Here is a good video on it

Bojangles is better.

 

[Bill Zebub]

A group of players will fall allover themselves to say D&D 5.5 is "the best" and some new players will be "drawn in" by the "new" and whatever shinny new gimick it has game.

The corollary is that some group of non-new players will insist that a previous version was the best, confusing quality with nostalgia. Or maybe just hating anything new.

 

[Aldarc]

The corollary is that some group of non-new players will insist that a previous version was the best, confusing quality with nostalgia. Or maybe just hating anything new.

We don't hate new things. Those wicked WotC designers just hates us. Yes. They hates us, precious. They pander, but I am not wrongs, precious. It's the children. grognard grognard

 

[Yora]

The corollary is that some group of non-new players will insist that a previous version was the best, confusing quality with nostalgia. Or maybe just hating anything new.

But sometimes never isn't better. If there is such a thing as better and worse for game systems.

 

[Bill Zebub]

But sometimes never isn't better. If there is such a thing as better and worse for game systems.

Agreed, although not sure why you prefaced it with "But".

 

[HaroldTheHobbit]

That isn't design. That's marketing.

Optimizing products to be as commercially attractive as possible, ie design, comes a few steps before marketing.