D&D General Does D&D (and RPGs in general) Need Edition Resets?

[Minigiant]

The Complete Guide to Feats
A supplement for AD&D
In this book we introduce the optional Feats subsystem. Every character gets one every 4 levels. We describe 50 feats for your game including 22 class and race specific ones.
Plug this into your game if you wish, no other changes necessary

Congratulations.

Every PC in AD&D is 2-3x stronger and more imbalanced because feats weren't accounted for when designing classes.

 

[payn]

Which is, again, "because people bought it, there can't actually be a problem."

Unless we can discuss how a popular product can also be one that has design issues, sometimes even ones that require recall, there is nothing further we can say. But sure, if we wish to live in a universe where the Pinto couldn't possibly have a design fault because it sold well, then your conclusion is the only possible one we can come to.

My point is 5E is not the Pinto you think it is. The problems you state are not severe enough to stop enough people from having fun and using the product.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Wasn't the introduction of Effective Character Levels and Level Adjustments in 3e's Savage Species, an attempt to discourage us players from playing something exotic?

No, it was an attempt to try and make sure that if something was more powerful than the common options, there was some sort of balancing factor so it wasn't an intelligence test. It didn't work worth a damn, but the problem it was trying to address was real.

The way its usually handled these days is to just kneecap the race instead, which I'm not sure everyone finds better, but its kind of an intractable problem in game that at least makes a pretense of balance amidst characters of the same level.

(Its not a coincidence this is less of an issue in "you get what you pay for" systems.)

 

[mamba]

By current regime I mean the folks in charge right now, making decisions in 2024. Not WotC as a company historically.

the game is still selling well, they are not going to upset that with an actual new edition.

Just because they do only a slight revision now does not mean that doing no more than that since BX or 1e would have worked, which to me is the issue we are discussing

 

[payn]

the game is still selling well, they are not going to upset that with an actual new edition.

Just because they do only a slight revision now does not mean that doing no more than that since BX or 1e would have worked, which to me is the issue we are discussing

Yeah, I know, and I have been saying thats ridiculous. Nobody is saying the game will make no changes from here until forever. You are going to get updates that will add and change the game, just incrementally. Also, who knows maybe folks are right and 5E is broken garbage and folks will eventually come around. I dont think so though.

 

[mamba]

I know people who play 5E thwt are younger than 5E. "Current regime" I read as "modern D&D since the early Teens".

thereby ignoring most of the history... they do not release a new edition because 5e is still selling great, if it did not, we would get a 6e, just like the last few times.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

My point is 5E is not the Pinto you think it is. The problems you state are not severe enough to stop enough people from having fun and using the product.

There were only 27 people who died due to the Pinto's problems. More were injured without actually dying, but far fewer than the actual number of Pintos sold.

Something can be an extremely serious fault while still not actually being some universal, every-single-user-sees-it problem. Now, that doesn't mean every fault IS "extremely serious." Many aren't. But the "people bought it, therefore it can't be a problem" argument is an excuse, not a rebuttal, here. And I'm quite tired of this conversation-ending "nothing to see here, move along citizen" kind of response. There are issues. Criticism has grown with time. And some of those issues cannot, even in principle, be fixed with purely iterative, piecemeal, baby-steps changes.

That is simply the fact of the matter. Whether WotC chooses to address this on its own, or waits until it becomes genuinely impossible to ignore the criticism, is a separate matter entirely. Telling me, tacitly, to like it or lump it because "it's popular" accomplishes literally nothing.

 

[mamba]

obody is saying the game will make no changes from here until forever. You are going to get updates that will add and change the game, just incrementally.

Either there is a limit to what you can graft onto a system incrementally, or there is no viable distinction between a new edition and incremental changes. I feel like the argument that incremental changes would be enough to keep up with RPG development since 1e is trying to explain as incremental changes what we got as revisions

 

[payn]

There were only 27 people who died due to the Pinto's problems. More were injured without actually dying, but far fewer than the actual number of Pintos sold.

Something can be an extremely serious fault while still not actually being some universal, every-single-user-sees-it problem. Now, that doesn't mean every fault IS "extremely serious." Many aren't. But the "people bought it, therefore it can't be a problem" argument is an excuse, not a rebuttal, here. And I'm quite tired of this conversation-ending "nothing to see here, move along citizen" kind of response. There are issues. Criticism has grown with time. And some of those issues cannot, even in principle, be fixed with purely iterative, piecemeal, baby-steps changes.

That is simply the fact of the matter. Whether WotC chooses to address this on its own, or waits until it becomes genuinely impossible to ignore the criticism, is a separate matter entirely. Telling me, tacitly, to like it or lump it because "it's popular" accomplishes literally nothing.

Good luck.

 

[Velderan]

My point is 5E is not the Pinto you think it is. The problems you state are not severe enough to stop enough people from having fun and using the product.

Basically. I'd be surprised if we won't see some tweaks to how CR is handled in the 2024 books, while not completely throwing out what's come before. My guess is monsters in the 2024 monster book will more accurately reflect their challenge (maybe we get a new way of building encounters?) while stuff from before will continue to just be a best guess that can still be used since the rest of the monster's mechanics will be just fine in the 2024 rule revisions. A step forward while not throwing out what came before.