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

[Lanefan]

Yeah, the thing right now might be good, but what if the next thing is great?

What if it isn't? The old thing's gone, and the new thing's no good. Now where are you?

I’ve always thought WOTC’s latest spiel of, “5E is the last edition” to be mostly nonsense because imagine being the D&D Lead in 2040 and being told, “yeah, so you actually aren’t allowed to change anything. We just think we really nailed it 30 years ago.”

I want the game to change, evolve, and grow. Sometimes it’ll be good. Sometimes it’ll be bad.

Either way, it’s better than stagnation.

If something isn't broken and is performing its intended function, there's no good reason to try to fix it.

With D&D, the underlying chassis of 0e-1e-2e works just fine but there were lots of individual things riding on that chassis that needed fixing in one way or another (and we could argue forever about which specific things needed which specific repairs, but that's a different discussion). Which meant that to a certain extent, material from any of those editions could be ported over to another without too much problem or conversion required (I'm ignoring some of the late-2e-era splat stuff here).

So fix those bits that need fixing, but leave the underlying chassis alone.

With 3e-4e-5e, WotC have pretty much rebuilt the underlying chassis each time; resulting in neither forward nor backward compatibility. Good for corporate sales, perhaps, but that's the only benefit to anyone that I can see.

 

[Lanefan]

I agree with this. I think you can see it as far back as the transition from very early D&D through Dragonlance and into AD&D second edition, where the assumed activity changes from deadly dungeon heists to a more Tolkienesque/epic fantasy quest structure in response to what the broader market of non-wargamers seemed to be looking for from it.

And yet you could still play 2e in deadly-dungeon-heist mode and the game wouldn't bat an eyelid.

 

[Lanefan]

I think editions changes, for D&D have been absolutely essential. Sure, you can still play OD&D or even 2E, but those systems are fundamentally flawed and would never be able to support the mass casual market that 5E is today.

I disagree. Had any previous edition stumbled on to the convergence of lucky factors that has graced 5e, that edition would have become the mass-casual game at the time.

Never mind that 1e in fact was a big deal for a while, warts and all.

 

[Lanefan]

It's because of edition change we lost gold for exp, racial level limits, 3d6 stats rolled on order, the commoner class, material components, d4 hit dice, and true Vancain casting. How much more lost can we stand???

The loss of material components and d4 hit dice is unfortunate.

 

[lynnfredricks]

The point of new editions is to sell new sets of books, both to existing customers and new customers. It also allows you to make price and licensing agreement changes (much like a new software release).

5e was doing pretty well until this year. The risk of One D&D was that, with a new set of books on the way, it would kill channel sales of core books - but if there is too much perceived incompatibility, it would kill sales of the other books. Now that the date has firmed up, anyone who has done any research will discover new books are on the way, so they won't buy existing stock.

A drop in sales was inevitable even before the bad edition handling, not very positive reviews of other books, and the OGL crisis. Hopefully, Hasbro doesn't have a major crapload of stock in the books channel, because that equates to additional cost.

 

[Charlaquin]

My take: game design evolves. Designers learn and innovate new and better things, and edition change resets are necessary to be able to incorporate new design philosophies and technologies. If you don’t have periodic edition resets, you end up with something like Call of Cthulhu, where in the year of our lord two thousand and twenty three, your game still has fourty three unique skills, not counting potential variations thereupon (like knowing multiple “language: other”s), featuring such gems as drive auto, pilot, and operate heavy machinery as separate skills, which share a zero-sum pool of points with firearms (pistol), firearms (rifle/shotgun), and freaking credit rating.

Now, granted, CoC is a financially successful game, doing about as well as any RPG not named Dungeons and Dragons can be expected to do. But I think one would be hard-pressed to make the case that it’s a better game for having stuck by such an outdated design for so long than it could have been with one or more edition resets. Indeed, there are plenty of examples out there of more modern games doing what CoC is ostensibly designed to do far better than CoC does. And I for one am on the side of art. I will always favor the move that results in a better designed game over the one that makes some dude in a suit’s imaginary numbers go up a little higher.

 

[Parmandur]

My take: game design evolves. Designers learn and innovate new and better things, and edition change resets are necessary to be able to incorporate new design philosophies and technologies. If you don’t have periodic edition resets, you end up with something like Call of Cthulhu, where in the year of our lord two thousand and twenty three, your game still has fourty three unique skills, not counting potential variations thereupon (like knowing multiple “language: other”s), featuring such gems as drive auto, pilot, and operate heavy machinery as separate skills, which share a zero-sum pool of points with firearms (pistol), firearms (rifle/shotgun), and freaking credit rating.

Now, granted, CoC is a financially successful game, doing about as well as any RPG not named Dungeons and Dragons can be expected to do. But I think one would be hard-pressed to make the case that it’s a better game for having stuck by such an outdated design for so long than it could have been with one or more edition resets. Indeed, there are plenty of examples out there of more modern games doing what CoC is ostensibly designed to do far better than CoC does. And I for one am on the side of art. I will always favor the move that results in a better designed game over the one that makes some dude in a suit’s imaginary numbers go up a little higher.

For an RPG, the art isn't the design, it is the play. And Call of Cthulu has managed to move forward even while needing to distance itself a bit from so, so much of the original source material: updating and nuancing the Setting have been a igger concern than the mechabics...but the mechanics just work. And by not I kerning with those overly much, older material remains useful and relevant.

 

[Charlaquin]

For an RPG, the art isn't the design, it is the play.

RPG design is absolutely an art. Gameplay is gameplay, and while there is some artistry in the running of a great game… a lot of that artistry is also game design work.

And Call of Cthulu has managed to move forward even while needing to distance itself a bit from so, so much of the original source material: updating and nuancing the Setting have been a igger concern than the mechabics...but the mechanics just work. And by not I kerning with those overly much, older material remains useful and relevant.

I don’t dispute that CoC works. Only that it wouldn’t work better if it had updated its mechanics with the developments in game design over the past three decades.

 

[Parmandur]

I don’t dispute that CoC works. Only that it wouldn’t work better if it had updated its mechanics with the developments in game design over the past three decades.

Possibly...but it has outlasted a lot of those games in question, and is still going at over 40 years. Ao, it does the answer the question of the OP if it is possible to do so. Yes, an RPG can be an evergreen product, though few have tried other than Call of Cthulu:BRP in general, including RuneQuest...but CoC really stands above the rest of it's kin. Traveller, arguably, though not nearly as successfully.

It does seem to be the way that D&D is trending, and I think it will be successful, and not just financially.

 

[Charlaquin]

Possibly...but it has outlasted a lot of those games in question, and is still going at over 40 years.

Undoubtedly. But again, I’m on the side of art. A product outlasting its competitors matters infinitely less to me than a game being the best version of itself it can be.

Ao, it does the answer the question of the OP if it is possible to do so. Yes, an RPG can be an evergreen product, though few have tried other than Call of Cthulu:BRP in general, including RuneQuest...but CoC really stands above the rest of its kin. Traveller, arguably, thought not nearly as successfully.

I mean, the literal answer to the question, “does an RPG need edition resets?” is objectively no, and you don’t even need the example of CoC to illustrate that. The more interesting and useful question to discuss, however, is “should RPGs have edition resets?” The answer to that question is subjective, because “should” is a value judgement. Since, as established, I value the quality of a work of art infinitely more than its longevity as a product, my answer is an unequivocal and resounding yes.

It does seem to be the way that D&D is trending, and I think it will be successful, and not just financially.

Well, that’s two more questions: “Will D&D do an edition reset again?” to which I think the answer is probably, but not for a good long time, and “is that decision going to lead to success?” to which the answer depends on what metric we’re judging success by. If it’s sales, then I think, again, probably.