D&D 5E History repeating itself?

[wedgeski]

WotC has a horrible track record with these things, so an "all-in" consumer might want to know the answers before buying in.

From what I've seen, my next D&D campaign will almost certainly be DDN, but really the only mystery that realistically needs to be answered by anyone right now is the adventure support, which is important, at least to me, not because it'll be a deciding factor in my purchases but because it will inform the amount of work I'm going to have to do.

I'm sure Mearls or someone could tell us right now how many adventures are in the pipeline for the first, say, three years of the game, and that information might even be forthcoming prior to release.

As for the other questions: the edition will last as long as it makes money; everyone's ideas of "core" are different so, absolutely, some players are going to have to wait for things they'd prefer to see in the core books; and a 3.5-type re-work may or may not occur depending on how the game is selling, but it's likely they'll plan for it in case it's needed and we should assume it will happen at some point.

Honestly, if WotC came out right now and said "There will be no mid-stream update!", I'd have a hard time believing it anyway and all it would take is a change in authority over there and the decision could be reversed without the batting of so much as a single eyelid. The community would piss about broken promises and would just be ignored.

 

[Quickleaf]

Agreed. For example, multiclassing seems to be a perfect example of the kind of system they'd want to massively stress-test.

Agreed. I think it's more apropos to call the "public playtest" what it is: market research.

There's just too much flux in basic design elements (like class) and not enough stress-testing of systems that really need it (exploration, roleplaying, multiclassing, etc).

From how WotC is keeping their cards close to their chest with 5e, I think it's safe to hazard a guess that there won't be another OGL and therefore 5e won't have much third party support.

 

[an_idol_mind]

My guess is that the public playtest has been less about the rules and more about establishing a feel for the game. 4th edition, for any flaw it may have had, was probably the best balanced edition of the game. Where they seem to think they lost people is that they departed too much from the "feel" of D&D.

The big issue is that after so many editions and creative changes, the "feel" of D&D is up for a lot of interpretation. I think the playtest packets have been designed to test out the designers' ideas and figure out what is staying true to the roots of the game according to a large consensus. Now that they've got a good idea of what the public wants, they can flesh out the game in-house their way.

This is, of course, just a theory of mine. But I think the big thing that hurt 4th edition was the way that many gamers felt they were being told by WotC that they were playing the game the wrong way. Whether that perception was justified or not, the designers seem pretty insistent on getting a better feel for the direction the fans want the game to go in.

 

[DaveMage]

as someone that also played pathfinder.... I'm going to be switching to 5e.

what won me over is the way they are doing minimalist skills and Bounded Accuracy

maybe it's an effect of playing the PFS adventures, but the game has jumped the shark.. when you play a game where you can have have max ranks in a skill (Perception) with a good attribute, skill focus, and eyes of the eagle and still need a 19-20 to spot the ambush... or bump into encounters, regularly, which shut down entire classes.. something has gone honorably wrong.

It's nice to play a game where the next magic item you find can be a "cool one" instead of "damn forget that cloak I need the +3 to all my saves to live though combats"

and get your heads out of the clouds, Piazo is a company, which has a profit margin & employees which are paid well... they see sales drop.. expect a new addition.

Hell I would NOT be surprised if there was one in the works. with the splat books they have created so many rules exceptions that they will, at some point, NEED to clean it all up.

and lets be honest, get the first printing of the PF core book and compare it to the newest printing (6th?) it almost has as many tweaks as 3.0 to 3.5

Hey if 5E works for you - great!

As for your criticisms of Pathfinder - well, I don't play PFS, so no worries for me there. As to the changes from the first printing of the core book to now, I really don't see the drastic change you see (although I am aware that PFS seemingly *has* had a lot of changes over these 4 years). I mean, there has been errata, but no where near as drastic as D&D from 3.0 to 3.5, IMO.

The splat books are a concern for me as well because eventually the system can collapse under it's own weight. However, I am currently playing Slumbering Tsar from Frog God Games, and I (as GM) control the splats that are allowed (sorry, no summoners at my table). Also, the FGG stuff I've used hasn't incorporated all the splats so it's much more of a "standard" version than the APs.

As for getting my head out of the clouds...heh. WotC told me to go watch the clouds 5 years ago, so I did. I like it there.

 

[Tovec]

and get your heads out of the clouds, Piazo is a company, which has a profit margin & employees which are paid well... they see sales drop.. expect a new addition.

Addition in the sense of more/new books?
Or Edition, in the sense of a Pathfinder 2.0?

Hell I would NOT be surprised if there was one in the works. with the splat books they have created so many rules exceptions that they will, at some point, NEED to clean it all up.

I only own a few books but I don't really see what you mean. What kinds of rules exceptions? Everything I've seen; various hardcover, softcover and pdfs, seems backwards compatible. Do you mean things like technology exceptions, firearms, and kingdom building; or something that is vastly changing the campaign world? I don't use the world. Either way I think I've missed the exceptions that will necessarily lead to a clean up.

And on the topic of PF 2.0, I welcome it if it is due. I don't see that it is yet, maybe in a few more years. They made a good product but if 2.0 is only an "errata" change like 3.5 to 3e was then I'm not getting it. Similarly if it is too far different (3e to 4e) then I'm probably not picking it up either. They're likely, in such a case, to try and squeeze as much out of PF 1.0 as possible - Tome of Battle, Tome of Magic, maybe Psionics, Epic Level Handbook? There has been requests for each of these since launch, just saying.

and lets be honest, get the first printing of the PF core book and compare it to the newest printing (6th?) it almost has as many tweaks as 3.0 to 3.5

As DaveMage said, I don't see that being true at all. Heck, PF's errata (which I've been mostly keeping up with) has fewer changes than the 4e by far and yet we still only consider Essentials to be the big change.

Also, I don't have access to "6th printing". I don't even know what version I own. What kinds of changes are you seeing/talking about? Is there a list of them somewhere floating around? I'd be interested in reading all these things which have changed so completely since PF's release four years ago.

 

[silverblade56]

I do hope that WotC has learned their lesson with 4E, and that Next will be thoroughly playtest, well balanced, feel like D&D, and most of all be fun. In some ways more playtestijng of 4E could have been beneficial. The most glaring issue at release was the insane length of combats due to going overboard with monster hitpoints. That may have been avoided with more playtesting, but We also have confirmation from Mike Mearls that most of the playtest feedback was ignored, so maybe not. The rest of 4E's issues like being way too different from earlier editions of D&D and greatly reduced customization and absense of "core" classes and races in the beginning would not have been affected much by more playtesting. Of course their horrible PR for 4E's rollout (which was basicaly 100 reasons why 3.5 sucked, and if you liked it you are having badwrongfun) plus moving Dungeon and Dragon online really added fuel to the fire for 4E haters. I really don't sthink it would be that good for them to wait until GenCon of 2015 to release Next. Many people are leaving D&D in droves for Pathfinder and retroclones because no new product is coming out, and that is only going to get worse the longer they go without a supported edition of D&D. Out of sight , out of mind. Their rereleases of 3.5 and 2E/1E books are prohibitively expensive to cause a ressurgence in those editions, so if they wait too long, they will face an even greater uphill battle to recapture market share than they do now.

 

[Weather Report]

I don't see what the fuss is about 3.0 vs. 3.5 vs. PF, I consider them all 3rd Ed.

 

[Warbringer]

Out of sight , out of mind. Their rereleases of 3.5 and 2E/1E books are prohibitively expensive to cause a ressurgence in those editions, so if they wait too long, they will face an even greater uphill battle to recapture market share than they do now.

This was one of the reasons the public playtests were a good idea, which 150,00 unique "DM" downloads playing the game. Now, if the final playtest is "OMG I can play this" it might keep players engaged until 2015 (Ed Greenwoods estimate*), but if not, I agree they may have a serious problem.

I unfortunately also agree with [MENTION=20323]Quickleaf[/MENTION]'s that WoTC IP paranoia may be driving this end of public playtest decision and does indicate on 5e OGL (though the possibility of a 5e GSL remains (difference being in SRD playability without actual product).

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* Now I think EG is wrong. There is far too much going on with the Brand next year on the 40th anniversary. There will be a new edition next year in time for Xmas, even if it is only the basic game (as several here have been saying for a while)

 

[TerraDave]

Its not done yet.

Mearls said something about a (closed) playtest at least as extensive as for 3E.

Its not done yet.

And they could have a bunch of stuff in that final packet.

Its not done yet.

 

[silverblade56]

I didn't see anyone on this thread fussing about the differences between 3.0, 3.5, and Pathfinder. We are talking about if WotC is going to repeat it's mistakes with 4E or will be able to somehow make an RPG that is well received by D&D fans and is successful.