hypathetical 5e from YOU...Forked Thread: Academic Studies Recent Edition Wars

[fuzzlewump]

Might be a fun hypothetical excercise, but I don't think anyone posting in this thread is qualified to make a real comment on this, myself included.

Negative Nancy!

Well, I have a PhD in Tabletop Game design, and I think I'd like to see the d100 used as the baseline dice. It's harder to read, and inherently more complex, but it would be interesting. Bonuses and penalties could be given out more freely, because -1 or +1 would only be a 1% difference instead of 5%. Why is that good? Well, each piece of equipment could be important on your character. Gloves, boots, shoulderguards, breastplate, greaves, etc. could all have armor values and properties.

 

[Aus_Snow]

I'm a black Roman Catholic living in Texas. I'd BETTER have faith!

Ha! Yep - rather you than me, mate.

But either way, there are actually some interesting ideas already, which is good to see. Not sure if I really have anything much to contribute to what 5e should be. So yeah, peace 'n all.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Might be a fun hypothetical excercise, but I don't think anyone posting in this thread is qualified to make a real comment on this, myself included.

Negative Nancy!

Well, I have a PhD in Tabletop Game design, and I think I'd like to see the d100 used as the baseline dice. It's harder to read, and inherently more complex, but it would be interesting. Bonuses and penalties could be given out more freely, because -1 or +1 would only be a 1% difference instead of 5%. Why is that good? Well, each piece of equipment could be important on your character. Gloves, boots, shoulderguards, breastplate, greaves, etc. could all have armor values and properties.

I'll chime in with a negatory as well: 30+ years in the hobby; experience in over 100 rpg systems (including 3 playtests); I'm an Entertainment attorney and my MBA (see my sig) is in Sports & Entertainment Marketing. I think I might have some valuable experience and perspective.

And, BTW, I also like the D100, for all the reasons you listed. Its one of my favorite things about the original version of Stormbringer (Chaosium).

 

[Remathilis]

I would make a game that had the character options of 3e, the balance and DM-simplicity of 4e, the wealth of fluff and settings of 2e, the fantastic adventures of 1e, the fanatic followers of Pathfinder, the rules-liteness of Basic, and the customability of Original.

And I guarantee everyone on this board* would hate it because "it left out they're favorite part of X edition".

* Cept FireLance, of course.

 

[Jack99]

I would make a game that had the character options of 3e, the balance and DM-simplicity of 4e, the wealth of fluff and settings of 2e, the fantastic adventures of 1e, the fanatic followers of Pathfinder, the rules-liteness of Basic, and the customability of Original.

Sounds like the perfect game, too bad it's probably impossible

 

[Greg K]

If I got the license, I know that I am hiring Steve Kenson (Mutants and Masterminds, True20, Shadowrun's Magic in the Shadows) to be in charge of the new edition.

I'd be looking to 3e Unearthed Arcana, 3pp material for 3e, M&M, True20 and some 4e changes. Along those lines, I'd also try to bring in Charles Rice of RPGObjects, "Wulf" of Bad Axe Games (Grim Tales, Trailblazer), "Ranger Wickett" (Elements of Magic: Revised and other EN Publishing books), Curtis "der kluge" Bennett (Artificer's Handbook), Ari "Mouseferatu" of Lion's Den and WOTC freelancer, Justin Jacobsin of Blue Devil (Poisoncraft) and Steve "Ghostwind" Creech of Dragonwing among other from these boards, as well as, Green Ronin and Silverthorne.

 

[Oni]

If I were to rebuild it right now, assuming I'm building it to what I'd like to see rather than trying maintain the brand or hold onto certain market segments or other overly practical goals, it would probably be pretty divergent from past iterations on a mechanical level.

First of all I think I would take a more point by approach. Classes and races as we know them would be templates (hopefully awesome point buy like M&M, and not lame point buy like BESMd20). Special maneuvers for fighting types and spells for casting types would have guidelines for building your own from the myriad of powers presented.

I'd try to keep the myriad of different dice and HP because to me they're an important part of the feel of D&D.

I'd move away from the tactical, miniatures based approach toward a more descriptive combat system, hearkening back to older editions.

I'd tamp down the powercurve a touch between more powerful and less powerful characters.

I'd leave the reliance on magical equipment to balance the game to the wayside. They shouldn't be a must have, but a to taste type thing.



Frankly the more I think about it, M&M is almost the D&D I want already. I really like the idea that you can describe just about any character and then build them to fit your vision. I guess it's not really D&D anymore, but I think a lot of flavor is in the trappings. D&D is not really much good at being anything other than what it is, i.e. it's hard to take it from the tropes the rules enforce, it's sort of like it's own genre.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Ok how about this...

We make martial characters like a mix of 4e and 3e's Bo9S...

We take the Arcane classes and make them diffrent again. We start with 1 at will chosen from a few...then they get mana points. They can spend said points to use powers, BUT they only recharge daily. Or they can INVEST there mana like Incarnum...Makeing it a mix of warlock, Psionic and Incarnum... keep most of the big stuff as rituels...

Divine powers we do a mix of the two above...


I defintly would HAVE to keep both Warlord (maybe with a name change) and Warlock...

I would also lable Avenger as a new class with traction...

Ranger would go back to primal power I think....

 

[Korgoth]

I'd brand it "Dungeons & Dragons Classic" and lay out the original rules as modular (they basically are, anyway). I'd include a "Campaign Worksheet" which is basically a checklist of which things you're including in your game. Any classes could be included or not included. Skills could be included or not included. Variable weapon damage could be included or not included.

It would be a toolkit for tailoring your campaign (again, this can be done with the old rules but this would be written to be more user friendly). There would be a few standard "campaign templates" if it's too painful to select which rules you want to use.

The core rules would be a boxed set. You could expand it with other books if you wanted.

 

[TwinBahamut]

I think I will just ignore some of the bickering and get back to the kind of imagining the OP started this thread with.

If I were to create a 5E, I would start with the idea of just cleaning up and refining 4E.

First off, I would stick with the 4E class system, where each character chooses a class at the beginning and sticks with it, rather than the 3E system of choosing a class at each level. I think it just works better. I would also probably keep some version of the roles system, though I would probably change it somewhat and try to more explicitly work against some of the preconceptions that bog down certain roles.

I think I would really alter the powers system. To be honest, I really think that the at-will/encounter/daily breakdown is flawed. I would much rather see a system that combines a limited number of encounter powers that define the flow of battle in the same way the 4E daily powers do, and a much larger number of at-will powers. Generally, I think I would try to prevent characters from having to replace older powers, and would instead focus on giving classes a fewer number of powers that present more significant and understandable choices.

I think some kind of radical change to the Power Source system is called for, though I am not exactly sure what. I think more flexibility and less pigeonholing might be in order (is there really anything wrong with a Power Source that only has one class?).

I would keep the Tier system, but I think I would do more to exaggerate the thematic differences between the Tiers. The Heroic tier might end up looking more realistic, but I would make the Epic tier far more fantastic and over-the-top.

I would definitely kill off the +x bonus sacred cow. I would also clean up the Weapon/Implement divide, so that you don't see weird things like characters using weapons as implements all the time. Generally, I would probably try to reduce the number of magic items that characters carry even further.

I would keep many of the great ideas 4E introduced for monster design, but I would probably alter a few assumptions so that Solos could actually work as intended and fight a team of PCs on their own.

I think I would probably try to replace the entire Skill system with something else (perhaps an expanded version of Utility Powers), to reduce the perhaps unnecessary differentiation between Skills and Powers.

There would probably be countless other things I would do regarding specific classes and such, but I probably don't need to mention them here.