D&D (2024) Hypothetical Direction Shift For 1D&D/6E

[doctorbadwolf]

I mean they could have an actual design paradigm, based around a limited number of clear, overarching goals. At present they just seem to be going for random changes, some of which they respond to community feedback on. I think they had an overarching goal "reworking the role of race to seem less racist", which was a prime mover in making them unhappy with the current edition, but that only touches on some parts of the game system, and when they get to other things it seems pretty aimless. I'm sure there is a goal to support integration with online services, but I suspect the designers don't actually know enough about what those online services will look like to meaningfully do much with it.

I'm not saying there are no other goals currently being pursued, I'm just saying that if they picked a few of them like "making the game easier for new players" or "improving game balance" and made them clear priorities which "cool idea that designer wants to experiment with" gets rejected if it runs counter to, they'd have a much clearer design paradigm to produce a game that's not just a clone remix of 5e.

And no shade on clone remixes of 5e without much in the way of focused goals, I'm hard at work at one myself, but if I had the market position and resources of WotC it's not what I'd be making.

I do think they have distinct goals.

Firstly, to maintain 5e compatibility

Second, to clarify the rules and make them easier to usefully read. Eg, putting more specifics in skill descriptions and making everything a d20 test

Third, to make the game more consistent and coherent, with things like feats getting more standardized and subclasses coming at the same level.

Basically, tightening the game up, and making it more user friendly.

IMO, wotc isn’t in the business of focused games anymore, they’re leaving that to the rest of the industry. 5e will always be a generalized heroic fantasy game.

I suspect we will see all casters preparing spells, or at least all half and full casters, and more tightening up than we have already seen, at least as UA ideas. Whether those ideas actually end up being popular…

 

[DEFCON 1]

I also believe OneD&D was originally intended to just be a "clean up" of 5E... with a large number of player complaints over the last 8 years about wonky rules or incomplete rules or vestigial rules that could all be made more clear or more fun. A 3.5 from 3E change, rather than a 3E to 4E change. But now? I do wonder if in fact there might be a change in the wind at WotC for a larger game shift that would be considered a full "edition change"-- so that a true 6E would not have to be released under the OGL, CC or anything of the sort. And thus they could get their 3DVTT up and running on strictly their own system with their own formatting and such. Basically do what they wanted to do with 4E except have their digital version actually be a useable program for people to subscribe to.

If they did decide to "return to form" in order to get their version of D&D up and running... seeing a return to a lot of the previous parts of 4E make sense. Returning all spells and martial tactics back to strict "board game" maneuvers (with all their specific terminology and mechanical throughput) would allow them to remain with the D&D sphere (being an extension of the 4E engine), and that sort of stricter tactical board game formatting allow for much easier port into a miniatures-based, gridded VTT.

Now that being said... I of course would roll my eyes at ever returning to that sort of focused gameplay, because to me focusing on that aspect of D&D misses the forest through the trees. When "miniatures combat fights" were seemingly the ONLY thing that was important-- both for players and all the 4E adventure writers. Writers whose plotlines involved nothing more than giving a reason to go to a location, and then have three "miniatures combat fights" on three different maps against three different monster encounters one right after the other for no other reason than having "miniatures combat fights" was seemingly the entire reason to be playing the game.

Which of course is stupid.

So while I would not be surprised if in fact OneD&D did make a hard left into a completely new edition away from 5E in order to be able to get that 6E out of the OGL/CC pipeline... I don't see ANY game they could make that was entirely focused on maximizing the use of graphically-intensive and progressive VTT to be one that most folks will care about. After all... a huge number of people who have gotten into D&D with 5E did so via the Critical Role avenue of tableside improvisation and characterization, and in fact think the "Matt Mercer" style of DMing to be the "proper" way to do it (not that that is actually true.) So to return back to a 4E type of game would basically be WotC thumbing their nose at a playstyle that I suspect a large amount of their audience actually cares about. Which ain't the best idea in the world if you ask me.

 

[AnotherGuy]

I feel they have to do a major shift change in the game with this next edition, it is the only option that makes sense given the predicament they found themselves in.

 

[Jer]

I feel they have to do a major shift change in the game with this next edition, it is the only option that makes sense given the predicament they found themselves in.

Or you know they could just not and reap the benefits of being on top of the edition with the largest playing base of D&D players that has ever existed.

They have to measure whether or not making a massive change to try to force people to use their VTT would bring in more money than leaving the game alone and rolling out their VTT for people to use with the game as is.

Neither one of those choices is as good as "having a monopoly on the VTT space for our game", but of the two choices the first seems like a much worse idea than the second. There are no guarantees that players will follow to a brand new edition with different rules. And in fact given the behavior of fans over the last month AND their previous experiences with 4e, it feels like the guarantees actually probably work in the opposite direction and they would have to assume massive attrition as folks stick with 5e instead of following along. Which will only be encouraged now by the fact that the rules are in the commons and they just saw hundreds of third party companies and designers basically stand up and say "we'll keep supporting 5e even if we have to write up our own SRD and a new license to do it".

That's not to say that they wouldn't do it - the folks at the top have already made a number of boneheaded decisions and they're desperate to get their revenues up to get shareholders off their backs. But it really would be the dumbest decision they could make to throw away the existing network of players in the hopes that they keep enough of them to make their VTT monopoly worthwhile when they could probably get more players on that VTT by keeping the game the same. Of course it would help if they had actual numbers by, like, actually having a VTT product that isn't vaporware that they could use to see how much it's actually going to make for them.

 

[Cadence]

So, if the money is all in subscriptions to use the VTT, is the big money in making it easy for all the 3PP folks to want to use it too? So that WotC gets the overall subscription and then a small cut of whatever product people sell through it? Is putting things out CC to get more people to make things based on their system (and thus easy to add to the VTT) a decent business move then?

 

[Corinnguard]

They could just take the open gaming content from A5E LevelUP and design around it. Would save them time to playtest and it would make @Micah Sweet happy.
And it would be a good game.

I am not sure if Morrus would be pleased though...

While WoTC could take the opening gaming content from A5e Level Up and design around it, they would be giving EN Publishing the credit of creating the next version of D&D for them. Remember some of us A5e fans already consider it to be 5.5e D&D.

WoTC's ego has already been dealt a crit thanks to this whole OGL mess and A5e.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

While WoTC could take the opening gaming content from A5e Level Up and design around it, they would be giving EN Publishing the credit of creating the next version of D&D for them. Remember some of us A5e fans already consider it to be 5.5e D&D.

WoTC's ego has already been dealt a crit thanks to this whole OGL mess and A5e.

I am not sure A5e dealt any blow.
It is good. But not strictly better.
It is different.

 

[Remathilis]

I feel they have to do a major shift change in the game with this next edition, it is the only option that makes sense given the predicament they found themselves in.

I think that is actually cutting off their nose to spite their face. 5e is one of the biggest phenomena right now, and they have been working on One D&D long before the playtest drops started. They can't just drop course and still make a 2024 release date. This is less time than both Orcus and Next had to develop. There is no scrapping everything and starting over, and there are no products they could fill a gap year (an anniversary year no less) with.

The best they can do is a little more liberal design options and maybe some terminology changes (which was stuff that was already going on in the packets) to make it hard to clone or smoothly support using just the 5.1 SRD. But hard isn't impossible and there is no way they can wall off 6e from 5e at this point.

 

[AnotherGuy]

I think that is actually cutting off their nose to spite their face. 5e is one of the biggest phenomena right now, and they have been working on One D&D long before the playtest drops started. They can't just drop course and still make a 2024 release date. This is less time than both Orcus and Next had to develop. There is no scrapping everything and starting over, and there are no products they could fill a gap year (an anniversary year no less) with.

The best they can do is a little more liberal design options and maybe some terminology changes (which was stuff that was already going on in the packets) to make it hard to clone or smoothly support using just the 5.1 SRD. But hard isn't impossible and there is no way they can wall off 6e from 5e at this point.

I wasn't suggesting a complete overhaul, but a lot more of a change than what they initially marketed OneD&D to be. Enough for it to be an Edition on its own rather than the 5.5e that some were/are saying.

Edit: For instance 5.5e is out and it's A5E. WotC are needing to go much further to make an impression I feel.

 

[ART!]

Consider what has prompted every edition change so far.

2e: A desire to standardize elements of game design. 2E was designed to remove all the weird corner-cases in 1e and replace them with universal design goals. For example, a ranger would no longer have a unique XP progression and a strange HD progression and bonus attacks but would share those elements with the fighter and/or paladin. The illusionist would use the same spells (and spell progression) as a magic-user/mage. Etc.
3e: A desire to unify the sprawling mess of rules 2e became. 3e wanted to create unified systems (three broad saves vs 5 specific ones, 1 XP chart, upwards AC) Skills intergrated properly into the system. A system that was designed to be modular and through.
4e: A desire to even the power-curve. 3.x had proven to be too inconsistent with its power levels. Attack and save scaling resulted in uneven character math. Feat chains and prestige classes required high levels of rules awareness to avoid trap. A desire to have magic and martial power on the same playing field. A desire to bring in lessons from MMOs (tank, healer, dps) design. Emphasis on tactical combat.
5e: A simplification. 4e (and 3e) had both ended up sprawling messes, full of sloggy rules and an overemphasis on describing every last thing as a mechanical rule. 5e wanted DMs to have more control, combat to be quicker and less math intensive, and character choices to be fewer but more impactful. An edition that could emulate elements of all prior editions.

So, what is the problems with 5e that 6e would fix. I guess it's too dependent on DM fiat, characters lack sufficient choices, short rests are too infrequent to balance class mechanics behind, monsters need more interesting things that aren't just spells, and magic items should be figured into the math a little better.

I mostly just wanted to emphasize a post that substantively contributes to the actual intended purpose of this thread.

All the issues you mention regarding a "fix" of 5E are things that really favor or work well in a digital toolset and VTT environment: clearer rules, streamlining concepts, uniform leveling, adding choices at each level, adding monster options.