D&D 5E I don't understand the reasoning behind D&Dnext
- Thread starter Dornam
- Start date
Wishful thinking.
I think 5e looks really interesting, it does seem to take a lot of input from the earlier editions, not just the later ones. The first play test looked really interesting, the second (current) looks a bit more math-heavy. Maybe a bit too much? I am really interested to see where they end up.
I hope they will end up with a stream-lined, not-math-heavy, flexible system that lets you create fun adventures and where combat doesn't feel like a game within the game.
I hope they will end up with a stream-lined, not-math-heavy, flexible system that lets you create fun adventures and where combat doesn't feel like a game within the game.
Steely_Dan
First Post
4e players are not the targeted demographic for 5e. If D&D Next was just a 4.5 edition, then all the 4e players would just see it as a money grab (in the vein that 3.0 players saw 3.5) and all the 4e haters would still hate it, and sales would be low.
WotC does need to make a new edition however. I love 4e and it’s my game of choice. But I’ve already reached saturation point in terms of books and materials bought. So has everyone else in my group. We’ll keep playing the game for years, but we’ve pretty much tailed off in terms of buying new stuff for it. Maybe an adventure here or there, but that’s really about it. 4e could be the most successful game on the planet (it’s not) and still there’s not much more room to make the big money. The big bulk of the 4e sales comes from DDI subscriptions and unless WotC are complete idiots, they’ll keep the servers running and keep collecting the free money they get from 4e players.
It makes far more sense for WotC to make a 3.75 edition with some AD&D paint thrown over it, and try to recapture some of their lost player base. Players of older editions are their true targeted demographic.
That's not to say that WotC doesn't want to include 4e players, of course they do, they just won't do so at the expense of the players of older editions. Their existing 4e player base will either switch to the new game, or still keep paying for DDI subscriptions and stay with 4e. Heck, some will probably do both.
WotC does need to make a new edition however. I love 4e and it’s my game of choice. But I’ve already reached saturation point in terms of books and materials bought. So has everyone else in my group. We’ll keep playing the game for years, but we’ve pretty much tailed off in terms of buying new stuff for it. Maybe an adventure here or there, but that’s really about it. 4e could be the most successful game on the planet (it’s not) and still there’s not much more room to make the big money. The big bulk of the 4e sales comes from DDI subscriptions and unless WotC are complete idiots, they’ll keep the servers running and keep collecting the free money they get from 4e players.
It makes far more sense for WotC to make a 3.75 edition with some AD&D paint thrown over it, and try to recapture some of their lost player base. Players of older editions are their true targeted demographic.
That's not to say that WotC doesn't want to include 4e players, of course they do, they just won't do so at the expense of the players of older editions. Their existing 4e player base will either switch to the new game, or still keep paying for DDI subscriptions and stay with 4e. Heck, some will probably do both.
Obryn
Hero
Yeah, I get the same sense, too. 4e - right now - is a much better, more complete, better-running system than it was when it was first released. And there's not much more I need for it.
I have a feeling that, even with a successful system, 4-5 years is about the longest we can expect to see an edition last - unless the release of books is spread out considerably more than it was during 3e/4e. The need for that new influx of money that only a core book release can provide is too pressing.
-O
JRRNeiklot
First Post
You must be, or I got a different playtest document, because all I see is 4e mechanics mixed with a few 3eisms couched in old school terminology.
Sonny
Adventurer
Well in this case they plan on concentrating less on rule-books and more on settings and adventures. Having new rules introduced to the system at a slower pace will help keep the system alive (assuming it's successful enough.)
Normally, I'd not bother with something a couple pages back like this, but this once, I'll make an exception.
If this is the level of rhetoric you all want, well, we have a problem. While colorful, and I'm sure it expresses the author's thoughts well, it earns minus several dozen points for being low-class.
Really, folks. We can do better. Please, a bit more decorum. Thanks.
Not 'wrong', but perhaps incomplete.
D&D Next came about because 4e wasn't selling as well as WotC expected, and because Pathfinder's sales growth made it appear as if 4e might soon be pushed into second place. There are radically different explanations for why these things happened, with some blaming bad decisions and unrealistic expectations at WotC for torpedoing an objectively strong 4e ruleset, and others seeing 4e as a highly flawed ruleset that may have achieved greater balance but did so by dumbing down the game and removing the flavor that made D&D special. Many people have sincere and strongly held opinions about which view is correct, but for purposes of this thread, who is "right" isn't important. It's the end result that matters: the natural D&D gaming community splintered, leaving 4e with a smaller fanbase than WotC was willing to service.
Next was introduced as a way to claw back market share and reunify the splintered role-playing community. The idea was that useful and meaningful elements from each edition could be combined into a coherent whole, so that fans of any edition could "feel like" it's their own edition even though the mechanics would not be identical to any edition that's come before.
Whether this is doable is an open question. Many people in my 4e gaming group see 3e/Pathfinder fans as balance-hating grognards who want to "roll back the clock" to an overly complicated and objectively broken ruleset. On the other hand, many people in my 3e gaming group see 4e fans as flavor-hating dullards who want to re-enact Diablo on their battlemats rather than play a real RPG. And if each group really were as the other describes, then I would agree that it just isn't possible to produce a Next that can please both, because 4e players won't sacrifice balance and 3e players won't sacrifice richness and flavor.
But I think neither side is correct. I think 3e fans do value balance, but don't like the highly standardized manner in which 4e achieved it, which may perhaps have inadvertently removed much of past editions' flavor. And I think 4e fans do value richness and flavor (and are every bit as smart as their 3e counterparts), but don't like the balance and complexity issues that were perhaps allowed to persist in 3e in the name of richness and flavor. This leads me to believe that a less standardized yet well-balanced system, that restores past flavor without needless complexity, can perhaps do exactly what WotC says it hopes to achieve.
If Next really were nothing more than 3.75, then I would agree that it's doomed to failure -- and I initially shared your suspicition that this is exactly what WotC would do. But I see more than this when I play Next. Many of my favorite 4e design elements, like themes and backgrounds and at-wills, have made their way into the ruleset. Some fondly remembered flavor from 1e and 2e is there as well, along with the more freewheeling style those editions so often represented. To be sure, some 3e elements are present as well, but I don't personally see that it "feels" more like 3e than the others.
I'm sure those who insist that their edition represents the pinnacle of D&D won't be satisfied with Next no matter how well it achieves its objectives. But for the rest of us who just want something that can restore our splintered gaming tables and let people hang out and have fun, Next represents a promising possibility, though only time will tell whether the 5e team can turn than promise into reality.
Steely_Dan
First Post
Did you know that Graham Chapman was in the depths of alcoholism during the entire shooting of that film.
He really pulled it off, though, classy guy, he's missed.
Tony Vargas
Legend
You did? With 4e dead after only 4 years in print? With the edition war burning up bandwidth the whole time? With Paizo crowing about out-selling D&D?
To be fair, it's also trying hard to capture the crowd that rejected 3e. Think of it more as trying to be 2.95e. AD&D if the last 10 years had been spent very slowly morphing it into a new edition, perhaps.
It might. Or, it might not. It depends on what portion of that fanbase stayed with 4e because it was good, and what proportion stayed with it because it said "D&D" on the cover. If the latter are a large majority, then it doesn't matter how deep they bury 'everything 4e stands for,' as long as the cover says D&D.
Steely_Dan
First Post
It seems 5th Ed is shaping up to be what 2nd Ed should have been (for me).
3rd Ed looks great on paper, but in practice, did not deliver, and with 4th Ed, well, to me it seems an extenuation of D&D Miniatures, guided by Heinsoo & Co., good game, but not really an evolution of D&D.
3rd Ed looks great on paper, but in practice, did not deliver, and with 4th Ed, well, to me it seems an extenuation of D&D Miniatures, guided by Heinsoo & Co., good game, but not really an evolution of D&D.
Raith5
Adventurer
Perhaps "not your preferred evolution of D&D"? Some really thought that 4th was a evolution!
Steely_Dan
First Post
No, just the way the game organically derailed with that Heinsoo & Co. business (good game, a D&D Miniatures variant).
Remathilis
Legend
Here's what I see:
There is this little retro-clone called Basic Fantasy. Its great. It tries to capture the feel of B/X D&D, but it also attempts to modernize it. It reverses the AC to go upwards. It separates race and class like AD&D, and opens many of the subclasses of AD&D for play as well (without annoying kludges like prime reqs or such). It feels like someone took B/X, tossed in good ideas from AD&D and 3e, and threw it all in a blender and hit frappe.
D&D Next sorta feels like that too, but on a grander and more complex scale.
They really didn't start with 3e. They started back at Basic. Then, they began to layer on things from AD&D, 3e and 4e to take the best ideas from the later and apply them to the core kernel of Basic. Add the optional modules later to get it to flow in a specific direction and you have a D&D that can emulate, if not exactly, match, most D&D edition playstyles.
Which is just fine by me.
There is this little retro-clone called Basic Fantasy. Its great. It tries to capture the feel of B/X D&D, but it also attempts to modernize it. It reverses the AC to go upwards. It separates race and class like AD&D, and opens many of the subclasses of AD&D for play as well (without annoying kludges like prime reqs or such). It feels like someone took B/X, tossed in good ideas from AD&D and 3e, and threw it all in a blender and hit frappe.
D&D Next sorta feels like that too, but on a grander and more complex scale.
They really didn't start with 3e. They started back at Basic. Then, they began to layer on things from AD&D, 3e and 4e to take the best ideas from the later and apply them to the core kernel of Basic. Add the optional modules later to get it to flow in a specific direction and you have a D&D that can emulate, if not exactly, match, most D&D edition playstyles.
Which is just fine by me.
Thanks for all the answers, especially to jsaving.
Browsing the playtest documents they didn't seem contain too much of 4e in it, but while that may be a wrong feeling, it seems to be shared by many others. I think the reason for this is that WotC gives the impression that D&Dnext is not a sequel to 4e, that instead they seem to avoid that notion actively.
And this I still find a risky endeavour. At worst it will alienate the ones that feel 4e is their haven and not win back many from 3.5/Pathfinder. Posing D&D next as a true sequel of 4e now with more "adventure" in it would maybe have been a better marketing strategy, but what do I know...
Browsing the playtest documents they didn't seem contain too much of 4e in it, but while that may be a wrong feeling, it seems to be shared by many others. I think the reason for this is that WotC gives the impression that D&Dnext is not a sequel to 4e, that instead they seem to avoid that notion actively.
And this I still find a risky endeavour. At worst it will alienate the ones that feel 4e is their haven and not win back many from 3.5/Pathfinder. Posing D&D next as a true sequel of 4e now with more "adventure" in it would maybe have been a better marketing strategy, but what do I know...
Sadras
Legend
This is a good thread, and I hope a lot of other 4E players read this and relook at the 4E playtest material for there is a lot that has been carried over from 4E into D&DNext, I am truly surprised that you dont see that as a 4E player. It actually is a beautiful blend of editions. The system feels light, unassuming, easily adaptable, user friendly and flavourful not particularly pandering to any one edition.
Of course, I share your concerns in WotC recapturing some of its lost market, they have steep competition with Pathfinder and 4E loyalists. I do feel that the majority of players who loved 2E are really going to take to this edition (maybe I'm projecting to much of myself here
). 4E is pretty much a complete mature system, besides fixing some of the math, and just bloating more powers for the later classes, I felt there was very little in terms of improvement because, AND THIS IS IMPORTANT, the playstyle was largely defined by the system/mechanics (at least a lot more than previous editions). I appreciate the 4E system, and view it as a necessary step/experiment in the evolution of D&D, especially in having to deal with its real competition being xbox, playstation and PC games.
Dornam I can only advise you take a closer look at the playtest material, especially the fighter to see the 4E influence within 5E. It's there, I assure you.
