Why "bygone"?
If people continue to play and enjoy older editions (and clones) then those days aren't bygone.
Unfortunately, the real question is whether those days, even if recaptured, can be monetized.
D&D 5E I think 5E needs less innovation.
- Thread starter Reynard
- Start date
Why "bygone"?
If people continue to play and enjoy older editions (and clones) then those days aren't bygone.
Unfortunately, the real question is whether those days, even if recaptured, can be monetized.
Aldarc
Legend
Because I subscribe to Thomas Wolfe's view that "you can't go home again." It can never be "the past" again. You can never truly relive things as they were.
But you don't need to "relive." You are playing, and if playing is fun, it doesn't matter how old the game is.
Aldarc
Legend
Color me skeptical, but if this forum is anything to go by, I'm not sure if that's entirely the case.
People play out of print games all the time. I am not sure the "must buy everything" demographic is particularly representative of the community -- though I bet they are a big chunk of the customer base, which in itself is something of a problem.
I'll be honest, if as it gets closer to release the plan for 5E appears to be a flood of books right after release, I'll give the whole thing a pass. I will not support another short edition cycle, which is a direct result of an overly aggressive supplement schedule.
Sell adventures -- you're not just selling a product, you're selling a shared experience. Look how people talk and reminisce and compare their experience in The Keep on the Borderlands and The Tomb of Horrors and other classics.
Aldarc
Legend
Which is all well and good, but when you are producing a new edition with a new set of rules...
thedungeondelver
Adventurer
There are people for whom "the past" is "the present", in that they didn't just quit because the buzzer indicating that it was THE FUTURE! went off. And I don't mean AD&Ders, either. Folks who play PATHFINDER aren't permanently stuck in a "Jeffety is Five Today" 2003 causality loop just because they didn't care to "upgrade". Likewise, for myself? If I went out, bought a Sears BMX style bike, rode across town to my elementary school, called my friends and asked them to come to the library (let's ignore the "getting arrested for being creepy" part that would come from a bunch of grown men hanging around in an elementary school) and play D&D and we all sat around talking excitedly about the new DUNGEONS & DRAGONS cartoon and would it be as cool as HE-MAN while we played and...well, acted exactly like children...that would be living in the past.
But nobody wants to do that.
"I found a ruleset, I'm comfortable with it, I'm going to use it, and since the company who makes it intimated they're going to continue to support it then I'm happy" is not a cry for help from deep within someone's psyche.
We haven't been to the battlefields of France and are now damaged to the juncture that home doesn't suit us. It's just some D&D rules that we prefer over others. And as to assigning any ulterior motives as to why I prefer AD&D and the PATHFINDER folks prefer d20, and so on? There's no profit in that. Nobody here's desperately grasping for the glory days.
But a lot of feel that we did upgrade, or at the least are part of a game supported by new material.
thedungeondelver
Adventurer
And thanks to the OGL and the magnanimity of WIZARDS OF THE COAST everybody may well get "supported" again.
I don't see an issue here!
Aldarc
Legend
Do I need to explain what the saying "you can never go home again" means?
And thanks to the OGL and the magnanimity of WIZARDS OF THE COAST everybody may well get "supported" again.
I don't see an issue here!
Possibly supported again, but that isn't really the point as far as I can see.
thedungeondelver
Adventurer
Well, I guess in this context you're using it to mean "you can't honestly say you enjoy AD&D" (or 3.5, 3.0, 2nd edition, Basic of any stripe or original D&D)...?
I mean, ultimately you and I aren't going to agree on the matter, so...
howandwhy99
Adventurer
I suspect the D&D Past will be specific options.
I think D&D Present will be so too.
3.x and 4E are by far the larger groups in the D&D community, but we will likely, eventually, see options for all games. That's a good thing, but I don't want them to be core. The game simply needs to appeal to too diverse a group of people.
I think D&D Present will be so too.
3.x and 4E are by far the larger groups in the D&D community, but we will likely, eventually, see options for all games. That's a good thing, but I don't want them to be core. The game simply needs to appeal to too diverse a group of people.
Here's the thing, we all know it, we just express it differently.
WotC has two challenges facing them with the new version - expectations of past and expectations of future.
Expectations of past encompasses not only the mechanical aspects of prior editions, from races as class in OD&D to the way saving throws work in 4e. They've got to figure out a way to make the majority of players of those prior versions (and of those, the ones willing to go with a new version) want to use the new mechanics of the new game. That alone is an immense challenge.
At the same time, they have to try to discern what that emotive and evocative narrative was from each game, and here they can't simply look at the mechanics because this isn't a simple mathematical formula. It ranges from all of the emotional baggage (good and bag) that we have when we look back to prior editions and the campaigns in them. For example and to take a simple example, how should the fighter and paladin be approached?
In 1e with UA, A fighter was equal to the Cavalier while the Paladin was a sub-class of the Cavalier. But the pre-UA model had them as a sub-class of fighter - which was the right answer?
Of course, later versions all handled things differently (such as 2e's Warrior umbrella or 3e's class equality), but my point is - no matter how you handle this, a group of people out there will criticize you for not doing it the way that a specific prior version did it.
Yes, there is a rich heritage of D&D past, things that we all have have in common, even if the details change (Rust Monster). However, going forward, we as a group will not look at those areas of commonality - rather we will bitterly complain when someone else's gris-gris is chosen over our own.
And that's simple human nature - not to be happy with what we have, but unhappy with what we don't.
And *that* is why the expectation of past is a challenge facing the designers. It also ties into expectations of the future, because they are both the same thing. We want tomorrow what we had yesterday - and that's an expectation that can't be met.
If this is to succeed, not only must the designers coax out of us those elements from the past that were truly vital to our experiences but we as the players, the consumers, must have realistic expectations of what reality will bring - and both must meet at the present.
WotC has two challenges facing them with the new version - expectations of past and expectations of future.
Expectations of past encompasses not only the mechanical aspects of prior editions, from races as class in OD&D to the way saving throws work in 4e. They've got to figure out a way to make the majority of players of those prior versions (and of those, the ones willing to go with a new version) want to use the new mechanics of the new game. That alone is an immense challenge.
At the same time, they have to try to discern what that emotive and evocative narrative was from each game, and here they can't simply look at the mechanics because this isn't a simple mathematical formula. It ranges from all of the emotional baggage (good and bag) that we have when we look back to prior editions and the campaigns in them. For example and to take a simple example, how should the fighter and paladin be approached?
In 1e with UA, A fighter was equal to the Cavalier while the Paladin was a sub-class of the Cavalier. But the pre-UA model had them as a sub-class of fighter - which was the right answer?
Of course, later versions all handled things differently (such as 2e's Warrior umbrella or 3e's class equality), but my point is - no matter how you handle this, a group of people out there will criticize you for not doing it the way that a specific prior version did it.
Yes, there is a rich heritage of D&D past, things that we all have have in common, even if the details change (Rust Monster). However, going forward, we as a group will not look at those areas of commonality - rather we will bitterly complain when someone else's gris-gris is chosen over our own.
And that's simple human nature - not to be happy with what we have, but unhappy with what we don't.
And *that* is why the expectation of past is a challenge facing the designers. It also ties into expectations of the future, because they are both the same thing. We want tomorrow what we had yesterday - and that's an expectation that can't be met.
If this is to succeed, not only must the designers coax out of us those elements from the past that were truly vital to our experiences but we as the players, the consumers, must have realistic expectations of what reality will bring - and both must meet at the present.
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Stepping in for a sec, but I understand him to mean what the phrase typically means - once you leave home, you'll never truly be able to emotionally return - you'll be too changed to ever look at home the same way again.
Aldarc
Legend
I'm not talking about people who are still playing AD&D or any past edition. No, in this context I mean that any new edition can ultimately never truly go back to the way things were.
Glade Riven
Adventurer
Eh, you never know what will take off. Innovation would be taking the old and tweaking it, combinding it with other things that may be old (or not as old) to create something new. Invention outright creates something new.
D&D/d20 and related products have had a lot of invention over the decades, but innovation through creative consolidation of what came before (which seems to be WotC's intent) could work. One could say that some of 4e's failings was that they tried to do too much invention away from what came before.
The design philosophy for 5e is completely different than 4e. Personally, I see this as a positive sign.
D&D/d20 and related products have had a lot of invention over the decades, but innovation through creative consolidation of what came before (which seems to be WotC's intent) could work. One could say that some of 4e's failings was that they tried to do too much invention away from what came before.
The design philosophy for 5e is completely different than 4e. Personally, I see this as a positive sign.
Crazy Jerome
First Post
In fairness here, to ask everyone to make those distinctions is to ask them to have realistic expectations based on some of the insights of the designers. Which isn't always possible. So it isn't just human nature wanting to complain. For some people, the evocative pieces are the specific details done with specific mechanics, in their eyes. In practice, they are often incorrect about the connection being that strong, but then again people are sometimes right on this too--and sometimes wrong on the explanation of what went wrong but correct on what did go wrong. Nothing is so intractable as a person that has had their expectations seemingly "confirmed" based on bad reasoning.
In fairness here, to ask everyone to make those distinctions is to ask them to have realistic expectations based on some of the insights of the designers. Which isn't always possible. So it isn't just human nature wanting to complain. For some people, the evocative pieces are the specific details done with specific mechanics, in their eyes. In practice, they are often incorrect about the connection being that strong, but then again people are sometimes right on this too--and sometimes wrong on the explanation of what went wrong but correct on what did go wrong. Nothing is so intractable as a person that has had their expectations seemingly "confirmed" based on bad reasoning.
I don't disagree with you. Heck, I haven't posted in that Lethality thread because at the end of the day, I don't even know what I want. All the same, I expect the designers to make it.
That's why I honestly think that unlike 4e, success or failure of 5e is more dependent on realistic expectations of the players/consumers than the work done by the designers at the very beginning.
Those expectations are built by the interaction with the company, though, whether via the relatively intimate setting of a message board or the more distant hype machine. Making sure your customers have realistic expectations for your product may not be the work of the designers, but it is the work of the company. Dissatisfied customers will cost you more than disinterested ones, especially in D&D where a dissatisfied DM can take a half dozen customers with him or her.
That's another element that needs to be addressed -- and Mearls seems to be aware of it -- DMs are your most important customers and if you can't get their trust, you can't succeed.
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