D&D 5E I think we can safely say that 5E is a success, but will it lead to a new Golden Era?

[Imaro]

Well, yes and no. You see, there's a difference between having a definition of what is, or is not, D&D, and having an opinion of what the key bits of D&D are for yourself.

If you try to define D&D, and impose that definition on others, yes, you're going to see a lot of folks telling you to take a long walk off a short pier, and rightfully so. Nobody around here has the authority to set such a definition. Try to assert such authority, and folks will challenge you not just because you're wrong, but because you're being pretty arrogant.

If you say you like certain things, and that a particular edition doesn't give you those things, and most folks won't even bat an eye at you. A few real diehard partisans will be annoying, but they'd probably be annoying about something else if the edition difference wasn't present.

A lot of folks, on both sides, tried to do the former, when they should have been doing the latter.

What if you don't like things that have been a part of every edition? Is it then fair to say what you want is not D&D?

 

[Siberys]

SO you just don't like D&D... like seriously, even the problems you list as 3.x problems have been a part of D&D since BECMI and AD&D were published... this is exactly what I am talking about, you don't want D&D you want a different game and there are tons out there for you to choose from.

Just because D&D has historically had these doesn't mean it has to have them every time to be still be D&D. It's not like we're trying to replicate some platonically ideal version of D&D that existed in the past. If there were such a game, we'd all be playing that instead of arguing over editions. Yes, D&D has had ongoing arguments about, for example, HP-as-meat for the last 30-odd years. That doesn't somehow make it a problem that's not worth trying to find a solution for.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Do you work at WotC? I mean you make alot of claims about what the inner workings are and I'm wondering where do you get your information? Now if it's just "I make it up whole cloth" then cool (of course then maybe you should quit refeering to what is obvious or apparent since it isn't and it wasn't before)... but you keep dancing around this very basic question... where are you getting all of this insider information from?

You're reading a lot into some comments about the game and the luanch, itself. The 5e launch has been pretty sedate, that doesn't scream desperation to hit an unrealistic target. The game itself is quite traditional, not the kind of thing you'd put out if you were trying to set new sales records. No insider information required.

Someone - I think it was Morty - said that D&D was facing unreallistic goals from Hasbro again. I pointed out we had no evidence of such goals, and you decide /I've/ made an unfounded claim?

And that information would be??

It was bouncing around these threads most of July, it seems, from some Hasbro quarterly report. It might've been Mistwell I saw quoting it.

 

[Imaro]

Just because D&D has historically had these doesn't mean it has to have them every time to be still be D&D. It's not like we're trying to replicate some platonically ideal version of D&D that existed in the past. If there were such a game, we'd all be playing that instead of arguing over editions. Yes, D&D has had ongoing arguments about, for example, HP-as-meat for the last 30-odd years. That doesn't somehow make it a problem that's not worth trying to find a solution for.

No but if all of the problems you have are all things that every single edition has shared... maybe, just maybe you really want to play a different game. We aren't talking a problem with a single D&D-ism

 

[Morty]

SO you just don't like D&D... like seriously, even the problems you list as 3.x problems have been a part of D&D since BECMI and AD&D were published... this is exactly what I am talking about, you don't want D&D you want a different game and there are tons out there for you to choose from... so what would D&D derive from becoming like the numerous niche within a niche rpg's out there? except for maybe reduced sales??

It might become a game that provides he same experience D&D always has - that is, playing a group of adventurers in a pulp-fantasy setting - only with mechanics that provide for more varied, smooth and engaging play. It's not that crazy an idea.

Someone - I think it was Morty - said that D&D was facing unreallistic goals from Hasbro again. I pointed out we had no evidence of such goals, and you decide /I've/ made an unfounded claim?

I wouldn't say I was making any claim or other, so I'll readily admit I have no evidence for that. I honestly wasn't expecting anyone to make an issue of it.

 

[Imaro]

You're reading a lot into some comments about the game and the luanch, itself. The 5e launch has been pretty sedate, that doesn't scream desperation to hit an unrealistic target. The game itself is quite traditional, not the kind of thing you'd put out if you were trying to set new sales records. No insider information required.

Not if the previous non-"sedate" marketing push rubbed alot of people the wrong way... it would seem like a calculated action to avoid the consequences with this release... but then everyone has perceptions and opinions...

Someone - I think it was Morty - said that D&D was facing unreallistic goals from Hasbro again. I pointed out we had no evidence of such goals, and you decide /I've/ made an unfounded claim?

When you use words like obvious and apparent with no evidence... yeah, it kind of is...

It was bouncing around these threads most of July, it seems, from some Hasbro quarterly report. It might've been Mistwell I saw quoting it.

What was "it" perhaps i can use google to look it up myself.


EDIT: I find it a little ironic that a poster needs to provide proof if he/she states 4e is a failure but you've made all kinds of claims as to the inner workings of WotC, goals for 5e, what the designer's thought processes were, etc. and none of these assertions should require proof...

 

[Imaro]

It might become a game that provides he same experience D&D always has - that is, playing a group of adventurers in a pulp-fantasy setting - only with mechanics that provide for more varied, smooth and engaging play. It's not that crazy an idea.

I don't see what is inherently D&D about the experience you are describing above... in other words what differentiates it from the other million games of adventurer's in pulp-fantasy that exist?

As to your statement on mechanics, the problem is that you've now gone into the realm of subjectivity... it might provide that experience for you and eliminate it for 50 other D&D fans... so if all you care about is playing a game of adventurer's in a pulp-fantasy setting why not use one more to your liking as opposed to trying to change D&D when it has so far accommodated the largest group of players looking for pulp-fantasy adventurers?

 

[Tony Vargas]

5e introduces one mechanic that is actually more efficient - advantage and disadvantage. And it doesn't even use them to their full potential.

Aside from some slight wonkiness when they might apply to both attacks & saves (and thus need to be inverted), what's the problem?

And in case of bounded accuracy, the benefit they give to the game is dubious. I'm of the opinion that bounded accuracy can be good, if done right - but you need to make sure competence and difficulty expand horizontally instead, not just cut the numbers down to size and leave it at that. Advantage/Disadvantage, like I said, are one of their few actually decent ideas, if underused - but it's hardly revolutionary, is it?

No, consolidating bonuses and keeping them from stacking isn't that different from Combat Advantage, but, it is an elegant little mechanic. How more broadly do you think it could apply, and what do you mean by 'expanding horizontally?'

Well, the class structure, for one. 3e made the mistake of making fighters a separate class alongside much more specific classes which are also of the warrior archetype, like rangers and barbarians, not to mention all the non-core ones like knight or swashbucklers. Fighter, as a concept, only really works if the other classes are Thieves, Clerics and Magic-Users.

You have a point there. The Fighter is virtually the whole 'martial source' all on it's own (arguably the Rogue could be, as well, but the two really seem to be designed as if non-combat skill were antithetical to martial skill), and with few tools to cover all that conceptual space, true. And, the Arcane are divided into marginally-distinct Sorcerers, Warlocks and Wizards, each with multiple sub-classes of it's own, covering that 'source' in much greater detail.

Classes are also generally rigid and inconsistent - we have extremely broad ones like fighters and rogues, but we also have specific ones like paladins and barbarians. And then there are sub-classes, which beg the question as to why the eldritch knight is a sub-class but the paladin is a separate class. Or, for that matter, what separates a hybrid sub-class from a multi-class character.

A big difference between a Class like the Paladin or sub-class like Eldtritch Knight and a multi-class Fighter/Cleric or Fighter/Wizard is that the latter are available only at the option of the DM. Multi-classing isn't automatically available in the standard game.

There are obviously other differences, like MCing is a lot more flexible in the balance you want between the classes you're combining, you can be mostly Wizard and just a bit fighter, instead of mostly fighter, like the Eldritch Knight, for instance.

So that's one thing. Another is the HP and AC system, which is far less efficient than it could be and is one of the reasons non-magical combat is so dull.

Efficient? You could say a lot about hps & AC, but inefficient doesn't exactly spring to mind - they constitute a very abstract, quick way of resolving attacks & damage and modeling the 'plot armor' so common in genre.

Then there's the assumption that bigger numbers and frequent attacks of the non-magical classes equal the sheer breadth of options magic-users get, which has hounded D&D and the entire gaming industry since then.

That's part of the disparity between casters and lesser mortals. The way daily powers are distributed and valued is another. D&D has tended to over-reward specialization, and over-compensate for limited uses, both with excessive relative power. In 2e, in particular, fighter benefited from being over-rewarded in terms of DPR for specializing in one weapon (such as a bow or matched pair of weapons for TWFing). The 5e fighter harkens back to that level of damage focus, though exactly what it's being overcompensated for isn't clear - perhaps, indeed, for the complete lack of flexibility relative to casters. But, then, when the numbers have been run, it seems casters are also getting a whole lot of damage potential. :shrug:

I tend to conclude that balance just isn't a priority this time around.

 

[Umbran]

What if you don't like things that have been a part of every edition? Is it then fair to say what you want is not D&D?

It is generally not a good idea to tell other people what they do, or don't, want. While it is true that folks sometimes have trouble identifying what they do actually want, it is kind of arrogant to think you can do better over a few internet message posts. To first approximation, they will know themselves better than you know them.

Moreover, it comes across as a variation of ad hominem - dismissing what might be a valid point of criticism by dismissing the speaker as a "not-D&D person". As if the only valid critique of a game comes from people who like the game?

So, either way, it is probably not a useful approach. If they have asked for certain features, and you have personal experience with a game or games that have such features, offering them as a suggestion is fine. But don't try to draw lines that keep people out. That's not really constructive.

 

[Mercurius]

Also, does no one else worry about Drizzt being too dark? I mean there was a huge stink with a black actor for Heimdall in the Thor movies. And now we're talking about making a new DnD movie centered around a inky-black character who comes from an evil race of inky-black characters? I'm not saying depictions of Drow are racist, I'm saying that people will call racism and it will taint the movies.

Yeah, this crossed my mind as well. The simple idea of "dark-skinned race is bad, pale-skinned race is good" is quite problematic, even if it isn't derived from racist sentiment. I'm guessing there could be a way around this, though, by say making the drow more gray-skinned, and having sub-races of elves that are darker skinned, like wood elves, for instance, could be a kind of nut-brown.

Concerning name recognition in general: it would help if DnD names were pronounceable which by in large they're not....etc

You mean Battle of the Svirfneblin and Ixitxachitl isn't a good movie title? But yeah, this is another good point. Even the LotR movies had a couple cringe-worthy moments (and I'm not talking about Galadriel's goofy trip-out scene) where actors over-emphasized the exotic pronunciation of a word. "Mordor" with a rolling "r" was a nice attempt on Viggo's part, but it still sounded a bit forced. Or the overly affected, "Isildur!"

Not really, no. A lot is made of 4e 'tactics,' but it's mostly just that the combat happens at that immediate, tactical level, and remains dynamic....

Again, you're talking from the perspective of someone for whom the 4E approach worked. There were lots of folks that just didn't take to it. So what you're saying is true, of course, but so is the experience of those that found it dissociative. I think the difference isn't as much one group being right and the other wrong, but more akin to cognitive or even learning styles. Some people think in a way for 4E works well, while others don't. I'm not prepared to make a value judgment about it, but instead stick to "different."

That's a revisionist-history fiction I just don't understand. There is no 'harkenning back to theatre of the mind.' D&D was a wargame, in the ensuing 20 years, it never distanced itself much from that mindset. 1e gave everything in freak'n scale inches. Playing without minis or tokens of some sort and a surface was something you did if it was logistically impossible to use a playsurface.

Perhaps you are right, but the thing is that most people I know learned to play AD&D in a more theater of mind approach, hand waving or outright ignoring a lot of the 1E stuff. Perhaps that is part of the appeal of 5E: the rules are closer to how people played 1E than how Gary actually wrote it - a simple, core game, and you could add in the details that you wanted (e.g. how many people actually used encumbrance? I'm guessing it was a minority).

Whether you approach your character in 1st person or 3rd is a matter of style. The mechanics have basically no bearing on it. Pretending that there was some golden age of RP when everyone played TotM, and it was 'real RP' and that age ended with 3.0 or 4e is just an artifact of the edition war. A lie repeated so often that some people seem to think it's true.

Again, we're talking about perspectives not what is factual or not (if for no other reason that our facts are always colored by perspective). Anyhow, I agree that 1st or 3rd person is a matter of style, but my point is that the 4E mechanics seemed to encourage, or at least imply, a greater separation between the player and the character, with the player being the controller and the character being a kind of avatar or game piece. This is why, I think, many felt that 4E was more dissociative and that 4E combat seemed more tactical than prior versions.

I certainly feel like that's the case. 3e was right on time. 4e was too early, 5e ridiculously so. It's hard to set aside the sense that we've been deprived of two or four years (respectively) of those editions.

Welll again, there are reasons that WotC pulled the plug on 3E and 4E when they did, which are probably almost entirely financial (although with 4E I think it had a lot to do with the tenor of the community as well). You say that "4E was too early, 5E ridiculously so" but that is presumably only from the perspective of adherents of said edition. Clearly WotC felt otherwise.

I personally think that a "better" approach would have been for 4E to be a kind of alternate path for D&D, a game within the game - sort of like D&D's answer to Exalted. Then they could have gone even further with it, made it more gonzo and true to its newer influences of anime, World of Warcraft, Hong Kong cinema, etc.

This would have still necessitated a new edition of the core game, and perhaps it would have been something like 5E is, but it could have come out after 10-12 years (thus 2010-12), rather than 8.

But of course that isn't how things happened, but it is fun to consider alternate histories!

I am going to try and restate your reasoning as I understand it: SNIP

Good job!

As I posted, or at least implied, upthread, if (2) is true then that already tells us how small the RPG market is, which in my view is inconsistent with the idea of a new "Golden Era". A new "Golden Era" would falsify (2), because (3) would completely swamp (2).

Hmm...perhaps. But there's still the vocal minority thing, as well as the "bird in hand" principle. I think with 4E WotC made the erroneous assumption that the Hardcore Few could be taken for granted, that they would come along no matter what. But it didn't work out that we (thus, Pathfinder and, to a lesser extent, the OSR).

If (2) is true, however, then it is likely that (3) is to some extent a function of (2) ie new/lapsed players are (re-)introduced by the hardcore few. Thus reinforcing the importance of catering to the hardcore few, if (2) is in fact true.

Yeah, I think this is basically true. But the other thing is that the Hardcore Few isn't static, that it can gain new "converts" - and they must come from (3).

What about (4)? I think the presence of edition-war rhetoric can hurt (3), for reasons already given upthread: people trying to (re-)enter the hobby get caught up in a furore that is of no interest to them, but pushes them away. The smaller the overall player base, and the more important the "hardcore few", then the more likely this is to matter.

But does the absence of edition-war rhetoric serve as a useful predictor for (2)? If it does, that is a sad thing, because a corollary is that many/most people can't choose not to play a game without feeling the need to launch salvos against that game and those who are playing it.

Maybe, although a bit overstated and perhaps one-sided, as someone noted ("Two to tango"). I mean, it is also probably true that the absence of edition warring means that there is less unhappiness with the new edition.

I defer to others for any speculation about what actually motivated WotC. But in the abstract (and with numbers made up - in particular, I don't know what degree of return on investment commercial publishers generally expect):

If the sane standard for a successful RPG is (say) $10 million sales and a 5% return on investment, and WotC's standards for maintaining a product line with a dedicated staff is (say) $50 million sales and a 10% return on investment, then WotC will cut a RPG even if by the sane standards it is successful (eg because making $15 million sales with a 6% return on investment).

So regardless, 4E wasn't "successful" by WotC's definition of what that means. Presumably neither was 3E, or at least not by 2007.

But one difference is that where 3E seemed to dry up the well with its onslaught of product from 2003-07, 4E hadn't gotten to that point. There were other, deeper problems than simply the law of diminishing returns via the splat treadmill.

I'm always curious when I see a post like this... what should it be fixated on being like? It's the number one brand (for the most part) of the market... the number two (and/or other number one at times) in the market is just a different version of D&D so what exactly should it be trying to be similar too? People like D&D... if they wanted something else they'd play one of the numerous alternatives out there now?

IMO, if anything D&D should be trying to re-establish, refine, streamline and perfect the winning formula it's had for years... not go for something totally different. They tried that with 4e and while it may not have been a failure in the literal sense, I don't think they would have branched the newest edition off in such a different direction if they felt a 4e base could have been the base for success this time around (and if it's as small as @Tony Vargas seems to think it is that says alot about the popularity of 4e) until another game can usurp D&D (and is not itself D&D) I'm failing to see an actual reason for massive change except for the sake of change... options, tweaks, refinements sure... drastic change, why again??

I think this is exactly what WotC did with 5E - in a way it tried to create the "renaissance edition" of traditional D&D - a classic feeling but with modernized mechanics and presentation. As the oldest and flagship RPG, this seems like a good choice. D&D, as the oldest and flagship RPG, probably shouldn't be too innovative, too exotic. The corrolary is that for people wanting exotic or innovative takes on gaming, maybe D&D isn't the right choice.

Makes sense to me. But there's an RPG forum meme out there that people don't really play D&D because they like it, but because they don't know any better, or they're hidebound, or they have no choice because it's so popular. I feel bad for people who have always disliked D&D but felt they had no option but to keep playing it. But they're deluding themselves if they think they're representative of the hundreds of thousands - even millions - of people who have played and enjoyed the game for decades. People play D&D because they actually like it.

I agree, although think the truth is somewhere in the middle and includes element of that RPG forum meme. People buy brand names because that's what they recognize, that's what they grew up with. It doesn't mean its crappy, though, just that the familiarity breeds a kind of loyalty and love.

RPG forums also attract a lot of people who love discussing game design and theory. It's kind of a sub-hobby of playing RPGs. Most of the people in the RPG design sub-hobby think D&D is objectively a poorly designed game. It frustrates them that the flagship game in the hobby is, in their opinion, incoherent and mathematically unsound. It seems obvious to them that a mechanically re-designed D&D would be an improvement, and thus more popular.

Personally, I disagree with the theorists because I don't share the belief in objectively superiour RPG design. Furthermore, I don't believe most players engage with the system anywhere near as intently and analytically as RPG theorists like to believe. These 'objectively superiour' design principles are largely irrelevant to many gamers - especially casual gamers. WotC focused on 'feel' in the 5E playtests because they're quite correct that feel is the foremost experience of the game for most D&D players, not mechanical structure and numerical balance. 4E was a system-up game design. WotC clearly believes that was a mistake, in hindsight. 5E is something of a throwback, because WotC believes that - contrary to what RPG forum theorists have been saying for years - gamers quite like D&D already, and don't feel it needs a substantial redesign.

Yes, true. I think you're touching upon the difference between experts and lay people, and how experts (and academics, for that matter) can get so lost in abstraction, in their expertise, that they forget what the point of what they're talking about is - in this case, a game's primary purpose is to have fun. If game rules facilitate that, they work.

Most people who play D&D simply want to have fun in a game of imaginative, fantasy immersion. They don't care about cutting edge game design, excepts as it facilitates that primary objective.