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

[Tony Vargas]

That it doesn't reduce the damage at all if you hit an unarmored leg. Plate mail makes it primarily harder for a blowdart to hit the person inside the armor.

You don't have to explain the concept to me, obviously, but I've had to explain it to enough new players to understand that it doesn't come naturally.

In any case, I seriously doubt that many people have any intuitive understanding of how armor works, and I stand fast in my position that once you've boiled armor down to one number, AC is a perfectly fine approximation.

Perfectly fine approximation doesn't preclude being unintuitive.

Ask any normal person if something that bounces off them 'hit' them and they'll say 'yes.'

And d20 based retroclones are even easier to teach to new players than 4E. Castles and Crusades or Basic Fantasy for example. Vancian is somewhat simple to teach to new players as well although they may not know what the good spells and combinations are

I get why you might think that, since they seem more familiar to you, but, unless they're a /lot/ different from the original they're cloning, it seems improbable, to me.

It's very easy for a longtime D&Der to jump to the conclusion that, because he enjoyed old-school D&D the first time he played, it's the best thing for new players, that, because D&D seems simple to him, now, it'll be simple to new players, and that because he was put off by 4e, no one else could possibly like it. None of those conclusions would be valid.

 

[Neonchameleon]

A creative and community success, that is. I know, it is early, but the feedback on the Starter Set, Basic Rules, and Player's Handbook has been overwhelmingly positive, so much so that the negative views really stand out. We still need to see more reviews and give the community a couple months with the Player's Handbook, but so far I think 5E is quite a success with the fan base, and I just can't imagine anything like the debacle that we had with 4E.

I'm getting a very different vibe. What I'm reading is positive - but lukewarm. 4e shot for the moon - and fell to earth. 5e is aiming to hit the ball out of the back garden and will probably succeed. We won't see the deserved debacle from Keep on the Shadowfell being a terrible adventure. But we're not seeing much in any direction.

Seriously, the line itself stands or falls on the supplements. Which Mearls has said they aren't going for. WotC also risking anything by hiring talent to actually write adventures, instead subcontracting even their most important adventures (their first adventures (including Tyranny of Dragons) being subcontracted to Wolfgang Bauer and Kobold Press). WotC has little enough confidence in D&D's ability to make money from adventures that all they get from the adventures that are going to sell the best for the edition are licensing fees. And the focus on boardgames? That's an accounting trick. Disguising that D&D itself won't be making much money after the initial surge.

All the indications I'm reading right down to the staggered release of the core books indicates that WotC is preparing D&D for mothballs rather than preparing it to be any sort of roaring success. Not that they aren't trying, but the business decisions to me indicate that WotC are minimising risk rather than trying for a big success.

 

[prosfilaes]

You don't have to explain the concept to me, obviously, but I've had to explain it to enough new players to understand that it doesn't come naturally.

How many players have you had to explain RuneQuest to? What justification do you have saying a DR system would be any more natural?

I get why you might think that, since they seem more familiar to you, but, unless they're a /lot/ different from the original they're cloning, it seems improbable, to me.

Which ignores the point; if your character can be summarized on a half-sheet of paper, then that's a lot simpler then anything that takes multiple sheets of paper. Take a look at Basic Fantasy RPG; page 3 shows a character written out. 18 lines, 2 columns. The only characters I've had that were simpler were the Dungeon Crawl Classics ones. In Basic Fantasy, you pick a race and a class, and then you buy some equipment. The whole game may have its complexities, but character creation certainly wouldn't take the hour that D&D 4 did for me.

 

[Neonchameleon]

And d20 based retroclones are even easier to teach to new players than 4E..

And Fate Accelerated, Fiasco, and Dread are easier yet. In my experience the people 4e was horrible for are in two groups:
1: A large subset of long time D&D players
2: People introduced through Keep on the Shadowfell and other terrible adventures.

Which ignores the point; if your character can be summarized on a half-sheet of paper, then that's a lot simpler then anything that takes multiple sheets of paper. Take a look at Basic Fantasy RPG; page 3 shows a character written out. 18 lines, 2 columns. The only characters I've had that were simpler were the Dungeon Crawl Classics ones. In Basic Fantasy, you pick a race and a class, and then you buy some equipment. The whole game may have its complexities, but character creation certainly wouldn't take the hour that D&D 4 did for me.

An hour? Seriously? And that depends how detailed the summary is - the textbook case being whether your summary contains the names of your spells or powers, or their actual effects.

 

[Halivar]

All the indications I'm reading right down to the staggered release of the core books indicates that WotC is preparing D&D for mothballs rather than preparing it to be any sort of roaring success. Not that they aren't trying, but the business decisions to me indicate that WotC are minimising risk rather than trying for a big success.

Alternatively, they realize that books will not and cannot be a significant revenue stream (compared to other house brands). They exist to support and promulgate the brand and its cross-media push.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Alternatively, they realize that books will not and cannot be a significant revenue stream (compared to other house brands). They exist to support and promulgate the brand and its cross-media push.

I don't see this as an alternative. I see it quite simply as another way of saying "They don't think they can make money from the game itself this time".

 

[sunshadow21]

No, it won't lead to a golden age. It can support the brand long enough for WotC to have a crack at expanding the brand into other markets and products, but that is the best it is likely to do. It's still the same basic core system every other previous edition has had, not to mention all the OSR and OGL spinoffs. It's not going to automatically appeal to those with edition fatigue. It's not going to automatically reunite all the lapsed players under the official brand name. It will sustain the brand as it stands today, and will do so quite well if given proper support. Any expectations beyond that are probably shooting a bit high right now. Maybe if it's still doing well in five years, the expectations for the next round of products can be raised; until than, it's probably wiser not to expect too much.

 

[Gamgee]

I don't think people realize this... but.... HERE THERE BE GOLDEN AGES!!! Ahahahaha / Barbosa

Well golden age is a wrong word. Renaissance is a much better term. We're in the renaissance now, cheers!

 

[Mistwell]

The value of the Marvel IP is characters that have a profile in pop culture (or at least geek culture). Hollywood can come up with its own stories and action sequences. What it needs is the recognition that Spider-Man, Iron-Man, Wolverine, or Thor can offer a film franchise.

Guardians of the Galaxy just proved this wrong. Not to mention Iron-Man and Thor both had weak general population recognition before they came out. But really, Guardians just flat-out proved it false. It had zero wide recognition. Even most geeks had only vague familiarity with them, at best.

 

[delericho]

Perfectly fine approximation doesn't preclude being unintuitive.

Ask any normal person if something that bounces off them 'hit' them and they'll say 'yes.'

And that's why D&D doesn't have you roll to hit, it has you make an attack roll.

Armour doesn't make you harder to hit; it makes you harder to hurt.