NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mercurius" data-source="post: 6360298" data-attributes="member: 59082">Oh boy, a lot to reply to - I'll just have to go in order. Backing up a bit...But it isn't about the "Aging Hardcore Few" being representative, but that they (we) are the core of the market, the folks that will buy every single round of core books, edition after edition, even if we're in a multi-year lull. The Hardcore Few are the "bird in hand" - the Faithful, if you will, but shouldn't be taken for granted or not seen as important. So while casual players come and go, the Hardcore Few...abide.Sorry, but you lost me here! Not sure what you're saying.Wait, you mean my belief vs. your belief, right? <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f60e.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":cool:" title="Cool    :cool:"  data-smilie="6"data-shortname=":cool:" />Seriously though, I somewhat agree with you in that system mastery--in any edition--becomes a bigger deal once the splats get out of hand. But in 4E part of the problem, or challenge really, was tactical mastery. For players that think tactically, 4E combat is a blast, while for those that don't it is difficult, even demoralizing as you end up seeming ineffective compared to the Tactical Masters (see, for instance, [MENTION=11999]Keldryn[/MENTION]'s post).Right. I don't feel like I have a really strong handle on 5E yet, but maybe one difference is that A/D is almost more like a DM boon, while CA was something a PC could position for. Anyhow, A/D seems more flexible somehow, less specific - which I like, but some might find too indistinct.Well not only that, but it is less abstract and simpler in terms of primary activities and game play. The strength and weakness of 4E combat is that it was so tactical, so abstract - combat was a game within the game, and you played your character like he was your avatar in a combat environment. 5E harkens back to theater of mind, where "I swing my sword" rather than "my character uses an encounter power."I think some people, especially those who didn't grow up with video games, had a hard time with that. Well yes, that's part of it. It seems that 5E doesn't require nearly as much complexity as 3E and 4E did, and it would be more easy to pull someone off the street, hand them a fighter character, and say "roll d20," whereas a 4E swordmage requires a relatively advanced tactical mind and understanding of the game.  I think it really depends upon who those new players are.Again, with 4E I think tactical mastery was at least as important. 4E privileged those who had a certain kind of tactical mind, and actually penalized people who didn't.Totally!While reading this the thought arose that perhaps the amount of years mattered? Maybe there's a sub-conscious, perhaps even natural, life-cycle to an edition? 3E came out after 11 years of 2E, while 4E came out after 8 years of 2E. Maybe there's something about that decade mark that is "right"? I don't know, just a thought.I also think it has a lot to do with how much 4E veered from traditional D&D tropes, from AEDU powers to dragonborn, tiefling and eladrin in the Player's Handbook, etc. It really might have done better as a "variant" D&D that focused on tactical play. I'd love to see how it would look as a module for 5E.No doubt!I Have Cometh.I think we're in agreement here, with the bottom line being what I put in bold. Successful D&D movies would bring greater interest to the game. Maybe not another wave of 20 million, but probably some lapsed players from the 80s and 90s would wander back and take a look, although I think the holy grail is more of a new, young generation falling in love with the game. That's where movies are hugely important.See for me this is part of the appeal - not the possibility of being worse than 3E, but being similar to AD&D and 3E - but without the same weaknesses. Like 3E, it is modernized and much cleaner than AD&D, but unlike 3E it doesn't (yet) have the heaviness of bloat. I also do hope we see a few gonzo-esque 4Eish modules in the DMG and later books, at least as options.</blockquote>

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