D&D 5E I want D&D Next to be a new edition, not just an improved version of Edition X

[KarinsDad]

My approach and hope for 5E is quite different. I don't want an incrementally improved version of a specific edition. What I want is a new edition, one that hopefully takes the best elements of other editions and re-works them into a new whole.

I think the issue is one of degree.

4E was drastically different than earlier editions. 3E was also drastically different.

So, let's take something like feats. There were effectively 7 versions / subversions that did not have feats and 4 versions / subversions that did. I think one can pretty much assume that feats are not going to be dropped out of 5E. They are too integral to the last 11+ years of D&D, even though there were not in the first 26 years. It's unlikely that the 5E game designers are going to make feats an add on module. If someone doesn't like feats (and there are some things to not like about that particular game mechanic), they will pretty much be in the same boat with 5E.

You might think that feats are one of the best elements of various versions and another player might think that they are a hack.

So, this is just one example of where one person's best elements does not agree with another person's.


Because of this, I think that 5E will not even attempt to be the best mechanical elements of earlier versions, but more the best feel elements of earlier versions. Vancian magic will be back. Ability score checks will be back stronger than in recent versions. But, the mechanics of these earlier edition elements will probably not be the same as earlier.

The idea is not merely a new edition of D&D (although that will happen), but rather a stronger D&D flavor edition of D&D. For people that loved and still prefer 1E, 2E was a slightly different flavored D&D, 3E was heavily different flavored, and 4E was really different flavored. The game morphed a lot.

As an example, the utility of the Invisibility spell went from extremely useful to nearly useless over the various editions. Wizards used to take it all of the time, even up into the 3.5 days (although it was a lot less useful even then). In 4E, Wizards almost never take it. That drastically changes the feel of the game for some players.

4E introduced powers. That drastically changes the flavor of the game for some players. Elements like a lot of first level and racial teleportation changes the feel for some players. 3E not only introduced feats and prestige classes, but it also introduced the Christmas tree of magic items.

In order to gain back a lot of gamers from a lot of different editions, I think the designers are going to go with a more middle of the road, quasi-2E type feel (not necessarily mechanics, but feel), and then having classes and modules to add back in some of the more recent non-earlier flavor type feel elements from the last decade plus. Not so much the best elements of earlier editions as you indicated, rather, the best feel of earlier editions with add ons to hand back some of the feel/mechanics of various editions.

 

[Mercurius]

[MENTION=2011]KarinsDad[/MENTION], good stuff - I agree with you that it will more be the "feel" of earlier editions, with some kind of d20-based streamlined core mechanic.

I do think, however, that feats are likely to be "modularized." Remember, one of the design goals is not only to allow different play styles, but different play styles--and character types--at the same game table. Two fighters at the same table and one might have a pre-set group of class features, while another might trade some of them in for feats and other some kind of powers or combat maneuvers.

Actually, I suspect that in terms of what will be new about 5E, the key will be the mechanic of modularization itself - how modules are swapped in and out, or how components of a template class are broken up into modular parts. This will be the trick to allowing a wide variety of not only play styles but character types.

 

[Bedrockgames]

The problem I have with making something compketely new, like they did with 4e it is ends up being a very different game to me. i went back to D&D because of the things that made D&D for me over the years, but take away enough of those and I am no longer an automatic customer butnhave to be sold on the new edition (and if the play and mechaics dont appeal to me, i wont make the switch). Right now I have plenty of games I enjoy that arn't D&D and the only thing that will bring me back after 4E is a supported edition that plays much more like pre-4E D&D.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

@KarinsDad , good stuff - I agree with you that it will more be the "feel" of earlier editions, with some kind of d20-based streamlined core mechanic.

I do think, however, that feats are likely to be "modularized." Remember, one of the design goals is not only to allow different play styles, but different play styles--and character types--at the same game table. Two fighters at the same table and one might have a pre-set group of class features, while another might trade some of them in for feats and other some kind of powers or combat maneuvers.

Actually, I suspect that in terms of what will be new about 5E, the key will be the mechanic of modularization itself - how modules are swapped in and out, or how components of a template class are broken up into modular parts. This will be the trick to allowing a wide variety of not only play styles but character types.

I think the inevitable and only real path there is to make class/race choices with a progression of default 'features' that can be replaced with other feats if you choose to use those rules. You can by default play an AD&D-esque paladin and that will be a basic default. You can also choose to play a 'modular paladin' with the ability to change out various features for other things. Maybe your character doesn't lay on hands, but he has an extraordinary ability to intimidate his opponents, etc.

Other systems will probably be more clearly simple add-ons. It is hard to see how all of that will work in a truly balanced fashion, but we'll see what they can do. IMHO you're going to inevitably end up with only a few options that will really work together at a single table, but at least they will exist.

 

[malkav666]

I am not so certain that I want something new and shiny and not an improvement of something I already like. When 3.x came out it didn't really do it for me tbh. I tried it and when the dust settled it ended up being my favorite style of D&D, but at first glance I was sure it was not my boat. When 4e came out I felt the same way, the only difference is that after playing it I liked it less than at first glance.

I too started D&D with AD&D, and I find that most of the other D&D editions regardless of innovations have the same type of pacing and structure that allowed me to run games in the same flavor as what I started with except for 4e. I don't mean to be mean, but if 5e is an update to 4e and has 4e written on the core of it, I will almost certainly give it a pass. Thats not a trash on folks who like that type of play either, if 5e ended up in fact being exactly that (a direct update of 4e that is) i'd be cool with it, as there is a market for that type of game, I'm just not a member of that market.

I think in the end though with the idea of a modular system you have to have a base, and in this case it needs to be a base that can appeal to most of the D&D audience. To me that seems like a hard sell. I have played D&D-ish games of various editions with many groups over the years and the pace and overall feel of the different editions can be very marked. And preference of edition and rules bits is at the forefront of that differentiation of taste IMO.

I think overall; they would be better off with a strong overhaul and improvement (ala new edition) of an older version of the game with a few style elements added in to cater to fans of newer editions, with perhaps some strong splat support for those play styles post release. In my opinion (and it should be read as such) that gets them the largest chunk of active D&D flavored players. As much as I like 3e I don't think it should be the core of a successful new edition. An updated 3e is a game I would by in a heartbeat but there is such a strong divide between the 3e and 4e fan base that close modeling of either of those editions I think will end up as an immediate deal breaker for fans of the edition that got left out, and would also not gain wotc any of the old edition players.

I think if they model it after an older edition they have a decent shot at the older edition folks, and I don't think that diehard 3e or 4e fans have an immediate negative reaction to the older editions like they do with 3e or 4e respectively (depending of course on which one of those they favor). I don't of course think they should reprint verbatim an older edition and sell it as 5e. There is a lot of room for clean up and even improvement (retroclones have shown this in many cases depending on who you ask) in older editions without abandoning the core concepts of those editions mechanically.

I do feel like they need to have an edition to update and build from or they need to make a brand new game and call it D&D. I think they really tried to break the mold and present a new take on the game with 4e.I also think they failed to present a game that played at a similar pace and delivered a comparable experience to everything that came before it (not to read as an implication to whether this departure was considered a feature or by mistake). Im not saying this is bad design, or that its not D&D. It has all the credentials to be called D&D, there are d20s, dragons, exp, +1 swords, and magic missiles. And Im not saying that some DMs didn't defy that statement and deliver very different experiences to their groups. I am just speaking about the actual play experiences of me and mine from both sides of the screen. In my groups collective experience the pace of the game is very different than all of the other editions. Once again Im not hating, but just stating how I interpret the major differences with the system. It ended up delivering a brand new experience to my 4e tables, and it wasn't even a bad experience. It just happened to be that it wasn't the experience that I was looking for when I sit down to play D&D. Most of the adventures I had bought and personally designed over the years needed a hard update not just in stats of the challenges, but in overall structure and flow to even be used in our 4e games. I just wasn't willing to make those updates for a game that didn't really deliver on my own expectations of what D&D is.

I am personally looking for a less iconoclastic approach to the next edition of D&D than what 4e was. I want my cows back. I am cool with new approaches on herding the cows, or some of the cows chewing on the ruffage in the side bars, I am even willing to check out some new additions to the herd. But those cows were sacred for a reason. I may not personally like all of them but in many ways both good and bad they are a part of the definition of D&D to me. They are what makes D&D not some other fantasy tabletop game, and are in my opinion a very valid part of D&Ds brand identity, although respectfully, a lot of them could use some clean up and improvement.

D&D has a long, colorful, and often strange heritage. I would like the next edition of the game to embrace that heritage, and deliver a game that proudly displays it rather than shys away from it pretending like we won't notice. When I started playing D&D it was done with some graph paper, some pennies and various other tokens robbed from lesser games, and some cheetos. Those nights are the ones I treasure above all others in my history of gaming. Maybe I just didn't know better. But I have found time and time again when I break out the old books and play those games it still works the same. Its a good experience and it is the core of D&D to me. I want a game that delivers that at its inception. I am not opposed to expanding that core with splat. But I wan't the basis of the game to be grounded in its rich history rather than in something recognizable as D&D in mostly name with some framework hand-me-downs.

But at the end of the day I guess I just want something that is simple at its heart with the option to make it more complex as I see fit. I want the usual suspects as far as critters and classes are concerned. They can put whatever they want in splat but the core should be immediately recognizable to anyone whos ever played D&D of any edition. Sure, I want some new options and refinements as well, but not at the expense of losing all of the old options or the themes or feel of them.

I think that if they want to include everyone they will have to have to core resemble an older edition and add in options to make newer concepts interact with that core rather than vice versa. But meh, what do i know? The $120 dollars that I may spend on the core is worth no more and no less than the $120 bucks you might spend.

Like I said: its a hard sell. But I will be playtesting when they finally make it happen like many of you. I like to think that a new edition of D&D would be a game that I would enjoy, but I don't really need it to be. I have great options currently. If 5e ends up being a great option (whether it is a new game in the guise of a new edition or an update of whatever edition/s) then I will support it with my dollars. If its not a great option for me then I will continue doing what I am doing now: Playing D&D.

love,

malkav

 

[Stormonu]

No. D&D has gotten too far away from what it once was and needs to return. I should be able to pull Keep on the Borderlands off the shelf and run it in a game of D&D with minimal conversion, not scrap everything but names and start over.

I don't mind improvements and refinements to the game, but I don't want a new game like 4E tried to do. Even 3E pushed the envelope too far sometimes.

All a "new" game edition will do is further fracture the existing game base. We don't need that, what we need is a unification.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

I wouldn't be terribly interested in incremental improvements or such to 3E, 3.5, 4E, or Essentials. Those already do what they do with relatively clean mechanics. You can start chasing incremental improvements too long, and not really add that much.

This is why, for example, the Hero System, when it started the big generic cleanup in 4th edition, did make noticable improvements in 4th, 5th, and 6th. However, by the time 6th rolled around, there wasn't much left to improve without hitting the fundamentals--and about the only fundamental they were willing to hit was the figured characteristics--which was nice, but hardly worth a whole new edition by itself. The improvements are improvements, but too nitpicky to get you all that excited about them--as if some version of D&D left everything else alone, but made charisma marginally more interesting. That's great for people coming in later, but not so hot for those who already have it. I want a new edtion to have something that I don't already more or less have, and eventually incremental improvements don't give you that.

However, I also wouldn't mind a version that was truly incremental improvements to BECMI or early AD&D. The stuff that came immediately after was expanding scope and organizing the bulk of material, not much in the way of rules improvements. In a sense, part of the problem with 4E is that it went the direction it did from 3E as the starting place instead of early D&D as the starting place. I'd like to see a "do over" from early D&D, with the lessons learned doing 3E and 4E. Heck, seperate from that, I'd like to see a 4E built off of BECMI instead of anything that came later. It wouldn't be everyones' cup of tea, but it would be a better game.

That's not what we are going to get, exactly, though. Or not exactly what they are aiming at. As I've said before, I don't think the real heart of D&D has even been nailed perfectly, in any version. The heart of it was so different at each table, and how the stuff around it moves, that the heart is difficult to even see. If the heart of D&D is our sun, then the various versions have been planets, moons, astroids, etc. (Dont think versions counting out from the sun here. They are all over the place.)

But the main point is that "space" is a big area. There is a lot of stuff in the boundaries of D&D that is not the heart of D&D. So I think what they are trying to do is get closer to the sun. Whether they pull it off or get scorched is the question.

 

[Jawsh]

The one thing that I wish existed between all editions is continuity. Take note, the word "edition" has the word "edit" in it. That means you take the old thing, the existing work, and improve on it. It's not even a new edition if it's going to be a reinvention every time. That's why WotC is trying to push "iteration" because that doesn't tie them down to "editing" an existing work.

But for me, I want continuity. I want a game in which I could buy the original Fiend Folio and start playing the currently supported edition. Sure, they could update monsters from time to time, but I would have liked it to be stressed that new versions of monsters were "optional". And then, like the old Dragon Annuals, print the best revisions, tested by the entire community in a new "edition". That would be a messier way to do it, but richer, as far as I'm concerned.

 

[howandwhy99]

I'm kind of hoping for Dungeons & Frankenstein. It can look like a lot of different things, it's still obviously D&D wherever you go, yet not quite any game that came before it.

 

[wedgeski]

One of the big selling points of 4E, and one of the reasons I like it so much, is that it *was* a brave new take on D&D and really stuck its neck out there.

Now, many people didn't like it, and many people did. We have a more divided community than ever. But, I can't fault 4E for going for broke. This is what I want from professional game designers, and it's when I most eagerly give them my hard-won dosh.

I don't want an incremental take on 4E, even though it would probably be a game I would really like, because I already have 4E. It's not going anywhere. My current campaign will probably continue through the release of 5E. Instead, I want for 5E what I want from every edition, and what for the most part I've actually been given over the years (3.5 excluded, but I don't consider that a genuine edition change anyway): a modern take on the D&D experience I love.