D&D (2024) In Interview with GamesRadar, Chris Perkins Discusses New Books

[overgeeked]

Core 4 + bard, paladin, druid, warlock could have carried the bulk of the build weight while letting subclasses be more transformative and impactful.

Eh. Cleric, fighter, rogue, wizard. Everything else is a subclass or a multiclass of those four. Bard is a wizard-rogue. Paladin is a fighter-cleric. Druid is a subclass of cleric. Warlock is an optional casting schema, like spell points. Barbarian is a fighter subclass. Monk is a fighter-rogue. Sorcerer is another optional casting schema. Artificer is a wizard-rogue. Ranger is either a outdoors-focused rogue subclass or a fighter-rogue. You could even collapse wizard and cleric into one class with different specializations.

 

[Oofta]

Maybe not with complete certainty, but I think we can make solid theories.

Start with the fact that its popularity is largely due to the large number--a majority--of new fans it brought in. Sure, lots of folks came back-whether people who had moved from 4E to Pathfinder, OSR games, etc, or folks that had just stopped playing--but we're not just talking about a renaissance, but a cultural phenomenon. Meaning, if it was just us old-timers dusting off our dice, then we'd be talking about something closer to the 3E revival, or maybe a bit more. But we're talking about a new player base that is multiple times larger than that.

If it was just a renaissance, then we could focus on the game itself and what it does well (or well enough) to win people back to playing. We could look at its "classic" vibe that harkens back more to 3E and before than 4E. We could even focus on specific elements like Bounded Accuracy.

But because the immense popularity is largely due to the influx of new players--Zennials, mainly--than it probably has more to do with outside influence. Stranger Things could be the single largest contributing factor; I don't know the number of viewers, but it is probably high tens of millions, if not 100 million+. Then you have a confluence of other factors, some specific some more nebulous: Critical Role, the mainstreaming of geek culture, the popularity of comic book movies, celebrity spokespeople, convenience of gaming apps, as well as lockdowns a kind of general digital ennui.

So I think we're on solid ground if we posit that 5E is as popular as it is because of a perfect storm of cultural factors, most especially Stranger Things. Sort of like a soup: Lots of ingredients, but the "star of the show" (the meat, if you will) is Stranger Things. And because of that, it is less so about the game itself--whether the mechanics or presentation--and more about external factors. The game itself probably helped sustain popularity, but it didn't create it. To use another metaphor, it is like a rising wave that WotC was able to successfully surf on. But to be fair, I think the single biggest internal factor that probably had a significant part in maintaining that success, was the relative lack of glut.

I really wish I had a link to the old thread that showed sales history for 5E. Because one of the things it showed? There was no significant jump in estimated sales after Stranger Things. It's not like D&D hadn't been presented on popular shows and movies before. In addition, Stranger Things didn't exactly make D&D a central part of the story other than naming the bad guys I suppose. It also featured nerdy kids playing in their mom's basement which just reinforced the stereotype. There are many nostalgic things that were represented in that show that didn't have a lasting impact. There was certainly a bump in people listening to Running Up That Hill but it didn't make Kate Bush a cultural phenomena.

I just don't buy the Stranger Things link. It helped. There's just no correlation, much less proof, that it made a big difference. I do contribute 5E's success in large part to cultural changes including acceptance of fantasy, geek culture and a desire to connect in person with friends and family.

On the other hand, most of those factors were in place for 4E as well. Nothing changed that drastically over the course of 4 years other than the rules and as you mentioned a slow release schedule. It's a combination of things, the pump was primed by cultural changes and acceptance and then a set of rules came along that happened to work for a lot of people.

So I stand by my statement. No one knows for certain, and I don't think it's possible to know.

 

[TwoSix]

Eh. Cleric, fighter, rogue, wizard. Everything else is a subclass or a multiclass of those four. Bard is a wizard-rogue. Paladin is a fighter-cleric. Druid is a subclass of cleric. Warlock is an optional casting schema, like spell points. Barbarian is a fighter subclass. Monk is a fighter-rogue. Sorcerer is another optional casting schema. Artificer is a wizard-rogue. Ranger is either a outdoors-focused rogue subclass or a fighter-rogue. You could even collapse wizard and cleric into one class with different specializations.

You can consolidate down to two, and just have mage and warrior, with being stealthy or good at skills just one build option among many.

What I think is that the design shouldn't be top down, it should be bottom up. Figure out exactly how many archetypes you want to support off the bat, which will assumedly be at least a few dozens. (As Perkins said, subclasses, which are essentially archetypes, are the Wild West, so go nuts.)

Then look at those archetypes and figure out which ones would make sense to consolidate into a similar mechanical skeleton, and can share a lot of leveling features. That will tell you how many classes you actually need.

 

[Mercurius]

I really wish I had a link to the old thread that showed sales history for 5E. Because one of the things it showed? There was no significant jump in estimated sales after Stranger Things. It's not like D&D hadn't been presented on popular shows and movies before. In addition, Stranger Things didn't exactly make D&D a central part of the story other than naming the bad guys I suppose. It also featured nerdy kids playing in their mom's basement which just reinforced the stereotype. There are many nostalgic things that were represented in that show that didn't have a lasting impact. There was certainly a bump in people listening to Running Up That Hill but it didn't make Kate Bush a cultural phenomena.

I just don't buy the Stranger Things link. It helped. There's just no correlation, much less proof, that it made a big difference. I do contribute 5E's success in large part to cultural changes including acceptance of fantasy, geek culture and a desire to connect in person with friends and family.

On the other hand, most of those factors were in place for 4E as well. Nothing changed that drastically over the course of 4 years other than the rules and as you mentioned a slow release schedule. It's a combination of things, the pump was primed by cultural changes and acceptance and then a set of rules came along that happened to work for a lot of people.

So I stand by my statement. No one knows for certain, and I don't think it's possible to know.

Fair enough - I'll stand by my statement too, that we can make an educated guess .

As for Stranger Things, I don't think it had an immediate impact, but as the show gathered viewers, so too did 5E's popularity rise. The first season was released in mid-2016, and D&D started spiking in 2017-18, peaking in 2021-22, the latter of which was the year season 4 came out.

Again, a ton of people were watching ST and D&D was a major motif - not just the scenes of them playing, but the fact that they were going on their own adventure and campaign, as a macrocosm of their D&D game. I might be overstating it as the central factor, but at the very least it was a major part of the soup.

 

[Parmandur]

Fair enough - I'll stand by my statement too, that we can make an educated guess .

As for Stranger Things, I don't think it had an immediate impact, but as the show gathered viewers, so too did 5E's popularity rise. The first season was released in mid-2016, and D&D started spiking in 2017-18, peaking in 2021-22, the latter of which was the year season 4 came out.

Again, a ton of people were watching ST and D&D was a major motif - not just the scenes of them playing, but the fact that they were going on their own adventure and campaign, as a macrocosm of their D&D game. I might be overstating it as the central factor, but at the very least it was a major part of the soup.

Stranger Things didn't hurt, but 5E was already a runaway success prior to it's premiere: both Stranger Things broader appeal and 5E success seem to me to be rooted in broader trends of what people are interested in these days.

 

[Mercurius]

Stranger Things didn't hurt, but 5E was already a runaway success prior to it's premiere: both Stranger Things broader appeal and 5E success seem to me to be rooted in broader trends of what people are interested in these days.

I would question "runaway success." IIRC, it was a big success in 2014-16ish, but mostly in a way like "3E Plus." Meaning, it was a renaissance and re-gathering of the flock, but wasn't yet a cultural phenomenon like it was starting in 2017-18, but more so in by 2019 and on.

 

[overgeeked]

You can consolidate down to two, and just have mage and warrior, with being stealthy or good at skills just one build option among many.

What I think is that the design shouldn't be top down, it should be bottom up. Figure out exactly how many archetypes you want to support off the bat, which will assumedly be at least a few dozens. (As Perkins said, subclasses, which are essentially archetypes, are the Wild West, so go nuts.)

Then look at those archetypes and figure out which ones would make sense to consolidate into a similar mechanical skeleton, and can share a lot of leveling features. That will tell you how many classes you actually need.

If you go that route it would be easier to make all “class features” a la carte so player can simply build the character they want instead of being limited to what the designers can come up with.

 

[Oofta]

Fair enough - I'll stand by my statement too, that we can make an educated guess .

As for Stranger Things, I don't think it had an immediate impact, but as the show gathered viewers, so too did 5E's popularity rise. The first season was released in mid-2016, and D&D started spiking in 2017-18, peaking in 2021-22, the latter of which was the year season 4 came out.

Again, a ton of people were watching ST and D&D was a major motif - not just the scenes of them playing, but the fact that they were going on their own adventure and campaign, as a macrocosm of their D&D game. I might be overstating it as the central factor, but at the very least it was a major part of the soup.

In the same way you can say that the popularity of Harry Potter, the Lord of the Rings movies, the MCU, video games, numerous other fantasy adjacent pop culture also contributed. Of course they did! But 5E was seeing double digit growth before Stranger Things, there was no bump whatsoever in the growth trend after the show. I could just as easily say that restoration of US diplomatic relations with Cuba* contributed to D&D's success because that also happened in 2014. Correlation doesn't show causation. In this case there's not even correlation.

*Thank you google for "what happened in 2014", although I've got to say most of the results skewed really negative.

 

[Oofta]

I would question "runaway success." IIRC, it was a big success in 2014-16ish, but mostly in a way like "3E Plus." Meaning, it was a renaissance and re-gathering of the flock, but wasn't yet a cultural phenomenon like it was starting in 2017-18, but more so in by 2019 and on.

It was growing by double digits at the point of Stranger Things release, the upward trend was pretty consistent for quite a while.

 

[Parmandur]

I would question "runaway success." IIRC, it was a big success in 2014-16ish, but mostly in a way like "3E Plus." Meaning, it was a renaissance and re-gathering of the flock, but wasn't yet a cultural phenomenon like it was starting in 2017-18, but more so in by 2019 and on.

By 2016, Mearls said 5E Core had outsold 3E, 3.5 and 4E...combined.