Interesting Tweet

[El Mahdi]

Lies.

Hmmmm...

Cryptic...

I'm not sure what you're getting at here...

 

[DumbPaladin]

I've moved on to such a degree, with WotC never going to be a part of my life again, that seeing the combination of "Wizards of the Coast" and "interesting" immediately struck me as contradictory.

Kinda agree with the one-word response a few posts back, but ... even if it is true, my response is a shrug and a "So?"

 

[Falstaff]

This was tweeted about an hour ago:

(Mike) There's a GIANT @Gen_Con meeting happening right now. A "who's who" of #dnd superstars. We're talking about [REDACTED]. #dndgencon

 

[Crothian]

That could mean anything. Just fill in the blank and its like mad lips.

"There's a GIANT @Gen_Con meeting happening right now. A "who's who" of #dnd superstars. We're talking about fifth century art."

 

[Dragonbait]

I'm there. They are talking about left turn arrows.

It's fascinating, really.

 

[Reynard]

This was tweeted about an hour ago:

(Mike) There's a GIANT @Gen_Con meeting happening right now. A "who's who" of #dnd superstars. We're talking about [REDACTED]. #dndgencon

Ah. So we're just looking at another marketting ploy. Too bad. I was hoping for something more real.

(probably not the place for this, but I am going to do it anyway)

I WANT to like D&D in its currently published form. I WANT to mean "I'm playing D&D" when I say "I'm playing D&D" but I am really playing Pathfinder -- because that's what I do, I say "I'm off to play D&D" when what I really mean is "I'm off to play Pathfinder." That feels somehow wrong, that some other game has "become" D&D and the "real" D&D just... isn't.

Sorry for the threadjack.

 

[Shemeska]

Ah. So we're just looking at another marketting ploy.

That would be my guess.

A few of their guys have tossed in the "[redacted]" thing over twitter in the past, so it's probably also half in-joke to some of their fanboys.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Problem is, even that's not all that true. In 1st Ed, thief skills were d%, roll low, surprise was d6 roll high. In 2nd Ed, NWPs were d20, roll low, initiative was d10, roll low. In both cases, resurrection survival was d%, roll low. I forget "open doors", but it was something else again.

The "roll a D20, higher numbers are better, compare to a target number, roll different dice for the result," does appear in all editions, but it wasn't a "universal mechanic" until 3e. And even 3e didn't use just that - for rolls that had no modifiers, it used d% instead.

That's why I qualified it with "pretty." The only reason to prefer some of the outliers, like "rolling high is better, except sometimes when it's not" is nostalgia. Streamline the core a bit and (almost) everything else works off that -- and the "(almost) everything else" gets put into a rules module that can be bolted on, just like horror rules or social combat rules.

Wouldn't that just be rejected out of hand by the people currently playing OD&D, BD&D, 1st Ed, 2nd Ed or 3.x? They've already got their ruleset. Why would they want some new WotC edition, even if it does work out as being functionally identical?

I don't know. I'm not advocating it nor am I someone playing BD&D. I'm just trying to work from what we know toward where they seem to be going.

But as much as the roll-your-own aesthetic is prominent in tabletop roleplaying, a well-made adventure module is a popular, popular thing (it's the cornerstone of the Paizo Empire, for instance). If 5E had a core that everyone could work off of -- including Paizo, Frog God/Necromancer, Goodman, etc. -- and it would work for every edition without at-home conversions, I think there'd be a lot of people happy to pull out their wallets for both the new core book(s) and those adventures.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Ah. So we're just looking at another marketting ploy. Too bad. I was hoping for something more real.

How would it look different if it were "more real," if The Powers That Be forbade them going public with it until GenCon?

At this point, both "real" and "marketing hype" would have to look identical.

 

[Crothian]

Ah. So we're just looking at another marketting ploy.

It is twitter and much of what twitter is is just marketing.