Parmandur
Book-Friend
I think Basic would have thrived in the current environment.
D&D 5E Is 5E Special
The-Magic-Sword
Small Ball Archmage
I think the issue is, nothing is universal, there are people who swear by every edition of DND-- so the presence of people who either don't have, don't notice, or don't mind the problems is neither here nor there if you do have issues with it, and their issues with it are neither here nor there for the people that do enjoy it unless they come up later for those people. The push and pull becomes about whether the problem can be fixed via a change of frame or whether the people who enjoy it now would enjoy it even more changed, or if they'd enjoy it this amount regardless because the issues are just orthogonal to where they get their fun from so itd be better to fix it for the people who need it fixed.
I'm sort of the opinion that a lot of 5e's success is momentum and back loading of its pain points, people are heavily invested in the system by the time they would start having issues, and new players especially might not take the idea of other options seriously and assume they already have the best option because it's the most popular. So I see a route where the game has issues for a significant portion of participants, but they're too invested to leave, so they develop a massive culture of homebrew and advice to paper over the many flaws they've variously found and an entire sub-industry of homebrewers and youtube content creators takes shape.
EzekielRaiden
Follower of the Way
Sure. But it's exactly that "we'll never know" that is the problem.
We have a history that happened. Both claims, "it was mostly due to coincidence, innate qualities played a small part" and "it was almost exclusively incredibly good/near-perfect innate qualities, coincidence was mostly irrelevant" are claims about speculative alternate histories about which we have no data. People continue to cast the former claim, no matter how mildly stated, as both an extreme hostile attack on 5e, and as requiring huge and conclusive data set. By contrast, the claim that 5e was literally actually perfect, or so close as to be essentially so, gets nothing but nods and approval, despite being dramatically more extreme than all but the most strident critics.
And people wonder why critics of 5e don't really feel like anyone takes them seriously. This isn't even the first time I've heard statements like 5e being "98% perfect." Back when 5e was still pretty new, I had someone say to my (digital) face that it was impossible for anyone to dislike 5e. I admit, at the time, my response to that statement was...unwise. But I hope that the example illustrates how pro-5e voices have been, in their exuberance, making such extreme claims and expecting (and, sadly, usually getting) approval and agreement despite the obvious issues with said extreme claims.
To be clear, that extreme claim was:
Just want it quoted in its entirety so I'm not at risk of twisting words to something other than what they were.
I did not claim you did, but you certainly didn't speak up when others did, either. If you ignore people repeatedly making extreme claims that favor your position and hound after burdens of proof from anyone making even mild criticism of your position, it is not hard to make the leap that you aren't really engaging with the discussion, just slapping down anyone who disagrees with you. Which is, more or less, what I've seen from most fans of 5e. It isn't enough to like 5e, or even love it; others must not be allowed to even criticize it without the kind of data set you'd use to prove the existence of a previously-unknown subatomic particle. But anyone making foolishly extreme praise of 5e? Sure, whatever, they're on board with the program, no need to react or correct them.
Really? You think people would have flocked to that horrible descending armor class system that was clumsy and almost insultingly anti-intuitive? You think they would be happy wanting to play a wizard, but then doing nothing but throwing darts every single turn except one?
Listen, the early 80s was my era of D&D, and I remember it very fondly. But there was lots in the game that is obviously dumb in the light of modern game philosophies. There's no way 5e would be so popular if it had those millstones of bad game design around its neck.
The idea is the the community of homebrewers, independent professional DMs, 3rd party companies, celebrity Youtubers, celebrity Twitch streamers, nerd culture news sites, and RPG article sites would have ironed out 1.E into an unofficial 1.5E ruleset because the core 1e was so simple.
1st lacked serious third party support
yes. Because remember it was wildly popular for it’s day. Without all the media support, streamer, celebrities coming out of the woodwork in support, Dmsguild, online playing platforms and OGL support from 3rd parties that 5e enjoys today
EzekielRaiden
Follower of the Way
An excellent discussion of how a game can succeed despite some of its characteristics and not because of the whole set thereof. Indeed, one could argue the same thing happened to 3rd edition: the first 6ish levels were playtested and reasonably balanced, but after that it goes pretty quickly off the rails. Yet people loved (and in many cases still love) 3.x, its enormous mechanical variety, its nooks and crannies, sometimes even the ridiculous gonzo you could produce within its rules. They got hooked by the initial onboarding and were more willing to try to fix it than to move on to something better-designed, in many cases despite explicitly knowing and recognizing the many issues it has. That is quite literally why PF1e exists, and why PF2e wasn't an absolute knockout when it launched. People in this thread generally agree about how flawed and problematic 3.x/PF1e were, yet that edition family remains fairly popular (albeit much more niche than before.)
Even in this thread, we've had pro-5e folks admit that high-level 5e isn't great, that there are classes and subclasses that aren't well-made, that the DMG is below the standard it should have met as perhaps the most important book for D&D's long-term health, that they see certain default rules as seriously flawed and in actual need of replacement with official options or homebrew, etc. If we all had the ability to make choices in a perfectly logical context with no sunk-cost thinking and no emotional attachment, there's no guarantee at all that these issues wouldn't be enough to drive some folks (surely not all, but surely not none either) into seeking other games. And things like Level Up exist, and have rather significant popularity, because people recognize that 5e as it exists is incomplete, lacking support for some archetypes and making a poor showing for some of the archetypes it does claim to support.
And that hits on a key sticking point. How much change can you make and still call it “5e?” If you houserule half the core systems and use Level Up and rewrite several classes and all spell lists, as we know at least one person on this forum has done (well, maybe not the LU part, but DND_Reborn has not been remotely shy about discussing the dramatic and radical rewrites they've made), are you still playing “5e,” or are you playing your own OGL homebrew system which happens to resemble 5e in some ways?
I know this is a Ship of Theseus/sorites paradox situation, there are no clean answers. But the point stands that even among people who love 5e and have been there from the beginning, there is already some disagreement as to what 5e is or should be. To extrapolate from 5e's success to the idea that all of its systems are "near-perfect" or that it was truly, uniquely special in a way that is more important than the context in which it appeared...it just isn't justified.
EzekielRaiden
Follower of the Way
Perhaps. It has an awful lot of anti-player design in it, however, which I think would have held it back from truly mass appeal. All the stuff like ear seekers and cloakers etc., the horrible organization (or lack thereof) of the books, the awkward mathematical choices like descending AC, etc. I would in fact say 1e's success was almost purely because it was the first product of its kind (and thus had zero competition), and because the field of game design was so new there were no player expectations to manage. Poster child of success despite its design, rather than because of it.
The question was would another addition be as popular if it had the same support 5e has. Yes it was the first of its kind, but imagine if you had the internet with all its benefits. Social media with all its benefits. OGL and dmsguild for 3rd party with all the benefits
It’s not about the rules of the edition or how they played. It’s about access and benefits applied to it- it’s why I think 1st would have soared. It was popular without all those things. All the benefits of today used? Yes
Warpiglet-7
Cry havoc! And let slip the pigs of war!
Not going to disagree with sunk costs and brand loyalty. Those things can happen for any edition and do not mean 5e is ‘special’ alone.
What I am almost sure we will find is that there will be folks fixing most editions including 6e or 5.5 or whatever. But at first all the shiny is pretty intoxicating.
All of that said, the question is really one of preferences and how many people end up preferring something.
I don’t think it’s 5e per se that is so special but rather some of its features. Some of these are probably going to be around for a bit.
That 5e hit well for so many suggests it has some elements that resonate and that there are enough of them to get a wide audience.
What would prove that? I am not sure. If they drop the new game with similar elements and it does not have huge drop off it would be somewhat convincing with me.
The only real way to know would be to create another condition. If the game got really different and stayed popular we would suspect brand loyalty. If it does not change much and loses favor we would think “regression to the mean” after the blitzkrieg of special conditions—-critical role, the play test pandemic, a cohort effect all in combination?
Brand loyalty did not save 4e. So I don’t think it made 5e. It was a precondition but was not sufficient.
My assertion (just opinion after all) is that it was the right game at the right time. All the warts were not just “overlooked” but rather were not that “warty” to all but a subset who use the game differently.
I think if 5e was just obscuring so many problems that there are enough discerning players that would have moved on. They did from 4e, from some D&D competitors too.
I think 5e had a lot of the right stuff such that for most folks the good far outweighs the bad and that it’s enduring appeal to a big cross section of players is a testament to its formula. For sure hat reason I will say it is special.
The only real way to know is to make New Coke and see if people clamor for Coca Cola.
But this does not mean it’s a perfect game. If they reduced spell slots or added some maneuvers for fighters, I don’t think there will be a mass exodus.
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