D&D (2024) Jeremy Crawford discusses what are the 2024 Fitfh Edition Core Rulebooks.

[Charlaquin]

Fourth Edition nearly killed D&D as a going concern, mostly because of bold own-goals that could have been avoided. Which is what they are working to avoid by only making changes if they delight and excite the audience.

It was easily the best-designed edition of D&D to date, and contrary to the popular narrative, it was successful in its own right. Even if it had been a commercial failure though, it would have still have been an excellent game with a substantial and passionate audience. Again, not being a publisher, I have the luxury of being able to prioritize great design over commercial success. I understand why WotC doesn’t have that luxury, but I stand by my opinion that the art suffers for it.

Also, the fact that WotC was able to turn around after the merely modest success of 4e and produce the titanic success of 5e is a point in favor of my position that if a change works out for the worse, you can just change it again.

 

[darjr]

I think part of the success of 5e is that WotC suggested it was the last edition. That the treadmill was turned off.

Now whether that’s actually true or not is different.

 

[Parmandur]

It was easily the best-designed edition of D&D to date, and contrary to the popular narrative, it was successful in its own right. Even if it had been a commercial failure though, it would have still have been an excellent game with a substantial and passionate audience. Again, not being a publisher, I have the luxury of being able to prioritize great design over commercial success. I understand why WotC doesn’t have that luxury, but I stand by my opinion that the art suffers for it.

Also, the fact that WotC was able to turn around after the merely modest success of 4e and produce the titanic success of 5e is a point in favor of my position that if a change works out for the worse, you can just change it again.

What WotC designs isn't the art, it's raw materials. What I and my friends do at the table is the art.

4E was fine, for what it was trying to do...but not ascertaining the correct ends to pursue ended up hurting the hobby. WotC avoiding that is good for customers. Sure, it is possible to recover...but the game can only dodge so many bullets. If they are tooling another iteration on the bones of D&D'14 in 2073 for the 100th anniversary that is still interoperable, thata win in my book.

 

[Parmandur]

I think part of the success of 5e is that WotC suggested it was the last edition. That the treadmill was turned off.

Now weather that’s actually true or not is different.

This video seems to make good on that idea, a little bit. And I liked the uniform progression! But if people weren't excited, they weren't excited. And I've seen plenty of people argue that changing the Subclass progression broke interoperability (it didn't), so closing an avenue of confusion and division is good.

 

[Mistwell]

Its like expecting Skyrim to simultaneously support Oblivion, Morrowind, Daggerfall, and Arena as all one big seamless game.

You could only get away with it in a TTRPG because just saying a book is compatible is effortless.

Skyrim COULD support all the other prior games. In fact, there are rumors they're eventually going to release exactly that. Because most of the meaningful portions of all those games are the settings. And supporting five settings with one base game rule system is...not a big deal.

So while I don't "expect" that, this was not about "expectations" this was a question as to why they couldn't support both. And I don't think your analogy helped your point. Why not?

Because supplements add new material to the game, or, as Tasha did, effectively deprecate old unwanted options.

Thats not going to work with 1DND because not everything from 5e is unwanted, especially compared to their nerfed counterparts.

It is new material though. You can play the old material, or the new material, in the same game. You can play a 2014 druid, or a 2024 druid, in the old Yawning Portal adventure, or in the new [Whatever] adventure.

And I completely disagree that Tasha's deprecated old unwanted options. Thousands of people use Tasha's while also using all the old options. You had the OPTION to replace stuff, but it was not in any way mandatory in order to use Tasha's material.


Most importantly, if 2024 comes out and people use it along with their 2014 material without much of an issue, then what? Will you then agree your prediction was flawed or will you tell those people they're not doing what they say they are doing?

 

[tetrasodium]

Basically. They've found something that sells extremely well and has widespread adoption, so why mess with it too much? Jeremy Crawford said so.

Luckily there are plenty of other publishers making games to cater to different tastes, so people should give those a try if WotC D&D isn't doing it for them.

DMs being responsible for the majority of their sales is a good reason to cater to them at a bit faster pace than maybe after a decade

I mean, I’m sure the game will be fine. The question is if it could have been even better had it spent that time experimenting, innovating, and iterating in bold ways instead of conservatively trying to change as little as possible at a time.

I too am in agreement & can provide an analogous example of going too slow, slow & steady has limits. Sousvide is a type of cooking where both of those things are placed front & center to an extreme (with great results). Even then with sousvide there are limits where too slow will ruin the thing being cooked. Here is a great example

Spoiler: 1 4 & 24 hour cook steak details

I've seen some folks say that with sous vide cooking, once you set your temperature and add your meat, you can let it sit there indefinitely, with no change in quality. I even believed that myself a few years back. Since then, I've come to realize that's not quite the case. Even at low temperature, there are things going on. Enzymes are breaking down proteins. Chemical reactions are slowly taking place.


To figure out exactly what happens when you cook steak sous vide for extended periods, I cooked identical steaks at 130°F (54°C) for periods ranging from one hour all the way up to 48 hours. I found that the most important differences typically occurred between the four- and 24-hour marks.


Take a look at these slices of steak I've cut off and torn:

As you can see, the steak cooked for just one hour stretches and pulls when you tear it. This gives the steak a pleasant amount of chew. It's still tender, but it tastes like a steak. By the time we hit four hours, that chew has been reduced a bit. Connective tissue has broken down, and individual muscle fibrils split apart easily instead of sticking together, though a four-hour steak is still pretty decent.


Head all the way over to the 24-hour mark or beyond, and your steak ends up nearly shredding as you pull it apart. It's a strange mouthfeel: The steak is still plenty juicy (a steak cooked 24 hours loses barely any more moisture than a steak cooked for one hour), but the meat shreds instead of offering resistance or chew.

Sous Vide Steak Guide | The Food Lab

Why sous vide your steak? Because it's the most reliable way to get perfectly cooked meat every single time. This guide covers everything you need to know, from temperature guidelines to FAQs to searing and serving tips.

www.seriouseats.com

5e has likewise been an example of going too slow & too conservative with experimentation

 

[mamba]

I saw a lot of people say in response to that Perkins video that they weren't sure about the new PHB, bit would pick up the new DMG. And I'm sure the siren call of new stat blocks will call to many who won't go for the PHB.

The new DMG and MM are pretty much set, I am mostly wondering about the new PHB. I liked what I saw so far (at least in principle, the actual implementation sometimes needed improving), but them backtracking on that is not what I am looking for.

 

[Charlaquin]

What WotC designs isn't the art, it's raw materials. What I and my friends do at the table is the art.

Game design is 1,000% art. What you and your friends do at the table is also art, which may utilize the art the game designers made as a material, but that doesn't diminish the artistry of what they did.

4E was fine, for what it was trying to do...but not ascertaining the correct ends to pursue ended up hurting the hobby.

Again, I strongly disagree. D&D lives on, some of the ideas that were pioneered in 4e made it into 5e, and even more of them are doing so in this revision. And now we have Pathfinder, which I think is also a good thing for the hobby. The only thing 4e hurt was the short-term growth of the D&D brand specifically (though it did still bring growth, just not as much as WotC thought it could have or as much as Hazbro demanded of it), but for the hobby? I'd argue it was great for the hobby. The two most popular and beloved RPGs on the market right now directly owe their existence to 4e. I'd say that's incredibly strong evidence that bold experimentation is the best route to greatness long-term.

WotC avoiding that is good for customers. Sure, it is possible to recover...but the game can only dodge so many bullets.

if a bullet does eventually hit D&D, it's had a great run, and the next great RPG will only be the better for the things learned from D&D's successes and failures.

If they are tooling another iteration on the bones of D&D'14 in 2073 for the 100th anniversary that is still interoperable, thata win in my book.

Oh, gods no! I can't imagine a surer way to guarantee the industry leaves D&D behind than to make no major innovations for 50 years. OD&D still has a handful of players, as I'm sure 5e will in 2074, but the OSR wouldn't be relevant if not for the new games and design ideas that come out of it. Stagnation is death.

 

[Charlaquin]

I think part of the success of 5e is that WotC suggested it was the last edition. That the treadmill was turned off.

Now whether that’s actually true or not is different.

I think anyone who believed that was even possible was fooling themselves. Game design as a discipline is constantly evolving. If a game doesn't keep up, it'll get left behind.

 

[mamba]

This video seems to make good on that idea, a little bit. And I liked the uniform progression! But if people weren't excited, they weren't excited. And I've seen plenty of people argue that changing the Subclass progression broke interoperability (it didn't), so closing an avenue of confusion and division is good.

I've seen several questions below the video about how they determined whether people were excited, given that they did not actually ask a question regarding this...