D&D has never supported multiple editions.
From 1977 through 1992 (or maybe 94), it did just that. In '77 the first AD&D book came out, but Original D&D was still being published, and continued being published for years. Basic D&D was also going at the same time, first as an on-ramp 0D&D, then AD&D, then as the first in a series of a boxed edition of D&D, Basic & Expert (B/X), expanded by the Companion, Masters and finally Immortals sets (BECMI). BECMI D&D was rolled up into the Rules Cyclopaedia which was published into the 90s, after AD&D 2e had come out. In addition to that, the Arduin Grimoire was an unauthorized continuation of 0D&D - like Pathfinder, but not legal - that was very popular through the early part of the same period.
I played basic/expert. I know nothing about master or immortal rules. I think we already moved on to Advanced at that time. The first of the hardback books. Once we started playing, never looked at anything else.
You're not alone, but the D&D line did continue in parallel with the AD&D line for something like 15 years, without 'killing' either. TSR still died, later, just not of supporting two versions of D&D.
Probably learned back then that supporting two editions splinters the game and isn't good for business...
Nope, worked fine at the time.
I wouldn't expect WotC to support two editions. It's not smart business.
Staying in the TTRPG business probably isn't smart business, either. The market is small, graying, and hasn't recovered to it's per-recession levels (and might never do so). The hope is that the D&D property has more to offer than dominance in that tiny niche.
I participated in...I believe the first two surveys? After that, I realized they were either (a) completely unaware of how to design proper surveys, or (b) only interested in push-polling. Since I wasn't actually playing the playtest (my group being only interested in Dungeon World at the time), I figured it was time for me to bow out.
See? Gave up too early. If you'd stuck it out, seen everything they came up with for the fighter, then ditched, got to see the cool Sorcerer and see it go bye-bye (one player I could never quite talk into trying the playtest looked at the playtest sorcerer and was like, 'cool, I'll play one next season' - next packet it was gone, he's still playing 4e) you'd be even more confused and upset.
The issue for me is less a matter of "proof" that the rhetoric is wrong, but rather that they keep saying it, rather stridently, and that it's not just one person doing so.
That's marketing. PR. Spin. It's what you do when you're trying to appeal to a weirdly nerdraging demographic like gamers.
It's...not any different from 3.5e in that respect, and I doubt that "banging" 3.5e into a tactical shape that approximates 4e well (not perfectly, just well) is a house-rules exercise I want to undertake.
3.5 lent itself to tactical combat quite well, actually, it was mostly a matter of party and enemy composition, though. You needed a party without any Tier 1s, and a DM willing/able to design larger, more interesting encounters. Neither was easy, but one campaign I was in managed it fairly consistently. 5e's not that much different. Use the tactical module, make the monsters a little more interesting rather than a little more numerous (about equal numbers'd be good), and, well, as I'm finding it's best to do with 5e, just wing it from there.
I'm pretty sure "ranging from ambiguous to frustratingly difficult in several places" is not really the goal of "rulings, not rules." But then again, I don't really understand that style to begin with, so perhaps the fault is in part mine.
Not the goal, the means to the goal. Publish rules that /require/ rulings, and you get players to buy into the DM's authority to make those rulings - because they can't play without 'em. That contributes to the unequal DM/player relationship you need.
Natural language isn't clear, but it's clearer than jargon if you absolutely refuse to accept that the jargon isn't natural language...
Is...this supposed to be a koan or something? When I first read it I thought I understood it, but now I'm not so sure...
I should put that in my sig.
Sadly, I have no D&D "mnemonic real estate" from that period. 2e was a strange, almost impenetrable mound that I struggled (and generally failed) to understand via playing CRPGs.
Nod. 2e seemed beautifully simplified and clear - if you spent years wading through Gygax's original prose - otherwise, yeah, not that accessible.
3e was my introduction to RPGs; initially I hated 4e, mostly because my friends were 3.5e fans and thus hated it, but once I actually gave 4e a try I loved it dearly. 5e is thus an abandonment of most of what I like, for things I usually don't care about or even dislike (e.g. the obsession with "natural language").
I've heard that story a lot, people who didn't play 4e for a while because of what they were told about it, then tried it found out nothing they heard was true. And, it is hard for 5e to take the 'best things' from 4e, because some of the best things about 4e were emergent properties, like class balance or balance in general or clarity, that are a function of, if not the system as a whole, of very large parts of it operating together, or of consistent, disciplined design. Not something you can just sprinkle on or put in a module, but something you need to build in from the ground up. There could never have been any intent to put that sort of thing in 5e.
I didn't complete many surveys, because it fairly quickly became clear that they were not really looking to pick up my opinions.
There you go.
what possible benefit is it for WotC to push-poll in its own marketing surveys?
Could just be bias from the designers when they were asked what they wanted to find out. The earliest polls had questions like "which of these spells is iconic to D&D," interestingly, the familiar 4e 'spells' that were in that poll, like Thunderwave and Healing Word are in 5e. They would ask something like how closes something was to the 'classic D&D experience' of that thing. That's prettymuch asking only for feedback of 'yes, we want classic D&D all over again.'
If they wanted valid polling data, they wouldn't have used something so self-selecting (and self-eliminating - as people, like you & Ezekiel, dropped out of the playtest, it inevitably turned into an echo chamber). More likely, the whole playtest, polls included, was just a way of keeping the game out there and visible for the two years it was out of print.
5e seems to be extremely popular and selling well.
Every introduction of a new edition has, it's D&D. Then they taper off. Look at how little investment their making in 5e, though, they have fewer designers working it than Paizo, it doesn't /need/ to sustain that initial popularity to remain viable.
4e also had this problem - "attack" sometimes meant "making an attack roll" and sometimes meant "using an attack power". That's not to defend the 5e stealth rules, which I agree are poorly drafted, but to acknowledge that sometimes perfect precision isn't achievable. - ideally similar effects would be written in a similar way to promote cohesion and consistency - but again in 4e you can see cases where the same effect is described using different language.
Nod, 4e also had errata, even if they did disingenuously label it 'updates.' They're on record with 5e getting no errata.
But on the other hand, one of people's big fears about said lack of support is it could mean the edition going belly up. They're afraid the lack of hardcover books means players will tire of 5E, which they love, and it will become hard to maintain or find new players to play 5E with.
Belly up shouldn't be a concern. The small number of developers and slow pace of release indicate the unit has low costs, so 'poor' (ie 1st-place TTRPG) sales won't kill it, D&D could coast along for 10 or 20 years at this pace.
New players also shouldn't be a huge problem. There's always a trickle of interest, and D&D is the only RPG with mainstream name recognition. As the current D&D, 5e will get the first crack at new players entering the hobby, some will like it and there's your new players, some will be repelled and not explore the hobby further - all other RPGs fight over the remainder, who find D&D disappointing but look around for other RPGs instead of giving up on the hobby.
I don't see the current strategy as disappointing, or pathetic, or poorly thought out - I see it as bold, and risky, and visionary, and perhaps the best shot the game has at actually reentering the cultural zeitgeist and reclaiming some of its former glory as opposed to becoming an increasingly niche and graying market.
I can't see that, no. Even if the D&D IP did finally launch something hugely successful, all that would happen is that the TTRPG would become a footnote in the history of the newly successful movie franchise/MMO/CCG/CRPG/video game/theme park/restaurant chain/whatever-finally-works.
Besides, it's former glory was founded on rumors of satanism and teen suicide.
WotC already played the bold, risky, visionary card. It was trumped.
5e is solidly D&D. It can hold the top spot in the TTRPG market, and keep a small team of WotC writers afloat, possibly indefinitely. Perhaps there will be another opportunity in the future to try to break D&D - and the hobby - out of it's current niche. But, for now, those of us who have been comfortably in this niche the whole time have what we want, and don't face any foreseeable prospect of it disappearing - nor changing enough to leave us behind.
