D&D General Kobold Press Going Down a Dark Road

[Ruin Explorer]

Conversely there are real difference between classes in 2014 D&D. A warlock =/= wizard =/= a fighter, etc. I find this fixation about the differences between the classes in 2014 and 1D&D odd as they seem less important / impactful than the differences that exist between the classes just in the 2014 PHB. 5e is not 4e/PF2e people!

I get what you're saying, but I don't think that is how most people approach this issue, and I don't think it's necessarily a useful way of thinking about things.

 

[Oofta]

I don't think anyone is really saying (or doing) that though. I see people saying that it is the only objective measure, but not that it is the one true way to good game design. Nor do I think WotC is only appealing to popularity. If that was the case, they would ask a lot more questions than they do.

That, and there is no one true way to define what good game design is. I do believer that sustained, ongoing popularity and double digit growth for nearly a decade is an indicator that a lot of people consider it at least decent quality. That's not being dismissive of people that don't care for it, it's just the reality that there is no way to please everyone.

D&D is a mass market product. It's primary goal is to achieve mass market popularity. The current version has exceeded all expectations (which, admittedly were quite low), whether or not some individuals don't agree with the decisions they made to achieve that.

 

[Uni-the-Unicorn!]

Did they? I haven't see WotC call 5E 5E much, so I'm surprised they said that, but I'll take your word for it.

I may be misremembering a bit. I did a quick search and couldn't find what I remembered by here a few items:

From the One D&D announcement video:

"One D&D has three pillars and one is the rule-set which is built on the rules from 5th edition but updated. We’re building upon the rules that have been established, the story telling, and expanding our world and rule system. All the adventures and supplements that have been released in the past ten years will still playable with the new evolution of D&D."

This makes it sound like 1D&D is the umbrella of the rules, digital (DnD Beyond), and Digital Play space (3D VTT). Those 3 are "One D&D." However, the quote also makes it clear that it is building on a foundation of 5e.

Here is Crawford talking about the playtest here:

Crawford says. "Rather than playtesting basically a brand new game bottom to top, instead now it's like 'all right, it's the game we're playing now', but now let's zoom in on this piece of it and think, 'How might we get more fun, more speed, more options here?' And then move on to another piece of the game until all of that coalesces in 2024 in the new books."

Here Crawford talks about it more as being 5e. The playtest is for the game we are playing now, i.e 5e. Sill not the smoking gun I was remembering.

Here is the quote (also from the first announcement linked above) that probably clouded my memory:

"We're no longer in the position where we think of D&D as 'an edition' – it's just D&D."

It is possible I remembered this as saying "...it's just One D&D." When that is not actually what they said. I do believe that is basically the intent of that statement. 2014 and 2024 are just D&D (which is 5e by default).

 

[Uni-the-Unicorn!]

I get what you're saying, but I don't think that is how most people approach this issue, and I don't think it's necessarily a useful way of thinking about things.

I think it is the only useful way of looking at it.

The playtest classes are just new classes. We have played them right next to the PHB classes and they work just as well as any other class and they work well with the other classes.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I think it is the only useful way of looking at it.

The playtest classes are just new classes. We have played them right next to the PHB classes and they work just as well as any other class and they work well with the other classes.

Fair enough I just think a lot of people will be nonplussed.

 

[Uni-the-Unicorn!]

Fair enough I just think a lot of people will be nonplussed.

I wonder if people would be upset if they gave them different names: warrior instead of fighter, mage instead of wizard, etc. Would people still complain that these are not compatible? That is is a different game? I’m guessing no.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I wonder if people would be upset if they gave them different names: warrior instead of fighter, mage instead of wizard, etc. Would people still complain that these are not compatible? That is is a different game? I’m guessing no.

I absolutely agree re: compatible. That's basically what 4E did with Essentials and it worked fine. Different names would mean complaints re: classes went down to virtually nothing, IF those old classes were still available to all in 1D&D - trouble is, after a certain point, they will get harder and harder to access and really only the new classes will be there for new groups (esp. if playing digitally on Beyond).

That said, the big issue is that these aren't meant to be entirely new classes, because for whatever reason, WotC has decided that they want them to be compatible with the subclasses from 5E - i.e. so you can have a 5E subclass on a 1D&D class. Personally I wouldn't have made that decision, but I see why they did. And it is technically workable with a little bending, folding and occasionally mutilating (really only needed for a couple of classes), but it's not a great solution.

Re: different game, I dunno if anyone is saying that - I'm saying it's a different edition, for my money. Maybe that's just because I'm super-old, and these changes are similar to 1E to 2E's changes (indeed some are very similar - like splitting classes into groups. But I think people would still say that, because there are, so far, quite a lot of fundamental rules changes, like in how grappling works, or what spell lists are, or the fairly gigantic change of going from having a mix of "known" and "prep" caster to 100% prep casters. That's bigger than anything 1E to 2E did.

 

[Justice and Rule]

Conversely there are real difference between classes in 2014 D&D. A warlock =/= wizard =/= a fighter, etc. I find this fixation about the differences between the classes in 2014 and 1D&D odd as they seem less important / impactful than the differences that exist between the classes just in the 2014 PHB. 5e is not 4e/PF2e people!

I don't see how this is a proper comparison? Sure, classes within editions are different, but that's not really a comparison between the same classes in two different editions (or in this case, editions that are meant to be compatible). The differences between 1D&D and 5E classes matter because if they can be used interchangeably it can create weird interactions where certain classes have notably better versions in one edition versus the other. Look at what we see with the Druid: if you can take the 5E druid versus the 1D&D druid, what reason would you not take the 5E druid given how powerful that version of the Circle of the Moon is?

 

[Parmandur]

That's valid.

However much, perhaps most of this thread isn't on that basis - it's a much harder basis, that being that KP are being somehow "dishonest" or "evil" (dark path indeed - the thread title claims this!) by making a very mild boast. "I don't like this marketing" is an entirely different claim to "This marketing is evil".

I'm going to ask one more time too - where, exactly, did they claim this? I've re-read the statement like four times, and I see that it's vaguely implied, but it seems like all y'all are acting like they actually spell that out, and perhaps I'm somehow missing it (I do have severe ADHD, it's absolutely possible). This all feels a bit Emperor's New Clothes.

It's more the context of the design diaries to the playtest packets in conjunction with the FAQ

 

[mamba]

That said, the big issue is that these aren't meant to be entirely new classes, because for whatever reason, WotC has decided that they want them to be compatible with the subclasses from 5E - i.e. so you can have a 5E subclass on a 1D&D class. Personally I wouldn't have made that decision

Same, I would simply have thrown 5e out and rebuilt it the way I wanted it to be. Still compatible with 5e adventures, but not with subclasses. To me all this does is restrict the design for no good reason