Legends and Lore: Modular Madness

[howandwhy99]

AbdulAlhazred, I'd like to think they can drop the edition nomenclature, but I'm not sure they could successfully do this while retaining the D&D name.

For example, Microsoft put out Windows 1.0, 2.0, 2.1x, 3.0, and 3.1x before finally changing this to years. D&D 2011 would have a built in obsolescence as I don't think many buyers will be attracted to it in ten years time. Some, sure, but new customers often read the date in the title and think "old, so bad". However, Windows went on with 95, 98, Millennium, and 2000 before ditching dates and giving editions their own names. XP and Vista come next (kind of like Paranoia XP), but Microsoft has finally come back to just 7. Now don't ask me how they get 7 from the Windows family tree, but I try not to think too hard about D&D and their numbered editions either.

 

[Sammael]

Now don't ask me how they get 7 from the Windows family tree, but I try not to think too hard about D&D and their numbered editions either.

Windows NT 4.0 (name speaks for itself)
Windows 2000 was 5.0
Windows XP was 5.1 (basically, it was W2k with added multimedia support and nicer GUI)
Windows Vista was 6.0
Windows 7 is actually more akin to 6.5, but they bumped the number up since it was a major release (what with Vista being a best-forgotten failure).

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

3E isn't 2E with more options (though I suppose it is a little closer in terms of root structure).

Look at Castles & Crusades. It definitely looks like 3E with the feats/skills package removed to make it more like AD&D. (Among other changes, like reverting multiclassing.)

 

[Havrik Stoneskimmer]

I hope we don't see a 5e any time soon, if ever. I am not averse to a continual evolution of the 4e rules, like we've already seen with Monster Manual 3 and the Essentials books.

Call me selfish, but I'm only at level 4 in my 4e campaign - I'm not ready for a complete reboot. And I have no interest in having to purchase a new version of the Manual of the Planes. I would like a book about the Feywild, or the Nine Hells, or new (or updated old) campaign settings, etc. I would like optional rules or suggestions on how to use the existing rules to evoke an atmosphere of tentative exploration familiar from older dungeon crawl styles.

I'm happy enough with 4e and now that we are in the Internet age where rules and stat updates can be easily distributed, I don't see a reason for a complete reboot that is incompatible with the existing 4e rules. I think D&D can go on for a long time with continuous updates and improvements to the core framework.

 

[Yesway Jose]

I hope we don't see a 5e any time soon, if ever. I am not averse to a continual evolution of the 4e rules, like we've already seen with Monster Manual 3 and the Essentials books.

I mentioned this before, but to bring it up again, assuming 5E comes out in x years, and assuming this hypothetical 5E cannot find enough common ground with the majority of all D&D players of all editions, then why can't WoTC continue to support 4E and 5E simultaneously? We have Windows 7, Vista and XP all still officially supported by Microsoft. I know the analogy is flawed (back off fallacy-phobiacs ) at least in the sense that O/S is a much, much larger market. Yet surely WoTC will somewhat attempt to avoid the 3E/4E schism of the past, at least as a pure market share business decision. Mearls' articles does seem to indicate a new WoTC approach to engaging fans after all. And with the wealth of crunch available in 4E between core 4E and Essentials and continuous online updates, 4E doesn't have to be a high maintenance job. I think what 4E needs the most is great adventures. So if 4E and 5E are supported in parallel as long the market supports that branching out, then adventures for 4E and 5E can be published in parallel (like Zeitgeist does for PF and 4E), and I think this could be the best way for WoTC to maintain their current customers and capture new market share.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I hope we don't see a 5e any time soon, if ever. I am not averse to a continual evolution of the 4e rules, like we've already seen with Monster Manual 3 and the Essentials books.

Call me selfish, but I'm only at level 4 in my 4e campaign - I'm not ready for a complete reboot. And I have no interest in having to purchase a new version of the Manual of the Planes. I would like a book about the Feywild, or the Nine Hells, or new (or updated old) campaign settings, etc. I would like optional rules or suggestions on how to use the existing rules to evoke an atmosphere of tentative exploration familiar from older dungeon crawl styles.

I'm happy enough with 4e and now that we are in the Internet age where rules and stat updates can be easily distributed, I don't see a reason for a complete reboot that is incompatible with the existing 4e rules. I think D&D can go on for a long time with continuous updates and improvements to the core framework.

This entire post, more or less, was stated when 4E loomed. It is what it is, unfortunately. That said, I suspect the 4E cosmology is here to stay for a while.

EDIT: Microsoft has stopped supporting XP. All companies eventually decide their labors are best spent on the areas where they'll continue to make revenue.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

I mentioned this before, but to bring it up again, assuming 5E comes out in x years, and assuming this hypothetical 5E cannot find enough common ground with the majority of all D&D players of all editions, then why can't WoTC continue to support 4E and 5E simultaneously? We have Windows 7, Vista and XP all still officially supported by Microsoft. I know the analogy is flawed (back off fallacy-phobiacs ) at least in the sense that O/S is a much, much larger market. Yet surely WoTC will somewhat attempt to avoid the 3E/4E schism of the past, at least as a pure market share business decision. Mearls' articles does seem to indicate a new WoTC approach to engaging fans after all. And with the wealth of crunch available in 4E between core 4E and Essentials and continuous online updates, 4E doesn't have to be a high maintenance job. I think what 4E needs the most is great adventures. So if 4E and 5E are supported in parallel as long the market supports that branching out, then adventures for 4E and 5E can be published in parallel (like Zeitgeist does for PF and 4E), and I think this could be the best way for WoTC to maintain their current customers and capture new market share.

That depends on what you mean by support. Wizards have traditionally supported an edition by producing crunch and when they run out of crunch produce a new edition to sell all the crunch again.
Adventures are a minor part of the activity.

They also issue a constant stream of errata to support the ongoing living campaings. Other people make use of the errata but if there was no organised play then there would be much less need for erratta. DM could work out their own errata.

Producing adventures for both would require a more Paizo like business model where the rules exist to support adventure sales, rahter than one where rules sales are the primary offering.

Not sure if WoTC can make that shift, though I do believe that Wizards may have found the bottom of the willingness of the market to buy crunch.

I personally believe there is merit for WoTC to sell crunch at a much reduced rate and find other stuff to sell besides that that leverages the existing rules set.

The boardgames are part of that, we may see more in the near future.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Yeah, I think the Windows argument does pretty much die on the point of market size. I'd note too that XP still IS supported, that MS has tried to kill it at least 2 times already, and can't. THEORETICALLY it will die in the fall. Anyway, I think with a tiny total market size it is a tough concept to think you'll support multiple versions of D&D at the same time. TSR sort of supported BECMI alongside AD&D, but truthfully the two systems were so close that they were pretty much compatible at the level of modules and settings.

It is hard to see a 5e that would be meaningfully different from 4e and still be compatible, given the depth of penetration of mechanics into game play.

 

[pemerton]

A 5e that is simply a clone of 3e would certainly fail, yes. But it should be possible to build something new that attracts fans of 3e, fans of 4e, and new fans, in numbers. With the emphasis very much on the "should" of course - it's certainly not an easy task.

3E/PF players, as best their preferences can be inferred from the rules themselves, from what they post on these boards, from the nature of the adventures that Paizo produce, etc, appear to want exploration-heavy play, with a lot of (mostly GM-controlled) worldbuilding, simulationist mechanics, etc.

Despite several years I'm not sure a 4e "vibe" has become as clearly established, but metagame mechanics are an important part of the game, and these wor well with less exploration, less worldbuilding, and more of an emphasis on shared world creation through play. (And the 4e DMG and DMG2 emphasise this - and those parts seem to bet a lot of hostility from 3E players.)

I'm not at all sure that these two, very different, sets of priorities and orientations in play can be supported by a single mechanical framework.

PCs, monsters, terrain. An encounter is an encounter, both in terms of risk and their place in the 'plot'. The mechanic representation may differ, but the concept is the same.

And with the above in mind, I'm not sure that this is true. For example, the importance of "risk" may be very different in different approaches to play. Likewise the place of "plot". Just to give one example: is an encounter about the players' experiencing the GM's plot (like in an adventure path) or about jointly creating the plot? Different answers to this question have big implications for how encounters are conceived of, designed and mechanically structured and resolved.

The combat grind in 4e is well known. It makes it impossible for me to tell the stories I want to tell when using that system (because combat takes so long it squeezes everything else out

optional rules (skill challenges

And here we see more differences. Is combat as the central site of confict optional or core? Are skill challenges, or something similar, a core framework for encounter design and action resolution, or optional?

Answering these questions requires deciding what the game is about, and what sorts of play preferences it will support. Obviously WotC want D&D to be broader and more flexible in the approaches to play that it can support than (say) Nicotine Girls. But it is not going to be all things to all people. Some choices will have to be made. And it would be naive to just assume, without reflection, that D&D's traditional rough-and-ready simulationism in support of Gygaxian gamism is an unproblematic default. I think that that will drive away those who enjoy 4e because it departs from the traditional approach. (And it is 4e's departure from that traditional approach that has led to other changes, like the new cosmology, monster backstories, etc - see Worlds and Monsters for a discussion.)

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

And to elaborate slightly. Think about the impact of the optional rules in 2e. Do any of them change the agenda of the game? I don't think so. They are really all about details. Are we going to simulate mastery of specific weapons or not? Are we going to model other types of knowledge, or not? There are no entirely different methods of conflict resolution, nor any options for meta-game type rules, nor for options that give the players more narrative control, etc. Despite having a fair number of options and MANY add-on options 2e sits squarely in its niche throughout. You can adjust things some, so you might use some different sets of options for a gritty noire low fantasy with a lot of mysteries and spying vs a more high fantasy heroic epic filled with battles, but you're still playing a game with the same core sensibilities.