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Message: <blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 9115356" data-attributes="member: 6790260">Sure, but that was also MM3, which was not an Essentials book. I was also mostly speaking about class design--and it's pretty much objective that the majority of the stinkers in player-facing design came from Essentials. The Vampire is awkward and janky and requires ruthless optimization to perform even adequately. The Binder was outright bad. The Berserker and Blackguard were awkward at best. The Bladesinger was almost as bad as the Binder (seriously, encounter powers as dailies? Mearls, what were you smoking, and can I have some?) Etc. (Note, this doesn't mean all Essentials stuff stank; the Elementalist Sorcerer was actually pretty good, and the Skald Bard was quite well-received as I understand it.)5e has frequently been declared an evergreen edition unofficially, and official statements quite clearly dance around that impression without denying it. The folks talking about how it will never get changes bigger than a "5.1, 5.2" etc. are specifically claiming that even as leadership changes hands, priorities won't change--not for the next two decades or more. I'm giving an example of how even things we already know existed were not nearly as "evergreen" as people thought they would be, over less than three years. The designers say a lot of things. Some of those things don't mean what people think they mean. Some of those things originally meant what people think they mean, but get walked back later. E.g. modularity, which IIRC you mentioned upthread. Most people thought "modularity" meant genuinely having chunky blocks of rules you could apply or avoid to reshape your experience of play to suit your preferences. And WotC themselves absolutely seem to have intended that meaning...at the start. By the time the public playtest had ended, however, it seems quite clear to me that they had realized that goal was completely beyond their means, but also that coming right out and saying that would have pissed people off. So instead of having the gonad gumption to, y'know, tell people about stuff like this, they just tried to stop talking about it and hope no one would notice. Like how they had come out swinging for "martial healing"--Mearls himself even tweeted about midway through the public playtest something to the effect of "it's going to be in the game, if you don't like that, tell people it's not allowed at your table" (albeit slightly more conciliatory). And then by the time we got the actual game........yeah. The "Warlord Fighter" was nowhere to be seen, and "martial healing" didn't exist (well, other than Second Wind, but that's clearly not what Mearls and co. meant.)Okay. I find that unlikely, given how hostile some fans have been to the mere possibility that their old stuff could be invalidated, and how much they're (rather lamentably) bending over backwards to ensure compatibility with existing 5e material. Much like with PF1e.Then why are we arguing? That's literally exactly what I said! That I expect them to come out with a genuinely new edition (roughly) ten years hence, instead of keeping confined to "5e with minor tweaks" for 20 years or more after 2024, which is what someone upthread specifically said (that they expect no new edition for 20 years or more, and possibly never.)I disagree with that assessment. It very much comes across as "this is the product meant to stand the test of time, to be reprinted continuously into the future," not just "this will be here as long as 4e is." We can debate semantics forever though. People understood "evergreen" to mean long-lasting. That was not true then. People understood "modularity" to mean (moderately) large chunks of rules that could be applied or removed to alter the experience of play. That was not true then and remains not true now. People understood 5e to be an edition that would only get iterative updates and never be replaced by a new edition--or, at least, not replaced for 30 years or more, based on the comments in this thread. I consider that to be just as mistaken as the previous beliefs. Not because I think WotC didn't mean what they once said, when they said it. Rather, that what the creators believed 5+ years ago may hold little to no relation to what they believe today, doubly so if the design leadership changes. As it likely will, given Crawford and Mearls will both be at the "looking for gentler pastures" stage by then. Crawford worked on his Bachelor's degree from 91-94, according to LinkedIn. Assuming he started at 18, that would make him roughly 60 in 2033, and Mearls isn't even working on D&D anymore (he's on the MTG team now.)</blockquote>

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