D&D General Mike Mearls' blog post about RPG generations

[Minigiant]

It's definitely not an all or nothing thing. But these kinds of big shifts can be influential, as all the stuff out of White Wolf was.

Sure. But my point is the internet allowed a bunch of the fandom with their own preferences to reach each other and share their twist and tweaks.

So while official D&D followed a single path as a company can only really do that. And other 3PP can only follow theirs, usually redoing the past. There are other styles popular but not supported monetarily.. yet.

So each jump off is almost another generation. Pathfinders here. Shadowdarks there. Daggers and Steels on the ways.

 

[bedir than]

TTRPGs didn't have generations or evolutions.

TTRPGs instead had thematic trunks that grew branches, that were sometimes interconnected and grew into new trunks. These branches and trunks weave among each other sometimes with connective tissue to seemingly divergent systems.

While that main trunk is and has been D&D it's shot off in so many directions to grow into other games and then brought things back to it. Still, story forward dice less games also exist, and they even interact and grow into and through D&D.

The space where we dwell isn't easily defined and the cultural movement that seems ascendent may only be a fraction of what is played

 

[Divine2021]

As long as we can all agree that OSE and Shadowdark are simultaneously peak alpha.

 

[Scribe]

As long as we can all agree that OSE and Shadowdark are simultaneously peak alpha.

 

[Hussar]

I find the notion that 4e is not a 5th generation game somewhat baffling. @mearls' definition, as I understand it, is that 5th gen games are ones that make things as simple as possible to run. 4e D&D was a DM's dream. It is literally the easiest version of D&D to run. I mean, when you can fit the entire ruleset for creating a monster on a business card, I'm going to argue that that's a very, very easy system to run.

5th generation games are designed for GM's? How is that not 4e?

And, frankly, the whole "killed the OGL thing" is so overblown. Does anyone actually care anymore?

Plus, there's this gem:

They realize that without a GM, nobody can play a TTRPG.

How to say you've never played a solo TTRPG without saying you've never played a solo TTRPG.

 

[Charlaquin]

I’m extremely skeptical about this, because Mearls has been beating a similar drum since 2012, when he designed 5e and sold it on exactly the same premise he’s peddling here - that 3e and 4e were all about the bespoke character building, but with 5e they were moving towards ease of play and GM empowerment. It’s very weird to see him now lumping 5e in with 3e and 4e as a character building focused game and predicting the next generation will be the one to do… the same things he claimed to be building 5e to do more than a decade ago.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I’m extremely skeptical about this, because Mearls has been beating a similar drum since 2012, when he designed 5e and sold it on exactly the same premise he’s peddling here - that 3e and 4e were all about the bespoke character building, but with 5e they were moving towards ease of play and GM empowerment. It’s very weird to see him now lumping 5e in with 3e and 4e as a character building focused game and predicting the next generation will be the one to do… the same things he claimed to be building 5e to do more than a decade ago.

Well, not everything works out the way we plan. Maybe Mike feels 5e didn't do what he wanted.

 

[Charlaquin]

Well, not everything works out the way we plan. Maybe Mike feels 5e didn't do what he wanted.

Well it clearly ended up moving in a different direction, but the fact that it did kinda demonstrates that he’s oversimplifying these generations.

 

[Distracted DM]

I’m extremely skeptical about this, because Mearls has been beating a similar drum since 2012, when he designed 5e and sold it on exactly the same premise he’s peddling here - that 3e and 4e were all about the bespoke character building, but with 5e they were moving towards ease of play and GM empowerment. It’s very weird to see him now lumping 5e in with 3e and 4e as a character building focused game and predicting the next generation will be the one to do… the same things he claimed to be building 5e to do more than a decade ago.

But it's headed in a definite design direction Post-Xanathar's (IMO), and that direction may not be the one he imagined or desired.

 

[Distracted DM]

The space where we dwell isn't easily defined and the cultural movement that seems ascendent may only be a fraction of what is played

I think it's easy to say this, and dismiss such things- but that doesn't mean that it isn't worth the attempt or the discussion.
Examinations like this can be productive, even if you don't agree with them. But to say "it's too complex for you to understand or see the picture of, so don't bother," is IMO unnecessarily dismissive.