D&D 5E (More) ruminations on the future of D&D

[Tony Vargas]

As I've said before, Essentials set the game on the trajectory WotC is continuing with 5E - simpler and more familiar - but it was too little too late; many D&Ders had already decided 4E wasn't for them.

Again, we were talking about /new/ players. New players hadn't decided D&D wasn't for them before they tried it. New players weren't bitter because the Red Box was 'too late.'

And, while I agree that 5e is following the same pendulum-swing backwards as Essentials, I don't agree that it's really a simpler game. Essentials delivered a less consistent game, that had some simplified classes and others made even more complex. And, yes, 5e took that /much/ further. Classes of varying complexity and effectiveness do not make the game simpler just because a few of those classes have fewer and less meaningful choices, they make the game more complex and complicated, and less approachable. And that's just /one/ dimension of complexity you can look at...

RAW isn't the game. Particularly when it comes to AD&D. The way it was played out in the wild by most people was very simple. In fact, a lot of people played B/X and AD&D interchangeably in a very stripped-down playstyle.

Sure and many went and added even more rules, detail and complexity to it, like mana/spell-point systems. The game is not the way /you/ played it, nor even the way some imagined majority might have played it, it's the game, in black and white. Maybe not 'RAW' in the 3.x-system-mastery zietgiest sense, but it's absurd to argue that a game was simple when it wasn't, just because some folks chose to ignore most of it.

I'm certainly not pretending people didn't heavily mod D&D back in the day. Of course we did, it was the first RPG, it was the one we all started with and knew the best, so it was the obvious starting point. Nothing about it beyond 'first' and consequently, most-familiar and best-known, though, lent it to being a /good/ starting point.

I think that's a critical mistake WotC made with 5e, looking at what people did with D&D /in spite of/ the system, and deciding that the system must have facilitated those things.

Many, many old-school players have testified to this. Again, go read Dragonsfoot sometime.

I don't have to read about what D&D was like in the 80s, I was there.

Also, if old-school players loved such baroque complexity, you have to ask yourself why virtually every OSR game is very, very rules-light compared to 3E or 4E.

OK, I'll ask myself that:

Hey, Tony, why are OSR games so "rules-lite" compared to modern D&D?

Oh, probably because modern D&D was already catering nicely to people who liked more complete rulesets.

Wow, that was easy. And, no, the answer wasn't "Because rules-lite is the OneTrueWay of Real D&D."

Sorry, but that isn't the approach WotC is taking with 5E. Mearls has said D&D catered for too long to the hardcore gamers. They want some of that growing tabletop gaming pie.

He can say that all he wants, but 5e /does/ cater to the hard-core of longtime D&Ders, rolling back and resurrecting sacred cows like crazy. And, the segment of TT that's growing is /boardgames/, not TotM RPGs, so it's not exactly positioned for that, either.

You seem bitter they didn't grow the game with 4E, and convinced they can't do it now with 5E. I guess we'll see.

I accept that 5e isn't likely to grow the broader hobby, because it is simply repeating approaches that have consistently failed to grow the hobby ever since the initial D&D fad ended. That's just empiricism. No guarantee, but little reason to think otherwise. I don't doubt, at this point that'll consolidate existing longtime fans,, and the 4e fans I know are at least (mostly) giving it a chance (finally, now that books are on the shelves). That should be more than enough to meet any reasonable sales goals for the line (which, from what others have claimed about Hasbro's current policy, might not even matter, with WotC being counted as a single unit and CCGs doing well).

And, it'd be hard for me to be bitter about something that didn't happen to me. When I got back into D&D with 3.0, I managed to find a group with 6 other players, at someone's home, because there were no venues catering to D&D in my area (which is freak'n Silicon Valley), I'd've had to go to the east bay for that. Now, there are three active FLGSs in the area. Instead of playing with an insular group of half a dozen guys around my own age, I'm in two different home campaigns, and running an open campaign that's currently at 8 players, and running one of /five/ tables of Encounters. That growth happened in the late 3.5, 4e and Essentials period - and, remarkably, didn't drop off much during D&D's two-year hiatus.

 

[BryonD]

I have to disagree with you here, Bryon. Preference for the Transformers movies vs. the novels of Proust isn't just a personality thing, just as preference for Dunkin Donuts over gourmet French pastries speaks to a lack of refinement of tastes. Any kind of taste requires a development of a palate; in the case of video games vs. RPGs, the palate involves the deeper, more refined taste of self-generated imagination, wonderment, etc.

Yeah, I think personal bias is showing here.

MMO fans could make the exact same claim, just focused on different aspects of the experience.

 

[Umbran]

Yeah, I think personal bias is showing here.

MMO fans could make the exact same claim, just focused on different aspects of the experience.

Yes. Take coffee, for example.

I don't drink the stuff. Don't care for it. Been through all the usual arguments: "Well, you just haven't had *good* coffee!" I went to Italy, tried the best coffee that I could find, based on the recommendations of folks with that so-called refined palate. To me, it tasted of ashes and sorrow. I was told to try to sweeten it, and then it tasted like the tears of Willy Wonka.

Folks tell me it is an acquired taste. Why, though, should I go through the effort of acquiring it? Why waste money and time on trying to acquire a taste for a thing I don't like? That's.. kinda dumb, isn't it? The argument, "You have to develop your palate before you can even begin to enjoy it," is pretty much a non-starter.

Now, developing a palate may be required for understanding the full depth and complexity of a thing. I do drink tea - enough that I've refined my palate somewhat. I will notice differences in teas that others may not, sure, and I have deepened and expanded my enjoyment thereby. But I did enjoy tea before I went through that effort. A broadened and refined palate is the result of a good experience, not the source of it.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I don't drink the stuff. Don't care for it. Been through all the usual arguments: "Well, you just haven't had *good* coffee!" I went to Italy, tried the best coffee that I could find, based on the recommendations of folks with that so-called refined palate. To me, it tasted of ashes and sorrow. I was told to try to sweeten it, and then it tasted like the tears of Willy Wonka.

Folks tell me it is an acquired taste.

I was that way for a long time. Now, I like all kinds of stuff that used to taste bad. As I understand it, our tastebuds die off as we age, so stronger/harsher flavors become more appealing, while simple, pleasant ones like basic sweetness become blah. Also means things don't taste as good as you remember.

So having a 'refined palate' is like saying that Europe had a 'refined population' after the Black Plague.

The question has always been two-fold: how to bring back lapsed players and how to find new ones. But 4E was the first time that large segment of active players left en masse, which was a huge problem for WotC and the health of D&D.

It was the first time that a publisher was able to legally cater to such a segment. That's it.

I believe you - but it seems that your experience is somewhat localized and clearly and exception rather than the rule, otherwise 4E wouldn't have fizzled and died three years after it first came out.

Two things: I never claimed my experience wasn't localized. However, I also don't accept that yours /wasn't/. For that matter, I don't recall how many new players you saw try D&D in the period in question...

4e didn't fizzle - it sold as well as any post-fad edition, it just had some very unrealistic revenue goals that were meant to be met by the DDI/VTT vaporware that 'fizzled & died' in development.

The problem isn't that we don't want these things, its that it is too easy to find surrogates - through video games and other discursive, passive, and non-creative entertainments. And what people don't realize, in my opinion, is that those "lesser" entertainments won't truly satisfy the deeper longings that tabletop RPGs can satisfy; all they do is "fill one up," like junk food. But like junk food, the underlying nutritional need remains unsatisfied.

That is not at all what I am saying. Actually, I find that every generation has its foibles and hangups,

I'm not blaming "kids these days" for growing up in a context where adults these days exploit them by surrounding them with junk food entertainments.

Not really much of a distinction. Weren't you going on and on about the younger generation lacking the imagination and refinement to appreciate the wonder of RPGs, in general, and D&D in particular?

As an aside, youdo realize that there are 4Edition warriors too, right?

I was one. And, I /did/ say 'edition warriors,' I didn't call out a side. The game didn't cause a rift in the fanbase, the choice of whether to accept or hate was ours. It is again.

 

[Umbran]

Weren't you going on and on about the younger generation lacking the imagination and refinement to appreciate the wonder of RPGs, in general, and D&D in particular?

Oh, yes, that imagination and refinement.

Everyone remember this?

[video=youtube_share;wYO1j2Vhztc]http://youtu.be/wYO1j2Vhztc[/video]

Or, the 8-bit version, if you prefer it:
[sblock][video=youtube_share;-leYc4oC83E]http://youtu.be/-leYc4oC83E[/video][/sblock]

The play involved was (and is) by no means uncommon. And is hardly refined. We all know those players. I daresay, most of us probably *were* those players.

But think of the audio skit, and the effort in the video - these show imagination and refinement, perhaps more than the instance of play described by them! That the animated figures are from MMO play is... pleasantly ironic in the current conversation. It doesn't seem like the animator was somehow stultified by playing that instant-delivery game. He or she took that experience, and melded it with tabletop play and an apparent video editing hobby! Synthesis!

I don't believe the hobby will be served by remaining on a high horse.

 

[prosfilaes]

I think lumping this in with board games is odd. Separated from war games and chess/checkers, board games may be doing better then they have in history. Maybe the first pre-TV strike of Monopoly was bigger, but Eurogames is a huge hobby.

Going back 20 years, OK, in 1994, 2e was not really doing anything to appeal to new players

Every year, for seven years running, in the AD&D 2e era, TSR produced a new Introduction to AD&D book. I'd have to dig around in Designers & Dragons for the details, but TSR was certainly trying to bring in new players.

 

[thecasualoblivion]

Its difficult to speculate on D&D's future without knowing what WotC's goals for it are. Given WotC's track record, I expect that whatever those goals are 5E will fall short of them and WotC will respond in panic. They've said that their goal was to unify D&D and bring it back underneath one tent. Given the existence of Pathfinder and 5E's narrow appeal compared to the last 14 years of D&D I expect them to fall well short of that. The most likely initial response would be going back on their assertion that 5E would be supplement light and for WotC to start burying 5E in splats in attempt to deliver what 3E/PF players, 4E players, and new players are finding missing in the rather dated, very traditional 5E.

Despite the wishful thinking of people who want D&D to be like it was before 3E, what D&D did during the 3E and 4E eras didn't happen in a vacuum. They were things a lot of people wanted and asked for. You can't wish all that away, and pretend the removal of these things from 5E isn't going to lessen its appeal to a lot of people.

 

[Mercurius]

True. But I was disputing the notion that people can't be bothered to get together face-to-face to play games anymore because of the convenience of digital gaming. My local boardgaming convention has grown in size from 200 to over 500 attendees in the space of eight years. Chat with the attendees and you find out most of them are in regular, face-to-face gaming groups. Local meet-ups are hugely popular. WotC wants a piece of that action.

Gotcha. Yeah, board games do seem to be booming. I was in a local game store in New England, Myriad Games it is called, which mainly sells board games - and there are three or four stores in the region. In other words, they seem to be successful focusing on board games.

Yeah, I think personal bias is showing here.

MMO fans could make the exact same claim, just focused on different aspects of the experience.

Yeah, and I'd disagree with them! Look, I get the postmodern rhetoric about relativity of subjectivity, but it has its limitations. I mean, you could effectively reduce all distinctions to relativity. And then where are we left?

Let's take my example of music. Do you think it is all just personal bias if I say that Miles Davis is more refined, sophisticated, even superior music to Justin Bieber? What about junk food and organic, gourmet cooking? Or is that just my personal bias? Can we make any distinctions without reducing it to subjectivity?

What I am saying is that tabletop RPGs are, in general, a more refined/sophisticated/imaginative experience than MMOs.

4e didn't fizzle - it sold as well as any post-fad edition, it just had some very unrealistic revenue goals that were meant to be met by the DDI/VTT vaporware that 'fizzled & died' in development.

This is what I call "selective memory." The community was divided. Many people hated 4E, and it wasn't simply because of the virtual tabletop. Again, I am not saying that 4E fizzled because it was a bad game or inferior to any other edition--I'm not making a judgement either way--but that for a variety of reasons it was rejected by a large enough segment of the D&D fan base for WotC to believe that a new edition was required sooner than later.

That said, I do think one valid argument is that WotC simply took advantage of the 4E fizzle and prepared a new edition sooner than they had originally intended.

Not really much of a distinction. Weren't you going on and on about the younger generation lacking the imagination and refinement to appreciate the wonder of RPGs, in general, and D&D in particular?

Again, you have this tendency to misinterpret or skew what I actually said - even after I correct you! I just said in the last post that I don't think the younger generation is lacking in imagination, but that there are more distracting entertainments that don't call upon the imagination as much (like MMOs).

I was one. And, I /did/ say 'edition warriors,' I didn't call out a side. The game didn't cause a rift in the fanbase, the choice of whether to accept or hate was ours. It is again.

Yes, I agree. But not all editions are equal in this regard. 4E had qualities that a large segment of the fan-base simply couldn't accept as "D&D."

Look, a few years ago I was having discussions with folks on this very forum about how one could make 4E into "D&D for them." And I've never been an edition warrior, only ever advocating for flexibility and embracing all editions as valid, unique forms of the great game we all love. But I am interested in what makes people like or dislike different editions, and why.

I don't believe the hobby will be served by remaining on a high horse.

I agree, just as I don't think snarky comments serve this conversation!

Is it a "high horse" to say that there are different depths and qualities of imaginative experience?

Is it a "high horse" to say that tabletop roleplaying games stimulate the imagination more fully than computer games?

 

[Umbran]

Despite the wishful thinking of people who want D&D to be like it was before 3E, what D&D did during the 3E and 4E eras didn't happen in a vacuum. They were things a lot of people wanted and asked for.

Yes. But recall that 5e had some massive playtesting. I remember someone posting a well-referenced number - 175,000 in the playtest? What's in 5e are things that a lot of people wanted and asked for. You aren't going to wish that away, either.

 

[Mercurius]

Its difficult to speculate on D&D's future without knowing what WotC's goals for it are. Given WotC's track record, I expect that whatever those goals are 5E will fall short of them and WotC will respond in panic. They've said that their goal was to unify D&D and bring it back underneath one tent. Given the existence of Pathfinder and 5E's narrow appeal compared to the last 14 years of D&D I expect them to fall well short of that. The most likely initial response would be going back on their assertion that 5E would be supplement light and for WotC to start burying 5E in splats in attempt to deliver what 3E/PF players, 4E players, and new players are finding missing in the rather dated, very traditional 5E.

Considering that the number of people working on D&D is much reduced from previous years, it would seem that WotC's financial expectations are lower. But my sense is that they have lowered "floor" expectations--that is, the minimum level of financial success is lower, as evidenced by the smaller crew--but the "ceiling" expectations, which are more like hopes, are as high as ever, with big talk about expanding the brand.

So my guess is that we'll see a couple waves or phases of D&D in the years ahead. The first phase is getting the core rules out. After that supplements will trickle in, enough to keep people satisfied and interested but not the deluge of 3E and 4E. Then we'll see this supposed diversification - WotC trying out different products, licensing strategies, etc. Depending upon what sticks, they'll put more energy in that direction. But if nothing sticks, we'll probably just see a moderate roll-out of more 5E product for a few years, maybe a revision in 2017 or 2018, then a new edition some time in the 2020s.

Despite the wishful thinking of people who want D&D to be like it was before 3E, what D&D did during the 3E and 4E eras didn't happen in a vacuum. They were things a lot of people wanted and asked for. You can't wish all that away, and pretend the removal of these things from 5E isn't going to lessen its appeal to a lot of people.

Here's where the promised modularity comes in and we'll know more when the DMG comes out. I'm guessing that you'll have one of two responses, either fans of 3.5/Pathfinder and 4E say "Nope, doesn't do it for me" and go back to their respective preferred editions, or people say, "Cool, that allows me to customize in the way that I like" and stick with 5E.

My fear is that the earlier talk of modules with the flavors of specific editions was overly ambitious; I mean, I think WotC will be able to offer a lot of the qualities of 3.5E--the customization and endless options--but having a tactical combat AEDU-like module to just paste over 5E seems a bit more challenging (but certainly do-able).

Anyhow, I wouldn't expect 5E to "out-4E 4E." But we may see the option for 4E-like characters to play alongside the more traditional 5E characters. We shall see.