Re-booting D&D with a new edition - how necessary is it?

[ggroy]

I hope you are right. WotC has not been forthcoming as to what its plans are, or what we might see for 4E after Essentials comes out. Are we going back to the one-hardcover-a-month cycle? Or are they playing wait and see with Essentials and maybe expanding the line with digest softcovers and box sets? I honestly have no idea, and maybe they don't either, but just have a few possible courses depending how well Essentials sell.

According to the WotC D&D new products Gencon seminar podcast:

Dungeons & Dragons Roleplaying Game Official Home Page - Article (D&D Podcast: D&D Preview Show)

the upcoming 2011 4E D&D titles will be:


box sets

- Shadowfell: Gloomwrought and Beyond
- Monster Vault: Threats to the Nentir Vale
- Madness of Gardmore Abbey
- Ravenloft rpg


board games

- Conquest of Nerath


hardcovers

- Mordenkainen's Magnificent Emporium
- Player's Handbook: Champions of the Heroic Tier
- Hero Builder's Handbook
- Neverwinter Campaign Guide


digest sized softcovers

- Nentir Vale Gazetteer
- Player's Options: Heroes of Shadow

 

[UngainlyTitan]

The last thing we want to do is put the game further online. We need to get players sitting together around a table interacting in person and being social. This applies to new players and old.

That is nice and all very well but some people do not live in areas with gamers near by or at least with mechanism to identify them.
Right now there is only one gamer on hte gamers seeking gamers within 100 mile of where I live and he is at the extreme range (a 2 hour drive)
Now currently I game with my nephews who I have introduced to the game but withing a couple of years they will be scattered to the 4 winds in poursuit of college, career or whatever. Then I will be back to where i was before with may be a game 2/3 time a year with old college buddies.

Something that would make the online experience easy and as close as possible to the tabletop experience would be extremely welcome to me.

And I have played some MMOs and they are not really it.

 

[ggroy]

If and when 5E comes out we probably won't see the same kind of radical change that we saw with 4E, for at least two reasons: 1) Public Relations and damage control, and 2) 4E has a more modular core to build from, so it could easily be ported over into 5E while changing some of the tangentials.

So I think we'll still see some kind of 5E in 2014 or 2015, because it is the most lucrative thing for WotC to do, but they'll find some way to minimize the controversy; e.g. "Fully Backwards Compatible with 4E!" They seem to have done a pretty good job with Essentials, which is generally being embraced and probably will sell quite well.

The underlying 4E base ruleset (or the 4E Essentials "Rules Compendium" base ruleset) is a very generic level based rpg mechanics system of skills + combat.

A few of the generic base rules can probably be dropped without drastically affecting the system, such as skill challenges. Another example would be removing a lot of the "divine" stuff from Dark Sun.

Player powers, etc ... built on top of such a generic 4E base system, could in principle maintain a "fully backwards compatibility with 4E". It appears this is what they're attempting to do with non-D&D stuff, such as the upcoming 4E based Gamma World.

So 10 years down the line with 12 settings and 5 sets of alternative builds under their belt, what will Wizards do next?

Good question. So far:

Build 1 = Heinsoo 4E (June 2008 -> August 2010)

Build 2 = 4E Essentials (September 2010 -> ?)

Build 3 = Gamma World + random mutation cards

Build 4 = Ravenloft + Shadowfell with a "despair" or "tarokka" card deck ?

Build 5 = ?

Build 6 = ?

 

[UngainlyTitan]

snip

Build 1 = Heinsoo 4E (June 2008 -> August 2010)

Build 2 = 4E Essentials (September 2010 -> ?)

I dunno, I would put psionics as build 2 but I agree it could be argued that it is a minor varistion.

Build 3 = Gamma World + random mutation cards

Build 4 = Ravenloft + Shadowfell with a "despair" or "tarokka" card deck ?

Build 5 = ?

the replacement for Urban Arcana/D20 Modern, with crossover potential to D&D, the Realms are no longer forgotten.

Build 6 = ?

The classless build based on customisable powers and effects and marketed as a supers game

 

[LeStryfe79]

quanity over quality

As much as I hate to say it. I think WotC is best to reboot every 5 years. In the case of a widely acclaimed edition, the changes of the new edition would be slighter. However, when an edition is highly controversial, the next one would very greatly. Also, I disapprove of a decimal system (3.5).

In addition to this, I think WotC needs to make all previous editions available through pdf or print on demand. This way, players get to support the game in their prefered way, and everyone wins, especially if third party licensing was allowed to thrive.

D&D is an ever changing beast, and I think it's wrong to forget the old or fear the new...

 

[Mercurius]

According to the WotC D&D new products Gencon seminar podcast: (SNIP)

Thanks for the info - some of that is not up on the Products page, last time I looked.

I'm still not sure where they are going with this, however, and I would guess that they aren't entirely certain either, mainly because they don't know how well Essentials will do.

The underlying 4E base ruleset (or the 4E Essentials "Rules Compendium" base ruleset) is a very generic level based rpg mechanics system of skills + combat.

A few of the generic base rules can probably be dropped without drastically affecting the system, such as skill challenges. Another example would be removing a lot of the "divine" stuff from Dark Sun.

Player powers, etc ... built on top of such a generic 4E base system, could in principle maintain a "fully backwards compatibility with 4E". It appears this is what they're attempting to do with non-D&D stuff, such as the upcoming 4E based Gamma World.

Right, exactly. The same was true of 3.5E of course, but the key difference is that A) WotC has more control over what is produced for 4E, and B) 4E is less "top heavy" than 3.5E was, and thus may be able to handle more alterations.

I do think that it would behoove them, however, to clarify a core rules set, even an SRD type document for 4E that would form the core of games to come. They could do away with editions and merely adjust and revise the core rules, with an infinite number of possible add-ons and options.

In addition to this, I think WotC needs to make all previous editions available through pdf or print on demand. This way, players get to support the game in their prefered way, and everyone wins, especially if third party licensing was allowed to thrive.

D&D is an ever changing beast, and I think it's wrong to forget the old or fear the new...

To the last, yes, I agree. To the first, what was their reasoning for taking down all the old PDFs? I remember them not wanting to put new PDFs up because of piracy but that doesn't explain the old. If they wanted to discourage people from playing earlier versions of D&D I don't think taking down the PDFs would make much of a difference, considering the prevalence of used books out there, not to mention "free" torrents.

WotC--and even more so TSR before them--has a pretty much undeniable history of bad PR. Why this is, I don't know. Maybe it has something to with snarky and/or awkward gamer social skills.

 

[BenBrown]

If you're trying to attract new players, what's going to work better: a new edition with three books that's new to everybody, or an existing system with over forty books?

That's why Essentials. To avoid the intimidating wall of books without having to have an entirely new edition. Not sure how many times they can do that, though. A new edition may be inevitable to attract new players.

 

[DragonLancer]

That is nice and all very well but some people do not live in areas with gamers near by or at least with mechanism to identify them.
Right now there is only one gamer on hte gamers seeking gamers within 100 mile of where I live and he is at the extreme range (a 2 hour drive)
Now currently I game with my nephews who I have introduced to the game but withing a couple of years they will be scattered to the 4 winds in poursuit of college, career or whatever. Then I will be back to where i was before with may be a game 2/3 time a year with old college buddies.

Something that would make the online experience easy and as close as possible to the tabletop experience would be extremely welcome to me.

And I have played some MMOs and they are not really it.

I understand how you feel and I accept that to an extent you do need something like the DDI and online play. My point is that devoting so much to online play isn't the way to go.

We in the Western world spend so much time online in our lives, both at work and in our personal lives. Social skills aren't learnt sitting at a keyboard typing away or chatting on Skype/Vent. I dread the day when the next generation can only interact properly over the internet.
But not just that. These games were designed for a group sitting around a table, interacting with other players directly, and that's how they should be IMO.

 

[ggroy]

The classless build based on customisable powers and effects and marketed as a supers game

Something like this is already being done for next year, in the the form of the "Hero Builder's Handbook". They talk about this in the WotC Gencon 2010 new products seminar at around 00:55:35 in the podcast.

Dungeons & Dragons Roleplaying Game Official Home Page - Article (D&D Podcast: D&D Preview Show)

Though they don't call it a supers games (yet).

 

[UngainlyTitan]

I understand how you feel and I accept that to an extent you do need something like the DDI and online play. My point is that devoting so much to online play isn't the way to go.

We in the Western world spend so much time online in our lives, both at work and in our personal lives. Social skills aren't learnt sitting at a keyboard typing away or chatting on Skype/Vent. I dread the day when the next generation can only interact properly over the internet.
But not just that. These games were designed for a group sitting around a table, interacting with other players directly, and that's how they should be IMO.

Hmm, that is a pretty big topic there in itself. However, it remains to be seen to what extent people will retreat behind the terminal and if they do is it in addition to television or instead of. It is not exactly a new phenonenon.

However from the prespective of WoTC and other gaming companies gamers who can find player in their area are probably gaming and so buying some gaming product. Thus contributing to their bottom line. Now gamers that do not have a face to face game are for the most part probably not buying much product and thus not contributing to the bottom line.

So from the game companies prespective if they can facilitate the lone gamers in finding a game then that gamer is not active and buying product and they gais as does the previously gameless gamer.

The provision of such a service would constitute an evergreen revenue stream that reduces the need for edition reboots.