Rebutting a fallacy: why I await 5e (without holding my breath)

[Vegepygmy]

...but the idea that 3e or another edition is better designed is just a joke...

3e is better designed to produce the kind of gameplay that I enjoy than 4e is. No joke.

 

[catastrophic]

Ultimately, the question will be "Is the current design performing the way WotC wants it to perform?" If they way they want it to perform is to capture or maintain marketshare, then it may well be that 3e performed better than 4e. Depends on the stats WotC is keeping and exactly how they want 4e to perform. Whether or not it is enjoyed more by 4e fans like yourself may be irrelevant. Whether or not it is better balanced for certain types of games may be irrelevant.

By this logic the best tabletop rpg in history if world of warcraft. After all, only sales matter, right? Everything else: design, content, medium- is irrelevant.

In fact, by this logic, the best tabletop rpg in history is crude oil, which clearly outperforms all rpgs by a wide margin! Even tabletop rpg industry leader, world of warcraft!

It's all well and good to harp on about sales, but sales only tell some of the story, and retreading 3e wasn't going to allow wotc to solve it's real probelm- a stagnant, rapidly aging playbase.

I'm not suggesting that 4e was an unquialified success- but the bad design features it removed from the franchise are not liabilities, unless you assume that the only people who will ever buy D&D are the people who bought pathfinder.

If that's the case, you may as well give up producing new content, because clearly that market is not interested in anything genuinly new, no matter what they may claim.

The way forward for rpgs is innovation, and not just in the wrapping of a product. Innovative design is needed to ensure the future of the hobby- punishing people for taking up that challenge is damaging to the hobby as a whole.

 

[Lanefan]

The way forward for rpgs is innovation, and not just in the wrapping of a product. Innovative design is needed to ensure the future of the hobby

I rarely agree with you, but this is one of those times where I do.

Innovative design is essential.

Where we disagree, I think, is on whether innovation includes building on and-or building around what was there before. I say that it does, and that backward compatibility is an absolute ironclad requirement in order to keep and expand the current customer base (in other words, grow) as opposed to simply trading one batch of customers for another (in other words, tread water).

punishing people for taking up that challenge is damaging to the hobby as a whole.

Again agreed, as long as said people are willing to realize - as most are - that they might not always be up to said challenge, and their designs might not quite get it done.

Lanefan

 

[AeroDm]

3e is better designed to produce the kind of gameplay that I enjoy than 4e is. No joke.

I cannot begin to tell you how much I believe this statement. It also isn't surprising. This thread is basically four pages of people disagreeing with each other over how to phrase the idea that "different things appeal to different folks." To be fair, this thread, along with about three others that I follow, all require me to look up at the title to remember which thread it is because they all tread the same ground.

Ultimately, that ground is that different people enjoy different things and different aspects of different systems best cater to those differences.

Maybe that should be a logo of a 5e. Regardless, I still think there is a lot of room for improvement. There are things I dislike about 4e, but 4e also does things that put into contrast 3e weaknsses that I can no longer abide. I fully expect 5e to incorporate strengths from both editions because the community is learning. Every edition has been an improvement and this is a damn great time to be a gamer.

 

[catastrophic]

I rarely agree with you, but this is one of those times where I do.
Innovative design is essential.
Where we disagree, I think, is on whether innovation includes building on and-or building around what was there before. I say that it does, and that backward compatibility is an absolute ironclad requirement in order to keep and expand the current customer base (in other words, grow) as opposed to simply trading one batch of customers for another (in other words, tread water).

In other words, you reject genuine innovation, and place impossible restrictions on it. The reason they went as far with 4e as they did, is because they realised that to fix it, they were best off rebuilding it. If you can't accept that, then you're not after innovation.

There's nothing innovative about keeping the same mistakes made in the past, in order to appease people who reject change.

Maybe that should be a logo of a 5e. Regardless, I still think there is a lot of room for improvement. There are things I dislike about 4e, but 4e also does things that put into contrast 3e weaknsses that I can no longer abide. I fully expect 5e to incorporate strengths from both editions because the community is learning. Every edition has been an improvement and this is a damn great time to be a gamer.

You can't incorperate the strengths of 4th edition by adding back in the weaknesses of 3rd edition. The strength of 4e is that is was designed to avoid the weaknesses of 3e, the very thing it's fans are demanding back.

Just take a look at those wishlists some time. Don't tell me 'balace is bad' and "let's make things complicated and arcane and difficult to compare"
and "how dare fighters get to do things" are good guidelines for design.

And no, callling them strengths instead of weaknesses doesn't change that. 4e has man flaws, but being unlike 3e is not one of them.

 

[delericho]

The way forward for rpgs is innovation, and not just in the wrapping of a product. Innovative design is needed to ensure the future of the hobby- punishing people for taking up that challenge is damaging to the hobby as a whole.

Sure, punishing people simply for innovating is a bad idea. But on the other hand, that doesn't mean you have to uncritically accept whatever rubbish they put out, simply because they've dared to innovate.

4e simply does not work for a lot of people and a lot of groups. For many of the 3e (or Pathfinder) simply works better - generally because they've checked them both out and made a rational choice.

The reason they went as far with 4e as they did, is because they realised that to fix it, they were best off rebuilding it. If you can't accept that, then you're not after innovation.

Here's the thing: when they were developing 4e, I agreed that the best way forward was to rebuild the game from the ground up. I supported and applauded that decision. I still believe it was the right decision, and in large part rejected Pathfinder precisely because they didn't take that path (and so were unable to really address some of the fundamental issues I saw).

But...

In a great many cases, the issues that 4e addresses were not the issues I had with the system. In many cases, the 'fixes' simply didn't work. In many cases, in fixing one problem they introduced others that were just as bad, or even worse.

In other words, they took the right approach, and came up with entriely the wrong solution. That being the case, I'm not going to hail 4e as an improvement, simply because it's new. I'll agree with it's strengths, as I see them, but I'll also note it's weaknesses. And I'll continue to maintain that for me, 3e is the better game, despite its obvious flaws.

There's nothing innovative about keeping the same mistakes made in the past, in order to appease people who reject change.

Conversely, there's no benefit in innovating if the solutions you come up with are no better than what went before. Indeed, since radically overhauling the system inevitably means introducing a whole load of new kinks (witness: three years of extensive and ongoing revisions, with no end in sight), you're better off not innovating unless you are very sure that your revised solution is better.

 

[AeroDm]

You can't incorperate the strengths of 4th edition by adding back in the weaknesses of 3rd edition. The strength of 4e is that is was designed to avoid the weaknesses of 3e, the very thing it's fans are demanding back.

Just take a look at those wishlists some time. Don't tell me 'balace is bad' and "let's make things complicated and arcane and difficult to compare"
and "how dare fighters get to do things" are good guidelines for design.

And no, callling them strengths instead of weaknesses doesn't change that. 4e has man flaws, but being unlike 3e is not one of them.

I'm not sure what you mean, but I'm pretty sure it isn't accurately responding to what I said. Why would I want to incorporate the weaknesses of 3e onto 4e? No one is abject labeling weaknesses as strengths. I don't even know what a "man flaw" is but I'm guessing it is a humorous typo.

Moreover, the gist of my post was that all editions have strengths and that I believe the game as a whole is generally building on strengths to make a better and better game. If you read that and see only an opportunity to tear down one edition in "defense" of another, then I would meekly posit that you are missing a lot of the potential fun available.

 

[Krensky]

In other words, you reject genuine innovation, and place impossible restrictions on it. The reason they went as far with 4e as they did, is because they realised that to fix it, they were best off rebuilding it. If you can't accept that, then you're not after innovation.

There's nothing innovative about keeping the same mistakes made in the past, in order to appease people who reject change.

The thing, though, is that there's nothing innovative about 4e, other then DDI. Every single system of design concept was cribbed from some other game. That doesn't make it a bad game, but there's nothing innovative about 4e in either detail or as a whole.

Which isn't surprising, 2e and 3e weren't either. I get the impression that 1e, BECMI, etc were't all that innovative, more just a direct progression of earlier editions.

The primary difference is that 4e threw out pretty much everything and used games that were not D&D as source material.

 

[ExploderWizard]

In other words, you reject genuine innovation, and place impossible restrictions on it. The reason they went as far with 4e as they did, is because they realised that to fix it, they were best off rebuilding it. If you can't accept that, then you're not after innovation.

There's nothing innovative about keeping the same mistakes made in the past, in order to appease people who reject change.

You can't incorperate the strengths of 4th edition by adding back in the weaknesses of 3rd edition. The strength of 4e is that is was designed to avoid the weaknesses of 3e, the very thing it's fans are demanding back.

Just take a look at those wishlists some time. Don't tell me 'balace is bad' and "let's make things complicated and arcane and difficult to compare"
and "how dare fighters get to do things" are good guidelines for design.

And no, callling them strengths instead of weaknesses doesn't change that. 4e has man flaws, but being unlike 3e is not one of them.

I would say that some of the innovation behind the 4E design was motivated by legal concerns involving leaving the OGL behind. After all you can't enforce a trademark on "goblin" but " goblin nosepicker" is ripe to lock down as a proprietary creature. Making a design incompatible with previous incarnations just for the sake of doing so isn't really innovation IMHO. Companies do this all the time as forced obsolesence drives sales. RPGs are not technology though so this strategy doesn't really work.

To some, the radical design change was a breath of fresh air. To others the new playstyle just didn't feel like D&D anymore. I believe what Lanefan was trying to convey was that just being different and new is not always enough to grow a customer base all by itself.

Starter sets aside, D&D is very much a game that is taught to new players by more established players. If enough of the older players are not happy with a new edition then the teaching base for new players is greatly diminished. Those who prefer older editions will instead teach new interested players those games. Creating a game that holds the interests of your current audience while appealing to new players is vital to a game like D&D.

I would say that prior editions are not so weak if they maintain a good sized player base despite being out of print for years. If there are players who are willing to scour used bookstores and the internet for old playing materials how inferior can these products really be? It takes a bit more effort to obtain this stuff than just strolling into a game or bookstore and picking up the latest incarnation off the shelf.

If what you are offering is so objectively superior and easier to come by then the number of folks still buying the older design stuff would be next to nil wouldn't it?

 

[billd91]

In fact, by this logic, the best tabletop rpg in history is crude oil, which clearly outperforms all rpgs by a wide margin! Even tabletop rpg industry leader, world of warcraft!

We done with straw men now? I've said nothing to suggest that completely different products should be classified as other products. The only issue is what design is more successful - and that's the one that meets the company's goals for it, which may include sales.

If that's the case, you may as well give up producing new content, because clearly that market is not interested in anything genuinly new, no matter what they may claim.

That is also, apparently false. It may just be that they want new content that 4e isn't giving them - like good (and new) adventures.

The way forward for rpgs is innovation, and not just in the wrapping of a product. Innovative design is needed to ensure the future of the hobby- punishing people for taking up that challenge is damaging to the hobby as a whole.

Unless, of course, that innovation isn't what the market of the hobby wants. In such cases, that innovation is what will damage the hobby.