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

[ExploderWizard]

I'm not here to listen to you wank at the shrine of gygax, grandpa.

Early D&D mechanics were a turdparty, and you know it.

Just because modern games are about tables full of people reciting a litany of numbers at eachother instead of roleplaying, doesn't mean that the actual game functions can't be improved over time.

When you return from vacation please enlighten an old doddering fool with some specifics. Its easy to just say that no one is doing D&D 'right'. I would like to hear some of your suggestions as to how 'modern' mechanics and design can improve the game .

If you do not in fact have any constructive ideas about how to implement improvements to the game then find one you hate the least, play it and stop whining.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

I'm not here to listen to you wank at the shrine of gygax, grandpa.

Early D&D mechanics were a turdparty, and you know it.

Just because modern games are about tables full of people reciting a litany of numbers at eachother instead of roleplaying, doesn't mean that the actual game functions can't be improved over time.

Thank you, Gizmoduck, for confirming my opinion about you in nearly every way.

Unfortunately, this was not a positive confirmation.

Given that Paizo does produce games, and that, no, not everyone agrees with you about the older rules, and given that there are enough people buying PFRPG, and for that matter OSRIC and C&C to show that there are plenty of folks that don't think that the 4e rules are in any way shape or form an improvement, and that there are plenty of folks that do think that the 4e rules are an improvement, you are just being silly.

The Auld Grump

*EDIT* All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost.
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost....

Neither change nor lack of change is inherently bad.

*EDIT 2* Just noticed that the mods had spoken to the Duck. Ah well....

Is anyone else wondering about sock puppets?

 

[Umbran]

Folks, GizmoDuck was being insulting and using profanity, and won't be continuing in this discussion. Carry on with that in mind.

 

[Kannon]

I'm a fairly young gamer and DM (AD&D 2e came out the year I was born, just to make you all feel old.), so most of my experience is with 3e-4e. I also may be the odd one out being a very aggressive DM who has no issue with handwaving a rule that gets in the way of the table having fun, who still really likes 4e.

Now, since my particular writing style tends to come off a bit incendiary without people able to tell I'm kidding over the internet, I'll get this out of the way first: I don't care what edition, game system, or even game type you play. As long as you're having fun, more power to you. I don't have enough energy or time to stomp my feet and pout because you're not having "my" kind of fun.

That being said, I do think I know why I enjoy 4e more than 3.5/PF. First, I'm a coder and a computer gamer. So my brain already works in a lot of the "gamism" aspects of 4e. Second, 4e makes it a whole lot easier to build an interesting, challenging encounter without doing enormous amounts of work.

And, with the caveat of the gamism of the "encounter" and "daily" powers, I really do like the power system. I think the trick is to look at the power system as a more concise version of what there was in previous editions. (In 3.5e games I played and DMed, people generally had something similar to power cards anyway to make it a little easier to remember what all your character knows how to do well.)

I like the bigger focus on balance as well, it makes it substantially easier to build challenging encounters (That the PCs can take on or avoid, or find a third option at their choice), without having to worry about needing to fudge the dice to avoid a stupid TPK. (Stupid in this case meaning, high rolls on my side, low on their side, a round later, half the party is dead.)

Now, this doesn't mean I think it's perfect. I think rituals are an awesome mechanic that they missed with so hard it hurts. Not having to clutter up limited spellbook spots with noncombat utility spells that'd take longer to cast because you didn't have them mostly-prepared before hand? Awesome! Sounds like something a pragmatic wizard would come up with. But they fumbled the implementation badly enough it's hard to even fix, because players are used to them being mostly useless.

Also not fond of the use of magic items to set the power curve for the players. It makes shiny things expected and common. Fortunately, DMG2 has an out in the form of inherent bonuses, and combining that with creative and interesting magic items brings back the wonder and awesomeness, and keeps balance. That needs to be pushed harder.

And while I notably dislike vandian magic (I never really thought it made sense, and houseruled it out of 3/x,), the power limiting balance construct they came up with to replace it is not really better. I'm just not entirely sure I could fix it in an elegant matter that didn't require prohibitive bookkeeping. (While the system our group came up with for 3/x worked well, we had enough geeks handy that we just wrote up a computerized character sheet tracker for it, and a tabletop one that tracked everyone's for when we were playing in person.)

And I seriously like the new monster statblocks, I do miss the detailed noncombat information the previous edition bestiaries had. If anything, I want them to bring that back. Have a noncombat statblock, then a quick reference one, that has the current MM3 stats. One funny little anachronism that I carried over from my days DMing 3.5e, are meta-powers. Instead of listing the 5-6 abilities that a versatile spell-casting enemy would have, I toss a note to which power list they have for their "spells" in the sheet, then have a list of thematic powers made up or cribbed from other monsters that fit for spells, their usage, and all that.

That, and the new unified skill system. Makes it less annoying for a player trying to shoehorn Chef (french) into whatever the hell they're currently doing.

Now, I know for the above reasons listed, that 4e isn't for everyone. But that doesn't mean it's bad for everyone because you don't like it, or there's nothing to learn from it. If nothing else, you learned what you don't like, and hopefully (and more importantly), why, so you can better find stuff you like in the future.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

Very nice post - you don't have to dis 3.X to trumpet 4e.

I disagree on a few points, agree on others - I have used variant magic systems with 3.X, including one by E N Publishing, but my players prefer the Vancian magic of 3.X and older.

I prefer the long statblocks of 3.X, mostly for important NPCs and critters, but I also like the scalable statblocks of Spycraft/FantasyCraft. So I can understand that as well. (Actually, if there ever is a 5e, I would really like to see a scalable statblock system - Adamant converted it for D20 Modern, so it can be done.)

Aside from that, I would like to see a return to the OGL, but I am pretty sure that that is a pipe dream.

The Auld Grump

 

[Ranes]

Is anyone else wondering about sock puppets?

Have been for some time.

Now, I know for the above reasons listed, that 4e isn't for everyone. But that doesn't mean it's bad for everyone because you don't like it, or there's nothing to learn from it. If nothing else, you learned what you don't like, and hopefully (and more importantly), why, so you can better find stuff you like in the future.

Absolutely. And you make good points about 4e in general. It's just fun and interesting to imagine what WotC will do with a 5th edition. Personally, I'm intrigued by speculation about how it might relate to DDI.

There's a couple of things that concern me about any future edition of D&D. One of them would be that, irrespective of its qualities, I'd take some convincing before investing in yet another version of one game. That would be the biggest issue for me, I admit.

The other thing is, from the beginning of the third edition, there were themes in art direction and what people around here often call flavour that I didn't really care for. Dungeonpunk (been around since the eighties, I know) and prestige classes with with titles so long it takes the first page of a character sheet to write them down aren't my cup of tea. Now I see people saying that 4e has more flavour than 3e. I'll take their word for that but, from what I've seen and read of 4e, that flavour has gone further down a round I didn't want to take in the first place. Consequently, I suspect that a fifth edition would be a step too far for me, purely from a thematic perspective.

Of course, I'd happily be proven wrong but I doubt they're going go photorealistic with really, really understated magical effects.

So my two biggest concerns about any future edition aren't even mechanics related (although magic has to be Vancian, for me, Kannon, because of the way it doesn't make sense). That's just how I roll.

 

[Kannon]

I like Eberron, as much maligned as it tends to be, just for the film noir vibe that you can get from it, and how much fun it is to completely flip expectations on someone.

It does bring up one of the greater strengths of the D&D brand, I think, though. It has multiple, widely different campaign settings. You have the hostile low magic Dark Sun, High Magic forgotton realms, the dungeon punk ebberon, and the middle child, er, what would you call it, Core? Points of light-land?

That said, D&D needs a low-magic campaign setting that _isn't_ Dark Sun. And 4e really needs a campaign setting of it's own. They're trying to flesh out points-of-light-land, and I applaud them for that, but I would like to see a low-magic setting get added, too, that isn't in the middle of a dead world. It's worth mentioning, I do like the changes to the Astral Sea and the Elemental Chaos, as well as the Shadowfell and the Feywild, but perhaps that maybe should have been it's own setting, while keeping the familiar Great Wheel and such for "Core", and breaking the points-of-light-land out into it's own, named setting. And hey, it'd have given them more splatbooks to sell, new stuff for the Great Wheel, as well as the new setting. Win-win, right?

I am curious, if you could design your dream edition of D&D for 5e, what would it look like? Mechanics wise, flavor wise, settings, what do you specifically want from D&D. I have the sneaking suspicion a lot of us want the same thing, but disagree on how to get there. (Differences in taste and setting choice aside.)

Since I can't stand to miss a chance to be long-winded, and I think just under 1500 words is a bit much for a forum post, I've got my take on a dream edition of D&D here.

 

[Sacrificial Lamb]

Well, I almost never post, but I'll give my two bits. For a hypothetical 5e, I'd like to see a more streamlined version of 3e, especially in regards to generating stat blocks for NPCs. That would make my life easier as a DM.

I also feel compelled to mention that I don't really know what to do with 4e. It's a weird game, and I can't truthfully classify it as D&D. That's troubling to me. The reason I say this, is that D&D players normally expect a shared experience when discussing D&D. Whether you started playing D&D in 1977 or 2007, you could expect the following:

* There was a planar cosmology with Prime Material Planes, Inner Planes, Outer Planes, the Ethereal Plane, and the Astral Plane.
* As PCs went up in level, they rolled a die for Hit Points (d4, d6, d8, etc.).
* There were mooks that had approximately 1 Hit Dice (Orcs, Goblins, etc.).
* Ogres were huge brutes with approximately 4 Hit Dice.
* The magical fabric of the universe was very precise, with 9 levels of spells.
* Magic Missile was a 1st-level spell, and it automatically hit, unless countered by a Shield spell.
* Charm Person was a 1st-level spell, and it transformed the victim into a buddy or a slave.
* Fireball and Lightning Bolt were both 3rd-level spells that inflicted d6 damage per level.
* Teleport was a 5th-level spell...with a chance of mishap.
* Non-combat magic was as prevalent as combat magic.
* If you were badly injured, you needed to either rest for many days or procure magical healing.
* Clerics are healbots.
* Rogues or Thieves probably steal things.
* Saving Throws improved as you went up in level.
* For better or for worse, level draining existed.
* Your character's Alignment could influence what he did for a living. After all, Paladins do not grow on trees...
* A character could (in game mechanics) be as defined by his flaws as by his strengths.

There are many more details the various editions have in common, but I figured that I'd just throw a few of them out there. Individually, these details might seem to mean very little on the surface, but collectively....these little details create an implied meta-setting, and add up to a shared experience that D&D gamers have come to expect for decades.

Now....the problem many people have with 4e, is that it took that shared experience of the other editions, and chucked it clean out the window. As a result, the D&D fan base is far more fragmented than ever before. It's so completely fragmented now, that three years after the release of 4e, the 3.x fan base remains as large as the 4.x fan base, and in fact might be considerably larger. Before anyone scoffs at that statement, let's remember that Pathfinder alone is challenging 4e in the marketplace. If we compare the two fan bases...

* 3.x (3.0, 3.5, Pathfinder, d20/OGL games [like Castles & Crusades, Trailblazer, and Fantasycraft], D&D Online, Neverwinter Nights 1 and 2, playing online via some type of MapTools program, etc.)

* 4.x (original 4e, "errata'd" 4e, Essentials, Gamma World/D&D, playing 4.x online with some form of MapTools program, etc.)

...then we see that that the 3.x group is probably a larger gaming segment. What that means in the long term though, is anyone's guess, as I don't really believe that WoTC can simultaneously placate both the 3.x and 4.x groups. But who knows? Maybe WoTC could surprise us all, and create a design that could "wow" all of us. Stranger things have happened...

Many regards,
the Sacrificial Lamb

 

[NN]

I hope WOTC dont bring out a unified "5E"

Better to make 2 games:

- a 4.5E type game for the 4E fans

- a revamped modular d20 system for everyone else.

 

[Bluenose]

I hope WOTC dont bring out a unified "5E"

Better to make 2 games:

- a 4.5E type game for the 4E fans

- a revamped modular d20 system for everyone else.

So, disregard the people who don't like either WotC edition, then? Doesn't meet the criteria 'everyone else'.