D&D 5E Ruminations on 5E (serious)

[GVDammerung]

After 4e fails to achieve the success it might have had were it to have built more closely upon the success of 3x, as would have been demonstrated by greater compatibility with 3x, 5e will be to a large degree "back to the future" as well as "back to the drawing board." 5e will more closely resemble 3x than 4e, as 4e comes to be seen as a design cul de sac. The best ideas from 4e will be incorporated in 5e but a 3e ethos will be strongly evident. By this measure 5e will to some extent be what 4e should have been.

At the same time, 5e will be something completely new and unique due to the increasing integration of technology, online support and functionality, that is just beginning with 4e. This is not to say that the integraton will necessarily be a good thing or successful. It could go either way depending on implementation. 4e will demonstrate how to fail integrating technology when you move before you are ready and underestimate the level of sophistication that consumers, being familiar with slick websites and video games, will demand.

5e will also be forced to deal with the "age wave" among gamers. 4e will not bring in a substantial number of new gamers. The gaming public will continue to gray. As other companies and products, e.g. WoW, continue to refine their already leading products, Wotc and D&D will be unable to alter that picture, leaving D&D at its core still a paper and penicl, tabletop experience. Those interested in such will be older and older. 5e will per force compromise between something new and something old; there will be a designed nostalia factor in 5e's design.

5e will also be entirely closed. Only a very few individual licenses, more akin to strategic alliances like the Paizo license to publish Dungeon and Dragon, will be let.

4e will in retrospect be seen as a lost opportunity, a hard lesson in the inability of a company, any company, to decide for consumers what they should want and should enjoy. As such, 5e will not be long in coming, 2012/2013. They should already be engaged in initial planning, at least to the extent that 5e should avoid the miserable job 4e has done in its rollout that has seen the gaming community split as never previously over the very idea of a 4e.

 

[Kobu]

1. Replacement of 1-1-1 movement with offset squares or hexes. I already get enough of circumventing all obstacles with free movement in Descent, thank you. This might also lead to more free form map creation rather than the boring rectangular rooms and corridors over and over again.

2. More balanced first year launch with regards at least to classes. I'd like to see an equivalent to a 2-2-2-2 split for both role and power source. The 2-2-4 and 1-2-2-3 splits seems to demonstrate how haphazard the run-up to the 4E launch was.

3. More commitment to big design goals. The thing about roles being clearly defined so no one can easily make a crappy character gets negated as soon as you start talking about making hybrid classes. I want to see ideas worked on like "The economy makes sense" and "Simulation and ease of play are not exclusive". Whatever the ideas behind 5E are, I want them adhered to all the way through.

4. This one I may recant after I've seen 4E in action, but I am very leery of 4E monster design. It seems like a throwback to 1E which was just a clusterfrak in terms of balance.

5. Integration between products. Why does this concept seem so hard for WotC to grasp? Product managers I've worked with always have this in mind. You put out an adventure, sell dungeon tiles that match the rooms. Label them and tell us how to easily put the maps together. Sell miniature sets for the creatures in the adventure. I will gladly buy whole adventure packs that make the game as easy to set up as Descent.

6. Speaking of which, change your mini distribution system. I really like the minis, but I will never buy them until I can see what I'm purchasing. If you can do it for Heroscape, and every other mini producer out there can sell individual figures, I think you can do it for your minis. Sell a whole set for every monster in the 5E MM, or in packs of like monsters. I will throw hundreds of dollars at your to get whole sets, but I'm not going to waste part of my life scouring Ebay for bits of plastic.

I think 4E is going to make some huge strides towards a better game, but I'm sure I'll have more as we start to get materials.

 

[Thulcondar]

And if the system can't be improved mechanically, what will 5E be?

That depends.

If 4E tanks, then WotC will realize it made a huge mistake by pushing all the 3E players into the hands of Pathfinder, and 5E will be a step backwards to the 3.X-style mechanics. In this scenario, 5E happens relatively quickly, say within 3-4 years.

If 4E is a hit, then 5E will be even more MMORPG-like. Perhaps even with a dedicated Kindle-type device to "enhance" play that will become more and more necessary as time goes on. In this scenario, 5E doesn't come on the scene for 5-10 years.

Either way, 5E will be a closed system; no OGL, SGL, or anything like it. There will be traditional licensing deals with 3PP, which directly add to WotC's revenue stream.

Please bear in mind, creating an excellent game with the best possible mechanics is NOT the main goal of WotC/Hasbro!! Their goal is to make money. They do that by expanding and securing their market share, producing products that the maximum number of players either need or want to purchase, and possibly making the pages of the books physically addictive (j/k). Producing an excellent game is only one means towards that end, and it is not the only way to achieve it. (This is not a slam at WotC at all; it is just an observation of the state of the industry.)

Joe

 

[Sir Brennen]

There will never be any perfect system, that's simply not possible.

I will excuse your blasphemy on the assumption that you have never played World of Synnibarr.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

That depends.

If 4E tanks, then WotC will realize it made a huge mistake by pushing all the 3E players into the hands of Pathfinder, and 5E will be a step backwards to the 3.X-style mechanics. In this scenario, 5E happens relatively quickly, say within 3-4 years.

If 4E is a hit, then 5E will be even more MMORPG-like. Perhaps even with a dedicated Kindle-type device to "enhance" play that will become more and more necessary as time goes on. In this scenario, 5E doesn't come on the scene for 5-10 years.

Either way, 5E will be a closed system; no OGL, SGL, or anything like it. There will be traditional licensing deals with 3PP, which directly add to WotC's revenue stream.

Please bear in mind, creating an excellent game with the best possible mechanics is NOT the main goal of WotC/Hasbro!! Their goal is to make money. They do that by expanding and securing their market share, producing products that the maximum number of players either need or want to purchase, and possibly making the pages of the books physically addictive (j/k). Producing an excellent game is only one means towards that end, and it is not the only way to achieve it. (This is not a slam at WotC at all; it is just an observation of the state of the industry.)

Joe

I can only speak for myself, but what I want most is an excellent game with the best possible mechanics. I'd buy that.

Furthermore, WotC is not just a faceless business identity only identified by its business numbers. WotC is made from people, some of them have the responsibility to design the game. And these designers didn't take their job just to make money, they do it because they like it. And it is generally more fun to create a good game then it is to create a bad game.

Look at the computer game market! Do you think for a moment that anyone hoping for a big success will come out with an inferior game. "Oh yes, we have less good graphics, and the individual factions are not balanced against each other, the game will crash often, and the game story is as exciting as that of PacMan. But that will make us the market leader!!!"

It just doesn't work well, since you always compete with what went before. If 4E sucks, people will go back to 3E or find alternatives. If 5E sucks, people will go back to 4E, or find alternatives.

(I am repeating myself
And my theory is that the next edition will even be less MMORPGish. 5E will focus more on story-telling aspects, game mechanics that help players and DM to tell their story utilizing game mechanics to share their story-telling power. Because that's what is the hardest to do with a computer, but most rewarding to do in a role-playing game (at least if it still allows a lot of butt-kicking in between. )

 

[BryonD]

If 4E tanks, then WotC will realize it made a huge mistake by pushing all the 3E players into the hands of Pathfinder, and 5E will be a step backwards to the 3.X-style mechanics. In this scenario, 5E happens relatively quickly, say within 3-4 years.

Or rather it will be a realization that 4E was a step backwards.....

Either way, 5E will be a ways off. If 4E manages to grab enough new players to be popular, they will milk it for a while (as they well should). If 4E drops off fast in the first couple years, there will be a real hesitation to invest in development all over again.

That said, I think it will be less than the 9 years of 3X. From a market POV 3.5 certainly had issues. But it did re-set the life cycle as far as WotC selling splat-books is considered. It didn't recover the boom of the first release of 3E, but it probably increased the total life by a good two years. So if they stand by their no 4.5 pledge, then I'd guess 6, maybe 7 years.

Please bear in mind, creating an excellent game with the best possible mechanics is NOT the main goal of WotC/Hasbro!! Their goal is to make money.

Very true. Good point.

They do that by expanding and securing their market share, producing products that the maximum number of players either need or want to purchase, and possibly making the pages of the books physically addictive (j/k). Producing an excellent game is only one means towards that end, and it is not the only way to achieve it. (This is not a slam at WotC at all; it is just an observation of the state of the industry.)

I think you should say: "They TRY to do that by..."

I'm highly skeptical that the current level of acceptance amongst 3E players would be called "securing" the market share. Not that this was by design, of course. But it is the results that count.

 

[Tao]

From a mechanics standpoint, I think that 5th edition will likely attempt to tie up loose ends into a more integrated system. Exceptions based design is great for getting the feel that they are going for, but a system that can capture that feel with an underlying system behind it will be the likely next generation.

 

[lutecius]

I see that there is a possibility for a new paradagm shift. 4E is focussed on providing optimal game playability. That is a goal I agree with, but there are some sacrifices made in regards to "Simulation" and "Rules as Game World Physics".
Maybe 5E could integrate the 4E gamist aspects and modify the rules to provide better simulative aspects. […]

Another possibility is that 5E could go further in the narrative area, and characters will get more "story-telling powers" - say a special ability that allows you to acquire a Connection, the ability to flat out say that the princess you just rescued falls in love with your character, or an ability to declare an opponent as your nemesis. (That's all stuff I remember from the Torg Drama Deck).

This approach might even be more likely then the simulationist one, simply because the story-telling aspects of role-playing games are its unique strength compared to computer games. Games don't allow you to affect the story as you see fit, only as far as the programmers have allowed to. A game mechanic that allows you to declare any random NPC as a romantic love interest simply cannot work in a computer game. (Or can it?)
Collaborative story-telling could be a new design space that is to be explored in 5E.

If 5e doesn’t end up being a mmorpg, and that’s a big if, I think/hope the focus will be back on "simulationism".
I even think it's compatible with the "tactical fun", balance and playability goals of 4e if you put some effort into it.

What you describe as "storytelling" looks more like social interaction rules to me.
The advantage of pnp over computer games (for now) is more being able to take any action you can think of ...
"I the princess on the spot!", than actually controlling what happens to your character and the world around him.
I am not sure an actual “collaborative storytelling” system, like what was attempted in the 90s would sell.

"5E" I'd suspect will take the form of 4dvanced Dungeons and Dragons with rules tweaks focusing on deeper simulation along with move flexible character design. It will be sold as an upgrade / Parallel of 4e rather than a replacement.

That would be more like the Player’s Options line. I don’t think it would be a good thing either.
There were many good ideas in those books but they just didn’t work within the existing frame, and in the end that didn’t save AD&D2.

Deeper simulation and more flexible character design surely could have been integrated from the ground up, but I doubt they can be added at a later stage.
I believe the simulation aspect took a back seat in 4e because this particular design team didn’t care that much about it. And too much flexibility and customisation would just have been a bad move from a business pov.

 

[Harshax]

And if the system can't be improved mechanically, what will 5E be?

5E will be any good DM's 4E, and it will be released after the 1st or 2nd session using the old rules.

 

[LostSoul]

4e will in retrospect be seen as a lost opportunity, a hard lesson in the inability of a company, any company, to decide for consumers what they should want and should enjoy.

What are they supposed to do - sell blank pads of paper?

Anyways, I'd imagine that 5e would try to bridge the gap between simulationist and gamist goals.

As an aside, can't a MMORPG satisfy simulationists?