D&D 5E We're Getting Old - and is WotC Accounting For That?

[wedgeski]

D&D cannot thrive if new editions are aimed at the people already playing. Eventually we all become grognards with the One True Edition that we will play till the end of our days.

Whoa, there. Grognardism is not the ultimate destiny of all D&D players. That's the internet talking! However...

tl;dr: Yes, we're getting old, and WotC should account for that by ignoring us. We have our games already. They need to make games for the younger generation.

...I agree with the rest of your post.

 

[Mercurius]

Yes, we're getting old, and WotC should account for that by ignoring us. We have our games already. They need to make games for the younger generation.

If that's true I guess I'm an exception to the rule. I've been playing (on and off) for over three decades now, from the hey-day of AD&D in the early 80s to 4E and (hopefully) 5E. But I've never found my One Edition To Rule Them All. I personally like change in the game, I like trying out a new approach to the Greatest Game In the World* (*aside from the Mesoamerican ballgame, of course).

For me the One Edition To Rule Them All is more like a Platonic Idea than an actuality; it is something to strive for, but also something that seeps into all editions...which is why "D&D" is more of a mind-set than a specific rules-set. I find 5E inspiring because it seems like it has a lot of potential to facilitate that mind-set, and it (potentially) does so in more of a minimalistic, guiding way than a "this is how you're going to do it way" ala 3E and 4E.

To put that another way, 5E seems like its harkening back to the more minimalist writing styles of fantasy from the 60s and 70s, than the (overly, imo) descriptive styles of the last two decades that Robert Jordan spear-headed and George RR Martin perfected. I like Martin, but I prefer Le Guin, Moorcock, and McKillip. I prefer when the story is a collaboration between teller and the reader's imagination, rather than a kind of info download that the reader receives. But I digress.

D&D next makes in-roads with a simpler system, but there is an underlying tension here: As a player, I want deep, intricate characters with deep intricate progression. I applaud the attempt to make a "simple" version for new players, but once you have the D&D hook, you want more. However, this is in opposition to the needs o the DM: Fast NPC creation, ad hoc resolution, simple to run yet memorable (to the players) monsters.

In a way, character development is a mini-game for players, mechanics plays into that. DMs are narrative driven, and burn-out, IMO, occurs when a DM is weighed down by trying to maintain mechanics. DMs feel like irrelevant, more like a computer (a bad one usually), than a storyteller/narrator. Most DMs thrive when the story is compelling. Thus the need for good published adventures (For busy DMs to grok quickly, be inspired by, etc) or excellent narrative-focus DMing advice.

Good post. I wanted to respond to this part. One of the things that inspired me about Next, at least early on when Mearls wasn't offering any details just design considerations, was that he seemed to be explicating many of the thoughts (and hopes) I had had for a new edition of D&D, especially "simple core, complex modules." Now whether or not they'll actualize this with the final product, the basic/advanced dyad nails it on both sides of what you're talking about, and it isn't simply a matter of "basic for newbies, advanced for veterans." Its "basic for everyone, and customize it as fits your campaign."

In other words, what 5E potentially offers is a simple base for what we've all been doing all along: customizing and complexifying (house ruling) for our own particular preferences, but in such a way that most of the time we won't need to subtract-then-add, we can just add because the base will be simple and adaptable enough.

That's my hope, at least!

Grognardism is not the ultimate destiny of all D&D players.

LOL - that's sig worthy.

 

[Starfox]

Worth mentioning is that new gamers are probably more likely to come from the children of grognards than the general populace.

Each second-generation grognard will need a gaming group. Even if half of them comes from mom's and dad's friends kids, this still means they need to find (recruit) more gamers. I've seen this happen, more than once.

 

[jasper]

....




Playing doesn't take a whole lot of prep, or at least it shouldn't. (..
But I agree that DMing takes a lot of prep. As a result, most players don't want to be DMs, and many that do get burned out due to prep. ...

I have to totally disagree with you. Most groups I have came across or helped started, it was 7 players and 6 of those wanted to DM.

 

[jasper]

I know that I for one, really liked the bigger fonts in the 4e books compared to that teeny stuff in 3.x.

I hope they continue to accomodate in that regard. My prescription has already changed quite a bit in the last 5 years.


Oh....

yes this shadow dweller like bigger fonts. I know my prescriptions have changed in the last few years.... Now what does this Blue pill do?....

 

[Mercurius]

I have to totally disagree with you. Most groups I have came across or helped started, it was 7 players and 6 of those wanted to DM.

I'm going to have to disagree with you . I've never been in a group where people were fighting over who gets to DM. Most people seem to want to play; and that's the overall gist of the anecdotal evidence I've come across.

This is not to say that I think your experience is wrong, but that I do think it is more the exception rather than the rule.

 

[Weather Report]

Worth mentioning is that new gamers are probably more likely to come from the children of grognards than the general populace. Kids who are raised on games are going to be more receptive to and comfortable with them.

And there is a big retro deal going on now with the younger generation (late teens/20s), going back to vinyl, old school phones, old gaming consoles, etc.

My 12-year old nephew digs 5th Ed.

 

[delericho]

I'm going to have to disagree with you . I've never been in a group where people were fighting over who gets to DM. Most people seem to want to play; and that's the overall gist of the anecdotal evidence I've come across.

This is not to say that I think your experience is wrong, but that I do think it is more the exception rather than the rule.

FWIW, our not-quite-Meetup group has about 30 members, any of whom are willing to play, but only about half a dozen of whom run games (with varying degrees of regularity).

 

[Halivar]

Everyone in our group likes the *idea* of GM'ing, but for about 8 years only one person could actually stick with it before getting frustrated and quitting the campaign. When we moved to 4th Ed in 2008 I was able to more consistently GM (ran my first ever multi-session, non-abortive campaign; lasted a year), and now I share DM'ing duties co-equally.

 

[Herschel]

Yes, we're getting old, and WotC should account for that by ignoring us. We have our games already. They need to make games for the younger generation.

And this thread pretty much sums up why they should ignore current gamers. It's not age, it's obsitnance. All the passive-aggressive edition war garbage so thinly veiled in this thread alone makes one wonder why the design crew should care one lick what this "community" wants. In a perfect world, they need to make a good game to appeal to new players while finding a way to make the current crew just STFU because they can only hurt their goal to grow the game.

Of course the internet makes things much tougher because motivated minorities spamming review sites all too much of a reality.