D&D 5E What can D&D [next] learn from other games?

[Christopher Hawkins]

We all know the score. Whatever your personal preference is, the core demographic of D&D fractured into separate user bases with the release of 4th edition.

• Some chose to stay with 3e/3.5
  
• Some made the easy migration to Pathfinder.
  
• Some found that they loved 4e, and dove into it with gusto.
  
• Some (like me) went on to explore different RPG’s, such as Savage Worlds, Rogue Trader, or various retroclones.

WotC have realized that their sales are dropping. Over the last two quarters, Pathfinder has outsold D&D, taking the dominant share of the RPG market. WotC’s reaction is logical; Re-examine their strategy and their product, and do whatever they can to bring their former customers back into the fold.

They’ve stated that their core design goal is

"...to create a rule set that enables players of all types and styles to play a D&D game together by taking the best of each edition and getting at the soul of what D&D is."

- Mike Mearls.

Ok, sounds simple enough. A game that is quintessentially D&D (heroic fantasy adventure), and learns from the lessons of the previous editions.

But they want to go one step further…

"The new edition is being conceived of as a modular, flexible system, easily customized to individual preferences. Just like a player makes his character, the Dungeon Master can make his ruleset. He might say ‘I’m going to run a military campaign, it’s going to be a lot of fighting’… so he’d use the combat chapter, drop in miniatures rules, and include the martial arts optional rules.”

- Mike Mearls.

Now this is interesting. A core set of rules, with a modular system that allows customization for different themes, games and play styles.

If you talked to me about this concept a few years ago, I would have told you that you where crazy to try. Now, however, given that I’ve played around a lot with the Savage Worlds engine, I think it’s a brilliant idea.

Games where you can alter the tone or the gameplay to suit he style of your story are fantastic. Politics? There’s a module for that. Managing a town or city? There’s a module for that. More options for GM’s means a wider variety of users will take up the game, and that the games that you can run with them will be more solid, flavorful, and thematically varied.

So, the next question will all these different possible options is ‘What can D&D learn from other game systems?’.

Different games do different things very well.

Savage Worlds

A pet favorite of mine. Savage worlds gives you a high degree of customization, along with a sturdy core rule set. The main lesson here is that the core book doesn’t have to do everything. People have created different plugins (gritty damage, sanity, cybernetics, superpowers, etc) as they where needed, attaching them to various products that they where selling.

Rogue Trader

Set in the 40k Universe, and staring crews of characters operating ships with populations of large cities, rogue trader did resource management very well. If Wizards wants to make a module to allow games that deal with towns, cities, kingdoms or nations (and/or enable play without counting gold pieces) this would be a great place to look.


What other game systems do you think the next edition of D&D could learn from?
What kinds of modules or plugins would you like to see?

 

[foolish_mortals]

I'm going to point to my deathwatch thread here for something that dnd might learn from another game:
http://www.enworld.org/forum/new-ho...eathwatch-have-leveling-experience-right.html

I really like their ideas for giving experience and using experience. For a long time I've pondered the "jumo" mode of gaining a level where you suddenly have all these new abilities at once instead of gaining them piece by piece. The deathwatch mode seems to deal with this in a very satisfying way. It might work for Dnd. I really like the encounter toughness XP idea. Instead of awarding a static XP for each monster, do it based off of how tough the encounter was for the group. If they almost didn't make it fighting 10 zombies and their 10th level, give them the experience to show how tough it was for them. Not 17xp per critter please.

foolish_mortals

 

[Spinachcat]

They can pay attention to TSR. In the early 80s, TSR marketed and advertised AD&D in almost every corner of a teenage male's life. They did massive advertising. As a kid, D&D was the shiznack! Whether you played or not, you knew about D&D.

4e's "failure" has nothing to do with the system. WotC never invested in growing the fanbase. And that's why RPG conventions are fully of 30+ and 40+ instead of the all important teenage and early 20s who are the most desirable customers.

Hopefully WotC will realize the "build it and they will come" concept used by every other publisher in RPGs is a very, very bad idea.

 

[Rechan]

Are we talking about models of how the books are published/framed/etc, or are we talking also about individual mechanics?

Here is a thread on individual mechanics.

 

[enrious]

4e's "failure" has nothing to do with the system. WotC never invested in growing the fanbase. And that's why RPG conventions are fully of 30+ and 40+ instead of the all important teenage and early 20s who are the most desirable customers.

You need to retain more than the number of players who 4e left behind, or else obtain near-impossible levels of new players to compensate.

Ideally you have a healthy mix of the two.

 

[mrswing]

The 'piecemeal' leveling is used in DDO, where you get small increments of increasing abilities as you earn more XP but haven't reached the next level plateau yet. It's effective in keeping the player feeling that the PC is growing in skill and power at a steady pace.

 

[Rechan]

They can pay attention to TSR. In the early 80s, TSR marketed and advertised AD&D in almost every corner of a teenage male's life. They did massive advertising. As a kid, D&D was the shiznack! Whether you played or not, you knew about D&D.

That was 30 years ago; times are different. There wasn't a lot of competition for a teenager's time/attention in the 80s. D&D was competing with arcades (and maybe Nintendo). Unless WotC gets a D&D ad in the next Halo/Madden game, then there's limits on how they can reach today's teenagers.

Then there's the market and availability: you could walk into a drug store and buy the Red Box in the 80s (just like you could buy comic books there). Now, you can find none of WotC's products, even their boardgames, at Target/Toys R Us/Wal Mart. And that isn't WotC's decision, that's Hasbro's.

4e's "failure" has nothing to do with the system. WotC never invested in growing the fanbase. And that's why RPG conventions are fully of 30+ and 40+ instead of the all important teenage and early 20s who are the most desirable customers.

Except that things like D&D Encounters which has reported to bring in new players all the time. They have ads on various websites (like Facebook) for D&D Encounters. Not to mention the Facebook D&D game.

 

[Ultimatecalibur]

I think they should go beyond other tabletop systems and look at videogames (but not MMOs) as well.

Look to turn based JRPGs, such as Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy, for ideas on encounter design and boss fights. Consider how many encounters are gone through and how they are individually designed and overcome. Look at boss battles how they occur and are plotted out.

Look at games like Monster Hunter and Shadow of the Colossus for ideas on how encounters with really big monsters should occur. If the battle with the 6th Colossus isn't what a battle with a giant should feel like I don't know what would.

 

[Rechan]

I think they should go beyond other tabletop systems and look at videogames (but not MMOs) as well.

Look to turn based JRPGs, such as Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy, for ideas on encounter design and boss fights. Consider how many encounters are gone through and how they are individually designed and overcome. Look at boss battles how they occur and are plotted out.

Look at games like Monster Hunter and Shadow of the Colossus for ideas on how encounters with really big monsters should occur. If the battle with the 6th Colossus isn't what a battle with a giant should feel like I don't know what would.

I have no idea how they could do that without awaking the nerdrage dragon.

 

[MortonStromgal]

They could learn from White-Wolf that some people like their meta-plots and fluff, don't go blowing up their worlds.