What if 5e is a board game?

[Olgar Shiverstone]

What if 5e is a board game?

I think I'd become very bored.

It all hinges on your definition of "board game". I see board games as games with relatively fixed, simple rules that provide complexity and replayability through the combination of simple sets, often with added randomness. Player participation is by set turns, with a relatively limited number of choices at each turn.

Any "board game" with enough flexibility in application to cater to the unlimited set of options provided by an RPG will no longer be a "board game" in my mind. I don't regard an RPG that uses a board for positioning and combat a "board game", any more than an RPG played in a "virtual table top" is a video game.

 

[Anselyn]

If 5E is a board game, role-playing-game players will play something else. Boardgamers might play it, though.

Anyone know how WFRP3 is straddling this divide? It looks like a boardgame - but seems not to be ...

Also, is it selling. All the boxed are pretty expensive

 

[Pentius]

There will still be people online defending it as the "true" D&D, telling everyone else that they're not embracing progress or the future, that only a small vocal minority doesn't play boardgame D&D, and that no previous edition embraced D&D like the new boardgame D&D.

Heh.

That's to be expected. By the same token, even if 5e is handed down from the heavens on a set of stone tablets, heals all the rifts in the community, ushers in a new, utopian era of RP and whitens our teeth while we sleep, there will be people online decrying WotC as the greatest puppy kickers in the history of the hobby, telling us 5e isn't even D&D, but just a [insert non RPG noun here], and telling everyone who tries, let alone enjoys, the new edition that they are turning the hobby into a lifeless husk of its former self, because in their day, you walked uphill both ways in the snow for 5 miles just to roll a d20 and that is the One True Way to RP.

I mean, this IS the internet.

 

[malkav666]

I was thinking of something that was a mix of WHFRPG 3e and the current board games made by WOTC (the adventure system ones).

I see a lot of folks would not play it if it arrived in that form. For me the modern D&D board games really shine well on 4e's strengths (its combat system). For instance my group does not play 4e D&D as a campaign despite almost all of the members of it having more than a few 4e releases from the first two years of its run. A few of my players are so anti-4e that the mere mention of it causes them to make angry potty faces. But I can get them to play those 4e board games with me and they have a great time. They liked them so much that one of my players even made custom character creation house rules to allow us to make custom characters for the board games currently in production. They even home brewed a few scenarios. That is in fact where this topics quandary took its roots.

What I was talking about in the first post as releasing D&D as a board game was the idea of releasing the game with a set of rules that new players to play as a board game and releasing options for the non combat stuff, customization, and advanced play as supplements. The idea was that most non gamers have played a board game. Its not an alien concept like RPing. The other points were just about possible synergy that could be had from a board game core and WOTC's current (and in the cases of minis recent) 4e supplementary accessories.

I think that a board game core would have attracted a lot more of that new blood WOTC was going after than the way 4e was released. But from reading the posts here it seems it may have been even less well received by the current RPG community than the route they took.

But yes the idea would be for an "in dungeon" portion of the game to be very gamist and play with a very codified set of rules much like the current generation of D&D board games. I mean how much of what goes on outside of the dungeon needs rules in the current edition? We have skill challenges and ritual magic, but I think that most of the other rules offerings lean towards combat. Now for the narrative aspects of the game, they would need to do something in the form of supplements if there needed to be rules to govern them. And they would certainly need information on linking "delves" into a cohesive campaign and character advancement.

But anyways, thanks for all the responses!

love,

malkav

 

[TarionzCousin]

What if 5E is a board game?

Just kidding.

I would buy even more Pathfinder stuff. I think if 5E is a board game WotC will have conceded the RPG turn to Paizo.

 

[Umbran]

Would you be so turned off by the board game being at the heart of the release schedule that you would still avoid the game?

I'm not generally an ideologue or purist. It isn't the concept that would put me off, but the execution. The needs of board-gaming and the needs of ttRPGs intersect only in a smallish space, and I expect if you're really concentrating on the needs of the board-game (with multiple releases for it each year), the needs of the RPG would suffer greatly.

 

[jonesy]

The board would have to be highly modular. Otherwise, forget about it.

 

[Redshirt]

As much as I hate to admit it, most of the people I play with would probably like it if something like this happened. Over the years as our lives become more busy they seem much less interested in having an interesting story and more into shooting the breeze and killing critters.

It's understandable but I find I enjoy our games less and less.

 

[C_M2008]

Anyone know how WFRP3 is straddling this divide? It looks like a boardgame - but seems not to be ...

Also, is it selling. All the boxed are pretty expensive

Speaking as someone who's played it since it's release - it's no board game that's for sure. There are a lot of components in the core game that are used to keep track of various changes in the game state - basically everything you would track with pen & paper in a standard RPG uses a component of somekind to eliminate rulebook flipping - everything you need to know about your character is right in front of you.

It's not that expensive: core set retails $99, about $60 on amazon - love that amazon.

I kid you not it's worth the price, the damn box weighs near 6 pounds.
Offhand heres a rough listing of the components:
-4 rule books: (perfect bound not hardcover) wizards, priests, main rulebook, GM book.
-~225 mini cards (talents, status conditions, wounds, insanities, miscasts, career abilities)
-~150+ standard size action cards - your character's abilities at fighting, socializing, supporting, using magic or blessings and other things are all chosen from these.
-12 location cards - different environments have different effects, very easy to track this way.
-1 item card (used for the adventure included in the GM book)
-36 custom dice (necessary to play the game) the unique die pool mechanic with multiple degrees of success or failure and the ease of adjucating it is easily the systems greatest strength.
-25 basic career cards( about 4"X 5")
-5 advanced career cards (see above)
-5 party cards - this is a unique thing I hadn't seen before, the characters decide what sort of group their going to be (mercanary, upstanding heroes, brash fools, etc) and get bonuses and hindrances based on it. Very cool, a touch under used by most GMs and players thus far in my experience, lots of potential here.

Punchboard:
-48 tracking tokens
-6 stance rings
-6 activation tokens (used to indicate whose acted this round or not)
-2 large monster standups (used like mini's but a grid isn't used, positioning is relative and not precise)
-47 medium standups (monsters and PCs)
-39 stress and fatigue tokens
-45 stance puzzle pieces

It's a very unique game, I'd heartily recommend checking to see if there are any upcoming events at your FLGS. There should be some coming to coincide with the release of the dwarf expansion (lots of extra info on dwarves).

 

[Jimlock]

I say we gather all minies and burn them.

The smell will be bad, but in the end we are all gonna feel a lot better... I assure you.