D&D 5E What will 5E D&D be remembered for?

[Warbringer]

Horrible hobbits ...

 

[brehobit]

My minmaxing player said the other day, about how 5e doesn't offer the same level of powerful stuff to his fighter character.

"Now that the good options aren't available, the less good options feel much better"

He had just used the abilities he does have to good use. He was pleased.

Point being: the 5e fighter is tactically interesting. His choices are just more subtle. Not less interesting.

Humm, I agree they are more subtle. But it's hard to be an effective party defender in 5e--your options are all pretty much all on the offense. Monsters can just ignore you for the most part. And that takes away a lot of the fun of 4e. And I'd say there are fewer solid options for non-magical warrior than 3e had.

 

[Windjammer]

What 5e will be remembered for:

1. Dwarven bearded ladies who feel like men. In soviet Russia, gender chooses you.

2. Brave if inept attempts of the RPG fora to emulate the hipster shitstorms of the day (Consultant Gate, Gamer Gate).

3. Most significantly of all: it was the edition that ended the marriage of RPGPundit and Benoist Poire. Like two massive trolls frozen in stone, they sit petrified in a marble hall of that Gygaxian module of old - to animate if intruders were to foolishly attempt removing the statues' blades.

4. An aging design team's labored attempt at in-game humour on book contents pages - displaying the half assed effort and wit of point 3. above.

 

[PMárk]

It's somwehat interesting that this kind of topic attracts msotly the negativism. Anyway.

I will remember it as:

-the edition that did bring back DnD to what feels as DnD to me
-as an edition with just enough player options to not be boring but simple choices for newbies as well and easy customization to fill the gaps regarding one's tastes
-as an edition with far the best rule system in it's simplicity among the editions
-as an edition which actualy promotes DM's role as the lead storyteller and arbiter.

Regarding any other concerns, like settings, further char options and so, time will tell, right now I'm in sit back and waiting.

 

[Ancalagon]

What 5e will be remembered for:

3. Most significantly of all: it was the edition that ended the marriage of RPGPundit and Benoist Poire. Like two massive trolls frozen in stone, they sit petrified in a marble hall of that Gygaxian module of old - to animate if intruders were to foolishly attempt removing the statues' blades.

There is a story here... what happened?

 

[see]

They won't "remember" it, because it'll never have gone away. D&D (no "Fifth" anywhere in the branding) will persistently reap the profits of the perennial-selling, costs-already-sunk core rulebooks, while low-margin hobbyist-publishers spend all the time and effort and money on providing the ecosystem of supplemental material at no development cost to WotC. The biggest ongoing cost, accounted for on budget sheets as marketing, will be official adventures supporting organized play, because organized play attracts new customers. There will also be various products done as marketing tie-ins with licensed materials (computer games, movies, etc.), of course. In 2024, an "50th Anniversary of D&D" version of the D&D(5th) core rulebooks will be published with new art in addition to the usual errata, there never having been any "new edition" with an expensive development-and-playtest cycle.

Then, of course, a self-improving AI will come along and convert the Earth into paperclips.

 

[Iosue]

There is a story here... what happened?

It is, like many of the Great RPG Wars, entirely banal, and really headscratching with the passage of time.

RPGPundit was, as many may know, a consultant for 5e. In the run up to release, he had some inside info on the release of the Basic Rules, and hinted that it would be awesome.

Benoist was, as many may know, neck-deep in the OSR, working with Ernie Gygax Jr. on creating a product based on the latter's dungeon; and consequently, pretty skeptical of 5e in general.

When WotC announced the 5e Starter Set, it was revealed that the box came with pre-gens, but not chargen rules. A number of RPGSite posters decried this as a ridiculous mistake on WotC's part. Benoist, who had up to then pretty much ignored 5e and the playtest, was pretty vocal member of that group. Pundit continued to contend that it would all be cool, that the Starter Set wasn't the "real" Basic Set.

Then the Basic Rules announcement was made. As this involved downloading a PDF to get chargen rules, rather than having them included in the Starter Set box set, Benoist was not impressed. To him, the important thing is that any "Basic" box set version of the game that could be given to beginners have chargen.

As Benoist was a pretty vocal member of the group not satisfied with WotC's plans, Pundit singled him out in a few blog posts that basically said, "No, WotC's strategy here is awesome, and here's why Benoist is wrong." These blog posts had both a comment section and were cross-posted at RPGSite, there was lots of opportunities for arguing. A veritable OSR vs 5e Quasi-War! The upshot being that Benoist basically threw in the towel as a moderator of theRPGSite and stopped posting there, except for updates and answering questions about his Kickstarter.

There may be some behind the scenes stuff I'm not aware of, nor do I recall the exact straw that broke the camel's back, but that seemed to be the extent of 5e's involvement in any estrangement between RPGPundit and Benoist. Now, of course, almost two years later, no one really gives a damn about the Starter Set not having chargen, and in as much as the Starter Set comes up in conversation, it's about how awesome the LMoP adventure is. So, there you go.