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

But we've already got a 5E FR book.

Just to preface, I don't particularly like FR, so I didn't buy the SCAG; therefore, I only have what others have said about it to go on. However, my understanding is that it only details parts of the sword coast, a rather small part of the FR setting, and that it isn't much of a setting book as it pertains to the whole FR setting. Does it even include a map of the larger FR setting?
 

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So what do you think 5E D&D be known for?

Being the last edition of D&D.

Partly because it's structured to be an 'ever-green' edition intended to last a long time, and partly because TTRPGs are becoming an ever-more-niche interest. I doubt that it will be worth Hasbro's investment to do a new edition in a decade's time; more likely, they'll just reissue the same books with new artwork (if even that).
 


100% the Advantage and Disadvantage mechanic.

Nothing else is memorable/stands out as different to earlier editions.

Adv and Disad will appear in future RPGs as another optional modifier. It just works really well. Esp given it is now in the OGL.
 

At our table 5E will be known forever as the edition I got a chance to play at moment zero and rolled a NAT 20! but because I had disadvantage it didn't count. I then raged and table flipped and finally in the end just sadly looked across the table and said" This game is dead to me" with a look on my face like that old Indian from the 1980's commercials. With the one tear and everything.

Oh we still play 5E like all the time but it doesn't matter. Some things once done, can't be undone. That IS how it will be remembered around here.
 

Just to preface, I don't particularly like FR, so I didn't buy the SCAG; therefore, I only have what others have said about it to go on. However, my understanding is that it only details parts of the sword coast, a rather small part of the FR setting, and that it isn't much of a setting book as it pertains to the whole FR setting. Does it even include a map of the larger FR setting?

Yes,Yes it does include a map of the larger setting.
 

5e will probably be remembered as "Everyone's* Second Favorite D&D," if it has a positive legacy over time. I've seen lots of people laud it as, more or less, the "inoffensive compromise D&D," the D&D that a group with widely diverse, specific tastes can agree to play without (too) much grumbling. Because that, more or less, is the One Unique Thing 5e brings to the table; it doesn't really try to do anything "new," instead being Just Enough Like whatever any given person* looks for. In not trying to be distinct, it may manage to be familiar enough over the long haul.

But, as with anything, this can be flipped around if people become more critical of it over time. Like I said before, 5e intentionally wasn't trying to bring New Stuff into D&D--and for some people, that's not "Doing Old Stuff Right," it's a lack of innovation. Instead of being remembered as a point of unity, it may be remembered as a point of blandness. Instead of being remembered as the great alt-game when you can't get your first choice, it might be seen as the game that doesn't achieve any particular goal better than an easily-acquired alternative (e.g. if you want deep character options, PF is way better; if you like ultra-simple fast play, retroclones do it better; if you want a more narrative-heavy game, D&D has never been your best option; if you want minimal DM overhead, 4e or 13A is better; etc.)

For now, it's certainly getting a positive reception. But "early" responses, even in the sense of "a couple years in," don't always reflect the lasting perception. It took a long time for the current perception of 3.x to coalesce. And just as support can wane before waxing bright again, as the OSR movement showed, so too can interest wax substantially before waning with time. There may also be other reasons to question 5e, much later down the line; for example, DM's Guild is often cited as WotC's solution for how to provide content without creating content themselves. Going the way of the OGL glut (reams upon reams of chaff and relatively little wheat to show for it) is one potential problem, but there's another that most people don't seem to consider much: DM's Guild is a service provided by the company. If the game actually does end up depending on it in order to meet 5e fans' needs, and then the service later gets pulled (as all services eventually do), 5e may end up in a worse position than 4e did. At least the 4e OCB was merely (very) useful, rather than fulfilling a need.

*Where "everyone" and "any given person" excludes most 4e fans, of course. I doubt I need to explain why.
 

5e will probably be remembered as "Everyone's* Second Favorite D&D," if it has a positive legacy over time. I've seen lots of people laud it as, more or less, the "inoffensive compromise D&D," the D&D that a group with widely diverse, specific tastes can agree to play without (too) much grumbling. Because that, more or less, is the One Unique Thing 5e brings to the table; it doesn't really try to do anything "new," instead being Just Enough Like whatever any given person* looks for. In not trying to be distinct, it may manage to be familiar enough over the long haul.

[...]

*Where "everyone" and "any given person" excludes most 4e fans, of course. I doubt I need to explain why.

I would like an explanation. Do you define 4e fans as looking for tactical combat with lots of options and little room for TotM style play? I'm trying to figure out if I could count as a 4e fan at all in that statement. I really liked 4e, I miss the warlord a bit and I mostly miss feeling satisfied playing a nonmagical character. Other than that I much prefer 5e nowadays and think 4e had too many rules to get into and too steep a learning curve for sufficient optimisation.
 

I would like an explanation. Do you define 4e fans as looking for tactical combat with lots of options and little room for TotM style play? I'm trying to figure out if I could count as a 4e fan at all in that statement. I really liked 4e, I miss the warlord a bit and I mostly miss feeling satisfied playing a nonmagical character. Other than that I much prefer 5e nowadays and think 4e had too many rules to get into and too steep a learning curve for sufficient optimisation.

Well, I did say "most" because there will always be people who jump ship, or like something without feeling any strong attachment to it.

But, at least for me and those 4e fans I know who distinctly liked 4e, there are three major elements. First was the feeling that 5e's designers, whether intentionally or not, either ignored developments in 4e and stumbled blindly into (superficially-)similar things, or were aware of them but acted as though they'd never existed (Monte Cook's "a thing I like to call passive perception" being a key example, but Healing Surges vs. Hit Dice are another). Second, 4e was committed to real and systemic balance between all fundamental options--being an explicitly magic character did not, could not make you dramatically more flexible or powerful than being a non-magic-using character--which 5e more or less abandoned, despite some efforts to rein in caster power. Third, some of the significant developments in 4e were seen as getting short shrift in 5e; although the Warlord is the poster child there, other things got included but in a backhanded way (the whole "exotic races" thing, which we had a nice, contentious thread about recently) or in a state that felt impoverished (e.g. the Dragonborn, or the Oath of Vengeance being "Avengers" and Oath of the Ancients being "Wardens"). There are some other, more muddy things (the lateness of the "ghoul save surprise" and lingering wonkiness of saves; the apparent vaporware nature of the Tactical Combat Module), but those three seem the key problems, based on my personal interactions with 4e fans, the majority of whom were dissatisfied with 5e.

Edit:
And, unless somebody really, really needs me to explain things beyond that? I'm not really interested in continuing that discussion further. This is a thread about 5e and its future legacy. Discussions of 4e fans' responses to 5e *at least* belong in another thread, if not another subforum entirely.
 
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The game the next generation of RPG players started with? I have fond memories of the RPGs I started, e.g. 1E, but I do not play them anymore because my tastes in what I want out of a RPG game have changed. So I will remember 5E as not doing enough to change D&D to keep my interest.
 

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