Mercurius
Legend
The full title was going to be "Why (and how) 5E can succeed in ways that 4E failed" but I didn't want this to be construed as an edition war thread. I am not meaning to criticize the quality of any specific edition except insofar as the health and vitality of the community that is built around it. The fact that 5E was announced three and a half years after 4E was published speaks volumes to this failure.
I want to dial back to 2006 or so for a minute. I hadn't played D&D for a few years and wouldn't play until late in 2008 after 4E came out, so my sense of the general market was limited and my view on it is mainly pulled together after the fact. But I think its safe to say that 3.5 was pretty saturated - WotC had come out with such a wide diversity of books, and there was probably - financially speaking, if less so creatively - a law of diminishing returns in effect. A reboot was inevitable. WotC began design work on the next edition of D&D, but they didn't want to do a "3.75" - they wanted to be a bit more radical, and even try to reach out to the wider world of video game and anime culture. In other words, they sought to answer the riddle of: "If geek culture has grown exponentially over the last few decades and gone mainstream, why hasn't D&D grown with it?" So they took some of the more gonzo elements from later 3.5 - inspired by anime, Hong Kong film, and video games - and crafted it into 4E.
The problem with 4E was apparent to many immediately upon arrival. I think it can be best expressed - and least negatively so - in a relatively common view among long-time players, that "4E is a fun game but it isn't D&D to me." Endless discussions and debates occurred in which the concept of "D&D" was beaten away at, and it always ended back with that "to me" part being of key importance. The problem with 4E, and how it "failed," was that it didn't ignite that "D&D for me" experience for a large number of players, many of whom happily transitioned to Pathfinder when it came out in 2009, or one of many retro-clones.
4E didn't fail as a game in that many (including myself) found it quite enjoyable, it failed as the flagship edition of D&D, or what "D&D is to me" for the bulk of the D&D fan-base (for those that might disagree with this, again consider the fact that 5E was announced just three and a half after 4E came out). As I posited elsewhere, 4E could have thrived, if in a more modest way, as an alernate sub-system within D&D, but it was too gonzo, too specific in theme and tone to be "D&D to me" to a larger number of players. I remember many 3.5 players complaining that 3.5, the most successful version of the game since AD&D 1E, wasn't given enough time - that eight years was too short and the fall too abrupt after the great party of the early 2000 that saw the franchise re-ignited. One could argue that if 4E had been published as a sub-edition, that the edition cycle could have lasted longer, maybe a dozen years, and we would have seen a new edition in 2011 or 2012 and it would have been better received because the 3.X edition cycle would have felt more complete. But all of that is water under the bridge.
Now some have pointed out that 4E sold more in its first year than previous editions. But let me emphasize a key word here: sustainability. Something about it prevented it from being a truly sustainable version of the game. First published in mid-2008, the warning signs must have been there within a year or so as WotC came out with Essentials in late 2010, and then the edition was floundering shortly into 2011, with only a few more 4E products trickling in through mid-2012. In other words, 4E thrived for a year, teetered for a couple more years, and then was in full-on collapse just a few years into the cycle, fully "dead" (in terms of new material being published) just four years after first publication.
So what was missing? Why didn't 4E thrive? And, more importantly, how can 5E not make the same mistakes?
I already implied my view above, and it is in the phrase "4E is not D&D to me." The key is making 5E a version of the game for which it can inspire this feeling of "D&D to me' in as many players as possible. Finding new players is another matter, and I'd rather not focus on that too much except as a possible secondary outcome of a healthy core fan-base.
So how can 5E be "D&D to me" for as many folks as possible? How can WotC re-gather the flock, get the band back together? Let me offer one angle on this. Some have called tabletop RPGs a "graying hobby," meaning that the bulk of its players are getting older, and the number of new players is decreasing, or at least not comparable to early waves. This view might be a bit morbid, even myopic, but I think it points to the fact that, at the very least, a large percentage - even strong majority - of D&D players have been playing for decades.
I'm going to bring in a word that some find offensive, but I don't mean it pejoratively: nostalgia. The concept of 'D&D to me" is, if not synonymous with nostalgia, related in some manner. "To me" implies a pre-established relationship and view, something specific in mind. Imagine writing a couple page essay on "what D&D is to me" - and you're likely to find elements looking back to your youth, to the time - usually somewhere in the age 8 to 14 range - that you first started playing, that the magic was ignited. Those core, early experiences formed what D&D is for you. Obviously it has changed over the years, but there's something about those early years. It is not that "D&D to me" is an attempt to re-create those years, but that it is based in that early imprinting.
Speaking for myself, I first played D&D - I think it was Holmes or Moldvay in early 1981 or '82; I was 7 or 8 years old. That was a one-off but I must have been deeply inspired as I was starting to get into fantasy. Anyhow, shortly thereafter some friends of my older brother gave me their AD&D books - they were getting into computers and lost interested in D&D. I was hooked. Anyhow, those 1E AD&D books formed the basis of what "D&D is to me," as well as classic modules like Tomb of Horrors, Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth, and the Giants-Drow series. My view of D&D has broadened since then, but there's a core archetype, a feeling that was formed thirty years ago.
There are a ton of roleplaying options out there and, to be honest, I don't even think that D&D is the best one in terms of game design. I personally like games like Talislanta, Ars Magica, Savage Worlds and FATE at least as much as D&D in terms of the game mechanics. But they're not D&D, not the game I grew up on. As a moderate player over the years - often going a few years without playing and rarely playing in more than a twice monthly game - I only have time for some much gaming, and playing other games have been more like vacations or exceptions. I always come back to D&D, and when I play D&D I want it to "feel like D&D to me."
I'm guessing that my story is not unusual, that a large number of people have similar experiences - if with, of course, specific variations and unique exceptions. Maybe you started in the mid-70s, or maybe in the early 90s or even with 3E in 2000, but there's an initial imprinting, and in that span of time - 1974 into the 2000s - there's been a clear lineage.
Now I don't feel that 4E is that different, but it is different. Its sort of like the Jeremy Renner of the Bourne world - pretty good, but he isn't Bourne to me; or the Timothy Dalton of the Bond world - a fine actor, but not quite Bond to me (these analogies don't quite work, but they give a sense of what I'm getting at). 4E seems to me like a merging of 20th century D&D with some of the more recent fantastical elements especially as found in anime and video games. This wasn't a bad idea in and of itself, and I generally like modernizing, but the problem is that the core of it, what most/many people identify with as "D&D to me," became obscured underneath the modern elements - whether we're talking game mechanics like the AEDU paradigm or fluff elements like dragonborn, tieflings, and shardminds. This was exemplified by the "heresy" of displacing gnomes, bards and druids from the Player's Handbook in favor of dragonborn, tieflings, warlocks and warlords.
Now why I think 5E can be truly successful - at least as far as the core D&D community - is that they seem to want to both A) re-orient to a classic core, and B) retain the newer ideas and be open to other variations, but as modular options. On one hand this sounds like a re-cycling back to to 3.X, but I think the key difference, a third element is that C) they are re-setting the core game mechanics to a simpler version which will both offer easier entry for new players, a solid core base for modular options, and of course attract some of the old-timers who want a simpler game than 3.X and 4E.
From that point, I think 5E can re-invigorate the D&D fan-base - re-gather the flock, so to speak. And if so, they can broaden outward with a healthier (and happier) core fan-base. In other words, if they can re-gain the bird in hand, they can think more about the two birds in the bush (whereas with 4E they lost the bird in hand and wasn't able to capture the birds in the bush, even finding that one of them didn't actually exist!).
So I'm feeling optimistic. I don't know if 5E will succeed but I think it can and that WotC is generally on the right track.
I want to dial back to 2006 or so for a minute. I hadn't played D&D for a few years and wouldn't play until late in 2008 after 4E came out, so my sense of the general market was limited and my view on it is mainly pulled together after the fact. But I think its safe to say that 3.5 was pretty saturated - WotC had come out with such a wide diversity of books, and there was probably - financially speaking, if less so creatively - a law of diminishing returns in effect. A reboot was inevitable. WotC began design work on the next edition of D&D, but they didn't want to do a "3.75" - they wanted to be a bit more radical, and even try to reach out to the wider world of video game and anime culture. In other words, they sought to answer the riddle of: "If geek culture has grown exponentially over the last few decades and gone mainstream, why hasn't D&D grown with it?" So they took some of the more gonzo elements from later 3.5 - inspired by anime, Hong Kong film, and video games - and crafted it into 4E.
The problem with 4E was apparent to many immediately upon arrival. I think it can be best expressed - and least negatively so - in a relatively common view among long-time players, that "4E is a fun game but it isn't D&D to me." Endless discussions and debates occurred in which the concept of "D&D" was beaten away at, and it always ended back with that "to me" part being of key importance. The problem with 4E, and how it "failed," was that it didn't ignite that "D&D for me" experience for a large number of players, many of whom happily transitioned to Pathfinder when it came out in 2009, or one of many retro-clones.
4E didn't fail as a game in that many (including myself) found it quite enjoyable, it failed as the flagship edition of D&D, or what "D&D is to me" for the bulk of the D&D fan-base (for those that might disagree with this, again consider the fact that 5E was announced just three and a half after 4E came out). As I posited elsewhere, 4E could have thrived, if in a more modest way, as an alernate sub-system within D&D, but it was too gonzo, too specific in theme and tone to be "D&D to me" to a larger number of players. I remember many 3.5 players complaining that 3.5, the most successful version of the game since AD&D 1E, wasn't given enough time - that eight years was too short and the fall too abrupt after the great party of the early 2000 that saw the franchise re-ignited. One could argue that if 4E had been published as a sub-edition, that the edition cycle could have lasted longer, maybe a dozen years, and we would have seen a new edition in 2011 or 2012 and it would have been better received because the 3.X edition cycle would have felt more complete. But all of that is water under the bridge.
Now some have pointed out that 4E sold more in its first year than previous editions. But let me emphasize a key word here: sustainability. Something about it prevented it from being a truly sustainable version of the game. First published in mid-2008, the warning signs must have been there within a year or so as WotC came out with Essentials in late 2010, and then the edition was floundering shortly into 2011, with only a few more 4E products trickling in through mid-2012. In other words, 4E thrived for a year, teetered for a couple more years, and then was in full-on collapse just a few years into the cycle, fully "dead" (in terms of new material being published) just four years after first publication.
So what was missing? Why didn't 4E thrive? And, more importantly, how can 5E not make the same mistakes?
I already implied my view above, and it is in the phrase "4E is not D&D to me." The key is making 5E a version of the game for which it can inspire this feeling of "D&D to me' in as many players as possible. Finding new players is another matter, and I'd rather not focus on that too much except as a possible secondary outcome of a healthy core fan-base.
So how can 5E be "D&D to me" for as many folks as possible? How can WotC re-gather the flock, get the band back together? Let me offer one angle on this. Some have called tabletop RPGs a "graying hobby," meaning that the bulk of its players are getting older, and the number of new players is decreasing, or at least not comparable to early waves. This view might be a bit morbid, even myopic, but I think it points to the fact that, at the very least, a large percentage - even strong majority - of D&D players have been playing for decades.
I'm going to bring in a word that some find offensive, but I don't mean it pejoratively: nostalgia. The concept of 'D&D to me" is, if not synonymous with nostalgia, related in some manner. "To me" implies a pre-established relationship and view, something specific in mind. Imagine writing a couple page essay on "what D&D is to me" - and you're likely to find elements looking back to your youth, to the time - usually somewhere in the age 8 to 14 range - that you first started playing, that the magic was ignited. Those core, early experiences formed what D&D is for you. Obviously it has changed over the years, but there's something about those early years. It is not that "D&D to me" is an attempt to re-create those years, but that it is based in that early imprinting.
Speaking for myself, I first played D&D - I think it was Holmes or Moldvay in early 1981 or '82; I was 7 or 8 years old. That was a one-off but I must have been deeply inspired as I was starting to get into fantasy. Anyhow, shortly thereafter some friends of my older brother gave me their AD&D books - they were getting into computers and lost interested in D&D. I was hooked. Anyhow, those 1E AD&D books formed the basis of what "D&D is to me," as well as classic modules like Tomb of Horrors, Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth, and the Giants-Drow series. My view of D&D has broadened since then, but there's a core archetype, a feeling that was formed thirty years ago.
There are a ton of roleplaying options out there and, to be honest, I don't even think that D&D is the best one in terms of game design. I personally like games like Talislanta, Ars Magica, Savage Worlds and FATE at least as much as D&D in terms of the game mechanics. But they're not D&D, not the game I grew up on. As a moderate player over the years - often going a few years without playing and rarely playing in more than a twice monthly game - I only have time for some much gaming, and playing other games have been more like vacations or exceptions. I always come back to D&D, and when I play D&D I want it to "feel like D&D to me."
I'm guessing that my story is not unusual, that a large number of people have similar experiences - if with, of course, specific variations and unique exceptions. Maybe you started in the mid-70s, or maybe in the early 90s or even with 3E in 2000, but there's an initial imprinting, and in that span of time - 1974 into the 2000s - there's been a clear lineage.
Now I don't feel that 4E is that different, but it is different. Its sort of like the Jeremy Renner of the Bourne world - pretty good, but he isn't Bourne to me; or the Timothy Dalton of the Bond world - a fine actor, but not quite Bond to me (these analogies don't quite work, but they give a sense of what I'm getting at). 4E seems to me like a merging of 20th century D&D with some of the more recent fantastical elements especially as found in anime and video games. This wasn't a bad idea in and of itself, and I generally like modernizing, but the problem is that the core of it, what most/many people identify with as "D&D to me," became obscured underneath the modern elements - whether we're talking game mechanics like the AEDU paradigm or fluff elements like dragonborn, tieflings, and shardminds. This was exemplified by the "heresy" of displacing gnomes, bards and druids from the Player's Handbook in favor of dragonborn, tieflings, warlocks and warlords.
Now why I think 5E can be truly successful - at least as far as the core D&D community - is that they seem to want to both A) re-orient to a classic core, and B) retain the newer ideas and be open to other variations, but as modular options. On one hand this sounds like a re-cycling back to to 3.X, but I think the key difference, a third element is that C) they are re-setting the core game mechanics to a simpler version which will both offer easier entry for new players, a solid core base for modular options, and of course attract some of the old-timers who want a simpler game than 3.X and 4E.
From that point, I think 5E can re-invigorate the D&D fan-base - re-gather the flock, so to speak. And if so, they can broaden outward with a healthier (and happier) core fan-base. In other words, if they can re-gain the bird in hand, they can think more about the two birds in the bush (whereas with 4E they lost the bird in hand and wasn't able to capture the birds in the bush, even finding that one of them didn't actually exist!).
So I'm feeling optimistic. I don't know if 5E will succeed but I think it can and that WotC is generally on the right track.
