D&D General Why Mike Mearls left D&D, an interview by Ben Riggs.

[mamba]

Maybe, yet people with supposedly no power got them to scrap it (their plan) 100% and even take it out of their control! So maybe they had power all along!

a million people with little power individually can have some power collectively, that is not a new concept. I assume they do have more than a bunch of 3pps have when push comes to shove

 

[mamba]

Maybe, maybe not: but the odds that the reports are accurate seems probable.

in the end we are just arguing about how much room there was in the negotiation, and I doubt the 3pps digging their heels in would have been enough to get something close to 1.0a.

Do you think they themselves could have gotten WotC to scrap the new OGL?

 

[Parmandur]

in the end we are just arguing about how much room there was in the negotiation, and I doubt the 3pps digging their heels in would have been enough to get something close to 1.0a.

Do you think they themselves could have gotten WotC to scrap the new OGL?

I mean...they did.

 

[mamba]

I mean...they did.

not because of the 3pps pushing back though, I mean if there had been no leak and subsequent community outrage, solely by keeping negotiating

 

[Parmandur]

not because of the 3pps pushing back though, I mean if there had been no leak and subsequent community outrage, solely by keeping negotiating

Who knows, WotC badly misjudged the situation, so that isn't really a viable hypothetica. But...they didn't know that ahead of time, clearly.

 

[Gecko85]

Also I get the impression that Mike does not think it was a good idea to have switched to 5.5e, but he doesn't blame the designers, just that folks already own the books so why buy them again thing.

Several years ago at GameHole Con, Mearls said something along the lines of (paraphrasing from memory here...): There are no plans for a new version. What will eventually happen is a consolidation. You've got class/subclass/spell/etc. info in the PHB, Xanathar's Guide, Tasha's, etc. It's getting spread out. When the time comes, the plan is to gather all of that together into new consolidated PHB and DMG, incorporating errata as well. And, maybe if something gets tweaked for the better (like a Ranger that people actually like), that'll be in the new books, but it won't be a new edition. It'll be a way for new players to have an easier inroads into the game, without making those who own the existing books feel like they need to buy the new books (completionists aside).

So, it makes sense that he doesn't think 5.5e was a good idea.

 

[DragonLancer]

I had watched that video last night and here's my thoughts on the topic. I think that the move towards an MMO feel and style of play came in with 3rd edition. 3rd brought a lot of new blood into the hobby which was great but the feat and optimisation mechanics seemed (to me) to bring in a lot of players from emergent MMOs and computer games where making sure you have the best possible character options/equipment were a necessity. I don't think 3rd was designed with that in mind but it certainly helped bring in a lot of new players who brought with them different ideas to the "traditional" D&D players.

Personally I have always felt that 4th was an attempt to (A) have their own game system since 3rd was already in stores when Hasbro brought WotC, and (B) have an easier more new player friendly rules system. B is why 4th turned my group and most role-players I knew at the time into the hands of Paizo and Pathfinder 1st.

Right or wrong in the above. Just my thoughts and opinions.

 

[Dire Bare]

Several years ago at GameHole Con, Mearls said something along the lines of (paraphrasing from memory here...): There are no plans for a new version. What will eventually happen is a consolidation. You've got class/subclass/spell/etc. info in the PHB, Xanathar's Guide, Tasha's, etc. It's getting spread out. When the time comes, the plan is to gather all of that together into new consolidated PHB and DMG, incorporating errata as well. And, maybe if something gets tweaked for the better (like a Ranger that people actually like), that'll be in the new books, but it won't be a new edition. It'll be a way for new players to have an easier inroads into the game, without making those who own the existing books feel like they need to buy the new books (completionists aside).

So, it makes sense that he doesn't think 5.5e was a good idea.

Ah, what you are describing is pretty much what we got.

D&D 2024 isn't a new edition, a "5.5E". It's a tweaked version of the 2014 rules.

 

[Sorcerers Apprentice]

Ah, what you are describing is pretty much what we got.

D&D 2024 isn't a new edition, a "5.5E". It's a tweaked version of the 2014 rules.

Except there's none of the consolidation that Mearls wanted. The content of the 2024 PHB is more or less the same as in the 2014 books, just new versions of it.

In other words, what we got was nothing like Mike's vision.

 

[Dausuul]

Ah, what you are describing is pretty much what we got.

D&D 2024 isn't a new edition, a "5.5E". It's a tweaked version of the 2014 rules.

The changes are on par with what we saw in the 3E -> 3.5E transition.

It is certainly not 6E. But it absolutely is 5.5E. Substantial changes were made to the existing rules; they did not simply consolidate options from the material already in print.