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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ilbranteloth" data-source="post: 7376444" data-attributes="member: 6778044">1. I don’t believe most people felt 3.5e was broken. There were certainly plenty of overpowered options, but those were easy to house rule out.I think that it was a business decision because the splatbook approach can only be taken so far. You can only add so many new classes, races, and rules. In addition, it gets more complicated to add more as time goes on since each one adds additional complexity. 2e and 3e were both very successful in promoting the brand, bringing in lots of sales, and providing a platform for new releases for years to come. But that sales arc is usually on a downward trend after so many years. So it seems obvious that a new edition is due. They were also created and developed for different reasons. 2e was designed to reign in the sprawl of rules, many contradictory. TSR, initially being a game designer, designed a new system for each game they released. The Basic Set has been through several revisions, and I think they realized that they weren’t a game design company, they were a book company. The novels probably helped this.3e, on the other hand, was designed by a new company, with a fresh view, and learned a lot from other RPGs since the entire hobby had. Although TSR has recognized opportunities to streamline mechanics, WoTC recognized that certain sacred cows that TSR set as off-limits for 2e weren’t essential to the game’s identity. That allowed them to eliminate things like negative AC and a mix of different dice for resolution, ranging from 2d6 (2d10 in 2e?) for initiative, to percentile dice for thieves’ abilities, to rolling low on a d20 for some things and high for others. In the end, it changed the mechanics, but for the most part not the underlying math.While it might seem, when browsing the online forums, that many thought 3e was broken, that is a very small sample size. Clearly there was at least an equal number that felt it wasn’t broken.This relates to point #2. The people that were complaining were the ones that fed the needs of those at WoTC, who once again were game designers. That’s important, because game designers design games, which is exaclty what they did. They essentially designed 4e as a new game as “they would have designed it” and said as much in their reasoning behind altering the lore of things like the races and designing a generic D&D setting as the base (theoretically for all D&D games), and then force fitting much of that lore into existing settings. 2. If you were to ask me why I think that many players who rejected 4e did, it’s because it was virtually impossible to bring existing characters and an existing campaign forward.Through 3.5e, the basic class structure remained the same, and they just added abilities on top of that. It was easy to convert from prior editions, and the fundamental rules remained the same.4e took a very different approach (or seemingly so). The math behind the game was significantly different. The play style is very different. That’s not to say that people couldn’t try to play it in an earlier style, but it was very difficult. I tend to make every edition into my version of AD&D because that’s what I know. In 3e, I could still run the game the same way with some modifications and tweaks. I liked the simplification and streamlining of mechanics. I tried 4e with around 3 different groups. In the end each one decided the same thing - why are we trying to learn this new system that’s getting in the way of what we want to do, which is play D&D.From a game design standpoint, I think it was really well done. But instead of playing the same game we had been and working in the new rules we liked, it was an all or nothing thing. Or at least seemed that way. The way I he mechanics interacted with the setting and the things that happened within that setting was very different.We play a gritty, ordinary characters in extraordinary circumstances types of games. 4e was designed for superheroes. That every character has extraordinary abilities that sets them above the rest of the world.And we were more interested in playing our existing characters and campaign than learning a new game. I think it fared better with new players, but it catered to those that like a more complex system with lots of choices and that rewarded the “character build” mentality in the same way the MTG rewards deck-building.3. I think 5e was designed the way it was is because they recognized that they had misunderstood what D&D is. That is, what makes it D&D and not something else. What I think was missing in 4e was a focus on exploration. Exploration of setting, exploration of characters, etc. In addition, they had access, via the internet among other places, to lots of information about why players still played other editions. They didn’t look back to just 3.5e to do a 4e-take 2. Instead they went back to the beginning. Naturally, the “core” races and classes start with those that have been around the longest. The other thing that I think they recognized was that many people prefer a simpler game with fewer restrictions, and that one hallmark of D&as is its flexibility. That you’d be hard pressed to find two games that are run exactly the same.The trick, which I think they largely succeeded at, was to make any player, coming from any edition, feel like the design team felt their prior favorite edition was the most important. That it was an extension of 2e if you didn’t really care for 3e. This was probably less successful in regards to those who love 4e, but all of the players I know personally who started with 4e think that 5e is much better, and really kind of what they expected D&D to be.4. This is a myth. The DMG has rules for buying/selling magic items, although they sort of recommend against it. What they haven’t done is provided a systemized approach to it, but the designers have also repeatedly stated that 5e is also intended to work with earlier material. So if you want to use the 3e or 2e approaches, that’s fine. They have prices listed and the shops in your campaign don’t have to close. The 4e approach, however, might be difficult to implement.</blockquote>

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