D&D 5E Will there be such a game as D&D Next?

[AbdulAlhazred]

Yep, and that's the quandary exactly. You're not exactly starved for options. It's not like your group needs Next in order to all play at the same table.

@pemerton - I think the missing link here is that you and I found that 4e fixed our problems with other systems - it was a nice hybrid between narrative-style and trad-style gaming. The sort of play experience I'm after in a new D&D (keeping in mind I enjoy other playstyles, too, and already have those games) isn't anywhere in evidence so far. It's not really a preference I feel the need to budge on right now; my group and I are happy with the games we're playing, and a new game needs to audition for time rather than just getting slotted in because it's D&D.

Yeah, exactly. We all found something in 4e that fixed issues we had. Running 4e and learning about how it worked and figuring out WHY it produces the sort of game that I like to run has been great. I'm sure I'll get tired of it eventually, and I'll see what DDN 'advanced' whatever has to offer, but as Pemerton said, nothing they've mentioned so far remotely points at a game with narrative pressure or the sort of handling of resources or simple consistent rules systems that make my 4e GMing so productive.

Ironically I could find MANY things to improve about 4e. In terms of games having flaws I don't think it is necessarily a 'better' game than all previous editions of D&D, but it is definitely better in some respects for what I want. I could make it a lot better, WotC could make it MUCH MUCH better. If I have any beef with them at all it is how utterly they failed to even try to capitalize on that potential instead of running back to 'old coke' like whipped dogs. Meh, I hope they do OK with DDN, but I think there are a lot of us out here that are just on a different ride now. Ironically DDN might have succeeded brilliantly as a follow-on to 3.5, but 4e let something out of the bottle that is never going back in.

 

[Iosue]

Yep, and that's the quandary exactly. You're not exactly starved for options. It's not like your group needs Next in order to all play at the same table.

But this is exactly my problem. I love BXCM. I love 4e. I have on my bookshelf various books, adventures, etc. from both, neither really usable with other without a heavy bit of conversion work, which I have neither the time nor inclination to do. I generally only get to play once, maybe twice a month. I'm at a point where really I have to make a choice -- do I devote my gaming time and resources to an old school Basic/Expert game, which I would dearly love to run? Or do I devote them to 4e, which I'm playing regularly, but doesn't scratch that particular itch? Out of the 6 to 7 guys who play regularly in my 4e group, only one seems interested in playing in a B/X game -- the others love 3e/4e style chargen much too much. Meanwhile, as our group goes up in level, I'm slowly but surely disliking 4e chargen more and more -- and that's with Essentials characters! I curse every time I hit the level up button on the CB and the Feat box lights up. I love playing the game, and I've loved running it when I have the opportunity. But I'm getting tired of wrestling the system everytime I make a new character, or one levels up, drowning in a sea of options, reskinning things so they fit my characters.

So, what to do? But here we have Next. Here those guys who love high customizable chargen have the opportunity to do that, while I enjoy simple chargen, yet with variety. Here I can use my old B/X stuff with those characters, and even make it so it's not quite so lethal as B/X at low levels, and yet not so granular as 4e is, nor as grindy as it sometimes gets. Here I can get one set of rules, and one product line, and use them with my 4e group, and then flip the script and use them in an email game with my old family/friends group, none of whom are interested in 4e.

And speaking generally, not specifically at you, Obryn, the tribalism that infects all discussions of Next is getting tiresome. Not just in the homogenization of "Them", which is annoying enough, but the homogenization of "Us". I'm a 4e player. It is, at the moment, all I play. I've got scads of material for it and a subscription to DDI. But I'm also excited by Next, for many of the same reasons I love 4e. And as many of the more vocal 4e proponents start circling the wagons, and the language gets more strident, and people say "Next is the anti-4e," or "Next is the F-you 4e fans edition", am sitting here thinking "WTF?" 4e fans aren't all the same. They have different likes and dislikes, different playstyles within the 4e rules. Mearls doesn't "get" 4e, goes the refrain. I dunno, he seemed to have gotten how I like to play D&D and how I like to use 4e to do it pretty well. So I guess I don't "get" 4e, either? Except that before 5e was announced, that wasn't what was said. 4e wasn't some sui generis game that only a few could get.

What's especially frustrating for me is that before the announcement, there would be huge arguments where people would, IMO, take some 4e statement (like, say, "Skip the guards and get to the fun!") and interpret it in the absolute worst possible light. Everytime WotC said something like, "In 3e, X was a problem, so we've tried to fix it with Y," some folks would howl "WotC is shitting on my game!" And after going through all that, a lot of 4e fans are doing the same damn thing. And it's not so bad here at EN World, but it's there.

There are certain "old school" forums that I rarely or no longer visit, because no matter how great the resources for TSR-era gaming, the vitriolic attitudes towards the newer editions poisoned the whole thing for me. Next threads are rapidly approaching that experience for me.

 

[Obryn]

[MENTION=6680772]Iosue[/MENTION] - if next is meeting your needs, I unreservedly think that's great. I am glad to hear it. Like I said, I hope it's wildly successful. I just don't necessarily need to be along for the ride. My response was to an expression of dismay that I could somehow fail to be on board with it.

Simply put, I understand why wotc is making the game they are. I just see little that interests me, and I think that's somewhat understandable, too - the stuff I want tends to be more divisive. But my support doesn't come for free, is the thing. I need to see that stuff, not take it on blind faith.

So for the record, I want Next to succeed. Just maybe without me this time around. And yes, I am perfectly okay with that. And like I said, I'm a sure thing on "core" so that's their chance to wow me and prove me wrong.

-O

 

[pemerton]

4e fans aren't all the same.

Agreed. That's why, upthread (post 99) I said "some 4e players will have excellent reasons for not enjoying D&Dnext". 4e has a range of different features, and could be fun or appealing for a whole lot of reasons. My posts in this thread are mostly picking up on one particular feature which is very important to me, namely, 4e's approach to pacing, resource management and associated GM force. I don't see any sign of Next delivering in this respect.

Whereas, from your post, it sounds like what your 4e players mostly like is the intricate PC-building. Clearly this is something on which Next can deliver. Which sounds like a good result for you!

(There was another aspect to the post I replied to, also, which was along the lines of "4e was divisive because of 4e players, and now Next is failing to unify because of (some subset of) 4e players". I've got nothing against Next and those who enjoy it, but I don't understand why I'm under any obligation to subordinate my own RPGing preferences in order to support the development of the game. I spent years playing and supporting Rolemaster, but never felt that those who found it too irritating and fiddly were under any obligation to help keep it alive.)

 

[Manbearcat]

4e's approach to pacing, resource management

These features support strong scene-based and episodic approaches to play. They also help focus tiered play by constraining resource proliferation. It makes it easy to provide predictable, challenging material to the players.

If I want to leverage strategic play outside of the micro-conflict, then rituals, martial training and the disease/condition track support that well.

and associated GM force.

Precise micro-encounter (not adventuring day) budgeting and PC resources built primarily around those conflicts. This precision and resolution on a micro-scale alleviates the burden of constant GM eyeballing of the "fairness" and the transparency of the information that has been conveyed to the players regarding the threats at hand, such that the GM can feel that the players are working off of enough "good" information to consistently make reasonably informed decisions to engage with (and how) threats or not. With the expectation of GM force to amp up or tone down micro-challenges, GM mental overhead is spent artificially wrangling the PCs, mid-conflict, away from the peaks and troughs of poorly planned or misrepresented (or poorly elucidated) encounters. I'd rather spend it working to challenge my PCs and make conflict as theme-rich as possible, comfortable in the knowledge that I'm supported by precision and resolution in challenge budgeting at that micro-conflict level.

I don't see any sign of Next delivering in this respect.

It unabashedly is working from a top (adventure) down (encounter/micro-conflict) perspective in terms of challenge budgeting. Having resolution and precision at the bottom when your focus is at the top is a mathematically dubious endeavor. Its a measurement of a complex system as the goal and then hindcasting backward and trying to eyeball each of the micro-parameters that make up that system; historically, that does not make for precision and resolution at the micro-parameter level. Its typically expected that you go the other way if you're looking for precision within those parameters (encounters). Then, with that precise information available, you can plug the parameters into the formula and arrive at the adventuring day (the top or the "complex system") and have faith that both the encounters (parameters) and adventuring day (complex system) are finely tuned and precise.

Next is not going this route, unfortunately (one of the first mission statements that made me cringe).

"Rulings not rules" rather than "Exception based design". The list is pretty deep.

I'm still looking for intense, tactical depth. Still looking for depth in monster role/design (this has improved but has a ways to go). Still looking for subjective, of-level DCs for non-combat challenge resolution (much easier done than in 4e given the relaxed scaling). Still looking for a coherent rules framework for scaling, of-level damage and control expressions for stunt adjudication. Still looking for non-combat challenge resolution micro-systems/framework. I still see too much opacity (which D&D has historically, implicitly, advocated for) within the rules that are there, thus triggering further rulings, not rules...such that my mental overhead as GM is again not where I want it to be. I still see little to no author and director stance control within the few martial PCs that we have (the rogue has had a wee bit sprinkled in and then removed...fighter = 0), although Backgrounds (not class build features) do possess them.

Beyond those things, the richness and depth of PC build features focus thematic play (thematically deep powers, rituals, martial training, themes, backgrounds, paragon paths, skill powers). This helps immensely in knowing both player and GM are on the same page in terms of the expectations of the challenges that the GM will bring to bear against that PC specifically and the group generally; challenge/creative agenda coherency.

You can use purely objective DCs for task resolution, stay away from conflict resolution via Skill Challenges (with subjective DCs), stay away from player powers that provide authorial control to the player via director or author stance and you can play a perfectly acceptable game with a Gamist/Simulationist table agenda. Conversely, remove all of the features I've listed above and you do not have the tools at your disposal to play a Scene-based, Gamist/Narrativist hybrid game.

Next looks like it may very well produce an extremely functional few styles of play that have historically been in the sweet spot of D&D. The features and design vision/framework that make 4e a great game for myself (Gamist/Narrativist hybrid); outside of Backgrounds (which I very much like)...well, I'm still waiting for those as they are not present yet.

 

[Ratskinner]

And speaking generally, not specifically at you, Obryn, the tribalism that infects all discussions of Next is getting tiresome. Not just in the homogenization of "Them", which is annoying enough, but the homogenization of "Us". I'm a 4e player. It is, at the moment, all I play. I've got scads of material for it and a subscription to DDI. But I'm also excited by Next, for many of the same reasons I love 4e. And as many of the more vocal 4e proponents start circling the wagons, and the language gets more strident, and people say "Next is the anti-4e," or "Next is the F-you 4e fans edition", am sitting here thinking "WTF?" 4e fans aren't all the same. They have different likes and dislikes, different playstyles within the 4e rules. Mearls doesn't "get" 4e, goes the refrain. I dunno, he seemed to have gotten how I like to play D&D and how I like to use 4e to do it pretty well. So I guess I don't "get" 4e, either? Except that before 5e was announced, that wasn't what was said. 4e wasn't some sui generis game that only a few could get.

What's especially frustrating for me is that before the announcement, there would be huge arguments where people would, IMO, take some 4e statement (like, say, "Skip the guards and get to the fun!") and interpret it in the absolute worst possible light. Everytime WotC said something like, "In 3e, X was a problem, so we've tried to fix it with Y," some folks would howl "WotC is shitting on my game!" And after going through all that, a lot of 4e fans are doing the same damn thing. And it's not so bad here at EN World, but it's there.

There are certain "old school" forums that I rarely or no longer visit, because no matter how great the resources for TSR-era gaming, the vitriolic attitudes towards the newer editions poisoned the whole thing for me. Next threads are rapidly approaching that experience for me.

QFT.

Must spread XP.

 

[Iosue]

@Iosue - if next is meeting your needs, I unreservedly think that's great. I am glad to hear it. Like I said, I hope it's wildly successful. I just don't necessarily need to be along for the ride. My response was to an expression of dismay that I could somehow fail to be on board with it.

My interpretation of El Mahdi's posts is not that everyone should love 5e, but rather that if one has an interest in it, enough to post in 5e threads, and is not happy with how it's turning out, we have a unique opportunity to affect change. It's not like most other editions, where we have just a bit of preview, and then the game is out, for the most part complete and unchangeable. There's a process set up where we can give direct feedback and shape the course of future 5e design. There have been many a discussion about how 4e was financially unsuccessful. I have on the whole disagreed with that analysis, nor do I believe that the 4e fanbase makes up only a small part of the whole. I'm not putting WotC on a pedestal; I think it's entirely true that a lot of their design for 5e to date has been targeted at the non-4e fanbase, and I don't think they're doing it for nostalgia, or because they are stupid and love bad design. They're doing it because there is a significant market for it, and they want to make money. And so I expect them to listen to 4e fans, too, even if we have to wait a bit until they get around to putting in the things we want to see. If they put out a Warlord that only mitigates damage without healing, and it sucks and 4e fans are unhappy with it, I expect them to make some changes, because they want all the moneys, 4e fans moneys, too. But that only works if 4e fans are part of the process, filling out surveys, and giving feedback on specific game elements.

But I don't think anyone is obligated to participate, and if you don't want to, I also unreservedly support that, and hope that WotC maintains the 4e DDI tools for a long time. My beef is with the hyperbole, and with the idea that Next is unneeded, pointless, lacking in innovation, and just pandering to non-4e fans. And also the tendency to group all 4e fans (and any edition fans, really) as one homogeneous group that all like their preferred edition for the exact same reasons. As I said, it was a general thing, not directly specifically at you.

And [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION], let me explicitly exclude you from my complaints above. I may not always agree with you, but your contributions to the discussion have always been considerate, articulate, and full of meaty discussion, not potshots at the development team and hyperbole.

 

[Obryn]

And so I expect them to listen to 4e fans, too, even if we have to wait a bit until they get around to putting in the things we want to see. If they put out a Warlord that only mitigates damage without healing, and it sucks and 4e fans are unhappy with it, I expect them to make some changes, because they want all the moneys, 4e fans moneys, too. But that only works if 4e fans are part of the process, filling out surveys, and giving feedback on specific game elements.

The first part? I'm not sure about. I think the warlord, like many other 4e idiosyncrasies such as dragonborn, are being held back because they are somewhat toxic to a portion of the fan base they need to court - folks who are not current WotC customers. I could be wrong about that - I hope I am - but so far that's what it looks like to me.

The survey bit... Like I mentioned, I'm a firm believer in emergent gameplay. I'm also undoubtedly suffering playtest fatigue. I'm not really into the thought I'll need to keep up with another year of play tests in the hope there will be stuff I want to use. I'd rather leave that to the folks who actually are enthusiastic about it, like yourself. And if I like the finished product? Awesome! If not, at least other fans will be there to bear the torch.

 

[pogre]

The first part? I'm not sure about. I think the warlord, like many other 4e idiosyncrasies such as dragonborn, are being held back because they are somewhat toxic to a portion of the fan base they need to court - folks who are not current WotC customers. I could be wrong about that - I hope I am - but so far that's what it looks like to me.

I think this is 100% accurate and I'm not a 4e fan. I think it's a bit of a shame too, because I don't believe including those things would alienate the folks who left during 4e. Those it would alienate are likely not coming back to the Next game anyway. Their inclusion might help bring more of the 4e folks in.

 

[El Mahdi]

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