WotC Seeks Unity with a New Edition

[ColonelHardisson]

Haha, yeah I "parachuted out".

Maybe he meant like in that James Bond movie where he was thrown out of the airplane and had to fight a guy for a parachute on the way down.

 

[TerraDave]

Eh?

TSR continued publishing AD&D 1E articles in Dragon magazine for at least a year, printing 1E PHBs for several years and including "how to use this with 1st edition" notes in many early 2nd edition products.

SNIP.

It was more like several months. But yes, there was an overlap. And they did keep OD&D in reprints after AD&D came out.

On the other hand, within a few years of 2E, you started to see adds in Dragon for re-salers of 1E and B/X material.

 

[BobROE]

As someone with a stable pathfinder game, I'm not really sure who I'm supposed to be getting "unity" with....

WotC wants to get unity it the market, cause that's good for them, but I don't really see why that's good for ME as an individual user....

 

[ColonelHardisson]

Ah, here we go; actual footage of Scott Rouse parachuting out of Wizards after the release of 4e:

Skydive Escape - YouTube

 

[Roland55]

Indeed. Color me at least as interested.

But, I'm a "glass half full" kinda guy.
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Point is, I’m quite interested in seeing what Monte Cook has in mind for 5^th ed and I urge all of you to keep an open mind.[/quote]

Indeed. Color me at least as interested.

But, I'm a "glass half full" kinda guy.-->

 

[Scott_Rouse]

To regain trust, the cycle of terminations of WotC employees has to stop. Otherwise there is no accountability and what's said today is meaningless.



The point is that the people there today may (and one might even say it's likely that they will) be gone tomorrow and WotC has a terrible record with regard to staffing. Therefore, anything said, any time spent on the process, may become meaningless when the next "leader(s)" come in to do their thing.

I'm not saying you weren't being honest when you said 4E would last 8-10 years. Quite the opposite. I'm saying that there are forces within (and above) WotC that make any statements by any staff member dubious.

Today they want an all-inclusive game. Tomorrow they may all be fired.

Now granted, it's possible in any business that the climate may change forcing decisions to be made, but WotC seems to bring the changes on themselves and they don't seem to be getting better - but worse in this regard.

People leave companies on their own or through layoff/firing all the time so statements made by individuals need to be attributed to the company. If people are going to hold a company accountable on the validity of statements for 2, 3, 4, 5+ years then those companies would be best served to not make these kinds statements.

WotC is in a tough spot. On the one hand they want to have an open dialog with their customers and go out of the way to share information often/early (case in point they are crowd sourcing a big chunk of their business with the 5e announce) but with openness is a darkside. When the company needs to make (sometimes) unpopular but necessary decisions to remain viable they get blasted (eg announcing 5e is coming less than 4 years after 4e was launched), not an enviable position.

 

[Steel_Wind]

Since you're quoting me I'll chime in. I don"t have a horse in this race and I have largely moved on (professionally and personally).

Yes I did say that and at that point in time anyone on the D&D team would have said the same thing. The publishing goal was (and should be) to have the edition last 8-10 years and we truly believed that would be the case with 4e.

There are a lot of things that happened with 4e that ...

A man who will face a comment like that head-on with truth and grace is a man with integrity.

Nicely done.

 

[Scott_Rouse]

TSR/WotC have never supported past editions when a new version came out. Most (if not all) publishers stop supporting old editions when new versions come out.
.

I am going to retract this. There was the sales of older edition D&D PDFs via RPG now.

 

[Roland55]

My therapist tells me admitting this kind of stuff is healthy.

Yes, yes it is.

Feels pretty good, too.

 

[howandwhy99]

The key then, in my view, is to create a 5E that doesn't focus on the past in any form--whether we're talking about OD&D, AD&D, BECMI or even 4E--but forms a strong basis for as wide a variety of D&D experiences as possible, while remaining connected to the overall legacy of the game. So if I were designing 5E I would make sure that, in the context of this discussion, all of the following were true:

*It is possible to play an "Old School-esque" game.
*It is possible to play a 3.5esque game.
*It is possible to play a 4Esque game.
*It brings something uniquely its own ("5Esque") to the table.

I believe they are going to use modularity to satisfy the concerns you bring up. I think it is extraordinarily important that both 4E as is and 3.x play styles are catered to. That is the guts of the divide in the community. Old schoolers like me have a horse in the race, but we simply aren't as sizable (if not vocal) portion of the community.

More importantly I believe they need to make a game that makes people stand up and say "I want to play that" and that means innovative thinking and a strong finger on the pulse of what makes all players today the same when it comes to a fun game. It must be a fun game first and foremost. It really must be enjoyable enough at start to attract the investment of old and new players alike. The rest of the issues like play style splits can be addressed with solid know how of what makes 3.x and 4.0 the games they are (and we're talking Mike & Monte here).

Old school games are a different beast in my book, but I think they are plausible. It is a matter of rules in some ways, but it is DM and DM screen magic time. Catering to that can be done, but it will be more difficult. They are like writing a joke book. If you put the punchlines in the PHB, the players won't be in frothing anticipation when the joke arises.

One route to cover all of these beyond rules support by game modularity may be by vastly expanding game styles in the DMG. 3.0 had event vs. site based adventures and episodic, continuing and plot weaving for campaigns. 4E had adventures and super adventures, single setting, nonlinear, and multiple quests. It's DMG 2 added significantly to these.

A new game making an umbrella over numerous play styles is really going to need a large and most wisely an ongoing accounting of each. It will still need some grouping, but there is enough material in the community already, which the community can give in feedback, to build a strong base of what the game needs to be covering in DM guidebooks. While some may see the fracturing of the community in RPGs across the board as a divisive splitting I do believe it can be a community which seeks to include all members. Having our flagship game seek to do just that is positive whatever the outcome.

The flip of the fracture argument and "How could they possibly cover everyone's concerns?" and "you can't please everyone" is that we as players have become highly knowledgeable about what we want from games. Some will not want modularity. I suggest modules be capable of stand alone play for that reason, if no other. For everyone else, this is a step forward even if it may take awhile for your specific concerns and desires to be addressed. I strongly suspect that no matter how much is published almost all of us will do a little more personalization beyond the printed work. That's great. Let's keep innovating. But let's also tell the designers what we want, so we have the chance (at least) to have a bigger and better game for all. Opting out early on only serves to hide one's desires from the exact group of people looking to satisfy them.

I get my personal desires are mine (and probably too often stated), but I feel a well intentioned crew with talent and the resources to back them up can satisfy *most* of us, if we don't stop them by our own disenchantment first. I'd like 5E to be the best D&D yet. I plan on adding my own 2 cents for the potential that it may happen.

...but if we quit this, I don't care to guess what will happen to the community, not just the company. Hasbro may seem some monolithic overlord to some, but it also brings significant weight to bear for spotlighting this hobby. I don't see anyone else even remotely on their level. I'd rather work with them for what we want than abandon ship or ignore it all dispassionately.