D&D 5E WotC will likely be making a dedicated Psion class, as per recent tweets

[JiffyPopTart]

I think 5E biggest factors for success are.

1. It's reasonably single
2. Mature social media that's positive
3. Amazon

Tabletop gaming as a whole is hugely popular right now. Not just DnD but also boardgames/cardgames/etc. I give a lot of credit to the massive surge in gaming popularity to the recession of 2009. When it got expensive to go out and have fun lots of people holed up at their house and started playing board/card games as an alternative. This wave of popularity led to the gaming online series Tabletop with Wil Wheaton who had a huge impact on "regular people" getting into the gaming hobby.

I think 5e had the great timing to redesign itself to be accessible at JUST the right time that a lot of people who would have been uninterested in it instead gave it a shot because a friend played.

It also helps that younger adults are more likely to see board/card/rpg gaming as something "fun" not "wierd" because of the general popularly of videogaming

 

[Tony Vargas]

Tabletop gaming as a whole is hugely popular right now. Not just DnD but also boardgames/cardgames/etc. I give a lot of credit to the massive surge in gaming popularity to the recession of 2009. When it got expensive to go out and have fun lots of people holed up at their house and started playing board/card games as an alternative. This wave of popularity led to the gaming online series Tabletop with Wil Wheaton who had a huge impact on "regular people" getting into the gaming hobby. It also helps that younger adults are more likely to see board/card/rpg gaming as something "fun" not "wierd" because of the general popularly of videogaming

I thought things started picking up closer to 2012... I suck at what year things happened in, anyway.

I think 5e had the great timing to redesign itself to be accessible at JUST the right time that a lot of people who would have been uninterested in it instead gave it a shot ....

D&D - not to mention very D&D-ish boardgames like Castle Ravenloft - was already pretty darn accessible, moreso than the game itself had ever been. (I suppose re-releasing Dungeon! might've been even more accessible?) It was just going through some ..issues.. with it's loyal fanbase wanting to burn it to the ground.
5e's brilliance was not in becoming more accessible to new players (it's actually less so), but in balancing that with acceptability to the most rancorous of the Old Guard. So that the community, especially the perception of it at a glance on line, could seem more welcoming.

 

[Remathilis]

I wouldn't call the mods the devil but yeah I wouldn't be surprised if we're real close to having all the psion threads collapsed by the mods into one big jumbled thread. I appreciate your passion for this concept (I really do, even if I don't agree with it), but I think it's become a bit over the top to the point where you may do more harm to your cause than good. But, what do I know?

Maybe we can start a dedicated ghetto forum for them.

 

[Zardnaar]

Maybe we can start a dedicated ghetto forum for them.

This will burn itself out in a week or two.

The warlord thing was recurring from maybe a dozen posters or so

 

[Sacrosanct]

If something was never part of the design scope, it’s not a failure to deliver if it wasn’t included. End of story. No matter how bad you want it.

people seem to confuse their desires and opinions as part of the business requirements. I have no idea why.

 

[Sacrosanct]

How about if Honda was redesigning the new Accord from the ground up and said "We don't want to spend too much time on the stereo because not everyone listens to music while they drive, but we are going to add the stereo in (along with the other popular missing options) after we get the new streamlined basic Accord out to the general public?"

Then the new Accord sold like hotcakes and EVERYONE was in in love with it. They LOVE the simplicity of a streamlined simple to drive Accord without confusing buttons and displays they are never going to use. You love it too, but you want your stereo option. So you patiently wait because the stereo will make the new Accord even better. Soon it become apparent that the release of new features to add to your Accord is going to be slow, so you figure you might have to wait awhile.

Over the next 5 years Honda works on tons of new features, but never that stereo that you were hoping for. Eventually they send you a boombox you can put in your trunk to sort of hear music, but its not really the same. "I guess some music is better than none", you tell yourself, but you realize you aren't happy with the boombox in the trunk and its really NOT a stereo.

Then a designer for Honda makes a post on social media. It's rather cryptic (and hasn't been clarified) but it could be construed as saying "You know what....stereos were never really all that popular, so chances are the boombox in the trunk is the best we are going to give you.

Or maybe they don't even give you a boombox for your trunk and they just never mention stereos again.

So you go online to complain that you really wanted a stereo and not this boombox because it was implied that it was coming when they were designing the new Streamlined Accord. To this you get endless variations of the same three replies.

1. I love stereos too! I wish I had something better than a boombox in the trunk too and I think Honda should release more missing gadgets and less paint options.

2. Streamlined Accords are selling like hotcakes. Obviously Accords don't need stereos because they sell just fine without them and making one now would pretty much bankrupt Honda.

3. If you want a stereo now you can get one from Alibaba. It's not made by Honda, may or may not have been tested to work well in a Streamlined Accord, and nobody else is going to be familiar with it if you have a question, but its there and just as good as an official one.

*

The #1 (by far) most distinct takeaway I had from when the Next playtest was morphing into the 5e game was the idea.....that was explicitly used as a selling point for 5e....that the PHB was going to smooth out the game and make it simple for the masses to pick up so that the game could gain traction. This obviously happened. THEN (and this is the important part) they would add back in the things removed in the streamlining as optional "modules" that you could plug into your game to make it work the way you want. That way people could play the game they wanted by just using the streamlined basic game or the extra bits they wanted to add to their campaign.

It is now 5 years later and very clearly this design principle has not happened. If that's what WotC wants to to do because they want to rake in the dollars...I can't fault them for that decision. I would probably do the same thing. The fact remains, however, that the goal as mentioned 5 years ago seems to be unmet and perhaps forgotten if "It doesn't sell well so we aren't going to devote time to it." is a determining factor in what gets greenlit.

Your spin on my analogy fails in the first paragraph because they never promised they were going to put out a psion, or warlord, later on down the road after the initial game came out.

 

[Shardstone]

I thought things started picking up closer to 2012... I suck at what year things happened in, anyway.

D&D - not to mention very D&D-ish boardgames like Castle Ravenloft - was already pretty darn accessible, moreso than the game itself had ever been. (I suppose re-releasing Dungeon! might've been even more accessible?) It was just going through some ..issues.. with it's loyal fanbase wanting to burn it to the ground.
5e's brilliance was not in becoming more accessible to new players (it's actually less so), but in balancing that with acceptability to the most rancorous of the Old Guard. So that the community, especially the perception of it at a glance on line, could seem more welcoming.

I think a more true statement is that 5E is more accessible because of its very heavy promotion on stories and fantasy archetypes. 5E makes no qualms about what it is - that being, it is Dungeons & Dragons, a fantasy game where you emulate heroes and other cool characters and do fun, adventurous things. Speaking as someone of this current generation, who was exposed to 3.X and 4.X, neither of those games had the same effect.

The intent was always there. Every version of Dungeons & Dragons has attempted to do the above. But they have always bogged things down in a lot of very minute rules and, more importantly, a lot of math. When I say a lot of math, I mean a lot of +1s and +2s and -1s and -2s that you had to do for every die roll (in 3.X). This is very inaccessible; having to have a running sheet of modifiers and video game-style builds takes a lot out of the immersion, and thus gets in the way of D&D's core premise: being a game where you make adventurous fantasy stories.

4E itself, the rulebook I mean, lacked a lot of flavor. It was a great game for character builds and all that, but I don't think the average tabletop gamer - or even the average person, if I may - is very interested in builds. They're more interesting in making a cool character and doing cool things.

5E has the advantage in that every ability is given some kind of fluff, the packages don't take much thought, the math is very simple/quick, and it is very upfront about what it is trying to do.

I think the only time Dungeons & Dragons was this accessible was Moldvay Basic, where the game was even more simple. But I think the complexity of modern D&D is more attractive to a wider audience; it makes you feel as if you have more agency and pitches a bigger tent all around.

TL;DR - 5E has adopted story game philosophies to become the biggest edition in the game's history.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I think a more true statement is that 5E is more accessible because of its very heavy promotion on stories and fantasy archetypes.

D&D models fantasy archetypes quite poorly, so, no, can't really agree with that last bit.

The former is a talking point we've heard more than a bit from WotC. A way of brushing off fans who want more crunch, is how it feels, to me, as a fan who wants more crunch, being brushed off.

 

[Shardstone]

D&D models fantasy archetypes quite poorly, so, no, can't really agree with that last bit.

The former is a talking point we've heard more than a bit from WotC. A way of brushing off fans who want more crunch, is how it feels, to me, as a fan who wants more crunch, being brushed off.

I'm not saying that it does it well, I'm saying this is its promotion.

 

[Salthorae]

D&D models fantasy archetypes quite poorly,

Say huh?