Over on Tangency.net, they're already engaging in (highly wishful) thinking about replacing 5e, mostly as a system of the RPGnet culture's resentment over the end of 4e and the return of a D&D system that's actually D&D.

But what do you think 5e's staying power is?  Assuming that WoTC would actually stand by wanting to have an evergreen system, assuming that was actually their goal, to stay with 5e, how much staying power do you think it has?

bear in mind im biased as the the 2 things that make me think it has no staying power are 2 of the things i hate most about it.

the major one is of course the player/npc disconnect. In 3e if you wanted to make a character that was not a normal character race it was easy because monsters, npcs and pcs all worked on the exact same rules which itself is already a huge advantage. and then on top of that they layered extremely effective rules to make and balance monsters as characters that applied in pretty much the exact same way to any creature.

compare this to 5e where a monster has a statblock composed of attacks health armor and a few skills and other tidbits. WHERE THE FUCK DO YOU GO FROM THERE. if they do make a savage species this edition they will have there work cut out for them and it will still be a clusterfuck (there are other problems with the minimal statblocks but those are all unrelated to staying power).

the other one is pretty minor really in that it is unlikely to effect most people and will be nowhere near as much work to fix but is still relevant is that i dont see it scaling into epic levels well.

im tempted to say that the shift in focus from new stuff to new adventures will hurt them but a lot of people seem to be happy with the change so maybe im in the minority here, but if you cant have a huge arsenal of different magic items why adventure.

5  - 6 years at best. How much the new edition changes from 5th likely depends only on how it performs. It could be as minor as 1st to 2nd edition changes, or as major as 3.5 to 4th.

Evergreen systems arent moneymakers, unfortunately. Until Hasbro begins treating D&D like one of its boardgame properties instead of the bastard stepbrother of MtG, we're in for a bumpy road.

I am not going to answer you. But I will mull it over and suggest some stuff to consider.

• has it addressed the needs of enough D&D players that it can keep a core body of customers?
• can a business model for rpgs be made that doesn't require a new edition every 5-6 years to invigorate sales?
• in parallel, can a single version hold the attention of gamers, or will the attractions of "new shiny" tend to leech gamers away?
• can a business model be created so that Hasbro can make money from licensed products, essentially leaving the ruleset as the core IP?
• will the game be slowly destroyed by accretions and inflationary supplements, splatbooks etc.
• lastly, and the only one I'll answer, is it a good game to enjoy D&D trope games? YES

If WOTC abandons the five year plan and actually keeps the damn thing in print then it has alot of staying power.

Unfortunately WOTC has shown themselves too infatuated with this retarded practice and so probably in about 4-5 years 6e will be announced.

As for what the other place thinks. Who the hell cares? They have proven themselves time and again to be the last people on Earth to look for for anything remotely resembling sane opinions.

There seem to be two loose groups of gamers. Those who play games because they want to explore settings and those who want to explore rules. The former group would probably be happy with 5e forever (just as such groups were happy with previous editions). The latter group however always needs new rules, preferably rules they see as innovative, or they tend to loose interest in a game and start looking for another set of rules to explore. The latter group already has issues with 5e as it isn't "innovative enough rules-wise".

Whether a sixth edition will be needed will depend on which group WOTC decides to support. Given that WOTC apparently needs to make tons of money from selling D&D and given their track record with D&D, they will probably end up with a new half-edition in 2-3 years and a new edition 2-3 years after that. Both the half-edition and the new edition will likely be far more different from 5e than the difference between most TSR editions.  I would love to be wrong about these predictions, however.

I think it has been designed for staying power - or at least to act as a sort of holding pattern for the brand - they seem to want a long term low key approach & avoid the rapid burnout cycle of 3e and especially 4e.

I somewhat agree with Tuypo about NPCs - currently I can either make an NPC using the PC rules and have a hell of a time assigning CR/XP, or I can take a stat block from back of the MM (which is great), or I can make something completely arbitrary with the building rules, which from my limited experience so far looks a lot harder & messier than in 4e.

More than any other edition, I think this one really needs a big book of NPC stats with calculated CRs, or else much simpler way to create classed NPCs & assign CR. My current approach is to use the back of the MM NPCs and tweak armour, weapons, abilities etc as necessary, or reskin actual monsters (eg Drow Warrior becomes Elf Merchant, Orcs make decent barbarians, etc) but that will only go so far I fear.

That's a good question.  If WotC goes by some of the things that they've said- that they've opened the umbrella of the D&D brand to not just rpg's, but everything else (toys, video games, movies, ect), then I think 5th definitely has legs to keep going forward for a bit.  

4th ed seemed to be all about the powers that the players could perform (and improving the monsters to speed things along).  But really, how many times can you vary up the "push, pull, shift" thing?  

If they stick to their guns about not releasing rules bloat, but instead keep a good flow of solid adventures, settings and such, I think 5th has a good chance of going past 5-6 years.  Who knows though- all it takes is the leader of the board room to decide they want a new edition and that's that.

My guess is it depends if Hasbro can keep the pressure off the tabletop game for huge revenue generation, and instead get serious about other D&D-branded items rather than just a handful of books.

A series of 3 hardcovers, a few adventures (which have never been massive sources of profit) and occasional other products cannot sustain a huge business division, and with endless splats and frequent reboots wearing thin...far better to keep a small evergreen range and concentrate on completely new complementary lines like video games.

Depends, at least in part, on three things that aren't clear to me yet.

  1. Does the game suffer from any hidden traps or break down at certain points, a la 3E?

  2. Can D&D sustain itself at levels acceptable to the company when it doesn't have the best product support in the industry? (The game's level of support has varied, but until 2011, I don't believe there was a time when it wasn't on par with or above all its competitors.)

  3. How zealous do you and yours intend to be in driving out and fencing the game against the swine, storygamers, SJWs, videogamers, readers, Christians, and any who do not affirm the moral superiority of old-school libertarian sandbox Will-to-Power gameplay?

Quote from: Armchair Gamer;8213423. How zealous do you and yours intend to be in driving out and fencing the game against the swine, storygamers, SJWs, videogamers, readers, Christians, and any who do not affirm the moral superiority of old-school libertarian sandbox Will-to-Power gameplay?

I'm planning to let a SJW play in my first 5e tabletop campaign... :eek:
Having a SJW at the table's not so bad, it must be a lot like having a Stasi agent in Cold War east Germany - you just be careful not to say the wrong thing. Ever.

Quote from: S'mon;821350I'm planning to let a SJW play in my first 5e tabletop campaign... :eek:
Having a SJW at the table's not so bad, it must be a lot like having a Stasi agent in Cold War east Germany - you just be careful not to say the wrong thing. Ever.

I shall pray to the Agnostic God that nothing horrible happens while you conduct this gaming experiment.

Quote from: RPGPundit;821306Over on Tangency.net, they're already engaging in (highly wishful) thinking about replacing 5e, mostly as a system of the RPGnet culture's resentment over the end of 4e and the return of a D&D system that's actually D&D.

You really should stop giving a fuck about that place.

Quote from: RPGPundit;821306But what do you think 5e's staying power is?  Assuming that WoTC would actually stand by wanting to have an evergreen system, assuming that was actually their goal, to stay with 5e, how much staying power do you think it has?

I think it is too early to tell, but if WotC is still beholden to the five year plan, then it won't. One of the keys to evergreen and longevity is to not change the system so much that it becomes a pain in the ass to use old material, and to not do that every five years. Unfortunately, it isn't going to be up to gamers playing D&D, it will be up to accountants looking at balance sheets.

As someone who just spent money on all the books for 5E, it's disheartening to hear that nobody really thinks it has staying power. But I suppose five years worth is plenty of enjoyment to wring out of a game.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;821354As someone who just spent money on all the books for 5E, it's disheartening to hear that nobody really thinks it has staying power. But I suppose five years worth is plenty of enjoyment to wring out of a game.

I warned the players in my area that 5e wont have staying power.  The new hotness wore off real quickly.  The lgs that started with 3 nights of 5e and went up to 5 nights of 5e a week.  It is now down to 1 night a week.  The other lgs's haven't been pushing it much.