TheRPGSite

With links and video:

https://methodsetmadness.blogspot.com/2021/09/so-d-55e-is-really-coming-in-2024.html

I thought we wouldn't know so soon, but apparently we are getting D&D 5.5e in 2024.

I heard about this on Reddit. The talk was included in the Future of DnD panel (around eight hours in). As the redditor mentioned, "They used the words "new evolution" and "new version", but not "new edition". They also confirmed that it's going to be backwards compatible with 5e.".

"New version", "backwards compatible"... Crawford mentions that the game "is always evolving" in the video, Winniger is saying that "new versions of the core rulebooks" with feedback on existing classes... etc.

Yeah, I'm betting on something like 5.5e.

This will coincide with the 50 year anniversary of D&D.


My opinion? Well, I'm a bit surprised, but not excited nor disappointed.

5e definitely needs a 5.5 version, because the new options in Tasha's and other books change some fundamental things about the game; so this is positive IMO. But I'm not really confident that they will improve the game a lot. Every change will have its fans and detractors, and making the game fundamentally simpler and more straightforward is basically impossible without alienating the (huge) fanbase that started playing with 5e.

They are probably not fixing weapons and armor, and I'm not sure they even fix the champion (although at the very least I expected the beastmaster ranger to be improved!). I'm betting they'll add more options and few rules changes.

I'll probably be playing with 5e, the SRD and some house rules regardless of what WotC does at this point.

Also, we are getting a new monster book, Mordenkainen Presents: Monsters of the Multiverse. I dunno, the Creature Codex is hard to beat. Well, we'll see.

What's wrong with the Champion?

The wokeness in the core books will increase for sure.  So it will be a hard pass for me.

Quote from: Crusader X on September 26, 2021, 10:21:26 PM
The wokeness in the core books will increase for sure.  So it will be a hard pass for me.

Agreed.

I really don't want "D&D: Jeremy Crawford edition" so this sounds like something for me to avoid, too.

OTOH thanks to DnD Beyond it's already quite hard to avoid Crawfordism in my game.  :'(

I don't want it or need it. I have used copies of the three 5th core books and it never really caught my interest even as a repair for the strangeness of 4th.

Not sure what the stores think. They seem to have smaller rpg sections than since we've had game and comics stores as a common thing.

New edition, eh?  I knew Wizards could not resist that sweet sweet new edition money.

I remember when those WotC shills were drinking the ever green cool-aid.  Good times

Quote from: S'mon on September 26, 2021, 11:07:10 PM
I really don't want "D&D: Jeremy Crawford edition" so this sounds like something for me to avoid, too.

OTOH thanks to DnD Beyond it's already quite hard to avoid Crawfordism in my game.  :'(

That's a good point. I'm trying to find it but I thought I saw a blurb about new digital tools. Would that mean they won't partner with Fandom and D&D Beyond anymore?

I also couldn't help but think they'll have an excuse to purge anything pundit, zak, and mearls related to the core rules. I mean it's supposedly backwards compatible so maybe they can't change it too much....but who knows

Because re re re releases work. No woke for me, thanks.

The 5E core system, as released in 2014, is really good. Everything that's been done to it since (Xanathar's Guide, Tasha's Cauldron) has been awful. If the people working on 5.5E are the same people who ruined 5E over the past few years, then 5.5E is not going to be an improvement; it's going to be awful.

Quote from: Horace on September 27, 2021, 12:26:41 AM
The 5E core system, as released in 2014, is really good. Everything that's been done to it since (Xanathar's Guide, Tasha's Cauldron) has been awful. If the people working on 5.5E are the same people who ruined 5E over the past few years, then 5.5E is not going to be an improvement; it's going to be awful.

I agree. It'll be interesting to me to see if dudes like Joe Manganiello will still be so supportive. I mean, the critical role crowd is already woke but how much is the Joe and Vin Diesel types. Ah well, I'm not angry or sad, I left purchasing 5e after Tasha's and there's plenty good to play in the OSR.

I stopped playing 3e when 3.5 came out because I didn't want to check and adapt every module I had for possible changes (on top of managing high level characters in the bloated 3.0 rules).  I'll probably stop following 5e too when 5.5 arrives and do something completely different. SoulBound,  Doctor Who (1st edition with the Tom Baker setting), Slipstream,  Deadlands, FFG Star Wars,  WEG Star Wars, Stormbringer, Torg, Toon, James Bond 007, Fading  Suns, classic Delta Green, ...plenty of options... Or maybe go back to 4th Edition or even try my hand at that OSR thing I keep hearing about.

Hell, in 2024 I'm not even sure I will still have a group to play with.

y

Quote from: Horace on September 27, 2021, 12:26:41 AM
The 5E core system, as released in 2014, is really good. Everything that's been done to it since (Xanathar's Guide, Tasha's Cauldron) has been awful. If the people working on 5.5E are the same people who ruined 5E over the past few years, then 5.5E is not going to be an improvement; it's going to be awful.

What were your problems with XGTE? I liked nearly all the DM-side stuff myself, and most of the new PC subclasses seem ok to me. Definitely annoyed about Tasha's attempt to erase race stat mods though!

I'm not a fan of the 4e style monster stat blocks returning. Making spells into abilities just makes them stop working with spell interactions. What if someone wants to counterspell it?

Plus I liked the "day in the life" type spell lists where you get to see what the monster's life is like outside of combat according to its spell list.

The rest could be good.

They are dead to me, as long as the current group is in charge.  Won't buy it or even play it, even if it is the greatest thing since sliced bread.  Not that there is much chance of that, since that group is likely to do the exact opposite of what would make a good or useful 5.5.  Especially since the first place to start would be to edit out almost all of their "contributions" to 5E.

I look forward to not paying for this.

I'm long past giving a shit what WotC does. With the advent of the OSR D&D is out of their hands and I'm quite content never looking back.

Quote from: Aglondir on September 26, 2021, 10:14:40 PM
What's wrong with the Champion?

There is a link inside the link. Basically, it is too weak when compared to battlemaster or eldrtitch knight, not to mention paladin etc.

https://methodsetmadness.blogspot.com/2021/07/my-champion-5e.html

The idea is not doing a complete overhaul; just the minimum changes necessary to make it closer to the Battlemaster in damage output (and give it some out of combat utility), without adding much complexity, so the the Champion remains the "simple fighter".

I think a couple of small changes at levels 3 and 7 might be enough. This is because Improved Critical and Remarkable Athlete are especially weak; if we fix them early on, we fix the entire subclass.

Quote from: Horace on September 27, 2021, 12:26:41 AM
The 5E core system, as released in 2014, is really good. Everything that's been done to it since (Xanathar's Guide, Tasha's Cauldron) has been awful. If the people working on 5.5E are the same people who ruined 5E over the past few years, then 5.5E is not going to be an improvement; it's going to be awful.

Eh... there is good and bad in Tashas and Xanathars IMO. One good thing is that they might buff the ranger and warlock, for example. But I agree that the original PHB with a few house rules is enough for me and I don't need more PHBs.

Overall, I think 5.5e will be slightly more balanced than 5 becasue of feedback, but will also bring new problems to the table, and it is overall unnecessary.

My money's on this being the 2nd Edition to 5E's 1st Edition, but instead of moving towards 'family-friendly High Fantasy', the tone will skew towards 'woke swashbuckling Seattleite melodrama.'

Quote from: Eric Diaz on September 27, 2021, 08:58:31 AM

Quote from: Aglondir on September 26, 2021, 10:14:40 PM
What's wrong with the Champion?

There is a link inside the link. Basically, it is too weak when compared to battlemaster or eldrtitch knight, not to mention paladin etc.

https://methodsetmadness.blogspot.com/2021/07/my-champion-5e.html

The idea is not doing a complete overhaul; just the minimum changes necessary to make it closer to the Battlemaster in damage output (and give it some out of combat utility), without adding much complexity, so the the Champion remains the "simple fighter".

I think a couple of small changes at levels 3 and 7 might be enough. This is because Improved Critical and Remarkable Athlete are especially weak; if we fix them early on, we fix the entire subclass.

I play champions almost exclusively, and currently have two of them in active games. I agree in a standard 5e game they may fall behind the power curve, however, as long as feats are permitted they are an extremely flexible class. And if custom backgrounds are allowed, even better.

If you are playing in a campaign that is going to kill Tiamat or whatever lunacy WotC has cooked up, 100% agree. If you can find a game with more grounded fantasy I only half agree. Champions are fine, but battle masters and eldritch knights ARE stronger :)

Quote from: FingerRod on September 27, 2021, 09:36:49 AM

Quote from: Eric Diaz on September 27, 2021, 08:58:31 AM

Quote from: Aglondir on September 26, 2021, 10:14:40 PM
What's wrong with the Champion?

There is a link inside the link. Basically, it is too weak when compared to battlemaster or eldrtitch knight, not to mention paladin etc.

https://methodsetmadness.blogspot.com/2021/07/my-champion-5e.html

The idea is not doing a complete overhaul; just the minimum changes necessary to make it closer to the Battlemaster in damage output (and give it some out of combat utility), without adding much complexity, so the the Champion remains the "simple fighter".

I think a couple of small changes at levels 3 and 7 might be enough. This is because Improved Critical and Remarkable Athlete are especially weak; if we fix them early on, we fix the entire subclass.

I play champions almost exclusively, and currently have two of them in active games. I agree in a standard 5e game they may fall behind the power curve, however, as long as feats are permitted they are an extremely flexible class. And if custom backgrounds are allowed, even better.

If you are playing in a campaign that is going to kill Tiamat or whatever lunacy WotC has cooked up, 100% agree. If you can find a game with more grounded fantasy I only half agree. Champions are fine, but battle masters and eldritch knights ARE stronger :)

Yup, and champions are my favorite fighters, I really like how straightforward they are; I just want them to be on par with other subclasses.

With everything they've pumped out for 5e, it has a certain "kitchen sink" feel to it, like they were merely interested in pumping out more books, and had no great plan for how 5e would look.
They could do with reorganizing what went into where, but I have zero faith that WotC can pull it off.
Like presenting the material into a path that stays faithful to Classic D&D (Forgotten Realms and FR-like "Europe but magic' worlds) , and separate pathways of "expanded worlds" (the MtG nonsense and the oddball stuff like Dark Sun, Planescape, etc. )
Or how about Monster Manual?  PHB has a few beasts and very monsters that the PCs would know about. But a Druid, who can wildshape into many animals, only has access to a few sets of the critter stats that can apply to them.

Quote from: DM_Curt on September 27, 2021, 09:49:20 AM
Like presenting the material into a path that stays faithful to Classic D&D (Forgotten Realms and FR-like "Europe but magic' worlds)

I must be unusual in that I preferred the sections of the FR that got further and further from a European-inspired base.

Quote from: Crusader X on September 26, 2021, 10:21:26 PM
The wokeness in the core books will increase for sure.  So it will be a hard pass for me.

Yeah, that's for sure. Going to be as woke as fook. It's all about the $$$$$$$$$$$$$.

But I don't care tbh. Because I wouldn't touch a D&D book even if it had a massive pair of tits on it.

Rules churn is how they sell more books. Not interested. I'm so happy we have the OSR and non-D&D games. I fully expect it to be more woke superhero folx at the renaissance faire.

Quote from: rytrasmi on September 27, 2021, 10:10:50 AM
I'm so happy we have the OSR and non-D&D games. I fully expect it to be more woke superhero folx at the renaissance faire.

Couldn't have said it better myself. We got OSR so we don't need that other toilet paper.

Quote from: palaeomerus on September 27, 2021, 02:53:08 AM

y

If they do sell to tencent (china company) it'll be fun to watch.

Quote from: Thorn Drumheller on September 27, 2021, 10:38:21 AM

Quote from: palaeomerus on September 27, 2021, 02:53:08 AM

y

If they do sell to tencent (china company) it'll be fun to watch.

   Haven't had a chance to watch the video yet, but WotC has been one of Hasbro's most successful divisions lately--it's tough to see them letting that go.

ICv2 seems to be of the same opinion.

https://icv2.com/articles/news/view/47054/rolling-initiative-a-case-possible-sale-wizards-coast-being-horizon

Quote from: Reckall on September 27, 2021, 11:04:31 AM
ICv2 seems to be of the same opinion.

https://icv2.com/articles/news/view/47054/rolling-initiative-a-case-possible-sale-wizards-coast-being-horizon

What would that mean for the game, if sold. Would it just be business as usual. with the new owner keeping the production team and just letting them get on with it? Or would it slow down?

What I think will happen is folks will still be bitching about the Ranger five years from now LOL  ;D

D&D 5e in my opinion is the worst edition of the game. The most safe, boring, mediocre game of them all. It excels at nothing and fails at all the things D&D normally fails at. Unless they plan to fix its dishwater dull maths and core assumptions its a hard pass.

Savage Worlds is where its at for me.

Edit: And Im not buying products from a company that holds me in contempt regardless.

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on September 27, 2021, 05:25:44 PM
D&D 5e in my opinion is the worst edition of the game. The most safe, boring, mediocre game of them all. It excels at nothing and fails at all the things D&D normally fails at. Unless they plan to fix its dishwater dull maths and core assumptions its a hard pass.

Savage Worlds is where its at for me.

Weird. I like Savage Worlds and 5E, as well as ACKS and SWN. (GURPS is alright.) However, I doubt I'll be buying anything more of 5E. I've got enough, and it seems that WOTC just wants to trash the existing game/settings in the name of being Woke. I shudder to think of what they'll attempt to do with Greyhawk.

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on September 27, 2021, 05:25:44 PM
D&D 5e in my opinion is the worst edition of the game. The most safe, boring, mediocre game of them all. It excels at nothing and fails at all the things D&D normally fails at. Unless they plan to fix its dishwater dull maths and core assumptions its a hard pass.

Savage Worlds is where its at for me.

Edit: And Im not buying products from a company that holds me in contempt regardless.

Second worst for me

Quote from: Shasarak on September 27, 2021, 05:45:58 PMSecond worst for me

I know plenty of people hate 4e, but design wise its got allot of good ideas (including ones good for grognards otherwise so many of its ideas wouldn't have carried over to SWN & WWN). It was let down more by its bad ideas.

I as a person value good ideas over my let down by bad ideas. 4e was misguided but had good ideas. 5es good ideas are mangled & weakened versions of what other editions did better before, and its bad ideas are its own.

Quote from: Eric Diaz on September 27, 2021, 08:58:31 AM

Quote from: Aglondir on September 26, 2021, 10:14:40 PM
What's wrong with the Champion?

There is a link inside the link. Basically, it is too weak when compared to battlemaster or eldrtitch knight, not to mention paladin etc.

https://methodsetmadness.blogspot.com/2021/07/my-champion-5e.html

The idea is not doing a complete overhaul; just the minimum changes necessary to make it closer to the Battlemaster in damage output (and give it some out of combat utility), without adding much complexity, so the the Champion remains the "simple fighter".

I think a couple of small changes at levels 3 and 7 might be enough. This is because Improved Critical and Remarkable Athlete are especially weak; if we fix them early on, we fix the entire subclass.

Excellent work. I haven't played 5E enough to know how the Champion compares to its peers, but your analysis sounds right. I also like your analysis of the feats. And the tripping the gelatinous cube issue. But I gave up on 5E due to the poor skill system.

Quote from: Shasarak on September 26, 2021, 11:15:35 PM
New edition, eh?  I knew Wizards could not resist that sweet sweet new edition money.

I remember when those WotC shills were drinking the ever green cool-aid.  Good times

How is "backwards compatible" not evergreen?

Quote from: FingerRod on September 27, 2021, 09:36:49 AM

Quote from: Eric Diaz on September 27, 2021, 08:58:31 AM

Quote from: Aglondir on September 26, 2021, 10:14:40 PM
What's wrong with the Champion?

There is a link inside the link. Basically, it is too weak when compared to battlemaster or eldrtitch knight, not to mention paladin etc.

https://methodsetmadness.blogspot.com/2021/07/my-champion-5e.html

The idea is not doing a complete overhaul; just the minimum changes necessary to make it closer to the Battlemaster in damage output (and give it some out of combat utility), without adding much complexity, so the the Champion remains the "simple fighter".

I think a couple of small changes at levels 3 and 7 might be enough. This is because Improved Critical and Remarkable Athlete are especially weak; if we fix them early on, we fix the entire subclass.

I play champions almost exclusively, and currently have two of them in active games. I agree in a standard 5e game they may fall behind the power curve, however, as long as feats are permitted they are an extremely flexible class. And if custom backgrounds are allowed, even better.

If you are playing in a campaign that is going to kill Tiamat or whatever lunacy WotC has cooked up, 100% agree. If you can find a game with more grounded fantasy I only half agree. Champions are fine, but battle masters and eldritch knights ARE stronger :)

Agreed. Nothing at all wrong with Champion.

Quote from: Reckall on September 27, 2021, 11:04:31 AM
ICv2 seems to be of the same opinion.

https://icv2.com/articles/news/view/47054/rolling-initiative-a-case-possible-sale-wizards-coast-being-horizon

That was before Hasbro decided to instead elevate the importance of WOTC to their core, and put more of their stuff under WOTC control. This due to the fact almost every aspect of Hasbro went down in value and sales other than WOTC products.

Now if the D&D movie tanks, that could be a different story. But if it does even just "OK" I'd expect Hasbro to become even more of The-WOTC-Company.

I don't need new core books for D&D 5E.

Quote from: Jam The MF on September 27, 2021, 07:42:38 PM
I don't need new core books for D&D 5E.

  What you said, minus "new core books for".  ;D

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on September 27, 2021, 05:49:35 PM

Quote from: Shasarak on September 27, 2021, 05:45:58 PMSecond worst for me

I know plenty of people hate 4e, but design wise its got allot of good ideas (including ones good for grognards otherwise so many of its ideas wouldn't have carried over to SWN & WWN). It was let down more by its bad ideas.

I as a person value good ideas over my let down by bad ideas. 4e was misguided but had good ideas. 5es good ideas are mangled & weakened versions of what other editions did better before, and its bad ideas are its own.

I am not claiming that my hatred is logical.  I am sure that it has lots of good ideas and probably loves its mother too.

Quote from: Shasarak on September 27, 2021, 08:09:26 PMI am not claiming that my hatred is logical. 

And im not claiming your hate is illogical. It has PLENTY to hate. I just personally prefer flawed products with good or novel ideas (Star Wars Prequels) over shiny polished things with no new ideas (Star Wars Sequels).
There are many things from 4e I crib because their good ideas. There is precisely 1 idea I crib from 5e and everything else isn't even compitent.

QuoteI am sure that it has lots of good ideas and probably loves its mother too.

It does, but the house it bought for her was with money it got from selling drugs. =P

I skipped 3e, 3.5 and 4e.  By that pattern, I can skip 5.5e, 6e and 7e, right?  :P

Quote from: DM_Curt on September 27, 2021, 08:16:47 PM
I skipped 3e, 3.5 and 4e.  By that pattern, I can skip 5.5e, 6e and 7e, right?  :P

See you for 8e.

Quote from: Marchand on September 27, 2021, 08:27:32 PM

Quote from: DM_Curt on September 27, 2021, 08:16:47 PM
I skipped 3e, 3.5 and 4e.  By that pattern, I can skip 5.5e, 6e and 7e, right?  :P

See you for 8e.

I'll need a large-print copy by then, but I'll throw some holo-cubes with you if ya visit me at the old folks home, lol!   ;D

Quote from: DM_Curt on September 27, 2021, 08:16:47 PM
I skipped 3e, 3.5 and 4e.  By that pattern, I can skip 5.5e, 6e and 7e, right?  :P

No, by that pattern you need to play 5.5e.  Maybe even 6e if you included 0e in your play list.

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on September 27, 2021, 08:14:49 PM

Quote from: Shasarak on September 27, 2021, 08:09:26 PMI am not claiming that my hatred is logical. 

And im not claiming your hate is illogical. It has PLENTY to hate. I just personally prefer flawed products with good or novel ideas (Star Wars Prequels) over shiny polished things with no new ideas (Star Wars Sequels).
There are many things from 4e I crib because their good ideas. There is precisely 1 idea I crib from 5e and everything else isn't even compitent.

QuoteI am sure that it has lots of good ideas and probably loves its mother too.

It does, but the house it bought for her was with money it got from selling drugs. =P

The problem for me is that it really feels like the type of game that you would get if it killed DnD and wore it like a skin suit.

I mean, sure it has some really good recipes for cooking brains and on the other hand it has recipes for cooking brains.

A little over a year ago I said:

"I think a 6e release for the 50th anniversary of D&D will be too hard for WOTC to pa$$ up."

I was right that the 50th anniversary of D&D was too much of a temptation for WotC to pass up.

I was wrong about an explicit 6th edition.

Instead it seems that they have opted for what I would call a Soft 5.X* edition of the game...

Quote from: Mistwell on September 27, 2021, 06:14:46 PM

Quote from: Shasarak on September 26, 2021, 11:15:35 PM
New edition, eh?  I knew Wizards could not resist that sweet sweet new edition money.

I remember when those WotC shills were drinking the ever green cool-aid.  Good times

How is "backwards compatible" not evergreen?

Define "backwards compatible"?

AD&D2e was "backwards compatible" to 1e.
3.5 was "backwards compatible" to 3.0.
PF1 was "backwards compatible" to 3.5.

The majority of people that played the previous edition seemed to have wholesale moved on to the .5 or 2e version when it was released.

Hardly evergreen by anyone's definition.

Yet all claimed they were "Fully backwards compatible"...


IMHO WotC is being very clever about their soft 5.X* edition of the game:

Quote from: Eric Diaz on September 26, 2021, 09:53:18 PM...
I heard about this on Reddit. The talk was included in the Future of DnD panel (around eight hours in). As the redditor mentioned, "They used the words "new evolution" and "new version", but not "new edition". They also confirmed that it's going to be backwards compatible with 5e.".

Also "A living game that continues to grow and evolve." and "The next evolution of the game." ...

i.e. at least a 5.X* edition, but...

IMHO the 50th Anniversary of D&D in 2024 will be used to give them a lot of cover for this.

By just calling it: "50th Anniversary release of D&D" with no edition numbers; they are gonna get away with a ton of changes.

Just incorporating the errata and changes from the supplements to date will induce a cascade of small changes throughout the "50th Anniversary D&D" rules set.

And they have already said that they are going to do more survey's to see what the "fans" want in order to make the "50th Anniversary D&D Evolution" better...

In the preview of the upcoming: "Mordenkainen Presents Monsters of the Multiverse", Crawford has already stated that they flat out rebalanced all the monsters.

So yeah, nothing to see here folks...


* I deliberately use the .X, because as we all know trying to define the "50th Anniversary oh-so-special edition" of D&D by some filthy binary number would be wrong...

Quote from: Jaeger on September 27, 2021, 09:39:27 PM
A little over a year ago I said:

"I think a 6e release for the 50th anniversary of D&D will be too hard for WOTC to pa$$ up."

I was right that the 50th anniversary of D&D was too much of a temptation for WotC to pass up.

I was wrong about an explicit 6th edition.

Instead it seems that they have opted for what I would call a Soft 5.X* edition of the game...

Quote from: Mistwell on September 27, 2021, 06:14:46 PM

Quote from: Shasarak on September 26, 2021, 11:15:35 PM
New edition, eh?  I knew Wizards could not resist that sweet sweet new edition money.

I remember when those WotC shills were drinking the ever green cool-aid.  Good times

How is "backwards compatible" not evergreen?

Define "backwards compatible"?

AD&D2e was "backwards compatible" to 1e.
3.5 was "backwards compatible" to 3.0.
PF1 was "backwards compatible" to 3.5.

The majority of people that played the previous edition seemed to have wholesale moved on to the .5 or 2e version when it was released.

Hardly evergreen by anyone's definition.

Yet all claimed they were "Fully backwards compatible"...

For 5e they've consistently defined backwards compatible as stuff from the older book can be played as written along side stuff from the new book. 

So you can play a monster from an old book along with a monster from a new book, but you might find the old monster is not as balanced as the new monster. Which should be no problem.

PF was never claimed to be backwards compatible with 3e. It was claimed that if you play 3e you will find it nearly seamless to pick up PF. They never claimed you could play a 3e PC along side a Pathfinder PC though. 5e does make that claim about this.

Same with 1e and 2e. They never made a claim you could play portions of both at the same table and have it work just fine...because it couldn't.

I think we're going to see things like, "You can play the old version of the Champion, or the new version of the Champion, or even have a PC of one of each, and you won't see any problems at your table." Because the basic rules will remain the same, they're just going to rebalance classes like that (in that case to give the Champion sub-class probably more abilities).

Quote from: Shasarak on September 27, 2021, 08:44:59 PM

Quote from: DM_Curt on September 27, 2021, 08:16:47 PM
I skipped 3e, 3.5 and 4e.  By that pattern, I can skip 5.5e, 6e and 7e, right?  :P

No, by that pattern you need to play 5.5e.  Maybe even 6e if you included 0e in your play list.

Ah, shit. I played 0e, 1e, 2e....so I'll have to play those.

This gonna be so woke they might as well license Thirsty Sword Lesbians.

Quote from: Jaeger on September 27, 2021, 09:39:27 PM

Quote from: Mistwell on September 27, 2021, 06:14:46 PM

Quote from: Shasarak on September 26, 2021, 11:15:35 PM
New edition, eh?  I knew Wizards could not resist that sweet sweet new edition money.

I remember when those WotC shills were drinking the ever green cool-aid.  Good times

How is "backwards compatible" not evergreen?

Define "backwards compatible"?

That reminds me of the old saying "Speaking of the WotC shills...."

Quote from: Shasarak on September 27, 2021, 08:53:40 PMThe problem for me is that it really feels like the type of game that you would get if it killed DnD and wore it like a skin suit.

My issue with this sort of argument is that everybodies opinion on what the 'Soul' of D&D is very different from person to person, and the reason as to their reasons are important also vary.

For me, it often feel like for grognards (not always but often), the 'One and True' D&D was that one session they had that summer of 1986 with their big brother Sam before he died in a car accident. And that everything outside that session is a perversion by stupid idiots that don't know what they are missing, and are weaker people for playing the game in any other way then that session.

And so much leeway is given to the blatant flaws of the earlier system that they would thrash in any newer system.

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on September 27, 2021, 11:30:53 PM

Quote from: Shasarak on September 27, 2021, 08:53:40 PMThe problem for me is that it really feels like the type of game that you would get if it killed DnD and wore it like a skin suit.

My issue with this sort of argument is that everybodies opinion on what the 'Soul' of D&D is very different from person to person, and the reason as to their reasons are important also vary.

For me, it often feel like for grognards (not always but often), the 'One and True' D&D was that one session they had that summer of 1986 with their big brother Sam before he died in a car accident. And that everything outside that session is a perversion by stupid idiots that don't know what they are missing, and are weaker people for playing the game in any other way then that session.

And so much leeway is given to the blatant flaws of the earlier system that they would thrash in any newer system.

I guess you just dont know Sam the way I used to.

Quote from: Shasarak on September 27, 2021, 11:45:25 PMI guess you just dont know Sam the way I used to.

I can't but he seems like he was a good guy.

Would you say Stars/Worlds without number go against the spirit or soul of classic D&D?

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on September 27, 2021, 05:49:35 PM

Quote from: Shasarak on September 27, 2021, 05:45:58 PMSecond worst for me

I know plenty of people hate 4e, but design wise its got allot of good ideas (including ones good for grognards otherwise so many of its ideas wouldn't have carried over to SWN & WWN). It was let down more by its bad ideas.

It was not only the design: the fluff was just dire.

3/3.5E had the best fluff D&D ever saw. I collected all the books I was interested in and the simple act of reading them was already a pleasure. Many a times I just wanted to use these new cool ideas/places in my campaign as soon as possible. It was in this era, for example, that the Forgotten Realms really came to age.

4E was written for 5 years old superheroes fans without even understanding that 5 years old are smarter than that. I remember thinking, back in the day, that I could use 4E's fluff as a source of ideas even if the system was dire, only to discover how, all of sudden, they were writing for first graders (and, again, badly at that).

4E was a failure no matter from what angle you considered it. I still have my 3/3.5E collection, I and my players consistently had a great time with it, and I don't see a reason to move away from it for my fantasy games. 5E was interesting and I'm happy that it was successful but it never really clicked with us like 3/3.5E did.

Quote from: Reckall on September 27, 2021, 11:04:31 AM
ICv2 seems to be of the same opinion.

https://icv2.com/articles/news/view/47054/rolling-initiative-a-case-possible-sale-wizards-coast-being-horizon

I can't resist this nitpick.

QuoteFor decades, Hasbro has focused on either developing its own lucrative product lines (My Little Pony) or acquiring the licenses to hot or long lasting properties (Star Wars, Transformers).

Transformers has been a Hasbro property since 1984.

Yeah but a lot of the early Transformers designs were licensed from Takara's Diaclone line and a few other manufacturers like the defunct Takatoku.

Quote from: Jaeger on September 27, 2021, 09:39:27 PM
A little over a year ago I said:

"I think a 6e release for the 50th anniversary of D&D will be too hard for WOTC to pa$$ up."

I was right that the 50th anniversary of D&D was too much of a temptation for WotC to pass up.

Way back when 5e first came out, with it's emphasis on digital, I predicted that 5e would be the last version of D&D ever made. With the RPG simply being a placeholder game to maintain copyright while WotC transitions D&D away from being an RPG to being a multi-media franchise.

I wasn't right, but I wasn't 100% wrong either.

They're talking about "new formats." I predict this will mean softcover books. Inflation is a real thing to deal with now, and they're probably looking for ways to mitigate that.

I feel like we should have some kind of over/under on how many pages the new PHB will spend on "safety tools" and ideological harangues. I'm thinking probably "3 pages or less" vs. "more than 3 pages."

Quote from: Plotinus on September 28, 2021, 09:03:08 AM
I feel like we should have some kind of over/under on how many pages the new PHB will spend on "safety tools" and ideological harangues. I'm thinking probably "3 pages or less" vs. "more than 3 pages."

Put me down for over. It's scheduled for 2024, which is 3 more years for the Woke cancer to metastasize. If Trump runs for President in 2024, when 5.5 is due to be released, I wouldn't be surprised if it hits 5 pages.

(Up front, I'm not a Trump booster. I vote Libertarian when I can. I can just see how Trump running again will drive the Woke even more nuts.)

Quote from: Reckall on September 28, 2021, 03:06:00 AM4E was written for 5 years old superheroes fans without even understanding that 5 years old are smarter than that. I remember thinking, back in the day, that I could use 4E's fluff as a source of ideas even if the system was dire, only to discover how, all of sudden, they were writing for first graders (and, again, badly at that).

Jeez. I don't like 4e fluff either, but why is the insult always 'Superheroes'?

Lorewise again I find it doing arlight ideas just poorly executed and misguided.

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on September 28, 2021, 10:48:20 AM

Quote from: Reckall on September 28, 2021, 03:06:00 AM4E was written for 5 years old superheroes fans without even understanding that 5 years old are smarter than that. I remember thinking, back in the day, that I could use 4E's fluff as a source of ideas even if the system was dire, only to discover how, all of sudden, they were writing for first graders (and, again, badly at that).

Jeez. I don't like 4e fluff either, but why is the insult always 'Superheroes'?

While in previous editions, combat was about co-ordinating efforts to succeed, 4e really turned this up to an "11", with abilities that synergize to produce an effect greater than the sum of it's parts. Area of Effect attacks and abilites that buff allies and weaken opponenets, pushing enemies around the battlefield. It felt very much like a fight scene from X-Men or Fantastic Four, where the superheroes riff off of each other's abilities. Which is fine for a superhero game, but it was another element of 4e that went too far and didn't "feel" like what people liked from previous editions.

Quote from: Mistwell on September 27, 2021, 09:55:59 PM
For 5e they've consistently defined backwards compatible as stuff from the older book can be played as written along side stuff from the new book. 

That may be the standard for their current 5e splat book releases.

But everyone knows that it is a standard that even they are unable to really keep. Twilight Cleric anyone? And I am sure a true 5e aficionado could point out more than a few other issues.

But we are not talking about current 5e. We are talking about the "50th Anniversary release of D&D" which according to Ray Winninger's own words is: "A living game that continues to grow and evolve." and "The next evolution of the game."


As to my backward compatibility claims made for previous editions that you so roundly dismissed:

We've done similar dances before my friend.

Back for more eh!?

I am happy to comply...

Quote from: Mistwell on September 27, 2021, 09:55:59 PM
PF was never claimed to be backwards compatible with 3e. It was claimed that if you play 3e you will find it nearly seamless to pick up PF. They never claimed you could play a 3e PC along side a Pathfinder PC though. 5e does make that claim about this.

Except:
https://paizo.com/community/blog/tags/paizo/auntieLisasStoryHour
Lisa Stevens said...
"We also had to make a huge decision about how far we were going to stray from the 3.5 SRD. Our alpha playtest had introduced a number of new systems that pushed the boundaries of backwards compatibility. Ultimately, we decided to keep Pathfinder fairly close to its 3.5 roots while using years and years of GM experiences to update and fine-tune the system. We certainly didn't fix everything we could have in 3.5—some issues are endemic to the math underlying the core system—but we did fix a lot of the problem areas.

So why did we swing the pendulum toward backward compatibility? Because our customers were telling us that they didn't want their trove of 3.0 and 3.5 books to become obsolete. Everyone had a pile of Wizards of the Coast products, of course, but the OGL and the d20 license had also inspired an explosion of print and PDF books the likes of which the gaming industry had never before seen. And we really wanted people to be able to use all of those products with Pathfinder. For the most part, I think that we did a good job striking the balance between compatibility and innovation."

How well did they do?

They certainly gave it the 'Ol WotC try it seems:
https://icv2.com/articles/games/view/2104/wizards-coast-goes-beyond-3rd-edition
"According to WOTC the revised editions of the core rulebooks will be fully compatible with existing D&D backlist items, and will also contain instructions on how to meld any new information with current campaigns and adventures.  The revised editions will include content from books that have been published since the Third Edition core books came out in 2000."

How did all that work out for the 3.0 players when 3.5 came out?

Oh yeah, that's right...

Quote from: Mistwell on September 27, 2021, 09:55:59 PM
Same with 1e and 2e. They never made a claim you could play portions of both at the same table and have it work just fine...because it couldn't.

Except it is common knowledge that:

"Initially, the 2nd edition was planned to consolidate the game, but more changes were made during development, while still aiming at backwards compatibility with 1st edition."

And from people who actually play the game:
https://www.reddit.com/r/adnd/comments/4m9vun/add_and_add_2nd_edition_are_the_rules_compatible/
"You can use 1e PHB classes in 2e w/o much issues. You can use a lot of the mechanics in the 1e DMG in 2e if you like w/o much issues.
I would default to 2e's rules mechanics when they exist over 1e in most cases since they have been "fixed" or "streamlined" (like initiative).
So yeah, I'd say 98% compatibility is accurate.
2e is much more organized and easier to find things. It is also a lot drier to read versus the 1e DMG. I think both editions are good to check out but if you only have one choice I'd go with 2e strictly for ease of use."

Tantras and Waterdeep modules include "how-to" compatibility notes as it was right around the change:
"This adventure is written using the terminology and rules of the 2nd Edition ADVANCED DUNGEONS & DRAGONS® game, but is still easily playable by those who are using the original game materials. Some of the more noticeable differences are changes in name only. ... Although the information is organized differently and has been somewhat expanded, nothing from the original format has been omitted; everything that 1st Edition DMs are accustomed to seeing is still provided in the new descriptive format. The page on which the quelzarn description appears can be photocopied and inserted in a Monstrous Compendium binder if the DM so desires."

By anyone's standards: TSR was touting AD&D2e's "backwards compatibility" from the beginning.

AD&D2e, along with PF1, 3.5, all had statements about their "backwards compatibility" with the previous editions. Whether or not they succeeded, or to what degree they were actually compatible, is irrelevant!

They all made the same Marketing Statement that WotC is making right now about the "50th Anniversary release of D&D".


These go quite well together:

Quote from: Mistwell on September 27, 2021, 09:55:59 PM
So you can play a monster from an old book along with a monster from a new book, but you might find the old monster is not as balanced as the new monster. Which should be no problem.

Quote from: Mistwell on September 27, 2021, 09:55:59 PM
I think we're going to see things like, "You can play the old version of the Champion, or the new version of the Champion, or even have a PC of one of each, and you won't see any problems at your table." Because the basic rules will remain the same, they're just going to rebalance classes like that (in that case to give the Champion sub-class probably more abilities).

"You know what, I'll play the less optimal older version of the Champion, you go ahead and play the new hotness that is a bit better, I'll be fine." Said no player ever.

"Hey guys go ahead and bring your old 5e books so that we can reference them if there are issues, because you know I'm all about having to deal with older versions of the rules at my table."

I'm sure that will be the universal standard for GMs going forward in 2024...


What did WotC say back with the 3.5 release?
"WOTC's D&D design team noted that the main impetus for revision came from 'consumer feedback that has provided us with a wealth of information for making our books richer in depth and easier in gameplay.'"

Sounds familiar doesn't it?

That WotC brand Kool-Aid must be so soothing...

Quote from: hedgehobbit on September 28, 2021, 07:59:57 AM
Way back when 5e first came out, with it's emphasis on digital, I predicted that 5e would be the last version of D&D ever made. With the RPG simply being a placeholder game to maintain copyright while WotC transitions D&D away from being an RPG to being a multi-media franchise.

I wasn't right, but I wasn't 100% wrong either.

In some cases, over target is good enough.

You are not wrong, Hasbro is putting big $$$ behind making D&D a brand outside of the RPG.


IMHO what is really interesting is the complete lack of real pushback I'm seeing on other forums of the upcoming 5.X edition in 2024.

The 50th anniversary is going to give them a lot of cover, and they are careful to never use the phrase "edition" when talking about the 2024 revisions in the video.

I think they will totally get away with it because it will be building off of the 5e core, and 10 years out is much more palatable turn around for a new edition than the one that they pulled with 3.5.

10 years for an "edition" will make the transition for those interested. In utter vain I wish WH40K would space out there editions closer to every 10 years.

Quote from: Ratman_tf on September 28, 2021, 02:01:34 PM
While in previous editions, combat was about co-ordinating efforts to succeed, 4e really turned this up to an "11", with abilities that synergize to produce an effect greater than the sum of it's parts. Area of Effect attacks and abilites that buff allies and weaken opponenets, pushing enemies around the battlefield. It felt very much like a fight scene from X-Men or Fantastic Four, where the superheroes riff off of each other's abilities. Which is fine for a superhero game, but it was another element of 4e that went too far and didn't "feel" like what people liked from previous editions.

That's a great description of how 4E played at the table. I didn't play much of it, but the few times we tried it, it reminded me of Champions. Aside from the HP bloat, which made fights drag on far too long.

Quote from: Jaeger on September 28, 2021, 02:52:08 PM

Quote from: Mistwell on September 27, 2021, 09:55:59 PM
For 5e they've consistently defined backwards compatible as stuff from the older book can be played as written along side stuff from the new book. 

That may be the standard for their current 5e splat book releases.

But everyone knows that it is a standard that even they are unable to really keep. Twilight Cleric anyone?

I am playing a Twilight character alongside some PHB classes, and we're not having issues. So, not sure what your point is?

QuoteExcept:
https://paizo.com/community/blog/tags/paizo/auntieLisasStoryHour
Lisa Stevens said...
"We also had to make a huge decision about how far we were going to stray from the 3.5 SRD. Our alpha playtest had introduced a number of new systems that pushed the boundaries of backwards compatibility. Ultimately, we decided to keep Pathfinder fairly close to its 3.5 roots while using years and years of GM experiences to update and fine-tune the system. We certainly didn't fix everything we could have in 3.5—some issues are endemic to the math underlying the core system—but we did fix a lot of the problem areas.

So why did we swing the pendulum toward backward compatibility? Because our customers were telling us that they didn't want their trove of 3.0 and 3.5 books to become obsolete. Everyone had a pile of Wizards of the Coast products, of course, but the OGL and the d20 license had also inspired an explosion of print and PDF books the likes of which the gaming industry had never before seen. And we really wanted people to be able to use all of those products with Pathfinder. For the most part, I think that we did a good job striking the balance between compatibility and innovation."

How well did they do?

I had never seen that quote. Well Lisa was definitely telling a big fat ole fib there!

QuoteThey certainly gave it the 'Ol WotC try it seems:
https://icv2.com/articles/games/view/2104/wizards-coast-goes-beyond-3rd-edition
"According to WOTC the revised editions of the core rulebooks will be fully compatible with existing D&D backlist items, and will also contain instructions on how to meld any new information with current campaigns and adventures.  The revised editions will include content from books that have been published since the Third Edition core books came out in 2000."

How did all that work out for the 3.0 players when 3.5 came out?

On that one for the most part it did work OK that way for our group. We did mix materials for quite a number of years.

Quote from: Mistwell on September 27, 2021, 09:55:59 PM
So you can play a monster from an old book along with a monster from a new book, but you might find the old monster is not as balanced as the new monster. Which should be no problem.

Quote from: Mistwell on September 27, 2021, 09:55:59 PM
I think we're going to see things like, "You can play the old version of the Champion, or the new version of the Champion, or even have a PC of one of each, and you won't see any problems at your table." Because the basic rules will remain the same, they're just going to rebalance classes like that (in that case to give the Champion sub-class probably more abilities).

Quote"You know what, I'll play the less optimal older version of the Champion, you go ahead and play the new hotness that is a bit better, I'll be fine." Said no player ever.

This idea that everyone cares about optimization is, frankly, nonsense. Particularly from an OSR fan it's laughable. Yes, many people do not care about that level of balance in their game. If you do, cool.

As an aside, is D&D the last big brand requiring millennials to buy actual dead tree books?

I can imagine the system migrating entirely onto an app that does the rules for you as you respond to natural-language questions.

Quote from: Ratman_tf on September 28, 2021, 02:01:34 PMWhile in previous editions, combat was about co-ordinating efforts to succeed, 4e really turned this up to an "11", with abilities that synergize to produce an effect greater than the sum of it's parts. Area of Effect attacks and abilites that buff allies and weaken opponenets, pushing enemies around the battlefield. It felt very much like a fight scene from X-Men or Fantastic Four, where the superheroes riff off of each other's abilities.

.....I have never felt that was what described Superhero combat. I wouldn't use that to describe Superhero comics, or TV shows or movies. Thats possibly one of the LEAST accurate ways I have ever heard superhero combat described.
I mean there is the one token gag in each film where the tough guy chucks one guy at another but thats about it.
If there is one word that DOESN'T describe Superhero combat, its 'Tactical'.

Superhero combat ranges wildly depending on power level, but the rule of thumb (for the iconic better examples) is improvisational, highly mobile, and contextual.

A few weak-ass minor push abilities and some buffs/debuffs (that are not all spells, which D&D had always had bucketloads of from the very start and practically invented the idea of buffing/ debuffing enemies/allies), and thats whats described as Superhero combat? A genre where characters rarely buff/heal/debuff (unless you count a net as a debuff).

Videogamey, self-involved, padded, ridgid, grindy - those are insult style adjectives you could throw at 4e combat, but SUPERHERO? Thats a deep insult to Superheroic combat!

My personal insult is 'Bumper-Cars'. There is pushing and shoving, but its all very padded. The experience is very restrictive compared to driving a real car and feeling real momentum.

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on September 28, 2021, 09:53:27 PM

Quote from: Ratman_tf on September 28, 2021, 02:01:34 PMWhile in previous editions, combat was about co-ordinating efforts to succeed, 4e really turned this up to an "11", with abilities that synergize to produce an effect greater than the sum of it's parts. Area of Effect attacks and abilites that buff allies and weaken opponenets, pushing enemies around the battlefield. It felt very much like a fight scene from X-Men or Fantastic Four, where the superheroes riff off of each other's abilities.

.....I have never felt that was what described Superhero combat. I wouldn't use that to describe Superhero comics, or TV shows or movies. Thats possibly one of the LEAST accurate ways I have ever heard superhero combat described.
I mean there is the one token gag in each film where the tough guy chucks one guy at another but thats about it.
If there is one word that DOESN'T describe Superhero combat, its 'Tactical'.

Superhero combat ranges wildly depending on power level, but the rule of thumb (for the iconic better examples) is improvisational, highly mobile, and contextual.

A few weak-ass minor push abilities and some buffs/debuffs (that are not all spells, which D&D had always had bucketloads of from the very start and practically invented the idea of buffing/ debuffing enemies/allies), and thats whats described as Superhero combat? A genre where characters rarely buff/heal/debuff (unless you count a net as a debuff).

Videogamey, self-involved, padded, ridgid, grindy - those are insult style adjectives you could throw at 4e combat, but SUPERHERO? Thats a deep insult to Superheroic combat!

My personal insult is 'Bumper-Cars'. There is pushing and shoving, but its all very padded. The experience is very restrictive compared to driving a real car and feeling real momentum.

Its pretty easy to explain the "Super-hero" problem of 4e if you come at it from the perspective of being a DnD player.  Everyone gets spells that recharge over the space of 5 minutes together with a but load of HP and fighting monsters that hit like a Nerf bat.

Frankly a 4e character just feels super heroic in comparison to a DnD character.

From the perspective of a super hero player then yeah the comparison seems illogical.

Quote from: Jaeger on September 28, 2021, 03:14:19 PM

You are not wrong, Hasbro is putting big $$$ behind making D&D a brand outside of the RPG.

Are they, though?

Where's the posters, the lunch-boxes, the flood of new video games, the multiple TV shows, an official Hasbro/D&D Youtube channel, clothes (and no, 80s tees and that one guy who makes incredibly overpriced junk jewelry don't count), placemats, branded cereal, etc.

I think they'd like it if D&D was a big brand but I don't see them pushing it outside the RPG, really, at all.  They, Papa Hasbro, are fine with letting WotC do all the heavy lifting.  And WotC can only lift so much, apparently.

Organic things like Stranger Things or D&D showing up in The Goldbergs is pleasant happenstance.  Script-writers and show runners are late 40s early 50s gen-xers who were nerds during the times those shows' plots are set in, not because WotC went out beating the bushes asking companies to feature their stuff in their shows.

WotC made Cartoon Network - a CBS/Viacom company! - change the name of an episode of Dexter's Lab from "D & Dee Dee" to "Sisters and Sorcery" because they felt it was "too close" to D&D, despite Genndy Tartakovsky saying it was a near-copy of a game of D&D he played with his friends, and wanted to honor it (to be fair though that episode is from the late 1990s...); but they just as easily could have left it alone and let that good will build up.

I know a lot of people (myself included) have grumbled about the reinvention of D&D as a Lifestyle Brand (I'm sorry - when people say "Lifestyle brand" all I can think of is that they're putting their product name on condoms...but I digress), and within the arena of gaming geeks who already know what D&D is that's been very true.

But to my eyes, there's been zero lateral movement, which is what you'd see if they were really "putting big $$$" behind making it a popular brand.

Quote from: Shasarak on September 28, 2021, 10:56:05 PMIts pretty easy to explain the "Super-hero" problem of 4e if you come at it from the perspective of being a DnD player.

Have the same problems haunt the system over a period of 40 years but its only a problem some of the times when you feel like it?  :P

D&D as a whole is one of the last systems to even HAVE hit points (in the buckets of hit dice sort of way) because other games have phased it out. While the degree of padding has varied, D&D has always been a game where you scale to where bites from Bears suddenly don't really matter. Thats kinda the issue of tying hit points to level as a whole.

The powers as a whole are generally unimpressive number fodder, and I would say the firepower characters from older editions of D&D way outclass what they had in 4e. If you wanted to become a bear in older D&D, your wizard just cast the spell and your that (alongside your long distance teleportation and army of zombies). If you want to be a bear in D&D 4e, you could only really do that as a druid (with a specific build) once per day for 15 minutes. And thats it. Any of that other stuff required expensive rituals with hard restrictions to not have any in-combat use.

Everybody having 15 minute recharge 'spells' is a whole lot less impressive when all the spells do is some variant of damage, short duration, debuff, or short distance move. And if anything ever actually does anything else, then its a daily power that lasts for 15 minutes and can be used once per day. And everybody hits with nerf bats.

D&D 4e characters are less vulnerable then earlier editions, but reduced vulnerability =/= superheroics. And D&D vulnerability has always been lopsided and weird.

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on September 28, 2021, 11:22:26 PM

Quote from: Shasarak on September 28, 2021, 10:56:05 PMIts pretty easy to explain the "Super-hero" problem of 4e if you come at it from the perspective of being a DnD player.

Have the same problems haunt the system over a period of 40 years but its only a problem some of the times when you feel like it?  :P

D&D as a whole is one of the last systems to even HAVE hit points (in the buckets of hit dice sort of way) because other games have phased it out. While the degree of padding has varied, D&D has always been a game where you scale to where bites from Bears suddenly don't really matter. Thats kinda the issue of tying hit points to level as a whole.

The powers as a whole are generally unimpressive number fodder, and I would say the firepower characters from older editions of D&D way outclass what they had in 4e. If you wanted to become a bear in older D&D, your wizard just cast the spell and your that (alongside your long distance teleportation and army of zombies). If you want to be a bear in D&D 4e, you could only really do that as a druid (with a specific build) once per day for 15 minutes. And thats it. Any of that other stuff required expensive rituals with hard restrictions to not have any in-combat use.

Everybody having 15 minute recharge 'spells' is a whole lot less impressive when all the spells do is some variant of damage, short duration, debuff, or short distance move. And if anything ever actually does anything else, then its a daily power that lasts for 15 minutes and can be used once per day. And everybody hits with nerf bats.

D&D 4e characters are less vulnerable then earlier editions, but reduced vulnerability =/= superheroics. And D&D vulnerability has always been lopsided and weird.

Usually the scale in DnD where bites from bears does not matter does not start at level 1 though.

Even 5th edition makes early levels dangerous and that was the second worst edition of DnD.

Quote from: Shasarak on September 28, 2021, 11:33:50 PMUsually the scale in DnD where bites from bears does not matter does not start at level 1 though.

Even 5th edition makes early levels dangerous and that was the second worst edition of DnD.

This is goalpost shifting.

I would argue that 5th edition D&D is significantly less dangerous then 4e. Because of the tripple death-save system (which resets whenever you are at 1+ HP), you basically need to be quaddrupple-tapped in order to die unless its of massive damage (Which becomes immensly unlikely very fast).
Its trivially easy to keep a meat-shield safe with even basic healing spells (or even cantrips).

4e has a hard-healing cap after which you just can't get healed at all. 4e has a tripple death save as well, but it actually doesn't reset when you are healed in combat, and tracks HP in the negatives so damage you take while down is pretty important.

And I don't even like any style of D&D combat at all. I am debating D&D from a perspective of somebody who by and large doesn't like how D&D is structured.

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on September 28, 2021, 09:53:27 PM

Quote from: Ratman_tf on September 28, 2021, 02:01:34 PMWhile in previous editions, combat was about co-ordinating efforts to succeed, 4e really turned this up to an "11", with abilities that synergize to produce an effect greater than the sum of it's parts. Area of Effect attacks and abilites that buff allies and weaken opponenets, pushing enemies around the battlefield. It felt very much like a fight scene from X-Men or Fantastic Four, where the superheroes riff off of each other's abilities.

.....I have never felt that was what described Superhero combat. I wouldn't use that to describe Superhero comics, or TV shows or movies. Thats possibly one of the LEAST accurate ways I have ever heard superhero combat described.
I mean there is the one token gag in each film where the tough guy chucks one guy at another but thats about it.
If there is one word that DOESN'T describe Superhero combat, its 'Tactical'.

Good thing I didn't use the word 'Tactical' then. :)

QuoteSuperhero combat ranges wildly depending on power level, but the rule of thumb (for the iconic better examples) is improvisational, highly mobile, and contextual.

A few weak-ass minor push abilities and some buffs/debuffs (that are not all spells, which D&D had always had bucketloads of from the very start and practically invented the idea of buffing/ debuffing enemies/allies), and thats whats described as Superhero combat? A genre where characters rarely buff/heal/debuff (unless you count a net as a debuff).

Videogamey, self-involved, padded, ridgid, grindy - those are insult style adjectives you could throw at 4e combat, but SUPERHERO? Thats a deep insult to Superheroic combat!

Now you're just nitpicking that it isn't exactly like superhero combat, which I did not claim.

Quote from: wmarshal on September 28, 2021, 08:25:17 AM
They're talking about "new formats." I predict this will mean softcover books. Inflation is a real thing to deal with now, and they're probably looking for ways to mitigate that.

I could possibly see Softcovers, but also more limited edition Hardcovers.

Quote from: Ratman_tf on September 29, 2021, 12:04:42 AMNow you're just nitpicking that it isn't exactly like superhero combat, which I did not claim.

Its not like it at all. And im not nitpicking. Im rejecting the idea completly.

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on September 28, 2021, 11:58:34 PM

Quote from: Shasarak on September 28, 2021, 11:33:50 PMUsually the scale in DnD where bites from bears does not matter does not start at level 1 though.

Even 5th edition makes early levels dangerous and that was the second worst edition of DnD.

This is goalpost shifting.

Hang on, what goal posts do you think are shifting?

Quote
I would argue that 5th edition D&D is significantly less dangerous then 4e. Because of the tripple death-save system (which resets whenever you are at 1+ HP), you basically need to be quaddrupple-tapped in order to die unless its of massive damage (Which becomes immensly unlikely very fast).
Its trivially easy to keep a meat-shield safe with even basic healing spells (or even cantrips).

4e has a hard-healing cap after which you just can't get healed at all. 4e has a tripple death save as well, but it actually doesn't reset when you are healed in combat, and tracks HP in the negatives so damage you take while down is pretty important.

And I don't even like any style of D&D combat at all. I am debating D&D from a perspective of somebody who by and large doesn't like how D&D is structured.

Really, you want me to defend the second worst edition?  Ok, well since you brought it up, the hard-healing cap in 4e is the worst  thought out mechanic since, I dont know, skill challenges.

In my experience either you never hit the healing cap, in which case why have a healing cap, or if someone does run out of surges its probably because the striker got hammered and just forces the whole party to stop for their long rest.

"Sorry man, the magic potion just does not work on you any more but normal resting is fine."

Quote from: Mistwell on September 28, 2021, 07:08:37 PM
I am playing a Twilight character alongside some PHB classes, and we're not having issues. So, not sure what your point is?

You may not have issues with your specific group, but other have had them, and that is just one example out of many that people have.

You're not that blind or naïve.

One look at the threads on other forums and you can already see people mentioning the different things that will need rebalancing and tweaking.

Quote from: Mistwell on September 28, 2021, 07:08:37 PM
On that one for the most part it did work OK that way for our group. We did mix materials for quite a number of years.

Yup, not Fully backward compatible. 3.0 was not an evergreen rules set. Just OK...

And so did the 2eAD&D guys with an edition that you said: "Same with 1e and 2e. They never made a claim you could play portions of both at the same table and have it work just fine... because it couldn't."

Yet Somehow they made it work... But they key word here is they had to do work.

Quote from: Mistwell on September 27, 2021, 09:55:59 PM
This idea that everyone cares about optimization is, frankly, nonsense. Particularly from an OSR fan it's laughable. Yes, many people do not care about that level of balance in their game. If you do, cool.

Congratulations. You are "that group". The one who did X, used Y, played Z, and had "no issues whatsoever..."

You can always find the edge cases.

But for the most part in every edition change that touted "backwards compatibility", the majority of the games player base just moved on to the new hotness.

Why?

Because no matter what the edition, making older material work with the new hotness was always took some level of work.

People play RPGs for fun - not work.

Which is why the majority of fans almost always abandon the old and busted for the new hotness.


Which brings us back full circle...

Quote from: Mistwell on September 27, 2021, 06:14:46 PM
How is "backwards compatible" not evergreen?

Because even by your own admissions no edition of D&D ever was really Fully backwards compatible.

Not Fully backwards compatible. = Not Evergreen.

The changes coming to 50th 5.X D&D will make 5e a non-evergreen game by default.

Because 50th 5.X D&D will effectively be be a new edition.

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on September 29, 2021, 12:14:03 AM

Quote from: Ratman_tf on September 29, 2021, 12:04:42 AMNow you're just nitpicking that it isn't exactly like superhero combat, which I did not claim.

Its not like it at all. And im not nitpicking. Im rejecting the idea completly.

Ok. And I stand by my comparison.

Quote from: Mistwell on September 28, 2021, 07:08:37 PM
I am playing a Twilight character alongside some PHB classes, and we're not having issues. So, not sure what your point is?

I just started a new game & allowed a Twilight Cleric, so I'd like to know too! I recall he has some kind of massive temp hp granting power.

Re 4e D&D, I love it and it does feel a lot like 'fantasy superheroes'. Partly in the dramatic (albeit often slow-mo) combat, eg the 'signature moves' that Just Work. But even moreso in how the characters feel out of combat, how they interact with the world. I definitely look to superhero films to inform 4e GMing and play, where for other editions I might think more of fantasy literature, or 1980s sword & sorcery films.

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on September 28, 2021, 11:22:26 PM
The powers as a whole are generally unimpressive number fodder, and I would say the firepower characters from older editions of D&D way outclass what they had in 4e. If you wanted to become a bear in older D&D, your wizard just cast the spell and your that (alongside your long distance teleportation and army of zombies). If you want to be a bear in D&D 4e, you could only really do that as a druid (with a specific build) once per day for 15 minutes. And thats it. Any of that other stuff required expensive rituals with hard restrictions to not have any in-combat use.

I'd say that 4e PCs both feel like Superheroes, AND are more limited than PCs in other editions. A high level 3e Wizard is way beyond Superhero level. :)

Quote from: S'mon on September 29, 2021, 02:25:47 AM
I just started a new game & allowed a Twilight Cleric, so I'd like to know too! I recall he has some kind of massive temp hp granting power.
...

That's the jist.

A simple search and you can find why some consider it "OP" for the game...

But it is a complete side issue to my main point that WotC doesn't perfectly playtest everything in the splats.

It's literally just not possible.

Even if they just integrated the corrections and improvements done to various aspects of the game, that is a ton of little changes to integrate and balance. It would put the 50th "not-edition" 5.X game firmly into a 5.5 revision space.

And of course they have publicly stated that they are going to do a new round of 'surveys' to make the 50th "not-edition" even better...

Quote from: thedungeondelver on September 28, 2021, 11:03:07 PM

Quote from: Jaeger on September 28, 2021, 03:14:19 PM

You are not wrong, Hasbro is putting big $$$ behind making D&D a brand outside of the RPG.

Are they, though?

Where's the posters, the lunch-boxes, the flood of new video games, the multiple TV shows, an official Hasbro/D&D Youtube channel, clothes (and no, 80s tees and that one guy who makes incredibly overpriced junk jewelry don't count), placemats, branded cereal, etc.

I think they'd like it if D&D was a big brand but I don't see them pushing it outside the RPG, really, at all.  They, Papa Hasbro, are fine with letting WotC do all the heavy lifting.  And WotC can only lift so much, apparently.

Organic things like Stranger Things or D&D showing up in The Goldbergs is pleasant happenstance.  Script-writers and show runners are late 40s early 50s gen-xers who were nerds during the times those shows' plots are set in, not because WotC went out beating the bushes asking companies to feature their stuff in their shows.

WotC made Cartoon Network - a CBS/Viacom company! - change the name of an episode of Dexter's Lab from "D & Dee Dee" to "Sisters and Sorcery" because they felt it was "too close" to D&D, despite Genndy Tartakovsky saying it was a near-copy of a game of D&D he played with his friends, and wanted to honor it (to be fair though that episode is from the late 1990s...); but they just as easily could have left it alone and let that good will build up.

I know a lot of people (myself included) have grumbled about the reinvention of D&D as a Lifestyle Brand (I'm sorry - when people say "Lifestyle brand" all I can think of is that they're putting their product name on condoms...but I digress), and within the arena of gaming geeks who already know what D&D is that's been very true.

But to my eyes, there's been zero lateral movement, which is what you'd see if they were really "putting big $$$" behind making it a popular brand.

I have to agree with this.

If Hasbro was putting their shoulder into pushing D&D further mainstream we should be seeing a lot more, for lack of a better word, 'stuff'.

It should be like the gag in Spaceballs, where Yogurt is banging on about merchandising. Or if you prefer a real-world comparison, remember how big Star Wars was? Hell, I had Star Wars bedsheets as a kid, and a lunchbox.

Quote from: Shasarak on September 28, 2021, 11:33:50 PM

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on September 28, 2021, 11:22:26 PM

Quote from: Shasarak on September 28, 2021, 10:56:05 PMIts pretty easy to explain the "Super-hero" problem of 4e if you come at it from the perspective of being a DnD player.

Have the same problems haunt the system over a period of 40 years but its only a problem some of the times when you feel like it?  :P

D&D as a whole is one of the last systems to even HAVE hit points (in the buckets of hit dice sort of way) because other games have phased it out. While the degree of padding has varied, D&D has always been a game where you scale to where bites from Bears suddenly don't really matter. Thats kinda the issue of tying hit points to level as a whole.

The powers as a whole are generally unimpressive number fodder, and I would say the firepower characters from older editions of D&D way outclass what they had in 4e. If you wanted to become a bear in older D&D, your wizard just cast the spell and your that (alongside your long distance teleportation and army of zombies). If you want to be a bear in D&D 4e, you could only really do that as a druid (with a specific build) once per day for 15 minutes. And thats it. Any of that other stuff required expensive rituals with hard restrictions to not have any in-combat use.

Everybody having 15 minute recharge 'spells' is a whole lot less impressive when all the spells do is some variant of damage, short duration, debuff, or short distance move. And if anything ever actually does anything else, then its a daily power that lasts for 15 minutes and can be used once per day. And everybody hits with nerf bats.

D&D 4e characters are less vulnerable then earlier editions, but reduced vulnerability =/= superheroics. And D&D vulnerability has always been lopsided and weird.

Usually the scale in DnD where bites from bears does not matter does not start at level 1 though.

Nor did it in 4E.

A starting PC has an AC of about 16-18, 24-30 hit points and has a +6-7 to hit w. a weapon that deals about 1d8+4 damage.

A basic bear in 4E is a level 5 Brute with AC 17 and 80 hit points (so about twenty attacks/10 hits needed for a 1st level party to kill it) and its claw attack is +10 to hit (so hits a PC on a 6-8+) and deals 2d8+7 damage (average 16 damage) and on its first turn it can attack twice and if either hits it grabs the target and gets a free bite attack at the start of its turn for another 1d8+5 damage (ave. 9.5). The bear gets to do it again when it drops to 40 hit points or less.

A first level PC in 4E is very likely dead from that opening attack from the bear.

* * *

The mistake that a lot of critics about 4E make is they only look at the raw numbers for the PCs and not the things they're actually facing.

A Goblin Cutthroat has 30 hit points and deals 1d6+5 per hit (8.5 average damage) or 2d6+5 (12 damage) if they have combat advantage, which since they can shift 15' for free every turn without triggering opportunity attacks is super easy to get if they have any numbers. Three hits with advantage will drop even the fighter with his 30 hit points (and without advantage it takes 4 hits).

A 1st level PC dying in 3 hits to a goblin? Sounds a lot like every edition of D&D ever.

How about an Orc? They're at least level 3; the representative example is the Battletested Orc; 50 hit points, AC 19, and deals 1d10+5 damage (10.5 average) or 1d10+10 (15.5) on a charge, and gets a free swing on you before it dies if you kill it.

* * *

And PC's don't have nearly the hit point inflation of the other WotC editions because they get a static value per level that is unaffected by your Constitution score.

At level 1 a 4E fighter with an 14 Con has 29 hp while a 5e fighter w. 14 Con has 12 hp.

At level 10 the 4E fighter has 83 hp. The 5e, presuming they didn't use any ASI on Con has 84 hp using their flat gain instead of rolling.

At level 20 the 4E fighter has 144 hp, while a 5e fighter who never improved their Con has 164 hp.

A 5e Fighter who maxed their Con (pretty easy with the extra ASIs) could have 224 hp at level 20.

A 4E Fighter has, at most, starting with an 18 Con, improving it at every possible opportunity and using feats 229 hp... at level THIRTY... ten levels after the 5e Fighter.

4E's healing surges also function as a CAP on healing per day, not an augment. Every time the cleric heals a PC, the PC has to burn one of the surges to have the healing take effect. If they run out, then they can't recover any more hit points no matter how many healing words you use on the PC.

5e's Hit Dice and the Fighter's second wind are bonus hit points on top of any magical healing the cleric delivers, which the cleric can do to the limits of the spell capacity on a single PC if they desire.

* * * *

I don't mind legitimate criticism of 4E; there's plenty you can level (if there weren't they system I've been working on would still look like a 4E retroclone and not its own thing entirely)... but its really annoying when people level made-up shit about 4E it in order to deride it.

Quote from: Shasarak on September 28, 2021, 10:56:05 PM

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on September 28, 2021, 09:53:27 PM

Quote from: Ratman_tf on September 28, 2021, 02:01:34 PMWhile in previous editions, combat was about co-ordinating efforts to succeed, 4e really turned this up to an "11", with abilities that synergize to produce an effect greater than the sum of it's parts. Area of Effect attacks and abilites that buff allies and weaken opponenets, pushing enemies around the battlefield. It felt very much like a fight scene from X-Men or Fantastic Four, where the superheroes riff off of each other's abilities.

.....I have never felt that was what described Superhero combat. I wouldn't use that to describe Superhero comics, or TV shows or movies. Thats possibly one of the LEAST accurate ways I have ever heard superhero combat described.
I mean there is the one token gag in each film where the tough guy chucks one guy at another but thats about it.
If there is one word that DOESN'T describe Superhero combat, its 'Tactical'.

Superhero combat ranges wildly depending on power level, but the rule of thumb (for the iconic better examples) is improvisational, highly mobile, and contextual.

A few weak-ass minor push abilities and some buffs/debuffs (that are not all spells, which D&D had always had bucketloads of from the very start and practically invented the idea of buffing/ debuffing enemies/allies), and thats whats described as Superhero combat? A genre where characters rarely buff/heal/debuff (unless you count a net as a debuff).

Videogamey, self-involved, padded, ridgid, grindy - those are insult style adjectives you could throw at 4e combat, but SUPERHERO? Thats a deep insult to Superheroic combat!

My personal insult is 'Bumper-Cars'. There is pushing and shoving, but its all very padded. The experience is very restrictive compared to driving a real car and feeling real momentum.

Its pretty easy to explain the "Super-hero" problem of 4e if you come at it from the perspective of being a DnD player.  Everyone gets spells that recharge over the space of 5 minutes together with a but load of HP and fighting monsters that hit like a Nerf bat.

Frankly a 4e character just feels super heroic in comparison to a DnD character.

From the perspective of a super hero player then yeah the comparison seems illogical.

Also, the characters already start as "Heroes" (and not simply in a narrative way) only to became "Paragons" on the 11th level and "Epic" on the 21st. Basically, the party started as THE AVENGERS and grew from there.

I've been off the treadmill since the end of 2e. I almost got back on for the release of 5e, as it was initially enjoyable. Thankfully the Basic 5e free .pdf helped to wait and see.

I still enjoy 5e, and it is the only WotC D&D I'll still play. But I am only interested in what free .pdfs they'll put out... and maybe a few 5e books that hit the clearance or used shelves if they reach 90+% off MSRP.  ;)

Quote from: Chris24601 on September 29, 2021, 08:28:03 AMI don't mind legitimate criticism of 4E; there's plenty you can level (if there weren't they system I've been working on would still look like a 4E retroclone and not its own thing entirely)... but its really annoying when people level made-up shit about 4E it in order to deride it.

Thank you! Thats saved me allot of time! And I don't even like 4e!

Quote from: Reckall on September 29, 2021, 08:31:06 AMAlso, the characters already start as "Heroes" (and not simply in a narrative way) only to became "Paragons" on the 11th level and "Epic" on the 21st. Basically, the party started as THE AVENGERS and grew from there.

Yes low level 4e is EXACTLY like the Avengers.

Its also icky and yucky and smells of farts, and probably has cooties.

Quote from: thedungeondelver on September 28, 2021, 11:03:07 PM
Are they, though?

Where's the posters, the lunch-boxes, the flood of new video games, the multiple TV shows, an official Hasbro/D&D Youtube channel, clothes (and no, 80s tees and that one guy who makes incredibly overpriced junk jewelry don't count), placemats, branded cereal, etc.

They basically are. WotC has video game studios under their purview now. And they have been pretty open about trying to turn out a AAA D&D video game.

There is a netflix series in development, and they have a movie coming out next year.

If the Tv series and the movie are hits, you'll probably see more stuff in the big box stores with D&D branding.

Quote from: Ghostmaker on September 29, 2021, 08:06:11 AM...
It should be like the gag in Spaceballs, where Yogurt is banging on about merchandising. Or if you prefer a real-world comparison, remember how big Star Wars was? Hell, I had Star Wars bedsheets as a kid, and a lunchbox.

In D&D's defense, it has had no big 'pop-culture' moment that put it over the top the way star wars came out of the gate.

Hence the upcoming movie and tv show.

Because no matter how you cut it, as an RPG "D&D" as a brand just doesn't have the normie outreach. It needs a big film to hit and put it over.

I think a lot of how much D&D gets "the push" going forward from Hasbro depends on how the movie and tv series do.

If the movie flops big, that could see Hasbro pull back a lot of the support they have been spending trying to pump D&D up.

Quote from: Reckall on September 29, 2021, 08:31:06 AM
Also, the characters already start as "Heroes" (and not simply in a narrative way) only to became "Paragons" on the 11th level and "Epic" on the 21st. Basically, the party started as THE AVENGERS and grew from there.

   IMO, 1st level 4E characters do start as Heroes ... in the classic Original/Basic/1E AD&D sense, about on par with 4th level characters in those games. :)

Quote from: Armchair Gamer on September 29, 2021, 01:14:42 PM

Quote from: Reckall on September 29, 2021, 08:31:06 AM
Also, the characters already start as "Heroes" (and not simply in a narrative way) only to became "Paragons" on the 11th level and "Epic" on the 21st. Basically, the party started as THE AVENGERS and grew from there.

   IMO, 1st level 4E characters do start as Heroes ... in the classic Original/Basic/1E AD&D sense, about on par with 4th level characters in those games. :)

An interesting side-by-side on that;

- In AD&D a 4th level Fighter probably has 22-30 hp depending on possible Con bonus.
- A 4E one starts with Con score + 15 hp, which with the way stats are determined in the game works out to 23-33 hp.

- In AD&D a 4th level Fighter probably has about a +5-6 to hit with their proficient attacks.
- A 4E one starts with about a +5-7 to hit with their proficient weapon attacks.

- In AD&D by 4th level a Fighter probably has Plate Mail for an AC 7 points better than an unarmored man.
- A 4E one starts with scale armor which is 7 points better than an unarmored man.

So, yes, a 4E PC starts at about the equivalent of a 4th level AD&D PC; which is what the designers were shooting for and always said they were shooting for.

I stopped buying 5e at Tasha's Crock of Excrement, so it's not like this decision can make me buy any less D&D. I'll give it a fair look when it comes out and see if I like it better. I do tend to like lines when they are smaller--5e started as strong as it ever was and only declined--so it might be good with just the core books, but I'm not too enthusiastic about it, especially as backwards compatibility with 5e is not a pro in my eyes.

Quote from: HappyDaze on September 29, 2021, 01:57:41 PM
I stopped buying 5e at Tasha's Crock of Excrement, so it's not like this decision can make me buy any less D&D. I'll give it a fair look when it comes out and see if I like it better. I do tend to like lines when they are smaller--5e started as strong as it ever was and only declined--so it might be good with just the core books, but I'm not too enthusiastic about it, especially as backwards compatibility with 5e is not a pro in my eyes.

You lasted longer than I did, i stopped after tomb of annihilation

Quote from: Jaeger on September 29, 2021, 05:27:12 AM

Quote from: S'mon on September 29, 2021, 02:25:47 AM
I just started a new game & allowed a Twilight Cleric, so I'd like to know too! I recall he has some kind of massive temp hp granting power.
...

That's the jist.

A simple search and you can find why some consider it "OP" for the game...

Did some research this morning, player has already agreed to make the temp hp roll once per fight not every round. It's definitely going to change play balance though. I'm v glad I don't allow Tasha's at all in my grittier no-feats sandbox 5e game.

Quote from: Jaeger on September 29, 2021, 01:12:15 PM

Quote from: thedungeondelver on September 28, 2021, 11:03:07 PM
Are they, though?

Where's the posters, the lunch-boxes, the flood of new video games, the multiple TV shows, an official Hasbro/D&D Youtube channel, clothes (and no, 80s tees and that one guy who makes incredibly overpriced junk jewelry don't count), placemats, branded cereal, etc.

They basically are. WotC has video game studios under their purview now. And they have been pretty open about trying to turn out a AAA D&D video game.

There is a netflix series in development, and they have a movie coming out next year.

If the Tv series and the movie are hits, you'll probably see more stuff in the big box stores with D&D branding.

Quote from: Ghostmaker on September 29, 2021, 08:06:11 AM...
It should be like the gag in Spaceballs, where Yogurt is banging on about merchandising. Or if you prefer a real-world comparison, remember how big Star Wars was? Hell, I had Star Wars bedsheets as a kid, and a lunchbox.

In D&D's defense, it has had no big 'pop-culture' moment that put it over the top the way star wars came out of the gate.

Hence the upcoming movie and tv show.

Because no matter how you cut it, as an RPG "D&D" as a brand just doesn't have the normie outreach. It needs a big film to hit and put it over.

I think a lot of how much D&D gets "the push" going forward from Hasbro depends on how the movie and tv series do.

If the movie flops big, that could see Hasbro pull back a lot of the support they have been spending trying to pump D&D up.

Pretty much.

Traditional RPGs are not a growth sector. Most people aren't interested in memorizing a rulebook when it's much more convenient to play a board game with one page of rules or a video game designed specifically to boost your dopamine levels.

As an IP tho, D&D has a lot of fertile ground for multimedia. You could make a Sliders-esque animated show where the cast travels between different campaign settings.

Quote from: Chris24601 on September 29, 2021, 08:28:03 AM
I don't mind legitimate criticism of 4E; there's plenty you can level (if there weren't they system I've been working on would still look like a 4E retroclone and not its own thing entirely)... but its really annoying when people level made-up shit about 4E it in order to deride it.

It is particularly easy to defend 4e when fighting Strawbears.

Here is a special preview of D&D 5.5 in 2024

Designated Safe Accepting Dungeon Friend: Beige Sphere, you and the other beige spheres are walking on the surface of a beige sphere and you see before you a beige sphere guarding a locked beige sphere....what do you do?

Player 1 Among equals: Holds up X card

Designated Safe Accepting Dungeon Friend: ...

Player 1 Among equals: These dice have hate numbers on them.

Designated Safe Dungeon Friend: ...

Player 1 Among equals: You need to leave.

Designated Safe Dungeon Friend: This is my house!

Player 1 Among Equals: This is the people's house. Property is theft. These hate dice must be burned after the proper carbon offsets have been purchased!

Player 2 Among Equals : I uh... I think tha-

Player 1 Among Equals: SILENCE! You did not ask the group to raise a point of personal privilege and obtain consensus! -24 Social Credit! Opposition to the unity of the syndic is unacceptable!

Player 1 Among Equals, Player 3 Among Equals, Player 4 Among Equals, Player 5 Who Identifies as Player 7 Among Equals, Player 6 Among Equals & Designated Safe Dungeon Friend: (Chanting in a state of confused ecstasy) One Voice! One Will! One Voice! One Will! One Voice! One Will!

Dunce Cone and collar are put on Traitor Saboteur Gusano Revealed Enemy of the People #2 who is openly weeping and hyperventalating...

etc.

Quote from: palaeomerus on September 29, 2021, 11:15:14 PM
Here is a special preview of D&D 5.5 in 2024

Nice... genuine LOL.

Dammit palaeomerus! You know that the SJW lurkers will only take your post as a model for their future gaming plans, similar to how they've taken 1984 as a how to manual.

Quote from: palaeomerus on September 29, 2021, 11:15:14 PM
Beige Sphere, you and the other beige spheres are walking on the surface of a beige sphere and you see before you a beige sphere guarding a locked beige sphere....what do you do?

Beige !?  >:(

That's Nuts!

I stopped buying new books around Tasha's, when I realized this edition is no longer for me.

https://methodsetmadness.blogspot.com/2020/11/tasha-and-d-5e-is-for-experts-and.html

But mainstream D&D seems to be going in a strange direction... where people are familiar with dozens of "official" builds but are shy to change the rules. Where everyone knows who Volo is, but the idea of a pointcrawl is a complete mystery, hexcrawls are misunderstood, and lots of railroading is acceptable. Where beholders are common but the ideas on spells are still catching up to DCC RPG.

My objections to Tasha's will probably be even more apparent in 5.5e.

But I like 5e, I like curse os Strahd (and even ToA), and I might be playing a simplified version (closer to Knave than to Tashas) in the future.

Either that or some Moldvay mod.

5e has what I call: crunch gruel. There is allot of crunch, but most of it is dull and insignificant. You can make builds, but the core resolution system is so flabby allot of effort will get you weak results.

Its the worst kind of crunch really.

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on September 30, 2021, 11:47:29 AM
5e has what I call: crunch gruel. There is allot of crunch, but most of it is dull and insignificant. You can make builds, but the core resolution system is so flabby allot of effort will get you weak results.

Its the worst kind of crunch really.

It's not a system designed to pile crunch on.  In fact, it was obviously designed to not pile crunch on.  Then they went and did it anyway. 

I mean, I guess if you are Sylvester stuck in a house with no can opener, can't catch Tweety, and an unnamed mouse has the only can opener, then dropping a grand piano on the can of cat food makes sense, in a desperate, "hangry" sense at least.  This is Sylvester dropping the piano on a plate of prime tuna, with no one else in sight.   

Quote from: Steven Mitchell on September 30, 2021, 12:00:48 PMIt's not a system designed to pile crunch on.  In fact, it was obviously designed to not pile crunch on.

It was sloppy and rushed and half baked with 6 different design directions, none of which are fullfilled. It was not 'obviously' designed to be anything. It was designed to appease as many people as possible with as many safe choices as possible.

For a 'un-crunchy' system, it has 100 pages of rules, and 100 pages of character creation options (out of 300+ pages). And thats PHB alone (for comparison, SWADE has 200 pages in a larger font for a smaller book type (for a core book type not just a players handbook) to cover multiple genres and a bestiary, and I would say its a medium crunch game).. Its crunch-gruel. You get allot of it, but none of its that good.

I've been playing in a 5e game for months now and haven't needed any books at all.  With the phone app, I don't see why anyone who isn't a dm would buy any of it.  They certainly aren't entertaining to read. 

As for a reason why Hasbro might want to sell WotC- they might be tired of the licensing hell that D&D is tied up in.  That's the big reason why video games and movies have been mostly vaporware. 

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on September 30, 2021, 12:38:48 PM

Quote from: Steven Mitchell on September 30, 2021, 12:00:48 PMIt's not a system designed to pile crunch on.  In fact, it was obviously designed to not pile crunch on.

It was sloppy and rushed and half baked with 6 different design directions, none of which are fullfilled. It was not 'obviously' designed to be anything. It was designed to appease as many people as possible with as many safe choices as possible.

For a 'un-crunchy' system, it has 100 pages of rules, and 100 pages of character creation options (out of 300+ pages). And thats PHB alone (for comparison, SWADE has 200 pages in a larger font for a smaller book type (for a core book type not just a players handbook) to cover multiple genres and a bestiary, and I would say its a medium crunch game).. Its crunch-gruel. You get allot of it, but none of its that good.

Not true about the design.  The core design is solid. 

What you are talking about is implementation, which I agree in many respects leaves a lot to be desired.  There's a lot of people on that team with no talent to speak of (either the natural kind or the 99% perspiration kind).  Even the wordy nature of the books is mostly down to that.  Well, and the WotC corporate buzz speak in their writing/editing that would shame an 8th grade journalist.  They are trying to write "conversational reference manuals", and even when that kind of thing manages to still be clear, it's never inspired anyone.

One place where the design does contribute to that problem is the filler path abilities through the 20 levels.  I think that is a case of corporate culture impinging on the design instead of something fundamentally wrong with the design approach--but hey, however it got there, it is bad design.

It's no accident that there is this flip when Mearls arrived.  3E was bad design saved by some quality implementation and writing.  It reflects the abilities of the 3E team.  Mearls is opposite--good designer, uninspired writer.  It really stands out in the third-party 3E stuff he wrote.  The whole team takes on some of that personality. 

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on September 30, 2021, 12:38:48 PM

Quote from: Steven Mitchell on September 30, 2021, 12:00:48 PMIt's not a system designed to pile crunch on.  In fact, it was obviously designed to not pile crunch on.

It was sloppy and rushed and half baked with 6 different design directions, none of which are fullfilled. It was not 'obviously' designed to be anything. It was designed to appease as many people as possible with as many safe choices as possible.

For a 'un-crunchy' system, it has 100 pages of rules, and 100 pages of character creation options (out of 300+ pages). And thats PHB alone (for comparison, SWADE has 200 pages in a larger font for a smaller book type (for a core book type not just a players handbook) to cover multiple genres and a bestiary, and I would say its a medium crunch game).. Its crunch-gruel. You get allot of it, but none of its that good.

5e has a good - and uncomplicated - core. Many of those pages are redundancy, repetition, verbosity and useless variation; you could probably make a good 50-page PHB out of the PHB keeping 80% of the options (I'm trying, but it is not easy work). The basic rules, for example, are quite decent.

Of course, they wouldn't be able to charge 30 bucks for a 50-page PHB.

"It was designed to appease as many people as possible with as many safe choices as possible" well, I agree with that; they are out for profit and this is top be expected.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell on September 30, 2021, 02:13:32 PMNot true about the design.  The core design is solid. 

Well if you mean in the sense of 'Neat idea terrible implimentation' I agree. But ideas are cheap and it doesn't accomplish even any one of them to even a above avarage level. There is no part of 5e (sans legendary actions, and thats IT for the hundreds of pages of materials it has) that I would cut out from it to use somewhere else.

Quote from: Eric Diaz on September 30, 2021, 02:22:40 PM5e has a good - and uncomplicated - core.

I will also disagree. Its core task resolution is mediocre at best. Its uncomplicated in the sense of 'Roll over this with a d20' is uncomplicated, but it gives effectively no guidance and its underpinning maths make for boring characters.
It feels like 10 levels stretched over 20 (unless its spells and spells do interesting things as usual, at least relative to everybody else).

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on September 30, 2021, 02:55:11 PM

Quote from: Steven Mitchell on September 30, 2021, 02:13:32 PMNot true about the design.  The core design is solid. 

Well if you mean in the sense of 'Neat idea terrible implimentation' I agree. But ideas are cheap and it doesn't accomplish even any one of them to even a above avarage level. There is no part of 5e (sans legendary actions, and thats IT for the hundreds of pages of materials it has) that I would cut out from it to use somewhere else.

Well I have at list a few:

- Advantage/disadvantage.
- Proficiency bonus instead of skill points.
- Lair actions (in addition to legendary actions)
- Maybe bardic inspiration etc. or some other class stuff.

(Sorry for the insistence, I just find this an interesting subject)

Quote from: Eric Diaz on September 30, 2021, 03:00:08 PM
- Advantage/disadvantage.

Mediocre. And its used for everything so its the one string to its bow. Yeah, it may prevent stacking tons of buffs, but it also makes so many situations feel the same. It needed more depth, even if you wanted to keep it simple. Something akin to a -6/-3/+3/+6 system

Quote- Proficiency bonus instead of skill points.

Not its idea, (4e did it first, and Star Wars Saga before that and im sure something else before then) and the execution is also mediocre. Every character feels the same because its around 20% difference stretched across 20 friggin levels. Some classes might have benefits that magnify this to a whopping ~40%, but again thats by level 20.

To clarify, im not asking for the numbers to explode and be in the 40s. SWN (Revised) has a scale of like 0-4 for skills, but it makes that difference feel FAR more meaningful.

Quote- Lair actions (in addition to legendary actions)

Falls under legendary actions to me. But yes, are good ideas executed well (for people that like boss fights which I do).

Quote- Maybe bardic inspiration etc. or some other class stuff.

Mediocre because of the core task resolution system.

Quote(Sorry for the insistence, I just find this an interesting subject)

I love debate, so I love it when people discuss instead of flip out. No problem!  ;D

Quote from: Hakdov on September 30, 2021, 01:42:28 PM
As for a reason why Hasbro might want to sell WotC- they might be tired of the licensing hell that D&D is tied up in.  That's the big reason why video games and movies have been mostly vaporware.

Explain this to me, please?

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on September 30, 2021, 03:48:57 PM

Quote from: Hakdov on September 30, 2021, 01:42:28 PM
As for a reason why Hasbro might want to sell WotC- they might be tired of the licensing hell that D&D is tied up in.  That's the big reason why video games and movies have been mostly vaporware.

Explain this to me, please?

I can venture a guess. Remember that various authors have had their names attached to various properties within the greater D&D game. I bet it's similar to the problem that faced Disney after they bought the Star Wars IP.

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on September 30, 2021, 11:47:29 AM
5e has what I call: crunch gruel. There is allot of crunch, but most of it is dull and insignificant. You can make builds, but the core resolution system is so flabby allot of effort will get you weak results.
...

I noticed this as well when my group ran the 5e waterdeep AP.

It is a very solid mid-crunch game, where you only really make one choice for your PCs advancement at third level. And you are pretty much just a passenger along for the level up ride from then on...

Any actual cool "class abilities" *cough*FEATs*cough* that would be really useful at the lower levels you don't typically get until levels 7+, of course by then  you are fighting level appropriate enemies, and your new hotness abilities just allow you to keep pace. The increase in PC power level is largely an illusion because everything just keeps pace with you.

To say nothing of their treasure economy. You go from being barely able to afford a healing potion, to looking down at your sheet wondering why your PC is not retiring form adventuring, and living the good life by level 6...

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on September 30, 2021, 02:55:11 PM

Quote from: Steven Mitchell on September 30, 2021, 02:13:32 PMNot true about the design.  The core design is solid. 

Well if you mean in the sense of 'Neat idea terrible implimentation' I agree. But ideas are cheap and it doesn't accomplish even any one of them to even a above avarage level. There is no part of 5e (sans legendary actions, and thats IT for the hundreds of pages of materials it has) that I would cut out from it to use somewhere else.

You are excluding the middle here.  "Design" is not "idea".  It is also not the implementation.  There is a great deal of work that goes into getting the basic model in place, which falls under design but is not an actual game until you put some meat on the bones.  Nor is design automatically "mechanic" that can be lifted elsewhere, though it could be in some cases.

Eric is correct.  There could be a much more streamlined implementation of the 5E design that would rival the Basic/Expert set in cohesion (especially if it had the luxury of limiting it to the equivalent level ranges) while providing more useful features.   

Advantage/Disadvantage is good design. You may not like how it works in theory or in practice, never mind how that informs the 5E space, but it is an example of well-thought, considered design that does exactly what it is meant to do.  For that particular point, I'd say it is good design where they fell in love with it so much that they used it in a few places where probably they should not have, but that's personal preference too. 

The many design choices that led to multi-classing being "possible but practically never needed" is brilliant design.  Again, falls flat in some practical ways due to choices made in implementation--and in others because they didn't push the implementation far enough, but very good design.  (The marketing weasel decisions to promise all the classes people expected to make up for 4E also compromised the design in particularly bad ways and put their class implementation in a bind that the lack of talent couldn't overcome.  This is why the fighter/rogue/wizard/cleric classes are mostly solid but everything else is all over the place in quality.)

The mathematical design is largely on point.  It doesn't match my preferences in a game, but it does a very good job of setting the game up to work as intended.

There is no such thing as talking about good or bad design without considering the intent of the design.  It you want to say that their intent was ill chosen, that's a separate (and also interesting) argument.

Edit: Will also say in response to the intervening discussion that I don't consider who did it first a question of good or bad design.  That's innovation.  5E is not innovative much, if any.  Good design usually isn't, because it is nearly always something that's been tried and botched previously.  There's no way WotC designs 5E as well as they did without the 3E/3.5/4E/Essentials experiments.

Quote from: Ghostmaker on September 30, 2021, 03:53:19 PM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on September 30, 2021, 03:48:57 PM

Quote from: Hakdov on September 30, 2021, 01:42:28 PM
As for a reason why Hasbro might want to sell WotC- they might be tired of the licensing hell that D&D is tied up in.  That's the big reason why video games and movies have been mostly vaporware.

Explain this to me, please?

I can venture a guess. Remember that various authors have had their names attached to various properties within the greater D&D game. I bet it's similar to the problem that faced Disney after they bought the Star Wars IP.

I'd think that Hasbro would be far more likely to let the IP rot rather than give it up. Corpos like to hang on to IP for as long as possible even if they have no intention of using it.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell on September 30, 2021, 04:29:36 PM

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on September 30, 2021, 02:55:11 PM

Quote from: Steven Mitchell on September 30, 2021, 02:13:32 PMNot true about the design.  The core design is solid. 

Well if you mean in the sense of 'Neat idea terrible implimentation' I agree. But ideas are cheap and it doesn't accomplish even any one of them to even a above avarage level. There is no part of 5e (sans legendary actions, and thats IT for the hundreds of pages of materials it has) that I would cut out from it to use somewhere else.

You are excluding the middle here.  "Design" is not "idea".  It is also not the implementation.  There is a great deal of work that goes into getting the basic model in place, which falls under design but is not an actual game until you put some meat on the bones.  Nor is design automatically "mechanic" that can be lifted elsewhere, though it could be in some cases.

Eric is correct.  There could be a much more streamlined implementation of the 5E design that would rival the Basic/Expert set in cohesion (especially if it had the luxury of limiting it to the equivalent level ranges) while providing more useful features.   

Advantage/Disadvantage is good design. You may not like how it works in theory or in practice, never mind how that informs the 5E space, but it is an example of well-thought, considered design that does exactly what it is meant to do.  For that particular point, I'd say it is good design where they fell in love with it so much that they used it in a few places where probably they should not have, but that's personal preference too. 

The many design choices that led to multi-classing being "possible but practically never needed" is brilliant design.  Again, falls flat in some practical ways due to choices made in implementation--and in others because they didn't push the implementation far enough, but very good design.  (The marketing weasel decisions to promise all the classes people expected to make up for 4E also compromised the design in particularly bad ways and put their class implementation in a bind that the lack of talent couldn't overcome.  This is why the fighter/rogue/wizard/cleric classes are mostly solid but everything else is all over the place in quality.)

The mathematical design is largely on point.  It doesn't match my preferences in a game, but it does a very good job of setting the game up to work as intended.

There is no such thing as talking about good or bad design without considering the intent of the design.  It you want to say that their intent was ill chosen, that's a separate (and also interesting) argument.

Edit: Will also say in response to the intervening discussion that I don't consider who did it first a question of good or bad design.  That's innovation.  5E is not innovative much, if any.  Good design usually isn't, because it is nearly always something that's been tried and botched previously.  There's no way WotC designs 5E as well as they did without the 3E/3.5/4E/Essentials experiments.

With all due respect, Steve, what you're saying is not wrong. But I disagree with you.

The *idea* of Advantage/Disadvantage is a good concept and a good design element. But only insofar as the rest of the system utilizes it consistently and the rest of the system that has nothing to do with Advantage/Disadvantage also is as tightly bound to the core task-resolution. And I'll give you your due - this *is* probably the best part of 5e.

The other elements do not carry this rigor of design very well, imo. It does feel "flabby" to me - the HP bloat, the over-reliance on various immunities etc. the gimmicky designs of classes (not all but many), the meager incrementation of power vs. scale, all of these things would probably be separate conversations - the totality of which is why 5e has a deserved title as everyone's 2nd favorite Edition. Now I don't know how *actually* true this is... it turns out it's my third favorite, but you know, I think people on this thread could make a better edition in a single night with a couple of bottles of whisky.

In fact I have *zero* doubt about it.

I'm not saying this to hate on 5e. I'm fine with it - it is what it is. I think after 3e and the work I put into that edition and it's various flavors, I came to my own conclusions that 5e did nothing to dispel. It COULD be good. But the overhaul would effectively be like Fantasy Craft - a glorious unsung and unplayed thing, another Betamax for the dustbin of design (despite being superior to the winner).

The reality is what makes 5e as successful *right now* is because the name D&D slapped on it. And 5.5/6e can be woke as fuck using FATE rules and people will buy it and consume it for the exact same reasons.

I'm less a fan of D&D because of reasons extraneous to the system itself. I do feel it plays flabby. I don't feel particularly herioic. It doesn't feel kinetic to me. Others can disagree, that's cool. I'm just speaking compared to my previous longterm experiences in D&D. And yes, I think it's very fixable.

If I had not discovered Savage Worlds, I'd likely have already started doing my own fantasy heartbreaker of 5e and trying to twist the arms of fellow board members folks like Estar (and maybe you) among others to help me. Who knows? I know I'm not giving WotC my money anytime soon.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell on September 30, 2021, 04:29:36 PMEric is correct.  There could be a much more streamlined implementation of the 5E design that would rival the Basic/Expert set in cohesion (especially if it had the luxury of limiting it to the equivalent level ranges) while providing more useful features.

Like Il just stop right there because this just means we have radically different assumptions of what 'cohesion' or even 'good' is. I don't think OD&D or Basic is very good at all. No hard feelings if you like it and think its good, thats just what it is for me.

Im also not sure what your exact definition of design is. I think 'design' is close enough to 'Idea' to say its solid ideas with poor execution. I bring up past examples because poor execution after the ideas had been implimented before (and better) doesn't win any points in my book.

Like what do you mean 'basic model'?

Quote from: tenbones on September 30, 2021, 05:31:55 PM
The reality is what makes 5e as successful *right now* is because the name D&D slapped on it. And 5.5/6e can be woke as fuck using FATE rules and people will buy it and consume it for the exact same reasons.

   This. And before anyone appeals to 4E, that was a perfect storm of internal and external factors that almost certainly will never be repeated.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on September 30, 2021, 05:04:18 PM

Quote from: Ghostmaker on September 30, 2021, 03:53:19 PM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on September 30, 2021, 03:48:57 PM

Quote from: Hakdov on September 30, 2021, 01:42:28 PM
As for a reason why Hasbro might want to sell WotC- they might be tired of the licensing hell that D&D is tied up in.  That's the big reason why video games and movies have been mostly vaporware.

Explain this to me, please?

I can venture a guess. Remember that various authors have had their names attached to various properties within the greater D&D game. I bet it's similar to the problem that faced Disney after they bought the Star Wars IP.

I'd think that Hasbro would be far more likely to let the IP rot rather than give it up. Corpos like to hang on to IP for as long as possible even if they have no intention of using it.

That's God's own fucking truth. And sometimes thanks to the weirdness of how IPs get passed around thanks to bankruptcies and mergers, sometimes people who have no IDEA what to do with something wind up owning it.

Quote from: tenbones on September 30, 2021, 05:31:55 PM
... I think people on this thread could make a better edition in a single night with a couple of bottles of whisky.
...

You should be roundly castigated for this claim. Except for the fact that you are probably right...

When one looks at what a one man show like Kevin Crawford can do with his Worlds Without Number or Wolves of God RPGs; It is quickly revealed that the head designers of WotC D&D are actually behind the curve when compared to the top OSR creators...

If one is of above average intelligence, making a functional RPG is more about drive and desire then any special "RPG design" skill or talent.

Quote from: Armchair Gamer on September 30, 2021, 05:54:39 PM

Quote from: tenbones on September 30, 2021, 05:31:55 PM
The reality is what makes 5e as successful *right now* is because the name D&D slapped on it. And 5.5/6e can be woke as fuck using FATE rules and people will buy it and consume it for the exact same reasons.

   This. And before anyone appeals to 4E, that was a perfect storm of internal and external factors that almost certainly will never be repeated.

Not so sure.

The overriding factor that brought 4e low was the Pathfinder RPG.

If WotC was just a little bit more Johnny-on-the-spot with their SRD; By their own admission Baizuo would have been a 3pp 4e Adventure Path creator.

The sales would not be that hot, and a 5e style boom would probably not have happened. But 4e would very likely have stayed at the #1 selling RPG spot for the foreseeable future at the time.

But the Pathfinder RPG did prove that if faced with even halfway competent competition, it was possible to put out an edition of D&D that would fail.

If WotC didn't have magic money, or Ha$bro bucks to back them, the RPG hobby could have taken a very interesting turn...

Quote from: Jaeger on September 30, 2021, 08:15:16 PM
Not so sure.

The overriding factor that brought 4e low was the Pathfinder RPG.

If WotC was just a little bit more Johnny-on-the-spot with their SRD; By their own admission Baizuo would have been a 3pp 4e Adventure Path creator.

The sales would not be that hot, and a 5e style boom would probably not have happened. But 4e would very likely have stayed at the #1 selling RPG spot for the foreseeable future at the time.

But the Pathfinder RPG did prove that if faced with even halfway competent competition, it was possible to put out an edition of D&D that would fail.

If WotC didn't have magic money, or Ha$bro bucks to back them, the RPG hobby could have taken a very interesting turn...

  Bear in mind that Pathfinder had benefits that no one else had before or since either: The ability to clone 3.5E without legal concerns, the established track record, the high production values from day one, and the reputation as 'stewards of the game' and access to subscriber information and research from their days managing Dungeon and Dragon, as well as an audience that was primed to resent WotC. That last factor was only exacerbated by WotC's marketing and design approach, the collapse of the online support that 4E was built around, and a worldwide economic collapse that probably left people more inclined to stick with what they knew than jump ship to a new and high-priced system that seemed to demand even more investment in miniatures and online tools.

   Yes, you can beat D&D--if you're using D&D, have all the tools necessary to step into their shoes almost immediately, have an audience primed to see you as the real keepers of the D&D legacy, and have a brand holder that's facing numerous self-inflicted and market-inflicted wounds. It happened once; I don't think it will happen again, and I think WotC is taking numerous steps to make sure it never happens again, such as doubling down on brand identity and making sure no one can pick up where they leave off with the game.

Well, granted on design I'm drawing some narrow distinctions.  An analogy I'll use is writing.  Good writing is separate from the thing you choose to write about.  There are books that I can say that the writing is well done but that I have no interest in reading through beyond just enough of a sample to see that it is well done.  Because what the book is about is not so good.  And if it is so well done that I do read it through, I will probably never read it again.  Or think of it as a movie that you are glad you saw once, but aren't going to touch again.  No one ever said, "Hey, let's grab some drinks and popcorn and watch Schindler's List .  We've only seen it a few times this year." :D

So I think most criticisms (but not all) of 5E design that are sort of edging into the design space are the choices made on what to design, not how the design is done.   The lack of a need for multi-classing is a result of good design.  That is in contrast to the bad choice by the various decision makers (whoever they are) to then compromise that design with class bloat, ill-chosen classes, etc.  I attribute most of that to market forces (fear to not have barbarians, paladins, etc. given the fall out over 4E) combined with the usual WotC poor development/testing. 

Why is the ranger bad?  Is it because it was poorly designed?  Or was it merely poorly implemented?  I say neither--it was bad because it should not have been in the game as a class, because the concept of "ranger" is not supported as a class by the design, which meant they through those already poor developers into a no-win situation.  (Not there fault in this case, in other words.)  There are, of course, layers of design, and the more big picture you get with the design the more difficult it is to tease out bad design from bad decisions on what to design versus bad development versus the committee in charge of everything compromised it.  (Even good design and good development can be trashed by bad big picture decision making.)  You could say that inclusion of the ranger is bad big picture design, or alternately, that choosing a design where the ranger can't really work as a class was a bad idea. 

Maybe I'm wrong.  I wasn't ever inside the process.  I'm only reading between the lines between what was said and done, and then basing my conclusions on where the good and bad stuff is.  When something really works in 5E, you can see that it primarily does so because of the design.  When something is almost pure development, it ranges from mediocre to decent copy of past stuff to lousy to bad fan fiction. WotC decision making is incoherent.  That makes me give the designers some benefit of the doubt.

I don't disagree that 5E is "flabby".  That's a very good word for it.  It was released "flabby" and only became "bloated" later.  I just think it is flabby because its skeleton was designed to carry 40 pounds of gaming and before it got out the door, it was made to bulk up to 60, with attachments for another 100.  It would be a hell of a lot less flabby with one good edit pass before everything got out the door, which would have dropped a lot of bad development. Still been objectively flabby, but much less so.

The basic model is that skeleton, which is hard to discern under all that flab.  So I also agree that a few nights by a motivated small group could clean it up tremendously.  Mainly, because you can get 80% there just by dropping a bunch of things, and spend the rest of the weekend arguing about how to maximize the other 20% with a few well-chosen tweaks and additions.   

Edit:  I'm not giving them any money, either.  I'm quite happy with where my play test is going, that starts using a basic model to akin to where I think 5E started, but much pared down and streamlined in most places, a little more involved in others to tease out some of the customization from various editions, but mostly a hearkening back to some of the ideas from BEMCI/RC that are in WotC D&D versions but extremely, poorly done in them.  This make my game neither fish nor fowl, which means there will probably be about 20 people on the planet that enjoy it.  I don't think Tenbones would want to play it, much less run it, but I bet he can appreciate what it does within its goals.

Quote from: tenbones on September 30, 2021, 05:31:55 PM

With all due respect, Steve, what you're saying is not wrong. But I disagree with you.

The *idea* of Advantage/Disadvantage is a good concept and a good design element. But only insofar as the rest of the system utilizes it consistently and the rest of the system that has nothing to do with Advantage/Disadvantage also is as tightly bound to the core task-resolution. And I'll give you your due - this *is* probably the best part of 5e.

The other elements do not carry this rigor of design very well, imo. It does feel "flabby" to me - the HP bloat, the over-reliance on various immunities etc. the gimmicky designs of classes (not all but many), the meager incrementation of power vs. scale, all of these things would probably be separate conversations - the totality of which is why 5e has a deserved title as everyone's 2nd favorite Edition. Now I don't know how *actually* true this is... it turns out it's my third favorite, but you know, I think people on this thread could make a better edition in a single night with a couple of bottles of whisky.

In fact I have *zero* doubt about it.

I'm not saying this to hate on 5e. I'm fine with it - it is what it is. I think after 3e and the work I put into that edition and it's various flavors, I came to my own conclusions that 5e did nothing to dispel. It COULD be good. But the overhaul would effectively be like Fantasy Craft - a glorious unsung and unplayed thing, another Betamax for the dustbin of design (despite being superior to the winner).

The reality is what makes 5e as successful *right now* is because the name D&D slapped on it. And 5.5/6e can be woke as fuck using FATE rules and people will buy it and consume it for the exact same reasons.

I'm less a fan of D&D because of reasons extraneous to the system itself. I do feel it plays flabby. I don't feel particularly herioic. It doesn't feel kinetic to me. Others can disagree, that's cool. I'm just speaking compared to my previous longterm experiences in D&D. And yes, I think it's very fixable.

If I had not discovered Savage Worlds, I'd likely have already started doing my own fantasy heartbreaker of 5e and trying to twist the arms of fellow board members folks like Estar (and maybe you) among others to help me. Who knows? I know I'm not giving WotC my money anytime soon.

Gawds own spoken truth right here. Agree Tenbones

Quote from: Jaeger on September 30, 2021, 08:15:16 PM

Quote from: Armchair Gamer on September 30, 2021, 05:54:39 PM

Quote from: tenbones on September 30, 2021, 05:31:55 PM
The reality is what makes 5e as successful *right now* is because the name D&D slapped on it. And 5.5/6e can be woke as fuck using FATE rules and people will buy it and consume it for the exact same reasons.

   This. And before anyone appeals to 4E, that was a perfect storm of internal and external factors that almost certainly will never be repeated.

Not so sure.

The overriding factor that brought 4e low was the Pathfinder RPG.

If WotC was just a little bit more Johnny-on-the-spot with their SRD; By their own admission Baizuo would have been a 3pp 4e Adventure Path creator.

The sales would not be that hot, and a 5e style boom would probably not have happened. But 4e would very likely have stayed at the #1 selling RPG spot for the foreseeable future at the time.

But the Pathfinder RPG did prove that if faced with even halfway competent competition, it was possible to put out an edition of D&D that would fail.

If WotC didn't have magic money, or Ha$bro bucks to back them, the RPG hobby could have taken a very interesting turn...

But in terms of "unlikely to be repeated conditions" I think this is spot on. 5e returned to the OGL, fixing the mistake made by creating their own biggest competitor.

It's also worth noting that timing-wise 4E dropped about a year earlier it really needed to; both in terms of raw development/feedback cycles and in readiness for the market to move on. There were a lot Living 3.5e campaigns that were still a year or so from winding down (and you could see they were getting to a climax, mod levels mostly in the mid-to-late teens, thwarting end of the world events was common, new supporting supplements covering peripheral elements).

Another year and a lot more of the general audience would be ready for something new; in 2008 though it was mostly only the "early adopters" ready to make the jump. Now look at the transition to 5e. They stopped all support for 4E two years before 5e launched... even people with regular campaigns had mostly played through what they wanted to by then. The general audience was ready for new material and this time it was only the holdouts who weren't ready to make the change.

Finally, 4E had the misfortune of being released just before the bottom fell out of the US economy in 2008. Remember when the price of gas basically doubled? Disposable income dried up and $40+ books become non-starters; especially if your old books still work.

4E's launch was a perfect storm of bad events that probably crippled it every bit as much as problems in it's own design did. If it had had full OGL support, another year of development (all the missing classes and races people complained about that weren't ready at launch we're finished up within 9 months of launch) and an economy that wasn't in the middle of falling apart things might have turned out very differently.

We'll never know, but all of the above happening at once again is exceedingly unlikely... they've already signaled backwards compatibility (regardless of how real it actually turns out to be) and continued OGL support and 2024 is nearly a decade in and 2.5 years from now so it's not going to be just the early adopters.

That leaves just the economy, but that was just one factor in the confluence.

The issues with class design are one of the reasons why I prefer a skill-based or point-buy approach. Several of the core classes would be more appropriate as kits/archetypes of other classes. That's why I find myself preferring alternative systems like Classic Fantasy or Spheres of Might.

Say what you will about 4e, I think the approach of power sources and roles was actually pretty sensible. Altho players probably would've been more receptive if they were just referred to by their power sources and roles e.g. "arcane striker" or "martial support" rather than by the traditional class names.

Once you get the past the original quartet of fighter, mage, thief, and Hammer Horror vampire hunter priest (assuming you count that last one), then the additional classes are basically remixes and snowflakes.

Quote from: Chris24601 on October 01, 2021, 08:51:10 AM
But in terms of "unlikely to be repeated conditions" I think this is spot on. 5e returned to the OGL, fixing the mistake made by creating their own biggest competitor.

It seems to me that a graduate level thesis could be done covering the grade A strategic mistake WOTC made by trying to fire their biggest third party content provider, and inevitably created their biggest competitor just as they tried to convince their customers to switch to a new product. (4E was the New Coke of D&D. Imagine what could have happened to the Coca-Cola company if they had a supplier that could have immediately rolled out an classic Coke replacement l.) One can only hope that those at WOTC involved in such a poor business decision to fire Paizo from D&D have been banished from the business world, and are now working as tradesmen somewhere in the Yukon.

Quote from: wmarshal on October 01, 2021, 09:42:28 AM

Quote from: Chris24601 on October 01, 2021, 08:51:10 AM
But in terms of "unlikely to be repeated conditions" I think this is spot on. 5e returned to the OGL, fixing the mistake made by creating their own biggest competitor.

It seems to me that a graduate level thesis could be done covering the grade A strategic mistake WOTC made by trying to fire their biggest third party content provider, and inevitably created their biggest competitor just as they tried to convince their customers to switch to a new product. (4E was the New Coke of D&D. Imagine what could have happened to the Coca-Cola company if they had a supplier that could have immediately rolled out an classic Coke replacement l.) One can only hope that those at WOTC involved in such a poor business decision to fire Paizo from D&D have been banished from the business world, and are now working as tradesmen somewhere in the Yukon.

It's a tale of souls and swords, eternally retold.

Activision was originally formed because Atari refused to give credit or bonuses to their top programmers.

As an odd obscure footnote to history, concerning the transition period from 3.x to 4e...

I was part of a small circle of feature writers at Dragon that Paizo's editorial pulled in to be notified that there was talk about a 4th edition of D&D was being mulled about at WotC. Paizo thought they were going to be part of whatever the 4e development was going to become. The feature writers had all our stuff sniffed over by WotC and Paizo, so it was assumed we, specifcally, would have at minimum some access to this process because we were the ones doing features on specific topics requested by Paizo editorial often to back up projects coming up from WotC sometimes with 6-months of lead time.

At the time, Mearls (one of the circle of feature writers) was talking to me and a few other writers about a side-project... a quasi-Open Source version of d20 where we would outline the core mechanics and each writer would own their respective subsystems, and we'd peer-review everything and decide what is Core and what is Optional. But the rules would have been made free to the public. We were talking about setting it all up - including our process for bringing in submissions etc (which was going to be easy since our goal was to be constant curating and peer-reviewing once the core rules were set).

Before we got it started Mearls went quiet... then I got disillusioned with 3.x/Pathfinder, tired of the editorial chains (heh I was always trying to subvert 3.x and push its boundaries - so was Mearls, which is what got us to work on Goodman games stuff)... then Paizo told us they lost Dragon and weren't going to be part of 4e. This is when the whole Pathfinder thing happened... and I jumped ship, because I came to hate what 3.x had become and when I found out that Pathfinder wasn't going to really push the envelope on the system, they played it safe with what became Pathfinder, the whole thing lost its appeal to me.

The kick in the nuts is when Mike told me and others that he'd gotten the offer to join the 4e team... Our conspiracy theory was that they got wind our little Open Source project and killed it by offering Mearls the Golden Handcuffs. In hindsight I'm less certain of this. We had a crew of *killers* that were down with this project - so it might still be true. I think in retrospect we were a nuisance that was easily dealt with. But I also think by serving up an Open Source system that was actively curated it would have leveraged the massive swell of third-party support already extant in 3.x suddenly with no place to go. Would it have been successful? We'll never know...

But now Estar has me thinking about it a LOT these days...

Downright antagonizing your userbase wasn't as acceptable back then as it is today, so the shock jock 'Woaaah we am is edgy!' marketting material went over terribly.

Quote from: tenbones on October 01, 2021, 10:31:58 AM
As an odd obscure footnote to history, concerning the transition period from 3.x to 4e...

I was part of a small circle of feature writers at Dragon that Paizo's editorial pulled in to be notified that there was talk about a 4th edition of D&D was being mulled about at WotC. Paizo thought they were going to be part of whatever the 4e development was going to become. The feature writers had all our stuff sniffed over by WotC and Paizo, so it was assumed we, specifcally, would have at minimum some access to this process because we were the ones doing features on specific topics requested by Paizo editorial often to back up projects coming up from WotC sometimes with 6-months of lead time.

At the time, Mearls (one of the circle of feature writers) was talking to me and a few other writers about a side-project... a quasi-Open Source version of d20 where we would outline the core mechanics and each writer would own their respective subsystems, and we'd peer-review everything and decide what is Core and what is Optional. But the rules would have been made free to the public. We were talking about setting it all up - including our process for bringing in submissions etc (which was going to be easy since our goal was to be constant curating and peer-reviewing once the core rules were set).

Before we got it started Mearls went quiet... then I got disillusioned with 3.x/Pathfinder, tired of the editorial chains (heh I was always trying to subvert 3.x and push its boundaries - so was Mearls, which is what got us to work on Goodman games stuff)... then Paizo told us they lost Dragon and weren't going to be part of 4e. This is when the whole Pathfinder thing happened... and I jumped ship, because I came to hate what 3.x had become and when I found out that Pathfinder wasn't going to really push the envelope on the system, they played it safe with what became Pathfinder, the whole thing lost its appeal to me.

The kick in the nuts is when Mike told me and others that he'd gotten the offer to join the 4e team... Our conspiracy theory was that they got wind our little Open Source project and killed it by offering Mearls the Golden Handcuffs. In hindsight I'm less certain of this. We had a crew of *killers* that were down with this project - so it might still be true. I think in retrospect we were a nuisance that was easily dealt with. But I also think by serving up an Open Source system that was actively curated it would have leveraged the massive swell of third-party support already extant in 3.x suddenly with no place to go. Would it have been successful? We'll never know...

But now Estar has me thinking about it a LOT these days...

If it helps, I think you might've been right to jump ship from PF. As much as I like Pathfinder, it wasn't so much that they made new mistakes as they sustained existing ones. Particularly involving how the action economy worked.

As doomed as it turned out to be... I would have *really* liked to gotten on board with Pat Kapera and Alex Flagg on Fantasy Craft. I didn't even know about it until way after the fact.

What killed that was the fact it was only two of them working on it and Fantasy Craft dropped literally the same time as Pathfinder. It got smothered in the crib.

Quote from: tenbones on October 01, 2021, 10:41:21 AM
As doomed as it turned out to be... I would have *really* liked to gotten on board with Pat Kapera and Alex Flagg on Fantasy Craft. I didn't even know about it until way after the fact.

What killed that was the fact it was only two of them working on it and Fantasy Craft dropped literally the same time as Pathfinder. It got smothered in the crib.

I like to call that 'UHF Syndrome' when something of quality releases only to get run over by one or more bigger names.

('UHF' opened in theaters against Batman, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Ghostbusters 2, Honey I Shrunk the Kids, When Harry Met Sally, Dead Poets Society, License to Kill, and Lethal Weapon 2. I'm amazed it made any money at all.)

Quote from: tenbones on October 01, 2021, 10:41:21 AM
As doomed as it turned out to be... I would have *really* liked to gotten on board with Pat Kapera and Alex Flagg on Fantasy Craft. I didn't even know about it until way after the fact.

What killed that was the fact it was only two of them working on it and Fantasy Craft dropped literally the same time as Pathfinder. It got smothered in the crib.

  They claim Spellbound is almost ready to see the light of day. Maybe that will allow it to fill the niche of 'what 3.X wanted to be,' as opposed to 'what 3.X became,' which PF has sewn up. Of course, I'm also the eccentric who thinks that Savage Worlds is the closest thing to what 2nd Edition wanted to be, so take my assessments of the hobby with a cubic foot of salt. :)

Quote from: wmarshal on October 01, 2021, 09:42:28 AM

Quote from: Chris24601 on October 01, 2021, 08:51:10 AM
But in terms of "unlikely to be repeated conditions" I think this is spot on. 5e returned to the OGL, fixing the mistake made by creating their own biggest competitor.

It seems to me that a graduate level thesis could be done covering the grade A strategic mistake WOTC made by trying to fire their biggest third party content provider, and inevitably created their biggest competitor just as they tried to convince their customers to switch to a new product. (4E was the New Coke of D&D. Imagine what could have happened to the Coca-Cola company if they had a supplier that could have immediately rolled out an classic Coke replacement l.) One can only hope that those at WOTC involved in such a poor business decision to fire Paizo from D&D have been banished from the business world, and are now working as tradesmen somewhere in the Yukon.

Something very similar happened with Nintendo and Sony, which led to the Playstation.

Quote from: Armchair Gamer on October 01, 2021, 10:58:21 AM

Quote from: tenbones on October 01, 2021, 10:41:21 AM
As doomed as it turned out to be... I would have *really* liked to gotten on board with Pat Kapera and Alex Flagg on Fantasy Craft. I didn't even know about it until way after the fact.

What killed that was the fact it was only two of them working on it and Fantasy Craft dropped literally the same time as Pathfinder. It got smothered in the crib.

  They claim Spellbound is almost ready to see the light of day. Maybe that will allow it to fill the niche of 'what 3.X wanted to be,' as opposed to 'what 3.X became,' which PF has sewn up. Of course, I'm also the eccentric who thinks that Savage Worlds is the closest thing to what 2nd Edition wanted to be, so take my assessments of the hobby with a cubic foot of salt. :)

I know most people's heads will explode at the idea of you saying that...

But having delved so deeply into both lines of design... I totally see what you're getting at.

Fantasy Craft took the 3.x d20 design to the craziest heights of trying to balance all of it's subsystems against one another. The problem with d20 becomes manifest. So many subsystems and granular progression reveals the issue with the *assumed* progression which has been massively distorted by decades of power-creep beyond the original assumptions of Gygax himself.

This has led to gigantic numbers bloat, as well as revealing just how far removed the abstractions of their subsystems are mechanically from the realities they're supposed to portray. The bloat feeds the bloat. Because 5e never even tried to resolve these fundamental design issues with the rigor that Fantasy Craft did, it either retains them, or shifts them under the rug.

Fantasy Craft spreads the power more evenly across the 20-level spread which is what 3e presumed to do. It leverages the abstractions of Feats far better than any other edition since 3e, and directly tackles the worst offenders of the 3e mechanical design - LFQM, Stat Dumping, Scaling and recodifies the 20-level spread.

Savage Worlds accomplishes this further by boiling away the needless numbers-bloat, and leverages the reality that Classes are just packages of Abilities. It breaks those abilities out to add directly to a simple Core Task Resolution Mechanic - roll 4 or higher. Everything else is plugged into that.

Effectively "Edges" are just Feats with more mechanical power. Where it matters is directly tied to "How One Dies in Game" - since the Wound system of Savage Worlds is pretty simple, it bypasses the HP Pinata issue of d20. This allows for more mechanical and abstract leverage to the combat system of Savage Worlds where Parrying and Armor (Toughness) is tighter, and has more verisimilitude without have a shit-ton of sub-systems to figure out.

Fighters are *hard* to land a blow on because, shock, they're good at fighting. They can take massive beatings because they're Tough. They're harder to damage because they're strong enough to wear armor (making them Tougher). Conversely casters suck at all those because they're putting their advancement into other things - but can nuke like nobody's business.

Savage Worlds does with smaller numbers, less bloat, what 2e set out to do circa-Skills and Options. I think Fantasy Craft v. Savage Worlds is a better example. In fact if you look at Savage Worlds Pathfinder and Fantasy Craft, they're weird mirror opposites of one another. Exemplars of both their systems doing the same thing with different mechanics expressing them.

Edit: I should amend the Savage Worlds does have a lot of modifiers to combat, but they're all small numbers and common sense. You can fit your character on half an index card at Legendary level (which would be like 18th+ level in D&D) which in 3.x would be a 4-page dissertation trying to describe your character mechanically.

I admit, I was thinking less mechanically and more philosophically--the strong setting emphasis of both AD&D 2E and Savage Worlds, Edges and Flaws as a parallel to Kits for straightforward distinction of characters, and a general 'high adventure' feel with medium mechanics, moderately plotted games, and warlord/domain play as possible but not central.

It still stands.

The mechanics of the design emulate the same general things that define the systems. All the sinew in-between the sub-systems is where where they differ philosophically, aside from their task-resolution mechanics.

Quote from: tenbones on October 01, 2021, 11:32:11 AM
Savage Worlds accomplishes this further by boiling away the needless numbers-bloat, and leverages the reality that Classes are just packages of Abilities. It breaks those abilities out to add directly to a simple Core Task Resolution Mechanic - roll 4 or higher. Everything else is plugged into that.

Effectively "Edges" are just Feats with more mechanical power. Where it matters is directly tied to "How One Dies in Game" - since the Wound system of Savage Worlds is pretty simple, it bypasses the HP Pinata issue of d20. This allows for more mechanical and abstract leverage to the combat system of Savage Worlds where Parrying and Armor (Toughness) is tighter, and has more verisimilitude without have a shit-ton of sub-systems to figure out.

Fighters are *hard* to land a blow on because, shock, they're good at fighting. They can take massive beatings because they're Tough. They're harder to damage because they're strong enough to wear armor (making them Tougher). Conversely casters suck at all those because they're putting their advancement into other things - but can nuke like nobody's business.

Savage Worlds does with smaller numbers, less bloat, what 2e set out to do circa-Skills and Options. I think Fantasy Craft v. Savage Worlds is a better example. In fact if you look at Savage Worlds Pathfinder and Fantasy Craft, they're weird mirror opposites of one another. Exemplars of both their systems doing the same thing with different mechanics expressing them.

Edit: I should amend the Savage Worlds does have a lot of modifiers to combat, but they're all small numbers and common sense. You can fit your character on half an index card at Legendary level (which would be like 18th+ level in D&D) which in 3.x would be a 4-page dissertation trying to describe your character mechanically.

In some ways, Savage Worlds reminds me of a far less imbecilic Skills and Powers.

Quote from: tenbones on October 01, 2021, 11:45:03 AM
It still stands.

The mechanics of the design emulate the same general things that define the systems. All the sinew in-between the sub-systems is where where they differ philosophically, aside from their task-resolution mechanics.

   Not disputing; just pointing out my own line of thought on the subject.

Quote from: Ghostmaker on October 01, 2021, 11:52:07 AM
In some ways, Savage Worlds reminds me of a far less imbecilic Skills and Powers.

  Agreed--but one of my long-standing questions about S&P is how many of its problems were its own, and how many of them were inherent in trying to build the AD&D structure into a point-based system?

I find that SW fixed my problem with skillpoint based games: Balancing expensive abilities.
In Skillpoint based games (Shadowrun, Gurps, M&M) they try to balance abilities against each other with costs, but this causes a glut of numbers bloat and makes increasing in power dissapointing.

Savage Worlds levarages so many good systems together in harmony: Your skills are important, but your edges are what make a character REALLY stand out from one another. But at the same time your abilities aren't finnicky shit like '+0.5% hit chance on a tuesday per 3/4ths of a level'.
The amount of skillpoints/ level is low and actually managable, but is also significant.

Quote from: Armchair Gamer on October 01, 2021, 12:07:22 PMAgreed--but one of my long-standing questions about S&P is how many of its problems were its own, and how many of them were inherent in trying to build the AD&D structure into a point-based system?

Stars Without Number revised does this pretty well all things considered. S&P is just a thing that happens when you are at the experimental phase.

Quote from: tenbones on October 01, 2021, 10:31:58 AM
As an odd obscure footnote to history, concerning the transition period from 3.x to 4e...

I was part of a small circle of feature writers at Dragon that Paizo's editorial pulled in to be notified that there was talk about a 4th edition of D&D was being mulled about at WotC. Paizo thought they were going to be part of whatever the 4e development was going to become. The feature writers had all our stuff sniffed over by WotC and Paizo, so it was assumed we, specifcally, would have at minimum some access to this process because we were the ones doing features on specific topics requested by Paizo editorial often to back up projects coming up from WotC sometimes with 6-months of lead time.

At the time, Mearls (one of the circle of feature writers) was talking to me and a few other writers about a side-project... a quasi-Open Source version of d20 where we would outline the core mechanics and each writer would own their respective subsystems, and we'd peer-review everything and decide what is Core and what is Optional. But the rules would have been made free to the public. We were talking about setting it all up - including our process for bringing in submissions etc (which was going to be easy since our goal was to be constant curating and peer-reviewing once the core rules were set).

Before we got it started Mearls went quiet... then I got disillusioned with 3.x/Pathfinder, tired of the editorial chains (heh I was always trying to subvert 3.x and push its boundaries - so was Mearls, which is what got us to work on Goodman games stuff)... then Paizo told us they lost Dragon and weren't going to be part of 4e. This is when the whole Pathfinder thing happened... and I jumped ship, because I came to hate what 3.x had become and when I found out that Pathfinder wasn't going to really push the envelope on the system, they played it safe with what became Pathfinder, the whole thing lost its appeal to me.

The kick in the nuts is when Mike told me and others that he'd gotten the offer to join the 4e team... Our conspiracy theory was that they got wind our little Open Source project and killed it by offering Mearls the Golden Handcuffs. In hindsight I'm less certain of this. We had a crew of *killers* that were down with this project - so it might still be true. I think in retrospect we were a nuisance that was easily dealt with. But I also think by serving up an Open Source system that was actively curated it would have leveraged the massive swell of third-party support already extant in 3.x suddenly with no place to go. Would it have been successful? We'll never know...

But now Estar has me thinking about it a LOT these days...

That is so freakin fascinating. Thanks for sharing that. It wouldn't surprise me if they got wind and shut it down by hiring Mearls. I mean I don't know the dude, like at all, but I'm sure he's a nice guy, but if I was all of a sudden offered a job with WotC I couldn't say shit for the likely NDA.

5.5e will be a gooey androgynous mess.

I do not agree with all of the 5e criticism. The core is solid. D20 + proficiency + ability is clean. A nice house with a nice fence around it. But before the paint was dry, they let cousin Eddie park out front. And now the yard is full of burning tires, combat wheelchairs, and furries swiping on their homemade deodorant as they get ready for the prom.

I don't know enough about the people involved, but I'd love to have a drink with Perkins and get his perspective. Anybody can see Crawford from 10,000 miles away, but I have always wondered where Chris falls out in all of this. For reasons I cannot quite articulate, I would not be surprised to see him quietly step away before 2024.

I do not enjoy Savage Worlds. I tried, but all PCs felt a bit samey to me and d4 to d12 didn't feel like enough granularity to me. A matter of taste, I guess.

However, Savage Worlds IS indeed nearly the PERFECT level of crunch for me. I hope I can make a similar job with my minimalist 5e - maybe about 50ish pages, four core classes with lots of customization (something like 2e in this regard), fewer spells, six or seven skills, and so on.

The crunch that is being added to 5e doesn't help me, quite the opposite.

Quote from: Eric Diaz on October 01, 2021, 01:04:03 PM
I do not enjoy Savage Worlds. I tried, but all PCs felt a bit samey to me and d6 to d12 didn't feel like enough granularity to me. A matter of taste, I guess.

The difference from d4->d12 is ~50%. Thats not accounting for things like frenzy, free-rerolls, static bonuses, aiming, ignoring penalties, circumstantial bonuses, equipment stuff. ETC.

D&D 5e has a variance of ~50% - Over 20 LEVELS.

I'll have to check out Dungeon World and Savage Pathfinder. I missed August's Dungeon World promo on Bundle of Holding. Argh

Quote from: Armchair Gamer on October 01, 2021, 10:58:21 AM
  They claim Spellbound is almost ready to see the light of day. Maybe that will allow it to fill the niche of 'what 3.X wanted to be,' as opposed to 'what 3.X became,' which PF has sewn up. Of course, I'm also the eccentric who thinks that Savage Worlds is the closest thing to what 2nd Edition wanted to be, so take my assessments of the hobby with a cubic foot of salt. :)

I think I get where you are coming from with that.  What 5E wanted to be versus what is was out of the gate versus what it is becoming is pretty much the root of my arguments. 

Quote from: Steven Mitchell on October 01, 2021, 01:40:45 PM
I think I get where you are coming from with that.  What 5E wanted to be versus what is was out of the gate versus what it is becoming is pretty much the root of my arguments.

   Though I've more or less ignored the game's unfolding, the 5E we got was a different beast in many ways from the 5E we were promised initially.

  I only ever read through Fantasy Craft, and it looked like a higher fantasy adaption of the Mongoose Conan version of D20, which I liked a lot.   I think the massive damage with a scaled threshold is something that keeps high level players in check to a degree and prevents having to have every enemy either titanic in ability to do damage or laden with insta death magic.  I remember there were other things I liked a good bit (I want to say defense was calculated the same, on a parry and a dodge, but I do not remember and could be conflating with Conan now), and armor as damage reduction.   I think i might pick up a copy for the library.

Quote from: Armchair Gamer on October 01, 2021, 01:48:15 PM

Quote from: Steven Mitchell on October 01, 2021, 01:40:45 PM
I think I get where you are coming from with that.  What 5E wanted to be versus what is was out of the gate versus what it is becoming is pretty much the root of my arguments.

   Though I've more or less ignored the game's unfolding, the 5E we got was a different beast in many ways from the 5E we were promised initially.

Didn't this happen with 4E/NEXT as well? We got promised a whole bunch of options and then it turned into a wet fart?

Quote from: Ghostmaker on October 01, 2021, 02:08:11 PM
Didn't this happen with 4E/NEXT as well? We got promised a whole bunch of options and then it turned into a wet fart?

Everything that WotC does is launched with more promises than they can deliver.  It's practically a corporate tic at this point, and a dead give away they have people writing promises that don't know or care how the game actually works.  You get that type in all kinds of businesses.  It's a different corporate dysfunction compared to, say, Lorraine Williams at TSR but in the ballpark. 

There's another level to it, though.  They aren't very good at clearly communicating the big strategy within their team.  Not sure if that's not having the strategy thought out, not reinforcing it while doing design, development, marketing and testing, not hiring people that believe in it, playing office politics, of something else causing the trouble.  They had some handle on it at the start of 3E, for whatever reason.  Of course, some of that was that they were making it up as they went, which is not necessarily a bad thing if the decision makers know that and are talking to each other. 

Part of WotC's issue now is they seem to be attracting more and more people that believe their own bullshit.  Always a bad sign.

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on October 01, 2021, 01:11:07 PM

Quote from: Eric Diaz on October 01, 2021, 01:04:03 PM
I do not enjoy Savage Worlds. I tried, but all PCs felt a bit samey to me and d6 to d12 didn't feel like enough granularity to me. A matter of taste, I guess.

The difference from d4->d12 is ~50%. Thats not accounting for things like frenzy, free-rerolls, static bonuses, aiming, ignoring penalties, circumstantial bonuses, equipment stuff. ETC.

D&D 5e has a variance of ~50% - Over 20 LEVELS.

That's... not exactly what I'm saying. I got accustomed to abilities in the 8-20 range (or 8-16 when playing GURPS). Even if you only consider the modifier (-1 to +5), you can see a distinction between the Str 8 wizard, the Str 10 thief, the Str 12 cleric, the Str 14 paladin, etc., all the way to the strength 20 (up to 24 in 5e) barbarian.

Now, it doesn't actually work in D&D because if you roll a Strength contest between, say 8 and 16, the stronger guy will only win about 70% of the time (or something), while I'd expect something like 90% or more.

And I think the difference between the d4 and d12 (even with the additional d6 for everyone) is probably more pronounced than +1 in D&D, I think. It's just the D&D feels more granular than that, to me. Again, a matter of taste.

Quote from: Armchair Gamer on September 30, 2021, 08:30:19 PM
  Bear in mind that Pathfinder had benefits that no one else had before or since either: The ability to clone 3.5E without legal concerns, the established track record, the high production values from day one,...

... and I think WotC is taking numerous steps to make sure it never happens again, such as doubling down on brand identity and making sure no one can pick up where they leave off with the game.

Yes, PF had circumstances in its favor. And there is a high bar to 'compete' with D&D.

But a high bar is not an impossible task.

My point is that WotC is fully capable of screwing the pooch. They proved that they can do so.

"Official D&D" can fail.

If they did it once, then they can do it again. They can take all the steps to "prevent it" that they want. As we have seen in recent history, no IP is immune from a royal fucking up. Yes, the circumstances will be different, and it may take longer for a second player to gain traction. But even D&D is not immune to failure.

Quote from: tenbones on October 01, 2021, 10:31:58 AM
As an odd obscure footnote to history, concerning the transition period from 3.x to 4e...
...
The kick in the nuts is when Mike told me and others that he'd gotten the offer to join the 4e team... Our conspiracy theory was that they got wind our little Open Source project and killed it by offering Mearls the Golden Handcuffs. In hindsight I'm less certain of this. We had a crew of *killers* that were down with this project - so it might still be true. ...

Before the launch of 3e WotC went around and bought out a few small press games like the: Cutthroat: The Shadow Wars RPG because they used a universal d20 roll-high mechanic. A revised edition was released in 1999, and then promptly went completely "out of print" in 2000...

I don't think WotC needs to do this kind of low-down behavior anymore with the explosion of the 5e juggernaut. But with such a quick edition turn to 4e, I can easily see them trying to hedge their bets. I have no problem believing it.

Regarding the actual topic...

I don't know why, but I have a feeling that D&D (gaming) books already had their best moment. I expect new books to be successful - maybe even more so than old ones - but there will not be much more growth. Instead, they'll sell a lot more toys, movies, books, etc.

I cannot articulate why, but I'm feeling this for a while. 5e is past its prime and I don't think 5.5e will fix that.

I do not think, however, that a new competitor will emerge. Non-D&D RPGs will remain a niche and that's okay, I guess.

Just a hunch at this point. Might be completely wrong.

Quote from: Eric Diaz on October 01, 2021, 04:51:13 PMThat's... not exactly what I'm saying. I got accustomed to abilities in the 8-20 range (or 8-16 when playing GURPS). Even if you only consider the modifier (-1 to +5), you can see a distinction between the Str 8 wizard, the Str 10 thief, the Str 12 cleric, the Str 14 paladin, etc., all the way to the strength 20 (up to 24 in 5e) barbarian.

Well GURPS rolls on a sharp curve meaning smaller numbers are more significant. A +1 difference there is more significant then a +1 difference in D&D.

QuoteNow, it doesn't actually work in D&D because if you roll a Strength contest between, say 8 and 16, the stronger guy will only win about 70% of the time (or something), while I'd expect something like 90% or more.

The actual difference between the two is actually a total of +4. Which is 20%. The strong guy will triumph SIGNIFICANTLY less 70%.

QuoteIt's just the D&D feels more granular than that, to me. Again, a matter of taste.

Alright, I guess I get what you mean.

Quote from: Eric Diaz on October 01, 2021, 04:54:52 PM
...
I don't know why, but I have a feeling that D&D (gaming) books already had their best moment. I expect new books to be successful - maybe even more so than old ones - but there will not be much more growth. Instead, they'll sell a lot more toys, movies, books, etc.
...

Personally I think that a lot of WotC and Hasbros plans for D&D as a brand are waiting to see how the upcoming movie and tv series hit.

If the movie and tv series are Hits: Expect to see D&D fucking everywhere.

If the Movie and Tv series Flop Hard...  That can have a Big effect on the growth of the hobby with the casuals and normies.

Quote from: DM_Curt on September 27, 2021, 08:16:47 PM
I skipped 3e, 3.5 and 4e.  By that pattern, I can skip 5.5e, 6e and 7e, right?  :P

At the rate WOTC is going there may not be a 6 or 7 before they finally get buried by their own incompetence and get what they deserve. Cancelled.

I like 5e, warts and all. Its easy enough to fix or totally jettison the things that do not work, like unbreakable long rests, and get a fairly good D&D game. But it was inevitable that WOTC would eventually fuck things up some how some way. WOTC is too infatuated with the damn "five year plan" that Im surprised they didnt roll out a new edition already. That they intend to have this whatever it is, out in 3 years is though interesting. It gives them alot of leeway to fuck things up even better.

Quote from: Armchair Gamer on October 01, 2021, 01:48:15 PM

Quote from: Steven Mitchell on October 01, 2021, 01:40:45 PM
I think I get where you are coming from with that.  What 5E wanted to be versus what is was out of the gate versus what it is becoming is pretty much the root of my arguments.

   Though I've more or less ignored the game's unfolding, the 5E we got was a different beast in many ways from the 5E we were promised initially.

Very different. We were promised a modular game. That was kicked to the curb immediately. Too much design work. When I saw that wasn't happening I stopped paying attention.

Quote from: Eric Diaz on October 01, 2021, 04:51:13 PM

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on October 01, 2021, 01:11:07 PM

Quote from: Eric Diaz on October 01, 2021, 01:04:03 PM
I do not enjoy Savage Worlds. I tried, but all PCs felt a bit samey to me and d6 to d12 didn't feel like enough granularity to me. A matter of taste, I guess.

The difference from d4->d12 is ~50%. Thats not accounting for things like frenzy, free-rerolls, static bonuses, aiming, ignoring penalties, circumstantial bonuses, equipment stuff. ETC.

D&D 5e has a variance of ~50% - Over 20 LEVELS.

That's... not exactly what I'm saying. I got accustomed to abilities in the 8-20 range (or 8-16 when playing GURPS). Even if you only consider the modifier (-1 to +5), you can see a distinction between the Str 8 wizard, the Str 10 thief, the Str 12 cleric, the Str 14 paladin, etc., all the way to the strength 20 (up to 24 in 5e) barbarian.

Now, it doesn't actually work in D&D because if you roll a Strength contest between, say 8 and 16, the stronger guy will only win about 70% of the time (or something), while I'd expect something like 90% or more.

Even with the most granular system in common use in RPGs, the chance S 16 will win in a raw contest of strength should be 100%, barring cheating. But that's a problem with D&D throughout all the various editions, and RPGs in general: They're generally not good at reflecting different success gradients. Most games base everything on bell curves, where everyone has a chance. But that doesn't really apply with things like arm wrestling and nuclear physics.

Quote from: Pat on October 05, 2021, 03:58:34 PM

Quote from: Eric Diaz on October 01, 2021, 04:51:13 PM

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on October 01, 2021, 01:11:07 PM

Quote from: Eric Diaz on October 01, 2021, 01:04:03 PM
I do not enjoy Savage Worlds. I tried, but all PCs felt a bit samey to me and d6 to d12 didn't feel like enough granularity to me. A matter of taste, I guess.

The difference from d4->d12 is ~50%. Thats not accounting for things like frenzy, free-rerolls, static bonuses, aiming, ignoring penalties, circumstantial bonuses, equipment stuff. ETC.

D&D 5e has a variance of ~50% - Over 20 LEVELS.

That's... not exactly what I'm saying. I got accustomed to abilities in the 8-20 range (or 8-16 when playing GURPS). Even if you only consider the modifier (-1 to +5), you can see a distinction between the Str 8 wizard, the Str 10 thief, the Str 12 cleric, the Str 14 paladin, etc., all the way to the strength 20 (up to 24 in 5e) barbarian.

Now, it doesn't actually work in D&D because if you roll a Strength contest between, say 8 and 16, the stronger guy will only win about 70% of the time (or something), while I'd expect something like 90% or more.

Even with the most granular system in common use in RPGs, the chance S 16 will win in a raw contest of strength should be 100%, barring cheating. But that's a problem with D&D throughout all the various editions, and RPGs in general: They're generally not good at reflecting different success gradients. Most games base everything on bell curves, where everyone has a chance. But that doesn't really apply with things like arm wrestling and nuclear physics.

Well, yes, but in GURPS at least the Str 16 guy will win 98% of the time instead of 70%. I'll agree in arm-wrestling the real number would be 100%, but most Str contests in RPGs will be "action scenes", where the wizard has at least a very small chance to wrestle the wan out of the minotaur's hand, etc.

Quote from: Eric Diaz on October 05, 2021, 04:08:32 PM

Quote from: Pat on October 05, 2021, 03:58:34 PM

Quote from: Eric Diaz on October 01, 2021, 04:51:13 PM

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on October 01, 2021, 01:11:07 PM

Quote from: Eric Diaz on October 01, 2021, 01:04:03 PM
I do not enjoy Savage Worlds. I tried, but all PCs felt a bit samey to me and d6 to d12 didn't feel like enough granularity to me. A matter of taste, I guess.

The difference from d4->d12 is ~50%. Thats not accounting for things like frenzy, free-rerolls, static bonuses, aiming, ignoring penalties, circumstantial bonuses, equipment stuff. ETC.

D&D 5e has a variance of ~50% - Over 20 LEVELS.

That's... not exactly what I'm saying. I got accustomed to abilities in the 8-20 range (or 8-16 when playing GURPS). Even if you only consider the modifier (-1 to +5), you can see a distinction between the Str 8 wizard, the Str 10 thief, the Str 12 cleric, the Str 14 paladin, etc., all the way to the strength 20 (up to 24 in 5e) barbarian.

Now, it doesn't actually work in D&D because if you roll a Strength contest between, say 8 and 16, the stronger guy will only win about 70% of the time (or something), while I'd expect something like 90% or more.

Even with the most granular system in common use in RPGs, the chance S 16 will win in a raw contest of strength should be 100%, barring cheating. But that's a problem with D&D throughout all the various editions, and RPGs in general: They're generally not good at reflecting different success gradients. Most games base everything on bell curves, where everyone has a chance. But that doesn't really apply with things like arm wrestling and nuclear physics.

Well, yes, but in GURPS at least the Str 16 guy will win 98% of the time instead of 70%. I'll agree in arm-wrestling the real number would be 100%, but most Str contests in RPGs will be "action scenes", where the wizard has at least a very small chance to wrestle the wan out of the minotaur's hand, etc.

Changing the steepness of the curve can make it apply better in specific cases, but it doesn't address the underlying problem. Though I think the problem is more something to acknowledge and occasionally special case (e.g. have a different mechanic for smashing open doors) than something to be solved, because having different success gradients for everything is infeasible.

Quote from: horsesoldier on October 05, 2021, 09:21:04 AM
Very different. We were promised a modular game. That was kicked to the curb immediately. Too much design work. When I saw that wasn't happening I stopped paying attention.

Thank you for this, I thought I hallucinated that. I clearly remember having that impression back when 5e first came out but I don't remember what I heard or read that gave me that impression, and it's not something I see people talk about.

Quote from: Eric Diaz on October 01, 2021, 04:54:52 PM
Regarding the actual topic...

I don't know why, but I have a feeling that D&D (gaming) books already had their best moment. I expect new books to be successful - maybe even more so than old ones - but there will not be much more growth. Instead, they'll sell a lot more toys, movies, books, etc.

I cannot articulate why, but I'm feeling this for a while. 5e is past its prime and I don't think 5.5e will fix that.

I do not think, however, that a new competitor will emerge. Non-D&D RPGs will remain a niche and that's okay, I guess.

Just a hunch at this point. Might be completely wrong.

I won't begin to work again until it has a awesome, new setting to go along with it.  Don't see that happening.  Reviving an old setting might interest some fans, but not like a new setting would.