There's a difference between not wanting them to recycle adventure content, and not wanting them to throw away the basic precepts of the entire system as it had existed for three decades. Wait... what's that knocking? Did someone lock the Middle outside again, damnit?!

Quote from: Bobloblah;858921There's a difference between not wanting them to recycle adventure content, and not wanting them to throw away the basic precepts of the entire system as it had existed for three decades. Wait... what's that knocking? Did someone lock the Middle outside again, damnit?!

Welcome to the Internet.  You new?

I like the middle road, but it's often very, very, very lonely to be here by myself.

In the end, though, I'll take whatever content I can get for D&D as long as it's as well written as Out of the Abyss is turning out to be.

The bigger problem is that it seems invariably the new version of the whatever ends up being in name only and it fails. Again as example. The last two editions of Gamma World.

And players have been asking for new stuff along with the old. Wether or not WOTC will is anyones guess. Tyranny of Dragons was fairly new for a module. Elemental Evil was a sort of continuation from the old it sounds. Like Return to Keep on the Borderlands was. Abyss sounds pretty new too.

Out of the Abyss is new.

I'm guessing by "new" you mean fully fledged, brand new campaign settings...and yeah, those are always risky because you have to get buy in from your obedience.

Why are there so many re-treads and reboots? It's not because people suck and always want the same...It's because genuinely coming up with a brand new idea that people are actually going to like is fucking hard.

There are lots of "new" ideas being peddled in the RPG industry, particularly among the indie crowd. The problem is, most of them appeal to a niche, of a niche market. Most of the big obvious holes in RPG settings and ideas have already been filled..

Forgotten Realms is the distinctly D&D meta setting,...Dark Sun is Conan and Dying Earth through D&D, Dragonlance is Middle Earth through D&D

Going further than that...there's a million different Superhero systems... Whitewolf has the "Play the Monster" market cornered, and Sci-Fi is covered depending on whether you want Hard, Soft, Humanism or Transhumanism from multiple angles...

Indie things like "Dogs in the vineyard" have a very limited appeal because playing Mormon Witch-Hunters in the 1800's is kind of a very very specific idea that doesn't lend itself to much variety.

Coming up with good brand new ideas is difficult....Hence it's safer to put a new spin on what's already known and trusted.

I would like something new myself, but I would rather it be something genuinely awesome rather than incomprehensible or just flat out lame...

New as in not a re-hash or "return to" of any older modules.

One reason to do retreads is that people want a version that is compatible with the latest edition since said edition tends to be different if not downright incompatible with older. They either dont know how, or dont want to do all the messy conversion work.

Or as one DM put it. "They went to all the trouble of making sure this edition was different. So they should have to also do the dirty work of converting modules. Not me."

Don't use modules? Then its a non-point.

Yeah, I've got no problem with conversions of classics, as, if you want to run them, it could save time (though based on peoples' actual reports of 5e, this amount of time saved is fairly trivial). But I certainly don't think that's what the majority of the player base is clamoring for. The notion that there's some mountain of proof that D&D players do not want anything new, on the other hand? That's just idiocy that presumably involves redefining the term "new" to the point of being useless. Forgive my presumption, but every other time I've seen that suggested online, it was based on 4e ending up as the red-headed step-child of the D&D family, as in, "See? See?! D&D players are hopeless nostalgics who want nothing new!" It's a garbage argument.

Quote from: Bobloblah;858957Forgive my presumption, but every other time I've seen that suggested online, it was based on 4e ending up as the red-headed step-child of the D&D family, as in, "See? See?! D&D players are hopeless nostalgics who want nothing new!" It's a garbage argument.

Verily.

The failure of 4e was it changed too much and in in the wrong ways. Not that players resisted new. They resisted the severity of the change. And yet many players still embraced 4e.

Quote from: Omega;858959Verily.

The failure of 4e was it changed too much and in in the wrong ways. Not that players resisted new. They resisted the severity of the change. And yet many players still embraced 4e.

And yet, 5e, which uses elements from the older versions of D&D are the hottest selling version for WoTC.  That tells you nothing?

And there you go again, excluding the poor, neglected middle. The options aren't limited to EITHER redoing what came thirty years before OR abandoning everything for a completely different game. Moreover, people can want entirely novel adventure and setting material without wanting to replace their core books every few years. Is this really that hard to understand?

Quote from: Christopher Brady;858969And yet, 5e, which uses elements from the older versions of D&D are the hottest selling version for WoTC.  That tells you nothing?

5e caught on because it harkens back to the ease of play of O/A/2e/BX/BECMI. While doing some new things that for once were overall not intrusive to play.

5e is about as close to the happy median you can get between change and not change for the general player public.

Exactly. As I said ages ago on this site while 5e was still a gleam in Mike Mearls' eye: D&D5e doesn't need to be everybody's favorite system to be a raging success, just everyone's second favorite. It's not for me, but it's already well on its way to becoming the lingua franca of the world's most popular RPG flavour.

I would like an adventure in the Shining South or Vilhon Reach personally. Or around the Old Empires, but those have been nuked already...

Quote from: Bobloblah;859020Exactly. As I said ages ago on this site while 5e was still a gleam in Mike Mearls' eye: D&D5e doesn't need to be everybody's favorite system to be a raging success, just everyone's second favorite. It's not for me, but it's already well on its way to becoming the lingua franca of the world's most popular RPG flavour.

It's turning out to be 'everyone's' favourite though.  As in there's a lot of people who never played the more recent editions, but played in the past, are coming back to it.  People who started with 3 or 4e are enjoying it, for the 'old school' feel (whatever that crap means.)

It's a smash hit, there's no high, middle or low road about it.  It's a success, a bigger success that WoTC had expected.  It may not be for everyone, but it is for more than enough people.

Ease of play is a huge factor. I have had pre-3-4e players totally baulk at the respective systems which they found way too clunky or overwrought. Whereas they eased into 5e without much hassle.

Aside from one player bitching about how "broken" Hoard of the Dragon Queen was (and lets be honest. It does have some issues,) my players have been enjoying it. No one is too keen on the Abyss module though as they are about drowed-out. But there is some interest in trying the Elemental Evil themed one. I think with a little re-theme even Abyss might get a pass.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;859053It's turning out to be 'everyone's' favourite though.

Meh. All I can say is that that isn't my impression thus far. It's certainly well received, and I don't mean to imply otherwise, but many, if not most, of the people I currently know are playing it would rate some other edition or version above 5e. Yet they can still agree on playing 5e. Kudos to Mearls for managing such a design feat.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;859053It's a smash hit, there's no high, middle or low road about it.  It's a success, a bigger success that WoTC had expected.  It may not be for everyone, but it is for more than enough people.

Sure, it has worked out well. But the point I was making was that it doesn't need to be everyone's favorite for anything in your above quote to be true. Everyone's second favorite system accomplishes these things nicely, and I haven't seen enough of a drop off in other games to make me think it's anything but.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;859053As in there's a lot of people who never played the more recent editions, but played in the past, are coming back to it.  People who started with 3 or 4e are enjoying it, for the 'old school' feel (whatever that crap means.)

I think Omega's response pretty much nails the answer to this.