It's official, 5e is now .

This time it looks like it won't be a behind closed doors while we pretend to listen to the playtesters project. (Yeah, one of my big annoyances with 4e was the enormous skill challenge errata - for problems that the testers had told them were problems.)

I do not know what this will mean for those that love 4e, given that the 4e GSL is revokable, unlike the 3.X OGL.

The Auld Grump

Well, as long as they keep Wyatt chained away....

Mearls was pretty good when he was OGL, and having Monte Cook back is a good step.

The big question is going to be the license.

The Auld Grump

Yeah, I found the announcement pretty telling. More of a measure of the general health of the industry than an excited pronouncement of an upcoming 5E.

That being said, I do hope that WOTC can turn things around. Not that I'm in a position to give advice but if I was WOTC, I would go in the complete opposite direction. They should shrink their ambition, pull in a small core of the best industry talent and focus down into what would make a great dungeoncrawl better. Because at the end of the day, that's what this is all about.

And by better, I mean thinking outside of the box in almost every way and create a tabletop experience that will make passers by do a double take. Look at what Pathfinder and even Fantasy Flight games are doing right and use that as a foundation to do something completely new.

If I had the resources that's what I would do.

new editions are cool and all, but if they make it so that my 4e books are useless...that sucks. i actually think that they were doing the right thing with the "visual aid" in miniatures and dungeon tiles. D&D purists would say that the visual aid takes away from the imaginative side of D&D. i would agree, but i always hated playing older editions with older players because it was hard to keep track of where everything was in combat. a visual representation helps so much more, and if done right, really ADDS something great to the game.

i can spout off a full paragraph of awesomely detailed text describing a dungeon and really set the atmosphere. but my players don't "ooh" and "ahh" until i throw down a sweet map setup with 3D terrain (dungeon TCP anyone ). gaming nerds like us like miniature stuff in general. whether it's model trains/cars, warhammer, miniatures for various games, or WWG terrain. we as gamers like the visual miniature environment and to me, that's what turns heads for the new generation...not a bunch of guys sitting around a table with pencils and paper. my group doesn't bust out the iPhone to take a picture when i put down a hand drawn map. they do when i throw in a new miniature, 3D terrain, or something visually cool.

all that to say, i think WoTC dropped the ball big time with the randomly packaged mini's. they were priced too high, and you didn't know what you were getting. gaming nerds are also collectors (most of us anyway), so the collector in me wants to have every miniature possible. make it a reasonable price and let me know what i'm getting, and i'm all over it.

anyway, i think the visual aid is necessary and should be improved upon, not eliminated like the old school players would tell you. however, the combat is at times excruciatingly slow. there are too many powers and numbers/details to memorize. make it simpler for new players and for epic tier players at the same time. enhance the ways a player can be more into their character...more about the individual. when it takes 10 minutes for each player to figure out WHAT they want to do, and then 20 seconds to do it, only to miss...that's a problem that slows the entire game down.

Yup, a tighter mechanical experience with a hard focus on quality tabletop eyecandy. Figure out a way to do prepaints that don't suck and up the game with jawdropping terrain. Think about what would entice a younger generation to play (look to the resurgence of some of the top selling boardgames for guidance). Integrate stats, new rolling mechanisms, atmospheric audio and additional digital assets into optional tablet or laptop supported infrastructure. Focus on atmosphere, focus on rewarding but simple play and leveling. Focus on tiered game session timing. Create virtual and tangible perks to reward players. Create "smart terrain" that integrates physical terrain with interactive digital elements.

I could go on but then I'd be giving away all my secrets...which will never come to pass...lol.

Personally, I didn't like 4e. I tried it for the first year after it was released and it just wasn't my thing. So, I'd be happy if they went back to the 3.x roots or a different direction, but it would also suck if folks can't use their 4e books anymore. I mean, they just released 4e in...what...June of 2008. Now, they're announcing a new edition 3 1/2 years after that? That says something about their business--either they're listening 'cuz players want something different, or their sales have dried up and the only way they think they can maintain sales is to release a whole new edition.

The strange thing about 4e is that all of their pre-release marketing touted that it will streamline gameplay drastically and make combat move along MUCH faster. I never found that to be true,though. In fact, our combats would get heavily bogged down in all the status effects and unique powers of the monsters/PCs and making sure we're remembering those and adjusting actions to take that into consideration.

I think they learned the hard way in 4th edition (and this applies to 3rd ed's D&D Minis line, as well) the same lessons learned too late by TSR in the 2nd edition: churning out tons of additional rules books or rules supplements just floods the market, doesn't drive sales, and costs too much to produce. Instead, take a more conservative approach to the release schedule for hardcovers/rules supplements/sets of minis. Paizo, I think, has shown that it's a completely valid approach to be aggressive with the release schedule for adventures/modules/adventure paths if they're well done 'cuz those things make the DMs jobs easier, sell really well by word of mouth, sell really well if they have good writing, and have more reasonable production costs.

I am a 4e gamer. I have a decent chunk of the books and don't any Pathfinder. I personally enjoy 4e greatly, but don't see it as anywhere near perfect. I feel that 4e's attempt toward "simple" and "streamlined" was a great idea for gaming, but didn't quite follow through with it.

My thoughts:
-The game should be highly accessible to new players while giving veterans a means to play out their chosen settings.

-It should empower the players and use them as a focus of the gameplay.

-Adventure paths should be a the focus and should come in setting specific and nonspecific formats. I want to be able to buy a decent module to run when I am too swamped with real life stuff.

-Streamlined and simple combat/characters that still fits the "rule of cool" for everyone at the table.

Honestly, for now I will continue playing 4e and am hopeful 5e will be what I want. I will not hold my breath but feel the market will suffer greatly if it flops.

Yeah, it seems that they were intending to follow the axiom of "easy to learn, difficult to master" with 4e, but ended up with a rather bogged down system in the end. It'll be interesting to see where they go with this new edition.

Note that there's an article on ENWorld (3, actually) where one of their writers was invited out to WotC HQ last year to playtest 5e along with a bunch of other reporters. (it's right on the front page of their site, if you want to see it) He wasn't allowed to reveal any details about it, other than that it's in the works and they got to play it. It's not 100% clear from the way he writes the article, but I think it just 1 month ago when he got to play it. This kinda indicates that WotC has been working on this for a while now, in secret. I don't know if this indicates a greater sense of urgency to get something new published or to attempt to win back a lot of the gamers that they seemed to turn away with 4e or what.

I personally think that the goal should be to bring new people to the hobby. People that were scorned by 4e are very unlikely to be enthralled with a 5e. I would rather them focus on a game that I can get my non-gaming friends to start playing. Also, I would be more likely to spend my money on continuous adventures and game aids than rulebooks. I just don't see a point in yet another system if that isn't the goal.

I would love to hear my 7th graders talking about playing tabletop games, but they don't. That should change.

seems useful. It is everything currently known about 4e. Things of note are the first "public" playtest being this month at DDXP, a goal of being about to use existing content from older editions, not shifting to a mainly digital format, and rules flexibility as a DM.

Also, best quote I have seen from random comments on this news: " I used to be a D&D player like you, but then I took a 5th edition to the knee." I actually plan on giving the new stuff a legitimate, but skeptical, glance...I just thought that was funny.

I think that someone on plasticrypt hit the nail on the head, paraphrased "another edition, will just fracture the community more."

I hope they plan to support 4e and not just drop it, I think this was their biggest mistake with 3.5.

Also, I want the 3.5 green dragon back!

I am curious how much they will actually listen. Gary Gygax was brought in as an adviser on 3rd and when I asked him what exactly that meant, he said that they asked for his ideas on several things...and ignored all his feedback. :\

Here is the article on the matter.

I hope this goes well...I am cautiously optimistic. I was brought in to D&D in the 80's and have played every edition; 4E felt more like the older versions to me but there was still something missing. I am not sure it can be recaptured, but it is worth a look.

i'm mastering and playing 4e my opinion for the rules are:

Combat wise: 10/10
everything just runs smoothly

out of combat situations: 0/10
i DON'T like skill challenges and powers are not friendly to use with imagination!^^

GM Tools: 10/10
assembling an encounter out of the blue in 4e is REALLY easy!!! thinking of the work i need in gurps it's an embarassing comparison!^^

My experience with 4e combat was a lot closer to 2/10 - it bbbooogggeeeddd dddooowwwnnn.

A combat that would have taken 15-30 minutes in 3e took several hours. And it was in a WotC adventure.

It did not feel like earlier editions to me, at all. It felt more like nailing my foot to the floor and running in circles.

The Auld Grump

I gotta say what surprised me (and disappointed me) the most with 4e was how little flavor text there was for monsters, the world, campaign settings, etc. Almost everything just seemed like a stat block and list of powers and little else. Sure, DMs can come up with that stuff on their own, but isn't that why people buy campaign setting books--so they don't have to do that stuff themselves? There wasn't even descriptions for classic monsters like drow that explained where they come from. Experienced players & DM would know much of that already, but newer folks wouldn't.

I think that was the biggest mistake made with that edition. It made all their stuff look like it was a game based entirely around combat--more like a boardgame like Descent. People took that to mean they wanted a ROLLplaying game, not a ROLEplaying game. Whether they intended that or not, it's the image that was conveyed. And perception really matters to your customers.

I started playing 4E because I figured it was the most accessible game for my girls. Which turned out to be true, given how much they have enjoyed Encounters. I started an adult group with it because I kind of know the rules (the ol' head injury steepens my learning curve.) My initial 4E games were either modules or combat crawls. But lately I have felt mentally organized enough to start adding real campaign continuity and actual roleplaying elements to the game. It remains to be seen how well it works out, but I don't see the rules as working against me. I think what will make or break roleplaying in our Moonshae campaign will be the players themselves. But I don't expect to have to make an edition change with them, as I think I am relocating later this year. My girls will be fine with the new edition. Or maybe we'll start that Changeling:the Lost game that I have been dreaming about...

WOTC lines up to split its D&D customer base, yet again.

Given how many variations and alternative RPG rules systems have been developed over the last 30+ years, it would be a miracle if WOTC are able to bring our something that truly outshines the alternatives. Which takes us straight to the core of WOTC's problem WOTC can't show enough true value increase (for the with the majority of D&D customers who are already established gamers) to justify the cost of reinvesting ($, time and disruption to campaigns) in what is already one of the most expensive rules systems out there.

With WOTC accelerating down the slippery slope they embarked on when they committed to being rules suppliers rather than adventure/campaign supporters, this can only be good news for Paizo/Pathfinder. (That is, of course, provided Paizo stick to their commitment to keep to essentially one version of their rules.)

My pick is that a) although WOTC will try to generate lots of pre-interest in 5e, the exodus to Pathfinder will continue unabated, and b) when 5e does arrive sales will be underwhelming.
Or put another way, I think Paizo's gets to inherent the D&D crown.

Radical prediction #1: in a few years Hasbro and Paizo enter discussions about Paizo possibly taking over the D&D brand, but this falls through as Hasbro won't negotiate a realistic price for the brand.
Radical prediction #2: after sales of the D&D gaming system finally crash, Hasbro brings out a line of cheap fantasy-themed kids toys using the D&D brand.

Conclusion: Nice idea, wrong strategy.

Oh come now Ryan DancEy (the old head of wizards) basically laid out what happened to 4E over at enworld a few weeks ago. The edition was designed to work on computer and support the DDI so that they could get a cut of the MMO market. This was done as hasbro needed D&D to make 50mil or else their funding got cut off.

Well we all know how the online tools turned out. Without the online support the edition was forced to places it never should have been taken in a vain attempt to make money but still support their hoped for DDI revenue stream.

5e honestly has me worried. I've run too many requirements gathering sessions and software projects to think that a public design process is at all a good idea. It's hard enough to get people to compromise when they have skin in the game. If they try it with people who have a very viable second option they run the very strong risk of alianing what fans the have left when things don't go exactly as they want.


Not that I think they can't do it. Every edition (including pathfinder) have some major flaws to them. I would love to see a great next edition. I just don't see it coming out of a wide open design process.

One thing that WotC will never regain is the massive amount of goodwill that they garnered in the 3.X days.

And they squandered it! There is no emoticon here that displays my sheer fury about that.

Just incredible hubris - the assumption that no matter how they changed their game and how much they talked down to their fan base those same fans (and 3pp) would follow. And they were wrong.

Getting rid of PDFs of previous editions, bad mouthing previous editions, the terms of the GSL. Lying about the fact that 4e was even in the works. (Yes, lying - their gerrymandering that they meant that they weren't working on a game that was tied to miniatures kind of falls apart, given that 4e is more tied to the use of minis than 3.X.)

They came out with a book that stated that 'D&D is not a game about traipsing through the faerie ring and interacting with the little people' the week after my players had their characters traipse through a faerie ring and interact with the little people.... (My Scooby Punk gang. )

The whole game was worded to constrain play to a particular style, telling folks what is and is not fun - and were often wrong about what folks think is fun. 'Combat! Combat! Combat! Yay! That's what D&D is all about! ) Don't bother talking to the guards at the gate, that isn't fun! Don't traipse through the Lost Halls of the Dwarven Kings, that isn't fun! Get dragged from meaningless combat to meaningless combat! That's fun!.'

Mr. Wyatt, come here, I have a board with a nail in that would like to speak to you.... Pointedly and at length.

And it wasn't needed, folks could play those other styles just fine with 4e, or could if WotC had listened to the playtesters about the skill challenges....

Ah well, it is obvious by now that I am still irate with 4e, though from all I gather Essentials removed the most egregious examples.

I am sorry that Essentials didn't help - I think that the format is one that should be used for 5e. An inexpensive entry point into the hobby. Do something very much akin to the Pathfinder Beginner's Box for the first part, then inexpensive books that will fit inside of that box for the rest.

The Auld Grump

*EDIT* I think that UHF can pinpoint the exact post where I went from being mostly angry at 4e to worrying that D&D might disappear completely. I was arguing with him at the time. One post.

I've been reading this thread with interest because I've got a different perspective than those who've been immersed in the RPG world more, and have evolved through multiple editions. I've only ever played basic and AD&D loosely as a kid, and 4e recently as an adult with my kids. I haven't been a part of play testing. I haven't seen any of the politics of the company, or the interaction with the community. So, my perspective isn't hurt by those things.

I really like 4e. Maybe I wouldn't like it if I knew otherwise, but I don't. My 10-year-old has read every 4e book we have from cover to cover and learned right off the bat that for us, rule number one is "have fun", and any other rule to the game need to support rule number one. With that in mind, we keep combats moving. If we forget some bonuses, no big deal. In fact, the way we play, the combats are totally there to support a story we're inventing and the having of fun. If things bog down, *something* will change to speed things up. If things are going to quickly, *something* will change to make it more interesting. My 10-year-old likes to do nutty combat moves, and that's cool - we'll wing it. My 7-year-old doesn't quite 'get' the game (either the creative or the mechanical aspects) so he ends up doing totally erratic, often counter-productive things - we just wing it.

I had a moment where I was thinking "Oh hell - I just blew how much money buying EVERY 4e book I could get my hands on, and now it's dead?!?". I had the same feeling when I saw TCP stuff - "Oh hell - I just blew how much time and money with TLX, and clearly TCP will take over!". Then I took a deep breath and thought "Ok. It looks like TCP is gonna be great - maybe even better than TLX for a lot of people, and eventually maybe something beyond TLX will take over completely." This is entirely a good thing for the terrain products, and for WWG. They will make better products, and they will hopefully make more money so they can continue to feed our hobbies.

So I'm thinking of 5e in that light. I've invested in 4e. There are some weaknesses that we're ok with. Maybe 5e will require some kitbashing so I can use it with 4e. Maybe I'll have to retool all my 4e stuff so I can make the leap to 5e if it's superior (I've been impressed and excited about the TCP kitbashing that's gone on!) But, now that I'm involved in owning a piece of the D&D system, I'm going to try to stay positive a while longer and try to take any changes as they come as a positive set of *options* for how I want to play the game.

I hope, without any real emotion, that 5e succeeds wildly. If it does, it will because it's doing something (probably several things) right -- either the rules are better, or the presentation & marketnig is better, or it's just time. I hope because innovation keeps this industry moving forward and because I like having good choices.

For my campaign I moved to RuneQuest & its ilk long ago. It's instructive to see what's happened to Mongoose's foray there over the last couple of years:
1. They got the license for RuneQuest (yay, it will be in print again!)
2. They botched the public playtest (ugh, really?)
3. They published what I'll call MRQ, that had some fundamental issues. (double-ugh, I wish I hadn't seen that coming)
4. They hired two writers who really 'got' RuneQuest and published MRQII, which got strong (albeit niche) reviews (yay, it's good!)
5. They published 2 more core books that had fundamental editing and proof reading problems (ugh, really?)
6. Subsequent well-crafted books sold, but the brand was a little tarnished.
7. They gave up the license to RuneQuest (brand wasn't doing as well as they expected)
8. They renamed their system 'Legend', released it in digest size for about 1/2 the price, made it essentially 'open source', and are selling PDFs of this (and previous sourcebooks) for $1.00
9. Fan response is good (high ranks on DriveThruRPG, fan-created material coming out in a steady stream, good reviews, surpassing Mongoose expectations).
10. Mongoose is investing in the line again.

I think this market responds well to quality material that is reasonably packaged and priced, which enables fans to create their own experience.

I wonder how many of the WotC design decisions (mistakes to me) have been driven by the realities of revenue targets coming from above.

To be fair - Mongoose had RQ as an OGL release from day -30 (The SRD was up a month before the game was released.)

I love Mongoose, but yeah, their editing....

The Auld Grump

Huh - Mearls has admitted that the game designers for 4e pretty much ignored every bit of feedback from playtesters during development, feeling that the advice was too conservative.

I already knew about that in regards to skill challenges, but it was still surprising that he admitted to it.

That was the kind of thinking that made 4e the second best role playing game in the world, which would have been great, if they hadn't started as number one....

The Auld Grump