Here comes 5e.

[Benoist]

Odhanan, I see you haven't drunk my cool aid. Let me offer you a glass with ice. Seriously, 1E feel is an ending point. How do you get there (a fantasy game where the DM is in control, players control archetypes, a specific setting and high probability of death) well there are a 1001 paths. One mechanics system is as good as another (well maybe not as good but close). Same with the artwork. There are a lot of styles that would be great (what to avoid we all know too well, pick up any d20 product). The point is, design a game that when played out feels like 1E. Why is that so offal or revolutionary? Do you think that wouldn't be appealing to 3E and 4E types? What about the broader market? Would that result be too boring for the enlightened masses or something. I realize theres already a pathfinder market to sap, but why not go for something bigger?

I think 5e can't take a direct "this is your dad's AD&D for the future!" approach because that'd be like (1) recreating C&C, (2) appealing to a single segment of an extremely fractured fanbase at this point to the others' expense.

Simply put, if the game tries to be AD&D lite, 3e lite, 4e lite, it will fail, because this or that fragment of the player base at large (which includes us here) will be pissed and feel betrayed. That's the worse case scenario in my mind.

No. I think the only solution is to break down the game to come back to its core identity. In my mind, this core identity is embodied by OD&D (1974) itself, because (1) everything else came from it, (2) it was itself the fruit of a collaboration between two DMs with different play styles, EGG and Arneson, (3) it had a strong focus on the core identity of the game: "dungeons" and "dragons", the exploration of the unknown, the survival in the dungeon and the wilderness. You know. "Dungeons" and "Dragons".

So to me, the game needs to recreate that with mechanics to a broad audience. I think things like ascending ACs and target numbers are here to stay, because they are hugely popular with a huge portion of the fanbase. But I also do think that the marvel of OD&D is NOT a fluke. I believe the game's wonder is all right there in front of our eyes, and it can be replicated in a way that is not only palatable to different audiences than just us, or people interested in the OSR, but can be used as a base building block for a greater game the way the supplements were intended to be used with OD&D, supplements which then allow YOU to build your own game, and replicate AD&D, 2E, 3E, 4E, or something else entirely, however you wish.

When you look at it, each time business priorities became an immediate priority, the game lost, and lost BIG. That should NOT happen this time.

Sorry. Getting ahead of myself here. I'll let you guys respond.

[T. Foster]

Sounds like a non-starter to me. I know you got burned with C&C. At the same time, the new game, by virtue of its explicit intent, i.e. appealing to various audience of the game and being able to be grasped and retooled in different ways for different types of tables, will not be 1978 AD&D. Not going to happen.

I for one do not want it to be 1978 AD&D. I mean, I got it, and OSRIC, so I'm fine on that front. But what makes the AD&D game great can also inspire other games, and please me in different ways as a gamer. That's what I personally hope for, anyway. Something that is true to the spirit and tradition of the game, while not being a carbon copy of AD&D.

Is the "grasped and retooled in different ways for different types of tables" thing something WotC has actually declared as their intent or is that just wishful thinking? Because what I read sounded more like their intent was "put a 1E player, a 2E player, a Pathfinder player, and a 4E player all at the same table and they'll each find something to like in the game," which is very different, and says to me that we're going to get Pathfinder rules with nostalgia-baiting art, an emphasis on story over tactics, and a subscription-based deckbuilding char-op system with Mike Mearls saying "we gave you all what you said you wanted - why aren't you happy?!"

D&D was at its most successful in 1979-83; it was at its second-most-successful in 2000-01 when, not coincidentally, it convinced a lot of people (at least temporarily) that it was returning to the principles and style of that era. At pretty much every other time D&D has been failing to some degree or another. Exactly recreating the product of the 1979-83 era isn't a recipe for success (it's dated, it's a relic of the pre-computer age, everybody who wants it already has it) but recapturing that style and feel is, or at least is more of one than what WotC has been doing for the past decade (when they've been hemorrhaging customers). Not necessarily the specific rules (THAC0 tables, XP charts, percentile strength, etc.) but the style of the art, the dynamic of the game, the tone of the language.

[Benoist]

Is the "grasped and retooled in different ways for different types of tables" thing something WotC has actually declared as their intent or is that just wishful thinking? Because what I read sounded more like their intent was "put a 1E player, a 2E player, a Pathfinder player, and a 4E player all at the same table and they'll each find something to like in the game," which is very different, and says to me that we're going to get Pathfinder rules with nostalgia-baiting art, an emphasis on story over tactics, and a subscription-based deckbuilding char-op system with Mike Mearls saying "we gave you all what you said you wanted - why aren't you happy?!"

Half half. I'm hoping this is something like this they have in mind. Just like your interpretation that this will lead to Pathfinder lite is half based on stuff you read, and half based on past experiences that left you sore in the gut. I mean, let's call it what it is. And by the way, I share your feelings on the question.

Here, quoting Mike Mearls:

"The new edition is being conceived of as a modular, flexible system, easily customized to individual preferences. Just like a player makes his character, the Dungeon Master can make his ruleset. He might say ‘I’m going to run a military campaign, it’s going to be a lot of fighting’… so he’d use the combat chapter, drop in miniatures rules, and include the martial arts optional rules."

See there on ENWorld for a collection of quotes about 5e.

D&D was at its most successful in 1979-83; it was at its second-most-successful in 2000-01 when, not coincidentally, it convinced a lot of people (at least temporarily) that it was returning to the principles and style of that era. At pretty much every other time D&D has been failing to some degree or another. Exactly recreating the product of the 1979-83 era isn't a recipe for success (it's dated, it's a relic of the pre-computer age, everybody who wants it already has it) but recapturing that style and feel is, or at least is more of one than what WotC has been doing for the past decade (when they've been hemorrhaging customers). Not necessarily the specific rules (THAC0 tables, XP charts, percentile strength, etc.) but the style of the art, the dynamic of the game, the tone of the language.

That I agree with. I hope some people read this thread.

[blackprinceofmuncie]

The new edition is being conceived of as a modular, flexible system, easily customized to individual preferences. Just like a player makes his character, the Dungeon Master can make his ruleset. He might say ‘I’m going to run a military campaign, it’s going to be a lot of fighting’… so he’d use the combat chapter, drop in miniatures rules, and include the martial arts optional rules.

When I read this quote, I hear in my head "We would like you to buy $40 worth of RPG, when you'll actually end up using only $15-worth of the material". No thanks. Not only do I not want to pay for chapters I don't intend to use, I don't want to buy a game and then sit around thinking for hours about whether I should be using this or that sub-system. YOU are the game designer. Do your job. Design a game where, if I sit down with some friends and use the rulebooks as written, fun is the result. I will buy fun in a box, I will not buy a homework assignment in a box.

[Benoist]

Another quote, same guy : "Working on a game that's almost 40 years old now, we've seen the complex end. And what happened with each edition of D&D is it got more complex and we need to go back to the original D&D."

I mean, sure, yes, it can totally FAIL in about a half billion different ways. But it's possible for it to succeed. Maybe. I hope. Not because my gaming's threatened: I'm set, I got the games I love, I play with people I befriend.. I mean, my gaming isn't at stake here. Yet I want the game to succeed. You know what I mean?

[T. Foster]

No. I think the only solution is to break down the game to come back to its core identity. In my mind, this core identity is embodied by OD&D (1974) itself, because (1) everything else came from it, (2) it was itself the fruit of a collaboration between two DMs with different play styles, EGG and Arneson, (3) it had a strong focus on the core identity of the game: "dungeons" and "dragons", the exploration of the unknown, the survival in the dungeon and the wilderness. You know. "Dungeons" and "Dragons".

So to me, the game needs to recreate that with mechanics to a broad audience. I think things like ascending ACs and target numbers are here to stay, because they are hugely popular with a huge portion of the fanbase. But I also do think that the marvel of OD&D is NOT a fluke. I believe the game's wonder is all right there in front of our eyes, and it can be replicated in a way that is not only palatable to different audiences than just us, or people interested in the OSR, but can be used as a base building block for a greater game the way the supplements were intended to be used with OD&D, supplements which then allow YOU to build your own game, and replicate AD&D, 2E, 3E, 4E, or something else entirely, however you wish.

The problem is that, while that looks good in theory, in practice basically NOBODY played OD&D -- the game didn't become a mainstream (or at least quasi-mainstream - players numbering in the millions rather than the tens of thousands) success until AD&D was released and replaced the wide-open DIY toolbox of OD&D with a specific set of rules and flavor that, while encouraging some degree of creativity and customization around the margins, was largely focused on a unified "shared experience" of everybody being on the same aesthetic and game-philosophical page. And when TSR moved away from that - first changing the flavor in the late-1E era and then opening up the customization "have it your way" aspects in 2E in place of the specific "Gygaxian" vision, the game faltered, and it only recovered in 2000 when the release of 3E was, to a very significant degree, marketed as a return to the style and flavor of 1E (and then faltered again once people realized that under the thin 1E-flavor veneer the actual game was something very different).

Hardcore hobbyist gamers love toolboxes and doing it themselves and picking and choosing between modular elements and crafting their brilliant, unique homebrew. But those type of gamers are a small minority of the game's audience, and an almost inifinitesimally small minority of the game's potential audience. The vast majority of D&D players (and onetime and potential D&D players) want specific feel and flavor - and the feel and flavor they want is peak-era AD&D.

[Benoist]

I guess my contention is that the OD&D model did not fail. It's spawned a whole hobby instead.

[T. Foster]

I guess my contention is that the OD&D model did not fail. It's spawned a whole hobby instead.

Sure, but where the commercial/popular success came was the specifically-flavored elaborations and variations on the core - AD&D and RuneQuest and Rolemaster and, further afield, Traveller and Shadowrun and Champions and Call of Cthulhu and Vampire: The Masquerade - the results of what people DID with the toolbox, not the toolbox itself. GURPS is something of an exception to this rule, but I've always felt that GURPS was a game more admired than actually played - that more people tended to use GURPS books as references and supplements to other (flavor-specific) games than actually played GURPS-as-GURPS (and that the latter minority of hardcore GURPS fans were over-represented in the early online environment - perhaps because the same personality type that tended towards GURPS tended towards being internet early-adopters -- technical-minded, DIY-oriented, nonconformist, etc.).

[Benoist]

Sure, but where the commercial/popular success came was the specifically-flavored elaborations and variations on the core - AD&D and RuneQuest and Rolemaster and, further afield, Traveller and Shadowrun and Champions and Call of Cthulhu and Vampire: The Masquerade - the results of what people DID with the toolbox, not the toolbox itself.

In my mind, that's what the game would do: provide you with the base toolbox which you can play as a version of D&D, like B/X, and have the supplements basically be the flavored elaborations that you can play along with the core system, alone, combined to each other or whatnot, so that you can play Core (B/X), go to a table with Core + Supplement 1 to play an AD&D style game, go to another table the next day with Core + Supplement 2 to play with really detailed characters in a 3e style game, then use Core + Supplement 2 + Supplement 3 to add the grid and tactical mini game to your D&D 3e style game, and so on.

Ideally, the launch would include the basic, core game, and two or three supplements in a short order so that quite a few variations and permutations are possible right off the books, laying out the basic functionement of the game as a whole, so that aficionados can then come up with their own stuff.

Again, that's just an idea, a wish on my part. That's the kind of thing I'd like to see.

[Guy Fullerton]

Sure, but where the commercial/popular success came was the specifically-flavored elaborations and variations on the core - AD&D and RuneQuest and Rolemaster and, further afield, Traveller and Shadowrun and Champions and Call of Cthulhu and Vampire: The Masquerade - the results of what people DID with the toolbox, not the toolbox itself.

How would B/X slot in there, if at all? Is it too close to OD&D to distinguish it in this regard?

Can anybody point to anecdotal "evidence" (survey/poll) showing whether people started via OD&D vs. AD&D vs. B/X? I'd speculate that a significant number of people got their start with B/X, even if they did move to (or incorporate parts of) AD&D.

[T. Foster]

In my mind, that's what the game would do: provide you with the base toolbox which you can play as a version of D&D, like B/X, and have the supplements basically be the flavored elaborations that you can play along with the core system, alone, combined to each other or whatnot, so that you can play Core (B/X), go to a table with Core + Supplement 1 to play an AD&D style game, go to another table the next day with Core + Supplement 2 to play with really detailed characters in a 3e style game, then use Core + Supplement 2 + Supplement 3 to add the grid and tactical mini game to your D&D 3e style game, and so on.

Ideally, the launch would include the basic, core game, and two or three supplements in a short order so that quite a few variations and permutations are possible right off the books, laying out the basic functionement of the game as a whole, so that aficionados can then come up with their own stuff.

Again, that's just an idea, a wish on my part. That's the kind of thing I'd like to see.

It is an interesting idea, but wouldn't it just create the sort of fragmentation among the player-base that's held up as one of TSR's biggest "mistakes" in the 2E era: everybody buys the "core" books but those who play "supplement I D&D" have no interest in products released for use with "supplement III D&D" and vice versa?

That's not what I take away from statements like this:

Our primary goal is to produce a rules set that speaks to every incarnation of D&D. So if you are a diehard BECMI/Rules Cyclopedia enthusiast or have embraced 4th edition, loved 2nd edition, 3rd edition, or never moved on from 1st edition, we’re creating this game for you. Imagine a game where you can play the version of D&D you love best. And then imagine everyone plays at the same table, in the same adventure.

That doesn't sound like compartmentalization, that sounds like Frankenstein's monster.

[AxeMental]

I'm not saying do C&C or 3E light, I'm saying do 1E, just don't make it obvious and use new core rules to get to that destination. Whats important is the players experience on the other side of the screen (the fluid and fast experience neutrally adjudicated by a DM in a bad ass setting), and the DMs guarded position. Like I said, the specifics aren't as important as the end result (which is what people liked about 1E).

Anyhow, it would and could never happen. Those in charge don't share our taste of what "good" is.

[T. Foster]

Sure, but where the commercial/popular success came was the specifically-flavored elaborations and variations on the core - AD&D and RuneQuest and Rolemaster and, further afield, Traveller and Shadowrun and Champions and Call of Cthulhu and Vampire: The Masquerade - the results of what people DID with the toolbox, not the toolbox itself.

How would B/X slot in there, if at all? Is it too close to OD&D to distinguish it in this regard?

Can anybody point to anecdotal "evidence" (survey/poll) showing whether people started via OD&D vs. AD&D vs. B/X? I'd speculate that a significant number of people got their start with B/X, even if they did move to (or incorporate parts of) AD&D.

I consider B/X D&D an intro-level starter product, and that almost everybody who played B/X D&D eventually "upgraded" to AD&D within 3 to 6 months. I realize there are a few people who didn't follow this pattern and never switched over, but AFAICT they're a tiny, statistically insignificant minority. There seem to be a lot more people who returned to B/X D&D later and in retrospect wish they had never switched over in the first place, but that's historical revisionism, just like all the people who are now playing OD&D (or some proxy-version of it) -- to the extent those people were playing D&D back in the 80s, I'm sure they were playing AD&D just like everybody else.

[Benoist]

It is an interesting idea, but wouldn't it just create the sort of fragmentation among the player-base that's held up as one of TSR's biggest "mistakes" in the 2E era: everybody buys the "core" books but those who play "supplement I D&D" have no interest in products released for use with "supplement III D&D" and vice versa?

That'd be a real danger. It's possible to avoid this if you don't think of it as "sublines of products" that is, creating artificial chains of supplements like "you need Sup. III to be able to use Sup. IV". That kind of nasty side effect would have to be avoided like the fucking plague. I think there's a way to do it and make it work. The Warhammer army books of GW come to mind, but I can't quite nail WHY it is that I'm thinking about them. Kind of like ... compartimented, self contained elements that you can use separately AND/OR combined to each other. Like bricks in a greater LEGO game. Am I making any sense here?

[francisca]

That's not what I take away from statements like this:

Our primary goal is to produce a rules set that speaks to every incarnation of D&D. So if you are a diehard BECMI/Rules Cyclopedia enthusiast or have embraced 4th edition, loved 2nd edition, 3rd edition, or never moved on from 1st edition, we’re creating this game for you. Imagine a game where you can play the version of D&D you love best. And then imagine everyone plays at the same table, in the same adventure.

That doesn't sound like compartmentalization, that sounds like Frankenstein's monster.

Yeah, I'm not buying that either. That sounds like:

Frank, Deano, and Sammy show up with 3e characters
Scooter shows up with a 4e character
and the grumpy old son of a bitch next door shows up with an AD&D character and 14 OD&D henchmen

Then, through the (say it like Doug Henning...) **MAGIC** of 5e, you all play the game you want!

Am I the only one reading it like that?