Monday, January 9, 2012

Quelle Surprise

Looks like D&D V is now officially on the way.

I may have some thoughts about this later, but, for the moment, allow me a momentary guffaw at the notion that Humpty Dumpty can ever be put back together again. I don't doubt for a minute WotC's sincerity in wanting to hear what D&D fans have to say about the future of the game, but I also think it's a recipe for disaster, especially given how fragmented the fanbase is these days. But I've been wrong before, so who knows?

69 comments:

  1. Wow, regular stories at NYT are behind a paywall now? It won't let me read the 2nd page.

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  2. IMO, if they were truly smart they'd focus instead on how to make money off of the interest in all of these editions. I don't see how a 5E, no matter how good it is, is going to resolve more fundamental issues with the company, the game and its market. No matter what, they better have a really good system in place to filter and process that feedback from noisy fans.

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  3. Picador, see if this helps (one page, article only): http://tinyurl.com/7gqhf2h

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  4. Link for those of us not paying for NYT and their paywall?

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  5. I think NYT jumped the gun, ENWorld has a countdown timer, and maybe it was supposed to be a vetted release that was leaked early.

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  6. Weird. I can read the story just fine.

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  7. Maybe it is like (the opposite of) Star Trek. The odd numbered ones are the only ones that are any good.

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  8. Try the Escapist: http://t.co/eXHp0r0c

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  9. I do think somebody leaked it early, Morrus of ENWorld said on twitter they "weren't allowed" to post until 10 AM. Either WoTC changed their minds or somebody broke it early and now everybody's scrambling to get the news out quickly including Wizards.

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  10. It's better to listen than to not listen, but if all they do is aggregate votes, they're missing the opportunity to deliver something better than what the typical player can conceive.

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  11. It official

    Your Voice Your Game
    http://wizards.com/dnd/Article.aspx?x=dnd/4ll/20120109

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  12. Are they really going to ask fans to help shape the game, or are they going to playtest the direction they’ve already decided on? Wizards is again failing to be clear and honest. sigh That’s a bigger problem than anything that comes up in “edition wars”.

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  13. DDInsiders had "hints" of this for months in certain columns on the Dungeon/Dragon magazines.
    WotC seems to want to do its own OSR, retrocloning itself, with optionnal "modern" and complex modules.
    If it's done correctly, this could be a very cool fresh (re)start, imho.

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  14. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  15. I guess this confirms the failure of 4E. It was pretty obvious to those willing to look, so no real surprise. It's probably a good sign that Hasbro was willing to pull the trigger on 5E so soon after the launch of 4E, I thought they would let it bleed for another 2 years. On the other hand though maybe actual sales of 4E have been SO bad that Hasbro had no choice but to pull the trigger now anyway. So much for those mystery DDI numbers saving the day!

    4E tanked and Paizo ate their lunch. Badly. The OGL really allowed this to happen and smart people like Paizo effectively took advantage of it. If 5e is any kind of success Hasbro has the OGL to thank for keeping people IN the hobby despite a deeply flawed edition of the game. In years past once 4E hit the market you had to either play it or leave the hobby (if you wanted to keep playing a supported game). When 4E hit the market you had a choice of supported games instead and Paizo gave D&D fans a place to go en masse. I don't think 5E will recover but I do think it has a chance since many D&D players are still around to give it a shot, thanks to Paizo and OGL games.

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  16. It's been hinted at or a while now, with content release slowly dropping, them hiring Monte Cook again, and a bit more.

    I know I'm maybe one of six people who follows this blog who actually likes D&D 4e, but to me it feels like they're trying to pander/apologize to 3.5 fans too much. Yes 4e was flawed. So was every other edition of D&D. Anybody who thinks previous editions were completely perfect either has never really looked through the book, or is looking back on nostalgia or houserule goggles.

    That said, there are a few things that I hope they fix or streamline a bit. I've never been a particularly big fan of feats, and would prefer something like what the Tome of Battle had for 3.5 for fighter abilities, rather than the same at-will/encounter/dailies that other classes have (I'm not the kind of person who screams and gnashes their teeth at the idea of a fighter only being able to hit a certain way once per day- I always saw it as either "there's no way I could expend this much effort again in a long while" or "everything lined up perfectly for me to hit them with this much force". I just think there's cooler and more interesting things that could be done).

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  17. This is not a surprise. Nor though is it "confirmation" of 4e's failure.

    The truth is that companies make money on the backs of core rule books. 5e is a logical choice for that reason alone. It is what gave us 3.5 and Essentials after all.

    While I and many others predicted this weas coming, I do think it is a tad early yet.

    But I have seen dev and playtest cycles take over a year before, so 5e in time for 2014 and the 40th anniversary of D&D makes a lot of sense both development wise AND marketing wise.

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  18. I'm kind of a mixed bag of emotions here. First I thought 'thank god' because I wasn't a fan of the 4E rules for a fantasy game. My other feeling is that all this 'goodwill' being offered to the long time fans who have played many variations of this game is just blowing smoke up our collective Bags of Holding.

    If they really and truly listen to the fan feedback (from Grognards to Pathfinders) I can't even imagine what will come out of that. Personally I just want a game thats is fun, creative, flexable, encourages role play and is fun. If its missing the first and last it's not worth playing at all. Only time will tell.

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  19. mechanics and mathematics are irrelevant at this point. i dont care if something ascends, descends (oh no, i have to subtract a number :( ), has NPC powers, powers (rigid boundary), feats (modify rigid boundary), skills (dice boundary), or a giant battle grid for mini's (spatial/imagination boundary). the sole interesting purpose of Dungeons & Dragons is building a scaffolding of imagination/exploration with others and the DM. its like jazz, reading and riffing off of each other. did 4E foster scaffolding building? hardly. trying to force anything creative into combat is such an inefficiency that it is scorned if youre not using your "sickest" min/max power to negate numbers from an enemy (all over the next hour of your life). boring. if people want to play that type of game, great. what can they possibly offer at this point that will revolutionize riffing, improvisation and exploration (the initial fundamentals of the game)? whatever (supposedly modular) gimmick it is: that's for your tastes to bite into. Basic onward to early-2E is fine by me at this point. they continue to set up rigid boundaries in an attempt to "streamline" numeric bombast for people who want to seem smart for having a calculator brain. think more like artists instead of machines with your "imagination".

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  20. There's already a Fifth Edition for free here:

    http://www.easydamus.com/CustomCharacters.html

    I can't wait 'til the lawyers write me....

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  21. I hope their community reps get combat pay.

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  22. The last line ("Even if players increasingly bring their iPads, loaded with Dungeons & Dragons rulebooks, to the gaming table.") just reminds me how you used to be able to buy pdfs of TSR books.

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  23. I can honestly say for the first a new edition is leading to a yawn.

    The huge change in direction for 4e has taken WotC pretty much off my radar (and that's after both playing and running 4th...I gave it a chance and found it works very well but works at being a game that didn't do much for me).

    So, I'll look I'm sure but there is no anticipation.

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  24. Will there be something to "Jenga"?

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  25. I would be a bit more open-minded and careful about guffawing just now. Contempt prior to investigation is not a sensible starting place. When they produce it and it then turns out to be complete crud, by all means guffaw as much as you want. As for Humpty Dumpty - I'm surprised you've used that analogy. The older editions such as 1st Ed AD&D were abandoned, not broken. They have since been picked up and restored by the OSR. If you are referring to trust in WotC and confidence in the products they produce, they might be able to produce something interesting with this edition. I think its a case of realistic expectations rather than expecting them to produce exactly what I want.

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  26. "Opening up to community input" is code for "we don't know what the hell we're doing, please tell us how to do our jobs". Success comes from having a bold and interesting vision, and executing it ruthlessly.

    Asking the community to design something is a recipe for pablum - you're going to get the lowest common denominator answer.

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  27. I'm cautiously optimistic. I hated 4E for oh so many reasons (which you can read here: http://avoidingtherapy.blogspot.com/2012/01/d-forever.html). Attempting to address the loss of the table-top market to MMORPGS by aping the weaknesses in MMORPGs and incorporating them into the table-top game rather than emphasizing the strengths of playing with a real live DM was just stupid. (And yes, that's essentially what they did, along with a little Munchkinizing.)

    It's possible they've really learned a lesson here. I just hope it's not too late

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  28. Unless I'm misremembering, TSR has a big survey in Dragon prior to 2E being release. Plenty of people thought the "binder" style of Monster Manual *sounded* cool.

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  29. @widderslainte: You aren't misremembering. I remember reading not only the survey pre-announcement, stating that asbolutely anything could change, followed by the results of the survey, which mentioned that they weren't going to change the game in the ways most frequently suggested.

    As for the 5e issue... I read the announcement linked from Dragonsfoot before I read the blogs this morning and wrote my own thoughts up for a blogpost, but I scheduled it for the afternoon. Because really, I would rather that people come to my blog today for the map/encounters I posted rather than my opinions.

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  30. You might want to look back at "Who Dies?" parts one and two, to see what kind of things were being looked at in designing 2E.

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  31. Also, saw this interesting comment in the Metafilter thread about this story:

    I was talking to Ed Greenwood -- a moderately inside insider -- at a convention a few months ago and he strongly suggested that the 4th edition was seen as a dead end in the company, and that the way forward was to get back to where they once belonged.

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  32. I think taking the time to find out what the fanbase considers the core of D&D is a very worthwhile quest in designing a new edition.

    They seemed to do that before 3e. In the design of 4e, it became clear that the (then) current regime had NO CLUE what their fanbase wanted, and the debacle ensued.

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  33. Also remember- from what I'm reading, the 5e playtests will be conducted at conventions, such as D&D Experience and (I would imagine) Gen Con.

    They're not taking internet polls.

    They want to know what the segment of the fanbase engaged enough to go to a con and sign up for a playtest wants.

    That's a segment of the market they could potentially please.

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  34. Not like they could do any worse :)

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  35. I really want them to succeed, because I want D&D to continue as a brand on the bookstore shelves and I want WotC to prosper. But I don't have much personal investment any more. I decided to stop the New Edition Dance when they announced 4e, and I haven't regretted my decision. Between what's on my bookshelf and what I find on OSR blogs, I have all I need to keep me happily gaming until I die or dementia sets in.

    So, despite my cynicism regarding how this will end up, my skepticism regarding the very concept of creating a single version of D&D that satisfies everybody, and my hope that WotC may become less antagonistic to non-4e players than they had been since launch, I don't think I'm their target audience any more.

    But I hope something good comes out of it.

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  36. I was one of the lucky few who got to play the next edition. I do not dislike 4E but was never wild about it. I really think that Wizards is trying to correct a few of their past missteps. I preferred what I saw of the next edition to 3E or 4E. It played fast. It played well with or without minis. Everybody had fun with a new system we had never tried in a matter of minutes. Check out my blog about what I want in a new edition. http://gamingtonic.com/blog/2012/01/what-i-want-and-dont-want-in-5th-edition/

    There are several great pieces about this release on EN World.
    http://www.enworld.org/forum/news/316036-off-see-wizards-day-wizards-coast-showed-me-d-d-5th-edition.html

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  37. Simple, robust system with plug n' play mechanics. Want psionics? Buy this book-- storyteller or player! Want low magic? Buy this book. Want high magic? Want Dark Sun? Want fairytale? Want steampunk? BUY THESE BOOKS.

    I am sort of flummoxed that it doesn't already work that way.

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  38. WotC isn't pushing mini integration? Fast play? Minutes to learn?

    Are you sure you weren't plating Tunnels & Trolls 5e instead? ;)

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  39. I'm with Mordicai.....the idea of modular add-ons to a core system that let you shape it as you see fit seems like a great idea to me, hard to believe it wasn't implemented already. And @Eric Teknar: if the core 5E book looks a little T&Tish, I will relish it with great irony! And damnit now I want to play some T&T.

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  40. @Jon Hendry - I do believe you win the Internet today for that comment!

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  41. FS-

    Thank you for posting those Dragon Magazine articles. Though I've played 3 editions of the game, it's 2e that I started DMing and playing for the longest (1989-1999). It was really interesting to see a lot of the reasoning behind the changes made between 1e and 2e. I always loved how they were so compatible. I think that's part of the reason I bowed out when 3rd Edition was being released--it was just too different. Also, by that time, I'd been in the hobby for 16 years and my brain was totally full and refused to learn ANY more material, roleplaying-wise. I picked it up again, back in 2008--first with 2nd Edition, then, finally, upgrading to 4th Edition. Despite some unreasonable resistance and the promised online virtual tabletop never fully materializing, I've grown to enjoy this system. Unfortunately, the haters squawk the loudest, and WoTC has to bow to the pressure. I certainly understand it, but I don't agree with the timing at all. Shit, I just finished buying all the books on eBay for the last 6 months! I wonder if 5th Edition will drive me out of the hobby for good...

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  42. My buddies and I played some T&T recently. It was fun, but it also reminded me of why we stopped playing T&T fairly quickly years ago.

    The goals for the next iteration of D&D are lofty and admirable. They won't be easy to hit. That doesn't mean they won't be accomplished, but success shouldn't be assumed, either. One thing I do know is that WotC is at least taking the _idea_ of playtesting and fan feedback very seriously. In the past, the keep-it-secret-at-all-costs culture surrounding M:tG development has been hard to break, even where that philosophy makes no sense. The D&D developers seem committed to breaking that wall, which can only be seen as a good thing.

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  43. I look forward to 5e with great anticipation. It's like knowing the bridge has collapsed and seeing the train coming around the bend. There's nothing you can do to stop it, so all you can do is await the inevitable outcome with morbid fascination. There is always the chance, slim that it may be, that they will switch tracks in time, avoid disaster, and go somewhere wonderful. It's unlikely, but I'll cross my fingers nonetheless.

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  44. Well...

    For all of you suckers who bought into 4th...HAHAHA!

    Heck, I never really bought into Turd Edition, unless the books were dirt cheap (after the glut years of books) and converted some of those things into 1st ed AD&D.

    Yep, it's clear that this time around WoTC HAS NO CLUE what to do.

    They're desperate.

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  45. BTW, I just signed up for they're playtest.

    I'm going to push my damnest to bring back combat charts, descending AC, separate XP charts, random initiative, level names, etc.

    IF they want to get back to the roots of D&D, then by God, we're gonna do it!

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  46. Though I don't want to see a resurgence of D20 crapflooding, as I don't believe there is(or should be) one system to Rule Them All(BRP comes the closest, imo), I wish WOTC all the best in this endeavor. I still like D&D, I just don't find the last 4 Editions(3.X+) useful or entertaining. When I wanna play D&D(Greyhawk/Ravenloft), I'll use good ol' TSR's Moldvay/Cook/Marsh's B/X(D&D from '81, baby! :-))/Goblinoid Games' Labyrinth Lord(with its awesome Mutant Future Gamma World clone!). Otherwise, it's Flying Buffalo's Tunnels and Trolls 5.5(Still in print from 1979, now that's a rock-solid system!), Chaosium's Basic Roleplaying(1981-ish-now[They Got It Right the first time!]), White Wolf's Street Fighter: The Storytelling Game, the inimical Encounter Critical or my own 1985 homebrew. Obviously, I fall out of the target audience here. ;-)

    As to the idea of 'haters' necessitating this decision to release a new Edition, that's doubtful; WOTC was: a)getting trashed by Paizo's Pathfinder and b) it's about time to cycle the rules anyhow(which they've done with regularity ever since they took over the franchise). They apparently are trying to create a 'one size fits all' D&D to allow various aficionados of various Editions to play together, sort of like what Labyrinth Lord did a couple years back: the Original Edition Characters, Classic Characters(the original rule book) and Advanced Edition can all adventure together with minimal fuss.

    WOTC hasn't been big on fan interaction in the past(as they Escapist points out, they didn't even listen to feedback on the 4th Edition playtest[30 pages of criticism, really!?!?!]), so I find it hilarious they're going to initiate 'open playtesting'...(Of course, they've been putting a preliminary 5th through its paces for a while now, as astute readers of the blogs will notice...)Kinda sorta like Paizo did a little while ago, to some success.

    Hopefully they'll bring Dragon and Dungeon magazines back into print and large-scale distribution, release a cheap, widely available(not just Target and Walmart, game stores/comic shops/etc..), and easy to use 'gateway' box set, more adventures, supplements for campaign worlds(maybe even new ones :-)), crank out some decent software to connect far-flung players with their groups, and be more attentive to their fan base in the future(I'd personally like PDFs and reprints of older Editions and their supplements[Print On Demand, if necessary]).

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  47. And how they'll fix the mess they've done in Faerun? Because I think one of the worst decisions EVER was to make Dragonborns and Tieflings "main races", and thanks to that they destroyed my beloved Maztica. I hate them so damn much.

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  48. The problem with using open playtesting to create a game with a design goal of making the game familiar to ex-gamers is that the playtesters are not going to be "lapsed" gamers.

    I would guess most current WOTC customers or con-goers are players for whom RPGs represents their dominant hobby, often a hobby their lifestyle is somewhat built around. These players often want a different experience from their games than the casual gamers that were the bulk of the buyers of D&D and AD&D in the 80s: deeper role-play/role assumption; player-protecting rules; a plot that steadily progresses; "modern" fantasy settings like Ptolus, etc. I don't think the majority of lapsed players that haven't picked up a new release in 20 years would identify/invest in those elements.

    2E had the same problem with using Dragon magazine as their feedback mechanism. The most vocal in Dragon were not representative of most of the playing public (I doubt more than 25% of regular gamers read or subscribed to Dragon), and but by limiting incorporated feedback to that subset, 2E unsuccessfully competed with 1E for its lifespan.

    So I hope part of WotC's playtest strategy is to have a national focus group company get together people who haven't played in a decade or two, and never really upgraded rulesets, and ask them if they have any interests in sharing this game from their past with their kids, and if so, what type of product would bring them back in. I don't think many of the "improvements" of the past few editions would be in the top 20 comments.

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  49. If WOTC can publish an edition that can appeal to hobbyists and casual game players (like Jenga or Monopoly), they could do well. If 5e is just another rehash of the old tropes (or worse, incorporates clicky minatures, collectible cards, and an online interface to play), they may as well skip to the end and license the D&D brand to Paizo to produce their tabletop RPG's.

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  50. @jdh417: People that only play Jenga or Monopoly are just not going to play D&D in any form. They need to just forget this demographic. The game is a niche, make the niche happy and you will always have it. You don't need to "grow" it or "cultivate" new members for it, that's what niches do on their own. The only thing you can't do is alienate half of it like 4E did, and look where that got them.

    Niche markets work just fine. Here's a little secret about a large part of the D&D niche market: We have a significant amount of disposable income for stuff we LIKE. A significant amount. Make stuff we like that works with the other stuff we already have with minimal or no effort, and we will buy the new stuff at surprisingly high price points. Make stuff we DON'T like and/or makes our current stuff which we do like obsolete and we won't buy anything at any price AND we will make our own new stuff for the rest of our lives. See how that works? We don't need you as much as you need us. Get it?

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  51. My suspicion is that the largest group of players want dungeon crawls with 3rd edition rules, which pretend to have the possibility of killing characters but really don't.

    I can see a few ways in which WotC could genuinally listen to feedback, yet still not make a successful game.

    Firstly, there might not be a single game which everyone can get behind. If half the players want a 200-page rulebook, and half the players want a 50-page rulebook, WotC might end up making a 125-page rulebook which everyone hates equally.

    Secondly, the grand RPG tradition started by Gygax and Arneson: making rules that you don't enjoy playing. They need some way to sort out 'here's something we've done that's worked for us' from 'here's me playing Game Designer'.

    Thirdly, making sure that the people who are commenting are ever going to buy a new edition of D&D. I'm sure we grognards, Basic Role Playing fans and the Forge all have strong opinions on what D&D should do, but WotC needs to seperate them somehow.

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  52. PS Perhaps they should also sort out who this edition is for: is it meant to satisfy 4th edition players, bring back Pathfinder/3rd edition players, tempt people from World of Warcraft or tempt people from Settlers of Catan? If they try to do too many of those things they might end up not doing any of them.

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  53. PPS I'm not sure why they never made Harry Potter D&D, Game of Thrones D&D and so on. I'm not saying they should have done so, but I'd like to know why they didn't.

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  54. @cibet: If all 5e is just an attempt at getting an ever diminishing niche to buy yet another set of rules to the same game, then everyone buying it deserves to be ripped off.

    You're not seeing the possibility that normal people might enjoy RPG-ish adventure that could be played in an evening instead of Apples to Apples. It's just a question of the rules and setup being made comparable to that of a board game. I think WOW has already proven that there's a mainstream appeal for adventure games.

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  55. @anachist: Rowling doesn't like RPG's, so I've heard. There is a setting called Redhurst that might interest you.

    http://www.amazon.com/Redhurst-Academy-Magic-Matt-Forbeck/dp/1932488006

    And there is indeed a Game of Thrones RPG:

    http://www.amazon.com/Song-Ice-Fire-Roleplaying-Adventures/dp/1934547123/ref=sr_1_11?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1326175920&sr=1-11

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  56. So many patches/fixes/etc have come out for 4e that it is effectively at least 4.5e already.

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  57. jdh417 said: You're not seeing the possibility that normal people might enjoy RPG-ish adventure

    Are you saying most RPG gamers are not normal?

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  58. @anarchist: They'd have to pay licensing fees and/or hand over a share of the money. And they probably fear that the licensed materials would eat into sales of their own non-licensed materials.

    While Hasbro no doubt has lots of experience dealing with licensed properties, I suspect these tend to be simpler than an RPG. If you do a board game or an action figure based on some licensed materials, you just poop out the design, have factories in China churn it out in quantity, and sell as many as you can until the license ends.

    A roleplaying game seems to me to be more complicated, as it usually entails a great deal of writing, perhaps a lot of original material to flesh the setting out for game use, which the IP owner might want to have editorial oversight of. Once the setting is done, they're going to want to write additional supplements, adventures and whatnot, that go well beyond the text of the source material. An original adventure in a setting is somewhat more complicated, IP wise, than a plastic blob in a board game that the rules say is "Hagrid".

    Then the license ends, perhaps prematurely after the IP owner flounces, and much of the work they've done is useless and can no longer be sold. Because of the intellectual property entanglements, they may not be able to easily separate useful original bits for reuse in other product lines.

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  59. @jdh417:It's just a question of the rules and setup being made comparable to that of a board game.

    That's basically what 4E was + some WoW. People keep saying the D&D market needs to grow and include everyday gamers but it just won't ever do that. It's time to embrace the niche. It's been going for 30+ years so far with a niche despite some absolutely horrendous mistakes (2E demons, 4E everything). Every new edition has been an attempt to go mainstream in some way but it never does, because it won't and can't. The people that love the game recruit the new players, remember James' "mentor" poll?

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  60. Licensed games were a major money loser for TSR in the 80s, they may be shy from going down that road again.

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  61. @Jon Hendry. Yes exactly that.
    I have worked on and written a number of licensed RPGs. While creating a world with someone is a fantastic challenge in both the positive and negative senses of the word.

    D&D does a great job of being D&D.

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  62. Wizards made a few Licensed games in the D20 era, notably star wars, and less notably Wheel of Time.

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  63. I don't believe this is being done for any reason other than to milk some more cash out of consumers. I have little doubt that a good chunk of those presumably foaming at the mouth over this on various forums will rush out to buy copies as soon as they can.

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  64. cibet said: "The people that love the game recruit the new players, remember James' 'mentor' poll?"

    The one that showed most respondents didn't have a mentor? :-D

    More seriously, I agree with your point about niche-embracing. Or what some businesses call "core competency" or "strategic advantage" or whatnot. But I suspect that a large hobby company is unlikely to take that advice.

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  65. I think it's pretty obvious that a large portion of D&D's past customer base has moved on. I don't envy the designers of 5th edition if their stated goal is to lure them back in any large numbers.

    Yet, late at night, when the house is quiet and all but me are asleep...

    ... I still pine for D&D. I can't help it. She was my first. I just don't seem to be able to quit her.

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  66. Habro has a "core competency" of making family and social games. Perhaps they should be handling D&D directly, instead of WOTC.

    I am not advocating for ending RPG's as a hobby, but rather expanding the experience. Why not have a core rules set which can be used as a base for a complex-as-you-want RPG, that can also be used for a mass market game? How about a pirate game (which might have a broader appeal) using those same rules? How about a game for little girls with ponies and fairies? A mass market RPG really only needs a simple setup, easy to learn to learn mechanics, and many different possibilites for play.

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  67. Backwards compatibility would be nice. Basically...heh...I'd want operational simplicity, like old D&D, with some streamlined mechanics, and more choice for PCs.

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  68. The real question is: What does this mean for Dungeon Crawl Classics? Mr. Goodman is now twice burned by WoTC, first with the pulling of the OGL and subsequent release of 4E and now with 5E (most likely attempting to cater to old school D&Ders) coming out right about when DCC was launching! At the very least the run up to and playtest of 5E will all but eliminate any buzz around DCC. Oh well.

    I'm also curious to hear, when the playtesting starts, how many old schoolers provide input for WoTC and what that input will be. I bet they start complaining about issues in OD&D and 1E that 3E and 4E fixed! Funny stuff.

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