New D&D Version in the Works

Yikes. 5e already? 4e hasn't even been around all that long. I'm glad I never invested any money in it.

Pen and paper isn't like computer games. When you invest hundreds of dollars in books, you kinda' want to know that those books won't become "obsolete" in a couple of years. A 2013 5e gives 4e a what, 4 - 5 year shelf life?

Interestingly, I just found out yesterday that an acquaintance I met a couple of weeks ago is a diehard 2e player, and he gave me an open invite to his gaming group. So I’ll probably just keep ignoring 4e, begin semi-ignoring 5e (I’ll pay some attention to it, but not likely with the intention to play), and perhaps take a step backward from 3e into 2e. Is this right? Seems okay to me, so I guess it must be.

 

I liked 3.5. Played it a bit with the starter set and got some books for the images and lore.

I am a bit biased with the death of Mystra(again)and al that stuff around it.

 

I guess I'll stick to 3.0 and 3.5, depending on the DMs I usually play with, who are not to fond of 4 and have no interest in 5. Perhaps I might look into Pathfinder some day if I want to learn something new. Else, I'd sooner take a step back to 2E, I guess, like Marceror here.

 

I think 5e is a reaction to the less than stellar response to 4e. I believe the idea is to put another edition out, hope people come back to it and act like 4e never happened. I site a few problems that hurt 4e despite it being a good game.

1: Buyer fatigue. There's likely players not much older than I am who have bought books for the original, AD&D, 2nd edition and third/3.5. This would total thousands of dollars over the years. How many of them resent having to fork over more money? Many of the players I know didn't want to do that.

2: Piracy. A friend of mine had the first three books a week before their release. PDF files were also available for all the other books within hours of their release. For some, they may not buy the books when you can get the information for free.

3: The online services were very good. For $72 a year, you got both Dragon and Dungeon magazines (in online format) as well as a searchable database with all the game mechanic information that they've released in any book, adventure or magazine article. For players with a laptop who play in areas with wireless access, this would be more convenient. Also included was a comprehensive character generator. Other services were planned, but I don't know if they were ever implemented.

4: The game itself was considered to be "Too much like WoW". This turned off a lot of old school gamers. They called it "dumbed down". I thought that they successfully raided WoW for ideas to fix a couple complaints I had with the old system...

5: Viable competition. Piazo Publishing used the OGL to produce Pathfinder, which was an improved version of 3.5, which players seemed to really like. It didn't render your old books obsolete, and for the first time there was a product line that could viably compete with what Wizzards was putting out. WotC lost that one.

So if these things can't be sorted out, look for 6e in 2017...

 

It would never happen, I know, but I would love to see the sales figures of Pathfinder's core book with DnD 4th Edition core book. I would hazard a guess that WotC sold far more copies than Paizo.

 

I mostly play in the Forgotten Realms setting, and that one got ruined beyond repair by the 4th edition. I doubt the 5th edition can repair that damage, in any belivable way. Wizards of the coast should go back to to what they are good at. Making pokemon cards for the ritalin kids.

 

But what percentage of players who have both (not just bought one book or the otehr, but may have a pirated copy of either), tried them both out and still chose 4e over Pathfinder?

Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed 4e, but I am believe I'm in a minority in that regard. Most people I've heard from who have access to both prefered Pathfinder over 4e...

 

3 and 3.5 was where I started out, and after having played that ruleset for so long, when 4e came along I really wasn't a fan at first. All the powers seemed like complete nonsense, and I missed being able to look through the rulebooks and just be presented with vast swathes of information, because 4e really didn't give you that in comparison. Having said that, over time I've learned to appreciate 4e a bit more, but honestly I still feel as though it's much more dumbed down. Probably the only useful factor it brings is that it's great if you're a new player; my fiancee has started playing with us in our 4e games as a result.

I'm hoping that 4.5 or 5 or whatever they decide it's going to be brings it back up to allowing you to go in much more depth, although I'm concerned that now they've brought it to a wider audience, they're too afraid of excluding those newer players by making it more complex again.

 

I'd say you are probably right, but in the end number of books sold trumps number of books pirated as far as revenue goes.

 

Sure those players might have bought the first three books, but when they got Pathfinder, how many stopped buying 4e? And will the next edition win those players back? I wonder how many players lost to Pathfinder will even give the new version a chance.

 

maybe I'm showing my age (die-hard 2e player & DM), but I really didn't see much of the appeal of the 3e and 3.5e rules changes... to me, they basically looked like marketign hooks to bring in people who were used to playing CCGs like Magic: The Gathering..

but, I do understand the piracy concerns... As I type, I currently have in my posession almost all of the 2e sourcebooks (just missing the Barbarian's Handbook) in RTF format. I found them on a site 12-13 years ago, by someone who took the time to transcribe all the text out of the books. The site is now long gone, but I will treasure having all that excellent source and reference material... and one of these days, if I can find some spare time (ha!), I'd love to get back to DMing again...

*wistful sigh*

 

I started playing the Basic set in the 1980s, went to AD&D as soon as I could afford the books, and played through 2nd edition and then 3rd edition. Now I prefer Pathfinder, which I think is the most coherent (perhaps also complicated) version I've seen so far, better than WotC's 3.5 version.

I bought about five 4th edition books when they came out, core books and an adventure or two. I disliked the style and the significant changes to not just the gameplay but also the DnD universes and mythos. I mean, the rules changes were so extensive that the universes HAD to (in some ways) radically change just to fit the new "style"--which is why Forgotten Realms got "broke" (and Greyhawk couldn't have worked). I thought if everything was going to get changed up, why not release a new game, and call it "Warcraft and Dragons" or something? (Obviously that title is a joke). I really got slammed on the WotC boards and some other places for calling out the WotC writers/developers because I was one of the first to say they looked exactly like PnP versions of the MMO WoW (which I think is a decent game, as far as WoW goes). So I walked away and supported Pathfinder ever since.

Only recently has it come out that WotC developers actually WERE writing the 4th edition around competition with MMOs like WoW. Competition being characterized by admiration and fear, and resulting in heavy replication.

So now 5E is coming out? I think the brutal truth is there isn't enough money in the game world, and this tightknit community of developers needs to send their kids to college, so they have to keep changing up "The Game." There just isn't enough out there for them to do. It's easier to rewrite a game, and rewrite a dozen or two dozen books and "classic" adventures, than it is to make up a new one, or try something completely different (like working for a software company or writing a series of successful novels).

Just my 2 cents.

Edit: Is Pathfinder even that big? I currently live in a smallish-sized community (over 100,000, but not much), but due to a variety of conditions, there is a vibrant gaming community here. A small handful of people play Pathfinder, maybe a half-dozen I know of, but many more play 4E DnD (dozens here play it, according to my friends who run the gaming shops).

 

I don't think it's anywhere near as big as as 4ED, but I understand that it does have a sizable, loyal following. I think of Pathfinder as D&D 3.75. Rather than scrapping so much and starting over as 4ED did, Pathfinder takes the next logical evolutionary step to improve upon something that much more closely resembles D&D 3.x.

I have played it, and enjoy it quite a bit.

 

I played Pathfinder once. it was loads better than the 4th ed rules, but still...it was also kind of lame. Too many classfeats and whatsnot got forced on my character. Even more than in 3.5 ed. If my ranger uses a greataxe, I don`t want him to magically get better at fighting with one weapon in each hand, or a bow.I want to decide for myself what my character trains at, and gets good at. Not the delevopers.

 

The Advanced Player Guide changes that kind of stuff up. The options inside the classes are much more diversified, with that book. The Advanced Race Guide does the same thing with the races.

One of the big things the designers worked towards with Pathfinder was making sure the classes were powerful enough that few players would want to, or feel they had to in order to survive, multiclass, so a lot of work was put into building really powerful classes with lots of gimmicks, feats, powerlines, etc. I think they went a little overboard at times, but it's a good idea. If a player wants to multiclass, he wants to multiclass, good on him. But there are problems with class design when hardly anyone takes a fighter over 4th level before multiclassing them to ranger or barbarian or some prestige class, or no one wants to play a single-class wizard until they are 7th or 8th level because they don't have powers or spells, which increase their playability and relative utility, until that level.

I'm a big fan of Pathfinder, by the way. I like a lot of the things the company does, including the Game Path adventure design.