D&D next ... fate or doom ?


4th Edition

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Liberty's Edge

Sissyl wrote:
Well, it doesn't seem (this far) to be anything other than a retro-clone done in-house. [...] If it's just the same old races, with the same old abilities (whether you call them powers or spells or fnurgs), killing the same old monsters,

It is deliberately trying to capture the old school D&D feel, with modules that then allow that core game to appeal to more 3.5 and 4e style games. So yeah, I guess you're right, but the point is its deliberate (and seems to be working).

When 4e introduced new races and classes with different types of powers a lot of people were up in arms claiming that it "wasn't D&D" - so of course D&D Next is going to use the same old races, classes and abilities.


I understand that. I just hope the end result has something to offer me.

Liberty's Edge

Sissyl wrote:
I understand that. I just hope the end result has something to offer me.

For me the modularity is the biggest selling point to me, plus the flattened math. I just hope they do monster stat blocks well - I am reading the 3.5 Monster Manual at present and I hate all the referencing of spells for a monster's special abilities.

The Exchange

Sissyl wrote:

Well, it doesn't seem (this far) to be anything other than a retro-clone done in-house. I understand that they would be hesitant to show off their cool stuff in a playtest, which would explain this, but still. If it's just the same old races, with the same old abilities (whether you call them powers or spells or fnurgs), killing the same old monsters, colour me uninterested. Let's face it, I have quite enough of those systems already. If it goes back to 3.X, that's nice, but it better have something more to offer than what I have on my shelves already. What, then?

SERIOUS SUPPORT AND DEVELOPMENT OF SETTINGS, mainly.

Yeah, I get it. 4th edition had Hasbro bean-counters check that FR supplements sold worse than the main setting guides, so they split them and added an adventure for shame. Then they did the same for Eberron, Dark Sun... Truly pathetic. I bought that crap once, not doing it again. Do your maths, WotC. Find a way to provide steady support for good, innovative settings, and my money is yours. Keep trying to resell rulebooks to me and you get nothing.

It may also be that I am not their target demographic. So be it.

They're in a bit of a "damned if they do, damned if they don't" situation - the changes in 4e created a furore, and now they are retreating from that they are also garnering criticism. As for the supplements = modules angle, I assumed that was a given. It doesn't sound exactly evil to me - after all, they've got to make money. But overall I would agree that they need to adequately support their products with adventures and supplements, to give people a reason to adventure there, and they haven't nailed it yet. That said, I don't think you are taking account of the DDI - it certainly isn't perfect, especially as their support for settings is more of an afterthought, but there is a large volume of stuff on there which is generally worthwhile, if not sufficient.


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I did not say it was evil. If anything, it was stupid. I bought the three FR books for 4th, expecting there to be anything more. There wasn't. Only after giving up on 4th edition did they come out with Neverwinter, and by that point I had already lost interest. They made a big thing about all this returned Abeir stuff... why not then sell me adventures set there? NOTHING for years. After going through that, do they seriously expect me to buy their next batch of Eberron stuff, also consisting of only three books?

As for the DDI, they had that idea and did not fail to communicate it. There was going to be a cool 3D virtual tabletop, and there wasn't. The Dungeon and Dragon virtual magazines were... well, compared to what they used to be, I prefer not to discuss it at all. What remains then is the character stuff, which I suppose is good. They wanted a regular payment from me to get this, however, and that's not how I do things. Personal preference, I know.

Yeah. Damned if they do, damned if they don't. But at least they did it to themselves.

The Exchange

My 2 cents: It has the D&D brand name behind it. Simply based on that fact and the fact that it's new, it's going to outsell every other RPG on the market by a huge margin at release.

Beyond that, it all depends on whether or not they can:
1) Convince enough 4e players to keep supporting it.
2) Convince enough 3e/Pathfinder players to pick it up.
3) Convince enough lapsed players to pick it up.
4) Convince enough players of pre-3e editions/OSR games to pick it up.
5) Lure in enough new players.

I personally think that D&D Next is going to become the best-selling RPG on the market simply by virtue of its brand. However, it might still be seen as a failure by Hasbro, because while 4e raked in the cash it didn't make enough to justify its existence as a brand owned by as big a company as Hasbro.

Personally, I think the RPG bubble has burst. There's no way that tabletop RPGs are ever going to be the industry that Wizbro wants it to be. Either Hazbro/WotC changes their expectations for D&D as a brand or gives the brand to someone else, but I see D&D Next pretty much doomed from the outset simply because it won't be enough to meet Hasbro's unrealistic expectations.

tl;dr: It's going to be a great success on industry terms, but not enough of a success to meet Wizbro's unrealistic demands.

Liberty's Edge

I'm actually quite happy that WoTC made D&D 5E the way they did. I've read through the playtest twice (first time through I was too excited to see the truth) and realized that there are too much of what I do not like. So why am I happy? I can save up my money on other things as I am definitely not buying a single item from 5E if they carry on in this mode. Thanx WoTC! :)

The Exchange

Well, I'm not sure about it. I hope it will be successful, but I doubt that WotC will succeed in uniting the splintered fanbase, so if that's the margin they have to reach, I guess they are doomed to failure.

But personally I wouldn't mind to add D&D Next to my portfolio.

Contributor

Removed some posts. Please don't be insulting.


Ratpick wrote:

My 2 cents: It has the D&D brand name behind it. Simply based on that fact and the fact that it's new, it's going to outsell every other RPG on the market by a huge margin at release.

Beyond that, it all depends on whether or not they can:
1) Convince enough 4e players to keep supporting it.
2) Convince enough 3e/Pathfinder players to pick it up.
3) Convince enough lapsed players to pick it up.
4) Convince enough players of pre-3e editions/OSR games to pick it up.
5) Lure in enough new players.

I personally think that D&D Next is going to become the best-selling RPG on the market simply by virtue of its brand. However, it might still be seen as a failure by Hasbro, because while 4e raked in the cash it didn't make enough to justify its existence as a brand owned by as big a company as Hasbro.

Personally, I think the RPG bubble has burst. There's no way that tabletop RPGs are ever going to be the industry that Wizbro wants it to be. Either Hazbro/WotC changes their expectations for D&D as a brand or gives the brand to someone else, but I see D&D Next pretty much doomed from the outset simply because it won't be enough to meet Hasbro's unrealistic expectations.

tl;dr: It's going to be a great success on industry terms, but not enough of a success to meet Wizbro's unrealistic demands.

Unless they have shiny arts inside, as of now, they might not sell that much.

Dark Archive

I seriously don't have a clue why my post was removed. It wasn't insulting at all.


Cory Stafford 29 wrote:
I seriously don't have a clue why my post was removed. It wasn't insulting at all.

You either quoted and/or responded to an offensive one.

Dark Archive

Well, I did quote a post that said they were glad they canned Monte, so I guess that's what did it.

The Exchange

I guess so, since my response was also removed.

The Exchange

Belle Mythix wrote:
Unless they have shiny arts inside, as of now, they might not sell that much.

I don't think WotC is going to skimp on the production values of the finished product, so a lot of shiny art is to be expected.

I just realized that my original post is awfully pessimistic. The thing is, I really want Next to succeed and to be adopted by as much of the playerbase as possible: the promise of one D&D that can unite players of a number of different editions would make finding players much easier. I was recently in a situation where I was itching to run a game and proposed that we use the AD&D 1e rules (by way of OSRIC) as the rules-set, because I was quite burned out on 3e and 4e at the moment. Unfortunately for me, that idea was shot down in favour of running the game with Pathfinder.

I mean, it wasn't a huge deal, but since I'm not one for fiddly grid-based combat any more, running a system that is heavily based on it isn't just my cup of tea.

The thing is, I would love a system that I could run for my friends who are more into 3e and/or 4e as well as people who are more into old-school games. A system like that would be a godsend for me, because it'd mean that I'd immediately have more potential players than having to run /play in multiple campaigns, each with their own systems, just to hang out with all of my D&D buddies.

So, I really hope the game succeeds in its goals of uniting players of various editions, but failing at that, I'll just keep on running Labyrinth Lord and playing a bit of everything else (maybe even some Next) on the side.


Not many people wish it will fail, but it is something that can happen.

What WOTC should do:

1) Stop trying to please everyone, they can't, but try to please as much as they can.

2) Know where they are going.

3) be ready to plit the game in 2, just in case.

4) Take the playtests seriously.

4.5) Listen to the playtesters (just not too much).


I dont want D&D NEXT to fail, but I'm not rooting for it to succeed either.

I really dont believe that the demise of D&D means the demise of RPG's anymore than the death of VHS meant the death of home video or the death of vinyl meant the death of music recording.

I'd like more players playing the game(s) that I play. Outside of that is really not my concern. If D&D Next does well great, bully for WOTC I guess. But if it results in me somehow not being able to get enough quality players for a second Pathfinder game then that becomes a problem.

The Exchange

ShinHakkaider wrote:
I really dont believe that the demise of D&D means the demise of RPG's anymore than the death of VHS meant the death of home video or the death of vinyl meant the death of music recording.

While I agree with this, I do want the D&D brand to survive if only because Dungeons & Dragons is such a cool name.


I hear lots of great things from pretty much everyone who has actually playtested the game.


What I want is for them to create a game I'll love.

Seems like a simple concept to me. :)


Jerry Wright 307 wrote:

What I want is for them to create a game I'll love.

Seems like a simple concept to me. :)

Everyone want that, and it's impossible to please everyone since everyone have different tastes.


Yes, but one can dream....


Void Munchkin wrote:
Jerry Wright 307 wrote:

What I want is for them to create a game I'll love.

Seems like a simple concept to me. :)

Everyone want that, and it's impossible to please everyone since everyone have different tastes.

But what if tastes are modular? :P


I like the old AD&D modules. They have a nice spicy beef jerky flavor. Yum! :)


I think that this edition of D&D is just going to split the player base further apart.
4E players will feel betrayed that WOTC are ditching they're precious game that they've been defending for years. They'll stick to they're 4E books and write they're own material.
Pathfinder players won't switch to the new system because they have a well supported game that will be valid for years to come and because many of us have been burned by WOTC before whilst Piazo have consistently shown that they care about their fans.
D&D Next is going to scoop up a few players from the groups currently playing games like OSRIC and 3.X who want new published material because they are short on prep time. It will fail to hit its targets and Hasbro will drop the D&D licences.

The interesting question is what will happen next. fast forward a few years and do you think we'll see Piazo buy the D&D licences and release PF2 as the next D&D?

RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 4, RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32

wargamer wrote:
The interesting question is what will happen next. fast forward a few years and do you think we'll see Piazo buy the D&D licences and release PF2 as the next D&D?

As much as this idea keeps coming up on message boards, I don't see it as realistic. Hasbro can still make a lot of money off of the D&D license without having a tabletop RPG in print. Even if they wanted to sell it, I'd bet that their asking price would be more than Paizo would find profitable.


Charlie Brooks wrote:
wargamer wrote:
The interesting question is what will happen next. fast forward a few years and do you think we'll see Piazo buy the D&D licences and release PF2 as the next D&D?
As much as this idea keeps coming up on message boards, I don't see it as realistic. Hasbro can still make a lot of money off of the D&D license without having a tabletop RPG in print. Even if they wanted to sell it, I'd bet that their asking price would be more than Paizo would find profitable.

As long as 1) they don't screw with supply vs demand and 2) As long as their shares don't take a big hit.

And DnD would be more likely than WotC as a whole


Hasbro have a policy of not selling underperforming brands.

Generally, I think people overestimate Hasbro's interest in D&D (IMO WoTC is probably "the subsidiary who make collectible card games"), however this is the kind of policy I could see them imposing on their subsidiaries.


wargamer wrote:
4E players will feel betrayed that WOTC are ditching they're precious game that they've been defending for years. They'll stick to they're 4E books and write they're own material.

Mmmm. Writing your own material is one thing. New players having to troll used bookstores to get a PHB is something else. There's a definite long-term viability hit when a game goes OOP. Even book sharing goes down, since you can't replace an eaten-by-other-player's-dog copy with a new one, and replacement used copies are in erratic condition.

And I expect that WotC-Hasbro will never, never let go of the D&D brand. It might license it, for a limited term, to someone, but they would keep ownership.


The viability of continuing with 4E will largely be determined by the DDI situation, I'd think. As it is, I'm the only person with any 4E books in our group - everyone else uses the CB exclusively (admittedly some of them still use the offline one).


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Charlie Brooks wrote:
wargamer wrote:
The interesting question is what will happen next. fast forward a few years and do you think we'll see Piazo buy the D&D licences and release PF2 as the next D&D?
As much as this idea keeps coming up on message boards, I don't see it as realistic. Hasbro can still make a lot of money off of the D&D license without having a tabletop RPG in print. Even if they wanted to sell it, I'd bet that their asking price would be more than Paizo would find profitable.

Not to mention, for what purpose would Paizo buy it?

They've already got their own brand that's outperforming the other brand at it's core competency.


Brian E. Harris wrote:
Charlie Brooks wrote:
wargamer wrote:
The interesting question is what will happen next. fast forward a few years and do you think we'll see Piazo buy the D&D licences and release PF2 as the next D&D?
As much as this idea keeps coming up on message boards, I don't see it as realistic. Hasbro can still make a lot of money off of the D&D license without having a tabletop RPG in print. Even if they wanted to sell it, I'd bet that their asking price would be more than Paizo would find profitable.

Not to mention, for what purpose would Paizo buy it?

They've already got their own brand that's outperforming the other brand at it's core competency.

I concur. It would be great for the game, so people like to bring it up. But it's a pipe dream. Any price would be way to low for WOTC and way too high for Paizo.


Steve Geddes wrote:
The viability of continuing with 4E will largely be determined by the DDI situation, I'd think. As it is, I'm the only person with any 4E books in our group - everyone else uses the CB exclusively (admittedly some of them still use the offline one).

Does DDI still have that "pay to use" certain things, many of the complains I heard came from that.


Void Munchkin wrote:
Steve Geddes wrote:
The viability of continuing with 4E will largely be determined by the DDI situation, I'd think. As it is, I'm the only person with any 4E books in our group - everyone else uses the CB exclusively (admittedly some of them still use the offline one).

Does DDI still have that "pay to use" certain things, many of the complains I heard came from that.

Yeah the tools (character builder, monster/encounter builder, rules compendium and I think the Virtual Table Top) are all only accessible with a subscription. For our group it's regarded as a bargain ($8 a month, I think?) since the tools are so good. We didnt return to D&D until after 4E's announcement though, so it's kind of always been like that for us - doesnt raise any hackles, even among the cheapskates who usually bemoan spending any money on RPGs (hence I'm the only one with books).

.
The PDF material they put out you can download, but you can only redownload it with a current subscription, so they dont store it for you without a subscription. That's not really a significant cost, given that $10 gives you thousands of pages of material, but it's not industry standard and does seem to offend.

They also still dont produce PDFs of their rulebooks, although the majority of their flavor material and adventures are PDF only now.


Steve Geddes wrote:
The viability of continuing with 4E will largely be determined by the DDI situation, I'd think. As it is, I'm the only person with any 4E books in our group - everyone else uses the CB exclusively (admittedly some of them still use the offline one).

Yeah. My bet, based on past performance, is that WotC will retire 4th edition content on DDI within three years of the commercial release of Next.

They may make lots of promises in the short term, and the people making them might well really truly mean to keep them . . . but there's too much staff turnover combined with bean-counter pressure. I don't think WotC-under-Hasbro is actually capable of consistently following an RPG strategy for a whole four years in a row.

I could be wrong. I hope I'm wrong. But I know what way I'm betting.

The Exchange

see wrote:
Steve Geddes wrote:
The viability of continuing with 4E will largely be determined by the DDI situation, I'd think. As it is, I'm the only person with any 4E books in our group - everyone else uses the CB exclusively (admittedly some of them still use the offline one).

Yeah. My bet, based on past performance, is that WotC will retire 4th edition content on DDI within three years of the commercial release of Next.

They may make lots of promises in the short term, and the people making them might well really truly mean to keep them . . . but there's too much staff turnover combined with bean-counter pressure. I don't think WotC-under-Hasbro is actually capable of consistently following an RPG strategy for a whole four years in a row.

I could be wrong. I hope I'm wrong. But I know what way I'm betting.

The earlier 3e stuff is actually still out there. It's not easily accessible, and not through the title page of the site itself, but it is still there - DigitalMage posted a link somewhere - so they haven't retired it as such. It's hard to say what they will do - on the one hand, it's not really in their interests to continue to support 4e once they go live with 5e, since they want to encourage people to move over. On the other hand, the cost of developing the tools is largely a sunk cost and the ongoing maintenance online is apparently relatively trivial, so it wouldn't cost them that much financially to keep them going.

Liberty's Edge

Aubrey the Malformed wrote:
The earlier 3e stuff is actually still out there. It's not easily accessible, and not through the title page of the site itself, but it is still there - DigitalMage posted a link somewhere -

And for those who want it again, here's the link:

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/archives

The archives go back to 2000.


see wrote:
Steve Geddes wrote:
The viability of continuing with 4E will largely be determined by the DDI situation, I'd think. As it is, I'm the only person with any 4E books in our group - everyone else uses the CB exclusively (admittedly some of them still use the offline one).

Yeah. My bet, based on past performance, is that WotC will retire 4th edition content on DDI within three years of the commercial release of Next.

They may make lots of promises in the short term, and the people making them might well really truly mean to keep them . . . but there's too much staff turnover combined with bean-counter pressure. I don't think WotC-under-Hasbro is actually capable of consistently following an RPG strategy for a whole four years in a row.

I could be wrong. I hope I'm wrong. But I know what way I'm betting.

We'll have to see. If the DDI keeps functioning in a similar way, I think it's an important revenue stream. As such, keeping the 4E people as paying customers (even if no new content is produced) would seem to me to be in WoTC best interests.

Removing the 4E tools would run the risk of alienating those who didnt want to switch to the next edition (or didnt want to switch yet). If there's anything I can take from WoTC's comments lately, it's that they're trying really hard not to upset anyone. (Too hard, in my view).


JoãoFalcão wrote:


Truth be told, when the lead designer leaves the project midrun, somethings actually wrong. Monte is already famous for his work on 3E, being on 5E would glorify him if 5E was a sucess and would put the guy among names like Gygax and Arneson. Some people put him there already.

If he is leaving, well, all leads us to believe that 5E will not be a sucess.

It is a fact that many players were interested on 5E solely because of his presence and now those people are no longer following it.

If a gaming system had to die every time Monte Cook threw a hissy fit, this hobby would be long dead. :p

The Exchange

Slaunyeh wrote:
JoãoFalcão wrote:


Truth be told, when the lead designer leaves the project midrun, somethings actually wrong. Monte is already famous for his work on 3E, being on 5E would glorify him if 5E was a sucess and would put the guy among names like Gygax and Arneson. Some people put him there already.

If he is leaving, well, all leads us to believe that 5E will not be a sucess.

It is a fact that many players were interested on 5E solely because of his presence and now those people are no longer following it.

If a gaming system had to die every time Monte Cook threw a hissy fit, this hobby would be long dead. :p

I don't think hissy fit is fitting in this context. Monte has gone on record to say that he has no problems with the people he's worked with on D&D Next and even elaborated by saying that he has no problem with anyone on the D&D Next team. So, most likely his reasons for leaving had nothing to do with the system and game itself but on company policy.

And to go from your post, Monte was quite down on 3.5 when it came out, even writing an article on why he wouldn't be providing 3.5 rules updates for Arcana Unearthed. It's clear even from the updated, expanded and cleaned up version of the game, Arcana Evolved, that it's still powered by the old 3e engine and not 3.5.

Furthermore, Monte also wrote an entire blog post about what he perceived as the failings of 3e, chief among them being their insistence on providing rules for everything, which he felt empowered players and reduced the power of the DM. Since one of D&D Next's stated design goals was DM empowerement (and I think the results of this goal can be seen quite clearly in the playtest documents), I feel that Monte probably has no problems with the system itself, but with his superiors (above Mike Mearls).

But yeah, Monte being down on 3.5, and 3e in retrospect, didn't spell immediate death for either system.


Ratpick wrote:
Furthermore, Monte also wrote an entire blog post about what he perceived as the failings of 3e, chief among them being their insistence on providing rules for everything, which he felt empowered players and reduced the power of the DM. Since one of D&D Next's stated design goals was DM empowerement (and I think the results of this goal can be seen quite clearly in the playtest documents), I feel that Monte probably has no problems with the system itself, but with his superiors (above Mike Mearls).

I don't know the guy, I'm sure he's nice, but I get a distinct feeling that Monte Cook isn't the kind of person who can work for a large company that isn't his. I was more surprised at hearing he was back with WotC, than I was to hear that he quit. Again.

Whether he flips out every time there's another Secret Santa draw, or not, doesn't really say much about the future of 5e.


Slaunyeh wrote:
I don't know the guy, I'm sure he's nice, but I get a distinct feeling that Monte Cook isn't the kind of person who can work for a large company that isn't his.

Given that the majority of his career was working for large companies that weren't his, I don't know why one would have this opinion of him.

Of late, sure, he's been his own boss, and I would imagine most people would prefer to be their own boss, but that doesn't mean that he's got some innate inability to work for a larger company.


I firmly believe that Monte left for another reason OUTSIDE the rules aspect of the game. D&D:Next really caters to what he's posted (on his blog) as great system mechanics. Those being ambiguous rules (at least, a simple mechanic instead of 10 complex ones) and less Character Options at 1st level, and by that I mean character choices that wil affect them for the rest of their career.

DDN has simpler rules with enougth lee-way to allow DMs to arbitrate however they want (for good, or ill). They have "bundles" in the form of Backgrounds and Themes (another simple way of picking feats/skills) without ham-stringing your character early on. Spellcasters going back to Vancian (*rolls eyes*) is something Monte definitly felt was required for DDN.

No, I think (and this is just an opinion) he left because they're probably not going the OGL route. As a big 3PP supporter that he is, if they went a more GSL route, he's less like to be happy about it. And WotC can't afford to have another gaming company come in, use their rules, and then outsell them.


I'm firmly convinced he left because he wants to do his own stuff, and while he worked for WotC, he wasn't allowed to, because of his contract. The first thing he announced after he left was that he had a big project he wanted to work on.

I doubt seriously if he left because he disagreed with the direction of 5E or a lack of a new OGL. For one thing, Mike Mearls seemed surprised when he left. If there was a disagreement, I'm pretty sure Mearls would have been aware of it. Monte Cook really isn't that great at holding his opinions in.


Diffan wrote:


No, I think (and this is just an opinion) he left because they're probably not going the OGL route. As a big 3PP supporter that he is, if they went a more GSL route, he's less like to be happy about it. And WotC can't afford to have another gaming company come in, use their rules, and then outsell them.

I strongly doubt that. I don't think there was ever a chance WotC would go back the OGL. I can't believe Monte wouldn't have known that all along, so why quit now?

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