CapnTthePirateG wrote:Still can't tell whether or not 5e is gonna catch on or will falter to resounding meh.
Probably a meh. I haven't looked specifically where 4E D&D people frequent, but as far as 3E D&D fans go the casuals don't seem overly offended or alienated. On the other hand, 5E D&D basic doesn't do anything better out of the box than 3E D&D did nor presented any new paradigms or rules changes that people latched onto. When pressed for something they did like, people tend to cling to stupid teeny shit like 'I love how cantrips are useful now' or 'the concentration duration seems nice'. Compliments like that do not point to a fanbase that's going to stay loyal.
Compare this to 4E D&D: I like the whole minion mechanic. I like how fighters have more stuff to do. I like how the pace of combat has been flattened. I think those are stupid design principles, but they're design principles that you can build a product identity around. Most of what people supposedly like about 5E D&D exists in comparison to 3E (rarely 4E) D&D did.
We'll see what things look like when the entire book comes out, though. If this pattern continues and if Pathfinder had any sense they would see this wishy-washiness as a prime opening to launch their second edition.
Last edited by Lago PARANOIA on Mon Jul 07, 2014 1:45 am, edited 2 times in total.
Josh Kablack wrote:Your freedom to make rulings up on the fly is in direct conflict with my freedom to interact with an internally consistent narrative. Your freedom to run/play a game without needing to understand a complex rule system is in direct conflict with my freedom to play a character whose abilities and flaws function as I intended within that ruleset. Your freedom to add and change rules in the middle of the game is in direct conflict with my ability to understand that rules system before I decided whether or not to join your game.
In short, your entire post is dismissive of not merely my intelligence, but my agency. And I don't mean agency as a player within one of your games, I mean my agency as a person. You do not want me to be informed when I make the fundamental decisions of deciding whether to join your game or buying your rules system.
Sakuya Izayoi wrote:It's funny that 4rries are getting thrown under the bus, since they're the demographic that has no where else to go. Nostalgic people can play games they already own, 4rries can play, uh.... Warlords of Draenor? Descent?
There is that 13th Age game, which is more or less a 4e clone. But I'd guess a large chunk of the 4e player base hasn't heard of it and wouldn't acknowledge it anyway, because it isn't the One True Way. The 4rries are going to grow up to shadzars with a fetish for a slightly different number.
As for 5e...I can see it as the gateway game or the game people cling to if they're really afraid of pathfinder. It'll have the 'on the shelf' presence in stores, and the name recognition. But I think it will quickly get discarded for the next new thing. Which will actually be useful for 6th edition, since they won't have to slag off the old fans to get them to go away. They can just deposit whatever new pile of bullshit occurs to them in mid-development.
Voss wrote:The 4rries are going to grow up to shadzars with a fetish for a slightly different number.
But they won't be able to bitch about how it is all [Company Name]'s fault, because [Different Company] was perfect. And let's be honest, if you actually read all the shad posts, wouldn't most of them have to do with how WotC is the devil?
They failed all their design goals. Bounded accuracy doesn't work, there's no modularity, and the rules are complex enough where it's going to be fairly difficult to explain it to new people. With bonus actions, action surges and damage die rerolls, lengths of peoples turns are going to be a while too. And if the HP increases we've seen on the ogre are any indication of how the monster manual is going to go, well we can expect that combats are probably going to be grindy too. The skill system more or less combines the worst parts of the 2nd edition skill system with the worst parts of the 3E system and then layers it with confusing concepts like tool proficiencies.
5E will probably be more popular than 4E, but that's not saying much. Grognards may like it initially, but they're going to quickly learn it's really not the simple game they wanted and AD&D with a few house rules is probably going to be better balanced.
People have already noticed in the previews for the basic rules that the attribute system + bounded accuracy crap recreates Wizards Rule, Fighters Drool in the mid levels just going by save DCs and saving throws. That's already a pretty huge strike against the edition in many peoples' eyes. And since the spellcasters get a better power acquisition scheme it's trivial to see that it'll only get worse.
The game doesn't seem to have anything going for it. It's like how people said that Pathfinder was super-balanced and fixed the Fighter because of all of the spot nerfs to stuff like Divine Power and Persistent Spell but then they realized that not only did the structural problems remain but over time Pathfinder added some new problems of their own.
Josh Kablack wrote:Your freedom to make rulings up on the fly is in direct conflict with my freedom to interact with an internally consistent narrative. Your freedom to run/play a game without needing to understand a complex rule system is in direct conflict with my freedom to play a character whose abilities and flaws function as I intended within that ruleset. Your freedom to add and change rules in the middle of the game is in direct conflict with my ability to understand that rules system before I decided whether or not to join your game.
In short, your entire post is dismissive of not merely my intelligence, but my agency. And I don't mean agency as a player within one of your games, I mean my agency as a person. You do not want me to be informed when I make the fundamental decisions of deciding whether to join your game or buying your rules system.
Voss wrote:The 4rries are going to grow up to shadzars with a fetish for a slightly different number.
But they won't be able to bitch about how it is all [Company Name]'s fault, because [Different Company] was perfect. And let's be honest, if you actually read all the shad posts, wouldn't most of them have to do with how WotC is the devil?
They can always blame pazio for ruining the customer base. /shrug. The point is, they're going to rationalize some reason for being ruined and abandoned.
Voss wrote:The 4rries are going to grow up to shadzars with a fetish for a slightly different number.
But they won't be able to bitch about how it is all [Company Name]'s fault, because [Different Company] was perfect. And let's be honest, if you actually read all the shad posts, wouldn't most of them have to do with how WotC is the devil?
They can always blame pazio for ruining the customer base. /shrug. The point is, they're going to rationalize some reason for being ruined and abandoned.
Right now the 4rries seem to feel the reason they got abandoned is that mearls betrayed them. I can't really say they are wrong.
The entire 4vengers thing was extremely divisive and obviously it's not going to be easy to get those players back. But it really seems like now would be a great time to fucking try, and I don't see them doing that. Now mearls probably can't be the guy who heals the rift in the community, because he's the guy who encouraged the 4vengers in the first place. But I really don't understand why the company isn't out there crafting a message to bring 4rries and 3tards together.
Well they are, but only in the sense that neither 4e players nor 3e players are happy with the direction things are going.
