The Gaming Den

So. Assuming that 5E D&D is an even worse of a fuck-up edition than 4E D&D (which looks likely at this point) and also assuming that Hasbro decides to front the money or farm out the IP rights for another D&D edition (which is much less certain), what are the odds that 6E D&D is going to be a 3E D&D rehash?

Personally, I'd say that the odds are... well, while not favorable it's a plausible possibility. For a few reasons.

[*] It lets the game designers hustle product out of the door very quickly. Even a Mike Mearls design team could push out this version of 6E D&D in a half of a year. A halfway competent one could do it in four months.
[*] It undercuts Pathfinder. Who, barring massive incompetence on Paizo's part of the rise of some TTRPG out of the blue, are going to be 6E D&D's biggest competitor.
[*] It allows the design team to rehash old 3E D&D product. When 3.5E came out, a ton of 'new' sourcebooks were just adaptations of 3.0E material. I don't particularly approve, but it'll be like, what, a 10-15 year gap? Most people aren't going to revolt at new and improved versions of the Swashbuckler or Bladesinger.
[*] Related to the above point, it allows the design team to compile the 'best of' old 3E D&D content. 3E had a lot of hit and misses, but imagine a 3E PHB that had right from the gate a Warblade [Fighter], Warlock, Dread Necromancer, Beguiler [Rogue], Psychic Warrior [Monk] and Psion (I know, I know), Totemist [Ranger], and Soulborn. The crappy classes like Barbarian and Sorcerer can just be tucked away as optional NPC classes. Imagine if instead of having elf/half-elf/gnome/halfling/human/elf/half-orc/dwarf, you also had goliaths, warforged, dhampirs, thri-kreen, catfolk, and drow.
[*] It lets them flog the 'backwards compatibility' horse. Not that I expect or even want a 6E D&D to be backwards compatible with 3E D&D, but as Pathfinder has shown it's a good way to cajole people into taking a risk on your project. And you don't even have to deliver; you can just feign amnesia on this point when people are all 'hey, how do I adapt my Ur-Priest to this edition?'
[*] The problems of 3E D&D are pretty well-known at this point. A lot of them are unable to be fixed (or at least appear to be fixed) without a massive restructuring of the underlying assumptions of the game, like monster advancement or open multiclassing. Some of the problems can be fixed but require someone to take a math hammer to it, like wealth-by-level or the dropoff of AC. And some of the problems can be fixed with just a couple more lines relevant to the applicable section like with illusions and BAB/Base Defense Bonus/Save Bonuses. I expect a lot of problems to get quick-fixes that don't complete solve the problems but extend the playability of the game for a few more levels. If the game was playable until level 16 out of 20 (instead of 9-12 out of 20) without going the 4E NERF FUCKING EVERYTHING route I'd call that a massive success.

The problem there is, they seem to have decided to reinvent the wheel every single time. Even 4.5 was different enough from 4.0 that they were only technically compatible in that if someone asked you to roll X, you didn't go "That doesn't exist in my variant, must explode".

So the closest you'll get is a re-release of "The golden years: all that money can't lie, so we know what you liked back then, maybe you'll like it again now with zero changes whatsoever?" or possibly "taking all the names of 3E stuff, dressing things up as sounding like 3E... but not actually like that."

If the people who make such decisions had any brains at all, they would announce that the next edition was called "Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: 3rd Edition." 3rd Edition D&D was the last time the company really had any good will, the last edition of AD&D was 2nd edition, and by making a new edition of AD&D you could claim you weren't doing it because no one liked the products you were making.

But the people don't have any brains. They are allowing Mike Mearls to fuck around for two fucking years making an edition of D&D that no one cares about and is 90% vaporware anyway. Someone is going to get fired over D&DNext. Bizarrely, it probably isn't going to be James Wyatt. Then they are going to put together a new team composed of random dudes from their Seattle-area gaming groups to hash together a new edition of D&D, which they are going to call something stupid.

Making a fantasy heartbreaker that people like is not terribly hard when you have D&D's name recognition and 3e's functional core system. Just look at the merry band of fuckups at Paizo. But WotC seems incapable of doing that. For whatever stupid reason that probably makes sense to their IP lawyers, they are going to continue to avoid making a new system that is OGL compatible. And the next game that hits #1 is going to come from outside established genres and play to teenagers like we were living in the 90s. Superheroes and Vampires are big these days.



-Username17

FrankTrollman wrote:"Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: 3rd Edition."

Man, I really want to play that game.

FrankTrollman wrote:And the next game that hits #1 is going to come from outside established genres and play to teenagers like we were living in the 90s. Superheroes and Vampires are big these days.

In before the Twilight RPG is the next big thing.

FrankTrollman wrote:And the next game that hits #1 is going to come from outside established genres and play to teenagers like we were living in the 90s. Superheroes and Vampires are big these days.

What about an arted up and expanded After Sundown?

Snark aside, I could definitely see myself buying a TTRPG where the setting is some kind of Urban Fantasy Masquerade or Friendly Neighborhood Monster Mash where you play some kind of superhero. It's just that one of the basic superhero archetypes is 'Spirit' or 'Vampire' or 'Robot' or 'Space Alien' or 'Magical Girl'. Less After Sundown and more Teen Titans or Danny Phantom.

It just needs a good setting book, some nice promotional material like a webcomic or a Penny Arcade-style shilling, and either a good rules-lite ruleset you can pick up in 30 minutes or a rules-heavy pastiche that significantly improves on 3E D&D or Champions. Or massively improves on 4E D&D.

Yeah but honestly if you're making a super hero game with its own fully formed setting you don't use D&D as a base, you use like M&M and strip out the connections to the comic book world and make it more in tune with the electronic media of today.

So instead of the Rat-Computer, Ratman has the Wall of Squeaks, where his many twitter accounts are displayed simultaneously for people to tweet him when they see trouble?

Maxus wrote:So instead of the Rat-Computer, Ratman has the Wall of Squeaks, where his many twitter accounts are displayed simultaneously for people to tweet him when they see trouble?

This is the awesomest thing I'm going to read all week.

Koumei wrote: In before the Twilight RPG is the next big thing.

For the life of me I don't understand why White Wolf didn't overhaul the entire Vampire line and milk the fuck out of Twilight.

Having shit like character generation apps, virtual tables and assorted D&D Insider bullshit is all nice, but when it comes to in-game tech levels I actually think the horror genre really benefits from going a wee bit retro. For example, After Sundown features a world in which contrived bullshit prevents people from contacting the police because something something genre convention. And look, I get it: Lots of otherwise desirable scenarios basically explode when exposed to things like reliable cell phones and competent police officers. But it raises questions about how privileged the PCs are or should be when it comes to using their own devices and is just generally a bit messy overall. Plus, team roles like the minor telepath who does crap like mind link the team and otherwise act like a magic switchboard operator are way less niche when skype and texting is taken of the table.

Classic horror requires that ubiquitous smart phones not exist. The entire cabin in the woods, slasher on the prowl, cannibal mutants on parade thing revolves around the characters being unable to look at Google Maps or contact the state police. The genre was created in the 20th century, and is heavily tied to that era's technological limitations.

Now conspiracy horror doesn't require that. Indeed, 21st century inventions have made the panopticon posited by most men in black conspiracies more plausible. If you were doing something like Doubt, it wouldn't be at all helpful to take peoples' smart phones away. The players might have to go retro on the portable phones to keep the Conspiracy from tracking them. But in any case you wouldn't expect to be able to accomplish much by calling the authorities or looking at public map databases, because dispatchers and online map providers are obviously in on the conspiracy.

-Username17

That sounds AWESOME. What system would you use though?

Isn't urban fantasy also still a thing in the YA fiction, especially if nonthreatening boys are involved? And can't you get Gensokyo power spots/dead phone zone to do the old-school horror thing? Or go full on Serial Experiments Lain and have Matrix monsters bleed into the real world.

darkmaster: Using M&M's rules as a base for AD&D3e is probably a good idea in general. Just make classes with power sets instead of having the system be point-buy. Shit, a PACKS-style system for M&M 3e would be nice to have in general.

Honestly, I don't know that 5e is going to fail worse than 4e. Don't get me wrong, it will totally suck, and sell very few books, but I don't see how it can possible be worse than 4e. I see it landing right alongside 2nd edition in quality of game. Maybe a little less "I can do cool shit" and a little more "slide 1 square". Add in the "modular" rules and people will pretend its totally playable for a long time. We might even get a full 4 years out of it.

I get the vibe that with serious house ruling you could bring 5e into the realm of "Almost as playable as 3 without house rules". Not an awesome end goal (what with 3e still existing), but way better than 4e can manage.

I see 5e failing hard, and then 6e becoming an entirely digital game with WoTC declaring "Paper is dead its time to move into the future. pen and paper just isn't profitable" and having a big deal like the dragon and gnome 4e videos getting people pumped for an "All digital DND!" and "I can't believe we used to use books, what were we retarded?". I'm met real people who played DDO, and I imagine thats basically what 6e will look like. Probably as popular too. Maybe with some tie in board games, and licensing sales for retro t-shirts and shit like that.

darkmaster wrote:Yeah but honestly if you're making a super hero game with its own fully formed setting you don't use D&D as a base, you use like M&M and strip out the connections to the comic book world and make it more in tune with the electronic media of today.

Don't use Mutants and Masterminds unless you have an extremely specific kind of game in mind. And that extremely specific game is: one or more players don't want to spend more than 1 hour learning another system while already being familiar with D&D (this is the big one), won't be upset by melee being completely inferior if not useless to ranged combat, is okay with having every non-sleepwalk/non-impossible encounter being Power Rangers v. Psycho Rangers, and thinks that Bards are too fiddly and specific.

Unless a group satisfies every one of those caveats, you're better off using a bastard hybrid of d20 Modern/Urban Arcana + 3E D&D or Champions.

Krusk wrote:Honestly, I don't know that 5e is going to fail worse than 4e. Don't get me wrong, it will totally suck, and sell very few books, but I don't see how it can possible be worse than 4e.

4E D&D has a clear production schedule and a vision that could be quantified with specific metrics. Granted, the vision sucked and the production schedule ended up getting derailed or was over-ambitious, but at least they had those things.

In the world of modern game/software design, if you don't have those things and you don't plan to release an evergreen (or near evergreen) product that met most of the audience's expectations out of the gate, you're fucked. Unless you got it exactly right the first time and you're just coasting from then on, you're fucked.

Krusk wrote:I get the vibe that with serious house ruling you could bring 5e into the realm of "Almost as playable as 3 without house rules".

I don't mean to be rude this time but what exactly is this based on? It seems more like wishful thinking than anything, especially with 5E D&D having (at least) a two-year production gap between the last edition and with the playtests outlining no clear vision or even evolution.

Sure. I played through "play test" 8 or so.

It seems like the classes can do what you expect them to do. Even if they suck at it. At least it's on paper. 4e the classes can't do things you expect them to do, and the Dm has to make something up.

It's also a class based rpg where class choice matters and changes what you get to do during gameplay. 4e isn't.

You add serious house rules to it. adjust difficulty dcs, revise monsters, new classes, new feats, and revise combat rules and it might be almost as playable as 3 without house rules. You can't tweak 4e to get it playable. This you potentially could. I mean, you shouldn't and most won't because PF and 3.0 books still exist. but if you had a shitty group that demanded you dm 5e or nothing you could probably get by and stealth house rule it into almost 3rd with a lot of effort.

AD&D will never return that is why they dont even include it in the "works with" for DDN events and only allow 3.x/4th/DDN because they want to get away from it, yet use it as part of DDN.

3.x will never return because PF is better in the minds of the majority remaining playing it and thanks to the OGL nobody ever has to buy any 3.x from WotC ever again.

4th and its players will fade away quicker than slap bracelets did, but unlike them it will never make a comeback as D&D. 4th will be hidden away as a bigger niche within a niche than pet rocks.

when DDN fails, HASBRO will jsut use the logo and "brand" name for all manners of other things and take it away from WotC so it can have more toys, board games, novelty crap, etc

Re: Tech conventions in horror

The Dresden Files sorta explains why folks don't get spooky shit on clear video--magic and tech don't get along well, especially fine electronics like cell phones and computers.

This also happens in some of the Slender Man-type series you see around; weird shit flexing mystical muscle messes up electricity (and possibly people): Like here or here.

Even Silent Hill 2 had the little radio that would fuckup when monsters were nearby.

I think the concept is familiar enough that you could codify it into a game's rules and people would accept it.

Koumei wrote:The problem there is, they seem to have decided to reinvent the wheel every single time.

The whole point of 5E was that it was going to be the "everything to everybody" edition. So it was going to be 3E to 3E lovers, 1E to 1E lovers, 4E to 4E lovers, etc. Because as long as the D&D world is split into 1E lovers, 3E lovers, 4E lovers, etc., then rehashing one of those editions is potentially leaving money on the table.

Of course, "everything to everybody" edition almost instantly fell apart in a mass of flop sweat, which is not surprising.

shadzar wrote:
3.x will never return because PF is better in the minds of the majority remaining playing it and thanks to the OGL nobody ever has to buy any 3.x from WotC ever again.

I think you under estimate how flighty and fickle those people are, even after all Hasbro's bullshit, it would take all of a "D&D 3rd Edition Remaster: Player's Guide: We Really Fixed Fighters Rogues and Monks Time, We Promise! Also You Can Use All Those Classes that Aren't Covered By OGL Again" release to take an enormous chunk out of Paizo.

Granted it not might be enough to actually make a successful game line, but they could cripple Paizo for the sake of spite if they really wanted.

"MAGNETIC FIELDS, HOW DOES IT WORK?" is already asource of magical plot altering invisibility in non-scifi storytelling, so applying that to straight up paranormal stuff is easy.

After two failures - likely getting worse simply because they bled off a lot of players over the course of 4e - are you sure there'd be a 6e? Perhaps they'll try to use the name for a card game or boardgame, or file it away against the possibility someone will buy it off them, and stop trying to make a RPG.