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http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/10/arts/video-games/dungeons-dragons-remake-uses-players-input.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all

But there might yet be hope for Dungeons & Dragons, known as D&D. On Monday, Wizards of the Coast, the Hasbro subsidiary that owns the game, is expected to announce that a new edition is under development, the first overhaul of the rules since the contentious fourth edition was released in 2008. And Dungeons & Dragons’ designers are also planning to undertake an exceedingly rare effort for the gaming industry over the next few months: asking hundreds of thousands of fans to tell them how exactly they should reboot the franchise

Since the game’s birth an estimated 20 million people have played it and spent $1 billion on its products.

.. in all honesty I'd have thought more money than that would have been spent.

Edition wars have also wounded the game. Various rules systems have been released over Dungeons & Dragons’ 38-year history: Basic, Advanced, Advanced 2nd edition, 3.0, 3.5, 4.0. Devotion to particular rules can be fanatical. Hostilities about how to best play the game — for example, how a sorcerer casts spells — flare up among the core fan base.

A result, said David M. Ewalt, a senior editor at Forbes and the author of a forthcoming history of Dungeons & Dragons, has been a fractured fan base. The game is a group activity, he said, and playing together is tricky when players use different rules. “Imagine trying to organize a basketball team, if the point guard adheres to modern league rules, but the center only knows how to play ancient Mayan handball.”

When the N.B.A. adopted the 3-point shot in 1979, purists cried foul at rules changes, just as many D&D devotees dismissed the rules of the game’s fourth edition as dumbed down, overeager to mimic multiplayer online games like Warcraft — and favoring killing over the role-playing and storytelling roots of Dungeons & Dragons. Some began playing other role-playing games like Pathfinder, which won over disgruntled players. Miniature war games like Warhammer or Wizards of the Coast’s own trading-card game Magic: The Gathering have also diluted Dungeons & Dragons’ dominance.

.... it's like these journalists can see into our very souls !

Sorry, Wizards. What we had was good, but it's time to let go. I'm with Paizo now.

Edition wars have also wounded the game.

infinite_array wrote:Sorry, Wizards. What we had was good, but it's time to let go. I'm with Paizo now.

You're right reds8n, they see through us into our very existence.

I'm a bit doubtful on the timing though. D&D Experience is usually billed as where the big D&D info is supposed to be released now that WOTC doesn't own Gen Con anymore (although a fair amount of stuff still gets announced there) and that isn't for another few weeks. I guess we'll find out sometime in the nex 8 hours or so during Monday business hours for the Pacific timezone.

Still debating whether to go to DDXP this year. I can see 5e being announced differently becuase the brand name is much bigger and more well known, as opposed to just new source books and such, which are more fan oriented. I am curious to see the new Dungeon Survival Guide which is supposed to be at DDXP.

Ahtman wrote:Still debating whether to go to DDXP this year. I can see 5e being announced differently becuase the brand name is much bigger and more well known, as opposed to just new source books and such, which are more fan oriented. I am curious to see the new Dungeon Survival Guide which is supposed to be at DDXP.

If they do announce it, I'd expect that book to probably be the last in 4e/essential if they follow their previous track (especially given their recent lighter book release schedule). 3.5 ended with a bit of a whimper with the preceding 8 months+ before 4e only releasing three 4e preview books and that wierd very small "this is D&D described" 60pg book that didn't have any content for the game in it. Hopefully they'll learn their lesson and at least continue some token support for 4e for years to come once the next edition comes out.

http://community.wizards.com/dndnext/blog/2012/01/09/welcome_to_the_group

So it looks like the playtesting material will be at DDXP this year. I nominate ahtman as the dakka RPG subforum rep to go scout out the info!

I thought they mentioned that DDXP was moving to GenCon as of 2013 anyway...

Interesting, hadn't heard that but honestly I haven't kept up with WOTC news too closely since they dropped me as a customer.

They dropped you as a customer? :/

I was kind of hoping it'd be out at GenCon this year (as I'll probably be attending...) but, oh well, more cash for other fun stuff.

Wizards had a huge presence at Gencon '10 in terms of displays and games being run, but their actual booth was pretty uninspiring and I don't think i ever really looked at it. I think it had some sort of weird VIP 2nd level 'lounge' or something...

The little I've seen sounds interesting. They're not saying it outright, but they're admitting that 4th had some elements that went over poorly. I hope they don't lose the good parts with the bad, though. The basic 4e concepts of powers work pretty well, but the math gets a little wonky.

A neat idea I've heard (wishlisting, not rumor) is to separate the power sources more, so Martial classes will all have a unified 'schtick' kind of like how Psionic (augmentable pwoers from a small power point pool) and some arcane (Multiple spells in a library with the spells currently selected changeable upon resting).

Personally, I'm hopeful they're realizing that 'one campaign fits all' doesn't work for a lot of people, and perhaps making a standard 'meta-campaign' system so it's easy for players and GMs to work together to make characters. Maybe even make 3rd party extensions to a character builder possible.

To elaborate, a lot of 4th edition material and settings were written to include all 4th edition material. The Forgotten Realms, for example, was revised to include shifters, dragonborn, etc. that were rare or unknown in earlier editions. Dark Sun went against this, (no Clerics and weird Arcane magic) but in general there was a definite movement that if PHB 12 had introduced the Smurf race and Space Marine class, Smurf Space Marines would exist in the core supported settings. I believe the author R. A. Salvatore has complained about this, as he had to 'fast forward' a century or two for his novels.

This was a bit weird, and I think it put GMs in a weird place. Sure, a GM can say "No, that race doesn't exist in my setting" but GMs want to be accommodating, and saying no too much starts things off on a bad foot.

Basically, standardize the process of the GM saying "Well, Martial classes are OK as are Clerics, Wizards, and Monks. For Races, let's go with Humans, Elves, and Dwarves. Everything else can be discussed."

What I'm thinking is that the DDI tools need the concept of a 'campaign' to exist, and GMs should be able to pick and choose (and possibly create) material for this.

What would be really cool (but probably outside WotC's abilities, judging by the DDI tools and the previous attempts) is an extensible framework, almost an 'app store' for D&D. Make 'player' accounts cheap. Make GM accounts slightly less cheap (and a player can act as a GM, of course). Add a third tier for 'developer.'

I log in as a player and can use the 'core' material (like today) to make characters, etc. I can 'sign up' for a campaign, and see the requested character notes for that, and can copy or migrate a character to that. Campaigns would be noted as Strict (Meet specifications or else) or Loose (things that don't meet specs will be red-flagged for GM review). Additional content is Dragon magazine articles with a player focus. Power Blocks, items, feats, etc. are all tagged with a source. Additional powers can be added from 3rd party sources if desired... Maybe even 'in-app purchases' for 3rd party, especially if there's a partnership with Amazon or similar (Unlock all the Feats from Book of X and get the book shipped free!)

As a GM tier an account gets to build campaigns.

Developers get a much bigger interface with 'back end' features and the ability to use code (which requires heavy sand-boxing and approval, of course) and such.

This is all a electronic tool feature, though, not an actual RPG system. Ideally, I'd still want to be able to output to a printable PDF.

On the actual tabletop player, I hope 4th focuses a bit more on stuff that can't be done in CRPGs. 4th is a good system, but some systems (Skill Challenges, combat at times) make player creativity ineffectual compared to discovering the 'trick'. Instant creativity is one thing WoW and other MMOs can't replicate.

Manchu wrote:They dropped you as a customer? :/

That's the way I feel about it as a previously intensely loyal customer of multiple hobby lines. I didn't realize just *how* much I spent on WOTC stuff until I calculated it for a poll here on dakka a year or two back ironically (around $1,500 a year roughly). I bought *every* 3/3.5 core and forgotten realms rulebook/adventure except Book of Nine Swords, amounting to an average of one $39.95 book a month (sometime two, occasionally none depending on the release schedule). When they stopped supported 3/3.5 on their website as well as in print with the upcoming 4e, they dropped me as a fantasy RPG customer as I didn't like the 4e playstyle changes. I bought two cases to complete sets of the first 10 or so D&D minis sets ($250 roughly twice to three times a year as they later changed the frequency of new sets). With the onset of 4e RPG previews, they abruptly announced that the minis game was switching to 4e mechanics also and only 60!! of the over 500 unique minis would get new stat cards to go with the change in rules (and I had several thousand minis)... soon after, they just dropped the minis game completely and me as a fantasy minis consumer when the figs became solely an RPG accessory for an RPG I no longer played. Rinse, lather, and repeat the above for both the Star Wars Saga RPG and minis lines. They had me hooked on 4 separate lines of interrelated products but eventually dropped them all sequentially and me as a customer.

Balance wrote:The little I've seen sounds interesting. They're not saying it outright, but they're admitting that 4th had some elements that went over poorly. I hope they don't lose the good parts with the bad, though. The basic 4e concepts of powers work pretty well, but the math gets a little wonky.

There's a great (and relatively new) series of articles/posts over on enworld and escapist magazine by the same gun (Ryan Delancey) who worked on 3rd edition and beyond about what went on behind the scenes a bit both designwise and corporate politiking (sp?)-wise with 4e. Apparently 4th edition was specifically designed to work best with the virtual tabletop as a response to the rise of MMO's like the new at the time WOW. When the outsourcing of the DDI/VTT fell apart about 6 months before the release of 4e, they had to both cobble together some sort of online interface as well as retrofit the new edition to a primarily (at least initially they hoped) tabletop only experience with the VTT coming later.

On similar news, it looks like the 5e info leak red reported on is actually out... more info over at enworld.org about both the above articles (which were on their front page prior to the 5e announcement info dump) and the new 5e info.

edit: official WOTC announcement link with signup for 5e playtesting:

http://www.wizards.com/dnd/Article.aspx?x=dnd/4ll/20120109

warboss wrote:

Manchu wrote:They dropped you as a customer? :/

That's the way I feel about it as a previously intensely loyal customer of multiple hobby lines.

Thank god you don't play any GW lines as they change editions and minis every few years as well.

Ahtman wrote:

warboss wrote:

Manchu wrote:They dropped you as a customer? :/

That's the way I feel about it as a previously intensely loyal customer of multiple hobby lines.

Thank god you don't play any GW lines as they change editions and minis every few years as well.

If GW books were twice as expensive (as WOTC stuff was at the time), came out monthly, were usable by almost every army, and GW took ALL the units in every codex and said they were only keeping a dozen as usable units/figs for the next edition, you might have a point.

Dancey's point about model trains really hit me hard. I hope it's a poor analogy. Around February of this year, I realized "there is no law that D&D will always be around." I hadn't thought about that since the mid nineties.

The very conservative cast of Monte Cook's Legend and Lore articles since September have knotted me up as someone who prefers to be a PC rather than a DM but, at the same time, I have some hope that a full swing to eD&D may still be just a dream. Balance has some cool ideas but I am not ready. PnP is a literal term in my personal lexicon.

@warboss: I dunno, man. I don't dare adopt that "they dropped me" outlook about any hobby. My spending habits were quite in-line with yours, minus the SW minis, and my spending went way, way down after the first quarter of 4E. In my case, it wasn't because WotC dropped me -- rather it was because my gaming group dropped them.

My one wish for 5E, other than keeping actual pens and actual paper around, is that some of the vitriol will have drained out of the community. That's my Miss America moment in gaming and although it is undoubtedly simplistic I mean it with all the sincerity of any pageant hopeful. I just think of Dancey's model train analogy: are we doomed to be a colony of nostalgic curmudgeons -- a non-renewing population holding development hostage?

Dancy has some good insights and some great inside scoops.

This also has some great insight into D&D:

http://www.putlocker.com/file/AD879206DB191088#

Manchu wrote:are we doomed to be a colony of nostalgic curmudgeons -- a non-renewing population holding development hostage?

The sad truth is probably. For each person that "is down for whatever", as Mssr. Cube put it, there seems to be 2 or more "stop liking what I don't like" that would rather tell what they don't like than do. Paizo (and I like Pathfinder) has essentially made a business preying on gamers arrested development; "a few tweaks to 3.5 is still 3.5, just with tweaks", as The Sphinx* say.

*I'm not the only one that saw Mystery Men right?

I wish them the best of luck with it, and hope the transition is less divisive than the changeover to 4th edition.

That being said, I'll be sticking with Pathfinder. To me, it's the most direct successor to the game I started playing 20 years ago, and unless 5e's got some major changes in store, I don't see that changing any time soon. Plus, I still have my Necromancer Games' Rappan Athuk boxed set, which I've got to DM once before I die...

So is anyone signing up for that 5e playtesting at the WOTC link I posted? I'm a bit torn on the subject as I've frankly moved away from D&D over the past few years. It would be nice to use the prepainted minis again though on the tabletop.

I signed up, I'll let you guys know if I get into the playtesting thing.

Ahtman wrote:Paizo (and I like Pathfinder) has essentially made a business preying on gamers arrested development ...

I can only imagine the fury that would seize Erik Mona upon reading this ... but I basically agree. I have been trying to convey for some time now that Paizo may be painting itself into a corner. However you want to look at the preservation/development of 3E, what happens when there are no Pathfinder books left to publish?

Paizo, more especially than any other company, will watch the development of 5E with eagle eyes. If 5E works then PFRPG 2E will almost certainly ride hard on its heels.

Manchu wrote:The very conservative cast of Monte Cook's Legend and Lore articles since September have knotted me up as someone who prefers to be a PC rather than a DM but, at the same time, I have some hope that a full swing to eD&D may still be just a dream. Balance has some cool ideas but I am not ready. PnP is a literal term in my personal lexicon.

As I said (poorly) I personally prefer a hybrid of the on-line and in-person stuff.

On-line tools are great for character generation and some of the 'paperwork' that bogs down tabletop play to me. As a GM or player I'd rather review character details, changes, etc. on-line between games.

However, in actual play I try to avoid the distraction web-enabled devices bring. I don't even keep notes a lot of time as the act of taking notes tends to take me out of the story a bit.

I still think WotC's issue with DDI and similar projects is that they end up with 'game' developers running the project, but really need 'application' developers. The kind of person who thinks coding a revision management system to be sexy.

IT HAS BEGUN

Indeed it has

"Why do you rain poo on the things you allegedly love?"

Why indeed.

Also lol@ "girls gone feywild."

in all honesty I'd have thought more money than that would have been spent.

Roleplay is a pretty small and niche hobby. And players can use one book or a set of books for years and years

D&D doesn't make close to 100 million a year

But i also thought more would have been spent.

warboss wrote:So is anyone signing up for that 5e playtesting at the WOTC link I posted? I'm a bit torn on the subject as I've frankly moved away from D&D over the past few years. It would be nice to use the prepainted minis again though on the tabletop.

I went ahead and signed up for it. I will have this summer off from work so I should be able to put in a lot of playtesting time.

It is interesting that with all of the complaints and moans about 4th edition that WotC has documented that it has actually sold better than earlier editions of the game.

Now that I am running it myself I am actually enjoying it somewhat because as the GM I can happily keep the focus on roleplaying and take advantage of the well written combat rules when I need them.

This is definitely it for me. At my age after owning Chainmail, AD&D 1 & 2, D&D Basic, Expert (and other boxed rulesets), and now 4th edition I have no interest in buying yet another version of D&D. More power to them if they can convince people to once again replace their D&D library to fill the company coffers.

Skriker

4th is a good game system. It's just a huge leap from earlier versions of D&D, numbers can get a bit wacky at high levels, and wasn't "sold" properly.