Roll For Wisdom – Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition Needs Your Help

They want to make it better? Take a HUGE step back, simplify the ruleset towards an earlier era, put the role-playing back in, and stop trying to make it a pen-and-paper version of a MMORPG….

Thing is though, many of the folks they upset with the move to 4th have moved on themselves, many to Pathfinder.  I think the bridge is burnt, they might get a few old schoolers back, but most of those that have moved on, or worse yet, hung up their dice, won’t come back.

Another DOA edition.  4. was created to be an MMORPG not a P&P one.  5th, the same.

Eh. My biggest problem with 4th ed. is that 3.5 is so large and well fleshed out that starting over means losing a lot of the cool stuff. Sure, there’s an argument to be made for simplification but people like my gaming group just aren’t going to be impressed with a new edition until the volume of content is in the same league as 3.5.
I will agree though that D&D isn’t an MMORPG and probably shouldn’t be set up like one. That’s my other major problem with 4.0. It’s focused on dungeon-crawling and monster-killing, which is fine but really not why I play pen and paper RPGs.
Okay, apparently I have more to say about this than I thought I did. XD

My gaming group tended towards unusual characters, and 4th edition really didn’t cater to that.  To me, the system encouraged generic character builds, and that was kind of a turn off. 

If our druid wants a cow for their animal companion, or our fighter wants to spend feats so they can wield the halfling ninja as a weapon, or someone wants a skill in Profession: Pie Making, or whatever not-necessarily-anticipated-by-the-book thing the gamers’ imagination can come up with, they should be allowed to at least try it (GM discression) instead of being locked into that rigid MMO like structure. 

Just buy 1st and 2nd edition AD&D stuff from Half-Price Books.  No need for any version beyond that.

The audience for D&D could be mapped using a Venn diagram with three domains.

* The old school war gamers/’statisticians’, for whom the real joy of the game is creating and simulating ‘realistic’ worlds. (see: Gygaxian Naturalism – http://grognardia.blogspot.com/2008/09/gygaxian-naturalism.html)

* The storytellers, for whom the rules and dice are really only suggestions and a framework used to keep the narrative ‘honest’ and hopefully avoid things becoming too (forgive me) Mary Sue (see: – in theory – White Wolf’s games – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Storytelling_System)

* The monster mashers, for whom the game is more about having fun by meeting and killing as many powerful creatures as possible in the smallest amount of time as possible (see: video games from WoW to Gears of War)

Up till the 4th ed. the game itself could be seen as meandering closer and closer to catering mostly to the first domain. Understandable, given its history, but it didn’t exactly bring many new faces to the table. With the ascension of WoW, it’s understandable that WotC would try to change focus to cover the last domain over the rest. I just hope they understand that eventually they are going to have to come to a better balance if they want to keep the long term customers.

See, I want a system that has rules for everything, but allows for crazy spur of the moment insanity as well. I’m in 3 games right now – tonight and tomorrow are 3.5, and Saturday is 2E. I’d love to see a return to a combination of both editions, really. The simplified math of 3x and the feel of 2.

I’m even finally, after 13 years, running my wemic character.

This is the core of what is killing 4th edition. I’ve been in this game since 1975 and when I make characters, I want to make something different. I want to play something with a twist.

3.5 allows the room for that kind of thinking. 4th ed. doesn’t. Also, the body of work that 3.5 has is incredible. Not only are there the Dungeons and Dragons books but there’s also the alternate games that made D20 versions, i.e. Call of Cthulhu for example.

I feel sorry for everyone who jumped ship to 4th ed. and now are going to be rewarded by having to throw all of their newly acquired books away and start over.

Our group opted to remain with 3.5 ed. and have begun looking over and discussing Pathfinder as an option. I have to agree with those who say that a 5th ed. version of D&D is likely to be DOA.

That’s the one thing I don’t get. If video games already do what you’re doing better than you do it, why not focus on the other two groups? Who’s going to mash monsters in their head when they can see them explode on their PC? Better to focus on storytellers, who can get an open-endedness from a human player they can’t get from a computer.

Because to execs: “There’s gold in dem thare hills!” and getting a crappy 10% cut of a billion dollar pie is ‘better’ than getting a 90% cut of a million dollar pie.

Honestly, I was so irritated by 4e that I’ve moved on to other things. My husband plays 5-7 days a week and is excited. Supposedly they’re bringing back thac0, which was one of my complaints about 3e, but it’s not enough to entice me. They have to do it very, very right to get me back. Even then, I won’t be the hardcore gamer I was when I first started playing. 

We moved from 3.5 to Pathfinder. There is so much more depth and character customization in Pathfinder than in 4th ed. Honestly, I was bored out of my mind with my character in 4th ed. Pathfinder is really where it’s at now. Some of the pre-made modules are amazing story-wise.

I’m very, very upset at the thought of yet another edition. IMO, 4th Edition solved many of the problems that have flawed the game from the beginning. I like it more than any of its predecessors (in most respects — only thing I don’t care for is that spells tend to be under-powered compared to their older versions). Having become used to this edition and spent (AGAIN) loads of money on it, I am strongly averse to starting over again.

I have played every edition. I don’t say that to brag, just as a bit of background information for what I’m going to say. 
1st edition was the spark to start all of this, but like a spark, you can’t do much cooking with it…
AD&D and 2nd edition really expanded the rules.  This was great in a lot of ways, as it provided rules for things that were kind of difficult to rule on in 1st E.  It wasn’t perfect either…  The added complexity, particularly THAC0,

Between pathfinder, 3.5, second edition and Warhammer fantasy roleplay all the bases are covered in terms of fantasy gaming.

Pathfinder is what fourth edition should of been. Rangers get their hit die back and paladins are mint.

Someone has to explain the appeal of THAC0 to me because I started with second moved to third and never looked back.

What bothers me about all this is that once they make a new edition they just completley abandon their old systems instead of releasing little bits of content here and there.

Bring back the damn Vancian spell casting system. This at will/ecounter/daily system effectively turned every class into “fighter lite”

An yet getting only 10% of the million dollar pie, while staring lovingly at the 10% of the billion dollar pie, must have been a kick to the teeth.

why not try and go back to basics? like the original D&D? character customization is paramount, people forget the original MMOs were created to emulate AD&D, not the other way around. personally i preferred a hybrid 1st and 2nd AD&D combo, with some modifications to ease gameplay, dragon and dungeon magazine were very useful for that. telling creative players what races they CAN and CANNOT play is futile. when WOTC was purchased by Hasbro, the game lost a LOT of forward momentum, and 3rd edition, 3.5 and so on, slowly drove nails into the coffin. the appearance of choices, prestige classes, feats, and so on, actually limited our choices, and with 4th ed, the laughable emulation of emulation, the inspiration becoming the copycat, dissapointing to say the least. a game is first and foremost a story, that i do not suggest be provided in it’s entirety, but removing many well fleshed out worlds, and imposing one single one on players, was not only arrogant, but damaging to the game itself, i say remove the NEED for prestige classes, and offer not just … say… “feats” and make them either more general or offer more of them, without so many prerequisites, re-add skills like cantrip (dungeon magazine) if someone wants to be a samurai, the DM should say: ok, you are a Samurai now, and impose several limitations and “feat” requirements, the rest is worked out in game play. AD&D shouldnt be an MMO, MMOs are not condusive to ROLE PLAYING. when releasing content: release content, not just flash. there are many many resources, past and present available to use to create a 5th edition. this is not my little pony the role playing game where we can simply be sold a new pony and some cake.most gamers are willing to try something new, but spitting on or ignoring AD&D’s rich roots, is folly. when i played AD&D, it was not to play the world’s slowest game of WOW.

I’ve been playing since AD&D and I have to say I love 4E. There are a lot of complaints out there that its a MMORPG made into a table top and there is no RP. Honestly, why isn’t there RP? I’ve seen more RP in my 4E games than I’ve ever seen before… It’s all in who you play with, not what the system is. I can see the “MMORPG” similarities but I have no issues with that. It’s nice to see defined roles and groups working together instead of comparing damage output… In 4E the game feels more like a team game than a who can dish out the most damage/cheese. And since I’ve always been a huge fan of Mages.. well, I honestly like them far more in 4E with their defined “Controller” role than in earlier additions where you didn’t even roll to see if you hit and you did an insane amount of damage.

That is, in fact, exactly the sort of game I’m running.  It’s not easy to combine 2nd and 3rd editions, but it’s worth the effort.  My game is using a hybrid of 3.5/pathfinder for the basic rules, but I allow spells from 2nd and 3rd editions to be found or researched by the players (and custom spells of course), and I have a 2nd edition psionicist in my game too (it was a truly unique system instead of being just another spell ladder).  I use fluff books from all editions, because they are useful no matter what the mechanics of the game say.  I keep a copy of several D20 books around just in case (Dragon Lords of Melnibone, Call of Cthulhu, D20 Modern as examples) as well as things like GURPS because face it, you cant beat GURPS for versatility.  My players started off in the Forgotten Realms, but have traveled the planes, gone spelljamming, seen the world through the lens of the dead, visited other worlds like Steven Brust’s Dragaera, and now they’re happily slaying demons on Greyhawk fighting the Savage Tide.
What I would love to see is a D&D where game balance is based in the 2nd edition Rock Paper Scissors school of thinking instead of the 3rd and 4th edition “equal levels have a 50% chance of failure no matter how cool the spell or power” school of thinking.  I want to see books where you don’t need a new feat or prestige class or whizbang character customization option.  Those are great, but shouldn’t be mandatory.  I miss the 2nd edition focus on new and interesting magic, on the ecology of how the monster fits (or doesn’t) into the world it lives in.  For me, the greatest joy of running a D&D world is when the players are able to suspend disbelief because everything is internally consistent and they’re asking “How do we” instead of “Why can’t I”.

Oh, and it’s a play by chat game, so you’re welcome to pop in.  Here’s the facebook group: 
http://www.facebook.com/groups/127937670621521/

In 3.5 I managed to run entire games where no one rolled a single attack die. In 4th edition I couldn’t  make npcs out of the player classes unless they hid fired off their once crazy attack for the day and ran away. Also the fact that clerics healed while dealing damage and had no alignment restrictions to their powers never sat well with me.

indeed, i have also moved on to pathfinder or just stuck with 3.5. i really dont see them outdoing 3.5 or any other d20 based game out there. if they really want to wow me, they might consider going to a percentile system ala dark heresy style. otherwise, i mean, theres very little they could do after this 4e fiasco. 

honestly, the cards, the at will stuff, it kind of insulted my intelligence. i read it, i tried playing it, and all i could say is “so you dont think we should feel like we are playing WOW paperback? REALLY?!” i felt like it was aimed at children who need explanations of their characters fighting style with cards they can tap.

honestly, when they did 4e, it felt like they were completely out of touch with the playerbase. 

yeah, dnd has really shot themselves in the foot with 4e lol now that theyve let the biggest talent in the industry walk away and make their own system. a system which regularly beats them in sales.

not to mention my barbarian is truely a wrecking ball. i get to add my con to my damage. in 4e dnd, barbarian, fighter, whatever. its all the same. everyone does the same damage. just at different ranges. its not that i have an issue with balance…it just feels like they think we are children or something.

eh THAC0 makes my nose bleed. but id rather play 2nd ed (which i lothe) than play 4e which insults my intelligence. 

whats his secret? if i played 7 days a week my wife would kill me lol also, she played in our games on saturday nights, so its not like she isnt a gamer :P

sure if you like card tapping…it adds paperback mmo style play, a card game like magic the gathering, and removes the necessity to wonder what class youre going to play because they all do the same thing.

ditto. thac0 is like cooking with propane. sure you can eat it, but charcoal tastes better every time. and you dont end up drinking twice the soda to get the taste of gas out of your tongue.

 That’s what 5th Edition seems to be aiming for. A cmobo of the good parts of each different edition. Honestly, I run every edition of D&D and I have certain players that excell or favor different versions for various reasons, 4th does have some good qualities to it, I really like their taking of prestige classes and fleshing them out into paragon paths and epic destinies. It really helps to manage the ammount of things stacked onto one character and you can still get rediculous creations like: Warfoged Vampire Half-Demon/Half-Angel/Half-Vampire if you take the feats for them and use the Player’s Option: Vampire Class. There’s still insanity, but I agree itdoes feel more mmo. I think my perferred version is 3.5

What they need to get across to people is that D&D can do far more than any computer game (I can do ANYTHING in D&D in terms of interacting with environment) and if battles are done correctly the excitement can have people jumping up and down and fist pumping with when they are victorious or sulking when they have to run or die. I played WOW and man that got boring after a while…….because you just don’t get the same interactions or powerful imaginative images etc…..D&D done correctly (and P&P games in general) NEVER get boring!.

Some of the free add on’s with the new edition will make it worth buying even if you don’t use the books. Cheaper to by the boxed version of the new edition game than to buy the add on’s separately. I am hoping they will repair the damage done by 4E. I am still playing 1st ed and 2nd ed……will see where the 5th one takes it all. Last chance I think….so they will want to get it right.

i think 4e looks very good i got the starter set and i like the look of it so far
it deo’s not seem too hard for me