Hey there, Internet! Welcome to this week’s edition of Captain Z. This is my first article of the new year and my first since the holiday season (I know, a bit late), so I hope my readers had as great of a holiday as I did, whatever that holiday might be. Over the break, the tabletop gaming world was shaken to its core by the announcement that Wizards of the Coast is currently in development of the fifth edition of Dungeons & Dragons, and in their official announcement on their website which you can find here, they had a surprising aspect to reveal.
“…we are excited to share with you that starting in Spring 2012, we will be taking this process one step further and conducting ongoing open playtests with the gaming community to gather feedback on the new iteration of the game as we develop it. With your feedback and involvement, we can make D&D better than ever. We seek to build a foundation for the long-term health and growth of D&D, one rooted in the vital traits that make D&D unique and special. We want a game that rises above differences of play styles, campaign settings, and editions, one that takes the fundamental essence of D&D and brings it to the forefront of the game. In short, we want a game that is as simple or complex as you please, its action focused on combat, intrigue, and exploration as you desire. We want a game that is unmistakably D&D, but one that can easily become your D&D, the game that you want to run and play.”
Now, I give a lot of credit to Paizo, who playtested Pathfinder to a ridiculous degree. They made sure they delivered a product that their target market would want, and Wizards appears to finally be taking the hint and doing that themselves. The big picture of this announcement means a couple things, most importantly that Wizards is admitting defeat. 4th Ed has many critics, and it appears that Wizards is giving in to those critics and declaring 4th Ed a failure, as it’s being put to rest well before its time. No official release date has been set, but if it is released next year, then that will be only five years since 4th Ed’s release. This also means that D&D will most likely be getting a major facelift.
Is this the right move? I’ve got mixed feelings about it. I really enjoy 4th Edition, but it has its issues, the biggest one being that Wizards painted themselves into a corner with the power system. There are only so many options that a class can go with, and with multiclassing being nearly eliminated, you can only play so many combinations of a class before you get bored. This also means that there is only so much new material you can create before everything has been done. There are a lot of things that they did do right, however, so I think we may see a best-of-both-worlds situation between 3.5 and 4th for 5th. The skill system will probably resemble 3.5′s, but don’t be surprised if the power system doesn’t go away. I can see powers being selected based off of feats and skill prerequisites rather than being given to specific classes. There are a lot of fun ideas that could float around, and it’s up to the lucky fans who get to playtest this puppy to shape it into a game we can all enjoy.
What do you think about this announcement? Comment below, and come back next week for my first review of 2012, Erisian Entertainment’s pride and joy, Lady’s Rock!
Zach Hagenbucher is hungry. Aside from that fact, he's just a small town boy, born and raised in south Detroit, who took the midnight train going anywhere and found himself in Rothschild, WI. Well, the Rothschild part is true. He enjoys just about every facet of geekdom, and is passionate about many of them. He particularly loves board, card, and role playing games, and hopes he can steer you towards trying some of them out for yourself. Yes, he does know Captain N, and, to tell you the truth, he's kind of a jerk. Just saying. He is also the leader of the Surge World Order. For more info, contact him. 
Merin on 
Benton Sartore on 
I like 4th Ed. just fine the way it is, but I’m not up in arms about a new edition or anything. If I had to guess what 5th Ed. looks like, it will probably be something similar to Essentials with less emphasis on powers, an easier multiclassing system (probably something more like 3.5), and more variety within the classes, akin to Pathfinder’s archetypes or some such.
I’m glad for the open playtests, but they’re also the thing that worries me the most, because there’s no way the game will please everybody and I worry it could entrench people into their preferred rules system even more if it backfires too much.
I said it before and I stand by it. I’m not buying it no matter what it is.
The ONE argument that 3rd ED fanatics made about being angry towards 4E that I always understood was the “I bought all these books and now if I want to get new D&D stuff the old books are useless?”
I love 4E… it has it’s issues, I agree, but unlike most people who say such the issues I have with 4E are carry-over from 3E so yeah, there’s that.
I had already stopped buying D&D books due to “too-many” syndrome. A new edition of rules and such? No thanks. It’s too soon (4th, honestly, was probably 2 years too soon) and I’m not spending the money, no matter how good it may be.
Unless the very unlikely scenario occurs in which they actually do create what they are trying to hype, and that is a universal system that works with all the previous editions of D&D. I have NO CLUE how that’s possible, but I’ll look at what they release. If it’s compatible with 1E and 2E, I might even give up 4E to go back… or stick with the mountain of 4E books me and my current gaming circle own.
This is a bigger mistake on WotC’s part than 4E could ever have been. They risk alienating their current base, and with Pathfinder so successful they are NOT going to win back most of their old fans. It’s a mistake that makes me wonder if they are TRYING to emulate BioWare (or vice-versa) on how to tick off your loyal fanbase the quickest.
Like BioWare, they bad mouth 3E when talking up 4E. Now that 5E is coming (whatever they want to call it) they are starting to bad mouth 4E as well. I (naively?) believed them last time that they had realized problems their game system had had. Now I know it’s a shady marketing tactic – make your customers believe they are holding onto crap and that they NEED to buy the new, improved stuff.
Pass. Seriously. I won’t be buying a new edition of D&D until at least 2018 (will it be 6th ED by then?) If at all – I’m getting old enough and the memory is getting spotty enough that learning ANOTHER set of rules may be out of my comfort zone.
Also, I’m not usually one to read Penny Arcade, but I think Tycho is pretty dead-on about this -
http://penny-arcade.com/2012/01/11
Spoke to several Pathfinder players tonight and got a resounding “No!” to whether or not WotC could win them back.
So, yeah, wasted effort.
Merin, you’d be surprised what a great system can do. A truly great game will save D&D for years to come. It’s the same principle as when any other franchise goes cold for years and suddenly gets hot again. If the product is amazing, the old and new fans will flock.
Obsidian still hasn’t lived down KotOR 2 in the eyes of many gamers. Some of whom have never even played KotOR2.
We’ll see how DA3 does, but DA2 has really turned people off to BioWare as a whole.
There’s a cottage industry of remaking old versions of D&D out there now, giving new material to those who cherish a previous edition. WotC has changed their DDI and 4E so rapidly that the general complaint on their forums is that you can’t trust what they offer today will resemble what they offer in 6 months.
Somehow the new D&D could be some great unifying force. But I doubt it. Not only are the various editions of D&D vastly different, the fandom has decidedly been split strongly in twain (as it was back in 2000 with 3E) and most of those who left will never, ever come back.