Obligatory 5E D&D Thread

[LD]

Which thought?

[Xeviat]

You said thank you, I was assuming you might have been the one who posted the idea about removing skills, feats, and powers from characters to simplify them and make them old school ...

[Ghostman]

http://penny-arcade.com/comic/2012/01/11

[Elemental_Elf]

http://penny-arcade.com/comic/2012/01/11

The sad thing is how true this is. So many people do weird things with D&D, it would be hard to find any kind of concusses.

The best place to actually get feed back would probably be at major conventions like the D&D Experience, PAX and GenCon.

[LD]

Xeviat- no, I was saying thank you for the change in the title. I appreciated it. :)

[Xeviat]

Ah, sorry my hasty spelling made your eyes bleed.

[LordVreeg]

I would look at what d&d fundamentally is, work from there.  Make three levels of complexity.  Stop selling merely adventures, but sell interlocking locales.

[Xeviat]

Vreeg, it would be great if they had more of a setting for the basic products.

It's interesting that you note three levels of complexity. Are you referring to tiers of play, or complexity within the levels? Something like I mentioned earlier, with optional modular components that can be added or removed?

[Elemental_Elf]

WotC has, outside of Dungeon Mag, really pulled themselves out of the Adventure-writing business. Unfortunately, its not hugely profitable subsection of the RPG market. This was why WotC originally created the OGL - with the hope that WotC would write profitable supplements, while 3rd party companies would focus on Adventures.

Towards the tail end of 4E, the only adventures released were more Location-Campaign-Settings + Adventures within that locale than the traditional "here's an adventure for 10th level characters".  

[LordVreeg]

Vreeg, it would be great if they had more of a setting for the basic products.

It's interesting that you note three levels of complexity. Are you referring to tiers of play, or complexity within the levels? Something like I mentioned earlier, with optional modular components that can be added or removed?

Exactly.
A system with some modularity, a bit more of a toolkit approach, but based on three levels of detail, sort of what kids thought they were getting back in the day with, "advanced dungeons and dragons"  and the "expert set".  A basic set of class-based, vancian rules to learn and then a few more levels of optional rules. 
They need to go back to a ruleset with the roles balanced around exploration, not balanced around combat.  But part of the modularity needs to also be based on emphasizing different game balances, so by using the advanced social rules, it shifts the rules balance to a more social heavy game, by using the advanced magic rules, it shifts the game balance more towards, magic, etc.

To EE's point, I would release locale subsets, like towns, guilds, forests, islands, that a GM could insert relatively easily into their own settings.  Whether anyone understood, that is why Hommlet and the underdark were in so many otherwise homebrew settings, becasue they were locale based adventures. 

[Xeviat]

I know the types of products that really helped me with worldbuilding back in 3E were Dieties and Demigods, the Epic Level Handbook (odd, I know), and the DMG1 and 2. The DMG1 had a settlement building system that really gave me an idea of what settlements were like. It felt "natural", even if the results might have not been "realistic". That's not a fault of the system changes, but it is a fault of designer decisions as to what to put in the books.

[sparkletwist]

I do think the perspective around here is a bit skewed, being a the bunch of setting and system builders that we are. One of you is the "Captain of Crunch" and is always creating new variations on things, and the other has a homebrew system he's been tinkering with for 20+ years. The "toolkit" approach is far less likely to generally appeal to people who want to just buy a book and sit down and play a game without having to worry about any that. This was the problem with Fudge-- it was all optional rules and tools, and it felt like an incomplete mess. It took something like FATE coming along and nailing a lot down before the mechanic really took off.

[LordVreeg]

I do think the perspective around here is a bit skewed, being a the bunch of setting and system builders that we are. One of you is the "Captain of Crunch" and is always creating new variations on things, and the other has a homebrew system he's been tinkering with for 20+ years. The "toolkit" approach is far less likely to generally appeal to people who want to just buy a book and sit down and play a game without having to worry about any that. This was the problem with Fudge-- it was all optional rules and tools, and it felt like an incomplete mess. It took something like FATE coming along and nailing a lot down before the mechanic really took off.

That's why I want three basic levels of complexity.  The basic rules should be exactly what you say.  Totally agree.  Something like the complexity level of S&W, and I like the idea of balancing the roles/classes on the idea of the exploration.  And that basic ruleset needs to be a stand alone. 
The toolkit idea is for the advanced rules.

[sparkletwist]

You've missed my point. I'm saying the levels of complexity over the basic set aren't needed because the people that it would appeal to are likely to be the ones tinkering around with the system with a million house rules anyway. They don't need another product, and, furthermore, to do so only divides the community and drives them into competition with themselves.

What if they release a new splatbook? Which "level" should it speak to? If it includes lots of level 3 stuff, people who only play the basic game will fill cheated because they have a whole book filled with crunchy bits talking about stuff they don't want to be bothered with. If, on the other hand, it only talks about level 1, then people who are playing at level 3 will feel like their play style is being pushed aside by the company, and, worse yet, if the book's mechanics have only been tested using level 1 mechanics, then some of the stuff in the book might just plain be broken in a level 3 game.

Given the edition wars between 3e and 4e and whatever, they're not going to want to release a product that only further divides their already fragmented marketplace.

[LordVreeg]

You've missed my point. I'm saying the levels of complexity over the basic set aren't needed because the people that it would appeal to are likely to be the ones tinkering around with the system with a million house rules anyway. They don't need another product, and, furthermore, to do so only divides the community and drives them into competition with themselves.

What if they release a new splatbook? Which "level" should it speak to? If it includes lots of level 3 stuff, people who only play the basic game will fill cheated because they have a whole book filled with crunchy bits talking about stuff they don't want to be bothered with. If, on the other hand, it only talks about level 1, then people who are playing at level 3 will feel like their play style is being pushed aside by the company, and, worse yet, if the book's mechanics have only been tested using level 1 mechanics, then some of the stuff in the book might just plain be broken in a level 3 game.

Given the edition wars between 3e and 4e and whatever, they're not going to want to release a product that only further divides their already fragmented marketplace.

We were talking about rulesets...splatbooks are a very small issue and will rarely raise the kind of concern you mention.  Some poeple buy them, but many gamers have none. 

I'd also say one of the very largest problems D&D5e faces is attracting the new and young audience and keeping some interest by the older group.  And so frankly; it NEEDS a simple stand alone basic version as well as advanced rules for the more experienced gamers and for those who play the basic for a while and move on.  So I am saying that the levels of complexity built in from the beginning are the only way you can do both.  I do a lot of product development and marketing; the idea is to appeal to both demographics within the same brand family.

You'll always get people houseruling, but advanced rules actually gives them a head-start.