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WotC: "seven or eight" D&D video games are coming over the next few years

Ysaye

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May 27, 2018
Messages
772
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Australia
So Alex you granted me your fake new button yet cold hard facts 2e is ultra niche , being optimistic its amongst the uncategorized with hundreds of other systems , with people more likely to play DCC or LOTFP instead :
444acaf1d82aa14f517fb040259e7936fe97fe3a.jpg



Oh i found it https://blog.roll20.net/post/617299166657445888/the-orr-group-industry-report-q1-2020, dscroll down its exactly 0.26% AD&D 1E and 2E combined


0.26% !!!

Still (slightly) more popular than D&D 4E. And Swords and Wizardry is 0.02%.

Question is though, is a sample from Roll20 a statistically representative sample of the broader community? Particularly when games are marketed on their website also correlate to those at the top of that list....
 

Mortmal

Arcane
Joined
Jun 15, 2009
Messages
9,185
So Alex you granted me your fake new button yet cold hard facts 2e is ultra niche , being optimistic its amongst the uncategorized with hundreds of other systems , with people more likely to play DCC or LOTFP instead :
444acaf1d82aa14f517fb040259e7936fe97fe3a.jpg



Oh i found it https://blog.roll20.net/post/617299166657445888/the-orr-group-industry-report-q1-2020, dscroll down its exactly 0.26% AD&D 1E and 2E combined


0.26% !!!

Still (slightly) more popular than D&D 4E. And Swords and Wizardry is 0.02%.

Question is though, is a sample from Roll20 a statistically representative sample of the broader community? Particularly when games are marketed on their website also correlate to those at the top of that list....
Impossible to know, only can correlate it with personal experience, you can see what is popular in rpg shops too , its clearly 5E . Posts on reddits ? /r/dnd R/lfg , 5E all over the place . Looking at Fantasy grounds agenda guess what people are scheduling, 5E... 2E players are just extremely nostalgic and vocal but its over dead and buried , even if you really want to play it theres superior OGL systems in direct competition.
 
Self-Ejected

Thac0

Time Mage
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Arborea
I'm very into cock and ball torture
Wanna call bets how many of them will be good?
I bet 3 good, 2 mediocre, 2 bad. 3/3/2 if they manage to make 8 games.

Edit: Forgot that Wotc has mobile games. Changing bet to 2/1/4 or 2/2/4
 

Bara

Arcane
Joined
Apr 2, 2018
Messages
1,321
I mean after seeing that trailer for Dark Alliance I have zero expectations of any of the other games being good or even rpgs.

Baldurs Gate 3 my bet will be the only rpg.
 

NJClaw

OoOoOoOoOoh
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Messages
7,513
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Pronouns: rusts/rusty
Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture
Wanna call bets how many of them will be good?
I bet 3 good, 2 mediocre, 2 bad. 3/3/2 if they manage to make 8 games.

Edit: Forgot that Wotc has mobile games. Changing bet to 2/1/4 or 2/2/4
I'm leaning towards 2 good, 0 mediocre, 6 outright useless. And only assuming that those 8 games include BG4, otherwise I would go for 1/0/7.
 

Elex

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Joined
Oct 17, 2017
Messages
2,043
Still (slightly) more popular than D&D 4E. And Swords and Wizardry is 0.02%.

Question is though, is a sample from Roll20 a statistically representative sample of the broader community? Particularly when games are marketed on their website also correlate to those at the top of that list....
Considering this year and the lockdown yes is rappresentative.
 

Mortmal

Arcane
Joined
Jun 15, 2009
Messages
9,185
Could be something else than BG4 but done by larian, i am still expecting some dragonlance from them. Everything else probably mediocre , we would have heard about it by now. Bet is 2 good as well including BG3 .
 

Luckmann

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Messages
3,759
Location
Scandinavia
So Alex you granted me your fake new button yet cold hard facts 2e is ultra niche , being optimistic its amongst the uncategorized with hundreds of other systems , with people more likely to play DCC or LOTFP instead :
444acaf1d82aa14f517fb040259e7936fe97fe3a.jpg



Oh i found it https://blog.roll20.net/post/617299166657445888/the-orr-group-industry-report-q1-2020, dscroll down its exactly 0.26% AD&D 1E and 2E combined


0.26% !!!
I'm not going to argue that 2e is a big system, but Roll20s categorization system is extremely misrepresentative, bordering on useless. A ton of people (...15%, apparently) don't categorize their games. It is not that these games are uncategorizable, it is simply that the GM didn't categorize it, because it only matters if people search for your game. If you have a group, there is literally no reason to categorize your game. That's 15% right off the bat that could be absorbed into any of the others.

Further, it doesn't matter how active these games are. For example, I, as a GM, technically have ~10 games running. In reality, however, I haven't run a game for ~3 years. There is no indication how many people tried to start a 5e game, or how many just touristed their way onto the site and went through the kotions selecting/creating a 5e game without any idea of what they were doing.

Finally, home games are still the norm in most of the world, and certainly true for the majority of 2e games. There's no statistics for that, while newer systems are favored online by youngsters and tourists because that is what they have been exposed to in what has become a ballooning fad. This grossly skews the numbers.

Again, not saying that 2e is big, just saying that these stats are not reliable in the least, especially in the context discussed.
 
Last edited:

Alex

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São Paulo - Brasil

Mortmal

Arcane
Joined
Jun 15, 2009
Messages
9,185
So Alex you granted me your fake new button yet cold hard facts 2e is ultra niche , being optimistic its amongst the uncategorized with hundreds of other systems , with people more likely to play DCC or LOTFP instead :
444acaf1d82aa14f517fb040259e7936fe97fe3a.jpg



Oh i found it https://blog.roll20.net/post/617299166657445888/the-orr-group-industry-report-q1-2020, dscroll down its exactly 0.26% AD&D 1E and 2E combined


0.26% !!!

The fake news was that you aren't missing anything by playing 5e.
What are you missing tactical wise ? Dont tell me the character builds as everyone by now will use the very same optimum templates and multiclasses.Everything you could get in a classic dungeon crawl while playing AD&d , 2e or becmi , you can get it too in 5E . There's a large archive of dragon magazine and polyhedron adventures, i fetched back things i was playing in the 80's and converted them to 5E to try. Nothing is missing at all , i wont say 5E is perfect i would tweak mage school as only divner and abjurer worth it , but the streamlining was not detrimental to the gameplay .
 

Zed Duke of Banville

Dungeon Master
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Messages
11,906
Ok, thanks! But do you need to use the OGL in your game to use the said terms, or can anyone just use them? I was under the impression you had to use the license yourself, which is why I mentioned it at all.
Some D&D/AD&D terms and content are generic enough, with origins predating D&D, that anyone can use them, but others would require use of the OGL due to their having been invented or coined for D&D/AD&D.
 

Mortmal

Arcane
Joined
Jun 15, 2009
Messages
9,185
Alex you know , theres no one to force you to use buttons , you can still reply by using sentences , and discuss the merits of 2E vs 5E as monocled gentlemen, or at least tell me i am a fucktard ,how wrong i am and why .Really that deprives the forum of a large part of its interest , those things not happening anymore . Or do you have absolutely nothing to say ? I stand victorious with 5E clearly superior to 2E.
 

Alex

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Joined
Jun 14, 2007
Messages
8,752
Location
São Paulo - Brasil
(...snip)
What are you missing tactical wise ? Dont tell me the character builds as everyone by now will use the very same optimum templates and multiclasses.Everything you could get in a classic dungeon crawl while playing AD&d , 2e or becmi , you can get it too in 5E . There's a large archive of dragon magazine and polyhedron adventures, i fetched back things i was playing in the 80's and converted them to 5E to try. Nothing is missing at all , i wont say 5E is perfect i would tweak mage school as only divner and abjurer worth it , but the streamlining was not detrimental to the gameplay .

Not sure what you mean tactical wise. The second edition was hardly focused on tactics, but rather creative problem solving. Your options in combat, especially if you aren't a spellcaster, are limited unless you are describing some non-standard action. Character building in 2e is limited as well, you are mostly defined by your initial rolls, except for things like dual-classing. The focus of the edition is completely different, but I will write things I see as being done better in 2e:

  1. Skill system. The skill system in 2e was really, really bad. Basically you tried to roll under your attribute on a d20. Hard skills were given a penalty and if you wanted to get better at something, you would need to sacrifice precious proficiency slots. Still, better than 5e where being proficient only adds up a small bonus that goes from +2 at level 1 to +6 at 17. Again, this is given to a d20 roll, making being proficient way less important than it was in 2e.
  2. Attributes. The attributes in 5e work the same as they did in 3e, but they only go up to 20 (for a total bonus of +5). In 2e, very high attributes not only gave heftier bonuses to dice rolls, they also had all kinds of special effects that made having such scores much more interesting. Strength allowed you to hurl boulders and do similar feats of strength. Constitution allows you to regenerate at very high values. Intelligence can make you immune to illusions of a certain level, while wisdom provides immunities to other kinds of spells, especially charms. And charisma, of course, determines how many henchman you can have. To be sure, you could use tests for all kinds of creative use of the attributes in either edition (which, by the way, allows high dexterity in 2e to provide some sort of benefit beyond the mere mechanical like the others). However even in that 2e works better because in 5e even the highest attribute still provides a lesser value to the total roll than the half of the average value provided by the dice!
  3. Spells. While not nearly as bad as I once thought, still many of the spells in 5e look like pale imitations of their 2e counterparts. A few examples to note: the charm person spell, which could last months or years when used against people who weren't particularly bright, in 5e can only last an hour, removing many interesting uses of this spell. Fireball no long expands to fill its volume, making some of the more interesting uses of it, especially in small tunnels, unavailable. Geas has limited duration until (spell) level 9. Animate death has a time limit on how long your creations will obey you, and the only way to go around it is to keep casting the spell. There are a lot less creature summoning spells, etc.
  4. Spell scaling. Spells in 5e no longer scale with your level, but rather can be cast at a higher level for a greater effect. I am not against reducing the power creep that high levels bring in D&D in theory, but this has killed or mangled several unique spells from 1e and 2e. Mount, with its cool mounts at higher levels, is nowhere to be seen. Chromatic Orb looks like a joke based on the original spell, which allowed the magic user to use a first level slot for a huge variety of attacks. Here it is just a straight attack spell which you can choose the element.
  5. Sorcerer. This is hardly a 5e problem, since they were introduced in 3e, but still, you still have these guys around. While maybe not as bad as having AC get a bonus from high charisma (glares at Pathfinder), having a caster whose spells are based on charisma is stupid. Not only that, but the way the sorcerer is written means that adding back the metamagic spells from tome of magic will cripple the class.
  6. Cleric Spheres. Again, 2e is far from perfect in this regard. The spheres in 2e vary a lot in how well they are done, and it can be really difficult to play a cleric that has access to less traditional spheres only. But still, at least they tried. 5e still assumes that the cleric should be a healer of sorts, completely ignoring what deities they serve.
  7. Spell Creaton: Somehow 5e has no rules for creating new spells.
  8. Encounter Difficulty: 5e has the concept of encounter difficulty and of challenge rating. All this builds up to adventures that are linked encounters, rather than an environment you interact with. To be fair again, many adventures in 2e's time followed the philosophy of the series of encounters, but at least this wasn't written into the system.
  9. XP Rewards: While 2e did the huge blunder of taking away xp by gold piece earned, it did add several interesting ways of gaining xp based on class (and in Dark Sun, race as well).
  10. Monsters: The monster book in the fifth edition actually does a good job of providing flavour and interesting things about the monsters. But it still falls short of the way 2e did, with its focus on placing the monster in the gameworld with its ever-present entries like ecology and habitat. But most annoying is the loss of lair creation rules for humanoids such as orcs or hobgoblins. This is something that should have been expanded upon, not thrown away.
  11. Singular levelling scheme. Second edition AD&D had different xp progressions for different classes, making the challenge of getting to the high level in each particular. This also helped with the idea of muti and dual classed characters. Rather than just stacking levels together, your advancement in each class went in its own rate, avoiding problems where taking a second class could shoot your character's level up scheme on the foot.
  12. Demi-human level limits. Yeah, almost everyone hates that, I know. But it did create an interesting scheme, where what kind of future your character could have varied a lot. For instance, a weaker but rounder character could make a good halfling. While limited on how high a level such character could reach, he would have an easier time in the early levels and if you dualled him, he could have access to some nice abilities even early on. Combined with multiple PCs per player, this could allow the players to hedge their bets. A human cleric with high int that could later on dual into a magic user, for instance, has a lot of potential, but would require a ton of xp. A character with high enough attributes to be a paladin could be really cool and powerful PC, but he will bring a whole lot of restrictions, and it might be hard to make him survive the first four or six levels. Of course, all this only makes sense if players have a reasonably high chance of dying and must start from level 1 when they do.
There are probably plenty of other things, but they escape me right now. Still, I will be glad to continue on this topic if you want...

Alex you know , theres no one to force you to use buttons , you can still reply by using sentences , and discuss the merits of 2E vs 5E as monocled gentlemen, or at least tell me i am a fucktard ,how wrong i am and why .Really that deprives the forum of a large part of its interest , those things not happening anymore . Or do you have absolutely nothing to say ? I stand victorious with 5E clearly superior to 2E.

In case you are even half-serious, I do apologise. I tend to use buttons on the site quite liberally because I see them more as a joke than anything else. I will click "fake news" on any post I think is saying something wrong, for instance, without really intending to imply that the original poster had any ill intent. I expect you will mostly disagree with these reasons I provide here, and it is quite alright by me if you do so. I intended to use the buttons as a togue in cheek way of disagreeing, not as a personal attack.

Ok, thanks! But do you need to use the OGL in your game to use the said terms, or can anyone just use them? I was under the impression you had to use the license yourself, which is why I mentioned it at all.
Some D&D/AD&D terms and content are generic enough, with origins predating D&D, that anyone can use them, but others would require use of the OGL due to their having been invented or coined for D&D/AD&D.

Once again, thanks. This talk about terms brings to mind that Dangerous Journeys game Gary Gygax made once he was ousted from TSR. It had all kinds of weird names for things in order to stay away from D&D nomenclature.
 

Mortmal

Arcane
Joined
Jun 15, 2009
Messages
9,185
(...snip)
What are you missing tactical wise ? Dont tell me the character builds as everyone by now will use the very same optimum templates and multiclasses.Everything you could get in a classic dungeon crawl while playing AD&d , 2e or becmi , you can get it too in 5E . There's a large archive of dragon magazine and polyhedron adventures, i fetched back things i was playing in the 80's and converted them to 5E to try. Nothing is missing at all , i wont say 5E is perfect i would tweak mage school as only divner and abjurer worth it , but the streamlining was not detrimental to the gameplay .

Not sure what you mean tactical wise. The second edition was hardly focused on tactics, but rather creative problem solving. Your options in combat, especially if you aren't a spellcaster, are limited unless you are describing some non-standard action. Character building in 2e is limited as well, you are mostly defined by your initial rolls, except for things like dual-classing. The focus of the edition is completely different, but I will write things I see as being done better in 2e:

  1. Skill system. The skill system in 2e was really, really bad. Basically you tried to roll under your attribute on a d20. Hard skills were given a penalty and if you wanted to get better at something, you would need to sacrifice precious proficiency slots. Still, better than 5e where being proficient only adds up a small bonus that goes from +2 at level 1 to +6 at 17. Again, this is given to a d20 roll, making being proficient way less important than it was in 2e.
  2. Attributes. The attributes in 5e work the same as they did in 3e, but they only go up to 20 (for a total bonus of +5). In 2e, very high attributes not only gave heftier bonuses to dice rolls, they also had all kinds of special effects that made having such scores much more interesting. Strength allowed you to hurl boulders and do similar feats of strength. Constitution allows you to regenerate at very high values. Intelligence can make you immune to illusions of a certain level, while wisdom provides immunities to other kinds of spells, especially charms. And charisma, of course, determines how many henchman you can have. To be sure, you could use tests for all kinds of creative use of the attributes in either edition (which, by the way, allows high dexterity in 2e to provide some sort of benefit beyond the mere mechanical like the others). However even in that 2e works better because in 5e even the highest attribute still provides a lesser value to the total roll than the half of the average value provided by the dice!
  3. Spells. While not nearly as bad as I once thought, still many of the spells in 5e look like pale imitations of their 2e counterparts. A few examples to note: the charm person spell, which could last months or years when used against people who weren't particularly bright, in 5e can only last an hour, removing many interesting uses of this spell. Fireball no long expands to fill its volume, making some of the more interesting uses of it, especially in small tunnels, unavailable. Geas has limited duration until (spell) level 9. Animate death has a time limit on how long your creations will obey you, and the only way to go around it is to keep casting the spell. There are a lot less creature summoning spells, etc.
  4. Spell scaling. Spells in 5e no longer scale with your level, but rather can be cast at a higher level for a greater effect. I am not against reducing the power creep that high levels bring in D&D in theory, but this has killed or mangled several unique spells from 1e and 2e. Mount, with its cool mounts at higher levels, is nowhere to be seen. Chromatic Orb looks like a joke based on the original spell, which allowed the magic user to use a first level slot for a huge variety of attacks. Here it is just a straight attack spell which you can choose the element.
  5. Sorcerer. This is hardly a 5e problem, since they were introduced in 3e, but still, you still have these guys around. While maybe not as bad as having AC get a bonus from high charisma (glares at Pathfinder), having a caster whose spells are based on charisma is stupid. Not only that, but the way the sorcerer is written means that adding back the metamagic spells from tome of magic will cripple the class.
  6. Cleric Spheres. Again, 2e is far from perfect in this regard. The spheres in 2e vary a lot in how well they are done, and it can be really difficult to play a cleric that has access to less traditional spheres only. But still, at least they tried. 5e still assumes that the cleric should be a healer of sorts, completely ignoring what deities they serve.
  7. Spell Creaton: Somehow 5e has no rules for creating new spells.
  8. Encounter Difficulty: 5e has the concept of encounter difficulty and of challenge rating. All this builds up to adventures that are linked encounters, rather than an environment you interact with. To be fair again, many adventures in 2e's time followed the philosophy of the series of encounters, but at least this wasn't written into the system.
  9. XP Rewards: While 2e did the huge blunder of taking away xp by gold piece earned, it did add several interesting ways of gaining xp based on class (and in Dark Sun, race as well).
  10. Monsters: The monster book in the fifth edition actually does a good job of providing flavour and interesting things about the monsters. But it still falls short of the way 2e did, with its focus on placing the monster in the gameworld with its ever-present entries like ecology and habitat. But most annoying is the loss of lair creation rules for humanoids such as orcs or hobgoblins. This is something that should have been expanded upon, not thrown away.
  11. Singular levelling scheme. Second edition AD&D had different xp progressions for different classes, making the challenge of getting to the high level in each particular. This also helped with the idea of muti and dual classed characters. Rather than just stacking levels together, your advancement in each class went in its own rate, avoiding problems where taking a second class could shoot your character's level up scheme on the foot.
  12. Demi-human level limits. Yeah, almost everyone hates that, I know. But it did create an interesting scheme, where what kind of future your character could have varied a lot. For instance, a weaker but rounder character could make a good halfling. While limited on how high a level such character could reach, he would have an easier time in the early levels and if you dualled him, he could have access to some nice abilities even early on. Combined with multiple PCs per player, this could allow the players to hedge their bets. A human cleric with high int that could later on dual into a magic user, for instance, has a lot of potential, but would require a ton of xp. A character with high enough attributes to be a paladin could be really cool and powerful PC, but he will bring a whole lot of restrictions, and it might be hard to make him survive the first four or six levels. Of course, all this only makes sense if players have a reasonably high chance of dying and must start from level 1 when they do.
There are probably plenty of other things, but they escape me right now. Still, I will be glad to continue on this topic if you want...

Alex you know , theres no one to force you to use buttons , you can still reply by using sentences , and discuss the merits of 2E vs 5E as monocled gentlemen, or at least tell me i am a fucktard ,how wrong i am and why .Really that deprives the forum of a large part of its interest , those things not happening anymore . Or do you have absolutely nothing to say ? I stand victorious with 5E clearly superior to 2E.

In case you are even half-serious, I do apologise. I tend to use buttons on the site quite liberally because I see them more as a joke than anything else. I will click "fake news" on any post I think is saying something wrong, for instance, without really intending to imply that the original poster had any ill intent. I expect you will mostly disagree with these reasons I provide here, and it is quite alright by me if you do so. I intended to use the buttons as a togue in cheek way of disagreeing, not as a personal attack.

Ok, thanks! But do you need to use the OGL in your game to use the said terms, or can anyone just use them? I was under the impression you had to use the license yourself, which is why I mentioned it at all.
Some D&D/AD&D terms and content are generic enough, with origins predating D&D, that anyone can use them, but others would require use of the OGL due to their having been invented or coined for D&D/AD&D.


Once again, thanks. This talk about terms brings to mind that Dangerous Journeys game Gary Gygax made once he was ousted from TSR. It had all kinds of weird names for things in order to stay away from D&D nomenclature.

Tactical wise, i mean the depth of combat and options , they are all there . Now to the points you think 2E is superior too it sums up to one thing, smaller numbers and less power and its true . An end game 5E character is not nearly as powerful as a 2E one but neither the monsters . It's a party game not a solo powertrip. In 5E an horde of low level is deadly , you wont take a village by yourself. A mage wont be god like in 2E but fighter is not lackluster meatbag anymore .
This was some serious flaw , who would want to play the fighter class in those conditions .
Clerics have several domains too, i dont understand why you are saying you are stuck into the healing role, a sorcerer with divine soul can do as good , a druid can do it, or even a bard .
Missing the leveling scheme really ? who would really miss that, does that really bring anything to the game ? .12 is an illusion there's not such thing as varied characters everyone would aim for the best . Having characters lagging behind in the power curve ,the huge xp grind and playing accountant with treasure xp , its a waste time better used for something else . For a tabletop system its ton better to just award levels after main parts of the story . That is the future for tabletop rpg, some push that even further like Shadow of the demon lord, with a very interisting modular class system and much lower level ceiling.
 

Alex

Arcane
Joined
Jun 14, 2007
Messages
8,752
Location
São Paulo - Brasil
Tactical wise, i mean the depth of combat and options, they are all there.

Actually, they removed weapon speed and casting speed, so even that is lacking...

Now to the points you think 2E is superior too it sums up to one thing, smaller numbers and less power and its true . An end game 5E character is not nearly as powerful as a 2E one but neither the monsters .

Numbers have little to do with it. It is much more about play-style. For instance, a first level enchanter in D&D could make political schemes by putting politically powerful 0-level people under his influence. This is something completely gone in 2e until very high levels. The game seems much more geared to following a campaign with set adventures made by a GM than to messing around with the gameworld and maybe trying to garner power in it.

It's a party game not a solo powertrip. In 5E an horde of low level is deadly , you wont take a village by yourself.

Which is again another problem, since several older high level adventures expected this kind of power. So if you want to play them, you need to tweak them until they work yourself. I have nothing against systems where the characters don't change in power levels so much. I quite like a lot of those, in fact. But I appreciate the kind of power disparity there is in D&D as well.

A mage wont be god like in 2E but fighter is not lackluster meatbag anymore .
This was some serious flaw , who would want to play the fighter class in those conditions .

Plenty of people did. Besides, as I mentioned, it is expected that the fighter will try actions that go beyond what is clearly defined by the rules, which is actually part of what makes RPGs fun! Not that I don't think the model in 2e can't be improved; but improving how the fighter plays doesn't mean you need to remove what makes playing magic users fun. In fact, I would say DCC RPG did a pretty good job there, while making mages pretty fun to play (I just disliked they used the sorcerer learning mechanics, but that can be easily fixed).

Clerics have several domains too, i dont understand why you are saying you are stuck into the healing role,

Sorry, I should have been more clear in my comparison. 5e does give you a choice of domain, but the domains are just a part (not insignificant, but not as important as spheres) of the cleric class. In particular, each domain has 10 spells it provides. In 2e, each divine spell was under a sphere, and the spheres you choose determined your whole spell list. That meant that a cleric with only elemental spheres would be completely different from one that had no access to those.

a sorcerer with divine soul (snip...)

:hahyou:

(snip...) Missing the leveling scheme really ? who would really miss that, does that really bring anything to the game ?

For one, it makes some classes much more difficult to traverse, making the bet you are making with that particular character more appropriate to what he can do. Keeping a magic user alive shouldn't be easy. For another, as I said, it lent itself to what I believe is a better multi-class system. In 2e, you don't get one level on the thief class; you at best become a level 1 thief. By not having everything stack like 3e, there was a lot less focus on character building (which, fun as it may be, is something that doesn't match well with every kind of game).

.12 is an illusion there's not such thing as varied characters everyone would aim for the best .

What is best for the stats you roll varies with what you rolled. Besides, there is also what kind of character you want to play to take into account.

Having characters lagging behind in the power curve ,the huge xp grind and playing accountant with treasure xp , its a waste time better used for something else.

Well, then do away with levels entirely. In fact, skip to the end of the campaign, most efficient role-playing ever.

For a tabletop system its ton better to just award levels after main parts of the story.

Well, you are assuming there is "the story" here. Maybe you want to give out xp after the dungeon. Or maybe after the PCs complete the next job they took, or whatever. When you give xp, though, is not that important. What is really important is how xp is doled out. Is it for gold collected? Or maybe spent? Is it for creating a magic item? Is it for good role-playing? Etc.

That is the future for tabletop rpg, some push that even further like Shadow of the demon lord, with a very interisting modular class system and much lower level ceiling.

The future of tabletop RPGs is a boot with a coloured, danger hair wig stamping on the PCs faces forever. But really, what does this have to do with whether or not it is easy to replicate the 2e experience with 5e?
 

Elex

Arbiter
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Oct 17, 2017
Messages
2,043
I'm not going to argue that 2e is a big system, but Roll20s categorization system is extremely misrepresentative, bordering on useless. A ton of people (...15%, apparently) don't categorize their games. It is not that these games are uncategorizable, it is simply that the GM didn't categorize it, because it only matters if people search for your game. If you have a group, there is literally no reason to categorize your game. That's 15% right off the bat that could be absorbed into any of the others.

Further, it doesn't matter how active these games are. For example, I, as a GM, technically have ~10 games running. In reality, however, I haven't run a game for ~3 years. There is no indication how many people tried to start a 5e game, or how many just touristed their way onto the site and went through the kotions selecting/creating a 5e game without any idea of what they were doing.

Finally, home games are still the norm in most of the world, and certainly true for the majority of 2e games. There's no statistics for that, while newer systems are favored online by youngsters and tourists because that is what they have been exposed to in what has become a ballooning fad. This grossly skews the numbers.

Again, not saying that 2e is big, just saying that these stats are not reliable in the least, especially in the context discussed.
Game are categorized based on the character sheet.
15% use Custom character sheet.
 

Xamenos

Magister
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Messages
1,256
Pathfinder: Wrath
Question is though, is a sample from Roll20 a statistically representative sample of the broader community? Particularly when games are marketed on their website also correlate to those at the top of that list....
Anecdotal evidence, but I know a lot of people who play tabletop RPGs in my city and elsewhere. I have no doubt that 5e is the most popular, and I'd absolutely believe it's more popular than everything else combined (though that graph triggers my autism. There's no way the red area represents 50.4%). Second most popular among the people I know is Pathfinder, with a lot of overlap with 3.5. Third's World of Darkness, with Vampire the most popular of its subgenres. I know some wargamers who only play the Warhammer RPGs. But I've literally never met anyone who plays Call of Cthulhu in person and only a single guy who actually owned or had read the books.

I sincerely doubt the graph is truly representative.
 

Luckmann

Arcane
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Scandinavia
I'm not going to argue that 2e is a big system, but Roll20s categorization system is extremely misrepresentative, bordering on useless. A ton of people (...15%, apparently) don't categorize their games. It is not that these games are uncategorizable, it is simply that the GM didn't categorize it, because it only matters if people search for your game. If you have a group, there is literally no reason to categorize your game. That's 15% right off the bat that could be absorbed into any of the others.

Further, it doesn't matter how active these games are. For example, I, as a GM, technically have ~10 games running. In reality, however, I haven't run a game for ~3 years. There is no indication how many people tried to start a 5e game, or how many just touristed their way onto the site and went through the kotions selecting/creating a 5e game without any idea of what they were doing.

Finally, home games are still the norm in most of the world, and certainly true for the majority of 2e games. There's no statistics for that, while newer systems are favored online by youngsters and tourists because that is what they have been exposed to in what has become a ballooning fad. This grossly skews the numbers.

Again, not saying that 2e is big, just saying that these stats are not reliable in the least, especially in the context discussed.
Game are categorized based on the character sheet.
15% use Custom character sheet.
That's actually even worse, then. The quality of the sheets vary wildly, and for many games there is no reason to use the Roll20 character sheets. For example, I know not of a single person using the Shadowrun ones, because everyone uses Chummer. And in some systems, GMs create many, many sheets for various characters, especially in simpler ones.
Question is though, is a sample from Roll20 a statistically representative sample of the broader community? Particularly when games are marketed on their website also correlate to those at the top of that list....
Anecdotal evidence, but I know a lot of people who play tabletop RPGs in my city and elsewhere. I have no doubt that 5e is the most popular, and I'd absolutely believe it's more popular than everything else combined (though that graph triggers my autism. There's no way the red area represents 50.4%). Second most popular among the people I know is Pathfinder, with a lot of overlap with 3.5. Third's World of Darkness, with Vampire the most popular of its subgenres. I know some wargamers who only play the Warhammer RPGs. But I've literally never met anyone who plays Call of Cthulhu in person and only a single guy who actually owned or had read the books.

I sincerely doubt the graph is truly representative.
Cthulhu has had a recent upsurge on the nu-market, but over 12% sounds absurd, now that you mention it.
 

Mortmal

Arcane
Joined
Jun 15, 2009
Messages
9,185
Tactical wise, i mean the depth of combat and options, they are all there.

Actually, they removed weapon speed and casting speed, so even that is lacking...

Now to the points you think 2E is superior too it sums up to one thing, smaller numbers and less power and its true . An end game 5E character is not nearly as powerful as a 2E one but neither the monsters .

Numbers have little to do with it. It is much more about play-style. For instance, a first level enchanter in D&D could make political schemes by putting politically powerful 0-level people under his influence. This is something completely gone in 2e until very high levels. The game seems much more geared to following a campaign with set adventures made by a GM than to messing around with the gameworld and maybe trying to garner power in it.

It's a party game not a solo powertrip. In 5E an horde of low level is deadly , you wont take a village by yourself.

Which is again another problem, since several older high level adventures expected this kind of power. So if you want to play them, you need to tweak them until they work yourself. I have nothing against systems where the characters don't change in power levels so much. I quite like a lot of those, in fact. But I appreciate the kind of power disparity there is in D&D as well.

A mage wont be god like in 2E but fighter is not lackluster meatbag anymore .
This was some serious flaw , who would want to play the fighter class in those conditions .

Plenty of people did. Besides, as I mentioned, it is expected that the fighter will try actions that go beyond what is clearly defined by the rules, which is actually part of what makes RPGs fun! Not that I don't think the model in 2e can't be improved; but improving how the fighter plays doesn't mean you need to remove what makes playing magic users fun. In fact, I would say DCC RPG did a pretty good job there, while making mages pretty fun to play (I just disliked they used the sorcerer learning mechanics, but that can be easily fixed).

Clerics have several domains too, i dont understand why you are saying you are stuck into the healing role,

Sorry, I should have been more clear in my comparison. 5e does give you a choice of domain, but the domains are just a part (not insignificant, but not as important as spheres) of the cleric class. In particular, each domain has 10 spells it provides. In 2e, each divine spell was under a sphere, and the spheres you choose determined your whole spell list. That meant that a cleric with only elemental spheres would be completely different from one that had no access to those.

a sorcerer with divine soul (snip...)

:hahyou:

(snip...) Missing the leveling scheme really ? who would really miss that, does that really bring anything to the game ?

For one, it makes some classes much more difficult to traverse, making the bet you are making with that particular character more appropriate to what he can do. Keeping a magic user alive shouldn't be easy. For another, as I said, it lent itself to what I believe is a better multi-class system. In 2e, you don't get one level on the thief class; you at best become a level 1 thief. By not having everything stack like 3e, there was a lot less focus on character building (which, fun as it may be, is something that doesn't match well with every kind of game).

.12 is an illusion there's not such thing as varied characters everyone would aim for the best .

What is best for the stats you roll varies with what you rolled. Besides, there is also what kind of character you want to play to take into account.

Having characters lagging behind in the power curve ,the huge xp grind and playing accountant with treasure xp , its a waste time better used for something else.

Well, then do away with levels entirely. In fact, skip to the end of the campaign, most efficient role-playing ever.

For a tabletop system its ton better to just award levels after main parts of the story.

Well, you are assuming there is "the story" here. Maybe you want to give out xp after the dungeon. Or maybe after the PCs complete the next job they took, or whatever. When you give xp, though, is not that important. What is really important is how xp is doled out. Is it for gold collected? Or maybe spent? Is it for creating a magic item? Is it for good role-playing? Etc.

That is the future for tabletop rpg, some push that even further like Shadow of the demon lord, with a very interisting modular class system and much lower level ceiling.

The future of tabletop RPGs is a boot with a coloured, danger hair wig stamping on the PCs faces forever. But really, what does this have to do with whether or not it is easy to replicate the 2e experience with 5e?
Whats wrong with the sorcerer healer ? its good ,with metamagic feats you can even make touch spells to range.
Ok for you its best to play with stats rolled , so you are clearly aiming into DCC rather than 5E , completely opposite philosophy with cumbersome critical tables that will slow down the game .
I prefer point buy it's more safe , easier to balance things as DM and insure people arent too miserable . You could end up with character with absolutely shitty or mediocre stats and that's no fun for the player.
So you say it's important how the xp is dolled out, the milestone system take care of that completely, whenever they reached some point of the story they receive xp no matter how they chose to solve it, stealth or diplomacy whatever, no need to keep track of everything . Yes i am assuming there's a story , content must be hand tailored and i really dislike homebrew where nothing happens.
 
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While 5E continued to gimp casters, they did introduce some quality of life improvements that made Levels 1-7 much more enjoyable. Most of the gimps can be easily fixed with some minor homebrew, and the system is easy enough to adapt spells from prior editions.
 

Alex

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São Paulo - Brasil
Whats wrong with the sorcerer healer ? (snip...)

My problem is with the sorcerers in general. I hate the idea of using charisma for things that aren't social. If you must really have a charisma based spellcaster, then he should work by making bargains or some other kind of agreement with magical beings to cast spells for them (I think Al-Qadim had something like this?). Using charisma like that is abstracting away too much from the game.

(snip...) Ok for you its best to play with stats rolled , so you are clearly aiming into DCC rather than 5E , completely opposite philosophy with cumbersome critical tables that will slow down the game .

DCC RPG is a great game. And tables are always welcome, yes, especially if they are hefty and full of interesting results.

I prefer point buy it's more safe , easier to balance things as DM and insure people arent too miserable .

I prefer the design philosophy where you populate dungeons, hexes and what-not with what makes sense. Then the players should be free to tackle things as they see fit, including by running away. I find level-scaled content really distasteful.

You could end up with character with absolutely shitty or mediocre stats and that's no fun for the player.

Attributes aren't everything, and you can always find a wish or some magic item to bring your stats up later. Failing that, a weak character is more likely to die early, and then you can try again.

So you say it's important how the xp is dolled out, the milestone system take care of that completely, whenever they reached some point of the story they receive xp no matter how they chose to solve it, stealth or diplomacy whatever, no need to keep track of everything.

Indeed! For instance, you could set each gold piece as an objective that gives 1xp when collected :D

Anyway, I am really not a fan of setting up objectives. Especially because frequently the ones who should be setting those are the players themselves. I find the use of such systems in P&P even more annoying than in CRPGs. Earning a level should be an achievement, not simply a result of moving the "story" forward.

Yes i am assuming there's a story , content must be hand tailored and i really dislike homebrew where nothing happens.

By homebrew, do you mean sandbox? At any rate, I am rather more fond of games where the PCs are free to plot and do as they wish. It isn't that the opposite style where the GM always comes up with an adventure and the PCs are supposed to follow it is awful. In fact, I am playing through one of these right now. But sandboxy games are far more interesting.
 

Mortmal

Arcane
Joined
Jun 15, 2009
Messages
9,185
Whats wrong with the sorcerer healer ? (snip...)

My problem is with the sorcerers in general. I hate the idea of using charisma for things that aren't social. If you must really have a charisma based spellcaster, then he should work by making bargains or some other kind of agreement with magical beings to cast spells for them (I think Al-Qadim had something like this?). Using charisma like that is abstracting away too much from the game.

(snip...) Ok for you its best to play with stats rolled , so you are clearly aiming into DCC rather than 5E , completely opposite philosophy with cumbersome critical tables that will slow down the game .

DCC RPG is a great game. And tables are always welcome, yes, especially if they are hefty and full of interesting results.

I prefer point buy it's more safe , easier to balance things as DM and insure people arent too miserable .

I prefer the design philosophy where you populate dungeons, hexes and what-not with what makes sense. Then the players should be free to tackle things as they see fit, including by running away. I find level-scaled content really distasteful.

You could end up with character with absolutely shitty or mediocre stats and that's no fun for the player.

Attributes aren't everything, and you can always find a wish or some magic item to bring your stats up later. Failing that, a weak character is more likely to die early, and then you can try again.

So you say it's important how the xp is dolled out, the milestone system take care of that completely, whenever they reached some point of the story they receive xp no matter how they chose to solve it, stealth or diplomacy whatever, no need to keep track of everything.

Indeed! For instance, you could set each gold piece as an objective that gives 1xp when collected :D

Anyway, I am really not a fan of setting up objectives. Especially because frequently the ones who should be setting those are the players themselves. I find the use of such systems in P&P even more annoying than in CRPGs. Earning a level should be an achievement, not simply a result of moving the "story" forward.

Yes i am assuming there's a story , content must be hand tailored and i really dislike homebrew where nothing happens.

By homebrew, do you mean sandbox? At any rate, I am rather more fond of games where the PCs are free to plot and do as they wish. It isn't that the opposite style where the GM always comes up with an adventure and the PCs are supposed to follow it is awful. In fact, I am playing through one of these right now. But sandboxy games are far more interesting.
I understand your profile now alex, you are for freedom and choices with a large panel of lulzy builds, dont think a wish can fix attributes so easily , and in d&d you have an high risk to never be able to cast it again . I , the Dm tyrant think good dming means the players need to constantly feel the pressure of my iron plate glove on their testicles. I do give illusion of choices as i know them very well they will always chose an obvious path. So i said i dont like homewbrew yes, i mean sandbox homebrew, improvisation on the fly . It always ends up boring,going in every directions, full of tropes, unsatisfying and slow . I think a good D&D session requires ton of work and preparation and carefull balancing so they are always on the edge of a razor , the 5e frame suits me better for this, going to he essentials and soul of the dungeon delving while keeping a good pace.No need to keep your nose int he manuals either.Best exemple i had lately was dungeon of the mad mage, it plays exactly and feel like a 80's classic, its wotc material yet its good.
 

LESS T_T

Arcane
Joined
Oct 5, 2012
Messages
13,582
Codex 2014
I'm wondering if this is a D&D RPG.

Interesting, Hidden Path (of CS:GO, Defense Grid) is making a AAA fantasy RPG: https://jobs.gamasutra.com/job/senior-level-designer-belleview-washington-34522

You will create new gameplay experiences for our AAA fantasy RPG that will set the gold standard for level design. To accomplish this, you will interface with numerous strike teams across all disciplines, creating levels from concept to completion. You will collaborate with combat and encounter teams to establish standards and practices for gameplay, with narrative to ensure theme and IP are consistent and strong, with art to ensure levels look as great as they play, with producers to get level design tasks created, assigned and kept up to date. You will organize level reviews and playtests. We want you to be able to mentor others as we grow the team. This role reports to the Lead Designer.



(Also the studio is close to WotC HQ.)
 

anvi

Prophet
Village Idiot
Joined
Oct 12, 2016
Messages
7,549
Location
Kelethin
They are probably making a lot of money from Arena, partly from me.
 

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