An Interesting Time in the History of Dungeons & Dragons (background info for much of what will follow in the blog)

The Dungeons & Dragons game line is in a make or break moment in its history. I’ll get into why that is more, later, but first I should tell you how we got to this point.

I figure my personal history with the game is about typical for someone my age. I bought my first Dungeons & Dragons rule book sometime around 2000, when I was about 13. I’d been playing before that with ad hoc rules with the kid next door, but that’s another story. Coincidentally, I was just in time to buy the new edition, 3.0. By the time I reached high school and started playing with other people, the majority of D&D players were using 3.0. While I was in high school edition 3.5 came out which fixed several problems with 3.0.

Then, in 2008, while I was in college, 4th edition came out. At first, there seemed to be some cause for optimism. Wizards of the Coast promised a streamline system with reduced Dungeon Master prep time, both weaknesses in the 3.5 system. They also had some interesting ideas about writing rules for monsters in such a way so that they reinforce the themes of that monster. For example, rather than have goblins that are just miniature humans with a few racial bonuses and a bad smell, goblins have abilities that let them sneak around, trick you, and stab you were it hurts. I’d say that 4th edition was at least a partial success on these fronts.

That said, 4th edition had major problems. One such problem with 4th edition is that it didn’t do everything that 3.5 could do. First of all, multiclassing was essentially removed (4th has something it calls multiclassing but it’s very limited.)  Furthermore, all classes you could choose for your character have to fall into 4 super classes, leader, controller, defender, striker, further limiting the sorts of character you can play. The goal here was to force players (even the ones who didn’t want to) to play characters that were useful in combat. What they actually came up with was a system that had rudimentary support at best for everything but combat.

Another issue with 4th edition is that every player and monster spam status effects, which have to be kept track of, which slows down the game. Also, every character has a huge number of various abilities and moves to choose from each round. Hence, each player has to go through a long list and find the right ability for the situation each turn. This slows the game down as well. When my group plays 3.5 we can get though 2-5 encounters in a five hour session. Playing 4th edition we get through 1, maybe 2 if we are lucky.

Anyway, sometime before 4th edition came out, Wizards of the Coast declared 3.5 to be essentially open source. Basically, they publish a version in .doc format with all copyrighted elements (pictures, proper names, formatting) removed and invited the community to create independent versions of it. Low and behold, in 2009, Paizo Publishing came out with the Pathfinder RPG, which made a series of improvements to the 3.5 rules, while keeping backward compatibility and the flexibility of the system intact.

The community of D&D players was already split at that point between 3.5 and 4th. A lot of old players never made the “upgrade” while a lot of new people to the game were starting with 4th. With the introduction of Pathfinder, the 3.5 community had access to new books and material and 4th edition could be indefinitely ignored. In fact, rumor has it that Pathfinder has outsold 4th edition the last two quarters.

Given all this, it is not surprising that Wizards of the Coast has announced that it will be releasing a new edition of Dungeons & Dragons. Furthermore, taking a page from Pathfinder’s development, they will be doing a large open play test as they develop the game. The first play testing packet became available last week. I am going to refrain for commenting too much about those rules in this post but it suffices to say that it looks like the next edition will be much more along the lines of 3rd than 4th.

This brings me back to the title of this post: we have reached an interesting point in the history of Dungeons and Dragons.

Basically, by abandoning 4th edition, rather than making improvements to it, Wizards is in a make or break scenario. What they need to do is write a better game than Pathfinder or, failing that, find something that Pathfinder doesn’t offer. They need to write something good enough to pull back the people that went over to Pathfinder and pull the 4th edition loyalist into the new edition. This is a tall order since Pathfinder is a really good game. If they don’t, they might as well try to sell the D&D name to Paizo.

There is some cause for optimism. One way that Wizards of the Coast could do this is by going simple. 3.5 was not a simple game and Pathfinder is only a little better. The hard part is writing a simple game that will still give players enough flexibility and options to build the characters they want to play. This might sound contradictory but all that needs to be kept simple is the core rules. You can have any number of pages of additional options for characters and supplementary books. Looking through the play test rules, this might be what they are doing. Additionally, not all the ideas in 4th edition were bad; it was just the overall execution that failed. If they really, really make it easier for a DM to put together a game, then that will help draw groups of players back from Pathfinder. Note: Usually the players will play whatever the DM wants to run.

Anyway, I’ve recruited my apartment mates for a game (hopefully) this Thursday were we will test out the rules for the new edition of D&D. After that, I’ll be able to talk from experience about the system.

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Also, I should be posting pretty regularly for a while. I have a large number of online resources to comment on. Additionally, there are some friend’s projects I’d like to give shout-outs to and finally, there’s my actual commentary on pen and paper RPGs.