D&D General Does D&D (and RPGs in general) Need Edition Resets?

[Lanefan]

Could they have kept going? Maybe with better management. Would they be anywhere near 5e levels of success today? Not even close.

To the first, there's really no "maybe" about it.

To the second, I'm not so sure. I don't think 5e is as successful as it is entirely because of what it is; I think it's also very much a fortunate beneficiary of when it is, meaning our hypothetical evergreen 1e would have be reaping those same zeitgeist-based benefits over the last 10 years that 5e has enjoyed.

 

[Lanefan]

There...there isn't such a thing. Mathematically, "arithmetical numbers" go up when you combine them. That's how we define the concepts of "number" and "adding."

Arithmetic includes more than just addition.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Arithmetic includes more than just addition.

The only operations that are valid for AC are addition and its inverse, subtraction. You don't multiply ACs by anything, nor divide them by anything. Such concepts have no meaning. Hence, they are interval data. Interval data counts upward. That's what it's for.

The one--and only--context where "count up" is bad is stuff where having more of something is worse than having less of it, not where a small value is somehow greater than having a big value. Stuff like golf, where taking a single stroke to do something is clearly a display of better skill.

AC is not such a thing. The very fact that an "AC0" can exist, to say nothing of negative AC, is proof that it should not be structured the way golf scores are. With golf, there is a clear minimum stroke count: one per hole. AC doesn't work that way--and, as far as I can tell, essentially never did.

It is both more natural and more logical to use a data type which reflects the valid (and invalid) operations you can perform, and which marries the nature of the numbers in question to the nature of the property in question. Ordinal data does not do this, so that's out, and there is no sense in which "golf scoring" type interval data could be applied here. It is just regular interval data--which means the most natural and logical expression is to have greater values mean...well, greater defense. There is no need to make this ratio data, because you simply don't do division or multiplication of AC. There just isn't any need to do so, nor is there any defined sense for such a thing.

Interval data counts things of a common, discrete size. That's how AC works. +1 AC is +1 AC, whether it comes from a +1 Ring of Protection or a +1 AC buckler or whatever else. And if we're going to say that a Ring of Protection has a +N enchantment, you can bet your britches it should be the case that you ADD that amount to the AC in order to make it better, not worse.

 

[MichaelSomething]

Don't rewrite the books if you don't want too, but be ready to explain to people how the book doesn't reflect how the game is played...

https://www.enworld.org/threads/younger-players-telling-us-how-old-school-gamers-played.693268/

 

[Minigiant]

In some senses, I think this is an accurate statement, even if "bloat" is connotationally loaded here. The same things that attracted me back to D&D during the 3e era also drove me away from it the end; sometimes you just can't make the pieces of string meet.

And that's why the resets are a good thing.
At some point you're better off cutting the bad or ill-fitting and weaving in the bloat that was good or fits well.

I don’t think D&D actually “needs” any of those things. I like the bard and simple relationship of ability scores to modifiers, which both came from 3e innovation. I tolerate the sorcerer, also from 3e, but I don’t think it added much to the game. The rest, I don’t even like.

D&D doesn't need those things.

D&D needs those things to be the number 1 RPG.

 

[mamba]

To the first, there's really no "maybe" about it.

there is always a maybe when it comes to trying to assess what would have happened in an alternate timeline over 50 years

To the second, I'm not so sure. I don't think 5e is as successful as it is entirely because of what it is; I think it's also very much a fortunate beneficiary of when it is, meaning our hypothetical evergreen 1e would have be reaping those same zeitgeist-based benefits over the last 10 years that 5e has enjoyed.

I doubt that. I don’t think 1e/2e, 3e or 4e would have seen that same growth if they had had that confluence of events. They would have picked up some people over what they had before, but not to the same degree. It is not enough to get people to be curious about D&D

 

[payn]

And that's why the resets are a good thing.
At some point you're better off cutting the bad or ill-fitting and weaving in the bloat that was good or fits well.


D&D doesn't need those things.

D&D needs those things to be the number 1 RPG.

Correct me if I'm wrong here, but wasn't the only time D&D was challenged for the number 1 spot when a competitor was running a previous edition of D&D?

 

[mamba]

Correct me if I'm wrong here, but wasn't the only time D&D was challenged for the number 1 spot when a competitor was running a previous edition of D&D?

yes, and D&D had those resets to allow it to stay current, which probably played a large part in why it managed to

You are right in saying that resets have an inherent risk when the new version is not well received, but I am not sure never having a new version is not worse. You can fix a bad new version with another new version, you cannot fix being outdated with doing nothing about it

 

[payn]

yes, and D&D had those resets to allow it to stay current, which probably played a large part in why it managed to

You are right in saying that resets have an inherent risk when the new version is not well received, but I am not sure never having a new version is not worse. You can fix a bad new version with another new version, you cannot fix being outdated with doing nothing about it

Folks keep saying incremental changes is equivalent to nothing and that's not correct.

 

[Shardstone]

Honestly the problem of "bloat" is cultural, not reality. Older material can't be taken from you but that doesn't mean it should always be allowed. I'll never understand why people want to constantly buy new rules but when there are too many new rules, they say no, we need to start over with new rules so I can buy new versions of these old rules again. Like c'mon, bloat is clearly not real when you just keep having to pay for and learn new systems every 5-10 years for the same game. If people just learned to run online games saying "Hey, we're only using options from XYZ," they'd never have to worry about this stuff.

And I don't respect the argument of "But I have to read the new materials to know if I don't want it!" If they make a new edition of the game, you have to read that anyway. There's no difference in the cognitive load.