5e announced!

[Mortavius]

I agree, a new edition should not change the story or try to reinvent the D&D world. This is one of the problems that plague long standing gaming systems such as Warhammer and D&D, when a new edition comes out and some creature or whatever (or even a established campaign realm like Ravenloft) is left out of the new rules they sort of cease to exist in the game world which makes no sense. It also leaves gamers stuck with models or accessories that are no longer compatible with the current game edition. If a monster existed in an earlier edition why should gamers suddenly be forced to pretend it doesn't in the current edition? Wouldn't it make more sense to just improve the game mechanics with the potential to convert older editions rather than change the established mythology for every new edition?

I fully believe that D&D is all about the characters, Campaign settings, realms and in game history that have been developed during the real world history of the game. This is what the D&D brand name means. Game mechanics are just a method of getting into the established story. I hope they streamline and make game rules that please everyone and draw consumers in the new edition but what I would like to see, especially since the developers are talking about old editions, is re-solidifying the core D&D mythology. Do you think authors like R. A. Salvatore, Margaret Weis, or Tracy Hickman care about which game mechanics are in the current edition? No they care about fundamental changes to the core mythology of the D&D universe that can potentially disrupt or derail their writing efforts.

But by that argument, you could say that no new edition of D&D should change anything. Because after all, even changing the rules, like adding a new class or changing an existing one can have ramifications and impacts across the roleplaying portion of the game world. Combining two existing character kits that make sense into one prestige class for example, can have a dramatic effect on any previous character made with those options. Or look at how spellcasting was handled between 3E & 4E; they went so far as to explain in the books how wizards had to re-learn how to cast spells.

With every new edition of D&D, players have been left with accessories and books that are no longer useful (or AS useful) in the new edition. That's always been one of the big complaints when D&D moves to a new edition, and is nothing new.

The designers and writers have to strike a balance. One between fixing what they see as needs to be fixed, and keeping what folks love. No long time D&D player will tell you that 1E or 2E was perfect. Every single one of them I know has house ruled (some extensively) their games to fix what they thought was broken, whether it was a game mechanic or a story element. So it's natural, when designing a new edition, that the writers would try to tackle some of these elements and fix them so that the players don't have to.

As I said, it just comes down to a matter of opinion as to what is broken and what isn't.

In your opinion, is the new edition just trying to update the D&D game mechanics (combine old editions and fix rules, make game mechanics better, gameplay smoother and tweak errors,) or is it trying to reinvent D&D? (New rules, new monsters, new worlds, realms ,mythology etc.)

It should be both. As I've said, I'm a big fan of the new take on Giants in 4E, and I'm glad they tried something new. To me, Giants were "broken" in previous editions of the game. Broken, in that they didn't make sense to me. I respect if others disagree, but it doesn't change my feelings. To me, it's something new that the writers tried that really worked for me.

But none of this is really about whether or not Giants were broken. It all started from my complaint that the designers on the D&D website in their articles are basically describing what we all know as a square, and then asking us if it looks like a square. It's a form of leading question, the same sort of thing that fraudulent mediums used to use in past times.

[Jester of the FoS]

But by that argument, you could say that no new edition of D&D should change anything. Because after all, even changing the rules, like adding a new class or changing an existing one can have ramifications and impacts across the roleplaying portion of the game world. Combining two existing character kits that make sense into one prestige class for example, can have a dramatic effect on any previous character made with those options. Or look at how spellcasting was handled between 3E & 4E; they went so far as to explain in the books how wizards had to re-learn how to cast spells.

Changes like that do affect people's enjoyment and should done cautiously. Combining options (kits or prestige classes) are small as the content still exists.

With every new edition of D&D, players have been left with accessories and books that are no longer useful (or AS useful) in the new edition. That's always been one of the big complaints when D&D moves to a new edition, and is nothing new.

But DMs never had, neither did world collectors. 4e changed that with both players and DMs needing new books.
And while te mechanics were always left redundant, the fluff had previously still worked.
And adventures could often be updated without issue.

The designers and writers have to strike a balance. One between fixing what they see as needs to be fixed, and keeping what folks love. No long time D&D player will tell you that 1E or 2E was perfect. Every single one of them I know has house ruled (some extensively) their games to fix what they thought was broken, whether it was a game mechanic or a story element. So it's natural, when designing a new edition, that the writers would try to tackle some of these elements and fix them so that the players don't have to.

Mechanic changes are easier, as they can look at what the majority of people ignore or house rule.
But they have made mistakes there as well not changing a rule, or removing a popular rule, or failing to make the change work.

As I said, it just comes down to a matter of opinion as to what is broken and what isn't.

This is easier with mechanics. Something either works or it doesn't. But ideally the mechanical changes don't imact the story.
I can tell the same kinds if stories in 1e as I can in 3e. If I were to change a 3e campaign over to Pathfinder there would be few changes. But if I changed that same campaign to GURPS or Palladium there would be huge changes. Just based on the lore and assumptions the games for what certain monsters are and what classes can do. D&D has maintained a common tone until 4e, when much changed. There were lore changes before, but 4e really focused on "fixing" lore, which often came down to one person's preference. And many changes were not related to broken or even bad ideas, but simply a new idea replacing the old. They could make the change so they did.
This turned 4e from D&D to another fantasy game, a less generic one.

The giants is one if the least bad, but it didn't make most of the giants much more distinct. How did stone giants change? What made them different from hill giants and earth titans? It was really a change to titans. And away to try and force the giants into a single bit of lore. But even then they bent their own rules adding death giants for no good reason.

But other changes were much more arbitrary. Was anything broken regarding rakashta? Or aasimar for that matter? Or blue dragons? Or death knights losing their phylactery (likely to make liches more unique)? Or grey elves vanishing and being replaced by extraplanar eladrin. Metallic dragons no longer being good. Dryads being treelike. Succubus being devils. Yugoloths becoming demons or devil. The blood war ending. And any of the other hundred small changes because someone liked their new idea better.

[alhoon]

The bloodwar ending was not a minor change...
Succubus changed to devils were a good thing. In the recent polls, opinions are divided to be almost equal pro-devil or pro-demon.

But... death knights had a phylactery: First time I heard of that... Their description in 3e manual and from what I remember from 2e doesn't have them with phylacteries. As a note, I didn't like the 3e death knight. I prefered the 2e one.

[MichaelTumey]

I'm not convinced to prefer them yet, but I do like the Pathfinder Graveknight (since Death Knight is not OGC) as a template CR +2. Gains a 30' aura of evil which also creates a desecrate in the area of effect, aiding in the graveknight's defense (being undead), rejuvenation like a ghost (returns fully healed in 1d4 days), channel destruction which grants 1d6 additional attack damage for every 4 HD of graveknight, devastating blast, undead mastery, phantom mount, and ruinous revification. Like a lich, the graveknight has a phylactery, in the form of his armor.

At least as a template you can add this to any class you want, preferrably a martial or appropriate half caster, like anti-paladin (so glad to see the anti-paladin return - at least the name), or even to a cavalier or samurai. Opens up lots of possibilities.

[alhoon]

I usually grouped Death knights in the "Ancient Dead" along with mummies. Different way to find their magnitude though; more depending on Martial and personal power rather than vested power from the people. But still able to Take a Soth-nap (Rejuvenation) etc.

[MichaelTumey]

I always thought Death Knight would have made a great stand-alone Van Richten's Guide - like Ancient Dead, and all the rest, back in the day. I never associated death knight with ancient dead, myself. And while the 1e-2e death knight didn't have a phylactery, I always thought that death knight to fallen paladin was equivalent for lich to wizard. It makes sense having a phylactery in that light, plus it's that much harder to make a final death as opposed to not having a phylactery. Death Knight/Grave Knight has always been among my favorite undead powerhouses in the game. The ghost is my favorite (and my favorite Van Richten Guide).

[Mortavius]

Changes like that do affect people's enjoyment and should done cautiously. Combining options (kits or prestige classes) are small as the content still exists.

Correct and true, but that's just one example. I'm sure I could find others that might illustrate my point better. The previously mentioned spellcasting one, for example.

But DMs never had, neither did world collectors. 4e changed that with both players and DMs needing new books.
And while te mechanics were always left redundant, the fluff had previously still worked.
And adventures could often be updated without issue.

Well, I respectfully disagree Jester. I don't think you could run a 3E game with a 2E DMG. The rules for magic items, encounter creation, treasure division, etc. Sure, you might be able to muddle through, but you'd probably make a lot of mistakes, and you can muddle through with anything, really.

You are correct on the fluff staying the same; as someone who has worked on updating old modules to new editions I would say that it's certainly not without issue, but you're correct, it can be done. I just wouldn't say it's necessarily *easy.*

This is easier with mechanics. Something either works or it doesn't. But ideally the mechanical changes don't imact the story.
I can tell the same kinds if stories in 1e as I can in 3e. If I were to change a 3e campaign over to Pathfinder there would be few changes. But if I changed that same campaign to GURPS or Palladium there would be huge changes. Just based on the lore and assumptions the games for what certain monsters are and what classes can do. D&D has maintained a common tone until 4e, when much changed. There were lore changes before, but 4e really focused on "fixing" lore, which often came down to one person's preference. And many changes were not related to broken or even bad ideas, but simply a new idea replacing the old. They could make the change so they did.

I would say that happened in previous editions too. Ravenloft 2E had no Paladins, Druids, or Bard PCs (officially). 3E came along, and suddenly we have holy warriors running around the Domains. I remember that causing a lot of controversy in the community back in the day. They altered the rules to make it work, because they approached 3E with the design intent of saying "yes" to players, rather than "no."

I'm sure I can find more lore changes in the past editions. I will agree with you completely, that 4E did some of the most drastic and sweeping changes to lore. Why? Because they can, you're right. It's their game, that we buy and make our own. I doubt it was one person's idea; having visited WotC in the past and seen the number of people working there, I'm sure there were groups of people who met and decided on changes to various things.

I don't think it's a bad idea to change things up now and again. For example, with the Giants. I never changed Giants in 2E or 3E. I used them as is, and never gave it much thought. Then 4E comes along, and changes them. I loved the change. Now, in 5E, I fully intend to have my Giants (and Titans) act like 4E giants. I would probably not have thought of that at all, had the designers not decided to take a chance and change something in 4E, because they thought it worked better with their mythos and lore.

You are correct, Giants weren't "broken" in previous editions. But I don't think something has to be broken to warrant a new viewpoint, especially when you're presenting a new edition of your game. That's the best time to implement such changes. After all, they didn't "break" the giants in the 4E version, they just changed them. It's easy to put them back, or keep them the same way.

The giants is one if the least bad, but it didn't make most of the giants much more distinct. How did stone giants change? What made them different from hill giants and earth titans? It was really a change to titans. And away to try and force the giants into a single bit of lore. But even then they bent their own rules adding death giants for no good reason.

You're correct, the changes I like so much are more the act of tying the Giants to Titans. That connection seemed to flesh out the giants for me. Made them more than just "big guys who live in different environments" to me. I can't really adequately put my feelings to text except to say that the new description really worked for me.

But other changes were much more arbitrary. Was anything broken regarding rakashta? Or aasimar for that matter? Or blue dragons? Or death knights losing their phylactery (likely to make liches more unique)? Or grey elves vanishing and being replaced by extraplanar eladrin. Metallic dragons no longer being good. Dryads being treelike. Succubus being devils. Yugoloths becoming demons or devil. The blood war ending. And any of the other hundred small changes because someone liked their new idea better.

Maybe not. But where's the harm in changing them as well? Rakshasa were always tiger headed humanoids who had backward hands. Even though the description said they could be any animal, you ALWAYS saw them with a tiger head. They were said to be the "ultimate evil spirits." Well, where does that leave demons and devils?

I love the new Devas and hated aasimar. For me, aasimar were humans who could cast light once per day. At least Tieflings *looked* different. Well, I suppose aasimar were described as "pretty." Well we already have "pretty" humanoids, they're called Elves. Aasimar needed a lot more to make them distinct, and I think Devas did well in that regard.

Death Knights and phylacteries? Well, to me, that always made a Death Knight seem like a warrior lich. I like that they lost them. Don't get me wrong, I don't mind it being hard to kill Death Knights, but the phylactery is an integral part of becoming a Lich; it's made before you even become one. It just seemed tacked-on to the Death Knight and a cheap way to have them hard to kill.

I liked Eladrin too; Elves in previous editions were always like humans with slanty-eyes and pointed ears. We got to keep Elves like that, and got an option that was a lot closer tied to the Fey, which Elves should be. Also a lot more tied to magic. We seemed to have this identity-crises with Elves before. They were magical, but they were tied to the woods. They were Rangers, but they were Wizards. Previous editions tried to fix this by saying there were different subraces of elves that focused on different aspects; Wood vs. High vs. Gray, etc. So even before 4E, they were trying to deal with this, 4E just took another approach.

I feel I should point out that metallic dragons not being good was done prior to 4E; Eberron was the first (I believe) to say that Dragons did not follow their MM alignments, and I think (though I could be wrong) that the Draconomicon for 3E went the same way.

Dryads was a attempt to not have mutliple beautiful fey creatures. Nereids. Nymphs. Dryads. Sylphs. All of them slightly different, but beautiful (often female) fey creatures. Let's shake it up a bit, shall we? To quote Bill Slavicsek "Scantily-clad human females set in the woods, to me, aren't nymphs or dryads-they're scantily-clad human females with a couple of extra powers. Where's the fantasy? Where's the imagination? Moreover, I wanted fey that were alien, scary, and strange. No more Blink Dogs sitting beside the fire as though they were old country hounds."

I like the Succubus changes; to me they are a lot more devil-like in how they operate than demon-like. In 4E, they also tried to make Demons and Devils a bit more distinctive. In previous editions, they were basically names. Look at a Balor and a Pit Fiend. They're very similar. Yes, there are differences, but there are a lot of things the same. in 4E, Devils are more humanoid with monstrous features, unlike a Demon which is much more monstrous with some or no humanoid features.

The bloodwar ending was not a minor change...

Maybe not...unless your game never touched on it. I never have run a game that really deals with the Blood War, so if my players knew about it at all (and I'm not talking about their characters) they just knew it was some big fight going on "over there." I understand what you mean in that it was a big event, but it didn't have the potential to spill into every campaign or world. It was something a DM could make use of, or totally ignore, with pretty much no repercussions.

I don't know if I'm in favor of the Blood War or not, since I never used it, so it's ending never bothered me.

I guess I'm not trying to say that everyone should like or agree with these changes. But there were reasons behind them. It wasn't just a random roll of a dice and "BAM! Giants are small Titans now!" I guess I'm just disappointed that instead of taking steps forward (and taking chances) with the lore, it seems like 5E is doing a complete 180 and going back to what it had previously, which to me, leads to a stale, generic game.

[Jester of the FoS]

Well, I respectfully disagree Jester. I don't think you could run a 3E game with a 2E DMG. The rules for magic items, encounter creation, treasure division, etc. Sure, you might be able to muddle through, but you'd probably make a lot of mistakes, and you can muddle through with anything, really.

Funny think, I barely skimmed by DMG for all of my time playing 3.0. It wasn't until 3.5 when I started paying attention to EL and really reading the CR rules. Prior to that I just eye-balled it (like 2e), and it worked okay.

I tried playing 4e like 3e early on and it did not work. I actually had to change how I design adventures. I did a murder mystery which ended with the murder confronting the PCs, which made for a terrible fight as he wasn't solo material. Because it wasn't this big set piece fight it just fell flat.
Likewise, I tried to adapt some early 1e adventures and it was a nightmare. I had to combine rooms into mega fights and completely rebuild whole stretches of the dungeon. And there was no way to replicate the traps.
It just changed the entire tone of the game.

I'm sure I can find more lore changes in the past editions. I will agree with you completely, that 4E did some of the most drastic and sweeping changes to lore. Why? Because they can, you're right. It's their game, that we buy and make our own. I doubt it was one person's idea; having visited WotC in the past and seen the number of people working there, I'm sure there were groups of people who met and decided on changes to various things.

But is it their game? They own it yes, but they didn't create it. Most of the people working on the game now played it as kids. It's a 40 year old property. It belongs to the fans and community as much as the owner and publisher.
It's like Bond or Star Trek. MGM can do whatever it wants with Bond. It owns him. They can cast a blonde thug or Bond. Or an Asian woman. Or a gay black teen. That doesn't mean it will be accepted. That doesn't mean it will be Bond.

D&D is bigger than one company, one edition, or one person's preference in monster lore. It's hard to find any common ground. You're not going to alienate a fan by not changing lore, and you're not going to gain sales by changing lore, but you're are going to piss people off and possibly lose sales by changing lore. It should be done carefully.

I love the new Devas and hated aasimar. For me, aasimar were humans who could cast light once per day. At least Tieflings *looked* different. Well, I suppose aasimar were described as "pretty." Well we already have "pretty" humanoids, they're called Elves. Aasimar needed a lot more to make them distinct, and I think Devas did well in that regard.

I liked the look but hated the story. I agree that they needed a new look but the story of "mortals with angel blood" worked fine. Half-celestials and the like. Instead we get this story of angels taking mortal form and reincarnating regularly, being reborn as deva if good and rakasha if bad.

But that doesn't fit the niche of people with angelic blood. Nor does it fit established characters. There's someone out there whose favourite PC was an aasimar and they could not covert or reimagine them in 4e because the race is so completely different.

I liked Eladrin too; Elves in previous editions were always like humans with slanty-eyes and pointed ears. We got to keep Elves like that, and got an option that was a lot closer tied to the Fey, which Elves should be. Also a lot more tied to magic. We seemed to have this identity-crises with Elves before. They were magical, but they were tied to the woods. They were Rangers, but they were Wizards. Previous editions tried to fix this by saying there were different subraces of elves that focused on different aspects; Wood vs. High vs. Gray, etc. So even before 4E, they were trying to deal with this, 4E just took another approach.

I like the idea of a progenitor elf race that lives in faerie. That's cool.
I dislike making that a core race under the assumption that having two types of elves is confusing.
And I dislike Eberron and the Realms suddenly having to retcon all grey elves (or moon elves) into being eladrin and being able to teleport.

I guess I'm not trying to say that everyone should like or agree with these changes. But there were reasons behind them. It wasn't just a random roll of a dice and "BAM! Giants are small Titans now!" I guess I'm just disappointed that instead of taking steps forward (and taking chances) with the lore, it seems like 5E is doing a complete 180 and going back to what it had previously, which to me, leads to a stale, generic game.

There are ways to reconcile.
Instead of taking an established monster (titan) and changing it into something else you can add the new lore and a new monster. Primordial giants would be larger than average elemental giants, pure examples of giant kind. That's cool.
Or they can make it world specific. Nentir Vale giants are tied to elements and primordials while most other giants are different.

Base D&D should be generic. The more you enforce a certain tone in the base game the less flexible it becomes. It was hard to make 4e into horror as a result. Or gritty fantasy. Or low magic. And while the tone of D&D may be stale to you or me who has been playing for 10 or 20 or 30 years it won't be to someone new. I loved the history and lore back in 2e, discovering there was this depth to the hobby I never knew. It was like stepping into a larger, hidden world.

[alhoon]

I tried playing 4e like 3e early on and it did not work. I actually had to change how I design adventures. I did a murder mystery which ended with the murder confronting the PCs, which made for a terrible fight as he wasn't solo material. Because it wasn't this big set piece fight it just fell flat.
Likewise, I tried to adapt some early 1e adventures and it was a nightmare. I had to combine rooms into mega fights and completely rebuild whole stretches of the dungeon. And there was no way to replicate the traps.
It just changed the entire tone of the game.

A murder mystery with 4E rules? I don't say it can't be done; all I say is that it's not what the designers had in mind. More or less, a murder mystery can be resolved with... a skill challenge that ends in a fight.
However, I'll come back and haunt you with my long undead memory: You should have known better for the Solo fights from the blurbs that WotC was giving us the year before 4E was released. We have discussed extensively in the 4e thread about XP and encounters and a fight of 1st lvl PCs (from the playtest) against a Chuul (lvl 10 monster).

I already reported to Esteemed father Balfur your lack of dilligence in your studies. No hard feelings, it's not personal. I just want your magical items.

[alhoon]

I like the idea of a progenitor elf race that lives in faerie. That's cool.
I dislike making that a core race under the assumption that having two types of elves is confusing.
And I dislike Eberron and the Realms suddenly having to retcon all grey elves (or moon elves) into being eladrin and being able to teleport.

Before Dru comes to take you, I'll also comment on that:
I liked the Eladrin being from Faerie and I like elves being split to magical-oriented wizards and wood-oriented rangers. I will keep that distinction in my campaigns and have the magic-oriented elf subrace that lives in citadels etc call themselves Eladrin.
Like you, I also disliked/hated that now Elaith could teleport 25 feet (because the gray elves of the Realms were the High elves of the Core and the High elves were the Gray elf magic-inclined of the Core).

[Jester of the FoS]

I tried playing 4e like 3e early on and it did not work. I actually had to change how I design adventures. I did a murder mystery which ended with the murder confronting the PCs, which made for a terrible fight as he wasn't solo material. Because it wasn't this big set piece fight it just fell flat.
Likewise, I tried to adapt some early 1e adventures and it was a nightmare. I had to combine rooms into mega fights and completely rebuild whole stretches of the dungeon. And there was no way to replicate the traps.
It just changed the entire tone of the game.

A murder mystery with 4E rules? I don't say it can't be done; all I say is that it's not what the designers had in mind. More or less, a murder mystery can be resolved with... a skill challenge that ends in a fight.
However, I'll come back and haunt you with my long undead memory: You should have known better for the Solo fights from the blurbs that WotC was giving us the year before 4E was released. We have discussed extensively in the 4e thread about XP and encounters and a fight of 1st lvl PCs (from the playtest) against a Chuul (lvl 10 monster).

I already reported to Esteemed father Balfur your lack of dilligence in your studies. No hard feelings, it's not personal. I just want your magical items.

The mystery went fine. The problem was needing to have some kind of minions for the bad guy, which was hard to justify. I've done that kind of fight later on where one lone dude who has to challenge the party) and always cheated and had summoned monsters or psychic allies.
This time I made him a high level elite and set the room on fire to pad the xp budget with "firetraps". And the party destroyed him.

[Jester of the FoS]

I like the idea of a progenitor elf race that lives in faerie. That's cool.
I dislike making that a core race under the assumption that having two types of elves is confusing.
And I dislike Eberron and the Realms suddenly having to retcon all grey elves (or moon elves) into being eladrin and being able to teleport.

Before Dru comes to take you, I'll also comment on that:
I liked the Eladrin being from Faerie and I like elves being split to magical-oriented wizards and wood-oriented rangers. I will keep that distinction in my campaigns and have the magic-oriented elf subrace that lives in citadels etc call themselves Eladrin.
Like you, I also disliked/hated that now Elaith could teleport 25 feet (because the gray elves of the Realms were the High elves of the Core and the High elves were the Gray elf magic-inclined of the Core).

Elves were always split into wood elves and grey elves. Way back in 1e they had the split. Heck, when explaining the game to new players I say there's the Elrond type elf and the Legolas type elf.
The problem is assuming having Subraces is complicated and that people will pick the wood elf and try and play a wizard.

Now we have Subraces back (yay) but will still likely have eladrin. I think they'll work better without having to be too elflike, and we can make them faeries plus. We need a good Oberon & Titania magical fae race in D&D.

[MichaelTumey]

Only two kinds of elves!? Are you forgetting Drow? Plus back in 1e there were Grugach (wild elves) think shorter, stronger and spear wielding. Plus there's the elves of Birthright setting, which I preferred to all those, which were former first worlders who didn't believe in deities rather engrossed in arcane magic only. I've played characters from all the subraces of elves at one time or another. You youngsters and your confusion on subraces - us old guys never had that problem...

[Cam]

I noticed above that there's new rakshasa fluff/background in 5E. Could someone provide a high-level summary of the new elements here, without breaking whatever the non-disclosure agreement is that I imagine you have to agree to to see pieces of 5E? No problem if that is not possible, I'm not looking to cause trouble. I'm interested because I'm preparing a campaign that will use a rakshasa as a major villain. It's going to be a Pathfinder campaign, but I am not limiting myself to the Pathfinder race background. Thanks!

[Jester of the FoS]

Technically, those are Rakasta, a similar but less magical race.