Comments/suggestions on Jester's rules (5e)

[alhoon]

Yeah... a pity 6th edition will be a step back.

[Jester of the FoS]

Yeah... a pity 6th edition will be a step back.

I don't forsee a 6th edition any time soon.

[alhoon]

It'll probably be around 2022 or something.

[Skyrock]

As long as ze game remains ze same...

I'm not thinking about 6th Edition as long as not even the DMG and the main campaign settings (i.e. Forgotten Realms) are out.

[Vorcoth]

We're talking about WotC here....6th ed will be coming in less than 5 years.

[alhoon]

An updated 5th probably in 4 years. But I bet it'll be here for longer than 4th.

[Jester of the FoS]

We're talking about WotC here....6th ed will be coming in less than 5 years.

The current designers want it to last longer. They say that it's better for the game and hobby for an edition to last longer.
And after three short editions, I think WotC likely realizes it's not necessarily healthy for sales.

That, and making a new edition is expensive. It sinks the department into debt as the staff sits around planning books that might come out in years instead of months.

However, the 3.5 revision was always planned, but was accelerated because sales of 3.0 were not good enough for WotC. Sales of all of the last few editions were not good enough. So if 5e isn't "good enough" they're very likely to just cancel the RPG rather than try a fourth time to make money, dismissing the product line as not lucrative enough for the company to bother with.

[alhoon]

However, the 3.5 revision was always planned, but was accelerated because sales of 3.0 were not good enough for WotC

But 3rd and 3.5 sold untold thousands of copies. I think the 3rd\3.5 edition run probably made WotC more money than 2nd edition.

Also 3rd\3.5 edition wasn't a "short" edition by any means. We've reached stuff like publishing 2 books on dragons, magic of incarna-whatever, binders etc. Good books all but you can see why I believe that 3.5 had hit a wall like 2 years before they killed it.

[Jester of the FoS]

However, the 3.5 revision was always planned, but was accelerated because sales of 3.0 were not good enough for WotC

But 3rd and 3.5 sold untold thousands of copies. I think the 3rd\3.5 edition run probably made WotC more money than 2nd edition.

Also 3rd\3.5 edition wasn't a "short" edition by any means. We've reached stuff like publishing 2 books on dragons, magic of incarna-whatever, binders etc. Good books all but you can see why I believe that 3.5 had hit a wall like 2 years before they killed it.

That's the thing, WotC is used to MtG money. Which in one quarter can pull in ten times what D&D makes in an entire year. The expectations of a "success" are so much higher.

[alhoon]

There's no way in the world, D&D next would come close to MtG. It's the most popular card game. You can play it with just another person instead of needing a group, it can take 20 mins instead of an afternoon, you don't have to read books that cost 50$ each and it doesn't require hours of preparation and it doesn't have competition from computer games.
Of course, it's way less gratifying (at least for me) but I guess opinions vary on that


However, I believe they have realized that they will have to deal with "I put X money in, and in a couple of years I would have 50% profit."
Why to do it then when they have branches that you put X money in and you get 500% profit in a couple of years? Because they already have the people working for Magic and tapped that market. More cards wouldn't increase their profits by much anyway.
Heck even if they stop making new cards for a year and just do events and promotion, their profit would be marginally affected.

So... why not keep getting your 500% profit from Magic market and get your 50% profit from D&D market?

[Gonzoron of the FoS]

There's no way in the world, D&D next would come close to MtG. It's the most popular card game. You can play it with just another person instead of needing a group, it can take 20 mins instead of an afternoon, you don't have to read books that cost 50$ each and it doesn't require hours of preparation

And more importantly, MtG players keep buying cards, often. Many D&D players get the core books and stop, happily, playing multiple campaigns with just the basics, possibly buying one or two new splat books years later to spice things up. And you don't have to keep buying Monster Manuals, hoping to get the bulette in this one.

VIEW CONTENT:

...he says, with love, as a huge MtG fan

and it doesn't have competition from computer games.

Here I disagree, though. Magicdoes have competition from computer games. Hearthstone, for one, and many others.

[alhoon]

oohhh... I had no idea. I don't know the game venues you mentioned mostly because... I never got an interest on these. But we've derailed this thread too much. It's about comments on Jester's rules.

[Jester of the FoS]

oohhh... I had no idea. I don't know the game venues you mentioned mostly because... I never got an interest on these. But we've derailed this thread too much. It's about comments on Jester's rules.

Uncertain if I'll move forward with my own horror/madness rules since I like the sound of the official ones.

I might do an alternate take on madness to provide a variant. But I haven't decided. Would that be something desired?

[alhoon]

I can't answer that till I see the new rules...
But this thread is about more than horror/madness.

Power checks for starters. Any ideas? Personally I would go with the 3E version. Small percentages for failure, 6 steps with progressively bigger curses/enticement

Eating mice and stuff should IMO remain at PC2 and PC 1 should be something difficult to notice. Like the dark shadows in power. Say, 1 reroll (keep the second) for a certain group of skills like social skills, 1/day.
At the time, I use "you gain darkvision, you get disadvantage in full daylight and light annoys you. Your eyes turn completely black like buttons" at the 2nd tier.

[Jester of the FoS]

Power checks for starters. Any ideas? Personally I would go with the 3E version. Small percentages for failure, 6 steps with progressively bigger curses/enticement

I did a Dark Powers check system in a QtR a while back, that became the variation used for my 4e rules. I'll probably use that for the basis.
It dumped the percentage dice for a d20 as % for failure and checks kinda went away back in 2e. There was no reason to keep the system on that dice in 3e, let alone in 5e.

For power checks, the 1% chance of failure was always screwy. Yes, it meant if people did lots of small things they should eventually fail, but often it meant that people became corrupted for really small things. (And, probability wise, it's the same to roll one check with a 5% chance of failure as five checks with a 1% chance of failure.)
If you want power checks to be part of the game, it makes sense to have it have a higher chance of failure, so they see play. If you don't want them to be a major part just don't use the mechanics except in key situations.

The power check % were always screwy. It went from 1% to 2% for most checks with a few 5-10%. Then jumped to 20% and 100%. Why? Because... reasons.