There’s speculation on ENWorld about whether a D&D 5th Edition is in the works already. I contemplated what this would require. Seems to me that they’d want to wait until they could make every part of the game collectible. The optimal 5th Edition would need to:
- Require collectible minis
- Require collectible cards
- Require collectible dice
- Require a monthly electronic subscription
- Eliminate the Dungeon Master
By my count they’re already at 3/5 of those figured out. They have collectible minis, and you just declare them to be required like in Warhammer. They just added the cards, and they’ve had the subscription.
If they dust off the old Dragon Dice and make it so you use the collectible dice instead of standard ones, you have the dice. I hear WFRP 3e does that to a degree, using a bunch of custom dice. And they’ve been working on reducing the role of the DM over the course of 4e, and they have designers familiar with some of the new GM-less indie RPGs I bet – you could just obsolete the DM. For adventures, just extend the Encounters format, even mixing that up and making it collectible or driven from the electronic subscription – “I just got Tweeted a bonus room!”
And then just do a quick run-through of the rules to stomp out all remaining vestiges of in-character roleplaying, and you have the perfect game. Every single aspect of it would require continuous spend. And there would be no need for imagination, immersion, originality, invention, or other dirty and unquantifiable factors in the player base. It would be trivial to convert into computer gaming properties at that point too.
The perfect game.
Geek Related 
*sighs*
I’m not a fan of 4E. I played it once when it was first released and while it was mildly fun, it felt (to me) like a combination of HeroQuest and M:tG – not necessarily evil incarnate, but not my cup of tea either. I furthermore have not agreed with a lot of the additional changes I have seen since then. Suffice it to say, that while I was a fan of 2nd Ed, and D20 3.5, I am not a fan of 4E and have no intentions of purchasing from WoTC in the future.
However, I find it difficult to view this blog post as being anything more than a Trollish taunt designed to provoke nerd rage commentary. If that’s your objective, then so be it, but it doesn’t come across as very mature. The amount of derogatory infinitives you’ve tossed around above can only be intended to insult 4E fans as quickly as possible. To what end, I say? Your talents should be used more constructively – you’ve shown in the past that you’re capable of much better than this. For shame, sir, for shame. One can only hope that the blatant and sloppy delivery of your ill-intended vitriol will be immediately apparent to 4E fans and they will give it a well-deserved ignoring.
Are you contending that to a WotC suit, that DOESN’T sound like the perfect game?
I’m glad someone else has taken a critical eye to this. When mxyzplk gets into this particular mode of foul rant, it’s a dog-whistle at best and a trash heap at worst. The most telling part is that it would be just as easy (if not easier!) for 4e fans to run around trashing your particular game of choice, but they don’t. They’re too busy enjoying what they like to put down what other people enjoy. I don’t think that the marriage between prior edition holdouts and overflowing bitterness is any coincidence, at all.
Ah, Betts, you WotC shill, for some reason you only come crawling around when someone says anything bad about 4e. Sadly you don’t have any real comeback except to attack the messenger, since you know darn well this is where they’re running the game to.
For adventures, just extend the Encounters format, even mixing that up and making it collectible or driven from the electronic subscription – “I just got Tweeted a bonus room!”
Except that — based on how the electronic tools from the current edition still aren’t complete, two and a half years later — they’d never get it working. 😉
Doesn’t SFR still own Dragon Dice? The ones I bought are from SFR. Hopefully it will stay alive with them and WotC/Hasbro will not buy them back.
That being said I can see a lot of what you’ve said coming true.
I think you have seen the future…
Good call, and a good solid rant, as well. Folks like Spiralbound are so busy tsk!-tsk! ing your delivery, they forget what powers the ‘derogatory infinitives’ – outrage that the company which began the RPG is now doing its level best to bury the concept because it does not turn over enough short-term dollars.
The classic RPG began going to hell when the computer game designers began calling what they offered ‘RPGs’. And no one said much. If sitting alone in front of a monitor at 3 am in your skivvies qualifies as role-playing, I’ll buy a hat and eat it.
Holler ’til you’re hoarse, Mxy. But it’s been a long time coming.
“If sitting alone in front of a monitor at 3 am in your skivvies qualifies as role-playing, I’ll buy a hat and eat it.”
And what sort of hat would like to eat sir? Computer based gaming covers a lot of ground from voice chat remote gaming, to MMO, to single player games. At the very lest the first should count as an RPG just as much as if you are sitting around a table. I’ll admit the later two aren’t so much in the socially interactive end of RPing, but the good RPGs involve a decent story, the player taking on a persona and solving problems. Just depends how much you want to be a purist and feel like you are winning on the geek hierarchy chart.
You may want to scratch off the minis.
That sounds almost like an RPGA version of heroquest. There were special characters that you had to buy and paint other than the boxed ones. Make a hero pack that is collectable and you have your minis. Have the cards give equipment, maybe snap on items to add to the min, they would be collected through another type of pack. then have your dice in another pack.
The modules would be from the website, as would the main rules. You would log your characters in and say was are going to do this module which would keep your characters honest.
Hell why not do it like DDO and have it subscription and micro payment based. They some players would have to do a micro payment to buy access to a module.
All Kidding aside, i would be cool with a subscription based game if done fairly. Where i could always log in and see the rules i had paid for. Warhammer 40K would almost be better if it was this way. Then players could add battle reports and clearly demonstrate if rules were in need of adjustment.
And despite all the “make nice with older editions” on Mearls’ blog, here’s the newest evolution of 4e, “Lair Assault,” which proves my point… https://geek-related.com/2011/05/21/dd-lair-assault-4e-wallows-in-its-own-filth/