Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition Previews

Following up on their previous article series that took us through Dungeons & Dragons’ past, present, and future, The Escapist brings us a two-page piece on Wizards of the Coast’s plans for rolling out a 5th Edition of the long-running tabletop system in the near future. Commentary from D&D head Mike Mearls is featured throughout the article, so it’s a pretty good read if you’re at all interested in the game:

Previous editions of the game had play testing periods, but Wizards restricted access to freelancers or those connected to the company and those tests were ineffectual at best. I was in a play testing group for 4th edition back in 2007, and we submitted a 30 page annotated document of what we felt worked and what didn’t work with the rules we played. Other than my name among the hundreds of play testers in the back of the 4th edition Player’s Handbook, nothing I submitted made it into print. Our feedback was summarily ignored, and Mearls admitted that was essentially true of all the feedback Wizards received from the 4th edition play test.

This time it will be different. Starting in the next few months, Wizards of the Coast will open the new rules up to gamers and actively solicit feedback to shape the game. They plan to leverage the relative popularity of the Encounters program – an organized event in game stores where players across the country participate in the same adventure each week – to offer adventures written for the new iteration of D&D using the new rules. Wizards plans to set up a website survey to track players’ feedback and get it quickly into the hands of Mearls and the team designing the rules.

“We want to give the community enough time to thoroughly digest each play test package,” he said. “Then, we need to make sure we have time to integrate player feedback into each play test cycle so their needs and desires are captured in the final product. This will take time.”

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Story is going to be a focus of D&D going forward. Many of us fell in love with the game through the adventure modules released by TSR in the early days of the game. Gygax’s Against the Giants modules are still regarded as a crowning achievement in how they planted plot details in the dungeon along with exciting combat, and Mearls said he wants to get back to that level of story-telling through new published adventures.

The announcement of a new D&D doesn’t mean that 4th edition is now a lame duck. Wizards recognizes that the game still has a very loyal following, and pledges to continue supporting 4th edition during the testing cycle of the new edition and beyond. “We plan to continue offering people access to tools like the D&D Character Builder and the D&D Monster Builder to support 4th edition,” Mearls said. “We’re also exploring ideas for conversion tools so that some of the 4th edition characters and content will be playable with the next edition.” In other words, Wizards vows it’s not replacing 4th edition, but merely adding another layer of rules that will cater to the people unhappy with the latest edition’s changes.

There’s also some coverage on The New York Times, with more commentary from Mr. Mearls and publishing and licensing director Liz Schuh:

Wizards of the Coast has also made previous forays into the digital realm. Dungeons & Dragons Online was released in 2006. Since becoming free to play, the game has gained over one million new players, an impressive figure for D&D but relatively insignificant compared to World of Warcraft’s 10-million-plus paid subscribers. A Facebook game called Dungeons & Dragons: Heroes of Neverwinter made its debut this fall. Also, a (virtual tabletop) product to allow Dungeons & Dragons acolytes to play online is being Beta-tested.

Still, a new edition could backfire, if the changes requested by hard-core fans can’t be reconciled or if players believe the company is merely paying lip service to their concerns. Nonetheless the company remains (absolutely committed) to the core tabletop game-play, Ms. Schuh said. (People want that face-to-face experience.)

Certainly committed players will remind you that tabletop role-playing games still outperform computer games in one key arena: improvisation. Video games have limits. Some dungeon doors can’t be opened because a programmer didn’t code them to open. Dungeons & Dragons remains a game where anything can happen.

With my kids finally getting old enough to experience the glory of tabletop gaming, I just might have to renew my D&D sourcebook collection when the 5th Edition finally arrives. In the meantime, those of us who care about the game’s future direction can sign up here to help shape it.