Windows 8 was not a great moment for our friends at Microsoft. There are a lot of reasons the OS failed to catch on, but one of the bigger reasons was that it changed too much of the familiar desktop paradigms for user interaction.
It happens with roleplaying games as well.
Take D&D 4 for instance, it changed the paradigm for D&D so much that there was a backlash against it. A lot of people liked it, but the hardcore types said "not D&D" and moved on to Pathfinder or old-school OGR games. D&D 4 had a number of great innovations, but it changed what the game was to a lot of people and they did not like it.
D&D 5 is a lot like the upcoming Windows 10 in that regard, it keeps some of the previous version's innovations, but goes back to the familiar user paradigms of the 'classic OS'.
Now, DarkgarX and I liked D&D 4, it was a fun system for "battle chess" like combats with a D&D flavor. One could say that D&D 4 was the best version of D&D Miniatures ever made, and it actually combined both games into one RPG. It did change a lot, but the changes were focused on tabletop play and balance. It's like Windows 8 forcing the tablet paradigm on everybody, some people did not like it, so they felt things had changed too much.
To be honest, we still don't like Windows 8.
The lesson here is that you can change things, but you can't change people's perceptions of how the game is played. If D&D were introduce a system where a character is built only out of collectible cards, yes for some players it would be a revolution, but for the majority of us it would be so radically different it wouldn't feel like D&D at all.
You heard this with both Windows 8 and D&D 4 - "if it were a new OS or game I could accept it, but calling it Windows/D&D does not feel right to me."
"Does not feel right to me."
Think about that line. When you get systems engineers involved in a project, UI engineers, and other technical types, they are all too happy to blow away everything and start fresh. The old was the problem, and what we need is fresh thinking! Everyone wants to start with a clean slate, even designers. You could develop the easiest, most intuitive system or game in the world, and then relabel it as something else, and instantly you've lost it all. All those innovations are wasted, because now what people are going to do is compare you to the old way of doing things.
I knew how to do this in the old system! Too much has changed! I'm not changing from what works! I've invested too much in my old software or books, I'm not buying new stuff.
It's familiar, and while yes, things need to change, things also need to be familiar and focus on improving rather than replacing. Designers can't be 'tone deaf' to the current user base, and any new version of the game has to feel like the old one in play and focus. You can make improvements, streamline, and improve - you just can't rip out so much the game feels like a different experience.
D&D 5 does do some major changes, and it especially breaks away from D&D 3's complexity curve. Players may feel like they don't have many options under the new system. There is a danger here that D&D 3 and Pathfinder have gotten so entrenched in the "idea" of what people know D&D as that something different than it will still be seen as not D&D. From most of what I heard, the OGR crowd is a little more receptive of the changes to D&D 5 than the D&D 4 players are - we still miss our "D&D battle chess" game and nothing will replace it.
We feel Wizards majorly screwed D&D 4 up too with D&D Essentials, which was the D&D 5 preview anyways in spirit with the art and focus on thematic builds, The original game for D&D 4, the first three unpatched books, those still are the definitive version of the game for us.
Don't get me started on D&D 4's "floating strike zone" when it came to monster balance, another article, and another day.
D&D 5 is also more roleplaying focused, although I feel the changes they made in that area feel forced and limiting for player fun, so I am not using them in my games and sticking with the basic rules. I need to make a FAQ on the way we play and share that, and then wait for the community licence Wizards promised and publish that as a third-party mod to the rules.
But yes, it's a lesson on being too revolutionary but taking the safe route and calling your revolution "the next great new version of what you loved or hated!" Either people disliked your previous version and will start out with a negative view of you, or people used to the old ways will feel things changed too much for their liking. If you make major changes, they always have to be for the better and build upon what works. Most importantly, things have to feel the same for people, so they can drop in their previous experiences and be right at home.
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