You're forgetting a little thing called "Critical Role", which has brought millions of new players to the game and is one of the main reasons why D&D 5e is so successful. Yes, 5e started out being successful because it did its best to appease to the older fans of the game that were turned off by D&D 4e, but Critical Role quickly put D&D 5e into the mainstream and is one of the major reasons why D&D 5e is so popular and profitable.
If it wasn't for old school gamers and old school designers who righted D&D after the fiasco that was 4th edition D&D a game that very intentionally rejected its past there would have been no Critical Role or Matt Mercer fame.
Critical Role exists because the foundation of D&D, it's legacy and its history smacked Wizards of the Coast across the face with the 4th edition rulebooks and said enough of your bullshit. Old school thinking, old school gamers, old school designers (AKA ITS LEGACY) fixed D&D and when it was released, the fan base noticed, realized that D&D was back and took to the internet, Matt Mercer included.
So yeah, 5e's growing fan base is certainly much bigger thanks to the internet shows, they help it grow, but none of that would exist if old school gamers and designers didn't step up and save D&D first. If Critical Role tried running their show in the 4e days it would not have suddenly turned 4e into a wildly successful system, 5e was an already moving freight train, CR just jumped on board and leveraged that success to create some of their own and their success furthered 5e's success and vice versus.
Worth noting: it's actually extremely difficult to research "the legacy and history of D&D". Any of the usual Wikia websites for it are nothing but infinite pits of other people's shitty, thoroughly unofficial homebrew, there's no good and reliable source for any real information about the history of the lore. And the history of the game's publication and business track record isn't really something anybody covers. If you didn't live through it and aren't spoon-fed it by an older player trying to inculcate you in 'Proper D&D', it's the next best thing to impossible to get a proper grip on The Lore And History of D&D without actual, trained research chops.
Which, needless to say...nobody has.
That is the interesting thing about D&D's history and legacy and really the definition of what "D&D is". It's difficult to describe, hard to prove and impossible for anyone to agree on yet everyone knows when you have it and when you don't. I understand that the how and why of it is a rather strangely mysterious concept and I agree that even I struggle to define what D&D legacy is and isn't and I was there for the ride, I'm a bloody witness to it. Whatever it is, we know what happens when D&D ignores it (4th edition) and we know what happens when D&D leans on it (5th edition). We can quibble about the definition and meaning, but you can't argue the results.
I mean thats why they started with pathfinder, mercer knew how bad 4th ed was.
the Community AD&D episode for instance might have portrayed D&D as overly nerdy for comedic effect but it was seen by a whole lot of people
Chevy Chase's portrayal of a party-wrecking "I'm chaotic neutral! I'm not a team player!" a*****e remains unequaled
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Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock) Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric) Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue) Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
If it wasn't for old school gamers and old school designers who righted D&D after the fiasco that was 4th edition D&D a game that very intentionally rejected its past...
4E had an acceptance issue more than a design issue. Those same old school gamers who "righted D&D" were the ones to sink it in the first place. Now, it's totally fair to reject an edition because you don't like it, and in the end the majority rules and games evolve away from what isn't generally liked. That's what happened to 4E. But it's still happening to 5E as well: the way 5E is evolving now is nothing but an extension of WotC figuring out what hampers sales and what boosts them and applying that to their design decisions. And whether something is old school or not doesn't really matter; some things that work feel old school, some things that don't work feel old school, some things that work don't feel old school, and some things that don't work don't feel old school. The pertinent aspect for WotC is whether something works to make D&D more successful, not whether something is old school or not.
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You're forgetting a little thing called "Critical Role", which has brought millions of new players to the game and is one of the main reasons why D&D 5e is so successful. Yes, 5e started out being successful because it did its best to appease to the older fans of the game that were turned off by D&D 4e, but Critical Role quickly put D&D 5e into the mainstream and is one of the major reasons why D&D 5e is so popular and profitable.
If it wasn't for old school gamers and old school designers who righted D&D after the fiasco that was 4th edition D&D a game that very intentionally rejected its past there would have been no Critical Role or Matt Mercer fame.
Critical Role exists because the foundation of D&D, it's legacy and its history smacked Wizards of the Coast across the face with the 4th edition rulebooks and said enough of your bullshit. Old school thinking, old school gamers, old school designers (AKA ITS LEGACY) fixed D&D and when it was released, the fan base noticed, realized that D&D was back and took to the internet, Matt Mercer included.
So yeah, 5e's growing fan base is certainly much bigger thanks to the internet shows, they help it grow, but none of that would exist if old school gamers and designers didn't step up and save D&D first. If Critical Role tried running their show in the 4e days it would not have suddenly turned 4e into a wildly successful system, 5e was an already moving freight train, CR just jumped on board and leveraged that success to create some of their own and their success furthered 5e's success and vice versus.
Worth noting: it's actually extremely difficult to research "the legacy and history of D&D". Any of the usual Wikia websites for it are nothing but infinite pits of other people's shitty, thoroughly unofficial homebrew, there's no good and reliable source for any real information about the history of the lore. And the history of the game's publication and business track record isn't really something anybody covers. If you didn't live through it and aren't spoon-fed it by an older player trying to inculcate you in 'Proper D&D', it's the next best thing to impossible to get a proper grip on The Lore And History of D&D without actual, trained research chops.
Which, needless to say...nobody has.
That is the interesting thing about D&D's history and legacy and really the definition of what "D&D is". It's difficult to describe, hard to prove and impossible for anyone to agree on yet everyone knows when you have it and when you don't. I understand that the how and why of it is a rather strangely mysterious concept and I agree that even I struggle to define what D&D legacy is and isn't and I was there for the ride, I'm a bloody witness to it. Whatever it is, we know what happens when D&D ignores it (4th edition) and we know what happens when D&D leans on it (5th edition). We can quibble about the definition and meaning, but you can't argue the results.
I mean thats why they started with pathfinder, mercer knew how bad 4th ed was.
If you read that again, I think you will find that he ran 4e the least out of all the editions listed there. That is not a stellar indorsement, but it is more than Pathfinder since it isn't listed at all.
If you read that again, I think you will find that he ran 4e the least out of all the editions listed there. That is not a stellar indorsement, but it is more than Pathfinder since it isn't listed at all.
Read the followup tweet:
"Addendum! Pathfinder fits in with 3.5 in my mind, but if you don’t think so, I’d squeeze that in under RIFTS."
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If you read that again, I think you will find that he ran 4e the least out of all the editions listed there. That is not a stellar indorsement, but it is more than Pathfinder since it isn't listed at all.
Read the followup tweet:
"Addendum! Pathfinder fits in with 3.5 in my mind, but if you don’t think so, I’d squeeze that in under RIFTS."
Still not listed on it's own. It is either 3.5 or Rifts, not a stand alone system in his mind lol.
If you read that again, I think you will find that he ran 4e the least out of all the editions listed there. That is not a stellar indorsement, but it is more than Pathfinder since it isn't listed at all.
Read the followup tweet:
"Addendum! Pathfinder fits in with 3.5 in my mind, but if you don’t think so, I’d squeeze that in under RIFTS."
Still not listed on it's own. It is either 3.5 or Rifts, not a stand alone system in his mind lol.
I think he meant that if you don't consider Pathfinder a subthingy of 3.5, it'd be on the list right below RIFTS (so third place) - Pathfinder and RIFTS are not at all similar.
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If you read that again, I think you will find that he ran 4e the least out of all the editions listed there. That is not a stellar indorsement, but it is more than Pathfinder since it isn't listed at all.
Read the followup tweet:
"Addendum! Pathfinder fits in with 3.5 in my mind, but if you don’t think so, I’d squeeze that in under RIFTS."
Still not listed on it's own. It is either 3.5 or Rifts, not a stand alone system in his mind lol.
I think he meant that if you don't consider Pathfinder a subthingy of 3.5, it'd be on the list right below RIFTS (so third place) - Pathfinder and RIFTS are not at all similar.
I can buy off on that, but it is funnier the other way.
Edit: I am aware that they are very different, that is why I found the idea so funny.
Of course, I would imagine that is precisely what they do, but I do think the end result is that the old school, legacy aspect of the game is what ultimately ends up selling books and bringing in new players, so consciously or not, they are maintaining the legacy of D&D.
Then why the design shift from Tasha's, or the module style used for WbtW? Again, some of what ends up selling books and bringing in new players certainly is old school but some other things clearly aren't. Some old school approaches stand the test of time, some don't. "Old school" in and of itself is not a label of quality.
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Is it really such an impossible stretch of the imagination to posit that better design is what sells books, and "Old School" has nothing whatsoever to do with it? If a particular piece of design happens to align with Old School trends then cool, do that. But this ridiculous conspiracy-theory nonsense that "even subconsciously, everyone wants nothing but Old School OSR gaming and they just don't know it" is not only beyond ridiculous, it's actively anger-inducing.
Tasha's Cauldron hasn't backfired yet. Yes, elements on forums and such have carped about it because it upsets the applecart of Traditional Hero Races who cannot possibly do any wrong and makes murdering damn dirty greenskins root and branch less of a moral freebie, but in many places that decision has been lauded, not condemned. Tasha's sold like hotcakes despite being actually kind of a crappy book, and I haven't heard anything about Wild Beyond the Witchlight doing poorly despite being another goddamn pointless Predetermined Adventure book almost entirely useless for anyone not running Galactic Standard Faerun Adventures.
Man. It's almost like things change in the course of nearly fifty years, and people's tastes, desires, and tolerances with them. And trying to fix something down and make it permanent, unbending, unchanging, and eternal means it ends up abandoned instead of staying relevant...
I'm not particularly happy with Tasha's Cauldron of Afterthoughts, but it sold well and was well-recieved. It was successful, and saying it will backfire economically is frankly contrarian to actual evidence.
How much time, exactly? Another few months? A year? Two and a half years, to 2024? Five years? Ten? Twenty? Another fifty?
What will it take, BigLizard, and how many years have to pass before D&D is allowed to change? To grow, transform, and become something different and better than it was before?
How much time has to pass before someone can say "See? This was a perfectly good idea after all."?
WotC continues to try to win moral victories with modern design, both Tashas and WbtW will backfire economically, in particular Tasha's.
Tasha's has been out for almost a year an 5E is still firing on all cylinders. Paizo in the meantime is taking a hit because of some of their workplace practices, exacerbated by the fact that they were the TTRPG industry's poster child for inclusiveness. Even if Tasha's were 100% PR stunt, it's hard to see how it 's going to backfire from a design style POV.
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How much time, exactly? Another few months? A year? Two and a half years, to 2024? Five years? Ten? Twenty? Another fifty?
What will it take, BigLizard, and how many years have to pass before D&D is allowed to change? To grow, transform, and become something different and better than it was before?
How much time has to pass before someone can say "See? This was a perfectly good idea after all."?
When it goes from an optional supplement to THE rules, it will backfire. I would venture to guess it is WotC intention to push Tasha's as the new standard in whatever the next edition is, so 2024 I would guess is when this bill will come due.
Define "backfire" though.
I'm sure there will be a ton of articles raging and chaos on the forums and all that regular nonsense. But that happens online literally every single time any change happens in anything.
Here's the funny thing though, there'd also be a huge outrage if they went back to the "legacy" you love. Like I'll be honest, if the next book was like "We're bringing back negative ability scores. Half orcs suck at charisma again" I'd be gone in a nanosecond.
Also, I think you appeal to history a bit too much. You're going "Well, I've seen this before, so I know how it's gonna play out" reminds me of the people who claimed superhero movies featuring women were destined to fail. "Supergirl failed, Catwoman failed, Elektra failed, they all fail" was true. That didn't matter to Wonder Woman or Captain Marvel though, those made bank.
If every single big change in D&Ds past failed and backfired, that still doesn't mean the next one will. Even if the same people who hated the Supergirl movie hate Captain Marvel, or the same people who defended that movie defend it.
How much time, exactly? Another few months? A year? Two and a half years, to 2024? Five years? Ten? Twenty? Another fifty?
What will it take, BigLizard, and how many years have to pass before D&D is allowed to change? To grow, transform, and become something different and better than it was before?
How much time has to pass before someone can say "See? This was a perfectly good idea after all."?
When it goes from an optional supplement to THE rules, it will backfire. I would venture to guess it is WotC intention to push Tasha's as the new standard in whatever the next edition is, so 2024 I would guess is when this bill will come due.
They already changed it from an optional supplement to the base rules of how races/lineages now work in D&D 5e. Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft and The Wild Beyond the Witchlight already have this racial change to the base.
And guess what? They're selling well. There's been a bit of outrage and calls to boycott the books on troll sites filled with whiny, bigoted grognards like therpgsite.com, but the books are still selling really well.
Either people don't really care about this change enough to impact how the books are selling, or it's an overall positive change that's making people more likely to buy the books, despite the vocal minority of people that are complaining about it.
The change has already happened. The books are still selling really, really well. There is no "D&D Doomsday" happening because of it.
I am personally really exited for this new edition/whatever it is. I was beginning to get a bit bored of 5e, to be honest, and a revamp/redo/new edition/whatever the hell it is sound great! I’d like to see some more monster stuff; more lore, tables for stuff like lairs, encounter groups, motivations etc, more stat blocks (not an overload like the 4e MM1, just a few different ones. Or perhaps some like extra traits that can be applied to a basic stat block or something like that). I’d also like a DMG that actually explains how to DM (though all the tables and stuff in the current one are great), better encounter and monster-building rules, and a revamp of the classes and races (better balance, namely).
That’s about it. I am incredibly excited, especially since I won’t need to throw out all my current stuff. I honestly could not be happier.
EDIT: Correct me if I’ve got something wrong (I probably have), btw.
I think people overestimate the blowback that making flexible ASIs will bring. And to me it just feels like a weird hill to die on. The far more interesting racial features are still there, the ASIs to me are, while useful in terms of character power, the most boring of the racial abilities. Dwarves aren't getting trance and fey ancestry, halflings aren't getting hellish resistance and infernal legacy. The actual cultures of races are not being eroded into shapeless blobs because of flexible ASIs. All it really comes down it that the tiefling sorcerer and the high elven sorcerer can now start off on the same playing field in terms of being able to start in 16 of their main stat via point buy/standard array. If they were removing racial features altogether, I would get the fuss. Because the non asi related features are the ones, IMO, that are actually interesting and are more than just making a number on the character sheet higher.
I really doubt it's going to cause any sort of huge backlash though. Oh sure, there will be some people throwing up arms, but will it actually have a negative long term impact on finances? I doubt it. If the new book in2024 is plagued with issues aside from that, it could do poorly. But it won't be because of flexible ASIs. I don't think enough of the general D&D audience cares enough about it for there to be any sort of boycott on this particular issue, and then there are sections of the fanbase like me and the groups I play in where everyone sees this as a GOOD change.
Maybe it would have if 5E had launched with flexible ASIs. I don't know, I didn't play back then. But today, I really doubt it's going to be that big of a deal in general. Not now with the 5E playerbase having grown so much, with an influx of new players without tethers to the past or traditions from previous editions.
It's both amusing and kinda sad how predictable humans are. We think we're so advanced, so cultured, so 'evolved' from our ancestors and whatever was 'before'. But study history and philosophy across a multitude of cultures and the repetitive patterns of behaviour are clear. Absent the technology and population and we're not terribly dissimilar to who we were 100, 1,000 even 10,000 years ago. The scales tip in favour of one thing or another, against another thing or several and we think, "Progress!" But we, as a collective, never seem to view our journey from a holistic point of view, seeing how very little we've substantively changed in our overall behavioural patterns. We're so intrinsically terrified of genuine change that we cling to whatever we currently have as if it's being taken from us and we'll never get it back. The cycle continues, unabated, and we continue to delude ourselves that we're 'better'. Nostalgia isn't a drug, it's a poison. Of course, that's not to say that change is, in and of itself, a good thing or that tradition is a bad thing, only to say that it's just not that scary a thing and that if we were willing to embrace change instead of fight constantly against it, then maybe we could become 'better'.
I'm not the oldest D&D player and nor have I played it the longest, but I see these repeating patterns of behaviour within the communities, irrespective of the knowledge of those patterns or of the generation engaging in them or relative experience, and I wonder if we, as a microcosmic representative sample of humanity, will ever truly evolve toward something genuinely different or if we'll just continue as we were, repeating ad nauseam these same behaviours, until the end of time.
Fourth edition was a good system. C'est la vie.
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I wonder if PF2e was out at that time if Mercer would have gone that way or not...
I doubt we will see them move to a different system anytime soon but I would love to see more PF2e campaigns
Actually they started with D&D 4th edition as a one-shot for Liam's birthday. They then switched to Pathfinder. Matt actually played 4th edition readily (as mentioned in The World of Critical Role)
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Chevy Chase's portrayal of a party-wrecking "I'm chaotic neutral! I'm not a team player!" a*****e remains unequaled
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock)
Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric)
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Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
4E had an acceptance issue more than a design issue. Those same old school gamers who "righted D&D" were the ones to sink it in the first place. Now, it's totally fair to reject an edition because you don't like it, and in the end the majority rules and games evolve away from what isn't generally liked. That's what happened to 4E. But it's still happening to 5E as well: the way 5E is evolving now is nothing but an extension of WotC figuring out what hampers sales and what boosts them and applying that to their design decisions. And whether something is old school or not doesn't really matter; some things that work feel old school, some things that don't work feel old school, some things that work don't feel old school, and some things that don't work don't feel old school. The pertinent aspect for WotC is whether something works to make D&D more successful, not whether something is old school or not.
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If you read that again, I think you will find that he ran 4e the least out of all the editions listed there. That is not a stellar indorsement, but it is more than Pathfinder since it isn't listed at all.
She/Her Player and Dungeon Master
Read the followup tweet:
"Addendum! Pathfinder fits in with 3.5 in my mind, but if you don’t think so, I’d squeeze that in under RIFTS."
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
Still not listed on it's own. It is either 3.5 or Rifts, not a stand alone system in his mind lol.
She/Her Player and Dungeon Master
I think he meant that if you don't consider Pathfinder a subthingy of 3.5, it'd be on the list right below RIFTS (so third place) - Pathfinder and RIFTS are not at all similar.
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I can buy off on that, but it is funnier the other way.
Edit: I am aware that they are very different, that is why I found the idea so funny.
She/Her Player and Dungeon Master
Then why the design shift from Tasha's, or the module style used for WbtW? Again, some of what ends up selling books and bringing in new players certainly is old school but some other things clearly aren't. Some old school approaches stand the test of time, some don't. "Old school" in and of itself is not a label of quality.
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
I really do hate this argument. I hate it.
Is it really such an impossible stretch of the imagination to posit that better design is what sells books, and "Old School" has nothing whatsoever to do with it? If a particular piece of design happens to align with Old School trends then cool, do that. But this ridiculous conspiracy-theory nonsense that "even subconsciously, everyone wants nothing but Old School OSR gaming and they just don't know it" is not only beyond ridiculous, it's actively anger-inducing.
Stop it.
Just stop it.
Please do not contact or message me.
Tasha's Cauldron hasn't backfired yet. Yes, elements on forums and such have carped about it because it upsets the applecart of Traditional Hero Races who cannot possibly do any wrong and makes murdering damn dirty greenskins root and branch less of a moral freebie, but in many places that decision has been lauded, not condemned. Tasha's sold like hotcakes despite being actually kind of a crappy book, and I haven't heard anything about Wild Beyond the Witchlight doing poorly despite being another goddamn pointless Predetermined Adventure book almost entirely useless for anyone not running Galactic Standard Faerun Adventures.
Man. It's almost like things change in the course of nearly fifty years, and people's tastes, desires, and tolerances with them. And trying to fix something down and make it permanent, unbending, unchanging, and eternal means it ends up abandoned instead of staying relevant...
Please do not contact or message me.
I'm not particularly happy with Tasha's Cauldron of Afterthoughts, but it sold well and was well-recieved. It was successful, and saying it will backfire economically is frankly contrarian to actual evidence.
How much time, exactly? Another few months? A year? Two and a half years, to 2024? Five years? Ten? Twenty? Another fifty?
What will it take, BigLizard, and how many years have to pass before D&D is allowed to change? To grow, transform, and become something different and better than it was before?
How much time has to pass before someone can say "See? This was a perfectly good idea after all."?
Please do not contact or message me.
Tasha's has been out for almost a year an 5E is still firing on all cylinders. Paizo in the meantime is taking a hit because of some of their workplace practices, exacerbated by the fact that they were the TTRPG industry's poster child for inclusiveness. Even if Tasha's were 100% PR stunt, it's hard to see how it 's going to backfire from a design style POV.
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
Define "backfire" though.
I'm sure there will be a ton of articles raging and chaos on the forums and all that regular nonsense.
But that happens online literally every single time any change happens in anything.
Here's the funny thing though, there'd also be a huge outrage if they went back to the "legacy" you love.
Like I'll be honest, if the next book was like "We're bringing back negative ability scores. Half orcs suck at charisma again" I'd be gone in a nanosecond.
Also, I think you appeal to history a bit too much.
You're going "Well, I've seen this before, so I know how it's gonna play out" reminds me of the people who claimed superhero movies featuring women were destined to fail. "Supergirl failed, Catwoman failed, Elektra failed, they all fail" was true.
That didn't matter to Wonder Woman or Captain Marvel though, those made bank.
If every single big change in D&Ds past failed and backfired, that still doesn't mean the next one will.
Even if the same people who hated the Supergirl movie hate Captain Marvel, or the same people who defended that movie defend it.
They already changed it from an optional supplement to the base rules of how races/lineages now work in D&D 5e. Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft and The Wild Beyond the Witchlight already have this racial change to the base.
And guess what? They're selling well. There's been a bit of outrage and calls to boycott the books on troll sites filled with whiny, bigoted grognards like therpgsite.com, but the books are still selling really well.
Either people don't really care about this change enough to impact how the books are selling, or it's an overall positive change that's making people more likely to buy the books, despite the vocal minority of people that are complaining about it.
The change has already happened. The books are still selling really, really well. There is no "D&D Doomsday" happening because of it.
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I am personally really exited for this new edition/whatever it is. I was beginning to get a bit bored of 5e, to be honest, and a revamp/redo/new edition/whatever the hell it is sound great! I’d like to see some more monster stuff; more lore, tables for stuff like lairs, encounter groups, motivations etc, more stat blocks (not an overload like the 4e MM1, just a few different ones. Or perhaps some like extra traits that can be applied to a basic stat block or something like that). I’d also like a DMG that actually explains how to DM (though all the tables and stuff in the current one are great), better encounter and monster-building rules, and a revamp of the classes and races (better balance, namely).
That’s about it. I am incredibly excited, especially since I won’t need to throw out all my current stuff. I honestly could not be happier.
EDIT: Correct me if I’ve got something wrong (I probably have), btw.
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I think people overestimate the blowback that making flexible ASIs will bring. And to me it just feels like a weird hill to die on. The far more interesting racial features are still there, the ASIs to me are, while useful in terms of character power, the most boring of the racial abilities. Dwarves aren't getting trance and fey ancestry, halflings aren't getting hellish resistance and infernal legacy. The actual cultures of races are not being eroded into shapeless blobs because of flexible ASIs. All it really comes down it that the tiefling sorcerer and the high elven sorcerer can now start off on the same playing field in terms of being able to start in 16 of their main stat via point buy/standard array. If they were removing racial features altogether, I would get the fuss. Because the non asi related features are the ones, IMO, that are actually interesting and are more than just making a number on the character sheet higher.
I really doubt it's going to cause any sort of huge backlash though. Oh sure, there will be some people throwing up arms, but will it actually have a negative long term impact on finances? I doubt it. If the new book in2024 is plagued with issues aside from that, it could do poorly. But it won't be because of flexible ASIs. I don't think enough of the general D&D audience cares enough about it for there to be any sort of boycott on this particular issue, and then there are sections of the fanbase like me and the groups I play in where everyone sees this as a GOOD change.
Maybe it would have if 5E had launched with flexible ASIs. I don't know, I didn't play back then. But today, I really doubt it's going to be that big of a deal in general. Not now with the 5E playerbase having grown so much, with an influx of new players without tethers to the past or traditions from previous editions.
It's both amusing and kinda sad how predictable humans are. We think we're so advanced, so cultured, so 'evolved' from our ancestors and whatever was 'before'. But study history and philosophy across a multitude of cultures and the repetitive patterns of behaviour are clear. Absent the technology and population and we're not terribly dissimilar to who we were 100, 1,000 even 10,000 years ago. The scales tip in favour of one thing or another, against another thing or several and we think, "Progress!" But we, as a collective, never seem to view our journey from a holistic point of view, seeing how very little we've substantively changed in our overall behavioural patterns. We're so intrinsically terrified of genuine change that we cling to whatever we currently have as if it's being taken from us and we'll never get it back. The cycle continues, unabated, and we continue to delude ourselves that we're 'better'. Nostalgia isn't a drug, it's a poison. Of course, that's not to say that change is, in and of itself, a good thing or that tradition is a bad thing, only to say that it's just not that scary a thing and that if we were willing to embrace change instead of fight constantly against it, then maybe we could become 'better'.
I'm not the oldest D&D player and nor have I played it the longest, but I see these repeating patterns of behaviour within the communities, irrespective of the knowledge of those patterns or of the generation engaging in them or relative experience, and I wonder if we, as a microcosmic representative sample of humanity, will ever truly evolve toward something genuinely different or if we'll just continue as we were, repeating ad nauseam these same behaviours, until the end of time.
Fourth edition was a good system. C'est la vie.
"Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation."
― Oscar Wilde.