Wizards of the Coast have announced that they are hard at work on developing an all new edition of their popular tabletop RPG, Dungeons and Dragons. This will be the fifth major edition of the gaming franchise originally created and released in 1974 by Gary Gygax.
“We’re focusing on what gets people excited about D&D, and making sure we have a game that encompasses all different styles,” said Mike Mearls, group manager for the D&D R and D team. “Even if you haven’t played in 20 years, we want you to be able to sit down and say, ‘this is D&D.’”
The game has gone through many changes with each new edition. These changes have been made to enhance gameplay or to correct issues that were broken to cause problems in gameplay in previous editions. Wizard is currently evaluating the previous editions to identify the elements that worked best to incorporate into the newest edition. Wizard will also be hosting several events to allow players to test and play with the new edition to help weed out what does and does not work.
Some editions do not sit well with the fans, 2008’s 4th Edition set caused much controversy among the fans. The company focused on working on the game mechanics, and fans felt they borrowed too heavily from the World Of Warcraft series when developing the gameplay.
“We want to bring the fan base along with us and involve them,” says Liz Schuh, brand director at Wizards of the Coast. “We want to get as broad a sampling of players as we possibly can, even people who haven’t bought a product in years.”
