So there will be a fifth edition of the World’s Most Popular Roleplaying Game:
http://wizards.com/dnd/Article.aspx?x=dnd/4ll/20120109
The playtest version is available soon, May 24. Interesting that this is very much how Pathfinder was developed. I wonder if they are feeling the heat from Paizo?
If you are curious about what they have in mind for the new edition, check out this exhaustive analysis:
http://www.enworld.org/index.php?page=dnd5e
Interestingly, they are also reprinting the old 1st edition AD&D books (yeah!):
http://www.wizards.com/dnd/product.aspx?x=dnd/products/dndacc/02410000
And the old DUNGEON boardgame (which at $14, is a must-buy):
I’d like to see something like a dedicated Google+ area for rpg’s. Make it really seamless so that people can play remotely without losing the immediacy of face-to-face play. It would have to include a way to share documents, maps, and behind-the-scenes information.
I’m always excited to see development along these lines even though I’ll probably never get to play the game.
I would hope that the updates make use of mobile devices to help with game play. Many of the rules we used to ignore would have made the game better but we didn’t feel like adding the drudgery of using all of them. Most of the slowed down parts of game nights when people were bored and loosing interest were spent looking up rules or calculating what rolls had to be made.
The developers must address the advantages that computers and mobile devices offer if they want any chance of winning any market share from them.