Things to consider (all of this is just slightly-informed speculation, based mostly on being active in the RPGA for a very long time):
It seems extremely likely to me that, unless 5E has very strong backwards compatability to 4E (and, based on what I've read so far, I'd be surprised if it does), the current LFR campaign will probably end at, or shortly after, the formal release of 5E.
This prognostication is based on a couple of bits of historical precedence:
1) The RPGA's old Living City campaign was originally a 2E campaign. When 3E was coming out, the RPGA polled its players on how to proceed, and, based on player request / demand, Living City converted from 2E to 3E. This conversion was widely considered, in retrospect, to have been a poor idea, as the editions were different enough that the conversion did not work smoothly or fairly.
2) During the 3x era, the RPGA had a very strong, global OP campaign in Living Greyhawk (a campaign which was chugging along quite well up until the announcement of 4E at GenCon '07, which caught a lot of players flat-footed). At that point, the LG staff was given until mid-2008 to wrap up all of their storylines, as the final new LG adventures were mandated to be released no later than Origins 2008 (which was in late June) -- the first 4E books came out in May '08, and LFR started at GenCon '08. With 4E being a radical departure from 3.x, the decision was made to start a new OP campaign, rather than continue / convert the existing OP campaign. (It may also be that there was a desire in WotC to switch to a campaign world which was being actively supported by the company, as well.)
Additionally, as RPGA / WotC OP now exists to support sales of WotC products, they weren't going to continue supporting a 3.5 campaign, when they were no longer selling 3.5 books. I don't see that this policy would change when WotC ceases selling 4E books.
There's also the as-yet-unanswered question as to what form D&D OP will take with 5E. As we've seen in recent years, WotC seems to be going away from the traditional "Living Campaign" model, with their emphasis on Excursions and Lair Assault, and LFR being run more independently of WotC's direct control. I guess it would not surprise me if WotC did not have an official Living-style campaign at all with 5E.
Finally, we've seen that WotC doesn't give the LFR staff new books or other materials in advance of their general release. ISTR, also, that the LFR staff didn't have a whole lot of lead time to put together the initial campaign structure and adventures (they might have gotten 4E materials a bit early, but not tremendously so). Given that 5E will likely not be released until next summer, there's probably very little that whoever WotC assigns to 5E OP (which may or may not be people currently involved with LFR administration) could be doing to "plan for" it.
"Of course [Richard] has a knife. He always has a knife. We all have knives. It's 1183, and we're barbarians!" - Eleanor of Aquitaine, "The Lion in Winter"
Alternate theory: something is being worked on, and will be announced when NDAs allow it to be announced.
"Of course [Richard] has a knife. He always has a knife. We all have knives. It's 1183, and we're barbarians!" - Eleanor of Aquitaine, "The Lion in Winter"
It seems extremely likely to me that, unless 5E has very strong backwards compatibility to 4E (and, based on what I've read so far, I'd be surprised if it does), the current LFR campaign will probably end at, or shortly after, the formal release of 5E.
Agreed. I've heard Wizards OP staff say that Living City really taught us to never attempt a conversion. And, really, I agree. Think of something like LG... how do you convert those PCs? It's a nightmare. Similarly, we can look at 4E and current playtests of Next and it is clear a conversion would be difficult. An additional issue is that conversions bring in players at higher levels. For a new edition you want players to learn the system naturally, starting with new characters. I would say the chances of conversion should be really close to 0%.
Somewhat similarly, I don't see a good reason to maintain storylines. When you have new PCs and new mechanics you also have a perfect time to change your campaign, refresh the story, try new things, etc. That's even if the new campaign would be in FR.
During the 3x era, the RPGA had a very strong, global OP campaign in Living Greyhawk (a campaign which was chugging along quite well up until the announcement of 4E at GenCon '07, which caught a lot of players flat-footed).
I'm not sure Wizards properly understands how poorly the situation was handled with regards to the player base, but especially with regards to the admins that had serious work invested toward many more years of LG and felt the rug was pulled out from under them. I know a couple of LG admins who went from incredibly dedicated fans to not touching 4E ever because they so hated the way it was handled. I've mentioned this to a few Wizards people, but I'm not sure to what extent it is understood.
That said, there is recognition that admins need more of a heads up (I'm just not sure how much of one - might be great, might not be). As has been said, various individuals were brought into Wizards' offices in December 2011 to discuss OP, and at that time also playtested Next. One of the admins for LFR said at some point that there were conversations about LFR at some point. My take home, not knowing anything, is that so far admins are being brought in to a certain extent.
As an Ashes of Athas admin I'm a bit removed from current discussions. We aren't central to Wizards' plans the way LFR is. We also had already announced plans to end the campaign after a few years (current plan is January 2013). That could change if Wizards wanted a certain time-frame (we've alwasy told them we are happy to adjust for their benefit).
There's also the as-yet-unanswered question as to what form D&D OP will take with 5E. As we've seen in recent years, WotC seems to be going away from the traditional "Living Campaign" model, with their emphasis on Excursions and Lair Assault, and LFR being run more independently of WotC's direct control. I guess it would not surprise me if WotC did not have an official Living-style campaign at all with 5E.
The new Gen Con page went up yesterday, and it is very interesting to see the new term "D&D Community Campaign" used for the traditional Living/RPGA content. It is also interesting to see these events put in one room (with no special collectible die reward) and Next and other events taking place elsewhere.
The big question is whether there will be the conclusion that traditional RPGA campaigns are no longer needed, or that they can be ancillary/independent. Even when I try to remove my personal bias, I think that would be a mistake. I keep seeing clear signs that there are many demographics in play and that the greatest benefit to Wizards is to create various vehicles that speak to as many of those demographics as possible. We can look to how Pathfinder Society has been so integral to Paizo as an example of the benefits. Importantly, we can look to PFS personnel and find many people that were once big in the RPGA and now consider their home to be PFS. That's a form of brain drain that hurts the brand and marketing of D&D.
ISTR, also, that the LFR staff didn't have a whole lot of lead time to put together the initial campaign structure and adventures (they might have gotten 4E materials a bit early, but not tremendously so). Given that 5E will likely not be released until next summer, there's probably very little that whoever WotC assigns to 5E OP (which may or may not be people currently involved with LFR administration) could be doing to "plan for" it.
As I recall, they had some early/limited drafts (such as some monsters but not all). Regardless, that's often unavoidable - if you want to launch the new campaign when the books release then you have to deal with low knowledge. The best approach is to keep things simple and focused on what makes great adventures. As an example, the Dark Sun Arenas event came out before the Dark Sun books were released and yet were really well done. That was in part because 4E was a known entity, but with D&D Next having an open playtest that should be a bit easier than it was for early LFR (where 4E was such a departure from what anyone had seen and playtesting had been so limited).
In the end, the big question is around Wizards' vision. I'm sure Next could have great living play if Wizards wants it to exist. I think that will be the case, but I'm never sure. Over the years Wizards' opinion of OP has changed drastically and often quickly.
Finally, we've seen that WotC doesn't give the LFR staff new books or other materials in advance of their general release.
Are you sure of that? I thought that one of the benefits was getting the books on a slightly pre-release schedule.
Granted, I'm not campaign staff, so I may well be wrong, but I strongly suspect that, if they get books early, it's not very early. One can look at any number of threads on this board, in which players ask about "Is {rules item from book that came out last week} legal in LFR?", and the response is nearly always, "We just got it ourselves, so please give us a little time to digest it before we can make a ruling."
"Of course [Richard] has a knife. He always has a knife. We all have knives. It's 1183, and we're barbarians!" - Eleanor of Aquitaine, "The Lion in Winter"
Global Admins getting routine pubs is probably not much in advance of store release. However, starting a new campaign is different. For LFR and 4E, the campaign was announced at Gencon 07, staff selection was completed (as I recall) by October 07, and in January 08 we had received the pre-publication proofs of the PHB, DMG, and MM. A few changes were made due to observations of teaser adventures at DDXP08, and all the campaign staff received final, printed copies of the published books by or just before they were publically released.
I assume that Chris Tulach has probably talked to the LFR Global Admins, but as to who is developing the Next campaign and what will it look like, I guess we will know when it is announced. WotC has not announced yet when 4e ends and 5e starts, just that they are working on it.
Do not assume the present LFR campaign staff just rolls into Next campaign, anymore than the LG staff rolled into LFR, or LC into LG.
It seems extremely likely to me that, unless 5E has very strong backwards compatibility to 4E (and, based on what I've read so far, I'd be surprised if it does), the current LFR campaign will probably end at, or shortly after, the formal release of 5E.
Agreed. I've heard Wizards OP staff say that Living City really taught us to never attempt a conversion. And, really, I agree. Think of something like LG... how do you convert those PCs? It's a nightmare. Similarly, we can look at 4E and current playtests of Next and it is clear a conversion would be difficult. An additional issue is that conversions bring in players at higher levels. For a new edition you want players to learn the system naturally, starting with new characters. I would say the chances of conversion should be really close to 0%.
I think that was in part due to how badly the official 3e conversion document was set up. You could have two characters with identical experience scores have wildly different levels based solely on how they had multiclassed.
The official example is a character who is a Ftr/Wiz/Thf of 8/9/9. That means he has somewhere between 135000 and 160000 per class, or roughly 450000 XP. A Fighter with even 480000 XP is still a 9th level character. The conversion document put that specific multiclassed character at 14th.
The goal should have been to have a conversion document where you take a gaming group where everyone had the same amount of XP and therefore all ended up at the same level in 3e. I'm not sure if Living City used that document or not as that was before my RPGA time, but if they did, that would have been a monkey wrench.
Somewhat similarly, I don't see a good reason to maintain storylines. When you have new PCs and new mechanics you also have a perfect time to change your campaign, refresh the story, try new things, etc. That's even if the new campaign would be in FR.
I think things would need to be changed simply from the standpoint that the way combats are set up are going to be wildly different - presumably they're going to want adventures that demonstrate both gridded and gridless combat and not necessarily set# of encounters. And going straight to say 14th level is going to create a lot of issues with expectations being unrealistic.
The goal should have been to have a conversion document where you take a gaming group where everyone had the same amount of XP and therefore all ended up at the same level in 3e. I'm not sure if Living City used that document or not as that was before my RPGA time, but if they did, that would have been a monkey wrench.
Players could barely endure the conversion docs that came out within the edition! Each conversion that came out (there were at least three?) was met with storms of criticism and demands for all sorts of candy. There is no way any conversion document for an actual edition would be accepted by the community. The player of the gnome will say that the race was key to their experience (and probably it was). The player of the Arcane Trickster will say that prestige class was key to their build (and it almost certainly was). Gnomes and Arcane Tricksters didn't exist with early 4E, so you end up with problems and unhappiness. Yeah, you can say "just build something", but then you aren't converting - you are rebuilding and leaving everyone unhappy. When most will be unhappy, it is far easier to just not convert. After all, with a new campaign you don't want to start PCs at all sorts of different levels and with different stories they want to somehow maintain. Said simply: with a new edition you want a new campaign, so why go through the trouble of converting?
I think things would need to be changed simply from the standpoint that the way combats are set up are going to be wildly different - presumably they're going to want adventures that demonstrate both gridded and gridless combat and not necessarily set# of encounters. And going straight to say 14th level is going to create a lot of issues with expectations being unrealistic.
I don't think the nature of combat is a big deal. While I expect some adjustments, it hasn't been hard for my group to write 4-hour Next playtest adventures. The experience can be quite similar to that of 3E adventures and not that different from 4E. For example, I might have a minor den of many monsters before having a second fight, some RP, and then the final fight. That's similar to many 3E adventures and only a bit different from 4E. The components are very different, but I don't find it to be a reason to switch campaigns. The reasons to switch campaigns, for me, are around energy levels, new stories to bring in new players, opportunities to bring in what you have learned, starting fresh, being approachable, new staff, try new things, etc.
I don't think the nature of combat is a big deal. While I expect some adjustments, it hasn't been hard for my group to write 4-hour Next playtest adventures. The experience can be quite similar to that of 3E adventures and not that different from 4E. For example, I might have a minor den of many monsters before having a second fight, some RP, and then the final fight. That's similar to many 3E adventures and only a bit different from 4E. The components are very different, but I don't find it to be a reason to switch campaigns.
That's precisely my point. It isn't different compared to many 3E or 4E adventures. And it should be.
One of the points that the R&D seems to think is valuable is that you could have an hour to play D&D, spend 30 minutes on the combat pillar, and end up fighting 2-3 combats. If you have 4 hours, 3 hours of which is devoted to the combats as many LFR mods tend to be, then you shouldn't be fighting only 3 fights. Say 6 combats of 15 minutes each in the Theatre of the Mind(TotM) and 2 45 minute combats on the grid.
8 combats might sound wildly improbable from a 3e/4e perspective, but that's thoroughly plausible from a D&D Next perspective. Now whether or not that succeeds or not, I don't know - but just as there has been pressure on the 4e OP to use Skill Challenges when they weren't working all too well, I think there's going to be pressure on the OP community to significantly use TotM in every adventure. Regardless of whether or not the OP community players like it initially or not or possibly ever.
Changing those expectations with 1st level characters and a new campaign is a lot easier than trying to change expectations at a higher level game.
