D&D 5E Guidelines for D&D Next playtest/adventure discussion here at ENW

Piratecat · May 23, 2012

Please don't:

Repost any mechanics (but see below)
Post any of the rules or character sheets
Create video blogs or podcasts of live play
Put game mechanics into shared adventures
Edition war

Please do:

Discuss your opinions
Thrash out what works and what doesn't
Stay polite to people you completely disagree with
Share adventures with generic mechanics ("This room has 4 goblins in it.")
Share your experience in actual play
EDIT: from WotC: "You can talk about your current and previous playtest experiences and even talk about the rules and mechanics as long as you don’t directly quote text."

UPDATE:

You may now run online games via Skype, Google Hangout or our play-by-post forum provided you to do not post or upload any transcripts from your playtest, upload any playtest materials and make sure that all members of your group have signed up to playtest through the official playtest sign up process.

Questions?

Kinak · May 23, 2012

Piratecat said:
Put game mechanics into shared adventures
Share adventures with generic mechanics ("This room has 4 goblins in it.")

Which of these would you say adding new monsters would fall under?

Any group can only fight so many goblins and it would be nice to share advice on expanding the range of possible adventures.

Cheers!
Kinak

nnms · May 23, 2012

Piratecat said:
Please don't:

Repost any mechanics

Questions?

If I am looking to make sure I'm running the game as written or have a question about how to use the rules to resolve things, how do I ask about that? And how does anyone give me a meaningful answer without doing the above?

Kurtomatic · May 23, 2012

nnms said:
If I am looking to make sure I'm running the game as written or have a question about how to use the rules to resolve things, how do I ask about that? And how does anyone give me a meaningful answer without doing the above?

I believe WotC said something recently about putting together a dedicated playtest forum specifically for this purpose. I hope they'll have something to say about this Thursday.

Herremann the Wise · May 23, 2012

Piratecat said:
Please don't:

Repost any mechanics...

Please do:

Discuss your opinions
Thrash out what works and what doesn't
...

Questions?

Just enquiring as to where the line is in regard to reposting any mechanics. For example, imagine the hit point and hit dice discussion and mechanics in the latest L&L. Could I suggest tweaks to the hit dice mechanic as part of discussion? Am I allowed to refer to a particular part of the hit point rules highlighting it's excellence? Do I just have to leave it at "we found positives and negatives with the new hit point and hit die mechanics"?

Apologies for the questions but some examples of what is cool and what is not might help to make the line really clear to everyone.

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise

hbarsquared · May 23, 2012

I want to stay as true as I can to the spirit of the playtest and the ENWorld forums...

What about derived mechanics? Rules that may not be spelled out but we might be able to figure out?

As in, figuring out or hypothesizing that hp or bonuses are calculated with a guessed formula? Or predicting that particular abilities are slotted for background/theme/class/race?

Tom Servo · May 23, 2012

Piratecat said:
Please don't:

Repost any mechanics
Post any of the rules or character sheets

I foresee some very strange threads in the next few weeks as we all dance around the issues and avoid speaking of things directly.

Blackwarder · May 23, 2012

Is that NDA related? Otherwise it's seems very wired not being able to reference actual rules as written while discussing them.

Warder

hafrogman · May 23, 2012

Blackwarder said:
Is that NDA related? Otherwise it's seems very wired not being able to reference actual rules as written while discussing them.

It's probably more of a 'do not redistribute in whole or in part' kind of clause. Nobody is supposed to see the mechanics except people who have agreed to their EULA (or whatever it ends up being).

It'd be a fine line of how much mechanical detail is too much to reveal. Easiest way for ENWorld to moderate that kind of thing is to simply say "no" outright. No question of where the line is. No question of 'death by small parts'.

vagabundo · May 23, 2012

It should be possible to talk about the mechanics without reposting them. We do it all the time on these boards because we work from a common resource. It would be rare to see a rule posted verbatim in quotes.

Easy to avoid I think.