D&D 5E [Poll] Do You Like The Direction D&DN Is Heading In?

The more things go one, the more I find that I'm probably going to end up sticking with Pathfinder. I think part of this is due to the fact that I'm not in love with any of WotC's settings, and if I wanted to run one, I could with Pathfinder. I actually really like Golarion as a setting and enjoy the feel of Pathfinder as a whole over all. I will surely be buying the D&DN core books when they come out, but I don't think that they will really grab me like Pathfinder has. I suppose my tastes have just changed.

Firelance - in all honesty, I think it's easier to go the other way. Layer 4e style mechanics over the basic Next chasis.

Next already has fairly flat line math that is very transparent, so, designing a suite of AEDU style powers for a class wouldn't be all that difficult, although perhaps time consuming. Next already has things like a Fighter's Combat Superiority dice, so, the idea of encounter powers (and the balancing that goes with that) is already in there. And Next's healing mechanics with the dice pool hit points isn't that far from healing surges.

I can see a basic Next rulebook that gives you the chasis and is entirely playable in its own right. Layer over that a "Ultimate Tactics" type splatbook and you've got a 4e combat engine pretty much out of the gate.

We'll have to see with the next release whether or not things like Skill Challenges can be layered in easily or not.

Hussar said:

Firelance - in all honesty, I think it's easier to go the other way. Layer 4e style mechanics over the basic Next chasis.

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Frankly, I'm not sure that 5e has got the baseline math right. The current approach seems to be to balance the game assuming the PCs have no magic items at all, and the more magic items they have, the easier it gets. I think 4e handles a game with no magic items better (i.e. use inherent bonuses, or use weaker monsters) than 5e looks like it is going to be able to handle a magic-item heavy game.

I'd agree with that Firelance. Then again, every iteration of D&D has lessened the expected number of magic items considerably. Not a bit problem trend, IMO. I'd rather the party has one or two interesting items per character than 10-15, most of which are +1 lumpy thing.

IMO, setting the math so that magic items, or inherent bonuses, are required is not necessary. All that's needed is to keep bonuses down and provide solid DM advice about how magic items will effect a campaign. Basically, if characters all have a +1 weapon and +1 armor then they're effectively one level higher when considering level-appropriateness, or some such. With such advice, the increased importance of a +1 magic item within the bounded accuracy becomes a feature, not a bug.

I've played plenty of games with sub-optimal rules that were lots of fun. So however it turns out I'm happy to play any version a DM in our group wants to try out as long as I don't have to by my own copies of the books until I know its going to stick.

But I'm not going to spend time developing campaign material or house ruling anything that doesn't have something OGLish with it.

Cadence said:

I've played plenty of games with sub-optimal rules that were lots of fun. So however it turns out I'm happy to play any version a DM in our group wants to try out as long as I don't have to by my own copies of the books until I know its going to stick.

But I'm not going to spend time developing campaign material or house ruling anything that doesn't have something OGLish with it.

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Just out of curiousity, how much OGL material did you use with your last 3e/3.5e game? I mean, how many third party publisher books, say, as a percentage, saw use at your table?

Because, for me, I realized I was the only one at the table with any interest at all in OGL material. Everyone I played with was WOTC only. So, I'm wondering, for someone who professes to refuse to play a non-OGL (ish) game, how much OGL was actually seeing use at your table?

((Obviously if you're currently playing Pathfinder, that would be 100%, but, I'm talking about 3e/3.5.))

Hussar said:

Because, for me, I realized I was the only one at the table with any interest at all in OGL material. Everyone I played with was WOTC only. So, I'm wondering, for someone who professes to refuse to play a non-OGL (ish) game, how much OGL was actually seeing use at your table?

((Obviously if you're currently playing Pathfinder, that would be 100%, but, I'm talking about 3e/3.5.))

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When it was 3/3.5 most of the stuff actually being used at the table was the core books. Of the non-core stuff purchased (even if little used in play) a decent percent was not WotC.

Of course I didn't threaten not to play non-OGL things -- I'm happy to make a character if someone wants to run it. I just that I'm no interested in sinking time into DMing/world building/massive-rule-hacking if it was non-OGL. In terms of what a standard OGL like 3.5 brings, a lot of it is just mental sweetener to justify the inevitable amount of extra time I sink into world building, even if I'm only signed up to be running for a short stint.

1) I like that the basic rules are always going to be out there -- so I can imagine still using it years down the road without depending on whether the group I'm playing with still has copies of the old edition or can find them on e-bay. This also makes me happier to put money into buying the non-core books for the system since I can at least pretend there's a better chance they'll be used for the long haul (even if only sporadically).

2) I really like the thought that I could take whatever I've worked on and publish it (or even just post it for the general public without fear of a cease and desist). Anything I make is "something that's mine" instead of just being "fan fiction" -- even if I never decide it's good enough to put it out there for the general public.

But now PF has spoiled me. I buy the books I use stuff from regularly, but I like to be able to legally browse the material I only want a snippet from. And I really like having data bases out there like what Crystal Keep did for 3.5 before WotC told them to take them down (although they seem to be available elsewhere now).

I completely understand why a publisher wouldn't want to OGL their product like that though!

Hussar said:

Because, for me, I realized I was the only one at the table with any interest at all in OGL material. Everyone I played with was WOTC only. So, I'm wondering, for someone who professes to refuse to play a non-OGL (ish) game, how much OGL was actually seeing use at your table?

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I'm not Cadence, but the answer for me is: A lot.

My players are all using WotC classes, but all of them have equipment from OGL sources and the spellcasters use a lot of OGL spells. Meanwhile, as DM, my use of OGL material is extensive. The books I'm currently carrying to the table are: PHB, DMG, MM, Tome of Magic, Ptolus, Chaositech, and Dynasties and Demagogues. But all of the pre-published adventures I'm using in the current campaign are OGL. And my original prep work is chock full of the stuff. And my binder of house rules is primarily made of nifty stuff from OGL supplements that I don't necessarily want to carry to the table.

For example, a typical original adventure I've prepped for the campaign includes material from: AEG's Evil, AEG's Undead, Creatures of Freeport, Alchemy & Herbalists, Traps & Treachery, Traps & Treachery 2, Necromantic Lore, Monsternomicon, Book of Eldritch Might, Spells and Spellcraft, ENCritters 2, Serpent Amphora, Spells and Magic, Tome of Horrors, Dungeon Crawl Classic 5.5, Kobold Quarterly, Where Dark Elves Rule, and Tome of Drow Lore.

The rich and diverse library of supplemental material that the OGL created for 3.0/3.5 is basically the reason the 3rd Edition has been my primary RPG system for the past decade and a half. It's not just that it simplifies my prep load; it also enriches it with a constant stream of creativity that I can mix and remix with my own. Plus, whenever I'm looking to start a new tentpole campaign, there's almost always some OGL product that's enticing me: Whether it's a great introductory module like Tynes' Three Days to Kill or Cook's Banewarrens or Green Ronin's Freeport or Necromancer's Rappan Athuk or any of the other dozen D&D campaigns I'd love to pick up and play.

I'm pretty comfortable saying that if it wasn't for the OGL, I probably wouldn't still be playing D&D. I spent the decade before 3E came out swapping game systems all the time. I'm guessing I'd have spent the last decade doing the exact same thing if there wasn't a constant stream of diverse, creative products being released.

Oh, hey, I wasn't a pretty frequent contributor on the World's Largest Dungeon thread (and a ream of the errata for the same) because I was playing all WOTC all the time. And the two or three campaigns run in Scarred Lands are something I'm rather proud of. It's just that I was the only one in our group. No one else ever showed the slightest interest in OGL material.

Heck, I'd make it available and no one would show the slightest interest. Even equipment or spells weren't really twigging the slightest twitch of interest.

I mean, I look at my 3e/3.5 collection and, other than the core books, I own very, very few WOTC books at all. I do have a complete line of Scarred Lands, a raft of AEG books and a boatload of other stuff. But, like I said, I was the only one.

I really wonder if the OGL is subject to the Gnome Effect.