After DDXP, how are you feeling about D&En?

[Bobbum Man]

They treated us like equals. Gentlemen and gentlewomen agreements work best with mutual respect on both sides I think.

I suppose that makes sense, since those of us taking part uin the playtest will have a hand in development of the game alongside the designers.

I would ask this one, nonspecific question though...during the playtest, were the mechanics front and center, or did they fade into the background during the action. That is to say, was the gameplay more decriptive or more metagame-y, in your estimation?

 

[Charles Dunwoody]

I suppose that makes sense, since those of us taking part uin the playtest will have a hand in development of the game alongside the designers.

I would ask this one, nonspecific question though...during the playtest, were the mechanics front and center, or did they fade into the background during the action. That is to say, was the gameplay more decriptive or more metagame-y, in your estimation?

Completely personal opinion is that you could turn focusing on your character sheet on and off during the game. If you wanted to do something cool you could either describe it or you could hunt for something to match it on your sheet. If you couldn't find it, you could still describe it and the DM could help you. This bit of rules legerdemain was what most impressed me and has to be experienced to be believed.

The DM couldn't show us his rules but he seemed confident in responding and it seemed consistant (standard procedure seemed to exist to show the DM how to handle a player saying, "I want to do X, what do I do?").

Put another way, 4E tried to provide this advice to the DM with that table of difficulty classes and scaling damages by level. Ironically, this info was on a clunky table and perhaps not surprisingly many DMs didn't use it or even know about it. Seminar on skills touched on the new version of the 4E rule I believe.

The way the DM ran it this time seemed like that classic 4E idea distilled from a clunky table into elegant modern mechanics. However, all personal opinion on my part as the DM did not let us see the rules he used (he respected his NDA as well).

 

[paladinm]

I think from what I've read, I'm encouraged about going back to a more old-school "feel" (which kind of started in Essentials). While I like having a common XP/advancement chart, I do feel that the level/power pegging in 4e was overkill. I think that it's good that they're reworking feats, and that there will hopefully be less of them. I also like the idea of "themes" as opposed to separate classes for most things. IMHO, classes should involve actual powers/abilities, not "purpose". Avenger is a good theme for divine classes; Warlord could be a good theme for fighters.

A thought about the "Great Wheel".. I approve of the nine alignment system of v.1-3x, but I don't see that this has to dictate cosmology. In all the mythologies, there were deities of differing alignment that coexisted in the same "realm". Asgard included Loki. Olympus included Ares. I would like to see the nine alignments restored, but leave cosmology up to the game setting.

 

[gyor]

This. The latest seminar leaves me incredibly skeptical of their self-professed "inclusiveness" of all editions and play styles, and is starting to feel more about what these particular designers want rather than what D&D Gamers Universal want.

They're just floating some ideas around like the great wheel, which really has been the default cosmology for most of the editions, with 4e being the outlier again.

In fact 4e is so different from previous editions that its the hardest to include in the mix, but I do believe they're trying.

 

[Starglyte]

Meh, but slightly positive. Going to wait for some transcripts from playtesting or the open playtest itself. Still got a whole year before even we will see the game sold, so no rush.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

They're just floating some ideas around like the great wheel, which really has been the default cosmology for most of the editions, with 4e being the outlier again.

If you count 2E and 3E as "most", maybe. The great wheel was so tacked on and under construction in 1E, that it was hardly the "default" then. And it certainly wasn't in Basic or earlier. This is one way in which 4E returned to the roots of the game--the Great Wheel was something that could work, but was not assumed. You were expected to make up some of the cosmology yourself and/or adapt it to your purposes. The problem with the Great Wheel as the default is the same problem as 2E alignments--too many little fingers in too many spots to easily change. (And those two being that kind of problem are not unrelated, either.)

 

[gyor]

4e had its own assumed cosmology with the shadowfell, elemental chaos, Astral Sea, and feywild. I'm bettering the do keep elements of the 4e's cosmology, such as the feywild and shadowfell, maybe even the elemental chaos, making a blend of the great wheel and the 4everse.

 

[Nikosandros]

So far, I'm in the yay! camp. I like most of what I've read and I agree with what seem to be the guiding principles behind this edition. I'm not sure that they can pull off everything that they are promising, but I'm optimistic.

One thing that I haven't appreciated is the idea that a character must make trade-offs between combat capabilities and non-combat capabilities. I would prefer a paradigm in which you can, in general, have characters that are equally viable for all three "pillars" (combat, exploration, social interaction).

Another potential issue is that of multi-classing. 3e style is very flexible, but extremely hard to balance. I would also like to have some option for AD&D style or 4e hybridization.

 

[Osgood]

My group and I made the trip to DDXP for the play test. We were all pretty excited to see what was in the works. We were even more excited when our DM was Monte Cook.

Sadly, even with an awesome DM, when we left the enthusiasm for D&D Next had bottomed out. While there were a few things some of us liked, our overall impression was very negative.

Obliviously this is a very early draft of the game. It was also the base version with no modules added on. I hope things will change by the time this gets released, but the core of the game didn't do it for me. Speaking as a fan of 4E who also loved each edition of D&D more than the previous one, as it stands now D&D Next was not a game I would really want to play again.

 

[Agamon]

NOBODY broke the NDA all weekend...and it's not like WotC has any way to really enforce it.

What the hell did they threaten you people with???

Maybe they actually did say they come to your house and burn all your old books....