D&D (2024) It feels so much like the D&D Next playtest did

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Nope, but if 'everything good' was shouted down, and its already crazy successful, am I to accept that everything shouted down was actually good, or perhaps there are reasons it wasnt included?

Or the game could have been even more popular if those changes weren't shouted down.

We don't know one way or the other. "What ifs" are pointless questions.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

what does that mean for a setting like Dark Sun on 6E/D&D One?

Well, they restricted race options for Theros and Ravnica and background options for Strixhaven. It's certainly in the realm of possibility for them to at least restrict race options in Dark Sun. I don't know about classes, though.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

Oh yeah that was all pretty sexy. I'm pretty mad that dumped all that, especially as a lot of that stuff, like weapon die sizes and the three sources of stats, basically got solely a positive response. And then suddenly we have something that looks like an attempt to compromise with a vastly more old-fashioned design? Hmmmm.

I guess its also no coincidence that the ''OSR consultants'' they asked for feedback were some of the nastiest of that crowd. Asking the opinion is all well and good if you go at it with an open mind, but if you specifically go with OSR influencers known for shooting down any ideas that werent theirs, its a pretty dumb idea.

They could have gone with Jennell Jacquay (sp?), they could have asked any super prolific authors from the diversity empowering the OSR, but no, they went with...the RPGPundit and Zak S.

 

[MoonSong]

This is my fear too. And the martial classes and Sorcere (we feel) is worse off for the playtest feed back.

Playtest feedback was positive for sorcerer. It just happened the designers were hellbent on getting rid of it and wasted their time attempting to do so.

 

[Greg K]

With regards to the Sorcerer in the Next playtest, I didn't give positive feedback as I didn't like the subclasses, but I also do not particularly care for the 5e approach either (given the subclasses).

 

[darjr]

I think I’m going back, back to near the beginning. Back to where the world broke.

 

[MoonSong]

I guess it comes down to questions like, "who hated the playtest Sorcerer?" (as an example). What group of playtesters took the surveys and consistently led WotC to create the PHB Sorcerer?

It wasn't that the playtest sorcerer was hated, but rather the base demanded spellpoints for wizards which back then were stuck with traditional vancian. The designers took a step back, gave neovancian to wizards and then they thought sorcerer wouldn't matter anymore and just by having a good wizard class they could call it a day and self-congratulate.They were so sure of themselves that even renamed wizard to mage because nobody would even want anything else. Then playtest feedback showed that no, not having sorcerer and warlock as their own classes wouldn't fly, but by then it was too late to playtest sorcerer and warlock and these classes had to be cobbled together at the eleventh hour with minimal private playtesting.

 

[Charlaquin]

It wasn't that the playtest sorcerer was hated, but rather the base demanded spellpoints for wizards which back then were stuck with traditional vancian. The designers took a step back, gave neovancian to wizards and then they thought sorcerer wouldn't matter anymore and just by having a good wizard class they could call it a day and self-congratulate.They were so sure of themselves that even renamed wizard to mage because nobody would even want anything else. Then playtest feedback showed that no, not having sorcerer and warlock as their own classes wouldn't fly, but by then it was too late to playtest sorcerer and warlock and these classes had to be cobbled together at the eleventh hour with minimal private playtesting.

This is not a very accurate summary. The warlock and the sorcerer that everyone likes showed up pretty early on in the playtest, and the Warlock in the PHB is really, really similar to the playtest Warlock. You can also see a lot of the PHB sorcerer’s DNA in the playtest sorcerer, but it lost its Gish elements and the concept of gaining more benefits as their Willpower (basically sorcery points) ran out. Which were the elements people pointed to as being cool, but not feeling very Sorcerer-like. And, yes, there was a brief period during the playtest where they experimented with the idea of having a Mage base class with Wizard, Sorcerer, and Warlock (and Psion) as subclasses, but that was very quickly shot down.

 

[Haplo781]

As a grognard myself who they blamed for ruining the game, I think maybe this statement should have been more directed at them, who did the actual insulting and blaming, rather than the person pointing out the flaw in their argument. Frankly, I'm getting pretty tired of always hearing that argument come up ("5e would have been better if the grognards didn't ruin it for the rest of us, who are actually the important demographic.")

"Grognards ruined the game for us!"
"No, they actually didn't."
"Don't be unkind to the person insulting other gamers by correcting them."

You sure are taking this personally. Maybe you should sit down, have a cup of tea, and come back when you're feeling a little bit less cranky.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

You sure are taking this personally. Maybe you should sit down, have a cup of tea, and come back when you're feeling a little bit less cranky.

Mod Note:

Perhaps you should have listened to the other mod using other red text in the other thread…for the same issue. You’ve earned a vacation. Come back when you can follow the rule about not making things personal.