Lists of what I am not allowing will be passed around the room.

[delericho]

Maybe if you have to make tons of changes you would be better off playing a different game.

Yeah, this.

To be honest, determining that you're going to make huge changes already is extremely premature - you can't possibly know how the system is going to shake out.

And if you have decided that you're going to need a big list of banned items in order to be happy playing the game, then it sounds like you may be happier with 3e, or AD&D, or another game entirely.

 

[mudbunny]

It looks to me like I will have to go through Next with a fine tooth comb and make a list of what I don't want to use, make a list of it and pass that around to my players. In my opinion this seems like it's going to be a lot of work and that player's can't have expectations until after they have spoken with their DM.

Unless you are lucky enough to be a designer on an RPG, I suspect that, as a DM, letting your players know what is and what isn't going to be allowed in your game is a normal part of setting up a game, along with telling your players what you expect from them and your players telling you what they expect.

Secondly, the playtest has been out for about a week. You don't think that it might not be better to wait until the final version of the rules has been released before deciding on things like this?

 

[Morrus]

That does seem to rather defeat the point of playtesting.

 

[mudbunny]

This looks like a good time to throw this out again:

Critical Hits: Playtest D&D Next like a Pro

 

[Stormonu]

It looks to me like I will have to go through Next with a fine tooth comb and make a list of what I don't want to use, and pass that around to my players. In my opinion this seems like it's going to be a lot of work and that player's can't have expectations until after they have spoken with their DM.

I can kind of see where you're coming from here. 5E is supposed to be packing a lot of modularity in it, and I'm not sure I really agree where some of the base dials have been set. This edition could require the most amount of houseruling simply because of modularity, and that's not something I really have the time or inclination for these days.

Like the others have stated though, I think you're jumping the gun. I personally am waiting to see how the next few playtest iterations shake out before loudly arguing against the design direction if I don't like how things are churning out.

If I do have to cut & paste my own version of 5E, I won't go with the game, I'll just fall back to Pathfinder - with an occasional 2E or B/X game. However, if the final version is close enough that I can run 5E core with a single-sided, double-spaced 10-point sheet of rule mods (or preferably less) and enjoy it, it's very likely I'll give the final 5E a shot.

Right now I think my rule mods for the current 5E playtest would fall in the half-page variety. But this is still in alpha mode. Things are likely to look very different in the next round and "firming up" a rules modification document at this time would be foolish.

 

[mlund]

In 1e it was Unearthed Arcana and Oriental Adventures. In 2e it was almost anything from the Book of Elves, lots of kits, Skills & Powers. In 3e it was Sword and Fist, Book of Nine Swords, tons of third party material, etc. In 4e it was DarkSun stuff, the power creep of themes and backgrounds.

I think player expectations as to having access to supplements and modules is probably limited. It'll be even more so with 5E explicitly designed with optional modules from square 1.

Access to Core materials is a little different, and it seems like the Original proposal here is for gutting the Core Rules and handing down a dictat to players. That's more like eliminating chunks of the AD&D Players Handbook as opposed to Unearthed Arcana or Oriental Adventurers.

- Marty Lund

 

[jeffh]

It looks to me like I will have to go through Next with a fine tooth comb and make a list of what I don't want to use, and pass that around to my players. In my opinion this seems like it's going to be a lot of work and that player's can't have expectations until after they have spoken with their DM.

This is a fairly pointless thread starter without some information on WHAT you're considering not allowing and more importantly, WHY. (As others have pointed out, how you feel this is different from past editions wouldn't hurt either.) That could be the foundation for a very useful discussion. As it is, this is too abstract to comment on other than to complain about its abstractness (i.e. what I'm doing).

 

[Halivar]

Houseruling during a playtest pretty much moots any possibility of giving meaningful feedback on the RAW. In which case, why even bother?

 

[JRRNeiklot]

That does seem to rather defeat the point of playtesting.

There's no need to playtest every rule. Sometimes you can tell by reading alone. Take the Slayer theme. I don't have to see it in play to know I don't like it. Sometimes you don't actually have to eat the dog poop to know it's gonna taste foul.

 

[JRRNeiklot]

It looks to me like I will have to go through Next with a fine tooth comb and make a list of what I don't want to use, and pass that around to my players. In my opinion this seems like it's going to be a lot of work and that player's can't have expectations until after they have spoken with their DM.

I agree. While there's always a houserule or two, with 5e - as it stands today -
there's way too much I'm going to have to toss out. They are going to have to lose an awful lot of the immersion breaking rules to get my money. Note, I'm not objecting on game balance, the balance may be fine, but I'd rather have unbalanced and immersive play than dissociative, jarring mechanics, regardless of how the numbers come out.