D&D 5E D&D Next Release Date Set -- Summer 2014

[Kramodlog]

No big news. Everyone expected it to come out in 2014.

What I do expect is people complaining the rules have nothing to do with the playtest (whether it is true or not), and that there should have been a beta playtest to make sure the rules were balanced, cause they are not (whether it is true or not).

 

[Mishihari Lord]

When they said "multi-platform" I thought of the rumors that the D&D rules will be adapted to other genres as well. Maybe we'll see a simultaneous release of D&D and "D&D in SPAAAAACE!"

And that bit about "like a perfectly balance party" kind of made me feel queasy.

 

[Kramodlog]

And that bit about "like a perfectly balance party" kind of made me feel queasy.

You can sense the marketing team.

I hope they will be more subtle with the up coming communications.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

I'm honestly hoping for the latest release date possible. Not because I don't want the game, but because I want it done as well as possible, rather than being rushed and cutting content.

 

[TrippyHippy]

I'm honestly hoping for the latest release date possible. Not because I don't want the game, but because I want it done as well as possible, rather than being rushed and cutting content.

Agree 100%, although if they leave it too late it'll be problematic, in marketing terms.

 

[Danzauker]

I think multi-platform simply means that they will push the D&D brand in every channel thay can manage.

The pen & paper game, of course, but also a videogame, comics and novels.

Who knows, maybe even a new movie or animated show.

This aside, I really hope they will develop a good tablet based character generator and rule browser. Things have moved from desktops to tablets these days. DDI was a great tool, and it seems many people liked the character generation a lot. It must move to tablets.

Additionally, a console/pc compatible virtual tabletop would be something I'd look forward to. Face it, I'm not a youngster anymore, and many of my old gaming friends, even the hard core ones, have family and work, and they are abandoning roleplaying because they don't have enough time to invest in the hobby anymore.

But every one of them has a Playstation or X-Box. I know it is NOT the same thing as meeting at someone's for a pizza and game night, but if the other option is quitting...

I tried once a Next playtest with webcams and TeamViewer. It worked fairly well. I guess that a dedicated application would have made the experience better.

I'm wondering if it could be a good channel for "subscription and play" adventures. You know, you buy the adventure on the store, all the maps and stuff are downloaded in the application, ready to share with the other people, all the monster stats ready to be browsed... so much better than a PDF download!

 

[Herobizkit]

With the advent of Twitch TV and the like now accessible to consoles, as well as their ability to 'cast' publically, I won't at all be surprised if WOTC finds a way to let gamers D&D game directly over said consoles with some sort of interactive tabletop experience - kind of like a uber-Roll 20 mashed with the 4e pay tools.

 

[Mercurius]

I don't see how coming out with a game two and a half years after it was announced (and presumably longer since active design first began) is "rushing it."

There is a common idea that is implied, if never outright stated, that I find odd - that Wizards of the Coast is completely unable to playtest on their own, as if they need to test everything with tens of thousands of D&D players. Don't folks realize that they've been playtesting in-house all along and that the in-house playtesting holds much more weight than your feedback and that of the other tens of thousands?

Part of the purpose of open playtesting - perhaps the biggest (but unstated) purpose - is to make fans feel like they are part of the process, that it is their (our) game. I'm not saying that they ignore external feedback, just that it is secondary to their own in-house work, and that feedback is of secondary importance to making us feel like we are part of the process.

So I imagine a timeline like so (speculations in italics):

June, 2008: 4e comes out
September, 2008: WotC: "Oops, that didn't go so well. Better start a company drive called '5E ideas'."
September, 2010: Essentials--aka Slaviscek's Last Stand--comes out
December, 2010: "OK, we better start working on 5e."
January, 2011: In-house discussions and design work begins on 5e
Summer, 2011: In-house playtesting begins
January, 2012: 5e announced
May, 2012: Public playtesting begins
Summer, 2013: 5e rules 98% finalized
September, 2013: Last playtest packet
Fall, 2013: 5e rules 100% finalized
December, 2013: Publication time announced as summer, final touches on books - formatting, art, etc
January, 2014: Books sent to printer
Summer, 2014: 5e books for sale
Fall, 2014: "Uh-oh, we didn't please all possible fans in every possible way. Better start a company drive called '6E ideas'."

 

[darjr]

Isn't there an interview where they said what multiplatform was? Novels, video games, tabletop games and things like the Chris Sims PvP games? Oh and maybe a D&D cartoon?

 

[Incenjucar]

I'd like to see some data to back up assertions like these, but besides all that, I actually hate reading a new set of rules for pages and pages in each new system that actually purports to do the same thing the original game being cloned was set to do.

I guess what I'm interested in is creativity going into games, rather than just niche filling - and is why I do not include things like licensed settings when I say 'original settings' - or indeed established settings from decades ago (like Forgotten Realms). Numenara has a lot of antecedent source material from novels and movies and whatnot, but it is essentially an original setting written for a modern game, rather than an attempt to adapt an existing setting to a preferred set of rules.

Also, I find a lot of the objections to specific rules from gamers can be really arbitrary and pernickety these days too ("I won't play any game with a D20 in it!", etc) - as if the only way you can create a particular feel for a setting is the manner and system in which you roll the dice.

I'm sure somebody could reel off pages and pages of arguments why Pathfinder, 13th Age or Dungeon World or anything else produces a better D&D experience than D&D itself….but I'd rather just get on with playing and creating, regardless of the system. And if game designers are going to make a new system, I'd rather it be for a new setting or genre than hasn't been done already a bazillion times before.

Unfortunately, I don't think it's likely that we'll ever get very good statistics in this industry. You might get the statistics of people on Enworld or the WotC site who bother to look at a poll thread, but that's hardly a useful sample. That said, you have the vast amount of original and semi-original ideas on the internet and the non-setting-specific products such as GURPs and Savage Worlds. On the other hand, plenty of people buy RPG books to read and imagine and never actually play the game. I myself have purchased an RPG product because it happened to include a detailed synopsis of an anime series I was curious about back in the VHS days when the series itself would have cost a small fortune.

I absolutely agree with you on the arbitrary standards of rules people have. I can certainly understand preferring something more weighted than most d20 systems, though.