D&D 5E So what happened at GenCon with relation to 5th edition?

Jester David · Aug 4, 2015

Morrus said:
This looks like a heck of a presence to me. This is the D&D area this year.

Arguably, that's the Baldman Games presence, since they organized the RPG events.
The Adventurer's League had seminars after all.

It's a funky division, as, arguably, the WotC presence would also include the Magic the Gathering play area.

Neptune · Aug 4, 2015

Let me be clear. Wizards of the Coast did not have a booth in the exhibit hall. They did not have any seminars. They did not run D&D games (I'm not sure what they did vis-a-vis Magic). They basically didn't participate. The D&D area was run by Baldman Games without any support from Wizards of the Coast.

doctorhook · Aug 4, 2015

Neptune said:
Let me be clear. Wizards of the Coast did not have a booth in the exhibit hall. They did not have any seminars. They did not run D&D games (I'm not sure what they did vis-a-vis Magic). They basically didn't participate. The D&D area was run by Baldman Games without any support from Wizards of the Coast.

Did I just hear a mic drop somewhere?

Morrus · Aug 5, 2015

Valus said:
That room was the board game room. D&D was only the 1/6th or so of the room closest to the camera-person, who seems to have been standing on the AL HQ platform. Compared to the last few years, the D&D was much less organized and impressive, and the WOTC presence was non-existent, apart from Mearls and Crawford popping by to sign peoples' PHBs for a bit.

Are you sure? I wasn't there, so I'll believe you, but this photo is also floating round as the AL area.

epithet · Aug 5, 2015

brehobit said:
I've not done Gen Con in years, but always in the (distant) past there were dividers between tables for roleplaying. How reasonable is it to play in this space?

It looks bright, and loud, and crowded. I don't think I would pay money to play D&D like that, but I've never tried it. Probably never will. I'd rather have couches and beer. I'd pay money to game at Wheaton's place, not so much in that convention center.

Valus · Aug 5, 2015

Yeah, I was there. There 100 tables of D&D for the epic, but that was only a fraction of the board game room. I wasn't trying to imply that nobody was playing, just that the whole room wasn't D&D. The issue isn't that there weren't any players, it's that there was no support from WOTC, unlike the statues and swag and involvement from previous years. It was just Baldman Games and AL coordinators. They were also less organised than in previous years and for those of us in the all access, the experience really couldn't be called "premium" as it was advertised. Certainly not worth the 150 bucks. I liked my DM and table, but it was not worth $110 more just buying tickets separately.

MerricB · Aug 5, 2015

Corpsetaker said:
world's most famous convention

"World's most famous convention"? Huh?

MerricB · Aug 5, 2015

Jester Canuck said:
It feels a lot like what happened with Living Forgotten Realms, where the program was hyped and hyped but quickly fell out of favour and was replaced by Encounters.

Living Forgotten Realms wasn't replaced. It continued to run alongside D&D Encounters. However, it's fair to say it wasn't supported as much as D&D Encounters.

It also wasn't particularly popular, likely a combination of the 4E rules and the adventure content.

WotC really seem to lack the attention span needed to run a prolonged organized play program, or at least run one with D&D.

Same company ran Living Greyhawk for eight years. D&D Encounters ran for four years.

IgnatiusJ.Reilly · Aug 5, 2015

Valus said:
Yeah, I was there. There 100 tables of D&D for the epic, but that was only a fraction of the board game room. I wasn't trying to imply that nobody was playing, just that the whole room wasn't D&D. The issue isn't that there weren't any players, it's that there was no support from WOTC, unlike the statues and swag and involvement from previous years. It was just Baldman Games and AL coordinators. They were also less organised than in previous years and for those of us in the all access, the experience really couldn't be called "premium" as it was advertised. Certainly not worth the 150 bucks. I liked my DM and table, but it was not worth $110 more just buying tickets separately.

How does this work? Do folks pay $150 to play? Or maybe it's $150 for a group.

Jester David · Aug 5, 2015

IgnatiusJ.Reilly said:
How does this work? Do folks pay $150 to play? Or maybe it's $150 for a group.

$150 each. You pay and get exclusive swag, better DMs, and the opportunity to play with the same people all weekend rather than changing groups.

D&D 5E So what happened at GenCon with relation to 5th edition?

Jester David

Hero

Neptune

Explorer

doctorhook

Legend

Morrus

Well, that was fun

epithet

Explorer

Valus

First Post

MerricB

Eternal Optimist

MerricB

Eternal Optimist

IgnatiusJ.Reilly

Explorer

Jester David

Hero

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