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

[Rechan]

A related aspect of the complete game is how many things I need to houserule/plug/unplug/reword to hit my game style. If everything that makes 4e so awesome to me is something I need to bolt on or gut from 5e, that's different than if I just need to swap out magic and add a more concrete skill system. There's a line where the effort to customize the system (any system, not just 5e) to emulate a different one is more work than just playing the target system despite its lack of support.

Indeed.

Additionally, for me it doesn't matter how many great modular things there are out there - if I think the core mechanics suck (see: opposing rolls, ability scores as saves), then that's a big problem.

I may end up liking some of their modular subsystems (running a kingdom, keeps and such) and just port that to 4e.

While of course the first public introduction to the game would involve rules and the playing of games, it is troubling to me that the seminars included "here are the rules we like, this is what we're starting with" rather than "here's how the math of the system works and how rules plug in to it" --- the former sounds more like I am removing rules and hoping others fit, the latter is a meta-system where I could (ideally) chose chapters 2, 4, 9, 10, and 18 from a book and have my ultimate D&D.

Just to play devil's advocate, it's wholly possible that they don't have the basic rules down. Therefore, "These are stuff we want to do/add" and "Here are our design goals" is all they got. Otherwise, the playtest didn't matter - if they did have all the basic rules nailed down, then feedback form the DDXP crowd woudln't have mattered.

 

[Roland55]

I'm trying to figure out how you got that from the seminars. I definitely got an old school vibe from comments, tweets and seminars.

Ditto.

Nay-sayers are going to have to work a LOT harder to turn me 'meh,' let alone negative.

And remember ... it's a long time between the crude draft they have now and the finished version. And YOU get to monkey with the rules!

Any way you spin it, that sounds like fun.

 

[Roland55]

Whew.

Finally read all that stuff up there.

"Let 5E be 5E."

That is all.

 

[pemerton]

Ok well, 5E won't be 4E.

If you want to play 4E, you have 4E. 5E will be a step in a different direction because that's the entire point.

<snip>

So if you don't like 5E because you can't make it into 4E... Well then I think you miss the point of a new edition.

This edition has been advertised as a "unity edition", not a "grognard" edition. Given that 4e players are WotC's current customer base, I assume that among those whom 5e is meant to unify are 4e players.

If the game requires feat taxes to achieve PCs who play in something like a 4e style, I think that will be a problem. But I still think that feats are likely to work differently, as an element of PC build, from how they currently do.

I have seen some folks want 5E to be 4E (in the same way lots of us wanted 4E to be 3E) which is understandable: when your favored edition is getting mothballed, a negative reaction is both understandable and justified.

My posts weren't about 5e being 4e. Obviously it won't be. They were about it being a "unity" edition, and therefore capable of supporting 4e play at least to the same extent as it supports classic play. That won't work if the mechanics merely repeat classic D&D. Hence the need for new mechanics.

Personally, I think WotC should release 4E under the OGL now that it is getting replaced and let 4E fans have a "Pathfinder" of their own.

I'm not sure if this is a joke or not.

At the risk of looking like an idiot for reading it with a straight face, I'll just say that I don't think WotC will do this, given that the OGL (and PF as an offshoot of it) is a signficant causal factor in their current woes.

 

[Consonant Dude]

I voted "meh" but that really just means I am not overly positive or negative about it. I think the big difficulty is that telling people "We're taking a little bit of every edition" can be quite confusing. What exactly are they going to take? I guess if was overly positive, I would probably expect they'll grab all my favorite features from each edition. If I was leaning toward negative, I would expect they will use things that annoy me.

Based on the early report, it seems like a mixed bag and it's tough to wrap my head around it yet. But I am carefully optimistic. Easy of GMing, abstract positioning, lightning fast play are the things I am hoping for personally. If I can do that with the basic game, I will be very happy! I am also very curious about licensing.

 

[Reynard]

I'm not sure if this is a joke or not.

At the risk of looking like an idiot for reading it with a straight face, I'll just say that I don't think WotC will do this, given that the OGL (and PF as an offshoot of it) is a signficant causal factor in their current woes.

Only insofar as they attempted to abandon it via a complete reinvention of the game, showing both a disdain for and complete lack of understanding of their core audience. If they knew then what they know now, I imagine there would have been two things they would have done differently: they would have hewn closer to the traditions of the game (both mechanical and metatextual) and they would have kept a license that provided strong 3rd party support.

True20 and Mutants & Masterminds weren't threats to D&D. Pathfinder only exists because they moved too far from d20 AND they pooched the GSL. A "D&D Saga Edition" with a less restrictive GSL would have probably eliminated a need for 5E so soon.

 

[Roland55]

I find it interesting that it seems -- from an admittedly small sampling -- that big fans of 4E are the ones who did not particularly like or feel optimistic after the actual playtest.

At the risk of sounding like I am edition warring (I'm not, honest) this gives me some hope.

It just makes me sad.

Maybe it will always be true that the fan of the current fears and loathes the new. Maybe it's just a basic, human reaction.

Not a lot of automatic change lovers out there.

 

[DMKastmaria]

It just makes me sad.

Maybe it will always be true that the fan of the current fears and loathes the new. Maybe it's just a basic, human reaction.

Not a lot of automatic change lovers out there.

4e players have every right to be bothered by this. And every reason not to want to play a game just because "it's new."

If the community as a whole has learned anything, it's that we don't have to move on, just because WotC wants us to.

 

[Cadfan]

A lot of 4e fans weren't entirely on board for the Essentials line. Which has meant, at least for some of us, that we've reacted hopefully to 5e.

At the moment though, I'm not sure what to think. The marketing material seems heavily aimed at people who like older versions of D&D, which has been a bit of a turn off. And more than half of what they've said has just been puffy promises that don't tell us anything. When they say that you can do X, Y, and Z in 5e, and its all balanced... well, if you're in an optimistic frame of mind, you get excited. And if you're in a pessimistic frame of mind, you think that they're making foolish promises.

 

[IanB]

I'll say that I'm not really 100% happy with any current version. It is absolutely possible for them to come up with one that I like better; therefore I'd say the comment upthread (that I forgot to quote) about how WotC is the only one unhappy with the current situation is untrue. I can't be the only person who feels vaguely dissatisfied with every edition in some way, right?