D&D 5E Are you going to buy the 5e Core Books?

[the Jester]

I'll certainly buy at least the core rules. I'm a whore for D&D.

 

[Derren]

I can imagine a large number of people who bought the 4e books right out of the gate sight unseen. There might have been sizable preorders, either in stores or places like Amazon. The first six months of PHB and Core book sales could easily have been much larger for 4e than 3e.
Sales were supposedly strong for all of 2008. Not as strong as 3e but still strong. So there was the initial spike that dropped off as people decided not to keep buying. This decline likely continued once the character builder was released and people realized they could pay $7 and get the complete content of a $40 book. And the Pathfinder came out and people had another choice.

Anecdotal evidence, but on amazon.com the 3.5 PHB outranks the 4E PHB. And even in the current book list (which I assume is for some part made up by the recent popularity of books) the 3.5 PHB is only 1 spot after the 4E one.

 

[Greg K]

3e likely had a slower build, as people slowly heard of the new edition over time. I was on the internet back in 2000 and discovered 3e by total accident on a comic buying trip. And as 2e had been "dead" for so long and producing such irregular and niche content.

WOTC also staggered the release of the core 3e books over a 3 month period. The purchase of the first two books were spread out over two to three months as some people purchased books as they were released an others waited until all three core books were released

I can imagine a large number of people who bought the 4e books right out of the gate sight unseen. There might have been sizable preorders, either in stores or places like Amazon.

On these boards you had several people admitting that they were preordering 3-6 copies of the 4e PHB from Amazon. Many of them then regretted doing so. They either read the books and disliked what they saw, played a few sessions and were disappointed, or their groups for whom they bought the multiple copies did not want to switch.

 

[Li Shenron]

I'm still on the threshold, I'd give it a 2/3 that I'll buy them.

Generally speaking, I like 5e because it feels to me like a 3e variant without much need for system mastery, thus easier to play and (most importantly) lighter for the DM to prepare and run.

The only things that irritate me about it, are a bunch of issues that feel unnecessarily "disordered", as if the designers refuse to work a bit better on them and prefer to leave them as a half-done job: e.g. how subclasses generally start at 3rd level but for 3-4 classes they start earlier, how saving throws were supposed to be spread more among the 6 stats but >90% spells are still stuck to Con/Dex/Wis, and how the Human race is still used as "default simple choice" after taking years to finally realize that Fighter class as "default simple choice" was a bad idea.

If the clear up these issues I'm sold. If the final book still gives me the feeling of a half-done job, I might wait, and then wait some more... until eventually they'll come up with 5.1e or something like that.

I also have a couple of deal-breakers - if it requires minis, if it requires any electronic tool, or if it requires any subscription, I'm out. I don't mind any of those things existing, nor do I mind if they're very, very nice-to-have. But if they're required, then I'm out.

Those would be also deal-breakers for me too, but honestly I am sure they won't be required!

An older Poll on percentage of users that bought the 4e books, for comparison...

And one concerning the intent of people to buy 4e

Uhm... just noticed that I voted "Yes, I'll buy!" in that poll about 4e. But it turned out that I didn't.

 

[Wicht]

Uhm... just noticed that I voted "Yes, I'll buy!" in that poll about 4e. But it turned out that I didn't.

I was in the "I might buy it after initial reviews," and ended up never buying it.

 

[Ed_Laprade]

Voted probably, but its almost certainly... but not quite Absolutely! At least for the core books. Without a gaming group anything else will depend on how much I like it, or not.

 

[Scrivener of Doom]

I'll see your apathy and raise you extreme negativity.

That means no.

 

[TrippyHippy]

Wait and see, I guess.

 

[Vague Jayhawk]

I will probably buy it. I do like several of the things they are attempting do with the system. I will not buy it sight unseen like I did with 4e however.

 

[Stormonu]

I no longer buy books unseen if it is at all possible. I have no intention of buying 5E at release time, and don't intend to buy it down the line without having looked through it myself some bit.

And after I can rope together some players. Right now, I'm having difficulty getting games together for our Star Wars d6 game at times (darn Real Life)