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Message: <blockquote data-quote="overgeeked" data-source="post: 8816904" data-attributes="member: 86653">I don't believe this is an actual playtest in the vein of D&D Next or any other playtest. They've more than likely already decided what changes they're going to make and will massage the released "playtest" documents to generate the feedback they want or simply ignore feedback that goes against what they've already decided. They released Experts 4 October, opened the survey 20 October and it will close after 14 days. So a whopping 16 days to use it before the survey opens and a total of 30 days to use it before the survey closes. The responses they're getting are not playtest responses, rather they're gut reaction, reading it a few times, and maybe...maybe trying it once or twice at the table.Backwards compatibility is a marketing gimmick to soften the drop in sales the announcement of a new edition brings.It happens every edition.The vast majority of players will switch over to the new. Especially with the new stuff being inherently more powerful than the old stuff.The holdover fan community will likely be bigger than any other previous edition, except maybe AD&D and the variations of Basic. Maybe. It will definitely utterly dwarf most other non-D&D communities. Edition changes cause fandom splits. The best WotC can hope for is that the split will be small. It all depends on how significant the changes are and how invested players are. The bigger the changes and the more invested the player, the less likely they are to switch. Unless they happen to have heaps of disposable income.My main D&D group is switching to DCC for the time being. We might go back to AD&D. We might pick up OSE. Who knows. We're incredibly tired of the fantasy superhero, no challenge, cakewalk nature of 5E. We'll look at 5.5 after it drops and go from there. Unless there's a serious shake up in direction, the chances of us playing 5.5 are negligible.Some people love it and good for them. I don't think the minor tweaks they've released so far are enough to make me and mine enthusiastic about 5.5. Kinda the opposite. Power escalation, more feats, 1st-level feats, feat chains, clear drive and focus on digital...it's going the wrong direction for us. But that's what sells, so that's what WotC chases.</blockquote>

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