D&D 5E (2014) From what you've seen so far, do you think D&D Next will be a success or a failure?

darjr · Apr 20, 2014

Knowing now that the rules will be in less expensive books makes me less concerned with the $50 price tag of the PHB. Especially if they are books that, when I'm done running them, I may had out to a player or two who cannot or will not pay $50 for a PHB.

Jack99 · Apr 21, 2014

I think that no matter the success of Next, there will be people on ENworld that will claim it is a failure. An the opposite.

With that said, I voted success, because (based on the playtest) it looks like Next will be an edition that my players and I will enjoy playing. So whether it will last 3 or 10 years or outsell Pathfinder or not is not really important. Support is great, but as long as I get a core system that I can use, all is good. I mean, we recently broke out our 2e books and had one of the best campaigns we have had since the 90's.

adamc · Apr 21, 2014

I chose "don't care", because right now it doesn't look likely I'll be playing it anytime soon -- campaign isn't likely to convert and we have a ways to go -- several years, probably.

I think it will succeed at some level -- the question is whether it will be a mild success or a big one. I don't really know which, but I'm inclined to think "mild success" because I don't see the groundswell of fervor that a big success would probably require.

fjw70 · Apr 21, 2014

darjr said:
Knowing now that the rules will be in less expensive books makes me less concerned with the $50 price tag of the PHB. Especially if they are books that, when I'm done running them, I may had out to a player or two who cannot or will not pay $50 for a PHB.

How do we know that the rules will be in less expensive books?

darjr · Apr 21, 2014

fjw70 said:
How do we know that the rules will be in less expensive books?

Good question. I'm going on the price of the sword coast adventure. If tyranny follows a similar model the PDF will be much cheaper than 50$ and contain next rules. Not all of them but maybe enough of them.

fjw70 · Apr 21, 2014

darjr said:
Good question. I'm going on the price of the sword coast adventure. If tyranny follows a similar model the PDF will be much cheaper than 50$ and contain next rules. Not all of them but maybe enough of them.

One thing that concerns me about their current PDF strategy is that it is either hardcover or PDF release and they have yet to do both on the same product. Hopefully that changes when 5e is released.

Kaodi · Apr 21, 2014

If people playing D&D Next, and not playing it merely for lack of opportunity, still feel optimistic about D&D Next two years after release then I think we will be able to call it a success. Personally, I am not optimistic about it right now. As has been said before, I think the game system is alright but at some point during the playtest era I fell off the excitement bandwagon.

I am more excited about The Emerald Spire megadungeon than I am about D&D Next. Now, should D&D Next produce something on the level of The Emerald Spire perhaps we will be able to revisit this question of enthusiasm.

mikkelibob · Apr 23, 2014

Re: pathfinder peeps (including myself, at times) who crave the crunch... I would think it will just take some time until WOTC puts out optional supplements that expand the crunch options. Maybe I;ve lost track, but wasn't the plan that the release is a more 2e style basic game (with flatter math); and that later books could adds bells and whistle to cater to PF and 3e style a la carte gaming? That's the long game, and how I think it would have to be in order to rope in both OSR and PF gamers.

Mistwell · Apr 23, 2014

ForeverSlayer said:
Well when a new edition is coming out of course people are going to be talking about it.

Doesn't mean they are going to play it though.

I don't spend days, months, and even years talking about things that don't interest me. If I am not a fan of stamp collecting, I don't talk about stamp collecting very often.

pickin_grinnin · Apr 23, 2014

I don't really feel that I have enough information yet to say anything definitive. When the full edition comes out, I will go sit in B&N for half a day and read through a lot of it. If I like it, I'll buy it. If not, I'll walk away.

After what they did with 4e my expectations aren't high, but they could surprise me. We'll see.

It will be hard to say whether it is a "success" or not until there are a couple of years behind it, as another poster indicated. There was a lot of excitement about 4e when it first came out, and then it fell flat on it's face not long afterwards.