D&D 5E Gamehole Con Live Tweeting Perkins Panel

[Celtavian]

You missed the tense. That was in 2009. EN World is growing at a rate of knots since it rebuilt a couple of years ago. But thanks for the advice!

Glad to hear you're growing again. First site I came to when our group decided to give 5E a try. I still consider EN World the go to site for all things D&D.

Been probably 4 or 5 years, ever since the Pathfinder/D&D split, since I returned. I understood why you fully supported D&D as a business decision at the time. I could not abide 4E. EN World never became a go to site for Pathfinder material because Paizo's boards were well run and had developer interaction with a rules/FAQ forum they answered questions on. Nice to see you survived the split and still exist as a great site for gamers.

 

[Nebulous]

I can see a pointless argument born of any exchange between us. I will simply end this saying I hope this edition will satisfy players from the various camps that want a D&D system we can all live with. If D&D handles both martials and casters adequately, they will not open the door for another split. I think they will see more and more people return to the title that want something less complicated than Pathfinder, but with a more robust and interesting magic system than 4E.

Just around here, i've already seen so many posts from people who say this is the first version of D&D they've bought in over 20 years, or people who say they're switching back from PF due to that game's bloat. I didn't think WotC could pull it off so well, but they did manage to create a widely appealing game.

 

[Kaychsea]

It's not that I can't understand not likeing it, it's the reason... if you said "I don't like balanced characters" or "The fights took too long" or "The skills were way too limited" or "I disliked narrative powers" or "Magic items felt boreing" I could get all of those (some of them I even agree with, since it was far from perfect) I don't understand YOUR complaint about rinse repeat...

You didn't see people rushing through their Day/Encounter/At Will cycle in every encounter they were allowed to? The dawn of the 15 minute day?

People are allowed to like what you don't and vice versa. I have no idea why people would eat Hershey bars but they seem to survive without me. Do I resent the fact that people like it? Of course not. There is no badwrongfun.

 

[Celtavian]

Just around here, i've already seen so many posts from people who say this is the first version of D&D they've bought in over 20 years, or people who say they're switching back from PF due to that game's bloat. I didn't think WotC could pull it off so well, but they did manage to create a widely appealing game.

I was surprised how much I liked 5E. With 4E It definitely felt like WotC was shoving the change down our throat and telling those that didn't like it that they knew better than we did what was a better game. 5E feels like they truly did take the time to listen to all sides and design something that would hit the mark for a large majority. I freely admit I'm more of a caster player. But I don't need a magic system where I destroy everything and hog the spotlight. I understood the need to tone down the 3E magic system that had become more powerful than any other edition. 5E seems to have done that while still making magic creative, powerful, and fun. At heart most wizard-type players prefer magic that is creative over pure power. They want to be able to think outside the box when it comes to problem solving or turning the tide of battle. It makes the game more interesting for them. I'm finding I can be creative and effective with the 5E magic system, while not overshadowing any of the other classes. Wizard damage is a little light, but it was always a little light at low levels. I also figure with the changes in monster design such as using more lower level monsters paired with a high level monster will still allow AoE damage to be effective. 5E seems like they did a much better job figuring out how to make changes that toned down the overall power, while maintaining the feel of the game.

I really like the toned down magic items and gold. It's going to feel like something special to buy even a suit of Full Plate Armor in 5E. Finding a +1 magic sword feels like a big deal. I like the feeling of magic items being unique. Makes the game more like Lord of the Rings than a video game with tons of items being needed to play. Overall, 5E seems like a well-designed system so far.

Even the monster design with legendary and lair actions gets the creative DM juices flowing. You can finally make an evil priest enemy that can take advantage of his temple as a weapon or the evil artifact item his god gave him in a mechanically meaningful way. I spent some time designing a nasty evil priest with a temple that will make life most unpleasant for the players.

 

[Morrus]

This thread seems to have morphed into a full blown Edition War like it was still 2009 or something. Please tone it down.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

again well talking about why I and others dis like the OGL, I have found myself defending 4e... ironicly enough proveing one of my problems... the tribal and split fan base caused by an edition never going out...


So I will ignore the last two hits on the edition war, and not defend 4e casters or WotC for listen to the #1 complaint of 3.5... I will go back to my OGL discussion.

The OGL started mostly good. It gave us a huge list of products. the problem is that there was no real way to control a huge influx of ideas. It lead to a bloat of good and bad that was hard for DMs to look into. Then as wotc started popping out more and more not srded material newer OGL products had to recreate or reimagine whole concepts(again at variable levels of success). The OGL also lead to much less innovations for years as D20 was slapped on everything (I was so glad that CoC and Deadlands learned that lesson and went back) In the end it gave a small company the ability to steal whole cloth the 3e engine and compete with 4e by egging on stupid edition wars(see this thread)

 

[sidonunspa]

[MENTION=67338]GMforPowergamers[/MENTION], I think I lost the momentum of the conversation and it seems it has carried on without me. A few thoughts to add into the mix.

I think a key point to consider is that Pathfinder, as someone stated up-thread, was possible because of a perfect storm - and a major part of that was simply the fact that a lot of people still loved 3.5 *and* disliked 4E. So while you create a causal chain of blame of OGL -> Pathfinder -> edition wars -> demise of 4E, you seem unwilling to include 4If E as part of that, that the game itself was somehow not involved in its own demise.

In other words, Pathfinder was possible largely because a lot of folks didn't like 4E. If we must assign blame--and I'm not saying we should--then 4E has to be part of the mix.

Anyhow, even if we play make believe and imagine Pathfinder never existing, do you think that 4E would have thrived? If it hadn't been Pathfinder, wouldn't it have been something else?

Simply put...... if 4e looked more like the Saga system of Star Wars (which looked like the logical progression of 3.X to 4.0) pathfinder would have found no foot hold..

4e was such a drastic departure from 3.X it kicked 3.X fans in the face.....

4e was a larger departure from 3.x then 3.x was from 2e... that tells you something

Now look at the reaction for 5e..... less of a departure from 2e then 3.X was......... and see how players are flocking back to it...

nuff said

 

[sidonunspa]

Now

Why is OGL a good thing for the game? one word... Innovation

there are ideas created by the d20 market which have found their way to 5e and made 5e better... for example, attributes as saves... thank you Castles and Crusades.

a active and growing OGL market using the 5e ruleset is nothing but good for the player base.... more ideas shared, the better your game is..

now that 5e has embraced the optional rules paradigm the possibilities are endless, you don't (as a GM) have to allow every optional rule in a new 3rd market book.. maybe you will find one or two that fit your campaign... maybe you will come across a new spell casting sub system that blows your mind with creative possibilities (Magus special abilities in Arcana Unarethed comes to mind and the idea of a unified spell list were spells are ranked on rarity instead of some fuzzy class Arcane/Divine divide... ya enplane bards healing again?)

the OGL is nothing but good all around

it's an exciting time in gaming again.... very cool to be here for it

BTW I posted that I knew of 5 gaming companies looking at doing 5e OGL material... make that 8 now... and a few of them are not no-name companies, don't expect fantasy flight craziness but some of the companies thinking about stepping into the ring may surprise you.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

4e was such a drastic departure from 3.X it kicked 3.X fans in the face.....

nobody was kicked, or punched or harmed in any way... this is plain wrong info... it is the worst type of argument... one not even in good faith

4e was a larger departure from 3.x then 3.x was from 2e... that tells you something

I disagree, there is almost nothing incommon from 2e to 3e, 4e was less(all be it not much) of a change...

nuff said

always a great way to discus something...

 

[sidonunspa]

I disagree, there is almost nothing incommon from 2e to 3e, 4e was less(all be it not much) of a change...

I don't want to get into the mud on this one, but your very close to wrong on this.... my group playtested 3.X and jumped from Skills and Powers (2e product I still own a copy of)

the leap of faith was much shorter... classes >>felt<< the same, the math was simple to grasp (oh roll high on all of it) and spell casters felt the same (prep-spells and cast them.. ok prep them in the morning.. cast again)

4e stepped far away from the classic D&D paradigm by giving everyone the same type of "powers" at will, once encounter, once per day... someone coming from 2e would see almost no similarity between 4e and 2e... there were even significant race differences (gnome a monster what? dragon who?)

Think if it as going from Windows 98 to Windows 7.... compared to going Windows 98 to Windows 8.....

they are both windows.. but one feels familiar but the other feels like a new OS

No, I'm not saying 4e was a bad game... although the combats did last a little too long (but that was an easy tweak..) and the skill system felt shallow... but it had a lot less in common with its predecessors then any other version of the game.

which alienated a LOT of players... I use to run many of the conventions in miami.. I saw it first hand... the younger players eate it up, but almost all the older (2e or 1e players) gave it a few weeks and said "this is not D&D" and stopped playing... way before Pathfinder made its appearance.. many of them went back to playing 3.X (someone started running all the Living City adventures all over again for gods sake)

again.. I'm NOT bashing 4e.... it not a bad game, but it was a huge leap in design that changed... for many players.. the feel of the game... and for gamers the feel of the game is almost everything

why do you think 5e feels like 1e/2e?