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Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Dire Bare" data-source="post: 5726677" data-attributes="member: 18182">Regarding Pathfinder's open playtesting and the launch of 4E . . . when looked at as a whole, I do think that 4E's launch was rife with problems and a "failure", but that the game itself succeeded quite well despite the rocky start, which had nothing to do with playtesting.  Important to remember with Pathfinder's open playtesting is that Paizo was INNOVATING and trying something no other RPG publisher had done before (I think, at least no other MAJOR publisher).  WotC didn't "fail" or make a mistake by not doing something similar with 4E.  But WotC did see how successful Pathfinder has become, which is in part owed to that initial year of open playtesting.  RPG fans are a nerdy bunch and REALLY like being included in design.  Also the reason why Bauer's Open Design (the Kobold Quarterly guy) has also been a success.So, today, WotC's D&D team is under new leadership and is taking things one step further and is sharing the initial stages of design.  The discussions Mearls and Cook are having in the Legends & Lore columns are the types of discussions that ALWAYS happen early in the design process, but rarely shared with gamers.  Paizo didn't even go this far with Pathfinder.  Once we get past this stage will WotC continue to develop D&D in such an open fashion?  Signs are pointing that way, but we'll have to wait and see.Where is this going?  Is all this talk about variable complexity going to be a second attempt at a revamped 4th Edition?  Will it be a 5th Edition?  Does it matter what we call it?  I think we are quite a ways out from the "new" D&D, regardless of what form it takes, and that things will morph and change quite a bit before this ride is over.  Which, is part of the whole point of an open design process.I do chuckle at some of the suspicious and charged language some folks are using.  The fears that WotC is somehow trying to fool us or manipulate us are absurd.  These L&L columns are exactly what they are, D&D designers playing in the initial stages of design, but this time in an "open design" model rather than a behind-closed-doors model.</blockquote>

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