Osgood
Adventurer
Over the weekend, most of my gaming group and I traveled to Ft. Wayne to participate in the play test for D&D Next. Though I cannot reveal anything specific about the mechanics, I will attempt to relay our experience and impressions of the new game.
First a bit of background. Our group plays 4E (but not Essentials) currently, and while we really enjoy it, there are a number of things most agree could stand to be reworked (feat/power bloat, magic items, immediate actions, hit points). I started over 25 years ago with Basic D&D, moved to 1E, then 2E, drifted to other games for most of the 90's and returned to D&D in a big way with 3.0 and 3.5. Of the others in attendance, two had started playing with 2E, two others with 3E, and one with 4E. The announcement of D&D Next was met with a near equal measure of excitement and trepidation. Some in our group (including myself) were more optimistic, while others more pessimistic. Regardless, we were all eager to test the new system.
We sat down at the table and were very pleased to find out DM was Monte Cook. Characters were passed around, and most wound up playing a class they had played before and were familiar with. After a few minutes of reading over the character sheet and trying to get a general sense of our capabilities, Monte laid out the adventure.
Monte is an excellent DM and he made the adventure fun and engaging. We won the day, kicking a lot of orc butt through luck, bold tactics, and good ideas. That said, a good DM can make just about any system enjoyable, for a while at least. About mid-way through I started to get bored with my character (and I normally love rogues) and my mind wandered.
Combat was fast and deadly, but there are some oddly clunky mechanics that felt out of place to me. While I (who normally DMs) enjoyed that, there was a mixed response from the rest of the group. Not a single one of us was satisfied with how healing worked though. The mechanics are unusual and attempt to combine the approaches of a few editions, but it came off as a bit of a Frankenstein monster. One of us has a really good comment that nails it, but I think posting it would be at least bending the NDA... I'll say this much, it makes the adventuring day really feel like a work day.
Perhaps the most crestfallen in our group were the ladies playing the cleric and wizard. The cleric player has roots in 3E, while the wizard started with 4E. Both felt the mechanics of the spells were counter-intuitive and confusing, and I think most of us agreed. One happens to be a mathematician, and she feels that spellcasters are at a distinct statistical disadvantage using the mechanics presented.
Exploration was good, but it didn't feel particularly distinct from the way we currently play. This may be a result of my DMing style, were I encourage creativity. Monte kept trying to reinforce that we could do anything and not worry about what our character sheets said, but ultimately what we did we didn't particularly do well. In the end, compared to my home game I felt folks were more shackled by their ability scores rather than being free do whatever they wanted.
None of us were particularly satisfied, and I cannot imagine the game as presented would be especially fun for my group (though I am fully willing to acknowledge that has as much to do with my DMing and adventure design style as the system).
In fairness, we did play the base version of the game (and an obviously very early draft, given the occasionally contradictory information on the character sheets). I imagine several things will get cleaned up and/or altered by the time the open play test starts. The base game seems very targeted towards a particular group, and it is my hope that the designers make good on their promise that D&Dn will let everyone play the edition they want to play (mine would be a 4e/3E hybrid). I feel the game has a long way to go to satisfy all (or nearly all) of D&D players. I do have confidence that the design team is interested in making the best game possible and listening to feedback, so I am definitely looking forward to the open play test.
First a bit of background. Our group plays 4E (but not Essentials) currently, and while we really enjoy it, there are a number of things most agree could stand to be reworked (feat/power bloat, magic items, immediate actions, hit points). I started over 25 years ago with Basic D&D, moved to 1E, then 2E, drifted to other games for most of the 90's and returned to D&D in a big way with 3.0 and 3.5. Of the others in attendance, two had started playing with 2E, two others with 3E, and one with 4E. The announcement of D&D Next was met with a near equal measure of excitement and trepidation. Some in our group (including myself) were more optimistic, while others more pessimistic. Regardless, we were all eager to test the new system.
We sat down at the table and were very pleased to find out DM was Monte Cook. Characters were passed around, and most wound up playing a class they had played before and were familiar with. After a few minutes of reading over the character sheet and trying to get a general sense of our capabilities, Monte laid out the adventure.
Monte is an excellent DM and he made the adventure fun and engaging. We won the day, kicking a lot of orc butt through luck, bold tactics, and good ideas. That said, a good DM can make just about any system enjoyable, for a while at least. About mid-way through I started to get bored with my character (and I normally love rogues) and my mind wandered.
Combat was fast and deadly, but there are some oddly clunky mechanics that felt out of place to me. While I (who normally DMs) enjoyed that, there was a mixed response from the rest of the group. Not a single one of us was satisfied with how healing worked though. The mechanics are unusual and attempt to combine the approaches of a few editions, but it came off as a bit of a Frankenstein monster. One of us has a really good comment that nails it, but I think posting it would be at least bending the NDA... I'll say this much, it makes the adventuring day really feel like a work day.
Perhaps the most crestfallen in our group were the ladies playing the cleric and wizard. The cleric player has roots in 3E, while the wizard started with 4E. Both felt the mechanics of the spells were counter-intuitive and confusing, and I think most of us agreed. One happens to be a mathematician, and she feels that spellcasters are at a distinct statistical disadvantage using the mechanics presented.
Exploration was good, but it didn't feel particularly distinct from the way we currently play. This may be a result of my DMing style, were I encourage creativity. Monte kept trying to reinforce that we could do anything and not worry about what our character sheets said, but ultimately what we did we didn't particularly do well. In the end, compared to my home game I felt folks were more shackled by their ability scores rather than being free do whatever they wanted.
None of us were particularly satisfied, and I cannot imagine the game as presented would be especially fun for my group (though I am fully willing to acknowledge that has as much to do with my DMing and adventure design style as the system).
In fairness, we did play the base version of the game (and an obviously very early draft, given the occasionally contradictory information on the character sheets). I imagine several things will get cleaned up and/or altered by the time the open play test starts. The base game seems very targeted towards a particular group, and it is my hope that the designers make good on their promise that D&Dn will let everyone play the edition they want to play (mine would be a 4e/3E hybrid). I feel the game has a long way to go to satisfy all (or nearly all) of D&D players. I do have confidence that the design team is interested in making the best game possible and listening to feedback, so I am definitely looking forward to the open play test.
