D&D 5E Playtester profiles - I got interviewed

[Iosue]

Thanks for posting this. After the recent tumultuous weeks of healing and Warlord talk, it really started to seem like 98% of 4e fans didn't like Next, like Next offered 4e fans nothing of interest, and I was beginning to think that the only 4e fans looking forward to Next were me and [MENTION=6688285]Blackwarder[/MENTION]. It was heartening to see that all of the above are regular 4e players/DMs.

 

[MortalPlague]

...and I was beginning to think that the only 4e fans looking forward to Next were me and Blackwarder

I'm also a 4th Edition fan who's also looking forward to 5th Edition!

 

[fjw70]

I'm also a 4th Edition fan who's also looking forward to 5th Edition!

Count me in that number as well.

 

[RangerWickett]

God, combat in 3e and 4e can take forever.

I think I need to run a crazy-complicated boss fight in Next to see how it goes. Except right now bosses go down like chumps.

 

[Klaus]

God, combat in 3e and 4e can take forever.

I think I need to run a crazy-complicated boss fight in Next to see how it goes. Except right now bosses go down like chumps.

I don't have a problem with combat taking a lot of time if it is interesting. But I've found combat in Next to be the same it was (for me) in 1e and 2e: boring and slow. In 3e I managed to run an entire dungeon in about two hours (10 rounds in game time), and in 4e I ran three back-toback combats against a total of 30 different creatures in 3 hours.

I need to run a DDN combat with a battlemat and counters/minis to see if speeds up things.

 

[RangerWickett]

I just have some players who are such finicky time-wasters. Lots of pondering optimal tactics instead of jumping into the fray and doing crazy stuff.

 

[Klaus]

I just have some players who are such finicky time-wasters. Lots of pondering optimal tactics instead of jumping into the fray and doing crazy stuff.

And my players just want to jump into the fray. The battlemap really cuts the "where are they? and I'm here? so I can go this way and get cover?", in that "a picture is worth 1000 words" sense.

And that dungeon, cleared in 10 rounds? It was The Forgotten Forge, the sample adventure in the 3e Eberron Campaign Setting. The shifter druid cast Produce Flame at the dungeon entrance, and they wanted to make the best of it (arguably, the best attack of the entire 1st-level party), so they stormed the dungeon like a SWAT team, killing everything and only coming back to search/loot after the dungeon was secured. I tracked their actions round to round, and the game just RAN!

 

[Jester David]

(To toot my own horn, my interviewed is here)

 

[lkj]

I don't have a problem with combat taking a lot of time if it is interesting. But I've found combat in Next to be the same it was (for me) in 1e and 2e: boring and slow. In 3e I managed to run an entire dungeon in about two hours (10 rounds in game time), and in 4e I ran three back-toback combats against a total of 30 different creatures in 3 hours.

I need to run a DDN combat with a battlemat and counters/minis to see if speeds up things.

This is interesting. Because our group just agreed that using the battlemat slows things down. We've been finding that running theater of mind style runs really fast in D&D next. When we add the map everyone takes more time to figure out exactly what they're doing. We've decided to keep the map just for big set piece battles where everyone really wants to pay attention to the tactical part of the combat.

But either way combats in the playtest have been running faster than either third or fourth edition.

Remarkable what a difference the particular group makes.

AD