D&D 5E Playtesting D&D Next: Reapers, Cantrips, Turnings, Rests...
OnlineDM
Adventurer
My in-person group was pretty amenable when I mentioned my interest in trying out the new game. More in an "Okay, whatever you like" way, not in a "Boy, I can't wait for that!" way.
My online Friday night group seemed like they were somewhat amenable when I mentioned it in passing last week, but I got the impression that they'd really like to just stick with our current campaign (they're at level 20 in the War of the Burning Sky).
My online Friday night group seemed like they were somewhat amenable when I mentioned it in passing last week, but I got the impression that they'd really like to just stick with our current campaign (they're at level 20 in the War of the Burning Sky).
OnlineDM
Adventurer
It's not ignorance on your part; they haven't released the details yet.
They HAVE said that the PCs are going to be pre-generated and that there won't be rules for character creation for us to test at first. My guess is that they'll give us an adventure to test-run and probably some adventure creation guidelines for DMs to play around with, but not a full monster manual, etc.
CleverNickName
Limit Break Dancing
DM's Log: May 7, 2012. On social skills and stat blocks.
Still getting ready for the playtest.
In our gaming session last night, the regular cast of characters had been captured by drow...all except the druid, who was trying desperately to track them down to the enemy lair before something horrible happens to them. Along the way, he meets a gang of friendly fey (a pixie, a dryad, and a unicorn), and petitions them for their help.
Now, I know that the 3.5 Edition has rules for this sort of social interaction between monsters and PCs (stuff like Bluff, Diplomacy, Intimidate, Sense Motive, wild empathy, etc.) but I don't use them. Instead, I let the player roleplay it out, talking in character and the whole nine yards. Then I make a judgment call at the end of his appeal, and I ask myself "so what would a dryad think of all of this?" The player was careful to mention something about the drow burning a large portion of the forest with a fireball spell, correctly assuming it would "strike a nerve" with the tree spirit. I decided the dryad would indeed care about dark elves burning her forest, so she agreed to help.
So the fey decided to join the lone druid in his quest to hunt down the drow. We took a break, and I printed out the stats for the unicorn, the pixie, and the dryad, and handed them to the other players...I felt badly that their characters were captured and waiting to be rescued, and that they were basically just sitting around waiting for their turn to play. They gave me some sideways glances when I asked them to "be the monsters," but five minutes later they jumped right into the roles. There were a few awkward moments as everyone got accustomed to their monstrous abilities (the dryad being restricted to her tree, the unicorn not being able to talk, the pixie always being invisible and flying, etc.), but ultimately they learned to work together as a team...even taking down a hill giant.
-----
It seems that every time I play D&D these days, I automatically start wondering about the new edition and the style of game it will present. Last night's gaming session was no exception...I was always asking myself "I wonder what this will look like in 5E?"
The two points I fixated on the most were the Diplomacy skill challenges and the "monster PC" twist.
For the first: I have never liked how roleplaying techniques were replaced with dice throws in 3rd Edition, so I ignore them. Sure, it seems simple enough, right? This causes problems with certain prestige classes and character builds, and with new players who join up with the group and bring their "super diplomat" characters to the table. Their complaint--and I admit it is a fair one--is that if they had known that Diplomacy, Sense Motive, etc. were effectively "useless skills" at my table, they would have invested their skill points differently. And what about those skill synergies and prestige classes that require certain ranks in the Diplomacy or Bluff skill? So that one decision requires a lot of bookwork on my part, hunting down and surgically removing all references to social skills, and reassign all of those skill points to other skills instead. And buddy, let me tell you: there are lots of them.
And for the second: it was a lot of fun watching the players step into the roles of unicorns and pixies. I do not want every creature in the game be a playable race, mind you, but it would be nice if the monster stat blocks were detailed enough to make it possible. The players...none of whom had ever been DMs before...were able to step right into the roles easily, and knew at a glance how to read and interpret the stat block. I think this had a lot to do with the stat block and the character sheets having so much in common. It would have ground the game to a halt if I had needed to give a "this is how you read a monster stat block" tutorial.
And on another note, it would be nice if the character sheets could be simplified. One of the players remarked, "Geez, look at this! How come my character sheet isn't this clean and organized!?" Everything he needed to play a dryad...ability scores, equipment, spell-like abilities, combat stats, background information...fit on a single side of one sheet of paper. His character sheet, however...for a 3rd-level elf ranger...conveyed less information yet required 4 times as many pages.
-----
So I am adding two more things to the "watch list" for the new edition: social skill challenges, and stat blocks.
Will social situations continue to be handled with a stack of bonuses and dice-throwing, instead of in-character roleplaying? I hope not.
Will monster stat blocks be detailed enough to function as stand-alone character sheets, if needed? I hope so. And conversely, will character sheets be condensed enough to fit on a single sheet of paper (or better yet, easy enough to scribble down onto a sheet of graph paper if necessary?) I hope so.
Still getting ready for the playtest.
In our gaming session last night, the regular cast of characters had been captured by drow...all except the druid, who was trying desperately to track them down to the enemy lair before something horrible happens to them. Along the way, he meets a gang of friendly fey (a pixie, a dryad, and a unicorn), and petitions them for their help.
Now, I know that the 3.5 Edition has rules for this sort of social interaction between monsters and PCs (stuff like Bluff, Diplomacy, Intimidate, Sense Motive, wild empathy, etc.) but I don't use them. Instead, I let the player roleplay it out, talking in character and the whole nine yards. Then I make a judgment call at the end of his appeal, and I ask myself "so what would a dryad think of all of this?" The player was careful to mention something about the drow burning a large portion of the forest with a fireball spell, correctly assuming it would "strike a nerve" with the tree spirit. I decided the dryad would indeed care about dark elves burning her forest, so she agreed to help.
So the fey decided to join the lone druid in his quest to hunt down the drow. We took a break, and I printed out the stats for the unicorn, the pixie, and the dryad, and handed them to the other players...I felt badly that their characters were captured and waiting to be rescued, and that they were basically just sitting around waiting for their turn to play. They gave me some sideways glances when I asked them to "be the monsters," but five minutes later they jumped right into the roles. There were a few awkward moments as everyone got accustomed to their monstrous abilities (the dryad being restricted to her tree, the unicorn not being able to talk, the pixie always being invisible and flying, etc.), but ultimately they learned to work together as a team...even taking down a hill giant.
-----
It seems that every time I play D&D these days, I automatically start wondering about the new edition and the style of game it will present. Last night's gaming session was no exception...I was always asking myself "I wonder what this will look like in 5E?"
The two points I fixated on the most were the Diplomacy skill challenges and the "monster PC" twist.
For the first: I have never liked how roleplaying techniques were replaced with dice throws in 3rd Edition, so I ignore them. Sure, it seems simple enough, right? This causes problems with certain prestige classes and character builds, and with new players who join up with the group and bring their "super diplomat" characters to the table. Their complaint--and I admit it is a fair one--is that if they had known that Diplomacy, Sense Motive, etc. were effectively "useless skills" at my table, they would have invested their skill points differently. And what about those skill synergies and prestige classes that require certain ranks in the Diplomacy or Bluff skill? So that one decision requires a lot of bookwork on my part, hunting down and surgically removing all references to social skills, and reassign all of those skill points to other skills instead. And buddy, let me tell you: there are lots of them.
And for the second: it was a lot of fun watching the players step into the roles of unicorns and pixies. I do not want every creature in the game be a playable race, mind you, but it would be nice if the monster stat blocks were detailed enough to make it possible. The players...none of whom had ever been DMs before...were able to step right into the roles easily, and knew at a glance how to read and interpret the stat block. I think this had a lot to do with the stat block and the character sheets having so much in common. It would have ground the game to a halt if I had needed to give a "this is how you read a monster stat block" tutorial.
And on another note, it would be nice if the character sheets could be simplified. One of the players remarked, "Geez, look at this! How come my character sheet isn't this clean and organized!?" Everything he needed to play a dryad...ability scores, equipment, spell-like abilities, combat stats, background information...fit on a single side of one sheet of paper. His character sheet, however...for a 3rd-level elf ranger...conveyed less information yet required 4 times as many pages.
-----
So I am adding two more things to the "watch list" for the new edition: social skill challenges, and stat blocks.
Will social situations continue to be handled with a stack of bonuses and dice-throwing, instead of in-character roleplaying? I hope not.
Will monster stat blocks be detailed enough to function as stand-alone character sheets, if needed? I hope so. And conversely, will character sheets be condensed enough to fit on a single sheet of paper (or better yet, easy enough to scribble down onto a sheet of graph paper if necessary?) I hope so.
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FATDRAGONGAMES
First Post
My old group from high school is getting together Memorial Day weekend to play it. I'm really looking forward to trying it out. If it isn't what I want I'll go back to my beloved AD&D 1E. 
Ebon Shar
Explorer
My old group from high school is getting together Memorial Day weekend to play it. I'm really looking forward to trying it out. If it isn't what I want I'll go back to my beloved AD&D 1E.
I'm right there with you, bud. It's funny, my expectations of 5E are: Can I make it play like 1E? If not, I'll stick with 1E.
I'm really hoping that the modular aspect of 5E will let me play my 1E with the elegance of a later edition, but maintain the feel of 1E. Is it possible? I hope so.
Wednesday Boy
The Nerd WhoFell to Earth
I'm getting together with my college gaming friends in mid-June and was going to run Dread but I might see if they're interested in the playtest instead.
CleverNickName
Limit Break Dancing
DM's Log: May 21, 2012. The Playtest on the Borderlands
We are signed up and ready for the playtest. Over the last couple of weeks, I have managed to get even my most reluctant players excited about it, and they are all on board to help Wizards of the Coast deliver a great product. All we need are the materials.
-----
A long time ago in these forums, back when the 4th Edition was being announced, someone posted a thread about "what D&D means to me" or something. (I tried to find it and link to it, but there are like a hundred of them.) One person responded, "If I can play The Keep on the Borderlands with it, then as far as I am concerned, it is D&D." That really stuck with me.
So that is exactly what I intend to do with the playtest: I am going to do whatever I can to run The Keep on the Borderlands with it.
I pulled out my yellowed, battered, shelf-worn copy of The Keep, and I laid the sheets on my photocopier. I three-hole-punched them, and put them in a binder with lots of graph paper. I've got lots of colored ink pens and highlighters at the ready. Once I have the playtest packet, I will start updating the module with color-coded footnotes.
If anyone else would like to join me (or help me!) with this project, just stay tuned to this thread. I will be posting my footnotes here, as well as all of my assumptions, design changes, judgment calls, and wild guesses, for everyone to use and offer feedback on...all of it safely locked away in Spoiler Blocks in case you haven't yet played it.
It should be a fun project. Besides...for all we know, Wizards of the Coast has already thought of this, and the playtest we will be getting later this week will actually BE the Keep! (fingers crossed)
We are signed up and ready for the playtest. Over the last couple of weeks, I have managed to get even my most reluctant players excited about it, and they are all on board to help Wizards of the Coast deliver a great product. All we need are the materials.
-----
A long time ago in these forums, back when the 4th Edition was being announced, someone posted a thread about "what D&D means to me" or something. (I tried to find it and link to it, but there are like a hundred of them.) One person responded, "If I can play The Keep on the Borderlands with it, then as far as I am concerned, it is D&D." That really stuck with me.
So that is exactly what I intend to do with the playtest: I am going to do whatever I can to run The Keep on the Borderlands with it.
I pulled out my yellowed, battered, shelf-worn copy of The Keep, and I laid the sheets on my photocopier. I three-hole-punched them, and put them in a binder with lots of graph paper. I've got lots of colored ink pens and highlighters at the ready. Once I have the playtest packet, I will start updating the module with color-coded footnotes.
If anyone else would like to join me (or help me!) with this project, just stay tuned to this thread. I will be posting my footnotes here, as well as all of my assumptions, design changes, judgment calls, and wild guesses, for everyone to use and offer feedback on...all of it safely locked away in Spoiler Blocks in case you haven't yet played it.
It should be a fun project. Besides...for all we know, Wizards of the Coast has already thought of this, and the playtest we will be getting later this week will actually BE the Keep! (fingers crossed)
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Mithreinmaethor
First Post
Much like the interviewer in today's interview with Mike Mearls, my group and I are looking forward to see what changes have happened for this release compared to the release we have been playing.
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