Serious question - are you going to invest in D&DNext?

[Quickleaf]

2e is my second favorite edition and my house ruled 3e attempts to recapture the feel of 2e as played by my friends. 5e is not shaping up to be a game that I like. For myself, the designers are drawing from several editions. However, they are taking some of the best ideas of various editions only to implement them in the worst possible way. Then, they intermingle these with some of the worst ideas from those same editions...Others mileage may vary.

I agree with your assessment. They've identified the strengths of previous edition & are trying to incorporate those into 5e, however they haven't figured out the execution yet.

So obviously this is a good time to stop the public playtest. *face palm*

 

[Oryan77]

I am perfectly fine with my 3.5 stuff and the conversions I've done for it. For me, once I have found a system that allows me to do whatever I want in my fantasy game, I'm no longer excited about new mechanics. I'm not really the type to jump ship just because it's new. The adventuring is what excites me, not the rules.

I have not playtested 5e and I'm not even curious about it. Seeing new ways to cast spells and swing swords doesn't really excite me. Actually, I am curious to see the artwork. Which I find it pretty crappy that WotC won't even show me their current artwork unless I subscribe to them.

Getting new adventure modules on the other hand does excite me. I really wish they could do conversions of existing adventures for each edition. I didn't care for 4e, but I know for sure that if they converted every 4e adventure book into 3.5 rules, I'd buy every last one of them.

 

[Scrivener of Doom]

QUOTE=sheadunne;6200138]If they have a electronic pricing and availability model similar to Paizo (ie $50 core or a $10 PDF), I'll get it right away. (snip) [/QUOTE]

You know that's not going to happen.

It will take them 1-2 years to work out an online policy for the new version, and that's the bare minimum. And when they finally do get around to being allowed by Hasbro Legal to publish their stuff as PDFs, we will see all these self-congratulatory press releases about how you can now but the latest edition of D&D online!!! And some of the fans will even be excited!!!

Meanwhile, the Paizo fans won't even look up as they know their PDFs are always available, will never be pulled because some lawyer with no knowledge of e-commerce in the 21st Century said to pull them, and they will only be paying 10 bucks a pop for the core books.

There is a more of a chance that the first adventure actually being alright (and this is WotC: "adventures that suck" could be their adventure tagline) than there is of a Paizo-like or otherwise modern PDF policy being in place at release. Or even in the first year. Or probably even in the second year.

 

[Roland55]

For certain, I will buy the Core Rules. I have for every edition so far.

That said, I haven't invested heavily in an RPG since 3.5. I only own a dozen books for both 4e and Pathfinder together, mostly due to lack of disposable income. If Next is good, and the sourcebooks are either reasonable priced or fairly sparse, I will probably buy deeper into it.

Agreed.

Have given this some serious thought and finally decided this is the way I will go.

In the meantime, still playing some Pathfinder and really enjoying Numenera.

 

[JeffB]

ShakesMagic8Ball.....


"Ask again when it is released"


Right now, from what I have seen over the course of the playtest...NO. .....the very few mechanical things I like are easily enough integrated as a house rule into previous versions of the game. I do not see anything substantially new or different that makes we want to play 5eover what I currently run.

Substantial amounts of QUALITY adventure support at a reasonable cost (sorry, no 30 dollar full color short modules for me) is likely the only thing to get me excited about Next. And we all know that is not likely to happen.

But more than anything, if they keep swinging that D&D Branding Iron around like they have in recent months, THAT will keep me from purchasing it. I do not need the one true fluffy way, they so desparately want to sell us.

 

[Aenghus]

I'll buy the core books, but have no plans to run it, which is a big admission for me, as I bought significant amounts of the Basic and Expert D&D, AD&D, 2nd ed, 3rd Ed and 4th ed lines.

It will be interesting to see how the printed product compares to the various playtest packets. There is circumstantial evidence that 3e was playtested as an improved 2e, but every edition is it's own game and needs to be taken on it's own terms - some pc concepts may work better, some won't work as well or at all, and the support for different playstyles will change as well.

 

[questkick]

Probably not. I'm more interested in other types of RPGs these days, like rules light systems and ones that support more mature themes. D&D is fun, but sometimes I feel there are too many rules to remember and it slows down the game, taking away from the story element. I recently picked up Shadows of Esteren, a gothic fantasy game, and it looks pretty amazing. I hope to play that next.

 

[RevTurkey]

To buy or not to buy?

When the first playtest arrived...YES! Great.
Then...a gradual weakening of that desire as each version arrived.
Then...a definate improvement in my opinion and a wish to purchase.
By the last package...I went and bought 13th Age.

I am enjoying reading 13th Age and looking forward to playing it. The designers have a clear idea of what sort of game it is and what kind of play it is trying to encourage around the table...something I keep feeling is missing from what is being shown of D&D Next.

It niggles me that the team behind D&D Next haven't 'fixed' the horrible racial bonus superiority of humans throughout the playtest. Why not? It strikes me they think it is fine and doesn't need much attention.

Another thing is the fact that with only +1-6 bonus to attack between 20 levels...to give the Advantage mechanic at second level (meaning something like a plus 4) is also way out of whack...I think it is Barbarians who get that.

It just seems weird to me.

The concepts behind the maths are important to how a game plays. The fluff behind D&D is well established but to create a new edition I would hope that core system mechanics and maths would have been better realised by the end of such a long playtest. I had a sneaking suspicion that the playtest was mainly a marketing exercise and that stays with me.

Anyway,

On a more positive note...I will have a look at what the new edition turns out like with great interest. I REALLY hope it morphs into something wonderful and if it does....for certain I will buy it at some point (probably on second printing after errata is sorted).

My feeling at the moment is that the last playtest package put me off. I can't perfectly qualify why exactly, I think it isn't just one thing. I looked through 13th Age in my local store and really liked what they had done...moving on and taking 4th Edition into a game I could enjoy and what I thought it should have been. My big beefs with 4e were the complicated character information, the slowness of combat, the sameness of the feel of class mechanics, the need for so much tactical grid information and boring skill tests. All fixed in 13th Age. Cool. I like it.

If I want some really quirky old school style gaming then I think DCC does that well.

Fingers crossed that Mike Mearl's team can pull the rabbit out of the hat and create a fantastic edition that looks compelling and interesting with it's own voice and style.

If they do...they can have my money and my wholehearted support.

Sell it to me guys because nostalgia and loyalty aren't enough with so many other wonderful games out there to play.

 

[Elf Witch]

Most likely not. There are a lot of reasons I have not been overly fond of a lot of the play testing rules I have seen. I am living on a fixed income that does not stretch the way it used to so I have to carefully budget where my entertainment money goes. As I get older I am finding I don't have a desire to keep learning new systems when older systems work fine for me. Because my money does not stretch I live in smaller places so room on my shelves is at a premium.

Pdfs would solve some of this the cost and the room issue. If I got involved as a player and I thought it would be something that would last I would invest in a players handbook.

This is a big change for me there was a time I would have bought the core books just to have them.

 

[pneumatik]

Very probably yes. I find myself wanting a little less rules from 3.5 these days, but more and better than older versions. And the only thing I like about 4e is how each class has a couple of sub-classes built in, which is also in Next. Maybe those rules are implemented poorly, but I haven't played enough to be sure.