D&D 5E Signs & Portents (that we can read into) about the ETA of 5E

[Mercurius]

Lots of interesting ruminations in this thread, and a a special thanks to @jodyjohnson for putting that together - very informative and well thought out.

After thinking all of this over, I'm seeing the following as likely possibilities:

1. WotC needs to release something in 2014 to take advantage of the exposure from 40th anniversary press, and it can't be at the end of the year.
2. Something will be released at GenCon. Whether that is the full game, a beta game, or a starter box, we just don't know - but there will be something. GenCon + 40th Anniversary of D&D = A Major D&D Product.

If neither of the above two happen, D&D will suffer as a franchise. Horribly. Imagine this scenario:

Lapsed D&D Player from the 80s: "Hey look, D&D is having its 40th anniversary - man, remember playing that back in the day? That was fun."

....a few days later, browsing in Barnes & Noble...

Lapsed D&D Player/Customer to Clerk: "Hey, what do you have for D&D?"

Snarky Clerk: "They haven't published anything in a couple years. There is a new edition coming out at some point, but who knows when? We have the last edition, which kinda sucked, on the sales table. I've also heard there's some beta test PDF out there."

Customer: "Frak that!"
​

I can imagine any number of such scenarios.

Now instead imagine that same customer being greeted by a snazzy new box set that evokes memories from his youth, but in a state of the art design. You get the picture.

So with that in mind, I think we'll see some kind of commemorative 40th anniversary box labeled "Dungeons & Dragons" that will be the simple core game and include everything needed to play. This will (hopefully) whet the appetites of many a lapsed player. The Holy Trinity will come later - maybe a few months later at most.

The other thing to remember, and this addresses @Sword of Spirit 's design perspective, is that they could be putting together the box set right now - the art, the design, even much of the writing - without having fine-tuned the math of the game. The box set could be ready to go with final stat edits to make. In other words, its not like the final product (box, or even trinity) has to be developed in a linear manner; the game designers can be working on the rules and playtesting while the artists are doing their thing, the layout folks are envisioning the product itself, etc.

As for the announcement itself, I'm guessing they'll make it as early as January, which is the actual 40th anniversary. From that point on there will be a roll-out of some kind - preview material, hype, etc. Then the box will come out sometime around May or June, and the three books at GenCon. It might also be that the box comes out at GenCon and the books come out in November for the holiday season, but I'm guessing the former as it would better take advantage of the anniversary year.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

I'd definitely be much more comfortable with a GenCon release if it turns out that they are concurrently working on all the other publication aspects of the game, and the final rules aren't "due" until a month or two before GenCon to drop them into the books.

 

[Mercurius]

I'd definitely be much more comfortable with a GenCon release if it turns out that they are concurrently working on all the other publication aspects of the game, and the final rules aren't "due" until a month or two before GenCon to drop them into the books.

I don't see why they wouldn't be doing that, and even that the "all hands on deck" for 5E that was posted above points to that.

The one thing I didn't include in my post is the leadup, between the announcement in January to the release at GenCon: online stuff. It will start with high quality PDF previews, and perhaps even Insider-only beta versions of the final product. So something like this:

January: Annoucement of 5E release dates
Feb-May: Online previews, hype lead-up
June: Box Set I ("Basic D&D")
July: Adventure expansion for basic set
August (GenCon): Holy Trinity ("Advanced D&D")
Sept-Oct: Forgotten Realms book, adventures, maybe a second box set for the "Basic" game
November: Special Edition of Holy Trinity ("40th Anniversary Commemorative Editions")

Or something like that.

 

[Jester David]

There's another problem with the long wait. In the last eighteen months since 5e was announced and 4e ended I've seen a half dozen people ask about how to get into the game. Mostly on the WotC forums.

There have likely been tens if not hundreds of people caught in this inbetween time and unable to easily get into the hobby. Spending money on 4e seems like a poor option, since that edition is dead. And it's too early to start playing 5e as the edition is unbalanced and still has a LOT of placeholder content and options.

A lot of people are being left out of the hobby. Or pushed to the competition.

 

[Weather Report]

We don't know the state of the rules, we don't know if they're 50% done or 95% done right now.

Actually, we do, the basic/core rules are done, they are now just tweaking (the math, class features, etc).

 

[Mercurius]

Good point, [MENTION=37579]Jester Canuck[/MENTION] - I've had the same thought and, to some extent, am an example of what you're talking about. My group dwindled away early in 2013 and I'm hoping to get it started again in January of 2014, but am unsure what system to use. I've decided on the playtest rules with the hope that, sometime in 2014, we'll get the official rules to update to.

Anyhow, 5E was announced almost two years ago - in January of 2012. So it will be at least two years, probably two and a half or more, between announcement and publication. That is unprecedented in D&D's publication history.

So it is important for us to remember that the designers at WotC have had at least two years of internal work; realistically, though, they've been working on 5E for much longer. I remember someone saying that they begin work on the new edition immediately after the current one is first published. But in terms of formal work, I'm guessing they started formal discussions around the time Essentials came out (2010), and it got underway more seriously when it became clear that Essentials wasn't going to save 4E (so early-to-mid 2011). So we're really looking at a period of about 3 years.

At this point I'd be very, very surprised if 5E didn't come out in 2014, and if its going to come out in 2014 it will be GenCon at the latest - probably earlier, at least in terms of preliminary products.

 

[Weather Report]

Good point, @Jester Canuck - I've had the same thought and, to some extent, am an example of what you're talking about. My group dwindled away early in 2013 and I'm hoping to get it started again in January of 2014, but am unsure what system to use. I've decided on the playtest rules with the hope that, sometime in 2014, we'll get the official rules to update to.

Anyhow, 5E was announced almost two years ago - in January of 2012. So it will be at least two years, probably two and a half or more, between announcement and publication. That is unprecedented in D&D's publication history.

So it is important for us to remember that the designers at WotC have had at least two years of internal work; realistically, though, they've been working on 5E for much longer. I remember someone saying that they begin work on the new edition immediately after the current one is first published. But in terms of formal work, I'm guessing they started formal discussions around the time Essentials came out (2010), and it got underway more seriously when it became clear that Essentials wasn't going to save 4E (so early-to-mid 2011). So we're really looking at a period of about 3 years.

At this point I'd be very, very surprised if 5E didn't come out in 2014, and if its going to come out in 2014 it will be GenCon at the latest - probably earlier, at least in terms of preliminary products.

Yes, I agree; and just want to say I dig your avatar, the 1st Ed Deities & Demigods is my favourite D&D book, and I love Jeff Dee's art (the Melnibonean chapter is what really drew me into this game).

 

[Mercurius]

Yes, I agree; and just want to say I dig your avatar, the 1st Ed Deities & Demigods is my favourite D&D book, and I love Jeff Dee's art (the Melnibonean chapter is what really drew me into this game).

Jeff Dee was my favorite artist Back In The Day. While my single "desert island" AD&D today would probably be the DMG, Deities & Demigods impacted me growing up like no other. The Melnibonean chapter was/is one of my favorites.

 

[Weather Report]

Jeff Dee was my favorite artist Back In The Day. While my single "desert island" AD&D today would probably be the DMG, Deities & Demigods impacted me growing up like no other. The Melnibonean chapter was/is one of my favorites.

I love Elric's booties.

 

[hbarsquared]

Seriously, and this is not meant to be inflammatory, who cares about the 40th anniversary?

As [MENTION=5590]jodyjohnson[/MENTION] said, there has been only one edition launched on an anniversary year, and even then it wasn't even advertised.

Personally, the only anniversaries-woah-we-have-to-celebrate are the: 100yr, 10yr, 50yr, 1yr, in that order. I could not care less about all the numbers in between. Forty years is not going to garner that much hype, especially if contrasted with a poor, undeveloped ruleset.

Let the year of the 40th anniversary be teasers, an expanded catalouge, reminiscences, novels, and hype. No playtesting, no inaccurate box set, no mistake-ridden publications. Let's see fully developed rules, complete with a functioning DDI and zero prospects for errata and a 5.5, sometime between January and GenCon 2015.