D&D 5E So why are you buying 5th edition?

[Evenglare]

Honestly, I'm pretty tired of buying new editions waiting for classes and other things to come out that already exist in other games. It's not dissimilar to buying a new console, the lack of backwards compatibility has now become a major issue with me. I will buy 5th edition, but for collection purposes only. Starting over is extremely annoying. 3rd edition had prestige classes to make pretty much whatever you could think of. 4th edition has multi classing and hybrid classing, pathfinder has archetypes. I can't understand the logic of wanting to begin again, unless 5th edition had full compatibility with all these systems allowing a full range of options from the beginning instead of the what.. 10 or 11 classes that are standard?

 

[Ratinyourwalls]

WotC still has a long ways to go before convincing me to buy 5E.

 

[Jeffrey]

I'm not, until I get a chance to look it over.

The days of my buying WotC D&D products sight unseen ended abruptly several years ago.

 

[Yora]

I started with 3rd Edition and currently only own the 3.5e PHB, DMG, MM, and Manual of the Planes. I never felt like buying 4th Edition stuff, playing it, or bothering to learn it.
However, I am not very thrilled about 3rd Edition which has lots of major flaws. Pathfinder is slightly better, but does not adress any of the problematic issues. Any other fantasy RPGs I know about don't do a better job at providing what I want from a game. So 3.5e it is.

But so far 5th Edition sounds like it would at least adress several of the things I dislike about 3rd Edition, so right now it looks like I will buy the 5th Edition PHB, DMG, and MM. If later on they make other books I am really interested in, I might buy two or three of those as well.

Also, I want to publish a setting and if there's some form of OGL for 5th Edition, which seems quite likely, than it's really either 5th Ed. or Pathfinder, and I'd prefer not to have to fiddle around with the later.

 

[mhensley]

Because I want a supported version of D&D that I can like again.

 

[ferratus]

I like to experiment with new editions, but I never go deep down the rabbit hole of splatbooks. I learned my lesson with 2e and never repeated it. I have my shelf of RPG books, but I don't have a shelf dedicated strictly to one edition or another. I prune regularly with what works and doesn't work and what's a useful resource and what isn't.

I also look at other RPG's, and buy a few every year. If new edition of D&D is one of those new RPG's, it isn't any skin off my nose if a new edition of D&D is one of them. In fact, I always look forward to it, because problems big and small with what I currently have tend to annoy me quite a bit.

I don't really understand people who have a rulesystem who they see as "the ideal". That's why I can play 1e/2e for a change of pace (and have in the past year) but I could never join the OSR community. I just can't summon enough devotion from my RPG choice to stop experimenting or stop looking for a new way of doing things, even if it challenges my assumptions of how an RPG should work.

 

[Wormwood]

Slow down there, son.

Enthusiastic about <> Buying. I'll need to hear a lot more---not to mention the playtest---before I commit to a purchase.

 

[SeRiAlExPeRiMeNtS]

I like new things, I would buy 5e even if only to complain about the new design. I also like to start new games, we here never play long campaigns anymore, 10 sessions or so are enough.

 

[Mark CMG]

If it is under the OGL I'll probably buy it and if I like it support it as a small third party publisher and run a campaign or two in it plus run games of it at gamedays and conventions. If it is not OGL, I won't buy it at first but will play it a few times with someone else who has bought it, and if I like it then I might buy just the PH to have for occasional playing in pick up games. Nothing against the game, if it is good, but I'll only have so much time to devote to it if it isn't OGL as I'll have other games that are OGL drawing my time away from it.

 

[Ichneumon]

I would love to be buying 5th Edition right now, to the point I could tolerate someone asking me why as I did so. However, I'll have to wait for approximately a year & a half like everyone else.

But when that day comes, my answer will hopefully be "Because a D&D version this good has just got to be played."

 

[fba827]

So why are you buying 5th edition?

I personally have not made the decision that I will be buying it (and it seems from other responses that several others have not made that decision yet either.

Having said that, I am looking forward to seeing what the product is like and then i will decide.

I'll admit that chances are good I will end up buying at least the starter info to see what it is like. But that is not a foregone conclusion.

 

[enrious]

I'm not buying it.*

I'm also not buying it.*




*Plans subject to change due to availability.

 

[steeldragons]

Who said I was buying it?!

I'm just thoroughly enjoying the fun speculation and..."energetic" discourse of people's preferences concerning it.

I will check it out! Most definitely. But I'm not promising to buy anything.

I have a homebrew world and system that is years and years old and never let me (or my players) down. But I'm more than willing to give 5e a look see...perhaps buy it for collection purposes if nothing else...but I'm hoping to have more reason than that to pick it up.

--SD

 

[Sammael]

I'll be buying the core books out of sheer curiosity. We'll see if they impress me enough to continue buying supplements.

 

[Nagol]

I don't buy vapourware.

When it can be evaluated on its merits (late open beta or store release), I'll make a determination.

I'll buy it if at least one of the following criteria are met:

• It fits a particular game niche at least as well as my current "go-to" game for that niche. I have a couple of game-types I reach to versions of D&D for, so it's certainly possible it'll meet this level though the benchmark is quite high -- I like those games.
• It offers interesting mechanics or viewpoints that I think will inspire me when I run other games. Probably the most likely criterion the designers can meet.
• Someone else is offering to run it and I think it'll be a game I'll enjoy. I can always hope

 

[Dausuul]

Because it looks like combining the best parts of every edition thus far. Even in the unlikely event I end up not playing it, I'm curious to see the system they come up with.

Yes, I'm optimistic.

 

[Evenglare]

I don't buy vapourware.

[/LIST]

I dont think you know what vapourware means...

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

Well, all other things being equal (which is to say that once I actually SEE it and have an idea of whether I will like it at all much less enough to indeed buy it that I WILL buy it), I will buy 5E because I enjoy the idea of being able to put forth a new campaign and run a game where players are not experts on how things work, where I can bend, break, omit, and modify rules to suit myself and my players wherever I want to without anyone - ESPECIALLY players - telling me I'm doing it wrong.

I will enjoy creating new classes, implementing both new and old mechanics, finding new and better ways to play, REDISCOVERING older yet superior ways to play. I will revel in creating an entirely new game world from scratch, or in the possibilities in adapting an old setting to new ways to do things, and celebrate with a huge $&*#-eating grin on my face the FUN I am going to HEAP upon my players whether they're ready for it or not!

I am going to love the freedom 5E will give me to jettison ALL the baggage of the past, laugh at the grumblings of Luddites and Grognards who wouldn't know a good time anymore if they sold it in a game store with a "New and Improved!" sticker on the front, and leap blindly and gleefully into a better future for D&D.

Again, all things being equal. Here's hoping...

 

[rounser]

Leak from someone over on dragonsfoot who talked to a playtester; called it a "slightly crappier version of Castles & Crusades."

Given a choice between a streamlined OSR type game with or without 4E implied setting stuff included, the choice for me is easy to make - without, it makes far too much of a mess of classic D&D settings with all the retcons required to kludge in the new races and classes, IMO.

I think WOTC drew the wrong conclusions from the "Case of the Excluded Gnome". They've left in much of the stuff that drove people away as of 4E...for fear of driving people away who liked that. Hmm.

 

[A'koss]

I think the thing that first caught my eye that this edition is worth taking a closer look at was that they were no longer balancing the classes based on the expectation of magical items.

That's a pretty big shift for them, especially from the previous couple of editions. I was a big fan of Iron Heroes back in the day (and like my magic rare, but flavorful!), so needless to say this is welcome news indeed-y.

Then I started taking closer look and (for the most part)... they're saying things I like. Monsters staying relevant over a wider range of levels, simple/complex class options, reducing the complexity of high level play...

Of course, we all have to wait 'n see how it's implemented but at least having this open playtest in the spring means we won't have too long to wait. I figure as long as they have choices other than Vancian, Save or Die doesn't make a encore appearance and gods aren't canon fodder for 10th level characters... it'll at least bear a closer look.