Something Awful leak.

[Piratecat]

This assumes that it doesn't become a festering wound that radicalizes 4E players expecting to be screwed over by 5E.

I think that whatever people say now, it's going to be the open playtests of verified rules that affect purchasing decisions. Call me cynical, but when EN World launched, there were a tremendous amount of people who swore they'd never buy 3e based on the rumors. Did they? I have no idea. But I bet their actual decision ended up being predicated on trying it and/or how good a game it was, not a rumor a year and a half out.

Man, I AM cynical.

 

[thecasualoblivion]

I think that whatever people say now, it's going to be the open playtests of verified rules that affect purchasing decisions. Call me cynical, but when EN World launched, there were a tremendous amount of people who swore they'd never buy 3e based on the rumors. Did they? I have no idea. But I bet their actual decision ended up being predicated on trying it and/or how good a game it was, not a rumor a year and a half out.

Man, I AM cynical.

Still, going into the open playtest with an already negative attitude due to previous events(this leak) can lead to a more negative reading of that playtest than would otherwise occur. I don't think WotC wants people biased against the game before they even see it in a relatively finished form.

 

[mcintma]

This certainly must be fake or trolling.

To ditch all the innovations of 4e and regress to some stunted idiot version of 3e would be suicidal for a brand attempting to reunite a fractured customer base.

Different and more-recent does not equal "innovative", and I only have to say "Jar-Jar Binks" to prove that.

4e fans will (understandably) be going nuts when Next's fans are trumpeting 5e's shiny new "innovations", the same thing 3e fans suffered through.

 

[Sunseeker]

You don't need to insult Monte to have a problem with him. I tend to associate Monte with:

1. Favoritism towards spellcasters
2. Building system mastery into the game
3. Prioritizing mathematical symmetry over balanced, smooth running gameplay

In his blog posts and preview comments, I've seen strong signs of all three of those, and at this point don't trust Monte with D&D at all.

I find it strange that the lead developers of almost every game I can come up with favor spellcasters.

 

[Reflex]

Some of the suppositions about why this is not a valid leak are a little tenuous. The Leaker Above responsible for most of the quoted material (there were a couple posters in the thread who had access to the PDF) was not a playtester himself. He was given access to the material and read it over only. The same guy later played 1.5 and was slightly more positive, but he WAS bound by the NDA at that point and said as little as possible. It was pretty apparent in the thread that all parties were working from the same corpus. The leak is legitimate, but again, there's time for changes. I hope they take advantage of the opportunity.

 

[billd91]

Still, going into the open playtest with an already negative attitude due to previous events(this leak) can lead to a more negative reading of that playtest than would otherwise occur. I don't think WotC wants people biased against the game before they even see it in a relatively finished form.

And exactly how are they going to stop you and others from engaging in speculation and rumor mongering, flying off the handle at half-baked assumptions, and otherwise prejudicing potential play testers? Even if they said they're moving up the release of the play test to tomorrow morning, that still leaves more than 12 hours with which people will engage in the very same behaviors they'd be trying to prevent. There's no winning in this situation. They've got to just forge ahead with their plans of getting the materials to us when they are ready and let the work stand for itself.

If none of us can let the work stand for itself, then I don't think any of us are worth the effort they are putting into it. Frankly, I am going to wait, as patiently as I can, for them to try to wow me. They might succeed like they did with 3e. They might not like with 4e. But it will be the product that does it when I get it, not a bunch of malinformed natterings on an internet message board.

 

[gweinel]

Sooooo at this point we've seen a play test leak that points to a game that is very much like 4e, and another with a leak saying the game is very much NOT like 4e.

I am the only one that thinks the two leaks don't contradict with each other??

 

[Janaxstrus]

I am the only one that thinks the two leaks don't contradict with each other??

The 4e one was debunked. This one may or may not be fake.

 

[Gundark]

No they shouldn't. They should ignore it. There's no upside to commenting, and it can only make them look defensive.

If it's false, it won't even be relevant, right? And if its true, it involves early rules that will look completely different by the time the game launches. I'm not sure they gain anything. The best thing they can do in my opinion is keep their mouths shut, read the analysis of the true-or-not-true report, and examine their rules accordingly.

EDIT: I sound cranky here. I apologize. It's annoying knowing whether it's true or not and not being able to say anything either way.

Yup , and everyone keep in mind that this is playtest 1.0 ( assuming this is real) . I am sure early versions of (insert game here) didn't look all that good either.

Keep in mind this would be the core rules ... what you would use to emulate od&d, 1st ed, becmi etc. It's not going to look like 4e , complaints that it is not looking like 4e are misinformed at this stage of development .

 

[gweinel]

The 4e one was debunked. This one may or may not be fake.

I think a month ago there was two playtest leaks. The one was indeed debunked (i haven't read it), however the other one as i remember it doesn't seem to contradict with the current leak.