Something Awful leak.

[Hassassin]

So how do people think the lack of BAB and Defence progression will affect the game?

I still disagree that the out-of-context quote implies there is no progression.

 

[GreyICE]

Board games have limited development cycles and good profit/cost ratios once made.

How many people do you employ to keep designing Battleship? None. Board games, once designed, are designed. You might launch a new edition now and then, but the designers have moved on.

If D&D had a board-game like development cycle, that wouldn't be an issue, but RPG consumers expect something different, something more.

 

[Sunseeker]

Which is a completely baseless assertion. People making this assertion are reading into what Monte and Company are saying, and taking it as what they want to hear, rather than what's actually being said. In other words, picking a fight for the sake of picking a fight.

We are so far away from anything concrete as to the final look and feel of the game, that it's absolutely preposterous to claim that WotC is pretending that 4E doesn't exist.

Yes, so debating the "meat" of something that is little more than bones isn't going to be very productive in this regard.

It could be just as likely that they already know what they want to keep from 4E, and the first look was simply road-testing some ideas from previous editions, along with some new ideas, and not road-testing 4E concepts at the time because it wasn't necessary.

People have said this a lot already: the playtest is just for show and if what you say is indeed what they're doing, then it doesn't matter what we discuss, WOTC will do what WOTC will do.

Is what I just said likely? I have no idea. They're no more likely than any other assertion about WotC's intentions. Which is why it's absolute foolishness to be arguing about it. But even more importantly, WotC's intentions are not what this thread is about. The personal biases and assertions expressed in that leak aside, the leak was predominantly the possible mechanics of 5E based on what we see of the mechanics in this early leak.

Okay, the mechanics are almost entirely from 3.5. K, done.
Really if you think there's more than that to be discussed here, I'd like to know what that is, because every time I read this over I feel like I'm opening up my 3.5 PHB. And realistically attempting to split the supposed 5e mechanics from the professed intent of 5e is simply not going to happen. We know what WOTC wants to achieve with 5e, we have to look at the presented mechanics within that context. Because the whole "unifying the editions" shtick is too pervasive to ignore, if 5e mechanics read more like 3.7543578e than a unifying system, then that needs to be discussed and evaluated. We cannot look at mechanics in a void or we will risk overlooking the design goals.

Discussing the mechanics of 5E does not involve nor require discussing whether Paizo is outselling WotC (or vice versa), whether any edition is a failure (whether objectively, in the consideration of WotC, or in the consideration of players), or statements about what systems mechanics are best (which is a pointless and purely personal and subjective argument, one that can't be won and contributes nothing useful), or trying to read the heart and mind of Monte and Company as to their like or dislike of competing editions (I said competing not because they are actually in competition, but because people in this thread are beginning to compete with eachother about which editions are best, or which editions players treated other edtitions players worse).

I was initially responding to a poster who laid all the blame for system fracturing at the feet of 4e. You're putting the proverbial cart before the horse for taking me to par for this since I wasn't actually doing any of those things. Only correcting the faulty assumption that 4e is to blame for everything that's wrong with D&D. If anything, I was stemming an edition war more than fanning it's flames.

 

[Umbran]

So we aren't really starting an edition war here. We're getting prodded into one on the basis that WOTC is claiming to want to "unify the base" and then pretending that 4e and it's fans don't exist.

So, you aren't starting it, but you're engaging in it anyway?

Nuh-uh. Enough. This thread seems to have outlived its usefulness. *Klunk*