D&D 5E Status Check: Still playtesting?

[Obryn]

Some quick definitions...

"Regularly playing" means that you're running Next quite a lot these days, possibly weekly, and it may be your main campaign by now.

"Still playtesting" means that you're running at least one session every time there's a new packet.

"Following" means you're not actually playtesting on a regular basis, but you're still following development.

"No longer following," means you're not actively playtesting or really much interested in following it, or even in reading the packets as they come out. Something might change your mind down the road, and you may or may not buy the core book, but for right now you're effectively done (if you ever even started). This doesn't mean you necessarily hate the development so far; maybe you just don't have the time.

Just curious where we are now!

 

[Manbearcat]

Supposed to be a poll here? If not, then I'm right about here:

"Following" >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Me <<<<< "Lost interest"

 

[Obryn]

Supposed to be a poll here? If not, then I'm right about here:

"Following" >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Me <<<<< "Lost interest"

There's thirteen options, man! These fingers only type so fast!

-O

 

[Manbearcat]

@Obryn My patience skill is untrained! But my nerdy D&D jokes are maxed!

 

[Obryn]

FWIW, I'm somewhere between following and giving up, myself. I'm still looking for something it does better than one of the other games I have...

-O

 

[Ahnehnois]

Not really following any more. I haven't seen anything that would make it worth my time, and whatever meanigful time I have to devote to rpgs at the moment I'm spending on trying to create meaningful mechanics for cancer or work on a time-shifting plot structure.

 

[Piratecat]

I'd stepped away for six months (ironically, after giving the D&D keynote at Gen Con) because I was too close to it. I was losing my baseline of what I loved and what I didn't, and it was making it harder to playtest. We've just come back with the most recent release and some other, pre-release material. I really like most of what I'm seeing. It's changed a lot since the process started, but I'm really looking forward to the playtest game we have coming up soon.

I love my two 4e games, but running combat feels like a genuine burden. I'm looking forward to ditching that.

 

[tuxgeo]

Still playtesting. The attrition has been bad: of the 7 original players in our group, 3 are left; and we just added 2 new players in the last couple of weeks. (Now going for 10th level.)

To some extent, the "in flux" quality of the playtest, while expected, has me a little off-balance: my Rogue lost his Scimitar proficiency between one packet and the next, so I had to dump that; but he gained longbow proficiency, and I didn't notice that for a week or so. (Had to go buy one.)

The "Arcane Dabbler" feat has been hilarious: Choose two Wizard cantrips; [new packet] Oh No! the list is different now! [new packet] Oh No! you can only use one of them once a day. [new packet] Oh Wait! you can use them at-will now, but you only get to choose from these four, out of the whole list. It has caused a bit of confusion in my alleged mind, because my Rogue had originally taken that feat. (Almost as if I'm being jerked around.)

 

[Stormonu]

I grabbed the first one with great interest and drafted my family as my playtest group. When I got the second packet, I lost interest rather quickly and realized I didn't want to sit down and learn upteen different iterations as they hashed out the game. So I'm waiting now for the final draft.

 

[Obryn]

So this is interesting so far, and it's shaping up kind of like I was expecting. l want to see if it keeps going this way. I am glad a lot of people are enjoying it. Right now it looks like...

(1) Either playing it more is very rewarding, or the people who find it rewarding are playing more, and
(2) The folks who are leaning neutral/negative are not playing it much.

Neither of these are really surprising. My theory is that, with a playtest this long, dissenting voices will kind of drop off, since nobody is going to spend 2 years playing a game they don't like much. On the upside, this will let the devs focus on the voices of their most likely customers. On the downside, it's less likely to be a unification as opposed to another competing standard.


-O