Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="SteveC" data-source="post: 6346596" data-attributes="member: 9053">I'd just like to reply about what I call the playtest fallacy . "There was this huge playtest, so the stuff we're seeing in this edition is what the fans want, it has to be!"As someone who's group participated in the playtest and send feedback all the time, I can say that 5E never had even basic design decisions in it the reflected the kind of game we wanted to play. The first edition of the playtest removed almost everything from 4E, and that was a deliberate choice. I definitely get that: 5E was designed to be a reaction to what happened with 4E, and to bring back the folks who left because of it. I get that.The thing is, by not exploring, well, pretty much anything that came in with 4E WotC never gave anyone a chance to comment on those developments. There was never a public playtest of a fighter who had powers, for instance. There is supposedly the Battlemaster who will have maneuver like abilities, but the public never got to see it. We had things like the "damage on a miss," and look what a kerfuffle that turned into. The thing was, the DOAM thing was taken as a rejection of all things 4E when it really wasn't a design component that anyone really cared about in the positive. The power system (AEDU) and character balance? Yeah, those were the important parts.I didn't have much positive to say during the playtest. About the only thing I could talk about was when cantrips were added back in so that Wizards weren't entirely Vancian again.As far as the assumptions of 4E being incorrect. I think one must take those comments with more than a grain of salt: if they're coming from the recent Schwab article, they're from someone who didn't actually like 4E in the first place. Moreover, they're exactly the sort of thing you'd say when you're making changes... they're just done with a better Diplomacy check than during the 4E period.And here is my example of why I don't normally post on issues like this. I expect, "man, what's this guy's deal?" to be the large response to my post. I get that. Enjoy 5E. Hopefully when there's a 5.25 I'll join you. In the mean time, no one confiscated my 4E books, and 13th Age is awesome.</blockquote>

Verification