D&D 5E Will I like D&D Next?

[Warbringer]

I don't recall a campaign lasting beyond 13th level, in 3e or 4e.

And we are the obsessive geeks in this hobby!!

I think most casual players fall in the 6-10 of played 1 year, and I think this is the sweet spot WoTC is chasing. For what its worth, I think is the rational behind 13th Age's 10 levels and fast advancement.

 

[Mercurius]

I think I got what I needed from the first page or two - thanks for the contributions. I'm going to give it a shot. I really don't have a problem with revising characters and such once the official rules come out. We can either spend half a session doing so, or if the timing is right just make new characters and start a new "sub-campaign."

All in all I'm excited about what I hear. I haven't heard anything that raises a major red flag, and most of what I've heard points to a game to my liking.

 

[Zardnaar]

I think I got what I needed from the first page or two - thanks for the contributions. I'm going to give it a shot. I really don't have a problem with revising characters and such once the official rules come out. We can either spend half a session doing so, or if the timing is right just make new characters and start a new "sub-campaign."

All in all I'm excited about what I hear. I haven't heard anything that raises a major red flag, and most of what I've heard points to a game to my liking.

Try it out its free. You might like it. The only real cost is the time and bandwidth/paper used.

 

[Herschel]

I don't recall a campaign lasting beyond 13th level, in 3e or 4e.

Which seems odd because every 4E campaign I'm part of (starting at level 1) is at least level 15 and over three years (and still going).

My 3E campaign ended at 12th because the casters were overshadowing the non-casters and I got tired of designing monsters all day just to have them fail saves and die in round 1 while the players didn't like the game was starting to work (except the Wizard).

 

[Umbran]

Which seems odd because every 4E campaign I'm part of (starting at level 1) is at least level 15 and over three years (and still going).

Certainly it can seem odd, compared to one's own experience. This merely demonstrates how one's own experience should not be taken as a stand-in for the experience of games as a whole.

Mind you, even giving the average doesn't really tell us as much as we want. We really need to know the standard deviation to also be able to characterize how long games last.

For example, at the moment I'm running a Deadlands campaign that's run for three years, and playing in a Star Wars Saga Edition game that's been running a couple of years. It would seem that my experience is similar to yours. Except, before those two games, I had a long stretch where I or another GM would offer to run a game, and a session or two would get played, and then life would intervene and things would fall apart. Each time that happens, my average campaign length drops precipitously, as the average of a 3-year game and a 0-year game is a 1.5 year game. So, my experience is at least vaguely consistent with the average...

But, is *that* the usual experience - the game goes for a long time, or not really at all? Maybe, or maybe not. I cannot say. A bunch of people here are saying that yes, having a campaign last a year or less is not odd for them, and I shouldn't discount them. The best we can say is that there are many different experiences, and in the past, at least, that averaged out to restarts rather more quickly than many expect.

 

[Rhenny]

I've DMd and played every edition. I kind of burnt out on 3.5 and 4e. I'm having fun with the playtest packages. Here's my mantra for D&DNext: It's fast, fun, flexible and easy to run.

At this point it is probably more suited for story driven (roleplaying) campaigns, or for DMs/players who like to balance combat, interaction and exploration more easily. It is possible to have very quick and easy combats to keep the game flowing. It is also possible to make combats more intricate for set pieces. That may be even more likely when the entire monster math is worked out and they develop the "Legacy Monster" idea.