D&D 5E You know what? I'm frustrated at how long 5e is gonna take.

[BobTheNob]

You think you got it rough, try being a diablo 3 fanboy. Now there's a group that has had to wait!

 

[Thalionalfirin]

Because I'm now 41, my memory is probably hazy, but I don't seem to recall such a long time between official announcement and release of 4e. Did we wait this long last time?

41? You're still young!!!!

I don't even remember being 41.

 

[Starglyte]

The smart money (i.e. mine) says 5e will launch at GenCon 2013, which is about 18 months from now. In the meantime, there'll be the playtest, although I don't think that even WotC really understand how that'll be implemented.

My guess is that we WON'T see the kind of open playtest with free downloads that Pathfinder had. My instinct is that to participate in the 5e playtest, you'll need a DDI subscription and you'll need to sign an NDA. But we'll see!

I agree with this. I have a bad feeling that the open playtest we keep hoping for won't be as open as people think. Still too early to get excited by a edition change. I suppose I will check back in a year.

 

[Alzrius]

It's worth noting that this is roughly analoguous to the time between the announcement of the Pathfinder RPG (February or March of 2008, as I recall) and the release of the final product (August of 2009, at Gen Con).

Of course, during that time they had an alpha playtest document(s) that first released right around when the open playtest began, and a beta playtest document (that could also be bought as a softcover for $5) in Gen Con of 2008.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

Put me down for this prediction right now: There will be at least a handful of people, at launch, announcing that they intend to keep using play test version N for their own campaign, because, "after that point, WotC really took it in a direction we didn't want to." In return for not being entirely in sync with the new shiny launch version, these people get to start early.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Put me down for this prediction right now: There will be at least a handful of people, at launch, announcing that they intend to keep using play test version N for their own campaign, because, "after that point, WotC really took it in a direction we didn't want to." In return for not being entirely in sync with the new shiny launch version, these people get to start early.

Well heck, we've got people still using the 5E playtest documents that got released back in '74, '77, '81, '89, and 2000.

 

[Keefe the Thief]

You know what? I'm frustrated at how long 5e is gonna take. Reply to Thread

Well you should be frustrated about that. There are so many people angry that 5e is here so sooooooooon!

Somebody has to try to cancel that out.

 

[Saracenus]

My guess is that we WON'T see the kind of open playtest with free downloads that Pathfinder had. My instinct is that to participate in the 5e playtest, you'll need a DDI subscription and you'll need to sign an NDA. But we'll see!

I doubt it will be exactly the same as the Pathfinder Open Playtest (but that playtest had the OGL, so the rules were already "open" anyway).

We don't really know if the open playtest is going to be public docs or hidden behind and NDA (they just haven't told us which way it will be yet).

The Friends and Family (and the D&D XP) playtest is definitely under an NDA.

As for needing DDI to playtest, um no. I am currently a 4e playtester for WotC and half my group has DDI and the other half does not. In fact one of my guys uses Windows Note Pad as his character sheet.

So, unless there is a radical change in policy, no you will not need a DDI subscription to playtest. You will need a wizards.com login (they are free) to post your playtest results.

As a side note, can we all just stop borrowing trouble we don't own? The assumptions on this board and in this thread are painful to read. I know there is low information right now, but good Greyhawk gods people its a little early to say its the Spellplague/Twin Cataclysms/Armageddon right now.

The Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt (FUD) is thick and people are running around in circles and saying the "Crystal Spheres are falling, the Crystal Spheres are falling."

Everyone take a deep breath and in a month or two people will get their first look at what is really going on mechanically and then you can run around in circles dodging (only if you have the feat) the shards of your world shattering. Or, you can see this as the first baby steps towards a potentially better future of gaming.

This edition has really become a Rorschach test for whether you are glass half empty or half full kinda of person (and there are a few that see it just shattered on the ground with bloody footprints from where they just walked over it without shoes).