D&D 5e: For real this time?

[ksbsnowowl]

The game will be modular, beginning with a basic game and allowing the players to build on it depending on their own play style. That's right, we're not getting the MMO many of us were worried about, but tailored experience. Mike Mearls said: “We hope to create a system that allows players to use much of their existing content, regardless of the edition. ..."

If they can truly pull off this modular game concept, and in essence create a cleaned-up version of 3.5 as a possible play mode, with retroactive compatibility [as they suggest], I might bite.  But I don't have high hopes of that happening.

The one huge problem I see with this modular game model, as it relates to actually playing the game, is that it will be a bitch to find a game group that matches what you want to play.  If they can pull it off, it will be an excellent product and marketing strategy from a business stand-point.  But you will no longer be able to look for a "3.5e game" or "4th ed game."  It'll all be 'D&D,' and you'll show up to find out this group plays a modular version like 4th ed, when you were wanting something like 2nd or 3rd edition.  Maybe it won't actually get that far, but you'll still end up wasting time through e-mails determining exactly what this possible new group is actually playing.

[Dragon Snack]

When I playtested Wonderland No More, I was (at least partly) responsible for 3 rewrites of the Chesspiece race (and the final iteration barely looks like anything I played).  When I playtested for Reaper, some Goblin units were removed from the final product when I abused the crap out of them (meaning some minis never got produced).  Reaper also delayed the release of CAV2 for a year after a huge hole was found (not by me) in late playtesting (we were literally told it was releasing "in a matter of days" when they found the hole). 

I'm not sure WotC has the ability (not to mention the willpower) to make huge changes or delay 5E like that, but we have to give them the benefit of the doubt - maybe they have learned their lessons...

As intrigued as I am though, I still remember 3.5, 4E, DDM2.0, Dreamblade, and Hecatomb.  Even their Magic side isn't immune with Jace, the Mind Sculptor, Mental Misstep, and Poison.

[JohnnyMayHymn]

My theory is that if the classes and monsters can be easily converted to C&C, then they will have met the requirements of "it looks like D&D" and modularity.

if that is in fact the case, I would be thrilled to pick and choose from OSRIC, AD&D, 3.X and 5th for any given campaign.  Personally I only liked the 4th ed boxed board games (Ravenloft, Ashardalon and the other one I havent picked up yet)

now balance is another issue entirely, and i wouldnt be surprized if it comes down to a "pick two" decision

[RobbyPants]

Penny Arcade is already making fun of it.

[Nemo]

Well, I was quite surprised by this news, it seems so soon! Actually got me quite excited, mostly because I love anticipation and all the pre-release suspicions and theories ;P.

[Thurbane]

My main concern is by trying to make a version that will appeal to fans of all iterations of D&D, they may end up with a "kitchen sink"/Frankenstein/clutter edition that won't particularly appeal to anyone. I mean, if they can somehow pull it off, I will tip my hat to 'em, but I just can't see how it's possible.

Much as with 4E, I'll give it a quick glance when it comes out, but my group is pretty comfortably settled into our 3.5 game. The main thing I keep an eye out for is non-rule specific accessories, like maps, minis and such.

[SolEiji]

I am curious how the PR will go.  One of the things that turned me off was the vigorous scrubbing and poo pooing of all things 3.5e in the coming rise of 4e.  We were getting replaced and it was pretty obvious, and a real turn off just from a respect standpoint (the fact I found the game itself dull just happened to work out that way).

I still find it amusing that one of their biggest opponents wasn't another company, but their previous product.

[bhu]

Penny Arcade is already making fun of it.

"Your examples have no Monkey Astronauts.  I demand a Monkey Astronaut Prestige Class before I agree to sign off on this."

"My 3.5 PC has his left ball possessed by Satan, how do I work this in 5.0?"

"OMG you don't have were hippos anymore, wtf is wrong with you?"

Yeah I'd hate to be the guy listening to that all day...

[Sinfire Titan]

"My 3.5 PC has his left ball possessed by Satan, how do I work this in 5.0?"

Great, now I want to reread that series...

[Tsuzurao]

"My 3.5 PC has his left ball possessed by Satan, how do I work this in 5.0?"

Great, now I want to reread that series...

To be fair, that wasn't Satan. Satan did show up toward the end of the series though.

[Sinfire Titan]

To be fair, that wasn't Satan. Satan did show up toward the end of the series though.

(click to show/hide)

Don't forget, she did get sealed in his jewels. It happened really late into the series.

[Tsuzurao]

To be fair, that wasn't Satan. Satan did show up toward the end of the series though.

(click to show/hide)

Don't forget, she did get sealed in his jewels. It happened really late into the series.

Touche.

Man, that was a weird series.

[Dragon Snack]

Umm, thread drift?

It went over pretty meh at Encounters tonight, even though only one of them knew about it beforehand.  Did have one kid claim he would "stay with 4E", but then I don't know who is going to play it with him...

[Agita]

Umm, thread drift?

It went over pretty meh at Encounters tonight, even though only one of them knew about it beforehand.  Did have one kid claim he would "stay with 4E", but then I don't know who is going to play it with him...

You playtested it, then? Anything you're allowed to tell us about it?

[Prime32]

Did have one kid claim he would "stay with 4E", but then I don't know who is going to play it with him...

Is that even possible once they pull the online 4e stuff?

[oslecamo]

Did have one kid claim he would "stay with 4E", but then I don't know who is going to play it with him...

Is that even possible once they pull the online 4e stuff?

Why not? It's that not how things went before?


This is, it would be kinda embarassing that after burning so much money on the books, you couldn't play whitout online suport.

[RobbyPants]

Did have one kid claim he would "stay with 4E", but then I don't know who is going to play it with him...

Is that even possible once they pull the online 4e stuff?

I didn't even think about that. It's be a lot easier for them to force people to convert this time around. Hopefully 5E is good enough that they don't convert backwards. 

[ksbsnowowl]

This is, it would be kinda embarassing that after burning so much money on the books, you couldn't play whitout online suport.

Keep in mind this question is coming from someone who has played 4th edition a grand total of about 4 times.

Isn't the online stuff mostly just a character generator, with power cards?  What does the on-line crap do that the books do not?

[oslecamo]

This is, it would be kinda embarassing that after burning so much money on the books, you couldn't play whitout online suport.

Keep in mind this question is coming from someone who has played 4th edition a grand total of about 4 times.

Isn't the online stuff mostly just a character generator, with power cards?  What does the on-line crap do that the books do not?

Errata. Loads and loads of errata. One could say 4e has already moved to 4.5 because the books published at the begginning and the current online material are quite diferent with everything they changed since then. If you only have the paper suport, you're "limited" to playing 4.0 while someone checking stuff online will be playing 4.5 as they automatically update the errata in the DDI. Or you could print the errata if you don't mind having to check up hundreds of extra pages every time you pick one of your books.

Of course, anyone paying for the online service knows better and periodically copies everything they can to their hard drives.

[Agita]

The errata is of somewhat questionable value, really. A lot of the stuff it fixed that needed fixing is a very obvious fix, while a lot of the other "fixes" are widely considered unnecessary. More importantly, the published errata is completely separate from the paid services of D&D Insider, anyone can access it and it's not even on the same page (last I checked, anyway). Furthermore, I doubt they'd pull it even if they pull everything else from the site - D&D 3.5 errata is still available as well, after all.

The real value of the online stuff is the wealth of material from the Dragon magazines. Those started being published exclusively to DDI members as .pdf files, so pulling the DDI content would mean all that extra content being pulled from the site. From what I hear, the amount of content has been lessening lately, but especially in 4e's beginning days and at the height of its popularity, Dragon magazines meant like three-four articles of new content a month. As oslecamo said, though, anyone with a lick of sense who actually paid for them has them saved. Furthermore, there's of course the usual back alley routes of getting at them.