Knights & Knaves Alehouse

You know what’s really strange, though? The “wait and see” attitude. There’s a whole missing side to this conversation (other than a brief but poignant mention by Matthew), which is that you can already download 5e for free. It’s the latest version of the playtest. WotC has been publishing modules for it and setting up Encounters games for it. People have been running it at cons. It’s out there for the world to see, and everyone (except those with some legal reason not to sign the NDA) who wants to see it has already seen it. The whole Official Launch is nothing but propaganda — understandable, but WE don’t have to pretend 5e isn’t already out.

5e is already out, and it suuuuuuuuuuuucks.

Every page is dripping with gamer jargon I don’t recognize, you know what I mean? Stuff like “action surge” and “blindsense” which have no basis in literature, but sound like they come from video games or card games. I’m going to stop here, because it’s nothing you haven’t heard before. It’s 3e lite plus some weird new shit.

So what is it, exactly, that remains to be seen? If Basic PDF is soo lite that it’s missing feats and skills and backgrounds and features and paths, what will be left? The awesomeness of OD&D? No chance.

Falconer wrote:You know what’s really strange, though? The “wait and see” attitude. There’s a whole missing side to this conversation (other than a brief but poignant mention by Matthew), which is that you can already download 5e for free. It’s the latest version of the playtest.

I haven't cared enough about it to bother with the playtest. And I'm out of the loop, but I'm not 100% confident that any particular playtest version will be the same as the released version.

Honestly, I don't think it's a big deal. I'll wait until the "real deal" 5e is out. I'll check out the PDF and see what I think. Not much different than checking out a free PDF of any other game, the way I see it (although I admit being curious to see if WotC's new "D&D" really is recognizable as D&D, this time). And in this case, I can't say I'm expecting much.

Not sure why this thread is even continuing at the top of the list.

:shrugs:

So when I hear people say that Next is going back to "older editions" what they really mean is 3e (which isn't so much "older" as it is "slightly less new" considering D&D has been around for 40 years and 3e has only been around for 14 years) with perhaps a bit of lip service paid to 70's & 80's era D&D through some retro art, right? In other words, WotC realized they made a huge F'n mistake when they dumped 3e for 4e and lost most of their fan base to Pathfinder so now they're backpedaling and at the same time trying to cash in on the OSR market that has cropped up due to another mistake on their part (the OGL and OSRIC). It's too bad TSR didn't try a similar tactic and go back to 1e when 2e caused a loss of 50% of their customers . . .

Falconer wrote:You know what’s really strange, though? The “wait and see” attitude. There’s a whole missing side to this conversation (other than a brief but poignant mention by Matthew), which is that you can already download 5e for free.

Another aspect missing from the conversation is that people seem to be losing their shit over how generous WotC is being for giving away a free .pdf that contains 15% of their game when there are plenty of companies putting out free .pdfs of their entire game (Swords & Wizardry, OSRIC, and Pathfinder spring to mind). Not that the free .pdf isn't a nice thing for those who are interested. I just don't understand why people are seeing this as particularly surprising or revolutionary. It isn't even a new thing for D&D. 3e had the OGL and 4e had the "leak" of the publishers .pdf files for the PHB, DMG, and MM that I think we all know was an intentional PR move. WotC has a solid record of giving away their core rules for free. I'm surprised people weren't expecting something like this.

Philotomy Jurament wrote:Not sure why this thread is even continuing at the top of the list.

:shrugs:

It gets bumped when one posts to it.

Lord Cias wrote:So when I hear people say that Next is going back to "older editions" what they really mean is 3e (which isn't so much "older" as it is "slightly less new" considering D&D has been around for 40 years and 3e has only been around for 14 years) with perhaps a bit of lip service paid to 70's & 80's era D&D through some retro art, right? In other words, WotC realized they made a huge F'n mistake when they dumped 3e for 4e and lost most of their fan base to Pathfinder so now they're backpedaling and at the same time trying to cash in on the OSR market that has cropped up due to another mistake on their part (the OGL and OSRIC). It's too bad TSR didn't try a similar tactic and go back to 1e when 2e caused a loss of 50% of their customers . . .

I don't know if anyone knows exactly what the game is going to be (besides the Wizards people obviously). The play test and the final product will certainly differ in some regards, but yes I'd imagine it would probably be more similar to 3rd edition than AD&D if you were doing a direct comparison. Having said that, in the play tests they released the entire caves of B2 as one of the adventures, and the rules were slightly different, but I can imagine running a lot of OS modules without a lot of hassle (just invert armour class). The other thing I think worth noting is that if you were DMing some new players with 5e you could probably add a healthy dose of AD&D to the game with minimal effort and mix and match.
Also it's pretty sweet that they've been re-releasing older products - the OD&D box set, the core AD&D rule books, UA, S series, A series etc. If you're set on older editions then I can't imagine wanting to change, but I do respect the fact that they're listening to what the community wants.

rastus_burne wrote:Also it's pretty sweet that they've been re-releasing older products - the OD&D box set, the core AD&D rule books, UA, S series, A series etc. If you're set on older editions then I can't imagine wanting to change, but I do respect the fact that they're listening to what the community wants.

I agree that WotC putting OD&D and AD&D back in print was a fantastic move on their part and hope they continue the trend.

Lord Cias wrote:

rastus_burne wrote:Also it's pretty sweet that they've been re-releasing older products - the OD&D box set, the core AD&D rule books, UA, S series, A series etc. If you're set on older editions then I can't imagine wanting to change, but I do respect the fact that they're listening to what the community wants.

I agree that WotC putting OD&D and AD&D back in print was a fantastic move on their part and hope they continue the trend.

Yeah me too. I'd love to see a reissue of the G series!

Falconer wrote:You know what’s really strange, though? The “wait and see” attitude. There’s a whole missing side to this conversation (other than a brief but poignant mention by Matthew), which is that you can already download 5e for free. It’s the latest version of the playtest. WotC has been publishing modules for it and setting up Encounters games for it. People have been running it at cons. It’s out there for the world to see, and everyone (except those with some legal reason not to sign the NDA) who wants to see it has already seen it.

I'm taking a wait and see attitude, and no, I haven't seen any of the pre-publication documents, and yes, I want to see 5e.

joe b.

I had another look at the final play test release on account of this thread, and I stand by my earlier assertion. There is nothing about those documents that suggests that D20/5E is going to appeal to me in the slightest. Of course, that is not to say that they did nothing right, there is plenty of stuff in there that hearkens back to earlier iterations of the game, but overall it is still chock full of the sort of design and development decisions that gave D20/3E the epithet "Dungeons & Dragons for people who do not like Dungeons & Dragons", or more pertinently for us Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. None of which is to say that I will never play it, after all I gave D20/4E a go, or that it will be unsuccessful, or even that it will not be the best of the D20 iterations of D&D under the stewardship of WotC.

jgbrowning wrote:

Falconer wrote:You know what’s really strange, though? The “wait and see” attitude. There’s a whole missing side to this conversation (other than a brief but poignant mention by Matthew), which is that you can already download 5e for free. It’s the latest version of the playtest. WotC has been publishing modules for it and setting up Encounters games for it. People have been running it at cons. It’s out there for the world to see, and everyone (except those with some legal reason not to sign the NDA) who wants to see it has already seen it.

I'm taking a wait and see attitude, and no, I haven't seen any of the pre-publication documents, and yes, I want to see 5e.

joe b.

They sold some at GenCon that weren't tainted with the NDA, Joe. They are probably on ebay.

Philotomy Jurament wrote:Not sure why this thread is even continuing at the top of the list.

:shrugs:

Because I started it, and my shit is cool beyond calculation.

It will cost me nothing to download and take a look at the Basic pdf once it's released - literally less effort than it took in the old days to drive to a store and flip through the books on the shelves. If it turns out to be as gross as terrible as you all are saying it is then I'll go "ooh, gross!" and junk the file and all I've lost is a few minutes that most likely wouldn't have been spent doing anything more productive anyway. And if turns out to be better than that (which it could - it seems reasonable that the playtest versions would focus more on the "new" and more complex aspects of the game (i.e. the stuff that's almost definitionally least appealing to folks like us), and that the version intended both to be simpler and to hearken back to the feel of the classic versions, would be different) then I get the mental satisfaction of knowing that the game being marketed under the same brand name as the game I played and loved as a kid is no longer quite the legacy-raping travesty it has been for the past 6 (or, to a somewhat lesser extent, 25) years, which would be nice.

I'm not intending to play it or spend any money on it, but yeah, the brand name association alone still makes me curious enough to be willing to invest a few minutes of my time once every few years to see what the current owners are doing with it this time around. It's the digital equivalent of seeing the book on the shelf at Borders, picking up a copy, and spending a few minutes flipping through it, just like I did with both 3E and 4E back when they were released.

Mythmere wrote:They sold some at GenCon that weren't tainted with the NDA, Joe. They are probably on ebay.

Cool, didn't know that. I looked about but didn't see any. I've kept myself out of the loop regarding 5e so I have absolutely no idea what they've done or what they're planning to do. I'll look at it when it's done.

joe b.

How about another "what's missing from the conversation" post?

What's missing from the conversation, is that, even if 5e/Next/whateveritscalled turns out to the holy fucking grail of gaming, the focus of K&KA will still be AD&D 1e with some lip service given to that earlier edition.