D&D Next

[Teapot]

It means going forward 4e doesn't exist anymore and never exist. Like Highlander 2. It means if you like 4e, Wizards doesn't want/need you as their customer.

Doesn't exist? Are they going to come take your books? Will they demand RPPR takes down The New World (or re-does it in 5e?)

The last version of D&D I played with my friends (before leaving the country) was some kind of 1st edition with ugly Arduin bits bolted on. I think you'll just have to live with your favorite edition not being the current one. As for throwing under the bus, Wizards seems to get better and better at trash talking the last edition each time. I recall they printed 2nd edition sucks t-shirts when they got the property.

On a more serious note:

I'm also very interested in what Ross and Tom have to say about it. I hope you guys do an episode about 5th edition, or on edition wars in general (I don't remember, have you done an episode like that?)

It's two years away. That's a long time. That's longer than my god-son has been alive. While an episode about the reaction/playtesting methods etc might be interesting, it's two years away.  There's so much going on in the world of RPGs that talking about something two years off seems silly. I mean, Greg Stolze was talking about a campaign or source book for A Dirty World dealing with Chicago and Cairo. I'd much rather hear about that. Or entirely new games.

[clockworkjoe]

We will do an episode on D&D but not for a while.

[Ryo]

Is it two-years off from release? It seems strange they would have public play testing so early.

[SageNytell]

It's PR. That's the only reason they're doing a public release at all - this isn't a playtest, in the same way that Pathfinder's 'playtests' only bring about community awareness of upcoming releases rather than actual gameplay tests.

[Ryo]

But aren't they getting a lot of bad PR?

[SageNytell]

I never said it was a good idea. 
Like I said before, D&D Team is like 5 guys and an intern. Hasbro makes $100 million a year off of MTG, so they keep WoTC around. D&D is an afterthought legacy brand at this point, more valuable for the intellectual properties it holds than for money off of sales.
They had a poll that made it through whatever marketing department should be reading this stuff that asked about returning to ability scores based on gender - I think we can be secure in the assumption that Corporate is not paying a great deal of attention.

Edit:

It means going forward 4e doesn't exist anymore and never exist. Like Highlander 2. It means if you like 4e, Wizards doesn't want/need you as their customer.

Doesn't exist? Are they going to come take your books? Will they demand RPPR takes down The New World (or re-does it in 5e?)

Well, they would cause the same problem they currently have with Pathfinder on a smaller scale if they split their brand by offering online support for both 4E and 5E, so when they pull the plug on the Character Builder that's pretty much all she wrote - the character builder is an amazing tool but anyone who tells you it's not mandatory for everything after the PHB and forward is lying.

[Teapot]

Sort of. Except the big difference is the problem is with a game called "Pathfinder" taking their customers. If it's in house then it's not so much taking customers as keeping people from switching to a 4e clone. Which will appear before 5e even hits shelves.

[beej]

After playing on thinking about 5e...I'm on the fence.  I will say I am a much bigger fan of 4e than the prior additions.  So I am biased against a nostalgic approach I'll admit.  That being said, I don't think I've seen enough to say I wouldn't play it.

My group really liked the advantage/disadvantage.  The GM said he had a few concerns about the potentional un-hitability when you stack defense abilities with it.  But still really liked it on the whole.

As for wizard, the wizard player and myself was never fans of 'pick your spells for the day and hope you don't get any nasty surprise encounters.'  We're considering house ruling it to a mana pool system, but I hear that was not uncommon in 3.5?  Our wizard player prefers a more dps heavy spell caster and did not enjoy a more control focused caster.  That's a character creation complaint however and not a mechanics issue.

The Fighter, I don't know about other people's experiences but it tore the hell out of mobs.  Spine out the back ala Predator, I will paint my face with your blood.     

Rogue we didn't play right.  There was a hard time remembering the new rules for it  so it ended up feeling under powered.   Also the way the dungeon was laied out we did not find a lot of good situations for using him as an ambusher/skirmisher.  That's a more situational complaint though.  If we generated our own landscape/encounter that wouldn't be an issue. 

Clerics...eh?  I was never a fan of the class in 3.5 and 4e so I'm not sure how I feel about them.  They seemed to play fine from what people said.

The Background & Theme feels like it has a lot of potential.  A Fighter can be a beserker, tank, pitfighter, brawler, instead of making 4 seperate classes that are essentially a re-dressing of the fighter. 

Healing is a big concern, at least for my group.  We never have 5 players and no one likes to play cleric.  One of the things our group really loved about 4e is class flexibility, you could have two players that had some healing abilities and you could move right along without too much trouble.  Since we haven't seen character creation options or stuff beyond lvl 3, I'll have to wait and see how it pans out.   

There's a few other minor things, like we're going to house rule potions to be 4+1d4 hp and get rid of electrum? 

On the whole, on the fence.  A lot of my groups concerns are character creation related and whats beyond lvl 3.  Looking forward to the next phase of the playtest.

[Ryo]

Background & Theme and advantage/disadvantage are the best thing to comes out of 5e.

Sure the fighter is great now, but when the cleric and cast some long buffs that raise his to-hit, hp, saves, plus cast spells like heal and blade barrier. When the wizard is fireballing rooms, stoneskin, etc. The fighter isn't going to seem so powerful. Even in the adventure the fighter would easily start having problems with disadvantages. My fighter missed a few times of taking the lower dice.

I don't mind only being good at doing damage, but when the cast classes and do that and everything else. Higher levels fighters...What's the point?

[ethan_dawe]

I'm an old gamer, though not a grognard by any means. I've embraced lots of new games and enjoyed the development of some of my old favorites. With D&D I've been around long enough to have played:

1979 Basic and Expert boxed sets
AD&D (1st edition)
AD&D (2nd Edition)
skipped 2.5
D&D 3rd
D&D 3.5
D&D 4th

I thought 3rd was a great improvement over the older editions, and tolerated the quick change to 3.5. I was pretty happy with 3.5, though higher levels things broke down. I played some 4th and thought it was well balanced, but the combats seemed to take a long time and the feel of some of the rules didn't really appeal to me. I never bought into 4th beyond the Player's Handbook and Monster Manual as they were on sale for 66% off at a local book store that closed. I'm still playing and running 3.5 and deal with it's warts as necessary.

My feeling on 5th or whatever is that it's kind of a big fuck you to the fan base. I know they need to make money, but it won't be from me this time. If I want advantages or Disadvantages I'll play GURPS. If I want D&D I'll play 3.5 or 4th. This is just personal opinion though. If people like the new edition then that's cool. If someone asks me to play 5th I
'll give it a whirl, but I'm not buying it. They are just to smug and arrogant with their fan base for me. To sum up my view

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[beej]

Its not as bad as F.A.T.A.L

[Wooberman]

Its not as bad as F.A.T.A.L

Both better love stories than Twilight

[CADmonkey]

I know it's been two weeks but I didn't see anyone address this directly:

seriously? Fighters don't have any class powers anymore? That's lame.

From the sounds of things, Fighters will have class powers, only they won't be called "Martial Powers", they'll be called "Combat Maneuvers" and they'll have OPTIONAL stamped on them.  It looks like 5e will have a lot of 4e in it, only those bits will be renamed and made optional "modules".

[Moondog]

This is not getting fixed.

On the wizard side,

This is being built on further.

[Moondog]

Background & Theme and advantage/disadvantage are the best thing to comes out of 5e.

Sure the fighter is great now, but when the cleric and cast some long buffs that raise his to-hit, hp, saves, plus cast spells like heal and blade barrier. When the wizard is fireballing rooms, stoneskin, etc. The fighter isn't going to seem so powerful. Even in the adventure the fighter would easily start having problems with disadvantages. My fighter missed a few times of taking the lower dice.

I don't mind only being good at doing damage, but when the cast classes and do that and everything else. Higher levels fighters...What's the point?

Welcome to every edition of D&D past like 1st (wherein the Fighters were good because except for Asmodeus and other god-like things, they hit EVERYTHING IN THE GAME on a roll of 2 or higher come 10th level). =P

I love D&D, grew up playing it, still play it, and run it every Friday. But the Fighter issue drives me up a wall. =<<<<