D&D Next Playtesting Open Beta

[roflmao]

I read earlier today about WotC publicly releasing their early beta version of the next version of D&D, tentativly called "D&D Next".    I went ahead and registered and received the link to download the material.  After a brief skim through the rules (which are pretty sparse right now) it seems like they have changed a LOT from 4th ed.  It looks like miniatures will not be necessary for combat, and things like healing surges are gone. 

I've only briefly skimmed the rules and looked at a pre-generated character or two, but will dig into it as soon as I can.  What I've seen so far looks as if they are going back to their roots of basic D&D, which is a very good thing in my book.  We'll see how it evolves...

http://www.wizards.com/dnd/Article.aspx?x=dnd/4news/dndnextfaq

[nodtveidt]

Why do they keep f*cking up the system? The 2nd edition was just fine, before WotC got their grubby paws on it.

[roflmao]

I dunno.  TSR probably would have gone under without WotC jumping in, which would have been very sad.  I skipped 3rd and 3.5 altogether, but really tried to get into 4th ed.  It just didn't feel like D&D to me.  More like a minis wargame with a bit of light role-playing between battles.  This new version seems like they are really trying to return to their roots.  But from what I can tell it's still very early, so they still have plenty of time to screw it up.

I think 4th ed is a pretty fun game, it just shouldn't have the D&D name attached to it.

[_joshuaTurbo]

Screw all of that.  It's all HASBRO now, WotC bought out TSR, then let themselves get purchased by a damn toy company.

I enjoyed AD&D, then got into 3rd edition, cause it's a decent game.  Currently we play Pathfinder and that works well enough for us.

Freaking 5th edition.... jeeesh!

[guyjin]

Played 'next' last night. Overall, I like it better than 4th edition: it seems less CCG-ish. I did have some issues, though:

The way sneak attacks work now could be nightmarish. You have to spend an action hiding, and then move and make your attack at some point after that. If you move past people, you have to figure out who's facing what way and make opposed wisdom vs stealth checks. that's a lot of rolling, and a lot of facing rules that were not supplied.

There were differences between the character sheets and what the book said (an axe that did 2d6 damage vs the book saying it should do d12)

Skills were somewhat ambiguous. It was said that skill checks were stat+skill, but it did not specify what stats belonged to what skill. Perhaps they're trying to make it more freeform (for instance, you could use int+stealth to figure out where you think someone is hiding) but that wasn't directly stated.

Third, we were a bit confused about how spellcasting worked. we weren't sure if everyone was basically a sorcerer now, or what. There were two Clerics and they both seemed to use the same learn a spell, prepare and cast it model that Wizards use, and whether you could learn more spells without leveling.

Finally, the book seemed to suggest that magic items were going back to the 2nd ed. model, i.e. they're priceless; I always thought that was BS, and I don't know why they're bringing it back.

With all that said, it's still better than 4e.

[nodtveidt]

I invested several hundred dollars in books for 2nd edition... sure as hell wasn't gonna do that again... and now they're doing 5th... and want my money again.

[spenoza]

Next/5E is a lot, mechanically, like 3.x. 4E hurt the player base quite a bit and WoTC is jealous of Pathfinder's success. Paizo is simply siphoning off the disaffected players, those who aren't staying with 3.x, anyway. So 5E is an attempt to re-cast 3.x and incorporate some of the looseness of older editions to draw back in older players who are frustrated that WoTC has strayed.

I have a lot of 2E material, but 2E does have a lot of flaws. Looking forward to the release of Myth and Magic, which is a D20 re-imagining of 2E.

[guyjin]

Paizo is simply siphoning off the disaffected players, those who aren't staying with 3.x, anyway.

Both 3.0 and 3.5 had significant issues that Pathfinder nicely addressed. Grappling, ferinstance, was seriously broken in 3.5; CMB and CMD solved that problem nicely.

[spenoza]

Well, the D&D Next playtest files are light on detail ATM, so I don't know if they've addressed, for example, grapple. I do know that as long as they don't go skill crazy it should be alright.

I don't like the mix of classes AND skills. I'd rather see skills used to augment classes (add non-class functions) rather than skill access being a part of class functions. The idea of character class used to include everything that type of character could do. If you were a fighter, you could do anything a fighter would normally know how to do. You didn't need skills to see if you could climb or jump or whatever. Can a fighter do it? How well can a fighter do it? OK, roll.

[nodtveidt]

A lot of the specifics are supposed to be left up to the person running the game. It's rather irritating when the "official rules" try to cover everything... it leaves little wiggle room for creative gaming.

[vestcoat]

I have two gripes with everything since 2nd Edition and they have nothing to do with the pros or cons of particular editions.

1) Planned obsolescence.
Under Hasbro, new editions make old editions obsolete. For the first twenty-five-plus years of D&D, the rules built on each other, but the game remained the same: a basic D&D player could buy a 2nd Edition boxed set and knew enough to run the encounters without scrapping the stat blocks. Under Hasbro, if you buy a module for a different edition and don't have the rulebooks, good f*cking luck.

2) Shorter product life.
1st Edition lasted for 10 years and 2nd lasted for twelve. Under Hasbro, 3rd lasted for seven (not counting 3.5) and 4th lasted for what, five or six? TSR certainly had a financial incentive for making 2E, but there was also an honest motivation to make sense out of ten years of dense rules and a rapidly-evolving game. Hasbro seems more interested in reselling a bunch of hardbounds every five years than fine-tuning the mechanics of any particular edition.

[spenoza]

You could argue that for any large company role-playing products are just not money-makers unless they update and replace them. Hell, look at Steve Jackson Games. Most of their money comes from Munchkin. They only keep making Gurps because they love it and the Munchkin profits allow them to.

[Arkhan]

D&D went stupid after 2nd.  Terribly stupid.

The flaws in 2nd Edition are easily remedied by any DM with half a brain.   It should also be noted that the flaws in 2nd edition aren't even that serious.  They sure don't damage the experience any.

Since the release of 3rd, the game has been devolving significantly.  It's better off being played as a tabletop battle game.   That's what the stupid D&D miniatures crap was anyways.  It's 3rd edition D&D's combat section. 

The books are too convoluted and full of numbers and idiotic crap these days.   The people that really enjoy it are meta-gamers, min-maxers, and people who only play the most current form of a game.

I play 1st edition.  I mix in some 2nd edition books when I feel like it because the rules are that close.  We also don't really play D&D much anymore.  It's always 1st edition when we do though.

Those two editions really had it nailed.  You release the core rulebooks and get people hooked....then, you feed them a decade of sourcebooks, modules, and addons to make the game bigger and better.   

all they did with 3rd edition and beyond was bastardize the entire concept.  The source books were just cashing in on the names (Fiend Folio was awful).   Then they released stuff in the redbox, and tried reviving stuff from the 80s, and it was a GIANT TRAINWRECK.

Plus, the new book layouts suck, and the covers look retarded.   I hate the paper they print stuff on.  There's too much noise behind the text.

Anyway,

I tried 3, 3.5, 4, and some of this new shit.  It's all shit.  3.5 only functions well in one setting:
D&D Online.

The reason for this is that overuse of numerical stats works great in an MMO.    On paper, it's retarded.



If you want to play a FUN role playing game try:

Torg
Cyberpunk 2.0.2.0.
Rifts/Any Palladium setup really.   I prefer TMNT + Rifts
Big Eyes Small Mouth (the Tr-Stat D6 stuff.  Not the 3rd edition stuff.  The D8 stuff is OK, but why bother.).
Earthdawn

That brings another point up.   

BESM and Cyberpunk, AND D&D all went to shit at 3rd edition.

I've determined that once a ruleset hits 3.0, it is f*cked. 

[spenoza]

I think the latest (Fuzion-based) Cyberpunk has lots of problems, including art and editing, but I don't think the rules themselves are f*cked. Fuzion is kinda nice. Lots of great anime-based Fuzion games that R. Tal did but are now out of print. I've got a bunch of them.

[Arkhan]

I think the latest (Fuzion-based) Cyberpunk has lots of problems, including art and editing, but I don't think the rules themselves are f*cked. Fuzion is kinda nice. Lots of great anime-based Fuzion games that R. Tal did but are now out of print. I've got a bunch of them.

They're pretty f*cked in comparison to 1st and 2nd edition.

If you want to use fuzion and want a cyberpunkish feel, just play Bubblegum Crisis.   Don't touch 2020