Public Playtest Opens for D&D Next ... Next Month

[Greg Tito]

Public Playtest Opens for D&D Next ... Next Month

You can play the next iteration of D&D in May.

In December 2011, I was invited to see the new version of Dungeons & Dragons [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/editorials/9329-Speak-Your-Mind-in-the-Next-Version-of-Dungeons-Dragons] and hear Wizards of the Coast's plans for its release. A big part of that strategy was to give the fans a chance to play early versions and offer their input on the game. The next D&D would be our D&D. The first phase of playtesting was for a select few, but starting May 24th you'll be able to play the new game and offer your opinions on how it works.

"The playtest is the single most important part of the D&D Next process," said Mike Mearls [http://www.wizards.com/dnd/Article.aspx?x=dnd/4news/20120425a], head of the D&D development team. "D&D is a game that has spanned 38 years of gaming, spawned countless campaigns, and launched an entire gaming genre."

Mearls has admitted the previous version - the much-maligned 4th edition [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/editorials/9329-Speak-Your-Mind-in-the-Next-Version-of-Dungeons-Dragons] - suffered from a lack of playtesting, something he promises to reverse this time. "While D&D is an intensely personal game, taken as a whole it cannot afford to become something beholden to one team's vision. D&D is a tool for creativity. The game must embrace the entirety of its past, and the entirety of its fandom, in order to create a compelling future. No one voice can rise above the others, unless it is the voice of D&D fans as a whole."

The plan for how the open and public playtest will be distributed hasn't yet been set in stone but Wizards says more information will be forthcoming in the weeks leading up to Thursday May 24th.

Having checked in with the Wizards folks at PAX East, I knew that the announcement for a public playtest was on its way and the news of Monte Cook's resignation [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/116962-Monte-Cook-Leaves-Dungeons-Dragons-Next] most likely only had a superficial impact on the timing. I'm sure people will still suspect a larger connection between the two events, but I'm confident the long playtest period will go a long way towards refining the new ruleset.

Check out more detail on the D&D playtest from Mike Mearls and Jeremy Crawford. [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/116967-How-D-D-Next-Is-Shaping-Up]

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[Draconalis]

First thing I need to know before I ever even consider it.

Is it still the d20 system?

 

[Tanakh]

the much-maligned 4th edition

Was it? I mean, sure on the internet it was, but the only 3 D&D tables i have played in since it was launched used it and it was the DMs choice, personally i liked it too. Mainly because i fully agree that a ruleset is only a tool for creativity, and this one with a little spice from the in house rules allowed to have better balance in my opinion and at least tried to get rid of the padded fights.

 

[Akisa]

the much-maligned 4th edition

Was it? I mean, sure on the internet it was, but the only 3 D&D tables i have played in since it was launched used it and it was the DMs choice, personally i liked it too. Mainly because i fully agree that a ruleset is only a tool for creativity, and this one with a little spice from the in house rules allowed to have better balance in my opinion and at least tried to get rid of the padded fights.

What do you mean by padded fights?

 

[Blackbird71]

the much-maligned 4th edition

Was it? I mean, sure on the internet it was, but the only 3 D&D tables i have played in since it was launched used it and it was the DMs choice, personally i liked it too. Mainly because i fully agree that a ruleset is only a tool for creativity, and this one with a little spice from the in house rules allowed to have better balance in my opinion and at least tried to get rid of the padded fights.

I can't speak for others, but I know in my group, we tried 4th edition for a few months; it drove us to Pathfinder, where we have been happily playing for over a year now. For us, 4th was just too rigid and mechanical to allow for much creativity; it always felt more like we were playing a board game than an RPG.

 

[Elberik]

D&D IS the D20 system.

 

[Mahorfeus]

I'm on the Pathfinder ship myself. I doubt my group will be interested in this, though it could be interesting. Our brief tangle with 4e is a sad story, so I don't exactly have high hopes.

 

[Tanakh]

What do you mean by padded fights?

If you play Pathfinder/3rd without in house rules, the battles at high levels are either slow as hell or loopholes exploits. 4th feels closer to tabletop miniature wargames and MMOs, 3rd to JRPG; i know which i rather play, so i go with 4th, that doesn't mean anything, especially because i usually play in highly houseruled tables with guys that have spend doing this since first, so rules are just a tool.

Also helps that 4th is easier in general to mod it.

 

[JesterRaiin]

Just three questions :
- lack of healing surges ?
- Official adventures and campaigns AT LEAST comparable in quality with Paizo's ?
- Return of best settings (Planescape, Ravenloft, Darksun) ?

If there's at least one "NO" answer, then show's over, nothing to see here...

 

[Royas]

I'll probably just stick to Pathfinder myself. Paizo would have to pretty much make me feel as screwed over as WotC did when they dumped 3ED for me to leave them now. I just have no confidence that WotC will be able to make a system I like, given how enthused they were over 4ED. Personally, I don't know anyone who plays 4ED, I guess my area is pretty much dominated by 1ED grognards and Pathfinder fans.

 

[grigjd3]

"The game must embrace the entirety of its past, and the entirety of its fandom, in order to create a compelling future. No one voice can rise above the others, unless it is the voice of D&D fans as a whole." - in other words, they have no clue what they're doing so they're hoping to use statistics to win this battle. It's hard to consider this stuff seriously anymore. The game just stopped being fun.

Honestly, my favorite version was 2nd edition. 3rd edition was ok but they had extreme power creep. I don't know anyone who plays 4th ed.

 

[mattaui]

I'm glad to see my group and I weren't imagining things when, after spending most of a year trudging through some 4e gaming, we remarked how slow and tedious the combat felt. It's largely a matter of inflated hit points at lower levels and healing surges, and the surges were definitely my least favorite part of the entire system. They felt artificial and out of place, and the way they interacted with healing consumables and healing spells was even worse.

It felt very much like a jumped up board game, rather than a tabletop RPG, and I'm sure that was their goal. Make it so you can hand character sheets out to people with action cards, and they really don't need to know much else. It didn't impact 'roleplaying' like some people claimed, since nothing stops you from getting into character as much as possible. I think that feeling comes from the heavy streamlining of the process and the powers, so that actions every round felt awfully repetitive and wargamy.

Not really sure what they're planning on doing with 5e, but I wish them well. They'll have to pull out something amazing to draw me away from Pathfinder.

 

[Akisa]

What do you mean by padded fights?

If you play Pathfinder/3rd without in house rules, the battles at high levels are either slow as hell or loopholes exploits. 4th feels closer to tabletop miniature wargames and MMOs, 3rd to JRPG; i know which i rather play, so i go with 4th, that doesn't mean anything, especially because i usually play in highly houseruled tables with guys that have spend doing this since first, so rules are just a tool.

Also helps that 4th is easier in general to mod it.

Actually it's the exact opposite for me. Even in the high teens or breaking into the epic levels combat was still fast. The only problem is when you have to calculate all the enhancements, which I rarely had a problem. Especially if you keep more then one character sheet for a character in case if they rid of common buffs. As for 4th, the fights seemed to drag while in 3.X it's still exciting for me. I never took a measurement how long each fight took, as the not having fun factor could screw my results.

And in no wait does 3.X is closer to JRPG. As you don't see melee mimicking spells like 4th and JRPG does. If you have to compare to 3.X to video games, I say it's closer to Western RPG. 3.x tries to be pseudo realistic, but have to take some abstractions and rounding to make gameplay easier. Like HP being abstracted, as it doesn't always representing real wounds, but at the same time you can't recover from a nearly life threatening wound (such as being brought down to -1), only to be completely healed the next night. There is no sword technique that causes pain someone else just because that enemy decided not to attack said sword bearer.

 

[Akisa]

I'm glad to see my group and I weren't imagining things when, after spending most of a year trudging through some 4e gaming, we remarked how slow and tedious the combat felt. It's largely a matter of inflated hit points at lower levels and healing surges, and the surges were definitely my least favorite part of the entire system. They felt artificial and out of place, and the way they interacted with healing consumables and healing spells was even worse.

It felt very much like a jumped up board game, rather than a tabletop RPG, and I'm sure that was their goal. Make it so you can hand character sheets out to people with action cards, and they really don't need to know much else. It didn't impact 'roleplaying' like some people claimed, since nothing stops you from getting into character as much as possible. I think that feeling comes from the heavy streamlining of the process and the powers, so that actions every round felt awfully repetitive and wargamy.

Not really sure what they're planning on doing with 5e, but I wish them well. They'll have to pull out something amazing to draw me away from Pathfinder.

The 4E mechanics actively draw me out of the game. While healing surge were one big factor, some of the melee powers seemed to be another reality changer for me. The powers felt like spells, while playing a spell caster it was ok, but if you're playing or watching someone suppose to be a non spell caster it always broke my immersion. It gotten to the point that I would only try 4e again if it's agreed upon that everyone in the world was a spell caster in some fashion but may or may not use weapons as well.

 

[tehroc]

Wizards of the Coast just want to sell another round of books. Ideally they'd want new releases as often as Magic The Gathering.

 

[cricket chirps]

Sounds promising. I've always wanted to get into D&D but it's so hard to convince my friends it's wortht their time haha. Maybe the new version will be more appealing.

 

[mattaui]

I'm glad to see my group and I weren't imagining things when, after spending most of a year trudging through some 4e gaming, we remarked how slow and tedious the combat felt. It's largely a matter of inflated hit points at lower levels and healing surges, and the surges were definitely my least favorite part of the entire system. They felt artificial and out of place, and the way they interacted with healing consumables and healing spells was even worse.

It felt very much like a jumped up board game, rather than a tabletop RPG, and I'm sure that was their goal. Make it so you can hand character sheets out to people with action cards, and they really don't need to know much else. It didn't impact 'roleplaying' like some people claimed, since nothing stops you from getting into character as much as possible. I think that feeling comes from the heavy streamlining of the process and the powers, so that actions every round felt awfully repetitive and wargamy.

Not really sure what they're planning on doing with 5e, but I wish them well. They'll have to pull out something amazing to draw me away from Pathfinder.

The 4E mechanics actively draw me out of the game. While healing surge were one big factor, some of the melee powers seemed to be another reality changer for me. The powers felt like spells, while playing a spell caster it was ok, but if you're playing or watching someone suppose to be a non spell caster it always broke my immersion. It gotten to the point that I would only try 4e again if it's agreed upon that everyone in the world was a spell caster in some fashion but may or may not use weapons as well.

Yes, that's a very good way to put it regarding the powers. It felt like everyone was casting spells all the time, since mechanically they were all 'at will' 'encounter' or 'daily' powers. Sure, you could swing your sword, but you didn't get all the benefits of using one of your powers, which were always overly flashy and specific. I hope they move away from that entire concept and get back to making character classes feel more mechanically distinct.