WotC says, "Baby, come back! You know I didn't mean it!"

[Anastasia]

Amen to both.

[Anastasia]

Bump.

Has anyone been following the Next playtests at all?

[Merc]

Not in the least.

[Carthrat]

A little. It's hard to judge anything without playing it, though.

(clerics are still the best, reportedly)

[Yuthirin]

I'm rezzing this thread to provide a link to the playtest, which anyone can apparently join.

That is all.

[Anastasia]

So D&D Next is coming out this summer. Anyone interested in it or have an opinion yet? How's it looking?

[Merc]

I've not looked at it at all while it was playtesting, so not a clue or thought really given to it for the most part. Amusingly, I did glance at the release dates in my favorite board game store this weekend and went to look at the playtest, only to find it was over. Alas!

From what I saw, PHB is releasing Aug 19, MM is releasing Sept 30, DMG is releasing Nov 18. There is a starter set also releasing earlier on July 15.

I'd normally say that it's perplexing that DMG is releasing four months after PHB...well, actually, I still think it's perplexing. That said, typically D&D games are games where you can do just fine if all you have is the PHB. Still weird not to release a core set together, or closer together at least.

[Anastasia]

I find that odd too, but I suppose all the core playing material is in the PHB. I figure the DMG will be all that modular stuff they talked about.

[Yuthirin]

Hopefully it's not as boring as 4th ed

[Anastasia]

We shall see. I suspect it'll be a counter to 4th edition in the same way 4th was a counter to 3rd edition.

[Merc]

4th edition wasn't actually a bad system, it just relied heavily on grids, and borrowed mechanics from MMOs at a time when the market was being oversaturated with them.

It was a system that would have sold much better in the late 80s through mid 90s, before the internet or its early days.

[Anastasia]

I honestly think 4e would have done better if it wasn't attached to D&D. I don't meant that as a slight to either side, just that it tried to mix a lot of things up that parts of the fanbase didn't want changed.

The other issues are secondary to that, at least to me. It had to stand as a D&D game instead of on its own merits.

[Merc]

That's a good point as well. It had a lot of people comparing it to 3.5e because of the D&D name, and that didn't help it at all. If it had just been a new system by WotC shipping alongside 3.5e, it could have done better because then people would have been curious about an alternate system by the guys that did the D&D games.

[Dracos]

At the least, they wouldn't have lost so very many players toward Paizo's work.  The dramatic 2nd to 3rd ed shift worked I think largely as 2nd ed was long in decline and desrepair by the time it came out.  I also think 3rd was solidly an improvement and fourth was more a parallel track, but that could just be personal perspective.

[Anastasia]

At the least, they wouldn't have lost so very many players toward Paizo's work.  The dramatic 2nd to 3rd ed shift worked I think largely as 2nd ed was long in decline and disrepair by the time it came out.  I also think 3rd was solidly an improvement and fourth was more a parallel track, but that could just be personal perspective.

I'd say 4th's problem is 1. It was different and 2. It really took a hatchet to a lot of things the fanbase liked.

I think a lot of 4th's problem is that the developers didn't feel like fans of D&D, insofar as D&D was 30 years of development, world building and plot. In addition to the system shift, 4e played fast and loose with settings to change things as well as cram them into the points of light theme. You don't like large parts of D&D and want to build something in the same frame of reference about that? Cool. By all means. But don't put those people in charge of the main product. It's crappy to do to all the people who like those things.

It's why I think 4e would have made a great fantasy game without D&D's trappings. It could've fulfilled its vision without having to work around and massacre parts of D&D that the fanbase likes. Instead it worked in a field that introduced far more complications than boons.