Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition Announced
January 9, 2012 by beerogre
No it's not April, so this is real!
It seems that D&D 5th edition will be given a special premier at Gen Con 2012...
From the Wizards of the Coast press release:
We have begun obtaining feedback from a limited Friends & Family playtest consisting of internal employees and their gaming groups and soon we will be expanding that group to consist of members from our existing body of playtesters. Then at the D&D Experience convention in late January, Wizards of the Coast will conduct a special playtest of ideas currently in development. The D&D Experience will be moving to Gen Con in 2013, so as a convention special this year, we will be offering show attendees a first-look at a draft of the new set of rules. Then beginning sometime in the spring, we will begin open playtesting. Through our web site, we will release a growing set of rules, classes, monsters and other materials for your study and feedback. We seek to reach as many people as possible, from the gamer who just started with D&D last week to the gaming group that has been together since the early-1970s. For this process to work, we want to give a voice to all D&D fans and players of all previous editions of the game.
It looks like the guys over at Wizards of the Coast are looking for feedback. Although I doubt "make the game more like 3.5" will be very effective at getting their attention.
As a staunch supporter and player of 4th edition, I'll be very interested to see the direction they take this.
What are the thoughts of you D&D players out there?
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Can anyone tell me whether this level of “open playtesting” is typical for D&D? Seems really awesome…hopefully now companies are starting to realize that bringing in the “player” on the ground floor like this makes for a much better game…especially if you have designers that are smart enough to sort the wheat from the chaff when it comes to suggestions and tweaks.
It’s not typical by any means !
But maybe the disaster that was 4th edition taught them a valuable lesson…..
Hopefully it did. Otherwise 5th Edition might be as bad as 4th Edition.
I don’t think WotC have ever done open playtesting – that was one of the things people praised Paizo for with Pathfinder; all of their stuff has been open playtested, just about every book has had one.
Signed up for whatever this play testing will entail. Be really interesting to see where they take the game to make it different from 4th Edition.
Bring it on Wizards.
really hope it goes back more like 3/3.5. d+d 4th felt like a board game to me more than a RPG and most of my friends kept there 3.5 stuff cause they didnt like 4th
It was more of a WOW boardgame. Hit, heal, hit, heal, hit, heal *yawn* fall asleep etc.
Blimey, it doesnt seem like 5 minutes ago 4th was announced.
I take it 4th wasnt well received? The rules always read as a much more modern , streamlined game to me, and all the better for it.
Imho 4th edition was a poor attempt to get the attention of the WoW generation. It was miles away from the great roleplaying experience of 3.5…
Please bring back Birthright!
I played 4th edition for about a month then moved on with my life. It was tedious.
I played from 1st edition to 3.5, picked up a 4th edition book in the store, skimmed the mechanics, put it down and never looked back. Maybe skipping an edition was just what I needed.
Anything that takes the prepaints out of the game will be a win in my books.The game became a monster mash and lost touch with the adventure and story telling part of role playing. My imagination as well as the DM where good enough for me to play with others. Leave the mini’s out of it.
They are struggling to fit in with the next generation of gamers. I think they want the sales figures of the MMO’s and they know that if they don’t try to appeal to that group the game will die out. D&D used to be the only game in town for sustained character driven long term gaming experience in a high fantasy setting, but the MMO’s have really cut into the D&D market. But like everyone else here, I think the strength of the game is in the story telling and face to face camaraderie that is offered. A game thats… Read more »
I agree with that in 100% ! You are very right! Use your imagination just like you did at your childhood .. but sadly this thinkin’ has been ruined for all over the years.. Modern children don’t use their mind to imagine the crowd of fables. : (( They just turn on the TV to watch the movies and that’s all.
Apparently , this is codenamed ‘I’ something…which stands for ‘Imitate Pathfinder!’
I think they need to return to a more character-based game. It’s the storytelling that won me over to role-playing games in the first place. Seems far too mechanical in 4th edition…
If that’s all I wanted, I could play a board game.
I still prefer original, basic/expert or 1st ed myself…so I hope 5th is more like them
Why does everyone blame lack of story on the rule set? That is moronic. RP will always be dictated by the players, never by the system. I’ve played some really horrid systems in my day but we still had great RP sessions due to the players. If you dumbed down your 4E game, then that was your fault. I like the fact that combat was so streamlined and fun. I’ve recently been playing in a 1st ed game and that is horrible compared to 4E. It is a lot more fun to be able to stay around in a dungeon… Read more »
I agree totally with your points – it’s down to the gaming group to have the fun and RP the game. Unfortunately when the system is rammed full of rules for combat that becomes harder to do. There is literally no system in 4th for anything other than combat situations. What do you do, just make up your own rules for all the other skill sets and feats you want to attempt? I don’t want to have to engineer my own house rules for everything other than combat. If I’m paying for what is marketed as an RPG system, I… Read more »
The rules system reinforces the play style and options. Its a question of emphasis. The latest rules simply did not go into half the detail that 3 and 3.5 did with regard to world creation, compelling plot, and long term nemesis ideas. It’s the idea of imagination over realistic combat. I think that the popularity of table top miniature based battle games has also had an undue influence on the D&D rules set. They need to keep the focus on what made them unique, not create some hybrid easy to digest dungeon crawler regurgitation. Version 4 is pretty much a… Read more »
As Penny Arcade said…
Finally, those who discovered D&D with fourth edition will have an old set of rules to cling to and a new one to revile… Now, the cycle is complete…
BoW Romain
Well they bloody better get it right or at least close to what people want or we can kiss D&D good bye as others will fill the void. D&D was what got me into gaming and I’ll hate to see it go.
So work your fingers to the bone and get us the game we all miss and wish to play once again. Don’t do a Confrontation on us guys.
I hope 5th is more like Fudge …
🙂
Joking aside, I wonder if the whole “Let’s go MMO” approach to the 4th backfired financially. Even the official press release mentions the 4th to be a “dividing” edition, but I wonder if they’re not just greedy for the 3.5/Pathfinder fans and want to bring them back home.
The stakes are high, 5th has the potential to be a robust toolbox, bringing together more storytelling oriented players and those after a dungeon slashfest, but if it does neither right a lot of people will walk away from it.
I’m not sure 4th ed backfired, but it certainly was short lived compared to other editions… People were already groaning about 3.5 being retired after only six years (2003-2008, eight years if you count 3rd ed that was out in 2000), compared to AD&D2, that spanned eleven years… Especially since the OGL made everyone happy. 4th edition has lasted 4 years, and, during these four years, has spawned an alternate version called “D&D Essentials” ! How long will 5th edition be around ? Will WOtC publish a yearly edition, at some point, just like they do now with Magic :… Read more »
Although I haven’t played Pathfinder (I filled the D&D hole with FFG’s Deathwatch) I generally agree with Romain completely there. I enjoyed 4th ed. until some other factors caused the long lived group to fall apart.
I was really surprised when I saw that 5th ed. is already on it’s way. I don’t feel RPG’s need the refresh rate that miniature games have. Although many newer games are updated once or twice quite quickly, and 4th ed. was so different it is likely in a similar boat.
Then again, 4th ed. is a miniature game. Maybe that’s why it needs the “refresh rate”, as you say.
Time to see how much WotC can rape Forgotten Realms…again
One thing they should do is get rid of the Skill Challenges that took away the need for role playing. One of the main things I hated about 4th Edition, that and rolling for your stats was just an option, they rather have you used the pre generated numbers given to you.
I’m hoping for a game more like 3.5, and while I expect a total mess yet again 4th ed. did have a lot of good ideas, lets just hope they do bring some gamers in and ask them what they want.