Here's my take on Next.
I liked and have played Basic, 1e, 2e, 3e, 3.5e, and Pathfinder in their turn. Hate 4e and eschew it.
The D&D Next rules seem fine to me. I welcome a more light approach and removing a lot of the minmax frenzy from 3e+. When 3e came out I was really excited and migrated from 2e but now in retrospect the rule bloat, christmas tree syndrome, legalism, and min-maxing make me sad and I like what I see in the D&D Next rules per se. Not everything is how I'd design it, but it's well within the scope of "rules that will work for D&D."
However, they are committing the cardinal sin of game design - it's boring.
I can barely make myself read through the playtest packets. I think they've miscalculated badly in having no art, no layout, no fluff in there. But even without that, for example Savage Worlds presents a ruleset about the same size with some flair and savoir faire - reading the Next playtests is like reading a really boring car manual.
Maybe that'll all be in there when it launches - maybe. Maybe Aleena the cleric gets whacked by Bargle again and gives us a hate hard-on for him and pulls us into the action. Maybe the art will be inspired and not just aping Pathfinder or using the current "I airbrushed this on my van" art they seem to like. But even just the writing style does not say "Adventure!" to me, it says "Technical manual!"
Part of a playtest should be to whip up enthusiasm, but like the other posters here, I downloaded and eagerly read packet #1, I downloaded and skimmed #2, I downloaded and didn't bother opening #3, I didn't bother downloading #4... It's not the rules' fault, and I'm sure if I playtested it my group of good roleplayers would have a grand old time. But if I gave it to some 12 year olds who haven't played an RPG before? Are they going to bother to finish reading even the reasonable and short page count? Will their imaginations be fired - because mine's not being...
Here's my take on Next.I liked and have played Basic, 1e, 2e, 3e, 3.5e, and Pathfinder in their turn. Hate 4e and eschew it.
The D&D Next rules seem fine to me. I welcome a more light approach and removing a lot of the minmax frenzy from 3e+. When 3e came out I was really excited and migrated from 2e but now in retrospect the rule bloat, christmas tree syndrome, legalism, and min-maxing make me sad and I like what I see in the D&D Next rules per se. Not everything is how I'd design it, but it's well within the scope of "rules that will work for D&D."
However, they are committing the cardinal sin of game design - it's boring.
I can barely make myself read through the playtest packets. I think they've miscalculated badly in having no art, no layout, no fluff in there. But even without that, for example Savage Worlds presents a ruleset about the same size with some flair and savoir faire - reading the Next playtests is like reading a really boring car manual.
Maybe that'll all be in there when it launches - maybe. Maybe Aleena the cleric gets whacked by Bargle again and gives us a hate hard-on for him and pulls us into the action. Maybe the art will be inspired and not just aping Pathfinder or using the current "I airbrushed this on my van" art they seem to like. But even just the writing style does not say "Adventure!" to me, it says "Technical manual!"
Part of a playtest should be to whip up enthusiasm, but like the other posters here, I downloaded and eagerly read packet #1, I downloaded and skimmed #2, I downloaded and didn't bother opening #3, I didn't bother downloading #4... It's not the rules' fault, and I'm sure if I playtested it my group of good roleplayers would have a grand old time. But if I gave it to some 12 year olds who haven't played an RPG before? Are they going to bother to finish reading even the reasonable and short page count? Will their imaginations be fired - because mine's not being...
Not too short - about 300 pages on the latest download if you read everything. I think they went "technical manual" on it because it's a playtest and they wanted everything to be plain to the user. Too much excitement / color / creative writing and people might end up playtesting different rules interpretations. That would be awkward. As for new players, while having "fresh eyes" can help I'd imagine they mostly wanted feedback from people familiar with prior editions of the game. And God knows experienced players are used to reading a ton of material...
Here's my take on Next.
I liked and have played Basic, 1e, 2e, 3e, 3.5e, and Pathfinder in their turn. Hate 4e and eschew it.
The D&D Next rules seem fine to me. I welcome a more light approach and removing a lot of the minmax frenzy from 3e+. When 3e came out I was really excited and migrated from 2e but now in retrospect the rule bloat, christmas tree syndrome, legalism, and min-maxing make me sad and I like what I see in the D&D Next rules per se. Not everything is how I'd design it, but it's well within the scope of "rules that will work for D&D."
However, they are committing the cardinal sin of game design - it's boring.
I can barely make myself read through the playtest packets. I think they've miscalculated badly in having no art, no layout, no fluff in there. But even without that, for example Savage Worlds presents a ruleset about the same size with some flair and savoir faire - reading the Next playtests is like reading a really boring car manual.
Maybe that'll all be in there when it launches - maybe. Maybe Aleena the cleric gets whacked by Bargle again and gives us a hate hard-on for him and pulls us into the action. Maybe the art will be inspired and not just aping Pathfinder or using the current "I airbrushed this on my van" art they seem to like. But even just the writing style does not say "Adventure!" to me, it says "Technical manual!"
Part of a playtest should be to whip up enthusiasm, but like the other posters here, I downloaded and eagerly read packet #1, I downloaded and skimmed #2, I downloaded and didn't bother opening #3, I didn't bother downloading #4... It's not the rules' fault, and I'm sure if I playtested it my group of good roleplayers would have a grand old time. But if I gave it to some 12 year olds who haven't played an RPG before? Are they going to bother to finish reading even the reasonable and short page count? Will their imaginations be fired - because mine's not being...
Ultimate Campaign was the last Paizo PDF I bought and I think I am over Paizo's art. That animie look is just bad and out right stupid IMHO.
Yeah not really seeing much Anime influence in the art, except for the occasional overly large sword.
It is the cartoon look of Pathfinders art and WAR in general I am starting to dislike. I think Ultimate Campaign may be the last PF book I buy as I do not really need anything else with the PF and 3.5 material I have anyway and some of the OSR stuff with better art is appealing.
I like this art more than WAR stuff.
http://www.rpgnow.com/product/108830/ACKS-Players-Companion
http://www.rpgnow.com/product/99123/Adventurer-Conqueror-King-System
http://www.rpgnow.com/product/113499/Domains-at-War-Free-Starter-Edition
Or the Jeff Easley covers for 1st/2nd/BECMI books.
http://www.amazon.com/Dungeon-Edition-Advanced-Dungeons-Dragons/dp/08803872 97
http://www.amazon.com/Dungeons-Dragons-Rules-Cyclopedia-Allston/dp/15607608 50/ref=sr_sp-atf_title_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1375665954&sr=1- 1&keywords=D%26D+rules+cyclopedia
I'm not a fan of 13th Age at all (to 4th ed inspired) but damn this looks good.
http://www.pelgranepress.com/site/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/13TrueWaysCove r_May11_2013.jpg
I wouldn't mind seeing a semi-retro clone from Paizo like a "Pathfinder Classic", with art by Erol Otus, and Jason Edwards, Michael Erickson, Michael Wilson, etc (from Goodman stuff). I would still want the PFRPG rules, but minus the tactical stuff.
I like WAR art, but I would love the older school look like the above artists I mentioned instead.
YMMV
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Not getting the anime art effect from PF. The surf board sword is kinda dumb even with explanation. That is all I got though. I liked the art in Ucamp picked up my copy this weekend. I will say the best artwork I have seen for some time though is in LotFP.
I am a little worried about Next. Early on I liked the art styles they were playing with. Then they dropped those whimsy fatlings on us.
It is the cartoon look of Pathfinders art and WAR in general I am starting to dislike. I think Ultimate Campaign may be the last PF book I buy as I do not really need anything else with the PF and 3.5 material I have anyway and some of the OSR stuff with better art is appealing.
I like this art more than WAR stuff.
Or the Jeff Easley covers for 1st/2nd/BECMI books.
I'm not a fan of 13th Age at all (to 4th ed inspired) but <censor!> this looks good.
The most recent forum discussion on the phrase notwithstanding, I fixed that for... us. () :)
Frustrating to highlight and copy/paste that many different urls.
If you're curious "[ url = www.website.com ]type words here[ /url ]", when you remove the spaces, becomes, "type words here" so it's easier for us.
Yeah not to familiar with the way the forums here work Tacticslion. Suffice to say when it come to posting links, video and pictures it is one of the more frustrating forums out there. It is like they're using a free forum thing from 10 years ago.
This is off-topic, but I vastly prefer Paizo's forum style. No embedded images or signatures gives it a very clean appearance.
I have no opinion yet on 5e.
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Yeah not to familiar with the way the forums here work Tacticslion. Suffice to say when it come to posting links, video and pictures it is one of the more frustrating forums out there. It is like they're using a free forum thing from 10 years ago.
No, they just don't want to deal with people posting ducks (except, you know, not ducks), images of Jesus Christ getting sodomized by demonic hedgehog and most importantly, copyrighted material (say, properties of Wizards of the Coast) every 5 seconds.
Company-owned forums are a different ball game from non-commercial ones. There are reasons why the former usually don't permit hotlinking content.
And no, "appoint volunteer moderators" doesn't work (somebody has to oversee them and act if they, say, delete an image of Che Guevara and permaban an user just because they think communism is evil). It all ends up with having to devote additional permanent staff time or even being forced to take new hires. Blizzard and Bioware can afford that, Paizo - not really.
This is off-topic, but I vastly prefer Paizo's forum style. No embedded images or signatures gives it a very clean appearence.
I cut my teeth on Usenet, circa 1994, so I have to laugh at anyone who whines about the lack of pretty imbedded images.
As for 4E, D&D Next and all that, the main problem with Next that I see is that there is no "catch" the way there was with AD&D, 3E, and 4E. There's no consolidation of rules the way there was with AD&D, there's no skills and Magic the Gathering style rewards for mastery the way there was with 3E, and there isn't the balanced approach to tactical combat and role-playing the way there was with 4E. Frankly,I don't see any reason to compel me to play Next. There's no there, there.
This is off-topic, but I vastly prefer Paizo's forum style. No embedded images or signatures gives it a very clean appearence.I cut my teeth on Usenet, circa 1994, so I have to laugh at anyone who whines about the lack of pretty imbedded images.
As for 4E, D&D Next and all that, the main problem with Next that I see is that there is no "catch" the way there was with AD&D, 3E, and 4E. There's no consolidation of rules the way there was with AD&D, there's no skills and Magic the Gathering style rewards for mastery the way there was with 3E, and there isn't the balanced approach to tactical combat and role-playing the way there was with 4E. Frankly,I don't see any reason to compel me to play Next. There's no there, there.
I think the catch is in it's simplicity. The numbers are lower. The options fewer. The "builds" not as dramatic. The magic not as broken. The mundanes remaining mundane. The EPIC being....well not EPIC as far as the bonuses/numbers go. If someone wants to run a D&D:Next game then the rules are easier to learn, the play is quick, and roll-resolution simple, and the classes easy to identify with.
But all of this, to me, doesn't make for long lasting campaigns. It makes for a quick game on a night that a few people don't show up for the "real" campaign. It's something I could see people playing at lunch time or casually but not something that spans months or years.
Yeah not to familiar with the way the forums here work Tacticslion. Suffice to say when it come to posting links, video and pictures it is one of the more frustrating forums out there. It is like they're using a free forum thing from 10 years ago.
I often find myself wishing that the Paizo forums had features like formatting buttons ("Is it brackets or carrots to italicize something? Oh dam, shouldn't have hit SUBMIT!") and sig space.
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Formatting buttons, yes. Sig space, absolutely not! I always hate the confusion and busyness of forums with sig space. Half the time you dont even know what someone wrote as a response or what was just their personal ad campaign.
Wouldnt be too bad I guess if it was on the side, but still, much cleaner looking without it. Not as much scrolling either, as sig space inevitably takes additional space. Would be quite distracting from games too.
.....
I agree with Diffen about Next. It is rules light, and is generaly better for one offs. It could alo be a good introduction to RPGs for brand new players too, start off simple so they get a chance to actually play and get hooked before being scared off by three pages of homework.
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I think starting with a fast and furious game is probably a good idea. Allow people to ratchet up the complexity and long lasting staying power is also necessary. Those are two different styles and Next should account for both. We shall see how WOTC implements that.
The real drag is will Next do it at launch? Right now its not complex enough, nor 4E enough for a lot of folks. Now if they launch a game that lacks a few play styles with the promise of providing down the road I think they are going to be disappointed. I didn't adopt 4E when it came out because it didn't really do what I wanted. I have had conversations with 4E fans later where they told me if I had just hung on until books x,y,z and so much errata I would have been able to play closer to what I like. Too late though 4E had the PHB at launch and I never looked back. I would expect nothing less from anyone else when it comes to their playstyle.
I think that the "lower numbers, fewer options" is going to end up a disappointment to most. IME, most brand new players want to look thru all the options even if I say "This is a simple beginner's game so stick to the PHB." Most players don't want to feel coddled like that, so if the options are there, they're going to want to check 'em out.
And you'd better believe that 5e will end up with lots and lots o' options, just as every edition since at least 2e has. And you'd better believe that power creep will happen soon enough, especially if the "It's about the story, not the math!" comments are indicative of the team's attitude. Savvy players will be gaming the numbers as much as ever, just in slightly different ways.
That leaves 5e games run by "Nothing but PHB, no feats, absolutely no extras" DMs. Those games'll probably be simpler, though lamer.
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I think the catch is in it's simplicity. The numbers are lower. The options fewer. The "builds" not as dramatic. The magic not as broken. The mundanes remaining mundane. The EPIC being....well not EPIC as far as the bonuses/numbers go. If someone wants to run a D&D:Next game then the rules are easier to learn, the play is quick, and roll-resolution simple, and the classes easy to identify with.
But all of this, to me, doesn't make for long lasting campaigns. It makes for a quick game on a night that a few people don't show up for the "real" campaign. It's something I could see people playing at lunch time or casually but not something that spans months or years.
Both 1st and 2nd edition spanned 10 years each. With each of these editions, the numbers were lower, the options fewer, the "builds" not as dramatic, the magic not as broken, the mundanes remained mundane, and the EPIC was.... Well not EPIC as far as the bonuses/numbers went. And you know what; the campaigns lasted years, and these campaigns were the "real" campaign...
YMMV...
The real drag is will Next do it at launch? Right now its not complex enough, nor 4E enough for a lot of folks. Now if they launch a game that lacks a few play styles with the promise of providing down the road I think they are going to be disappointed. I didn't adopt 4E when it came out because it didn't really do what I wanted. I have had conversations with 4E fans later where they told me if I had just hung on until books x,y,z and so much errata I would have been able to play closer to what I like. Too late though 4E had the PHB at launch and I never looked back. I would expect nothing less from anyone else when it comes to their playstyle.
Agreed.
While I've rolled my eyes at nit picky complaints* about early 4e offerings, if a gamer has an edition that suits their favored play style, why would he or she switch to one that at best might offer a similar play style in some future module? As a 4e DM and fan, 5e appears to offer me little of the play style I favor, if anything. I'll probably play 5e at some point, but I'll never buy or DM a game that requires me to hammer it into some semblance of playability when I already have 4e.
* Like when I heard complaints that 4e didn't have gnomes or bards at launch. I thought "Really, this is your deal breaker? You can't refluff something to your needs, or god forbid try something new?" Whatever.
Like when I heard complaints that 4e didn't have gnomes or bards at launch. I thought "Really, this is your deal breaker? You can't refluff something to your needs, or god forbid try something new?" Whatever.
In fairness, I really liked 4E, but still missed some things in the PHB (druids, for example). I felt I had a much more "complete" game once PHB2 came out.
This is off-topic, but I vastly prefer Paizo's forum style. No embedded images or signatures gives it a very clean appearence.
I cut my teeth on Usenet, circa 1994, so I have to laugh at anyone who whines about the lack of pretty imbedded images.
As for 4E, D&D Next and all that, the main problem with Next that I see is that there is no "catch" the way there was with AD&D, 3E, and 4E. There's no consolidation of rules the way there was with AD&D, there's no skills and Magic the Gathering style rewards for mastery the way there was with 3E, and there isn't the balanced approach to tactical combat and role-playing the way there was with 4E. Frankly,I don't see any reason to compel me to play Next. There's no there, there.
I think the catch is in it's simplicity. The numbers are lower. The options fewer. The "builds" not as dramatic. The magic not as broken. The mundanes remaining mundane. The EPIC being....well not EPIC as far as the bonuses/numbers go. If someone wants to run a D&D:Next game then the rules are easier to learn, the play is quick, and roll-resolution simple, and the classes easy to identify with.
But all of this, to me, doesn't make for long lasting campaigns. It makes for a quick game on a night that a few people don't show up for the "real" campaign. It's something I could see people playing at lunch time or casually but not something that spans months or years.
I agree that the simplicity of DDN is one of it's appeals. But that simplicity has little to do with the length of campaigns it might engender. If complexity were a requirement of long games my game wouldn't have rolled through original D&D for 4 years and 1E for about 10. There were far more complete / complex games available than 1E, or OD&D for that matter after it's first couple of years. It's about the story, the interaction and the fun. Simple can have all those as well as complex can. Games at either end of the simple / complete (complex) line will appeal to different sets of players, but either can spawn a long running game.
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My longest campaigns (meaning years) were run under 2e. Some of my shortest were under 3e as the PC's leveled faster (I think too fast) and the game broke down at higher levels. Bit hard to have a long campaign under 3.5e when the PC's were 20th so quickly*. Pazio has tried to address this with the Slow Progression XP chart.
*For me a Campaign is about the story, players just happen to level during its shared telling - but leveling isn't the purpose.