Well, it's certainly been longer between updates than I'd originally planned. Most of that was due to distractions of other things, mostly gaming and work in about that order.
So firstly, another birthday has come and gone, leaving me a little bit older and hopefully a little wiser than I was. In spite of some annoying incompetence on the part of the Arkansas Postal Service, I did at last get the last of my birthday presents from Clan Whitson, including a cool geek t-shirt and some yummy home-baked chocolate chip cookies.
In terms of gaming, in spite of some unexpected shake-ups in the routine, I've been fairly active on that front. A Star Wars campaign using FFG's system in which I played a youngish minor Jedi (Sentinel/Shien Expert/Padawan) named Colwyn Morningfire just recently wrapped up; with the GM saying it might be possible that we'll return to that group of characters at some later point, but that he wanted to run a different system and style of campaign for a little while.
In lieu of that Star Wars campaign, the GM started off a campaign using Cubicle 7's Adventures in Middle-Earth, which is there d20 version of their award-winning The One Ring game, set several years after the events taking place in The Hobbit. We're starting out as 3rd level characters, and have a notable lack of Elves or Dwarves amidst our company, and with having 32 points to use to purchase our ability scores, each of us is generally pretty competent in our areas of respective expertise.
The GM has already said he's not running the game as being entirely "rules pure" and has adapted a couple elements from D&D 5e for the characters. The first of these was importing the Inquisitive archetype from Xanathar's Guide to Everything for our Hobbit Treasure Seeker (C7's slightly reworked Rogue class) as neither of the existing AiME archetypes (Agent and Burgler) really seemed to fit the character concept she had in mind. So we now have a Hobbit who's quite cheerful in spite being so far from the Shire, overly curious about most everything, and having the common sense of a Took; nobody's called her a "Fool of a Took!" but that may just be a matter of time. She is however very good at Riddles, something she proved in the first session by getting into Middle-Earth's version of an impromptu rap battle by engaging in a riddle-contest with a bunch of bar patrons and trouncing the handily; likely helped that the player has researched and typed up a bunch of riddles to have on hand to recite.
The other house-ruled bit in this game is our Woodwoman Scholar has the ability to use actual D&D-style magic, having used her starting virtue/feat and 3rd level class archetype feature to gain a limited number of spells, most of which are cantrips with a single first level spell. Narratively, her background is that she was taken in as a sort-of apprentice by Radagast the Brown (she really enjoyed Sylvester McCoy's portrayal in the Hobbit films, and felt having Gandalf as her mentor would have been too cliche). Helpfully, Cubicle 7 listed a number of 5e OGL spells that fit the general themes of Middle-Earth, from which the character made her selections, most of them being various utility spells, with only one spell (Produce Flame) having offensive capabilities, and even then it's not that great. The player (who is the youngest of the group) seems pretty content with what she's got for magic, and even with her primary experience of the setting being the Peter Jackson films grasps that D&D style spellcasters are not a thing in this setting, and that magical effects are far more limited, so not sure if she's going to try to finagle more spells or not.
Another imported D&D 5e elements for this group is a reworking of the Totem Warrior Path for our Beorning Slayer, with the spell-based abilities removed and a couple other abilities tweaked. He's already stated that he intends to go full-on Bear Totem.
The last imported element being the GM having tossed out the Known Lands feature the Wanderer class (C7's reworking of the Ranger to remove all spell-casting) and replacing it with a slightly modified version of the Natural Explorer feature from the Revised Ranger presented in WotC's Unearthed Arcana series, done mostly so that he's got more freedom to send our party into various parts of the Wilderlands without having to worry about my Dunedain Wanderer's key class feature being of limited use, especially as we have a mage who has a bevy of at-will cantrips to her name. Though we've started out in Lake-Town, having come there separately for different reasons, I have a feeling the GM's going to have us be traipsing all about the Wilderlands during the course of our various adventures, so I admit it'll be nice to not have to worry about is the journey taking us through my character's Known Lands. The bonuses provided aren't quite as nice, having lost the "double your proficiency bonus for Intelligence and Wisdom checks when dealing with a known land" and not getting some of the revised Natural Explorer's other abilities right away, I think it works out, trading overall potency for increased utility. We're still fine-tuning, so I won't be posting what the current state of this revised-revised Natural Explorer is at the moment.
So far, it does seem like quite a fun group, having a Barding Warden with the Fallen Scion background having a bit of a casanova vibe and aspirations of being The Hero of the group, much to our Woodwoman Scholar's great dismay, while the Beorning Slayer and Hobbit Treasure Seeker are fast becoming the group's comedic duo. My Dunedain Wanderer hasn't quite found his niche within the company's social dynamics, but we've only had one session so I'm sure he'll find his place soon enough.,
Sadly, the Saturday Discord group that I'm in had a disruption due to our GM struggling with various real-life concerns, leaving our Mutants & Masterminds 3e Emerald City campaign in a bit of a lurch. Luckily, thanks the above AiME campaign, I got the notion to run an adventure using that game for the group while our GM briefly stepped down to sort a few things out. It helped that we're all pretty familiar with the 5e rules, so we wouldn't have to try and learn a radically different new system for what was likely to be a one-off. And so, with a company consisting of a Dwarf Fallen Scion Warrior, a Barding Harrowed Warden, a Hobbit World Weary Scholar, and a Woodwoman Lured by the Road Wanderer, I ran them through the Eaves of Mirkwood. A couple players remarked on the oddity of playing actual first-level characters, but everyone had fun and enjoyed themselves. Unlike a typical D&D adventure, there wasn't very much combat except towards the very end, and I think the "encounter" that the players had the most fun with was sitting and conversing with a trio of traveling dwarves over a meal of roast pig and fine mead, getting into a riddle contest and a contest of blowing smoke rings, the later of which our Hobbit sadly lost in spite of a great effort of going for a big finish.
One major change I did for the adventure was to frame it as a tale being told by Gandalf to a group of Hobbit children, with the introduction being Gandalf agreeing to tell the children a story (he was in an unusually chipper mood that late spring afternoon), which also let me set the stage for the players as to where and when they were in the timeline of Middle-Earth (five years after the Battle of Five Armies, and on the western reaches of Mirkwood). I had thought about using Bilbo to tell the story, but decided to use Gandalf instead as I've always liked the Grey Wizard, cranky as he might get at times. And after the adventure as written had concluded, I went back to having Gandalf conclude the tale and shoo the various Hobbit children away, with one of them hanging around just a bit longer to ask the old Wizard if indeed there were more stories of this company of adventurers, to which Gandalf told a very young Frodo Baggins that there were indeed, but those were stories for another time. The players very much loved the use of the framing device of their adventure being a story told by one of The Wise, giving them a greater sense of accomplishment and tie to the world of Middle-Earth. I can only hope that any further adventures I run for them are met with equal enthusiasm and appreciation, given that until this adventure, I'd had an abysmal track record when trying to run any sort of D&D game (most efforts crashed and burned by the third session at the latest, and several attempts during my 20's didn't even make it through the first session), so it was nice to have a D&D game (modified though the system was) be both successful and appreciated by the players.
I also have to say that I really like the Journey mechanics that Cubicle 7 imported from The One Ring. It removes a lot of the "need to roll for random encounters" and the chart for Journey Events gives the GM a number of options to either roll for or choose from beyond "you run into a bunch of monsters, what do you do?" I can see why a lot of GMs have decided to import the Journey rules into their regular D&D campaigns.
Well, that's about what's been going on of late for me. I've got a notion for a smaller Star Wars RPG post, but that will probably wait for next weekend.
Showing posts with label 5e. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 5e. Show all posts
August 25, 2019
June 24, 2017
A Pair of Character Oddballs
As any veteran RPG player will tell you, every so often you get one of those off-the-wall ideas for a character that just simply won't let you be until you put pencil to paper and actually write up that screwball character concept. Now generally, a lot of those "oddball characters" that folks come up
with generally aren't viable in the long-term; at best the character
might make it through a one-shot adventure or a brief module, but the
novelty factor tends to wear off pretty quickly for a lot of these builds. Some however manage to stand the test of time, being so odd and off-beat that they become endearing to the group as a whole, or that they turn out to be surprisingly effective in their role.
I've seen several of these oddball characters make the grade, two of whom came from the same campaign, that being a Legacy Era campaign run by Ben "Cyril" Erickson using the Star Wars Saga Edition system. The first of these notables were Kirkineery-tovante aka Kiri, a Squib Scoundrel played by Kevin "Rikoshi" Frane, whose in-character mannerisms and voice (this was played over Skype) made the character incredibly memorable, with the other being Niera Kurcz, an Arkanian Noble/Scoundrel played by Nateal "Tariel" Falk who in summation was rather odd; that she was a cyborg'd Force sensitive should give you a clue as to just how off beat this particular character was. In comparison, the two PCs I played were rather bland and boring, though I did have fun.
One of the players in my regular Skype gaming group, Rick, has a penchant for coming up with some rather bizarre character ideas for what seems any system that he comes across, one of the more recent ones that he'd gotten to play being Felagi (or Ferngully as our regular Mutants & Masterminds GM Eric calls him), who was created for a cosmic-themed campaign and was built to primarily be a support character with minimal offensive abilities. And to the surprise and delight of the player, Felagi turned out to be quite successful, and even managed to kick off an intergalactic fashion trend of wearing pirate outfits after pilfering such an outfit from a spacefaring squid man (Captain Kraken for those familiar with the Freedom City setting).
Now, why am I making this post? Well, the reason is I've had a couple of these banging around in my noggin for a while now, and neither of them have been for Star Wars. So, to get these particular character notions out of my head so that I can make room for things like working on my Force and Destiny campaign and/or the modules I plan to run at next year's GamerNationCon, I've put pencil to paper as it were, and wrote up those two oddballs. And now I'm posting them here for others to read, hopefully enjoy, and maybe even make use of in a game.
First, since I was hooked on a feeling...
Krist Goodburrow (D&D 5th Edition)
Halfling (lightfoot) Sorcerer 1
Hit Points: 7 (1d6 hit dice)
Proficiency Bonus: +2
Speed: 25 feet
Alignment: Chaotic Good
Languages: Common, Halfling
Background: Charlatan
Ability Scores
Strength 8 (-1), Dexterity 16 (+3), Constitution 12 (+1), Intelligence 13 (+1), Wisdom 10 (+0), Charisma 16 (+3)
Racial Features (as per page 28 of the D&D 5e Player's Handbook)
Brave, Halfling Nimbleness, Lucky, Naturally Stealthy
Class Features
Saving Throws: Constitution and Charisma
Sorcerous Origin: Pelvic Sorcery (c/o Steve Kenson)
Spellcasting (Spell Attack +5, Spell Save DC 13)
Cantrips: Dancing Lights, Fire Bolt, Shocking Grasp, Thunderclap
Spells: Catapult, Color Spray, Expeditious Retreat
Skill Proficiencies: Arcana, Deception, Insight, Sleight of Hand
Tool Proficiencies: Disguise Kit, Forgery Kit
Equipment
Sling, pair of daggers, arcane focus, explorer's pack, set of fine clothes, disguise kit, set of weighted dice, belt pouch containing 15 gold pieces
Notes: In case it's not obvious, the Pelvic Sorcery is a bit of home-brew material created by Steve Kenson, best known for being the primary creative force behind Green Ronin's Mutants & Masterminds superhero RPG, drawing its inspiration from the Guardians of the Galaxy film, notably Gamora's comment about how she wasn't about let herself be take in by Peter Quill's "pelvic sorcery." It's actually a pretty fun sorcerous origin, offering some fun abilities from first level all the way up to 18th level. I've no idea how well these would hold up compared to the official sorcerous origins in terms of actual game play, but I'm fairly certain that the character would be memorable.
And now for the other oddball character, this one from the wuxia-themed FATE Core game Tianxia. And if you're asking if he's paid his dues, he'll look you right in the eye and say "yes sir, the check is in the mail."
Burdenless Jo
High Concept: Boisterous Drifter
Trouble: Loud-Mouthed Braggart
Aspects: Courage of a Thousand Fools, Fate's Favorite Punching Bag, "It's like Burdenless Jo always says..."
Refresh: 3
Jianghu Rank: 1
Skills:
Great (+4): Drive
Good (+3): Athletics, Provoke
Fair (+2): Deceive, Fight, Shoot
Average (+1): Investigate, Notice, Physique, Will
Kung Fu Style: Stone Monkey
Technique: Stone Resists the Blow
Stunts
A Fool's Bravado: You may use Provoke instead of Will to defend against Provoke attacks.
All In the Reflexes: If you successfully defend with style against a ranged projectile attack, you can sacrifice your next action to immediately inflict an attack on your opponent at the shift value of your defense plus two.
Talk Like The Wind: Gain a +2 bonus to overcome obstacles using Deceive, provided you do not have to talk to the person you're trying to deceive for more than a few sentences.
Notes: Now, it should be pretty damn obvious who this character is inspired by. I've always been a big fan of John Carpenter's film Big Trouble in Little China, a film that may have failed at the box office but has certainly become a cult classic (Indeed!) Granted, Drive as a skill probably won't see a whole ton of use in many Tianxia campaigns, but you put this man at the reins of a cart or means of conveyance and he'll be able to pull off some fairly impressive stuff. Actually, Burdenless Jo is probably a more competent individual (even with his lower-than-typical score in Fight for a Tianxia hero) than ol' Jack Burton himself. And with three Fate Points at the start of each session as well as Aspects that are geared to let the character earn even more of them, he should certainly be able to shake the Pillars of Heaven while dropping one-liners (pithy or otherwise) along the way.
I've seen several of these oddball characters make the grade, two of whom came from the same campaign, that being a Legacy Era campaign run by Ben "Cyril" Erickson using the Star Wars Saga Edition system. The first of these notables were Kirkineery-tovante aka Kiri, a Squib Scoundrel played by Kevin "Rikoshi" Frane, whose in-character mannerisms and voice (this was played over Skype) made the character incredibly memorable, with the other being Niera Kurcz, an Arkanian Noble/Scoundrel played by Nateal "Tariel" Falk who in summation was rather odd; that she was a cyborg'd Force sensitive should give you a clue as to just how off beat this particular character was. In comparison, the two PCs I played were rather bland and boring, though I did have fun.
One of the players in my regular Skype gaming group, Rick, has a penchant for coming up with some rather bizarre character ideas for what seems any system that he comes across, one of the more recent ones that he'd gotten to play being Felagi (or Ferngully as our regular Mutants & Masterminds GM Eric calls him), who was created for a cosmic-themed campaign and was built to primarily be a support character with minimal offensive abilities. And to the surprise and delight of the player, Felagi turned out to be quite successful, and even managed to kick off an intergalactic fashion trend of wearing pirate outfits after pilfering such an outfit from a spacefaring squid man (Captain Kraken for those familiar with the Freedom City setting).
Now, why am I making this post? Well, the reason is I've had a couple of these banging around in my noggin for a while now, and neither of them have been for Star Wars. So, to get these particular character notions out of my head so that I can make room for things like working on my Force and Destiny campaign and/or the modules I plan to run at next year's GamerNationCon, I've put pencil to paper as it were, and wrote up those two oddballs. And now I'm posting them here for others to read, hopefully enjoy, and maybe even make use of in a game.
First, since I was hooked on a feeling...
Krist Goodburrow (D&D 5th Edition)
Halfling (lightfoot) Sorcerer 1
Hit Points: 7 (1d6 hit dice)
Proficiency Bonus: +2
Speed: 25 feet
Alignment: Chaotic Good
Languages: Common, Halfling
Background: Charlatan
Ability Scores
Strength 8 (-1), Dexterity 16 (+3), Constitution 12 (+1), Intelligence 13 (+1), Wisdom 10 (+0), Charisma 16 (+3)
Racial Features (as per page 28 of the D&D 5e Player's Handbook)
Brave, Halfling Nimbleness, Lucky, Naturally Stealthy
Class Features
Saving Throws: Constitution and Charisma
Sorcerous Origin: Pelvic Sorcery (c/o Steve Kenson)
Spellcasting (Spell Attack +5, Spell Save DC 13)
Cantrips: Dancing Lights, Fire Bolt, Shocking Grasp, Thunderclap
Spells: Catapult, Color Spray, Expeditious Retreat
Skill Proficiencies: Arcana, Deception, Insight, Sleight of Hand
Tool Proficiencies: Disguise Kit, Forgery Kit
Equipment
Sling, pair of daggers, arcane focus, explorer's pack, set of fine clothes, disguise kit, set of weighted dice, belt pouch containing 15 gold pieces
Notes: In case it's not obvious, the Pelvic Sorcery is a bit of home-brew material created by Steve Kenson, best known for being the primary creative force behind Green Ronin's Mutants & Masterminds superhero RPG, drawing its inspiration from the Guardians of the Galaxy film, notably Gamora's comment about how she wasn't about let herself be take in by Peter Quill's "pelvic sorcery." It's actually a pretty fun sorcerous origin, offering some fun abilities from first level all the way up to 18th level. I've no idea how well these would hold up compared to the official sorcerous origins in terms of actual game play, but I'm fairly certain that the character would be memorable.
And now for the other oddball character, this one from the wuxia-themed FATE Core game Tianxia. And if you're asking if he's paid his dues, he'll look you right in the eye and say "yes sir, the check is in the mail."
Burdenless Jo
High Concept: Boisterous Drifter
Trouble: Loud-Mouthed Braggart
Aspects: Courage of a Thousand Fools, Fate's Favorite Punching Bag, "It's like Burdenless Jo always says..."
Refresh: 3
Jianghu Rank: 1
Skills:
Great (+4): Drive
Good (+3): Athletics, Provoke
Fair (+2): Deceive, Fight, Shoot
Average (+1): Investigate, Notice, Physique, Will
Kung Fu Style: Stone Monkey
Technique: Stone Resists the Blow
Stunts
A Fool's Bravado: You may use Provoke instead of Will to defend against Provoke attacks.
All In the Reflexes: If you successfully defend with style against a ranged projectile attack, you can sacrifice your next action to immediately inflict an attack on your opponent at the shift value of your defense plus two.
Talk Like The Wind: Gain a +2 bonus to overcome obstacles using Deceive, provided you do not have to talk to the person you're trying to deceive for more than a few sentences.
Notes: Now, it should be pretty damn obvious who this character is inspired by. I've always been a big fan of John Carpenter's film Big Trouble in Little China, a film that may have failed at the box office but has certainly become a cult classic (Indeed!) Granted, Drive as a skill probably won't see a whole ton of use in many Tianxia campaigns, but you put this man at the reins of a cart or means of conveyance and he'll be able to pull off some fairly impressive stuff. Actually, Burdenless Jo is probably a more competent individual (even with his lower-than-typical score in Fight for a Tianxia hero) than ol' Jack Burton himself. And with three Fate Points at the start of each session as well as Aspects that are geared to let the character earn even more of them, he should certainly be able to shake the Pillars of Heaven while dropping one-liners (pithy or otherwise) along the way.
July 19, 2014
D&D 5e - So it's actually kinda fun.
Been a few weeks since my last post. And while things have calmed down on some fronts, they've gotten a tad busier on others.
Hard to believe that it's now less than a month until GenCon. While the gaming and cosplay spotting is certainly going to be fun, and the dealer hall sure to be a drain on my finances, one of my big reasons for going to is to meet up with various members of the d20 Radio forum community. One of the highlights for me trip last year was getting to meet and talk with Jay Little and a couple other forumites. Seriously, Jay is a funny guy and has some amazing ideas when it comes to game design; I can easily see how the narrative dice system that FFG uses for their Star Wars RPG came about with him at the helm.
Of course, the big thing that I'm hoping happens at GenCon is the release of the Force and Destiny Beta for FFG's Star Wars product line. As the last of the proposed three core rulebooks for the system, it's been teased to be pulling back the curtain on having PCs that are Force-users first and foremost as opposed to Force-usage being a "tacked on" element of the character. I've spoken with the GM for the Saturday Star Wars game I'm, and we'll see about doing a re-spec of Valin based upon the new material, but I think I'm probably going to stick with his current build of Smuggler/Scoundrel/Force Emergent and see which of the new specializations in Force and Destiny work for him. Valin's come pretty far from the slightly off-kilter street rate, to the point that the group longer refers to him as "a Force-sensitive street rat" but instead as a Minor Jedi. It's taken over 200 XP to reach that point, and there's still plenty of room for him to grow, both as a character and in what he can accomplish, but it's been a fun journey.
I've also been involved in some official playtesting (can't say for whom and definitely can't say for what), and while it's certainly been fun (I'm working with a pretty fun and creative group of people) it's been fairly time-consuming as well, to say nothing of getting schedules to all line up, which is only a couple steps above herding cats. Still, it's very cool to be seeing early versions of future material, even if said material doesn't always inspire awe.
But enough blathering, and on to the meat of this post.
Back in the middle of May, I did a blog post titled "D&D 5e... So. What?" in the wake of WotC's official announcement that a new edition of D&D was on the horizon, with a Starter Box in July, the PHB in August, and a new release each month after. At the time, solid information was scarce as to what this new system would look like, and with the last few versions of the Open Beta playtest material leaving me cold, I really couldn't muster any sort of enthusiasm for yet another round of D&D Edition Wars. To be clear, I actually enjoy 4th Edition (had a blast playing a Monk in a friend's sadly short-lived Dark Sun campaign), albeit in limited doses, and firmly believe that had WotC called that system anything but D&D, it probably would have been a lot more successful. Truthfully, I am completely burned out on 3rd Edition, and want nothing at all to do with Pathfinder since it's really just 3rd Edition that's exchanged some elements of complexity for new elements of complexity without really addressing the underlying core problem with the system.
Well, with WotC announcing that they would be providing folks with the Basic rules of D&D 5e both online and for free, that answered the concern of "how are they going to get folks interested enough to at least take a look?" The D&D Basic Rules pdf isn't very fancy, but it certainly gets the job done in providing readers with the basics of character creation and the fundamental rules for actually playing the game. Now when I say basics, I do indeed mean basics. You could ostensibly play a character from 1st level to 20th level using just the Basic Rules, but you'd be doing so with some pretty limited options.
But that's honestly to be expected. As I remarked to one person on Twitter, the D&D 5e Basic ruleset is very much in the same vein as a "free-to-play" MMO. Yeah, you can play those MMOs without paying anything, but you're not going to get the full content until you start dropping real-world coin in order to do so. In that respect, D&D Basic is no different, as the free rules are there to give folks a taste, with the (eventual) option to pay to expand their options when playing the game. So for what is tagged as a "basic" ruleset, anyone that thought they'd be getting all the bells and whistles has only themselves to blame for being mislead.
The races are the standard fantasy array of Humans, Halflings, Elves, and Dwarves, though the non-human races to get a bit of variety in that each has a sub-type presented that offers a couple of tweaks to the standard racial package. Humans thus far are pretty vanilla (getting a +1 to all their ability score), but the document does state that if using the optional Feats system in the Player's Handbook, then their starting benefits become a good deal more interesting (+1 to two ability scores of their choice, proficiency in a skill of their choice, and a free starting feat). Given that feats in the D&DNext Playtest packet were a good deal more potent than 3rd or 4th edition feats were, that sounds like it has promise.
The classes themselves are the standard D&D quartet of Cleric, Fighter, Rogue, and Wizard, with each having a fairly narrow focus in terms of class abilities. The Cleric is predominantly a healer, the Fighter is a weapons expert, the Rogue is a thief/burglar, and the Wizard is a boom mage. For players used to the variety of options that the two prior editions of D&D provided, this can feel very constricting. Now each class does their one schtick quite well, but all you've got is that one schtick to choose from. Since I tend to stick with combat-types in most RPGs, I don't see this as too big a problem where the Fighter is concerned, as that class has enough other fun abilities to make my character one of the bigger badasses in the room, including such things as an emergency reserve of hit points, the option of an extra emergency action, and eventually being able to make multiple attacks each round.
One of the more complex and perhaps worrisome elements of D&D has been the spell lists. One thing that I like with 5e in regards to spells is that they've done away with multiple iterations of the same spell type, such as the various cure light wounds, but also found a way to incorporate the aspects of 3e's metamagic feats into the core spellcasting system. While there are still some aspects of the much-maligned "fire and forget" method of casting, namely the "spells per day" element, it's not as restrictive as the Cleric and Wizard traditionally were, and is somewhat akin to the 3rd edition Sorcerer in that the character prepares what spells they have on hand, but can use their spell slots to cast as they wish. And if they choose to cast a lower level spell using a higher level spell slot (like using 1st level Magic Missile as a 3rd level spell), then the spell automagically becomes more powerful. Frankly, I think it's a neat way to keep those older spells relevant even at higher levels and in turn cut down the bloat on spells available. The 0th-level spells are effectively innate abilities, able to be cast each round and not consuming a spell slot, which certainly helps the party wizard from feeling useless during the early levels of play, something that was always a problem in D&D editions prior to 4th edition.
Now the reason I'm going into all this? Well, last night I got a chance to sit down with some gaming buddies from prior groups to play a one-shot adventure. The GM used the first half of the 4e intro module Keep on the Shadowfell, having tweaked the kobold stats to bring them more in line with 5e by using the goblin stats from the Starter Box and various kobold stats from the playtest documents. Our party of adventurers was five strong, comprised of a Human Folk Hero Fighter (Sword & Board, played by me), a Human Acolyte Cleric (Healing domain, token female of the group), a High Elf Sage Wizard, a Mountain Dwarf Soldier Fighter (two-hander with a maul instead of great-axe), and a Wood Elf Criminal Rogue. And I must say, in comparison to how some 1st level PCs have felt in prior editions of D&D, we seemed to be pretty darn capable in our fields of expertise. Granted we were a tad on the squishy side with the two Fighters being the only PCs to have hit points in the double-digits in comparison to 4e PCs, but then monster damage isn't quite as inflated in 5e was it could be in 4e. The Elf player, being a 4e veteran, did mockingly complain that he couldn't dump-stat his Dexterity and resort to Intelligence for his Armor Class the way he could in 4e, but as noted it was a mocking complaint and he graciously accepted being the squishiest member of the party (AC 12, 6 hit points) as a trade off for having a very potent Intelligence score and thus some pretty impressive arcane power, though with a snooty personality that would give cause for OotS's Vaarsuvius to bemoan the character's lack of tact.
I must say, while I liked the "advantage/disadvantage" mechanic from the outset when it appeared in the playtest materials, seeing it fully in action really helped sell how much of a simple yet effective innovation it was for D&D. Gone and good riddance to all the fiddly numerical modifiers, just simply roll an extra d20, keeping the higher if you've got advantage or the lower if you're at a disadvantage. What really helped sell this mechanic was that a few times where a player or GM forgot that the character rolling had disadvantage, they could simply pick up a d20 and roll it; if it rolled higher just ignore it and go with the effect that had already happened, if it rolled lower then use that instead. And the inverse if there was advantage on the table, though our Wood Elf Rogue was very good at keeping track of when he had advantage on his attacks, since that determined when he'd get the chance to do a sneak attack with his longbow. What was interesting was that doing ranged sneak attacks was fairly simple, as per the text a Rogue doesn't need to have advantage if there's an active enemy within 5 feet of the target (which there often was since he focused on snipping bad guys that were engaged with the Fighters), something that I'm pretty sure wasn't the case in 3rd edition, and could be true in 4e but then I never saw enough ranged-combat Rogues to be sure (the ones I saw focused on stabbity-stab rather than shooty-shoot).
While the final battle with the Boss Kobold and his flunkies was a close one (the Dwarf went down to a critical hit and just barely survived thanks to the Cleric's intervention), our party of adventurers (hard to call the group heroic when one member is a surly drunkard and another is a self-professed hired killer) succeeded in clearing out the kobold warren. Unlike 4e combats that could drag on sometimes, the lower hit point totals of bad guys in 5e helped avert that, meaning it was very possible for us to one-shot lesser bad guys, which helped make us feel fairly competent as opposed to being a party of utter noobs.
Also, I'm liking how the proficiency mechanic works. Only thing missing from what I can see is a means to gain proficiency in additional skills, but hopefully that will be something addressed in the Player's Handbook (remembering that the Basic Ruleset is the "free-to-play" version of the game and doesn't have all the bells and whistles). There's also the missing Feat system, but we knew that was "missing" going in, and honestly it wasn't really noticeable has ever class had some baked-in benefit that in 3rd edition would have been analogous to having a feat at 1st level.
So what about D&D 5th Edition? In spite of my earlier misgivings, I enjoyed it, though a part of that I suspect had to do with getting the chance to game with folks that circumstances have otherwise prevented me from gaming with over the past few months. There was talk of starting up a regular campaign, quite possibly adapting one of the many older campaign series that the GM had written up but never really got to run over the years, though we agreed to wait for at least the Player's Handbook, if not the Monster Manual so that the GM doesn't have to do quite as many guesswork-riddled adaptations of monster stat blocks. There was also talk of where to set the campaign, but a large part of that will likely depend on what campaign series the GM opts to adapt. We also mentioned playing through the Starter Box adventure, possibly keeping our PCs from last night's adventure (made easier by the GM not really having much in the way of loot to hand out to us
So in closing, unless you are vehemently against all things based on the d20 core mechanic or deeply tied to a prior version of D&D (or Pathfinder for that matter), I'd say give the Basic Ruleset a trial run before you completely write off this new version of D&D. If you've given up on D&D ever being fun, you might just be surprised at what D&D5e can deliver if you give it half a chance. I know I certainly was.
Hard to believe that it's now less than a month until GenCon. While the gaming and cosplay spotting is certainly going to be fun, and the dealer hall sure to be a drain on my finances, one of my big reasons for going to is to meet up with various members of the d20 Radio forum community. One of the highlights for me trip last year was getting to meet and talk with Jay Little and a couple other forumites. Seriously, Jay is a funny guy and has some amazing ideas when it comes to game design; I can easily see how the narrative dice system that FFG uses for their Star Wars RPG came about with him at the helm.
Of course, the big thing that I'm hoping happens at GenCon is the release of the Force and Destiny Beta for FFG's Star Wars product line. As the last of the proposed three core rulebooks for the system, it's been teased to be pulling back the curtain on having PCs that are Force-users first and foremost as opposed to Force-usage being a "tacked on" element of the character. I've spoken with the GM for the Saturday Star Wars game I'm, and we'll see about doing a re-spec of Valin based upon the new material, but I think I'm probably going to stick with his current build of Smuggler/Scoundrel/Force Emergent and see which of the new specializations in Force and Destiny work for him. Valin's come pretty far from the slightly off-kilter street rate, to the point that the group longer refers to him as "a Force-sensitive street rat" but instead as a Minor Jedi. It's taken over 200 XP to reach that point, and there's still plenty of room for him to grow, both as a character and in what he can accomplish, but it's been a fun journey.
I've also been involved in some official playtesting (can't say for whom and definitely can't say for what), and while it's certainly been fun (I'm working with a pretty fun and creative group of people) it's been fairly time-consuming as well, to say nothing of getting schedules to all line up, which is only a couple steps above herding cats. Still, it's very cool to be seeing early versions of future material, even if said material doesn't always inspire awe.
But enough blathering, and on to the meat of this post.
Back in the middle of May, I did a blog post titled "D&D 5e... So. What?" in the wake of WotC's official announcement that a new edition of D&D was on the horizon, with a Starter Box in July, the PHB in August, and a new release each month after. At the time, solid information was scarce as to what this new system would look like, and with the last few versions of the Open Beta playtest material leaving me cold, I really couldn't muster any sort of enthusiasm for yet another round of D&D Edition Wars. To be clear, I actually enjoy 4th Edition (had a blast playing a Monk in a friend's sadly short-lived Dark Sun campaign), albeit in limited doses, and firmly believe that had WotC called that system anything but D&D, it probably would have been a lot more successful. Truthfully, I am completely burned out on 3rd Edition, and want nothing at all to do with Pathfinder since it's really just 3rd Edition that's exchanged some elements of complexity for new elements of complexity without really addressing the underlying core problem with the system.
Well, with WotC announcing that they would be providing folks with the Basic rules of D&D 5e both online and for free, that answered the concern of "how are they going to get folks interested enough to at least take a look?" The D&D Basic Rules pdf isn't very fancy, but it certainly gets the job done in providing readers with the basics of character creation and the fundamental rules for actually playing the game. Now when I say basics, I do indeed mean basics. You could ostensibly play a character from 1st level to 20th level using just the Basic Rules, but you'd be doing so with some pretty limited options.
But that's honestly to be expected. As I remarked to one person on Twitter, the D&D 5e Basic ruleset is very much in the same vein as a "free-to-play" MMO. Yeah, you can play those MMOs without paying anything, but you're not going to get the full content until you start dropping real-world coin in order to do so. In that respect, D&D Basic is no different, as the free rules are there to give folks a taste, with the (eventual) option to pay to expand their options when playing the game. So for what is tagged as a "basic" ruleset, anyone that thought they'd be getting all the bells and whistles has only themselves to blame for being mislead.
The races are the standard fantasy array of Humans, Halflings, Elves, and Dwarves, though the non-human races to get a bit of variety in that each has a sub-type presented that offers a couple of tweaks to the standard racial package. Humans thus far are pretty vanilla (getting a +1 to all their ability score), but the document does state that if using the optional Feats system in the Player's Handbook, then their starting benefits become a good deal more interesting (+1 to two ability scores of their choice, proficiency in a skill of their choice, and a free starting feat). Given that feats in the D&DNext Playtest packet were a good deal more potent than 3rd or 4th edition feats were, that sounds like it has promise.
The classes themselves are the standard D&D quartet of Cleric, Fighter, Rogue, and Wizard, with each having a fairly narrow focus in terms of class abilities. The Cleric is predominantly a healer, the Fighter is a weapons expert, the Rogue is a thief/burglar, and the Wizard is a boom mage. For players used to the variety of options that the two prior editions of D&D provided, this can feel very constricting. Now each class does their one schtick quite well, but all you've got is that one schtick to choose from. Since I tend to stick with combat-types in most RPGs, I don't see this as too big a problem where the Fighter is concerned, as that class has enough other fun abilities to make my character one of the bigger badasses in the room, including such things as an emergency reserve of hit points, the option of an extra emergency action, and eventually being able to make multiple attacks each round.
One of the more complex and perhaps worrisome elements of D&D has been the spell lists. One thing that I like with 5e in regards to spells is that they've done away with multiple iterations of the same spell type, such as the various cure light wounds, but also found a way to incorporate the aspects of 3e's metamagic feats into the core spellcasting system. While there are still some aspects of the much-maligned "fire and forget" method of casting, namely the "spells per day" element, it's not as restrictive as the Cleric and Wizard traditionally were, and is somewhat akin to the 3rd edition Sorcerer in that the character prepares what spells they have on hand, but can use their spell slots to cast as they wish. And if they choose to cast a lower level spell using a higher level spell slot (like using 1st level Magic Missile as a 3rd level spell), then the spell automagically becomes more powerful. Frankly, I think it's a neat way to keep those older spells relevant even at higher levels and in turn cut down the bloat on spells available. The 0th-level spells are effectively innate abilities, able to be cast each round and not consuming a spell slot, which certainly helps the party wizard from feeling useless during the early levels of play, something that was always a problem in D&D editions prior to 4th edition.
Now the reason I'm going into all this? Well, last night I got a chance to sit down with some gaming buddies from prior groups to play a one-shot adventure. The GM used the first half of the 4e intro module Keep on the Shadowfell, having tweaked the kobold stats to bring them more in line with 5e by using the goblin stats from the Starter Box and various kobold stats from the playtest documents. Our party of adventurers was five strong, comprised of a Human Folk Hero Fighter (Sword & Board, played by me), a Human Acolyte Cleric (Healing domain, token female of the group), a High Elf Sage Wizard, a Mountain Dwarf Soldier Fighter (two-hander with a maul instead of great-axe), and a Wood Elf Criminal Rogue. And I must say, in comparison to how some 1st level PCs have felt in prior editions of D&D, we seemed to be pretty darn capable in our fields of expertise. Granted we were a tad on the squishy side with the two Fighters being the only PCs to have hit points in the double-digits in comparison to 4e PCs, but then monster damage isn't quite as inflated in 5e was it could be in 4e. The Elf player, being a 4e veteran, did mockingly complain that he couldn't dump-stat his Dexterity and resort to Intelligence for his Armor Class the way he could in 4e, but as noted it was a mocking complaint and he graciously accepted being the squishiest member of the party (AC 12, 6 hit points) as a trade off for having a very potent Intelligence score and thus some pretty impressive arcane power, though with a snooty personality that would give cause for OotS's Vaarsuvius to bemoan the character's lack of tact.
I must say, while I liked the "advantage/disadvantage" mechanic from the outset when it appeared in the playtest materials, seeing it fully in action really helped sell how much of a simple yet effective innovation it was for D&D. Gone and good riddance to all the fiddly numerical modifiers, just simply roll an extra d20, keeping the higher if you've got advantage or the lower if you're at a disadvantage. What really helped sell this mechanic was that a few times where a player or GM forgot that the character rolling had disadvantage, they could simply pick up a d20 and roll it; if it rolled higher just ignore it and go with the effect that had already happened, if it rolled lower then use that instead. And the inverse if there was advantage on the table, though our Wood Elf Rogue was very good at keeping track of when he had advantage on his attacks, since that determined when he'd get the chance to do a sneak attack with his longbow. What was interesting was that doing ranged sneak attacks was fairly simple, as per the text a Rogue doesn't need to have advantage if there's an active enemy within 5 feet of the target (which there often was since he focused on snipping bad guys that were engaged with the Fighters), something that I'm pretty sure wasn't the case in 3rd edition, and could be true in 4e but then I never saw enough ranged-combat Rogues to be sure (the ones I saw focused on stabbity-stab rather than shooty-shoot).
While the final battle with the Boss Kobold and his flunkies was a close one (the Dwarf went down to a critical hit and just barely survived thanks to the Cleric's intervention), our party of adventurers (hard to call the group heroic when one member is a surly drunkard and another is a self-professed hired killer) succeeded in clearing out the kobold warren. Unlike 4e combats that could drag on sometimes, the lower hit point totals of bad guys in 5e helped avert that, meaning it was very possible for us to one-shot lesser bad guys, which helped make us feel fairly competent as opposed to being a party of utter noobs.
Also, I'm liking how the proficiency mechanic works. Only thing missing from what I can see is a means to gain proficiency in additional skills, but hopefully that will be something addressed in the Player's Handbook (remembering that the Basic Ruleset is the "free-to-play" version of the game and doesn't have all the bells and whistles). There's also the missing Feat system, but we knew that was "missing" going in, and honestly it wasn't really noticeable has ever class had some baked-in benefit that in 3rd edition would have been analogous to having a feat at 1st level.
So what about D&D 5th Edition? In spite of my earlier misgivings, I enjoyed it, though a part of that I suspect had to do with getting the chance to game with folks that circumstances have otherwise prevented me from gaming with over the past few months. There was talk of starting up a regular campaign, quite possibly adapting one of the many older campaign series that the GM had written up but never really got to run over the years, though we agreed to wait for at least the Player's Handbook, if not the Monster Manual so that the GM doesn't have to do quite as many guesswork-riddled adaptations of monster stat blocks. There was also talk of where to set the campaign, but a large part of that will likely depend on what campaign series the GM opts to adapt. We also mentioned playing through the Starter Box adventure, possibly keeping our PCs from last night's adventure (made easier by the GM not really having much in the way of loot to hand out to us
So in closing, unless you are vehemently against all things based on the d20 core mechanic or deeply tied to a prior version of D&D (or Pathfinder for that matter), I'd say give the Basic Ruleset a trial run before you completely write off this new version of D&D. If you've given up on D&D ever being fun, you might just be surprised at what D&D5e can deliver if you give it half a chance. I know I certainly was.
May 19, 2014
D&D 5e... So. What?
Fair warning, if you're a dyed-in-the-wool D&D fan that's been frothing at the mouth for the next edition of D&D since they announced the Open Playtest, you should probably just skip this post entirely. In fact, just pretend it didn't exist, and we'll both be happier for it.
So, the news has been dropped that the next version of D&D (which I'm calling 5e for simplicity) will be released this summer, starting with a Beginner Box in July and followed with a new release each subsequent month. Obviously being D&D (aka the 800 pound gorilla in the RPG industry), this is fairly big news for a lot of folks. After all, it's been quite a while since WotC last published a D&D gaming product for retail sale.
Personally, my reaction to this news could be summed up in two words...
So. What?
I'll be honest, the last time I played D&D and actually had fun was in a Dark Sun campaign which was under the 4e ruleset (Human Stone Fist Monk with Wilder theme if you're curious; much boot to the head). I know that opinions on 4e are rather... divided, but while it didn't wow me, neither did 4e leave me entirely cold, though admittedly I never saw it as an actual "role"-playing game really being more of a tactical combat simulator that used physical maps, tokens, and dice instead of being reliant upon a computer. It's not a system I'd be in a hurry to play again, but I don't loathe it either.
But the fact remains that as much as 3rd edition was a base-breaker for the D&D fandom, 4e was even more so, due to the many significant and rather radical changes in how the game worked. 3e was itself different, but still had ties to prior versions of AD&D, just as AD&D 2nd edition had ties to AD&D 1st edition. 4e was such a different animal that it was hard to find a middle ground.
Brian Casey aka Fiddleback made a tweet this morning that really caught my attention, which he expounded upon here at the Mad Adventurer's Society: http://www.madadventurers.com/dd-5e-the-rise-of-meh/
He and I are of a similar wavelength in regards to the upcoming/inevitable 5th edition. In particular, I'd like to call to attention his point about how much the gaming industry as changed since 4e was released.
Ten years ago, we didn't have things like Kickstarter, and the number of viable indie RPG companies was fairly small. RPG publishing was predominately big companies like Wizards of the Coast or Alderac Entertainment Group or White Wolf, companies that had been in business for quite some time. But things have changed. Paizo went from being a magazine publisher to being the folks publishing one of the two largest RPG product lines on the market (where they stand in regards to WotC is a matter of opinion that varies from one person to the next).
One of my favorite companies to support, Evil Hat Productions (i.e. the folks behind FATE and the Dresden Files RPG) probably wouldn't have been able to make it in the RPG industry as it existed at that time, or at least wouldn't have the degree of success they've been having.
But with the advent of Kickstarter and IndieGoGo, it's a much different industry. Indie RPGs are now a heck of a lot more accessible, and you can get a lot of bang for your buck when you make a pledge to support a given funding campaign. I got a pretty good amount of swag from Evil Hat's FATE Kickstarter, as well as Green Ronin's Mutants & Masterminds 10th Anniversary Kickstarter and the Deadlands Noir Kickstarter (oh how I wish I could have pledged more back then). And there's been a couple of minor projects that I gladly supported simply because they sounded interesting. Some of them came to fruition, some didn't. I guess I've been lucky in that I've only had a single Kickstarter go sour with the money taken and nothing to show for it. The fact still remains that the gaming industry is no longer reliant on those big companies to produce RPGs that we're hoping to like. Now, smaller companies can more easily find those "niche markets" for their ideas that a decade ago probably would have wasted away in obscurity.
There's also the simple fact that for most companies, PDF publishing and Open Gaming Licenses are a huge thing. Putting together a semi-professional looking PDF and submitting to sites like DriveThruRPG isn't that difficult and the publisher gets to skip over a number of other costs, such as printing and shipping. And with just about every gamer having some form of internet access and a portable device these days, getting those PDFs and using them at the table is quite simple. And like Kickstarter campaigns, it's pretty easy for someone with a real niche product to find folks that are willing to buy a PDF of it.
So where does that leave Wizards of the Coast and 5e? More than likely, facing an uphill battle if they want to re-establish the massive customer base they had back when 3e was at it's height. Response to the recent Open Playtest materials has been as mixed as the post-release response to 4e was, with some folks loving it, some folks hating it, and some folks simply wondering why they should care anymore?
Me, I'm in that third camp. I tried out the materials for the Open Playtest under a couple iterations, but I found myself often wondering "why should I even care at this point?" I already had access to all the books for what I honestly feel is the best version of a d20 system out there in the form of Star Wars Saga Edition, which is one of the few d20 games that I'd play or run at this point, with Mutants & Masterminds being the other. And the answer I ultimately came to was "I shouldn't."
I've got two bookcases packed with a variety of RPGs that I very much enjoy playing or at the very least enjoy just occasionally reading through. I've got a number of PDFs for several of those games and several more sitting on my hard drive. But my D&D books? The 3e books are pretty much gone (and I had a lot of those at one point), with only two 3e books surviving my purge of "stuff I no longer need." I've still got 4e books that are semi-accessible, but honestly I don't have that many of them (the core set, each of the various PHBs, the two Essentials player books, and a couple supplements is all) and it's been quite a while since I picked up one of those to just read through it.
So as far as D&D 5e goes, I'm a lost cause for anyone trying to convince me to pick up the new rules. At most, I might pick up a copy of the PHB if I can get a really good price on it, but that's not likely as none of the folks I game with have an interest in any version of D&D these days.
And that's okay, because unlike the RPG industry of old, there are a wealth of options out there for the discerning gamer. So while D&D is likely to remain the "face" of the RPG hobby, particularly to the mainstream media and those on the outside looking in, that doesn't mean that gamers have to overjoyed or even be interested that a new version of D&D is on the horizon. Will D&D probably be the "introductory" RPG for a number of gamers in the years to come? Probably, though Pathfinder is probably catching up given the number of gamers that cut their teeth on 3rd edition D&D.
Personally, I feel there are much stronger options to introducing folks to the gaming hobby that D&D. Green Ronin's Dragon Age and Pinnacle's Savage Worlds are two of them. There's also Fate Accelerated Edition if I need to come up with something on the fly, though I'll admit my comfort level with that system is not the best in terms of being a GM. But that's my opinion, and I'm sure there are plenty of folks that feel there are other systems that would be better for an introduction to the RPG hobby. But that's the beauty if it all, is that there are so many other options. I suspect that had the number of options that exist today been around when I got my introduction (D&D Red Box) was a much smaller guy, my head likely would have been spinning.
Back then (a lot longer ago than I'd like to admit), there really wasn't much choice beyond D&D. At least in the areas I grew up in, you were lucky if the local bookstore carried anything more than a few D&D books and some dice; if you wanted something other than D&D, you were pretty much out of luck.
But *cough* number of years later, I can very easily walk past a table where any version of D&D is being played, pausing perhaps briefly for a second or two to see what's going on, and then move along. During GenCon last year, I very briefly swung by the WotC set-up, took a couple of pics of the big-ass drider statue, and left the area with zero interest in playing a session of D&DNext. I tried the playtest material, wasn't really enthused or frankly impressed by the state of things towards the end, and unless WotC has done some really major revisions, odds are that 5e is going to be many of the things that I simply didn't care for.
For those of you out there are chomping at the bit for the next version of D&D, I hope you enjoy it. But I've got a sinking feeling there's going to be nearly as much divisiveness over the new edition as there was each time a new edition of D&D got released, ranging from the folks that liked the old(er) edition to folks that are disappointed that this new edition failed to live up to their expectations or simply doesn't deliver the D&D experience they want.
And for me, given how non-relevant D&D is to my gaming these days, I again ask "so what?" I've got plenty of other RPGs that I very much enjoy playing, with currently being in two FFG Star Wars campaign (and am eager to get my hands on the Age of Rebellion core rulebook within the next couple weeks and hopefully the Force and Destiny Beta this August) and a Mutants & Masterminds campaign (hard to top the chance to play Spider-Man, quips and all).
Edit: Well, it seems that WotC did one of the last things I'd have expected, that being to offer the "basic" rules as a free PDF download from their website, covering levels 1 thru 20 but keeping things very "bare bones" much like the old Basic D&D box sets did. You'll have your standard four classes (fighter, rogue, cleric, wizard/mage) and races (human, elves, dwarves, halfings) to start with, so it'll be enough to give those curious a chance to see if the new D&D is something they'd want to follow up on or simply pass over.
At the very least, they'll have folks willing to check out the new D&D, which will likely provide a much needed boost towards the goal of making D&D as relevant to gamers as it was back in the 3.X/d20 hey-day. I'm still not sold on the product (again based on the last iteration of the Beta playtest rules), but I'll at least check out the Basic PDF and see if the system is something I'm willing to put money towards.
So, the news has been dropped that the next version of D&D (which I'm calling 5e for simplicity) will be released this summer, starting with a Beginner Box in July and followed with a new release each subsequent month. Obviously being D&D (aka the 800 pound gorilla in the RPG industry), this is fairly big news for a lot of folks. After all, it's been quite a while since WotC last published a D&D gaming product for retail sale.
Personally, my reaction to this news could be summed up in two words...
So. What?
I'll be honest, the last time I played D&D and actually had fun was in a Dark Sun campaign which was under the 4e ruleset (Human Stone Fist Monk with Wilder theme if you're curious; much boot to the head). I know that opinions on 4e are rather... divided, but while it didn't wow me, neither did 4e leave me entirely cold, though admittedly I never saw it as an actual "role"-playing game really being more of a tactical combat simulator that used physical maps, tokens, and dice instead of being reliant upon a computer. It's not a system I'd be in a hurry to play again, but I don't loathe it either.
But the fact remains that as much as 3rd edition was a base-breaker for the D&D fandom, 4e was even more so, due to the many significant and rather radical changes in how the game worked. 3e was itself different, but still had ties to prior versions of AD&D, just as AD&D 2nd edition had ties to AD&D 1st edition. 4e was such a different animal that it was hard to find a middle ground.
Brian Casey aka Fiddleback made a tweet this morning that really caught my attention, which he expounded upon here at the Mad Adventurer's Society: http://www.madadventurers.com/dd-5e-the-rise-of-meh/
He and I are of a similar wavelength in regards to the upcoming/inevitable 5th edition. In particular, I'd like to call to attention his point about how much the gaming industry as changed since 4e was released.
Ten years ago, we didn't have things like Kickstarter, and the number of viable indie RPG companies was fairly small. RPG publishing was predominately big companies like Wizards of the Coast or Alderac Entertainment Group or White Wolf, companies that had been in business for quite some time. But things have changed. Paizo went from being a magazine publisher to being the folks publishing one of the two largest RPG product lines on the market (where they stand in regards to WotC is a matter of opinion that varies from one person to the next).
One of my favorite companies to support, Evil Hat Productions (i.e. the folks behind FATE and the Dresden Files RPG) probably wouldn't have been able to make it in the RPG industry as it existed at that time, or at least wouldn't have the degree of success they've been having.
But with the advent of Kickstarter and IndieGoGo, it's a much different industry. Indie RPGs are now a heck of a lot more accessible, and you can get a lot of bang for your buck when you make a pledge to support a given funding campaign. I got a pretty good amount of swag from Evil Hat's FATE Kickstarter, as well as Green Ronin's Mutants & Masterminds 10th Anniversary Kickstarter and the Deadlands Noir Kickstarter (oh how I wish I could have pledged more back then). And there's been a couple of minor projects that I gladly supported simply because they sounded interesting. Some of them came to fruition, some didn't. I guess I've been lucky in that I've only had a single Kickstarter go sour with the money taken and nothing to show for it. The fact still remains that the gaming industry is no longer reliant on those big companies to produce RPGs that we're hoping to like. Now, smaller companies can more easily find those "niche markets" for their ideas that a decade ago probably would have wasted away in obscurity.
There's also the simple fact that for most companies, PDF publishing and Open Gaming Licenses are a huge thing. Putting together a semi-professional looking PDF and submitting to sites like DriveThruRPG isn't that difficult and the publisher gets to skip over a number of other costs, such as printing and shipping. And with just about every gamer having some form of internet access and a portable device these days, getting those PDFs and using them at the table is quite simple. And like Kickstarter campaigns, it's pretty easy for someone with a real niche product to find folks that are willing to buy a PDF of it.
So where does that leave Wizards of the Coast and 5e? More than likely, facing an uphill battle if they want to re-establish the massive customer base they had back when 3e was at it's height. Response to the recent Open Playtest materials has been as mixed as the post-release response to 4e was, with some folks loving it, some folks hating it, and some folks simply wondering why they should care anymore?
Me, I'm in that third camp. I tried out the materials for the Open Playtest under a couple iterations, but I found myself often wondering "why should I even care at this point?" I already had access to all the books for what I honestly feel is the best version of a d20 system out there in the form of Star Wars Saga Edition, which is one of the few d20 games that I'd play or run at this point, with Mutants & Masterminds being the other. And the answer I ultimately came to was "I shouldn't."
I've got two bookcases packed with a variety of RPGs that I very much enjoy playing or at the very least enjoy just occasionally reading through. I've got a number of PDFs for several of those games and several more sitting on my hard drive. But my D&D books? The 3e books are pretty much gone (and I had a lot of those at one point), with only two 3e books surviving my purge of "stuff I no longer need." I've still got 4e books that are semi-accessible, but honestly I don't have that many of them (the core set, each of the various PHBs, the two Essentials player books, and a couple supplements is all) and it's been quite a while since I picked up one of those to just read through it.
So as far as D&D 5e goes, I'm a lost cause for anyone trying to convince me to pick up the new rules. At most, I might pick up a copy of the PHB if I can get a really good price on it, but that's not likely as none of the folks I game with have an interest in any version of D&D these days.
And that's okay, because unlike the RPG industry of old, there are a wealth of options out there for the discerning gamer. So while D&D is likely to remain the "face" of the RPG hobby, particularly to the mainstream media and those on the outside looking in, that doesn't mean that gamers have to overjoyed or even be interested that a new version of D&D is on the horizon. Will D&D probably be the "introductory" RPG for a number of gamers in the years to come? Probably, though Pathfinder is probably catching up given the number of gamers that cut their teeth on 3rd edition D&D.
Personally, I feel there are much stronger options to introducing folks to the gaming hobby that D&D. Green Ronin's Dragon Age and Pinnacle's Savage Worlds are two of them. There's also Fate Accelerated Edition if I need to come up with something on the fly, though I'll admit my comfort level with that system is not the best in terms of being a GM. But that's my opinion, and I'm sure there are plenty of folks that feel there are other systems that would be better for an introduction to the RPG hobby. But that's the beauty if it all, is that there are so many other options. I suspect that had the number of options that exist today been around when I got my introduction (D&D Red Box) was a much smaller guy, my head likely would have been spinning.
Back then (a lot longer ago than I'd like to admit), there really wasn't much choice beyond D&D. At least in the areas I grew up in, you were lucky if the local bookstore carried anything more than a few D&D books and some dice; if you wanted something other than D&D, you were pretty much out of luck.
But *cough* number of years later, I can very easily walk past a table where any version of D&D is being played, pausing perhaps briefly for a second or two to see what's going on, and then move along. During GenCon last year, I very briefly swung by the WotC set-up, took a couple of pics of the big-ass drider statue, and left the area with zero interest in playing a session of D&DNext. I tried the playtest material, wasn't really enthused or frankly impressed by the state of things towards the end, and unless WotC has done some really major revisions, odds are that 5e is going to be many of the things that I simply didn't care for.
For those of you out there are chomping at the bit for the next version of D&D, I hope you enjoy it. But I've got a sinking feeling there's going to be nearly as much divisiveness over the new edition as there was each time a new edition of D&D got released, ranging from the folks that liked the old(er) edition to folks that are disappointed that this new edition failed to live up to their expectations or simply doesn't deliver the D&D experience they want.
And for me, given how non-relevant D&D is to my gaming these days, I again ask "so what?" I've got plenty of other RPGs that I very much enjoy playing, with currently being in two FFG Star Wars campaign (and am eager to get my hands on the Age of Rebellion core rulebook within the next couple weeks and hopefully the Force and Destiny Beta this August) and a Mutants & Masterminds campaign (hard to top the chance to play Spider-Man, quips and all).
Edit: Well, it seems that WotC did one of the last things I'd have expected, that being to offer the "basic" rules as a free PDF download from their website, covering levels 1 thru 20 but keeping things very "bare bones" much like the old Basic D&D box sets did. You'll have your standard four classes (fighter, rogue, cleric, wizard/mage) and races (human, elves, dwarves, halfings) to start with, so it'll be enough to give those curious a chance to see if the new D&D is something they'd want to follow up on or simply pass over.
At the very least, they'll have folks willing to check out the new D&D, which will likely provide a much needed boost towards the goal of making D&D as relevant to gamers as it was back in the 3.X/d20 hey-day. I'm still not sold on the product (again based on the last iteration of the Beta playtest rules), but I'll at least check out the Basic PDF and see if the system is something I'm willing to put money towards.
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