What a mad, crazy 24 hours this has been! My fingers are cramping from all the twittering I’ve been doing in the last day. I think I’ve doubled my pre-playtest post count! And much of my time has been spent trying to shake some sense into the more vitriolic, knee-jerky reactions to the playtest materials.
As a shortcut to shouting at people over Twitter, I thought I’d just condense my thoughts here. Warning: some salty language sneaks in. I couldn’t avoid it. Continue reading »
So, after a frustrating morning of broken links and nerdrage, I finally got my hands on the playtest documents. What follows are my first knee-jerk reactions concerning the playtest materials:
First: This should really be called “D&D: Dungeon Master’s Edition.” Because boy howdy, have they placed a lot of power in the hands of the DM! Rules lawyers are going to hate this edition, if what we see here remains true. You could also call this “D&D: Storyteller’s Edition,” because it really seems to have a lot of little bits that boil down to, “Figure out what you want to do, let the Dm decide what ability covers that, and make a role.” In other words, it seems to be a case of “DM as Storyteller first.” [Reminds me of the path the recently released Marvel Super Heroes Roleplaying Game took.]
Second: This feels most to me like AD&D 2E. I’m down with that. Also, I don’t detect a whole lot of 4E in here at all. I’m down with that, too. Frankly, the fact that there doesn’t appear to be a Power in sight just warms the cockles of my heart.
Third: I freaking LOVE these character sheets. More text than numbers! For the first time in a long time, the character sheet doesn’t look like math homework. I hope this it a trend.
Fourth: Lots of good things about the pregen PCs. Dwarves, Halflings, and Elves all feel the way they should. Good riddance to teleporting Eladrian! Also, I really, really want to play a thief.
More organized and developed thoughts as I get to read in more detail. But my first impressions are overwhelmingly positive.
The next eighteen or so hours are going to go by sooooooooo damn slowly that I will probably die from the wait. But assuming I make it to the release of the D&D Public Playtest rules tomorrow, here’s my plan for the holiday weekend.
Thursday: Read. Read again. Maybe do some quick dice scenarios in my head. Then, after dinner: read once more. At some point, I may blog my first impressions.
Friday: I have to work Friday. Blargh! But I will be reading again, only this time in “game prep” mode. If I am able to, I will sneak off to the FLGS Friday evening and get in some basic playtesting of the combat rules (no adventuring Friday night). First or further impressions may also be blogged.
Saturday: First game of the playtest! It’s got a 6pm start time, which means I’ll have the whole day to wait anxiously. I will probably while away the time by fighting with other playtesters online about minutia of the ruleset.
Sunday: Second game of the playtest! This one has a noon start time. It will be a different group of folks than the first.
Monday: Eat barbeque. Also, blog about my weekend play experiences.
That’s what my weekend looks like. How about yours?
With the 5E public playtest imminent, I thought it was high time to post the first in what I hope to be a series of app reviews for apps that will help “appify” the 5E tabletop experience. To begin with, I thought I’d look at an app category that might be really handy to have at the table this weekend: Initiative trackers.
There are some fancy DMing apps out there that include initiative tracking as a feature. But I didn’t want to spend any money, so I went straight for the freebee apps. Further, I specifically wanted to find an iPhone-friendly app, as I will be using my iPad for the PDF playtest documents and I don’t want to have to keep switching apps during combat. I ultimately identified two promising candidates, Tabletop Iinitiative Tracker (henceforth Tabletop IT, because I couldn’t seriously call an app TIT) and D20 Initiative Tracker (henceforth D20IT). Continue reading »
I stepped in it again. And by “it”, I mean the WotC D&D Next Forums. They are Ennis to my Jack; I don’t know how to quit them.
This time, I wandered over there to see the shitstorm kicked up by Bruce Cordell’s latest article on the paladin class. Predictably, there were many people bemoaning the fact that, “Oh, no! They’re telling me how to roleplay!” And, “I should be able to do anything I want with my character!” The thread is here.
I couldn’t resist. I hit reply. I got snarky, but after a couple posts I found my footing and articulated (once again!) my stance on alignments in D&D. I thought I’d reproduce it here. Continue reading »
Yesterday’s 5E Q&A with Mike Mearls and Jeremy Crawford was the most concrete presentation we’ve had to date concerning the state of the game, full of crunchy bits and designer insight. Good stuff all around, and it made me excited for the playtest all over again [Monte who?]. For me, the most important reveal was the one where Crawford told us what will be in next week’s playtest packet:
Here’s what to expect in the packet . . .
- Five pregenerated characters
- The Caves of Chaos adventure
- A bestiary to accompany the adventure
- And rules of play, both for players and DMs Continue reading »
Much like all of you, I’ve been following the recent Legends and Lore columns with some interest. As Mike Mearls has made his way through the various classes, I’ve been panning for gold in each article. Up until now, I’ve been rather disappointed — basically, they want a fighter to work like a fighter, a cleric to work like a cleric, and so on. Crunchy bits have been few, and it felt like a lot of what we’d already heard previously.
Not so this week’s column on the wizard. Maybe it’s because the playtest is getting so close, but Mearls actually reveals a fair amount of detail concerning the wizard we’re going to see next week. You’ll probably want to read the whole article, but here are my thoughts on the crunchier bits. Continue reading »
Once again, this blog has lain dormant as I await the release of e 5E playtest. But that doesn’t mean I haven’t been busy. Now that we have a solid release date, I’ve been preparing for playtesting 5E!
I already have an “official” playtest game scheduled at the FLGS for that Sunday. The Sunday game has 6 people signed up (via Warhorn), so I’m hoping that more than 4 PCs will come with the playtest! I might even end up running games back to back that day. Also, I will almost certainly be at the store Friday night to see if I can scare up an impromptu play session. I’m sure I’ll relate my first playtest experiences here.
I’m also preparing my first adventure for this playtest group. Given the limited nature of what’s going to be released, building some sort of campaign around it seems foolish. Instead, I want a one-session event that will allow me to try out a variety of rules. Of course, without knowing which rules we’re going to be getting or what state they’re going to be in, my plans are very loose! I’ll be blogging more about it in the coming weeks, and hopefully sharing my “proto-adventure” with you all in time for the playtest.
I also plan to share my own plan for running a playtest group. While I’m sure WotC will have their own feedback form in place, I think it would also be wise for each playtest group to coordinate their collective thoughts on the game in progress. I’ll be blogging about my plan for that, too.
So, lots of things to do before May 24th. Lots of blogging to do this summer. I’m looking forward to it!
I had all but abandoned the WotC DnD Next Forums a month ago. It was just too much pointless speculation and edition war shouting ad nauseum, and it was making me nauseous. I figured I’d lay low both there and here until there was actually something to talk about regarding 5E.
Well, with Cook’s departure and the playtest date announced on the same day, I foolishly wandered back into the forums … and immediately got wrapped up in a thread I’d participated in a dozen times before: the need for WotC to distribute D&D digitally.
It’s the same old shit. In fact, it’s the same old people peddling the same old shit. The minute anyone says anything even remotely like “Hey, WotC needs to sell PDFs,” along comes user Dane_McArdy to piss on their parade with a pessimism so unwavering that you’d swear he was a paid schill for WotC’s legal team. Continue reading »
Did you hear? They’ve announced the date of the 5E playtest. Yay!
Did you hear? Monte Cook has quit the 5E design team. No!
I’m having a bipolar day here. After a torturously impatient wait, we’ve been given a launch date for the public playtest. It’s the Thursday before Memorial Day here in the states, which seems like an odd weekend to be launching it, but whatever; we’ve got a date. Couldn’t be happier.
But the far more significant news today is Cook’s departure. It is a bad omen for 5E. Continue reading »