First there was the big news: there was going to be a new edition of D&D. It was followed by the expected cheers of joy, nerd rage, rampant speculation, and edition wars. Then DDXP came, and we all combed the transcripts and Twitter feeds for any and every morsel of concrete 5E information.
Now here we are a month out from the announcement and … um.
I don’t know about you, but I’m kind of burned out by the anticipation. I’m tired of “This is what 5E should do” threads in the forums, because they feel rather pointless. I’ve read and reread the same vague, crunch-less reviews of the DDXP playtests over and over, jonesing for a sense of the rules. I’ve started planning out what I want my first campaign and first adventure to be when I finally get ahold of the playtest rules. I’ve revisited old rulebooks, dusted off old campaign settings, and even re-copied an old character sheet that had gotten damaged in storage.
I totally get why WotC announced this so early, but the wait is becoming unbearable. I think part of it is knowing that there’s been a playable mock-up out there, that people have gotten to play it, and I couldn’t be more jealous. I want to play, too!
It’s also frustrating because those play testers have been so thoroughly tight-lipped. Seriously? Not a single DDXP playtester has broken ranks, created an anonymous Blogspot account, and posted mechanical details about the game? Spell lists for the wizard? Feat descriptions for the fighter? No one was able to sneak a snapshot of a character sheet with their smartphone?! You should all have your nerd cards revoked! This is the Internet; shit needs to leak.
WotC said at DDXP that the playtest would begin “sometime in the Spring”. It’s gonna be a long winter.