The New D&D: 5E, Next, or... Whatever
When I first heard of the new, new D&D - the 5th Edition, or D&D Next, as it was called for a while, I was interested. 3E had been a really good streamlining and improvement on 2E, and 4th Edition was a completely different game. I was expecting 5E D&D to be another different game, with something built in from previous versions, but new material as well. I signed up for the playtest to see what was in there.
And, to be honest, I wasn't too impressed. As far as I could see, it was a halfway house between 3.5 (in my opinion, the best version, and the one picked up as a ruleset by Pathfinder) and 4th Edition, which didn't seem likely to please anyone.
A release schedule has now been put out. It includes two adventures by Wolfgang Baur, as well as the three core books. The books are coming at $50 each - so it looks like the policy of keeping the core books a bit cheaper, and making money on the supplements has been discarded. Given the number of people who only ever bought the core books, that seems like a sound business decision, and perhaps it'll stem the flood of supplements and extras - although I'm sure there will still be plenty.
Now, I'm probably in the Elder Gamer category by now. I've been playing RPGs for something over 25 years. I've moved away, for the most part, from heavily mechanical systems to more freeform ones - Fate being my current focus. And I'm no longer moved as much by a shiny cover.
But those covers just don't look interesting. Whatever else you can say about 4th Edition, the cover art was good, and the layout and design were excellent. This just doesn't have the same impact. In other words, it's kind of lacklustre - much like the ruleset itself.
I'll wait and see. Maybe I'll hear good things about it, and get interested again, but right now, the news isn't grabbing me at all.
Posted by Drew Shiel at May 20, 2014 12:40 PM
