D&DNext: Playtest Review

[erik]

You could do a tier system for how they handle Same Game Test, and possibly have several tiers to measure along with how much System Mastery Tier is needed to play to meet an average ranking on those tiers at certain levels (say level 1, 3, 6, 10, and 15 nobody should care about >15, and lower levels are more important to get a good picture)

Tier 1: They are awesome, expect easy challenges in this territory.
Tier 2: Good team addition, but don't expect to solo encounters.
Tier 3: Not your schtick, you are contributing like a cohort/NPC.
Tier 4: There is no try. There is only fail.

Monster/Combat
Trap
Mobility
Social
Stealth
Mastery

Would this be a worthwhile classification system, or is it still pointless since there is so much variability even in individual classes? Certainly I've seen druids and clerics played worse than well, bad. Real badly.

[PhoneLobster]

I'd say a real practicable power tier is based on spellcasting ability:

1. Full casters /unlimited spells known
2. Full casters /limited spells known
3. Partial casters and UMD classes
4. Non-casters

You know, tiering systems are bullshit, but I like that one because it's pretty much objectively provable what tier something is in and that actually has some meaningful impact on what the character does.

Still it doesn't tell you what people want to hear from a tiering system. At it's core as subjective and often hard to determine objectively as it is people WANT their tier system to be a way of pointing at other characters as being too powerful or too weak in a way that offends them personally. So the bare minimum proto-tier system that all other tier-systems are basically overly elaborate wanky expanded versions of goes.

1. Characters that are too weak for my liking
2. Goldilocks/My Character
3. Characters that are too strong for my liking

Go play some terrible game like DoTA 2 or one of those things. Watch people rage "fuck you for beating me with your (too good tier) character" "fuck you for losing the game for our side with your (too weak tier) character".

That's what people want a tier system for.

JaronK and his tier system are made out of bullshit and blow hard. But as messy as his tier system is it meets the primary function wanker fan boys of wanker JaronK need it to meet. It lets them point at someone and say "Waaaah you lost the game for us with your (lower than my character tier weakling)"/"Waah you outshined me with your more powerful/verstatile/game breaking higher than my tier ass hole!"

It doesn't really matter that some of the things are in the wrong places or make no fucking sense. People intent on using such a system will just always place offending characters higher or lower as they feel appropriate to justify their complaints of the moment and the vagueness of and bullshit built into the system just HELPS them do that.

PS and while I'm making fun of these complaints about weak/strong characters, and in particular making them by means of the elaborate laughably wanky JaronK "tier system", I should be clear it is entirely possible that they can be valid complaints. The JaronK tier system however... is yeah, basically a wank job.

[Juton]

I think a tier system can work if all the players are close in skill, like tournament players in a fighting game. And if the things they are rating are somewhat similar, like Ken vs Ryu and not Angel Summoner and BMX Bandit. Since playing with a group of similarly skilled players with similarly powered characters doesn't usually happen in D&D tiers are usually worthless.

I will credit JaronK with this though, his tiers got my old group to talk about caster/non-caster imbalance when literally dozens of dead Monk PCs could not. For that I am grateful.

[TarkisFlux]

We're talking about classification schemes again, so I guess I'll plug the wiki's for the Nth time.

You could do a tier system for how they handle Same Game Test, and possibly have several tiers to measure along with how much System Mastery Tier is needed to play to meet an average ranking on those tiers at certain levels (say level 1, 3, 6, 10, and 15 nobody should care about >15, and lower levels are more important to get a good picture)

Tier 1: They are awesome, expect easy challenges in this territory.
Tier 2: Good team addition, but don't expect to solo encounters.
Tier 3: Not your schtick, you are contributing like a cohort/NPC.
Tier 4: There is no try. There is only fail.

Would this be a worthwhile classification system, or is it still pointless since there is so much variability even in individual classes? Certainly I've seen druids and clerics played worse than well, bad. Real badly.

It basically does this, with the explicit disclaimer that it's a general classification and that individual builds can and will deviate from these placements if you try really hard (or just suck). Sandbagging Blasting wizards and spirited uberchargers are real things, and neither really performs as you would expect the base class to perform on average. That doesn't make the classification pointless though, since it's been accounted for it serves as a reasonable starting point for where any build with the class and options will land. It's a big fucking game, and the sheer amount of options available mean that the only thing you could explicitly and accurately classify would be a specific build, and that's so narrow as to be completely unhelpful. It doesn't stop us from still having arguments with a couple of guys who want to classify things based on their maximum instead of their average though, but that's probably as much motivated as PL's surprisingly accurate tiering system breakdown as anything else.

The wiki scheme also explicitly states that pretty much every class can all play nice together at level 1 where life is cheap, but that some start to pull away as they level up and their uneven growth rates become more obvious. You can play a monk if a group until level 3 or 4 and not be a liability because life is cheap. A well built fighter or barbarian will keep up with everyone else until 6-8 without serious intervention. Even a rogue will probably keep up with an half-opimized wizard until 10 or so. And while that's often ignored when people talk about classification schemes, I think it's worth remembering. In lots of games that people actually play (the low-mid level ones), most classification schemes are basically worthless.

[Ravengm]

Apparently they're doing a live stream of a game today using the latest iteration of the 5E playtest. It starts at 2 PM Pacific, so in a little less than 4 hours.

http://www.wizards.com/dnd/Article.aspx ... estreamLQB

[Almaz]

What I saw of it was a fight that dragged on a fair bit, and some pixelbitching and dragons in ranges. Am not impressed.

[Voss]

The replay is here,
http://www.twitch.tv/wotc_dnd/b/443283943

for anyone who is bored enough to slog through it. They did a 2 hour podcast, and the first hour is mostly expository bullshit.

The main feature is half the players seem to insist on playing the 'asshole PCs' who talk shit to everyone. Though apparently some of this is a 'flaw', which gives 'inspiration' which can be used on checks.

The only game thing mention is some bullshit about 'roleplaying and interaction rules' in the form of 'bonds' which seem to be just hooks for the specific adventure, giving the players a reason to be there, but the DM just sent a list out and they each chose one*, so it isn't exactly deep and meaningful.

* Except for Mearls, of course, who apparently didn't prepare for the podcast advertising of 5e as a system...


The exposition ends around the hour mark, and they start a shitty combat.

They must have adjusted the hit points again- at 17th level, black tentacles + a fighters attacks (three times for a total of 27 damage) and 14 points from magic missiles dropped one member of the fight. The others seem to last a little longer

Sneak attack did 23 damage the first round, add 36 the second. Generally attack damage is in the teens, which seems really odd at 17th level.

[Krusk]

Mearls reminded me very much of a guy i know (Friends shitty husband). Always plays as vanilla a dwarven fighter as he can. Prides himself on taking as basic of feats as possible (i took weapon focus and toughness, im not a minmaxer, i wanted something basic). Always picks some stupid thing to roleplay him as having (being a rapper). Always makes him as off putting as possible during roleplaying. Always bitches that "I would be awesome if I didn't roll terribly". Guy's legit favorite edition is 2nd edition.

Basically mearls seems like the worst sort of RPG fan imaginable. Glad he is doing the next one.

Also interesting to me - During the QA at the end, he explains that he didn't take any feats and just took the stat boost. Are they uninteresting, mechanically bad, or is this just something else he forgot to prepare for the game? (Oh shit i was supposed to demo this, whats the quickest thing i can build last minute)

[Josh_Kablack]

Guy's legit favorite edition is 2nd edition.

Basically mearls seems like the worst sort of RPG fan imaginable.

Those together are redundant.

[Voss]

Well going by the ones in the current playtest packet. most of the feats just don't matter that much. For a sword guy, the relevant options are:

-Alert (+5 init, immune to surprise and advantage to notice things)

-Charger (ignore speed pen from armor, can either do +5 damage on a charge (but only a single attack, which is bad, since a higher level fighter isn normally making 3 attacks) or push the target 10' on a str check)

-Heavy armor master (- con mod to all slash/bludgeon/pierce damage taken)

-Lucky (3 rerolls)

-tough (+2x level hp, scales to current level)

-tactical warrior (shitty 4e marking)

and either great weapon or shield mastery (forget what weapon he actually had)
-great weapon (criting or dropping a critter nets you another attack, can take a -5 to hit, add weapon damage + str mod again if you hit)

-shield master (shield bashing damage (1d6, or 1d4 with buckler), add shield AC bonus to dex saves)

most of these actually give proficiency in the relevant weapon/armor types as well, but for fighters, whatever.

Given everything in 5e is stat based, bumping stats up (and maxing them at 20) isn't a bad option, particularly for fighters (who have 6 stat increases at 17). Especially since they have advantage on all saves at level 13. Given that he brags about having an 8 charisma (repeatedly), his stat line could have easily been 20,20,13,12,16, 8, (or 20,20,11,10,18,8) which is pretty generally useful.

Feats vs. stat bonus almost looks like a real choice, but it seems very selective and fairly limited: burning more than one or two stat bonuses for feats is going to set a character back a lot, particularly for classes with fewer stat bonuses.


One thing that particularly struck me from the podcast- one of them mention that he had been doing work on the bard that day. Given that they're really selling actual preview adventure products this coming weekend (GenCon), and they need to wrap up in the next 6 months, the fact that they are still putting classes together is pretty horrifying.

[Username17]

I don't understand why these guys decided to be such assholes about even describing their characters. It's a fucking public playtest. I really couldn't even watch the fucking thing. How do they not understand that they are broadcasting a limited timeframe at their audience and they don't have time to be disruptive assholes?

This leads me to believe that they actually understand that they don't really have a product to show, so they chose to just fuck around and kill time rather than go forward. Fuck I hate those guys.

-Username17

[Voss]

I didn't understand that either. An hour of exposition based on a 10 year old dungeon magazine adventure preceded a shitty off the cuff encounter, wherein very little of the system was apparent. They didn't even attempt to talk through what they were doing and one the guys was even fucking coy about what class he was playing (and was later denied his assassination class ability on a bullshit point of 'the target is surprised by your attack, but it isn't a surprise round, so fuck you' [which isn't how the rule is worded in the current playtest packet, so extra fuck yous]*

*and then, of course, the party didn't actually support the rogue in combat, so he was doing 1d6+dex mod+(magic item bonus) + 1d6 from his shortsword, and losing his +6d6 sneak attack every round. The wizard, in fact, just up and left the fight to poke at a dead guy. I would really hate gaming with these people, except for the cleric, who was actually trying to get along and keep the adventure moving.

Another crowning moment involved seeming and if it could be altered on the fly. After paging through the spell doc, the wizard player announced that it didn't say, so he didn't know if he could or not. Mearls piped in with 'if it doesn't say, assume you can't.' (or something along those lines). Great design, there, and not a single one looked like they even realized that it was an issue.

[virgil]

Is it even possible to give consent to their contract solely by watching this podcast?

[wotmaniac]

Is it even possible to give consent to their contract solely by watching this podcast?

Any judge would laugh them out of court, if it came to that (not that it will).
I think that it's just a formality -- "everything related to DDN will automatically have this contract disclaimer slapped on it while still in the development/pre-release phase" type of thing .... otherwise, I assume that someone could use a single instance of the disclaimer not being there as a loophole/excuse to not be held to a contract that they did explicitly consent to. (the idea being that anything that is released to the general public could be considered no longer part of the NDA ....)

[name_here]

I've signed a playtest NDA before, although that was for video games. As I recall, testers could only talk about the material actually released to the public when they did a press release. Checking the Wizards NDA, it rather hilariously seems that the confidentiality agreement does not apply to the stream, because it's not really a playtest material.

5.Confidentiality. As part of your participation as a D&D Next playtester, you will receive Playtest Materials that are proprietary and highly confidential to Wizards. You agree not to copy, excerpt, distribute (either in physical or digital format), publish, display, disseminate, release and/or transmit, in whole or in part, or create derivative materials from any Playtest Materials provided to you. You further agree that you will not use the Playtest Materials for your own benefit (other than to participate in the online playtest) or to the benefit of any third party. Notwithstanding the foregoing, you may publicly discuss your thoughts regarding the D&D Next Playtest Materials and your playtesting experience

I suppose that it would prohibit people from posting their original copies of blurry sheets of paper that were waved past the camera for a moment.

[Voss]

Is it even possible to give consent to their contract solely by watching this podcast?

All things considered, almost certainly not. Even without the legal disclaimer coming at the end, which is laughable in its own right.

Their attempt at an NDA is pretty incoherent anyway, since they want people to see and share the playtest materials, and the materials are freely available to anyone who, essentially gives them an email address and clicks a 'yes' button.

Traditionally, NDA's don't include a public discussion clause, because that is
the fucking point of an NDA. The 'feel free to talk about it' clause pretty much undermines the whole point, beyond a rubber stamp, 'development in progress' sort of disclaimer.

[OgreBattle]

I like the idea of those feats. I could see a Warblade and Crusader feat added in the future.



But dat playtest... has inspired me to go write up my own D&DN, see if I can do better in one week than Mearls given 1 year.

[hogarth]

But dat playtest... has inspired me to go write up my own D&DN, see if I can do better in one week than Mearls given 1 year.

I have to admit that I'd be impressed if you came up with a version of D&D that was more profitable than D&D Next (which is what "better" means from a corporate standpoint).

[OgreBattle]

But dat playtest... has inspired me to go write up my own D&DN, see if I can do better in one week than Mearls given 1 year.

I have to admit that I'd be impressed if you came up with a version of D&D that was more profitable than D&D Next (which is what "better" means from a corporate standpoint).

Sure, I'll tell you when that happens.

[Ghremdal]

But dat playtest... has inspired me to go write up my own D&DN, see if I can do better in one week than Mearls given 1 year.

You are not setting a high bar for yourself.

Thats what pisses me off the most. They are fucking paid to design a system and they have been working on it for now what, year and a half? Two years? And after fucking two years it looks like it does?

Think of the poor hookers that money could have been better spent on. The humanity.

It looks like it has been designed by someone who played DnD for a couple of years and took two weeks, on his free time, to cook up.

[name_here]

But dat playtest... has inspired me to go write up my own D&DN, see if I can do better in one week than Mearls given 1 year.

I have to admit that I'd be impressed if you came up with a version of D&D that was more profitable than D&D Next (which is what "better" means from a corporate standpoint).

I'm sure many people could create one that would be better if Hasbro were selling it.

[Dean]

Holy shit that video was unwatchable. Even if you didn't know anything about Mike Mearls or our hobby and were well adjusted and had sex in high school you would still want to know why the red-headed dude in that video is being such a prick.

Holy shit I knew I hated Mike Mearls as a designer but I never knew I hated him as a wasted sperm. That man deserves to be genocided.

[phlapjackage]

Oddly enough, now I'm intrigued enough to go watch the video...

[phlapjackage]

...and I had to stop after Mearl's introduction of his character. Just wow. I'm not sure what's more embarrassing, that a grown man would act and RP like he were 10 years old, or that someone would consider this display suitable to showcase a new product from Hasbro.

[hogarth]

But dat playtest... has inspired me to go write up my own D&DN, see if I can do better in one week than Mearls given 1 year.

I have to admit that I'd be impressed if you came up with a version of D&D that was more profitable than D&D Next (which is what "better" means from a corporate standpoint).

I'm sure many people could create one that would [sell?] better if Hasbro were selling it.

Personally, my experience tells me that the quality of a game's rules is pretty far down the list of things that affect its profitability.