Zero Buzz on 5E...Is It Dead Out The Gate?

deaddmwalking · Post by **deaddmwalking** » Tue Sep 16, 2014 7:17 pm

Even if Next is a better game than 4e, I don't expect it to do as well. Pathfinder does a pretty decent job of scratching the 3.x itch - there's no compelling reason for folks who preferred 3.x to switch to 5e.

Paizo captured a lot of good will when WotC pulled the license for Dragon and Dungeon. I don't understand the current open license for 3rd party support, but I don't expect it to be as open as 3.x was... Third-party support is important for the success of D&D because the gaming public is so diverse in it's taste that a single company isn't going to come out with everything you want in a reasonable time. If you're looking to play The Black Company, picking up the Green Ronin book and playing with 3.x rules is an easy option. In any case, without companies like Paizo supporting Next, I don't expect it to win many of the converts that care about support for their favorite aspect of the game - at least, unless it happens to align perfectly with what WotC expects you to care about.

Finally, folks have had a long time to find something that works for them. 3.x absolutely destroyed non-3.x gaming for almost 5 years, despite it's problems. Whatever game you're playing now has inertia. Unless you're looking to change, Next won't appeal to you without a compelling reason. They haven't offered one. Marketing hasn't suggested one single thing that Next is supposed to do better than any previous edition of D&D. Maybe there are aspects that it does better than a particular edition - but collectively, you're just as well off applying Advantage to your AD&D 1st edition game - which really seems to be their hope.

Next looks like they hope you'll buy the books, but actually play your heavily house-ruled 3-ring binder version of D&D that you've been playing since 1985.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Tue Sep 16, 2014 7:42 pm

deaddmwalking wrote:Marketing hasn't suggested one single thing that Next is supposed to do better than any previous edition of D&D. Maybe there are aspects that it does better than a particular edition - but collectively, you're just as well off applying Advantage to your AD&D 1st edition game - which really seems to be their hope.

Next looks like they hope you'll buy the books, but actually play your heavily house-ruled 3-ring binder version of D&D that you've been playing since 1985.

That's exactly right. 5E D&D feels a lot like a 2E AD&D retroclone that paid attention to the criticisms of 3E and 4E D&D and then decided that they could reel in some of the dissatisfied customers with a flurry of spot fixes. And for what it's worth I'd rather play core 5E than core 2E or any of the famous retroclones like Hackmaster.

I'm frankly not sure if this was an emergent game design process or if it was planned from the start. My money is on 'planned from the start'. Here's some of the paradigms that they were working on:

[*] People shouldn't be able to go 'I don't care if I fucking rolled a one, my total bonus makes me disarm the trap/dodge the dragon breath anyway'.
[*] Powergaming is best handled by the DM line-item vetoing powers. People complaining that a magic item is overpowered? Everyone selecting one particular feat tax? Everyone is summoning a problematic monster? If we take these toys out of the hands of players and make them suck the cock of the DM, that solves everything.
[*] Fighters having powers is right out. That shit is too anime.
[*] However, people also complained bitterly about magic not being able to do anything in 4E D&D. So we gotta throw in a couple of good spells anyway.
[*] But, hrm, people also complained about fighters being useless. How are we going to solve this trilemma? ... I know! Let's just make most of the player-accessible magical weak and any of the good stuff forces the player to suck up to the DM beforehand.
[*] Monsters, in sufficient amounts, should always be a threat to the PCs... but we're also aware that releasing level 25 human rioters causes people to scream WORLD OF WARCRAFT. So: bounded accuracy!

infected slut princess · Tue Sep 16, 2014 11:53 pm

Sakuya Izayoi wrote:I go to TRS to try to figure out what the Church of 5 likes so much about this.

what is the Church of 5? What is TRS?

Sakuya Izayoi · Post by **Sakuya Izayoi** » Tue Sep 16, 2014 11:54 pm

The RPG site, and I couldn't come up with anything like 4rry to go with 5.

nockermensch · Post by **nockermensch** » Wed Sep 17, 2014 12:14 am

Lago PARANOIA wrote:[*] Powergaming is best handled by the DM line-item vetoing powers. People complaining that a magic item is overpowered? Everyone selecting one particular feat tax? Everyone is summoning a problematic monster? If we take these toys out of the hands of players and make them suck the cock of the DM, that solves everything.

Your nostalgia glasses is making you forget that 3/3.5/3.P also bows deeply to rule 0 and DM worship. D&D books are always peppered by remarks that DMs can change or adapt whatever they want.

Mistborn · Post by **Mistborn** » Wed Sep 17, 2014 12:15 am

Sakuya Izayoi wrote:The RPG site, and I couldn't come up with anything like 4rry to go with 5.

The best I've been able to come up with is 5uckers. The problem is that it's a little too ambiguous that it's derived from "suckers". The idea was that the 5e fan base has all punched their tickets for the Mike Mearles ruse cruse.

Dean · Post by **Dean** » Wed Sep 17, 2014 12:25 am

I agree that 5uckers is the best. The ambiguity of its spelling seeming like "suckers" but its pronunciation seeming like "fuckers" is a feature not a bug

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Wed Sep 17, 2014 12:29 am

nockermensch wrote:Your nostalgia glasses is making you forget that 3/3.5/3.P also bows deeply to rule 0 and DM worship.

DM asskissing is not a PASS/FAIL measurement with no shades of gray. We can rank various games by the amount of anal slobbering they require for various PC options. And 5E D&D requires significantly more tongue and spit than 3E did. Or 4E D&D did, for that matter.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Wed Sep 17, 2014 6:20 am

Lago PARANOIA wrote:I'm frankly not sure if this was an emergent game design process or if it was planned from the start. My money is on 'planned from the start'. Here's some of the paradigms that they were working on:

[*] People shouldn't be able to go 'I don't care if I fucking rolled a one, my total bonus makes me disarm the trap/dodge the dragon breath anyway'.
[*] Powergaming is best handled by the DM line-item vetoing powers. People complaining that a magic item is overpowered? Everyone selecting one particular feat tax? Everyone is summoning a problematic monster? If we take these toys out of the hands of players and make them suck the cock of the DM, that solves everything.
[*] Fighters having powers is right out. That shit is too anime.
[*] However, people also complained bitterly about magic not being able to do anything in 4E D&D. So we gotta throw in a couple of good spells anyway.
[*] But, hrm, people also complained about fighters being useless. How are we going to solve this trilemma? ... I know! Let's just make most of the player-accessible magical weak and any of the good stuff forces the player to suck up to the DM beforehand.
[*] Monsters, in sufficient amounts, should always be a threat to the PCs... but we're also aware that releasing level 25 human rioters causes people to scream WORLD OF WARCRAFT. So: bounded accuracy!

I think you are way overthinking this. Mike Mearls said that making attack versus defense progressions and damage versus hit point progressions at the same time was just too hard. So he made an edition that attempts to progress damage and hit points but not attack or defense. I submit that the entire design paradigm is just that: Mearls is bad with numbers so he keeps them all small.

All the 'ask the DM if you can hide' shit isn't a design paradigm at all - that's just Mearls not wanting to do work. Designing a stealth mini-game is hard, so Meals just throws his hands into the air and doesn't do it. Every time you see a bit of the rules that is just 'ask your DM' think about how much work it would be for a math phobic moron like Meals to actually design something. Then think of how much time he could spend cracking jokes about Dwarven prog rock if he just told the DMs to work it out their own damn selves.

That's why there's no diplomacy system, skill DCs, or even a definitive skill list. All of that shit would take effort, and Meals would rather beat box and bust out another stanza by MC Killsalot. Never attribute to a master plan what could be explained away by lazy incompetence.

-Username17

Ravengm · Post by **Ravengm** » Wed Sep 17, 2014 3:59 pm

So, the more I read this thread and my copy of the PHB ($30 on Amazon, otherwise I wouldn't have it), the more I honestly wonder what the hell the design team was even doing for the multiple years 5E was in development. Did Mearls just not have anyone checking up on progress to make sure he was actually doing something rather than masturbating while putting on a chainmail tuxedo?

Sure, they had the """""public playtest""""" (extra quote marks make it more sarcastic, right?), which was little more than crowdsourcing ideas and collecting a paycheck while the code compiledpeople had a chance to submit feedback, but once that sham shit the bed they actually had to do something, right?

And if not, why can't I be paid to be a professional bullshitter too?

MisterDee · Post by **MisterDee** » Wed Sep 17, 2014 4:33 pm

Ravengm wrote:So, the more I read this thread and my copy of the PHB ($30 on Amazon, otherwise I wouldn't have it)

Incidentally, Amazon putting stuff on 40% off a couple of weeks into the product's lifecycle is a fairly good indicator that it's moving at the speed of tar in the arctic.

RobbyPants · Post by **RobbyPants** » Wed Sep 17, 2014 4:37 pm

GnomeWorks wrote: Do you not recall the shit they pulled at the 4e announcement at GenCon in... what, '07?

They pissed a lot of people off with that crap.

I gotcha. At first, I took that to mean that they were doing positive things with 5E as opposed to they stopped doing negative things.

Ravengm · Post by **Ravengm** » Wed Sep 17, 2014 9:19 pm

MisterDee wrote:
Ravengm wrote:So, the more I read this thread and my copy of the PHB ($30 on Amazon, otherwise I wouldn't have it)
Incidentally, Amazon putting stuff on 40% off a couple of weeks into the product's lifecycle is a fairly good indicator that it's moving at the speed of tar in the arctic.

I preordered it not long after the release date announcement, so it's been moving slowly for a while now if that's the case.

ACOS · Post by **ACOS** » Thu Sep 18, 2014 12:02 am

Ravengm wrote:
MisterDee wrote:
Ravengm wrote:So, the more I read this thread and my copy of the PHB ($30 on Amazon, otherwise I wouldn't have it)
Incidentally, Amazon putting stuff on 40% off a couple of weeks into the product's lifecycle is a fairly good indicator that it's moving at the speed of tar in the arctic.
I preordered it not long after the release date announcement, so it's been moving slowly for a while now if that's the case.

Meh - it's really much ado about nothing at this point. Initial releases also get discounts to help kickstart things. If it stays at the discount, that's when it'll actually be an indication of anything.

fectin · Post by **fectin** » Thu Sep 18, 2014 12:46 am

Well, if it's deeply discounted on amazon only, that'll be exciting for FLGSes. I actually think $30 is a decent pricepoint for maximizing their penetration (giggety), but setting it there for amazon and higher for stores is likely to kill their sales long-term.

Sakuya Izayoi · Post by **Sakuya Izayoi** » Thu Sep 18, 2014 2:18 am

Perhaps they're REALLY confident 5e is going to be the new hotness, and the Amazon price is their fuck you to the FLGSes for saying "4e sucks! Buy Pathfinder instead!"

Smeelbo · Post by **Smeelbo** » Thu Sep 18, 2014 3:31 am

At the game store I manage, I have the following observations:

1) It took over ten days to sell out our initial order of 8 PHBs.
2) It took only three days to sell 10 copies of the PathFinder Advanced Class Guide.
3) Both books are already sold out from the publishers.
4) I have only 5 pre-orders for the MM and/or DMG, fewer than I had for the PF Advanced Class Guide.
5) The local D&D Meet Up is dying. It is hard for them to find DMs.

Smeelbo

...You Lost Me · Post by **...You Lost Me** » Sat Sep 20, 2014 12:03 am

In my little bubble, it seems like 5e is succeeding more than I anticipated. I know several game groups that picked it up, and r/dnd, gitp, and my flgs all seem to have more 5e content than 3e/PF put together.

brized · Post by **brized** » Sat Sep 20, 2014 12:32 am

How long did it take most people to realize Emperor 4E had no clothes?

Dogbert · Post by **Dogbert** » Sat Sep 20, 2014 4:39 am

brized wrote:How long did it take most people to realize Emperor 4E had no clothes?

Around a year and a half (perhaps two) is what it took for the kool-aid drinkers to switch to PF here in México.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sat Sep 20, 2014 4:48 am

brized wrote:How long did it take most people to realize Emperor 4E had no clothes?

About a year. 4e was the heir apparent for a long time. The Goonsquad actively mocked us as grognards for failing to embrace 'modern' gaming for longer than that of course, and the tide didn't fully turn until Titanium Dragon was forced to claim that 'hundreds of thousands' was more than 'millions.' That was August of 2009.

Of course, some people thought that WotC was going to rec down themselves with 4.5 Essentials, which they were disabused of when the line was cancelled at the end of 2010.

I would be shocked if 5e didn't dominate discussion for at least six months even as a DOA failure. It is a new edition of the former number one RPG, after all. If someone resurrected White Wolf and made a new real edition of Vampire, I'd expect a lot of discussion about that too. Even if, as is highly likely, the new edition was a pile of ass and didn't restart the Gothic gaming scene.

-Username17

RadiantPhoenix · Post by **RadiantPhoenix** » Sat Sep 20, 2014 4:49 am

IIRC, I started to dislike 4e right about when I tried to make a character and... there was something when I started trying to write down the abilities, and it was like, "bleah"

... the fact that I was trying to herd a half-dozen or so other people through chargen was probably not great for the experience.

infected slut princess · Sun Sep 21, 2014 5:20 am

Did anyone talk about the 5e Tarrasque? If so, I missed it. But I just saw it, and I am horrified.

I have a soft spot for the Tarrasque. Yeah, it's a big dumb monster in a lot of ways, but it is evocative in a way that most new D&D monsters are not. I thought it was cool how it would always regenerate even if it got disintegrated or killed by death magic. And you needed a wish to truly destroy it. I mean, that was a pretty cool idea.

Well guess what. Apparently you don't need a wish to destroy the 5e Tarrasque. It doesn't even regenerate anymore. You just wail away on its 600+ hitpoints until it dies. THAT'S IT.

Hey, but what about its ability "Legendary Resistance"? Forget it. All it does is let the Tarrasque auto-save 3x per day. Boring. It's like a total meta-power.

It also has "legendary actions" which are pretty fucking boring. They are just attacks or short bursts of movement outside of its turn.

Yet again, my childhood is raped by Mearls.

ACOS · Post by **ACOS** » Sun Sep 21, 2014 3:34 pm

infected slut princess wrote: Yet again, my childhood is raped by Mearls.

This post reminds me of a certain scene from a South Park episode. (probably NSFW)

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Sat Sep 27, 2014 7:47 pm

Whoops, wrong thread.

OgreBattle wrote:What's the verdict on weapon styles, is it like AD&D where you dual wield everything or is it like 3e where greatweapons are where it's at or is it like 4e where every class has abilities to use a handful of specific weapons?

We'll have to wait for a standard treasure list to come out first to be sure, but so far it looks like it's going to be sword and board past level 5 -- unless you're playing a low-level one-shot as a human, then it's THF. Rogues and other classes with on-hit bonus damage may use TWF during this time frame.

Hooray for bounded accuracy.

The Gaming Den

Zero Buzz on 5E...Is It Dead Out The Gate?

5E is not selling well here...