I think some of those "console game" sorts of abilities have a place in D&D. And I think they were often needed in 2e and 3e. Ya know, a way for the fighter to prevent the enemies from just surrounding the wizard and beating him like a red-headed step child. WotC just went too far with that in 4e so that it felt like it was just a collection of MMO abilities with cooldowns, every class felt sorta the same, and there was almost no flavor text/background in the first several books. Whether you like those facets of 4e, most of the old school gamers that remember 1st and 2nd ed are going to be turned off by those points.

Here's a blow by blow of what they've been working on with 5e;
http://www.enworld.org/index.php?page=dnd5e

This has details like how they want skills\classes to work. i.e. Vancian is back. They are clipping some spells like fireball (5D6 fixed, want more damage get a higher level spell).

Absolutely. Simplicity with optional complexity for special situations would be ideal.

Some actual Game Play comments;
http://www.enworld.org/forum/new-horizo ... -ddxp.html

This guy DMs 4e, and plays with a mixed, 2e, 3e, 4e crowd.

The Core game is apparently 1e\2e like, onto which they graft more and more. (Said Grafting is not entirely there.)

Didn't bother voting. Stopped playing DnD a short time after WotC decided they screwed up 3ed. It was ok because I had kids at that time and didn't have the time to read and memorize a $40 book every month.

What I did was what many GM's did. I pulled my experience together to form a set of rules that worked for me. The rules I ended up with were more logical in my opinion. The combat was more deadly. The story became king.

My son had the time to read the books and was addicted to them. Now that he has moved out I have to store the two or three foot tall stack of books I begged me to buy him.

3.5 was not a bad version I guess. Not anything I wanted to be involved with, but a lot of people have stayed with them thanks to Pathfinder. So with 3.75 still in play, 4.0 not having as many players as they wish, will 5.0 be able to pull in enough players to be viable? Good question, time will tell. But I must say, any time WotC is involved in a game, you can be sure they will torque off a bunch of people. Sooner or later all the money Hasbro has, will not be enough to keep them viable. WotC has been living off the good name of TSR's DnD game for a long time now. I don't think they can make it last forever.

In many ways, from what I am reading, it looks like they are going back to the original proposal for 3.0 that later became "2.5" with the core rules and then the extend rules. That might actually work.

I remember back in the day getting easily interchanging 1e & 2e (actually, not really an interchange - the books worked quite well together). I also rememeber playing BECMI; the rules were similar, albeit watered down, but there was a conversion process to bring your BECMI PC into AD&D.

Going with this thought, I see something developing similar to the BECMI-AD&D relationship. As had been stated, a simplified core with the ability to add on more complex rules that are complementary to that core.

Hmmm, the poll has ended up sort of... pear shaped. The extremes are tied at two votes each, but otherwise it looks like pessimism has the edge.

It will be interesting to see how 5e ends up, but it seems that here, and on other sites, there is not an overwhelming amount of confidence in WotC pulling back into first place.

The Auld Grump

Good points, Zenguy...basically is the investment of resources worth the return?

D&D NEXT has added a new reason to llok forward to Monte's visit to our FLGS. He had to bail on an event we hosted and is making it up to us with and in store visit. D&D NExt is on the big question list.

The playtest starts tomorrow: http://wizards.com/dnd/DnDNext.aspx

This is a warning that fanboys and naysayers will be going at it all over the internet...

I will be holding off, for now at the least - Pathfinder is still good for me.

I am glad that they are doing open testing, I just hope that they do a better job of listening to playtesters this time around. (Why, yes, I do still have a smoldering anger about that. Why do you ask? Seriously, why have playtesters if you aren't going to listen to them, only to have a massive errata months later addressing those same problems?)

But the core design team (now minus Monte ) is a better team than the one on 4e, and do have a history of listening to feedback.

But the lack of word on the license, the NDA for the demonstration at PAX... nothing more of a promise than 'wait and see'.

The Auld Grump

I was... not thrilled with the Mongoose RuneQuest - in particular I missed the magic systems (plural) and the wonderfully organic experience system of the first three editions of the game.

Then they did their little OGL backstep on the RQII book, and I decided, well, 'nah'.

The Auld Grump

You do know, companies like them, hate people like you guys. People who think for themselves scare them.

I'm really curious about D&DNext, like I was for 4e. I sat out for 4e, and hated the end result. I'm contemplating trying it out, but this weekend is no good - got a big convention to go to.

Not sure what I think yet. Seeing shades of 1st/2nd AD&D. Streamlined. Possibly over simplified, but not sure just yet. Lots of pretty big changes...

If any of you are still having trouble downloading those documents, here's another link provided by WotC on their forums that seems to work today: http://wizards.custhelp.com/app/answers ... /a_id/2230

Here's the original post where I got that link: http://community.wizards.com/dndnext/go ... (IMPORTANT)?pg=1