Quote from: The Butcher;756356I came here to post this, mostly. Pundit can take his bullshit "you're with 5e or against 5e" ultimatum and shove it. I'll pass judgement on 5e when I see it, thankyouverymuch.

If D&D was still that important to me, I'd buy it and compare.  I don't really have the time, especially when I have rulesets that work.  I mean, I know the industry depends on it, but i can't imagine most of us, who have gotten along quite well, will rush one way or the other.  
I'll buy it; no stress.  Pundit being an instigator or not.

Quote from: talysman;756375The tiniest lack of commitment means you are a HATER.

Or the tiniest criticism that isn't even of the game itself but the corporate marketing strategy.
To 'hate' something I have to first care about it... and at this point I'm pretty much indifferent.

Quote from: Simlasa;756388Or the tiniest criticism that isn't even of the game itself but the corporate marketing strategy.
To 'hate' something I have to first care about it... and at this point I'm pretty much indifferent.

If you're complaining about the marketing strategy methinks your not. And like Windjammer have some kind of axe to grind (mostly against WotC just a bit against Pundit) like Butcher does (but his is specifically against Pundit). Interesting what you figure out just by lurking now and again isn't it?

Mine are level limits, class exclusion without reason or viable options offered like DCC, RC, LL, ACKS for example and Dnd standard vancian magic systems.

Pundit is entertaining yet provocative to me and gives me a game site where you have to be truly whacko to be banned from. But we all have axes to grind you know?

I don't hate 5e. I can't...because 5e has not come out yet. Since it has not come out yet, that means I haven't read 5e or played 5e yet to make any determination of whether 5e is a good game for me.

BTW, notice the last sentence. 5e, or any other game, may be a truly great game, but the only thing that matters TO ME is whether Game XYZ is a good game for me.

However, I did not enjoy the 5e playtests. I ran and/or played every playtest version at least once, and I have followed all the development of the game...and the marketing. As for the actual 5e, we will wait and see.

I do not pretend to speak for all Old Schoolers, but certainly for the AD&D Revival faction of the OSR are only interested in TSR era editions and TSR products, anything that is more radical that OSRIC isn't on the menu.

(shrugs)  From my standpoint as a confirmed D&D hater, I still have to join with the vox populi and agree that hating a game that hasn't actually been released yet is well to the left of moronic.

I also think that liking a game that hasn't actually been released yet is pretty damn moronic as well.

Come to that, whipping up a jihad against or defending to the death a game that hasn't actually been released yet is a sure sign that you have way too much time on your hands.

Quote from: Ravenswing;756403I also think that liking a game that hasn't actually been released yet is pretty damn moronic as well.

Some are liking it because they participated in the playtest and assuming WOTC hasnt lied through their teeth, the final playtest was pretty darn promising after 13 years of WOTC botching things one way or another.

Unfortunately this IS Mearls and WOTC et al we are dealing with and all bets are off till the thing is on the shelves/pdf and we can see for ourselves.

But assuming no colossal blunders. Next should be pretty darn good.

That is my current view.

I really hope Next succeeds.

Quote from: Ravenswing;756403From my standpoint as a confirmed D&D hater, I still have to join with the vox populi and agree that hating a game that hasn't actually been released yet is well to the left of moronic.

Yeah... hah! There's that too. Unlike some here I had no part in the playtests and I haven't read much about the details of what's actually supposedly in the game. D&D accounts for very little of my gaming history.
So how could I be anything BUT indifferent till it arrives?
Some of the rumors have grabbed my interest but others put me off... as do some of the zealous trolls here.

Quote from: JeremyR;756303Er, didn't 4e have a starter boxed set? So does Pathfinder. I don't see the big deal or why one is "old school"

You don't see how streamlinging rules, getting rid of feats and extensive skill systems and fiddly things like prestige classes and ditching uber-focus on balance and going gridless and using a sandbox toolbox setting and basing the rules on an old school set with an old school module is more old school in nature? Really?

QuoteOTOH, I think bounded accuracy is dumb. You give monsters ton of hit points and then lower their armor class so you hit them all the time? And this single design idea makes 5e stuff largely incompatible with previous editions.

LOL that's not bounded accuracy.  First, it has nothing to do with hit points.  Monsters do not have inflated hit points at all, and in fact one complaint so far is that they have too few hit points (that's something being corrected in the final version, along with some math balancing for the rest of monsters).

Second, bounded accuracy involves just two things - attack bonuses, and AC.  You do not hit the all the time - indeed it's hard to hit things, because attack bonus is the other thing that's been constrained.  Natural scores cannot go beyond 20 without serious and very rare magic, magic weapons typically don't go beyond +1 unless they are deeply rare, and there are no fiddly little feats and such to crank to-hit either.

So no, bounded accuracy is not cranking hit points and lowering AC. In the playtest, it's worked very well.  You should try it before outright dismissing it.

Quote from: ggroy;756331I'll be taking a wait-and-see approach over the next year or so.

I hope most of the "3pp glut" and WotC proliferation will be in the form of digital-only content (whether DDI type of services and/or pdfs), and not as published paper books.

In hindsight, the 4E splatbook treadmill was actually somewhat manageable.  Mostly one or two WotC books per month, and the occasional module from Goodman.  (Most of the other 3pp companies dropped out of the 4E market relatively quickly, such as Mongoose, XRP, etc ... with Goodman eventually exiting too).

I think if treadmill and glut is your concern, that's a wise plan.  Everything points to an approach that is anti-treadmill and drastically reduced glut.  But, I think it's absolutely fair to say "prove it, I will wait a year or two and see if that's true".  If it's true, the game will still be there later to pick up.  If it's false, then you will pat yourself on the back for having avoided it.

Another fairly safe approach would be to download the Basic rules when they come out for free, and check them out. And then if there is strong word of mouth on a particular adventure (which I am guessing will run about $15 for a hardback adventure on Amazon), maybe buy that and check it out using just the Basic rules.

Quote from: Marleycat;756349No, the math is much flatter you also lower the to hit values. It's so that low level monsters in groups are a serious danger even to high level characters. Among many other advantages in game and out of course. And from what I have seen only 4e will be a problem in conversion.

Yeah one big issue with 4e conversion will be room and corridor size.  Same problem I had with converting adventures from 1e-3e for use in 4e.  4e really benefits from larger rooms, larger spaces in general, to allow for lots of movement and manipulation of foes.  It can be fixed by just doubling everything, but that often breaks maps that were originally tightly designed.  

As for the rest of a conversion, I guess that awaits the DMG and the "edition conversion document" they keep hinting at.

Quote from: Mistwell;756422Yeah one big issue with 4e conversion will be room and corridor size.  Same problem I had with converting adventures from 1e-3e for use in 4e.  4e really benefits from larger rooms, larger spaces in general, to allow for lots of movement and manipulation of foes.  It can be fixed by just doubling everything, but that often breaks maps that were originally tightly designed.  

As for the rest of a conversion, I guess that awaits the DMG and the "edition conversion document" they keep hinting at.

I agree. It's the grid thing that's problematic. I'm just waiting for the conversion docs and to see if the DMG is similar to FantasyCraft before I'm totally completely a 5ver.

Quote from: talysman;756375Pretty much. Is any well-known old-school blogger or personality actually saying "BOO! IHATE 5E!"

Does ExploderWizard have a blog?

Quote from: talysman;756375Pretty much. Is any well-known old-school blogger or personality actually saying "BOO! IHATE 5E!" or is it just people saying "I have this older game I like, and no one's shown me a reason to switch yet"?

There are groups in the OSR who focus on a specific edition in the same chess club is focused on chess. Most of these gamers the mindset is "I am happy with the older game and see no reason to change now." Also for the most part they are not into OSR blogging or advocacy. They are there for the edition of their choice and that fine by them.

Occasionally somebody goes in there and tries to tell them they should play Go instead of Chess. That where you get most of the "stories" about old school fanatics. Some people don't get that their forum or group is about X edition and that it is OK for that to happen.

Outside of that I have to say attitude of most OSR bloggers I know, including myself, is one of cautious optimism. Wizards has built up goodwill with the reprints and PDFs. If they bring it home with the 5e release cycle I will be there cheering them along.

Once again a voice of reason I lurk at Dragonsfoot and similar every once in a while and to me (a 2/3e girl) they're sane mostly. I haven't registered because I have nothing to add honestly. They sound hopeful about 5e to me, at least in the majority.

There are several reasons why some won't consider 5E "a sufficient old-school effort."

Some are already happy with other iterations of the game. They're not potential customers of 5E, regardless of its design or marketing.

Others have a reflexive distrust, hatred even, of WotC, as the publisher of editions they hate. Some hate WotC because it's the big company in the industry, and to them the OSR is all about indie DIY.

And then there are those who have much invested in their online dogma and tribal forum identity. Just as forgists and RPG hipsters can't accept 5E because it eschews their ideal model of narrow, math-first, system-up design, those grognards who define themselves more by what they're against than what they're for will never accept a version of D&D that makes any concessions to mechanics or play modes enjoyed by people who started playing D&D after 1989. How could they, when much of the energy that fueled the OSR was a fierce reaction against modern play?

Fortunately for WotC, those groups are collectively smaller than the market of long-timer players who are looking for old-school play modes, but aren't particular wedded to every mechanic from TSR D&D. This wider group doesn't care about (nor are they even aware of) the dogma that grew around the OSR. And they don't have any particular animosity towards WotC (though they may be wary after 4E turned out so strange). If a new, in-print edition of D&D can support theatre of the mind play, features familiar classes, and is easier to run than 3E or 4E, then the quiet mass of old-schoolers players will enjoy it just fine.