So the other shoe has finally fucking dropped.  Here's Mike Mearls announcing what I've known for months and had to keep a lid on; what I had tried to hint at and a few of you got, but most did not.  Yes, there will be a Basic D&D.


But its more than just that. It will be on a PDF.  It will be FREE.  And most importantly, it will be the true Core D&D.   Not the PHB, not the DMG, not that 10000-feats version. No. The basic version will be the default version of the D&D game, the one that all adventure products will use for their baseline.

This is hugely significant. This is the victory of Old-school thinking over all else, and I don't mind if I take more than a little credit for the lobbying I have done to create and hold this vision as a Consultant.

You're all welcome.

It is also an incredibly bold move for Wizards to make.  It means that in theory, all you'll ever need to play D&D will be, in the first few months, the Starter Set and the Basic Rules PDF.  And after that, not even the Starter Set.  So whatever you get, whatever you purchase or get into from Wizards will not be because they're holding a gun to your head. It will be because they'll be making great products (well, we hope!).

This is, with any luck, the beginning of the end for the whole "endless Splatbook-production-line model" of RPG thinking which only served to create an ever-shrinking mass of aging fanatics while alienating everyone else who didn't want to have to buy every single book.

Making Basic D&D the core D&D rules means that kids will be able to get into the game first, and then become customers of those adventures, expansions, settings or materials that they find exciting.  It will serve the "amateur" gamer rather than the hardcore drooling fan, and that's a good thing.

So its time now to give Wizards its due.  And to give the Pundit his due, particularly all the naysayers and those who made certain claims about me in the last few days.  I win again.

And this time, so does every other D&D fan.

RPGPundit

Yes, you did.  Thanks!

Please please please for the love of God give me some sort of POD option.

I caught on pretty quick.

Seriously it's beyond awesome I hope they do something like 2e or Pathfinder maybe 2-3 books a year for players and then settings, adventure paths and whatever else aimed to DM's that way I will still have money.

Urge to financially support 5e rising...

Quote from: Brad;753004Please please please for the love of God give me some sort of POD option.

Mearls already tweeted they are considering putting up the BASIC rules into a book (kind of similar to RC).

Quote from: Brad;753004Please please please for the love of God give me some sort of POD option.

Why? As a living document its going to be edited, futzed with, re-edited, added to, etc. quite a bit. Might as well give it a few years for it to settle in in its final form before wasting ink .

Yeah in no way will we be seeing in the months ahead whole threads devoted to
"Stupid players all you need is the free Basic D&D.  Get your stupid endless Splatbook-production line 10000-feats version outta here"
:rolleyes:

Actually, the starter set still doesn't include character generation, comes with an adventure and pregens, sounds like a set like the 4e starter set minus character generation to me. So I don't retract anything, really: it is dumb not to include the character generation rules in the starter set, and that doesn't change my mind about this particular issue.

BUT. The Basic game being free as a PDF is a great thing, so the Starter Set can be completely ignored by the computer literate. That's great news, it's great for the fans, it's great for WotC, everybody wins. That's cool.

It'll be even better if the Basic game ends up in print itself, so we can get it and offer it to people instead of the Starter Set.

Yeah, about that... I might wait till someone else gives you a lotta credit for it. This whole "Look, I'm a great consultant"-routine is not loaded with dignity.

But great with a D&D a lot of people will probably dig.

The news of Basic D&D means I'll give it a look, because up to this point the product was not looking very palatable to me.

Now that WotC have the old-school flank covered, the online debate will shift to the other flank and the underlying math, tactical modules, and expanded PC customization. And since much of that material won't become evident until the DMG is published, expect a lot of skeptical speculation and warnings of worst-case scenarios in the meantime.

I actually can't fault them at all for keeping the basic rules online only.  This isn't like the 80s, when it didn't really matter if you had all the most recent errata, and in fact hardly anyone ever did.  Even with my Dragon subscription, I certainly didn't update my rules each time a clarification came out in Dragon.

However, in this digital age, everyone has easy access to all the info instantly.  No more waiting a month for the next Dragon issue, and even then finding someone who had it.  In the 80s you could easily get away  with playing with older rules.  Today?  Much harder since the info is accessible and instant.  So there's a legitimate reason to keep it a living document.  IMO anyway.

Quote from: Haffrung;753025Now that WotC have the old-school flank covered, the online debate will shift to the other flank and the underlying math, tactical modules, and expanded PC customization. And since much of that material won't become evident until the DMG is published, expect a lot of skeptical speculation and warnings of worst-case scenarios in the meantime.

Probably but I do notice alot of the 4e people are finally lightening up on the complaining because even they are starting to see that WotC actually seems to be carrying through with what they were promising. It should be very doable I mean if FantasyCraft can pull it off why couldn't WotC?

Now it's not exactly how I would have done it or envisioned it but it seems very workable.

The most amazing thing happened today here in Germany.

Pegasus, the German publisher of Cthulhu and Shadowrun, "suddenly" decided to make the PDFs of the Cthulhu Player Guide and the Keeper Handbook available for free.

Uhrwerk, the German publisher of The One Ring, Hollow Earth Expedition, Space 1889 (and more) just posted to his Facebook account: "This is MADNESS!"