Open Play or Original Poster, not quite sure

Anyhow, it would be good for the industry if the D&D community united energetically under a single banner.

The reason I say that the old school crowd won't go for it is that it really clutters up the clean core mechanic with feats, class abilities, at will +1d4 saving throw or AC spells (or was Resistance first, no I'm pretty sure it was a Cantrip, curse my useless printer(not my printer skills, surely not!), there were times when it drew two pages and so the back of a page didn't get printed and there are pages missing I can't account for.)  It also loses the stark harshness of old school play.

Still for all that I think it's pretty functional and resolves many complaints people have about D&D ranging from weak low level characters to weaker low level wizards, and probably strong high level wizards as well.  Fighters have more stuff to write on their character sheets (thus losing their elegant simplicity)

I think I'm going to go with a level per week with new players starting on par with regular players.  Normally I don't agree with that but it's a fairly open group and I could see it growing faster than I can handle.

I don't think it brings anything to the table for us GURPS, Rolemaster, FATE, TFT, HERO, or even Palladium fans.  At least it's a little cleaner and more consistent.  Well, Palladium Fantasy Roleplay might suffer a bit but I suspect a surge in Rift sales will come along a few years down the line as now new D&D 5 fans drift away looking for something new and shiny in the way of a Glitter Boy Suit.

Quote from: CRKrueger;765019Organized Play.

I had hopes also but I agree.

Quote from: David Johansen;765021Open Play or Original Poster, not quite sure

Anyhow, it would be good for the industry if the D&D community united energetically under a single banner.

The reason I say that the old school crowd won't go for it is that it really clutters up the clean core mechanic with feats, class abilities, at will +1d4 saving throw or AC spells (or was Resistance first, no I'm pretty sure it was a Cantrip, curse my useless printer(not my printer skills, surely not!), there were times when it drew two pages and so the back of a page didn't get printed and there are pages missing I can't account for.)  It also loses the stark harshness of old school play.

Still for all that I think it's pretty functional and resolves many complaints people have about D&D ranging from weak low level characters to weaker low level wizards, and probably strong high level wizards as well.  Fighters have more stuff to write on their character sheets (thus losing their elegant simplicity)

I think I'm going to go with a level per week with new players starting on par with regular players.  Normally I don't agree with that but it's a fairly open group and I could see it growing faster than I can handle.

I don't think it brings anything to the table for us GURPS, Rolemaster, FATE, TFT, HERO, or even Palladium fans.  At least it's a little cleaner and more consistent.  Well, Palladium Fantasy Roleplay might suffer a bit but I suspect a surge in Rift sales will come along a few years down the line as now new D&D 5 fans drift away looking for something new and shiny in the way of a Glitter Boy Suit.

I really think that is their core goal. People will play it, it's not hard to mod, it's middle school or just middle road like most RPGer's. Just let us have fun and shine now and again when we sit down for 2 hours outside RL.

I figure I'll keep running games for people at my store and encourage people to run games at my store.  I might have to get more chairs and cut down the legs on one of the wargaming tables a couple inches to make them better to sit at.

But I've got no interest at all in running Encounters sessions.

Mind you I'd run GURPS 4e or BRP over D&D 5e any day of the week but people want what they want and I'm leaning towards wanting the store to make money so selling D&D books is probably something I should be trying to do.  Good grief, at this rate I might even start carrying Magic (nah!)

Quote from: Marleycat;765027I really think that is their core goal. People will play it, it's not hard to mod, it's middle school or just middle road like most RPGer's.

To quote The Life of Brian "What Jesus of Nazareth doesn't understand is that the poor in spirit are the problem."

Quote from: David Johansen;765029To quote The Life of Brian "What Jesus of Nazareth doesn't understand is that the poor in spirit are the problem."

Maybe but how about teaching them? I know what I like for Dnd but I've actually played 1-4e and ran Palladium. 5e looks like an awesome gateway game or a game for me who has no time, a daughter that loves the concept of magic and dragons.. .and  Zsna and Gabrielle....

Quote from: CRKrueger;765019Organized Play.

You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.

Quote from: CRKrueger;765019Organized Play.

I had hopes also but I agree.

Quote from: Marleycat;765038Maybe but how about teaching them? I know what I like for Dnd but I've actually played 1-4e and ran Palladium. 5e looks like an awesome gateway game or a game for me who has no time, a daughter that loves the concept of magic and dragons.. .and  Zsna and Gabrielle....

Well, I've spent two years trying to push other things and encourage people to play other games and I've had some successes and some failures.  But when it comes down to it, second tier companies do a poor job of supporting their products.

Every time D&D has a new edition, GURPS (and everyone else really) has a chance to scoop up some newly disgruntled D&D fans and yet there isn't a single book GURPS Fantasy game or even a 32 page GURPS Lite supplement that could be cut and pasted out of GURPS Basic Set Book I and GURPS Bane Storm in about half an hour.  The same is basically true of every other game out there.  They aren't trying very hard to make their games accessible to new players.  They aren't doing much of anything to help me sell their games.  It gets discouraging.  Miniatures companies are better about making entry level products but they tend to fall down on other support issues, like getting out the models that are in the army lists.

Quote from: David Johansen;765044Well, I've spent two years trying to push other things and encourage people to play other games and I've had some successes and some failures.  But when it comes down to it, second tier companies do a poor job of supporting their products.

Every time D&D has a new edition, GURPS (and everyone else really) has a chance to scoop up some newly disgruntled D&D fans and yet there isn't a single book GURPS Fantasy game or even a 32 page GURPS Lite supplement that could be cut and pasted out of GURPS Basic Set Book I and GURPS Bane Storm in about half an hour.  The same is basically true of every other game out there.  They aren't trying very hard to make their games accessible to new players.  They aren't doing much of anything to help me sell their games.  It gets discouraging.  Miniatures companies are better about making entry level products but they tend to fall down on other support issues, like getting out the models that are in the army lists.

I see that also but I don't understand the "why". I love GURPS but the entry is beyond hardcore, why? It's supposed to be generic.

A couple buddies and I made characters and tried to play a bit today. I like the Backgrounds (they were good in 4e too) and I am glad they're a standard part of the game now.

I am most looking forward to Backgrounds tied to settings.

I made a sword & board human fighter and it was ho hum. Nothing bad - more complicated than my 0e-2e fighter, about the same as a 3e fighter, and less interesting than my 4e fighter.

My buddies were less happy - especially about the cleric. None of us were fans of the 4e laser cleric and the 5e cleric - in Basic - just feels cobbled together wrong.

The other guys were interested in a lower powered D&D than 4e, but the damage output of the spells for them just screamed the problems we've had in high level play with HP inflation. We had HP inflation and damage inflation problems in the playtest when we did 11th-13th level adventures last fall and it looks like that's now ingrained in the system.

I need to make a Rogue/Thief and see how he feels in play. Based on the playtest, that was an interesting class and if Organized Play will be less about combats, then it may be fun to try a Human Thief.

Quote from: David Johansen;764993Okay, bearing in mind that I was disinclined to like 5e and didn't plan to carry it in my store, here's my thoughts.

You gotta carry a few copies regardless. It's D&D.

Quote from: David Johansen;764993Also, fighters can heal themselves which is smart and dumb at the same time.  Why not just give them 2d10 hp at first level?

And that's why I like the 4e Gamma World solution that drops all pretense about the concept of HP as meat wounds. 4e GW says fuck it. At the end of the fight, did you live? Great, regain all your HP. Oh you're dead? Go roll up a new character.

The whole problem with CR / balance is trying to match challenges to full heal / 75% heal / 50% heal parties and the whole concept of "balanced combats" is baked too deep in D&D now since 3e. So the designers create these various self-heal work arounds or free/easy/copious heal magic to deal with the CR issue.

Quote from: David Johansen;764993I think character creation is too cumbersome for a basic set and you have to watch out for overlaps between background and class skills.

It moved quick for our crew, but we didn't have noobs. All DMs who ran the playtests.  

Quote from: David Johansen;764993My guess is that WotC will hold onto some of the 4e fans, win back some of the Pathfinder fans but fail to dent the OSR at all.

I have a burger bet with a friend that Paizo is going to put out a 4e clone by next GenCon. I may be crazy, but Paizo sells so much stuff usable by 4e players (figs, maps, etc) and since 5e is not map/minis based, I am thinking Paizo makes a move for the 4e fans.

Again, I may be crazy.

As for Pathfinder fans, I can't see many of them leaving Paizo who really gives 3e fans lots of love.

As for the OSR, there will be a dent but not in players, I expect publisher will try to convert their OSR stuff to 5e to grab customers which is smart. Frog God is already on the move.

Quote from: David Johansen;764993Previously I thought the OSR had something to worry about but now I don't.  There's nothing for them here.

I think in 2-3 years into the edition, 5e will actually help OSR recruitment. Wanna play D&D with even less rules? Great, roll 3D6 down the line and let's rock.

Quote from: David Johansen;765028Good grief, at this rate I might even start carrying Magic (nah!)

If you like money, sell Magic and Pokemon.

Ye Gods!  An actual play report?  And here I thought we were all here for a circle jerk.

Thank you for the actual play report. Excellent recount!  The player characters don't seem to really like each other, do they?  All running around and not sticking by one another?

Quote from: CRKrueger;765015OP will soon be dead to me I expect except for "Basic Only" events, but that was too much to hope for anyway.

I am not writing off Organized Play yet. I did not like Encounters (too little danger), but I loved the Battle Interactives for 4e which were so freaking awesome.

I am going to give OP a chance as I am not really interested in running 5e based on what I've seen in Basic (its not different enough from the playtests), but I want to play some OP to see if its more like Living City adventures back in 2e than the 3e/4e RPGA events.

We will see.

Quote from: Spinachcat;765050You gotta carry a few copies regardless. It's D&D.

If you like money, sell Magic and Pokemon.

Maybe, the market here is saturated because we've got a population of 80 000 and four stores here.  When I opened the two that were here were both just barely carrying games any more.  The one guy had a bit of D&D, some old roleplaying stock, and a lot of Magic.  The other guy was mainly comics with a couple shelves of D&D and a shelf of Warhammer.  I mainly wanted a decent gaming space with access to a washroom.  And I wanted it to pay for itself.  I wanted to push the boundaries.  A year later a new store opened up that wanted to lose money hand over foot and drive all the competition under.  That woke up the other two stores and got them trying again, where I'd largely managed to avoid doing so while I was building up.  With Warhammer selling at 30% off and Magic selling at 30% off and Pokémon selling at Toys R Us and Walmart.  I just don't see it.

Where I plan to move is towards toys and model railroads.  I might get a box of whatever is out for Magic just to have it.  But I might also move into books or cosplay stuff.  I'll probably start doing some gaming mail order on lines that are hard to get here in Canada to broaden my market but I don't have the capital to carry everything for every game so that would be a more focussed out reach.

Quote from: Scott Anderson;765054Ye Gods!  An actual play report?  And here I thought we were all here for a circle jerk.

Thank you for the actual play report. Excellent recount!  The player characters don't seem to really like each other, do they?  All running around and not sticking by one another?

Yeah, the concept of focused tactical play is totally lost on these guys.

The three regulars' group dynamic has gotten really bad lately, I was thrilled to see some new blood.  We've got the guy who only wants to do second edition D&D because it's what his dad plays (my least favorite, yes even after 4th).  We've got the guy who always wants to do sick stuff like hitting babies with baseball bats for laughs.  And we've got the guy who started out goofing off and scuttling games for his own amusement but who has grown into a much better player over time.  Except the baby hitter who is mad about all the scuttled games and trying to get even.  Never mind all the swearing and anti-gay, anti-religion, misogynist stuff they spew.  Oh well, I was seventeen once and I understand the lure of the transgressive. I've worked to adjust some of their attitudes but what they really need is a few more of their peers to tell them "no that's not acceptable in any venue."

Hm. Four stores in 80,000 people. That seems like an embarrassment of riches.

Greater Providence, RI has but one store, and one about 20 miles outside of town. They both make money I think.