Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition

[Anders]

Read all about it.

The core books cost $50 each, or $150 for the set - compared to GURPS (to take an example purely at random) which costs $85 but includes three (?) pages of monsters *cough* bestiary *cough*. But there's a starter's kit - gateway D&D - for $20.

Very little on what they contain, but maybe there's some information online?

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Anders

Read all about it.

Very little on what they contain, but maybe there's some information online?

I certainly need some real information on what the game is like. There was nothing ion that piece.

$50 for a PHB is a barrier too. Whatever anything "comparable" is priced at these days it's more than my impulse buy threshold.

I'm not sure what's comparable anyway. I've gotten used to spending 7.19 on Amazon for an unknown paperback but even if the 5e books are only $35 on Amazon that's the same as a 5 book paperback series.

Wizards is also in the hole credibility-wise over 4e. I didn't come even close to getting my money's worth out of my 4e PHB and nobody in my gaming group did either. The ones who sprung for the whole 3 book set for 4e lost even more.

I do not judge yet but there are thresholds that have to be met. They're going to have to sell me pretty thoroughly and with hard information too.

[SCAR]

Originally Posted by Anders

Read all about it.

The core books cost $50 each, or $150 for the set - compared to GURPS (to take an example purely at random) which costs $85 but includes three (?) pages of monsters *cough* bestiary *cough*. But there's a starter's kit - gateway D&D - for $20.

Very little on what they contain, but maybe there's some information online?

For comparison:
$150 gets you (as PDFs) GURPS Basic (Characters & Campaigns), Magic, DF1-3, DFM1 and maybe another 4x DF volumes to suit tastes. DFM1 contains (I think) 30 Monsters, and the Monster Index at the back of that volume references another 80+ from the other DF volumes!

[Anders]

Originally Posted by SCAR

For comparison:
$150 gets you (as PDFs) GURPS Basic (Characters & Campaigns), Magic, DF1-3, DFM1 and maybe another 4x DF volumes to suit tastes. DFM1 contains (I think) 30 Monsters, and the Monster Index at the back of that volume references another 80+ from the other DF volumes!

Excellent comparison, but you need to include (part of) the cost of tablet as well. Without that, your PDFs won't do you much good.

I won't be an early adapter of this. The price is too step and my confidence in WotC is too small. I don't think they are "pretty great at designing games". I really don't.

[SCAR]

Originally Posted by Anders

Excellent comparison, but you need to include (part of) the cost of tablet as well. Without that, your PDFs won't do you much good.

Why would you need a tablet? Virtually any vaguely modern computing device should have sufficient power to run a PDF reader.
Most people have a computer (very likely for those willing to spend over $100 on RPG stuff), and access to a printer for some pages shouldn't be a major issue, but isn't required.

My D&D experience ended with BECM. I'm far more interested in the DnDClassic releases.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by SCAR

Why would you need a tablet?!

To take your gaming material to your game when said game is not conveniently held in your computer room.

A tablet works much better for this than even a small laptop. Though we d have one guy who's using what looks like one of those hybrid Surface things.

As to printing out your pdfs I'd have to say absolutely no. I own a _lot_ of paper gamebooks but I want those professionally done and not DIY.

[Anthony]

All I know about 5th edition was that the early playtest was a train wreck. It doesn't make me very hopeful about the final result.

[Andrew Hackard]

Originally Posted by Anthony

All I know about 5th edition was that the early playtest was a train wreck. It doesn't make me very hopeful about the final result.

That's, um, kind of the point of playtesting: break as much as you can, as often as you can. Judging a final game because an early playtest session was a mess is -- I'll say "misguided." I've been in some train-wreck playtests of my own that led to pretty awesome games in the end.

What I read in the last set of playtest documents, and what I've heard about the later development from Nameless Sources, has me optimistic about the shape of the published books. It feels a lot more like the D&D I played in college 25 years ago, which is a very strong recommendation. They definitely aren't trying to compete with Pathfinder in complexity.

[ULFGARD]

Wow. This sounds terrible. I like games that have a demo that is free or very cheap, something that whets my appetite for more. For all we might argue over what GURPS Lite can do (or other light versions of games), it does a fair job of demonstrating how GURPS works in practice, and is enough to run a complete game (including a suggested starting adventure).

$20 for a "starter" kit? Is it a collectible card game? Or is there something ELSE in it that won't be superseded by dropping $50 (or $150) for the full game?

As for monsters in games... If you've got a Monster Manual from any DnD version, you can always convert the monsters. I eyeball them for single adventures (in GURPS or in DnD 3.x) unless they're going to play a central role in the adventure, and even then sometimes that's all I'll do (i.e., if a quick eyeball of the monster gives me a playable result that's in-line with the adventure as written or conceived).

I hope 5th ed. is better than people rated 4th ed. I really haven't been fond of DnD since AD&D 2e. This is mainly because 3.x seemed to shed a lot of the old "disposable heroes" feel of DnD in favor of a more constructed character approach like GURPS. They're both good modes of play, but the hybrid just didn't work well for my money.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Andrew Hackard

What I read in the last set of playtest documents, and what I've heard about the later development from Nameless Sources, has me optimistic about the shape of the published books.

That's somewhat promising (I've heard very little buzz about 5e), though a lot of it depends on what exactly the playtest is supposed to do; I felt that the early documents were 'not ready for playtest', so to speak.