Next! The D&D Playtest

Do you still know how it was in May? When the first playtest pack­age was announced? All the excite­ment what the new edi­tion will be like. That time has long passed now. Today I feel more like I’m design­ing half of a game in my free time. A game that does not excite my any more at all. “At least in Ger­many it’s 80ies revival time, so why not play a sys­tem that is just as bor­ing as ADD?“

First when it was announced, I thought the mod­ule con­cept was a cool idea. Now dur­ing test­ing it proves to be the major cause for bore­dom. I’m not a bit an OSR guy. I love tac­ti­cal com­bat and rules with depth. The most fun ver­sion of DD Next will be with all those shiny tac­ti­cal mod­ules, they promised us, that are nowhere to be seen yet. Sure, they will need some time and work­ing basic rules, but that doesn’t make playtest­ing now any more fun. “Those rules would serve well as a tran­quil­izer, noth­ing less.“

If you want to take part in all the playtest activ­i­ties, you not only have to play sev­eral ses­sions a month to fully test play at dif­fer­ent lev­els. There is also a series on the DD home­page about the mon­sters. Descrip­tion and vot­ings how the mon­sters look like, what they do in their leisure time, and such things. Quite long arti­cles. Sure enough there is also Mike Mearls’ col­umn and the QA posts. “Maybe the Wotzies do offer you a con­tract if you take part in everything?“

The excite­ment of the new edi­tion is long gone, but that was to be expected. The cur­rent rules will be the basis for the tac­ti­cal mod­ule. So if I don’t want to be stuck later with rules I don’t like, I need to take part now. It all also comes together with the big dis­ap­point­ment when I first saw the playtest. There is almost no inno­va­tion in those rules. Apart from the Advan­tage rule there’s noth­ing really new. It’s old school in that aspect, too.

I was happy with 4e, but I saw prob­lems and thus was okay with a new edi­tion and a major rewrite of the rules. But I wanted some­thing new that was in some way bet­ter or more advanced. Until today I didn’t get it. And I start to become exhausted from playtest­ing. I’m not sure whether I still want to be part of it. Even play­ing no DD at all becomes a viable option, which it never was in the past, because DD feels more like work than a relax­ing game some­times. But for now I’ll stick to play­ing some more ses­sions. Hope­fully things will change soon or I might really get off. “Good luck. I wouldn’t bet any­thing on it. The tac­ti­cal stuff will surely take months to become part of the test.“

Arti­cle source: http://malspoeler.de/2012/10/next-the-dd-playtest/

Related posts:

1. D&D Next Playtest: Mixed Emotions
2. D&D Next Playtest: Round 2, Fight!