Tuesday 10 January 2012

5e -- why should I care?

Yes, the obligatory 5e post ;)

My reaction is: I have a kind of theoretical interest in what WotC might get up to with D&D 5e, but otherwise:

Why should I be interested in a new "version" of D&D?
I have the Labyrinth Lord books which I use to run my games.
I also have loads of AD&D books.
I also have all the important AD&D 2e books, for that matter.
If I really need it, the important bits of 3e (the SRD) are freely available online.
I also have free downloads of any number of other rule sets (S&W, OSRIC, LOTFP, etc) available.

Basically I have far more rule books than I will ever need, and the ability to house rule stuff together to cover bits I don't like or feel like modifying. So why should I be interested in a new "version" of D&D?

I just don't really get it... what do WotC want people to be interested in here? (And I'm not just talking about us OSR grognard types... same goes for people still playing 3rd edition, Pathfinder, 4th edition...)

I guess they're just relying on gamer ADD, the search for something new and perhaps "better".

Maybe there is a good reason why I should care about 5e, that I've not thought of yet. But for now, I'll stick with the plentiful gaming material I've already got... no reason to change.

As to what I would be interested in seeing WotC produce, well, personally nothing. I just don't tend to buy gaming materials apart from the rulebooks I use to run games. But I know lots of people like to buy campaign settings and adventures.

To be honest it surprises me that they think what people really want is another set of rules! Strange.

2 comments:

  1. I agree, I assume they are driven by economic / market forces rather than gamer desire.

    I am with you -- so long as I have LL, I don't need WotC.

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  2. Yeah I guess that's the thing isn't it -- they're not really trying to produce stuff that people want so much as stuff that they can persuade people to buy. New editions seem to have that capacity for making huge herds of people rush out and buy all the same books over again.

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