So, apparently Monte Cook is working on D&D 5th Edition...

http://www.examiner.com/rpg-in-natio...on-5th-edition

I was skeptical until I saw it was corroborated by Margaret Weis on the official Dragonlance forums.

Fifth edition? Already?

Kinda figured this would happen when Hasbro took over.

If it's just now starting development, it will likely be two to three years before it actually gets released. So that'll be 5 to 6 years between 4th and 5th.

Interesting, I wonder how 4th Ed fans will feel about this?

I know its all about selling the books but it seems like they are really fracturing the player base. You'vefour editions and probably three very vocal groups of players (2nd ed, 3rd ed, 4th ed)

Beats me. I like things about all the editions, but I have to perform major surgery on any of them to enjoy running them. So I can't really place myself in any of the "fan" camps. With each new edition I hope that *this* one will be the one that doesn't require a rewrite for me to get the most use out of it.

I was in college when 3rd edition had just come out and I was with a group that played mostly 1st edition with a touch of 2nd edition thrown in.

I imagine 5e will be out either next year or 2013. It's probably already mostly written. They're hopefully playtesting the heck out of it right now.

We're eventually going to wind up with this.




I'm sorry. First or Second edition or GTFO.

Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.

So we now have an open secret that nobody in WotC can talk about, for legal reasons at the very least, I’m sure. I wonder if they will wait until Dragoncon to make the announcements or if they will announce it before and have GenCon be the 5e Blitz like GenCon 2007 was for 4e. And then use the year before GenCon 2013 to ‘leak’ information about the new edition and ‘get everybody used to the idea’ of a new edition and try to use time to get everyone excited about the new edition whilst being oblivious to the fact that they will have to spend more money on books.

Second edition of AD&D lasted for almost 11 years, all the while putting out a few products a month (even though that did cause problems for TSR at the end). 3.0 and its extension 3.5 lasted for a total of 8 years. At the rate things are going under the house of Hasbro, we will see 5e in 2013, 6e will show up in 2017, and 7e will be on the shelves in 2020. All designed to make sure that players cannot easily convert characters from one edition to the other, and further fracturing the playerbase with each edition.

Remember also, WotC flatly denied any rumors about a fourth edition right up until it was anounced at GenCon 2007. Yet it was being worked on as early as 2005. Of course they will do the same thing with the new edition in order to not canibalize the sales of any book between now and when the edition.

D&D The STFU and just give us more money edition!

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Yeah, some people want simple tomes of rules with minimal flash. Others want lush production values. They don't have to produce as much actual material and can sell the books for more with all the flash and glitz. Guess which way it's going to go...

Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.

He's been posting on his G+ and linking to blogs with ruminations and thoughts about the process so far.

I'm glad 4e was something different because I don't like 3.5. At all.

I do however enjoy 4e and I'm glad for the option to play DnD in a different style while still remaining true to the core of what DnD is. Maybe 5e will be a different system to 3.5 and 4e again, further broadening the appeal.

I always envisioned that since 4th edition went so strongly towards a class based system, that 5th edition might try for a stronger skill based system. I'm imagining a system where your class mostly just determines what's a skill and a cross-class skill for you and everything else is left up to skill points, including things like BAB and saves.

I also expect 5th to be very app-centric, but I'm not exactly sure how that will be realized.

Red Box -> 1st -> 2nd-> Options -> 3rd -> 3.5

My group had stuck with D&D since high school and we still play every friday.

Then 4th came along. We tried it and just kind of said. "No...this isn't for us."


Ultimately my group went to Pathfinder and never looked back.

Don't know what they have up their sleeve for 5th but I doubt very much if my group will even take a look at it

Some friends of mine and I did try 4th edition. We used it for about a year, and right about when everyone was hitting 11th level (we started at 3rd or 4th level, I think), we noticed that time to resolve combats was growing so much because the GM had to come up with new ways to even challenge us. I mean, in the last combat we had when using 4th edition rules, I (with my Storm Sorcerer) used a spell that hit all but one enemy creature on the map, and killed all the minions. (Minions in 4th edition only have 1 hp. They're supposed to be disgustingly easy to kill.)

Bam, 75% of the map is cleared. And the GM screamed. (Well, to be fair, he screamed once a game. Usually at truly horrible puns.)

One-hit minions and non-micromanaged skill points were two things I liked about 4th Edition, but which I was already implementing in my 3rd Ed games.

The main thing that ultimately put me off of 4th Ed was the overly integrated tactical movement/positioning. It made me feel like I was playing a board game every time there was combat.

Never dug 4e as much as i liked 3e. Seemed for every thing they got right (the defenses) they frakked something else up. (magic items) And i hate how they ended up changing the character builder. So im wary of exactly what changes they'll be making with 5e.

Still, as long as i can find people who will play Pathfinder, it does't really matter what WotC does.

I'm still hanging on to my old Rules Cyclopedia, with 2nd ed stuff mixed in. I see no need for a new edition every few years. I also couldn't get into 3rd or 4th edition. It was just... too much. It didn't feel like D&D to me.