What can we do when we have PHB only?

[With a box]

Be a Wizard and try to get ultimate arcane power?(break the game?)
Could we playtest new things with basic rules?

[Squirrel_Dude]

We'll basically sit around and wonder why it was ever decided that staggered releases were considered a better idea than a simultaneous release.

[1337 b4k4]

We'll basically sit around and wonder why it was ever decided that staggered releases were considered a better idea than a simultaneous release.

To reduce the work load on the editors, writers and publishers. And because it's probably assumed that most groups aren't going to chew through all 5 levels of gaming provided by the starter set monsters between mid august and october.

[rlc]

you play the hoard of the dragon queen adventure that comes out the same day (sold separately).

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news...Details-Update

[Tvtyrant]

Be a Wizard and try to get ultimate arcane power?(break the game?)
Could we playtest new things with basic rules?

I'm going to quickly borrow the good parts for my group and ditch the rest. AD&D/3.5/5E begins!

[Envyus]

You use the monsters and Magic items that are going to show up in basic. Which will be updated.

[akaddk]

I'm going to stroke it lovingly and place it gingerly beside me as I fall asleep with my arms wrapped around it.

YMMV.

[TheOOB]

And if all else fails, you spend time to read the book and learn the rules while you wait for the other books to come out.

But seriously, there will be plenty of sources of monsters, and the DMG has never really been required, just well advised.

[Squirrel_Dude]

To reduce the work load on the editors, writers and publishers. And because it's probably assumed that most groups aren't going to chew through all 5 levels of gaming provided by the starter set monsters between mid august and october.

It doesn't decrease the workload at all. It's the same workload. It's most likely more because it allows the company to more quickly bring in revenue, than delaying the release of the PHB would.

[1337 b4k4]

It doesn't decrease the workload at all. It's the same workload. It's most likely more because it allows the company to more quickly bring in revenue, than delaying the release of the PHB would.

I assure you that producing, editing, finalizing and coordinating the release of 3 separate products at the same time is more work than producing, editing, finalizing and coordinating the release of 3 separate products in a serialized fashion.

[rlc]

It doesn't decrease the workload at all. It's the same workload. It's most likely more because it allows the company to more quickly bring in revenue, than delaying the release of the PHB would.

Even if we were to assume that a billion copies of all of the books being released this year were sitting on a warehouse shelf somewhere waiting for their release dates, it would still be a different workload to release them all at the same time as it would be to stagger them. If nothing else, staggering them allows for more focus to be put on each individual one.

[Person_Man]

I'm going to quickly borrow the good parts for my group and ditch the rest. AD&D/3.5/5E begins!

That's my current plan as well.


RE: Staggered Release

The 15ish staff working on D&D at WotC could have spent a year developing all the core products together (boxed set, PHB, DMG, MM, and 3-4 adventure modules that bring you from levels 1-20), and then release them together on a set date, probably early November (in order to take advantage of the holiday shopping season). Once they're done with any particular product, there's nothing preventing them from holding onto it and refining it until all their core products are done and ready to be released together. After all, Hasbro let them have a 2ish+ year playtesting development period, so its not like they had to publish each product as soon as it was completed in order to make payroll and avoid financial catastrophe. So the "it's too much work to do them all at once" argument that Mearls and others have put forth is not convincing to me.

My best guess is that Hasbro chose to do a staggered release because they believe it will maximize free media publicity, and thus the highest sales. If you release all your products at the same time, you get 1ish week of free publicity on all the nerd websites. If you release your core products once every month for 4 months, then you get 4ish weeks of free publicity on all the nerd websites, and successive positive reviews of each product are likely to have a snowball effect that draws more and more interest of potential customers. Thus you're more likely to have higher sales, and more profit. They are a business, after all.

The potential down side of this strategy is that if the PHB gets bad reviews, sales of the MM, DMG, and any adventure modules are likely to suck. Mixed reviews of the Starter Boxed set has already sown a great deal of dissent and flame wars. So it'll be interesting to see how this plays out in the next few weeks.

[Mr.Moron]

I suppose just about anything you would normally do. Maybe a bit of extra legwork in adventure creation side of things but that's about it.

I think the general style of the 5e design is pretty apparent in the basic materials, it's not a huge amount of work to extrapolate enough for a variety of adventures & games from there.

[Squirrel_Dude]

I assure you that producing, editing, finalizing and coordinating the release of 3 separate products at the same time is more work than producing, editing, finalizing and coordinating the release of 3 separate products in a serialized fashion.

When you have a deadline that you have to meet, that is entirely controlled by a client? Sure. You are being forced to complete multiple projects in the same time frame, and there is stress. I might argue that, again, that's the same amount of work, but that it's harder to do because people have less time to complete it, but that's mostly semantics.

When you can finish a book, and then delay the release so that it is timed with two other books, not really. I just don't see how it's more work to sit on the completed parts of the product. It's probably more expensive, but the workload isn't increased.

[1337 b4k4]

When you have a deadline that you have to meet, that is entirely controlled by a client? Sure. You are being forced to complete multiple projects in the same time frame, and there is stress. I might argue that, again, that's the same amount of work, but that it's harder to do because people have less time to complete it, but that's mostly semantics.

When you can finish a book, and then delay the release so that it is timed with two other books, not really. I just don't see how it's more work to sit on the completed parts of the product. It's probably more expensive, but the workload isn't increased.

At this point I'm speculating, but it seems entirely reasonable to assume that Hasbro or WotC as a corporate entity wanted its new D&D product ready for Gencon to coincide with the 40th anniversary of D&D. These sorts of things matter to fans, and they tend to matter even more to corporations where publicity and meeting fan expectations is concerned (see also tech conventions, where by absolute pure coincidence that has nothing at all to do with the heightened PR and con dates, companies always seem to have new products to announce or release and companies that don't are viewed as "stagnating"). As a result, that gives us a hard deadline of August that has to be met. The options then become "try to cram all 3 books into being done by august" or "do a staggered release with the most popular book first in august". Considering D&D has a long history of staggered releases (for example, AD&D 1e had the MM released 1977, the PHB released 1978 and the DMG not until 1979, you should count yourself lucky to see all 3 books in the same year) it's not like it's a huge break from tradition or something D&D fans should not be used to.

[Human Paragon 3]

You could build a dungeon filled entirely with familiars and animal companions!

[Jeraa]

My best guess is that Hasbro chose to do a staggered release because they believe it will maximize free media publicity, and thus the highest sales. If you release all your products at the same time, you get 1ish week of free publicity on all the nerd websites. If you release your core products once every month for 4 months, then you get 4ish weeks of free publicity on all the nerd websites, and successive positive reviews of each product are likely to have a snowball effect that draws more and more interest of potential customers. Thus you're more likely to have higher sales, and more profit. They are a business, after all.

Hasbro probably has absolutely nothing to do with it. They don't care about the D&D RPG. At all. (Seriously. Go look at their website. No mention of anything related to any version of the D&D RPG besides a few toys for the Lego knockoff KRE-O). Hasbro wanted the Magic: The Gathering and Pokemon card games. Everything else WotC had was just extra.

Any decisions related to the D&D RPG, such as when/if a new edition is needed and when/how it is to be released, is entirely up to WotC. Hasbro likely just doesn't care, as long as it makes money.

[rlc]

That's my current plan as well.


RE: Staggered Release

The 15ish staff working on D&D at WotC could have spent a year developing all the core products together (boxed set, PHB, DMG, MM, and 3-4 adventure modules that bring you from levels 1-20), and then release them together on a set date, probably early November (in order to take advantage of the holiday shopping season). Once they're done with any particular product, there's nothing preventing them from holding onto it and refining it until all their core products are done and ready to be released together. After all, Hasbro let them have a 2ish+ year playtesting development period, so its not like they had to publish each product as soon as it was completed in order to make payroll and avoid financial catastrophe. So the "it's too much work to do them all at once" argument that Mearls and others have put forth is not convincing to me.

My best guess is that Hasbro chose to do a staggered release because they believe it will maximize free media publicity, and thus the highest sales. If you release all your products at the same time, you get 1ish week of free publicity on all the nerd websites. If you release your core products once every month for 4 months, then you get 4ish weeks of free publicity on all the nerd websites, and successive positive reviews of each product are likely to have a snowball effect that draws more and more interest of potential customers. Thus you're more likely to have higher sales, and more profit. They are a business, after all.

The potential down side of this strategy is that if the PHB gets bad reviews, sales of the MM, DMG, and any adventure modules are likely to suck. Mixed reviews of the Starter Boxed set has already sown a great deal of dissent and flame wars. So it'll be interesting to see how this plays out in the next few weeks.

let's look at november for a second, for two reasons. the first is obviously because you mentioned it. the second is because that's when the third book (and ultimately, last of the year) is coming out. that definitely gives enough time to get everything done, since that's what they're planning on doing anyway (unless, of course, it ends up being like the music business where they keep pushing everything back, but that's an entirely different rant), but then you're shifting the work load over to the marketing department (which the r&d department also seems to be a part of, but i guess that's what happens you have only a few staff members). that means that marketing is unfocused because they're dealing with all of the books at the same time, which is unarguably a much different work load than focusing on each one individually.


and, while i'm not sure this is relevant (which is why i'm kind of mentioning it, instead of making it an argument), it might not hurt for them to get extra feedback on the phb for certain things in the dmg, just in case. i'm sure that's at least in the late editing stage right now.

[Lokiare]

I'm going to quickly borrow the good parts for my group and ditch the rest. AD&D/3.5/5E begins!

I'm going to try to make some kind of OGL balanced game and I'll probably just steal the good parts of 5E (what few there are) and throw away the rest.

[Tvtyrant]

I'm going to try to make some kind of OGL balanced game and I'll probably just steal the good parts of 5E (what few there are) and throw away the rest.

I love the bounded accuracy as it works on saves, spell DCs, armor class and attack rolls. One thing I have thought of is having a class from 3.5 port over quickly by having them only reference their saves and attack rolls at levels 1, 4, 8, 12, 16, and 20. Divide by two for the number of attacks a round.

Now I just need to fix DCs and ACs.

[Lokiare]

I love the bounded accuracy as it works on saves, spell DCs, armor class and attack rolls. One thing I have thought of is having a class from 3.5 port over quickly by having them only reference their saves and attack rolls at levels 1, 4, 8, 12, 16, and 20. Divide by two for the number of attacks a round.

Now I just need to fix DCs and ACs.

Well if you mean 'bounded accuracy' where defenses don't automatically go up to scale with character growth, then I can probably work with that. If you mean 'bounded accuracy' that is caps on stats and low numbers, then that's the part I'm throwing out.

Of course that would require retooling the attack bonuses of monsters and all kinds of other adjustments, but then again I was going to have to do that anyway to balance it.

[Tvtyrant]

Well if you mean 'bounded accuracy' where defenses don't automatically go up to scale with character growth, then I can probably work with that. If you mean 'bounded accuracy' that is caps on stats and low numbers, then that's the part I'm throwing out.

Of course that would require retooling the attack bonuses of monsters and all kinds of other adjustments, but then again I was going to have to do that anyway to balance it.

I wouldn't cap stats, but I am definitely on the side of low numbers. The thing I liked most about the playtest was how low the amount of damage being dealt and received was, and how the damage and hit points moved up independently of the attack and defense. My biggest issue with 4E was the complete lack of a reasonable explanation for nations, as no army of low levels could hurt anything even 10 levels higher.

[Lokiare]

I wouldn't cap stats, but I am definitely on the side of low numbers. The thing I liked most about the playtest was how low the amount of damage being dealt and received was, and how the damage and hit points moved up independently of the attack and defense. My biggest issue with 4E was the complete lack of a reasonable explanation for nations, as no army of low levels could hurt anything even 10 levels higher.

In 4E an army of level 1 minions could take out a party if they were sufficiently large due to the auto hit on a 20 rule and the lower hit point totals in 4e.

The main reason I want bigger numbers is that I want classes that are meant to show real growth in an area to actually show growth. If a fighter is only good at attacking, I want them to see an improvement with every level. So I might give them +1 per level for a total of +20 at level 20.

For casters their spell DC might go up by 1 point per level so that by level 20 they have a 20 DC. This way you can readily see the difference and characters feel like they are actually advancing. Then there is the 'only experts have a chance at this' feature that realistically shows how putting a high school graduate into a genetics lab and telling them to make bacterial resistant corn does not have a 20% chance of success. Instead they have 0% chance and the possibility of dying a horrible mutated death "wait, I wasn't supposed to drink that bottle labeled mutagen?".

I don't mind the AC needing a reason to go up and maybe even the ability scores that have to do with spell DCs. However on the flip side a monster is not a challenge unless it can actually challenge the party which is why they will naturally (for whatever reason) have higher stats, there just has to be a justification for it.

[SiuiS]

We'll basically sit around and wonder why it was ever decided that staggered releases were considered a better idea than a simultaneous release.

It worked for third.

I'm going to quickly borrow the good parts for my group and ditch the rest. AD&D/3.5/5E begins!

That's my lad!