Dungeons and Dragons Next

Dungeons and Dragons Next... The place holder name for the 5th iteration of a classic name. When I was accepted into this playtest I was extremely excited. The simple fact that WotC decided to work on a fifth edition so close after the disaster that was called D&D Fourth Edition gave me hope that it would be either a revisit to the success of 3.5 (not likely as Pathfinder has most of that market) or a complete reinvention of the system. Either way I was happy to see Fourth Edition going the way of the dodo.

After a small error in my registration process, which WotC customer support truly shined in setting straight, I got my play test packet. Taking time to read through these files, the simplicity of the starting rule set is not too surprising, especially as this is the first play test packet. I was a little disappointed in the fact we were given pre-generated characters instead of character creation rules, but I find this choice to be understandable. With the same characters sent out with each packet, they will be able to look at the input from each character and not have to wade through where the issue was with the way they were created, and which was a result of the rules themselves.

The characters are one of each of the four basic, stereotypical classes that people think about when they think "Dungeons & Dragons". One fighter, one wizard, one rogue, and two clerics (to highlight the new clerical magic system). The characters are all of the basic races from D&D, one human, one high elf, one halfling, and two dwarves.

There is a rules collection, a Dungeon Master info pack, and an adventure. My group will be getting together this weekend, and I will be getting their input to share with you all once we break from the first game. Wish us luck, and here is hoping that WotC will take the input of their players into consideration as this new version of an old favorite takes form.