The GAMA Trade Show is currently taking place in Vegas (where Greg Leeds, WOTC CEO is the keynote speaker), and some news regarding D&D 5th Ed. came out following WOTC’s presentation. No mention was made of a release date or price point, ignoring what we all know was leaked from the Barnes and Noble website, but WOTC did confirm a Beginner’s Box and a PHB. So yeah, Barnes and Noble’s information was basically spot on… Here’s the information made public today (keep in mind WOTC asked that no pictures be taken):
- Beginner’s Box Set that will launch before anything else does. Described as “gorgeous” and “closer to 4e starter box than the Pathfinder box” by @imboardgameson twitter.
- The “guiding light” through the design of 5e has been “What would Gary and Dave do?”
- PHB has a beholder on the cover (I’ll assume there are also adventurers kicking this beholder’s ass on the cover)
- MM has a Fire Giant on the cover
- DMG has Drow and an Underdark fight scene on the cover, its focus is locations, scenes and magic items
- No multiple PHBs
- 4e will remain available as long as people want it
So there you go, a bit of news on D&D. No release dates or price points, but at least we know we are getting the three books and a boxed set. And people have already seen all four of these items. It’s coming folks.
Oh, here’s my artistic recreation of that PHB cover:
🙂
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Mike
March 19, 2014
Anyone know what “closer to 4E box than PF box” actually means? Also, they say 4E will remain available as long as people want it. But, isn’t that why they made 5E because not enough people wanted 4E to keep it? I personally really enjoyed 4E but I felt like it never caught on. I mean, I’ve owned 4 PHBs and have personally looked at maybe 20-30 more in stores and at game nights and I’ve never seen anything other than a first printing. That’s not good. I’m not a fan of pathfinder (whatever, I’m glad people like it) but I’ve played it and have looked at maybe half a dozen Core Rulebooks and I’ve seen up to a 6th printing I believe. I was at Barnes and Noble just the other day and check the 4E PHBs on the shelf. They were all first printings June 2008. That means Wotc never even sold out of the first printing of 4E. I can’t imagine they printed more than what they thought was a 1 year supply. Any more than that would be overkill to ship and store for that long. Has anyone out there seen a 2nd or 3rd printing of a 4E PHB? (And I”m not talking about the special edition ones with silver cover bindings).
newbiedm
March 19, 2014
On the boxed set… the PF box included the following:
A 64-page Hero’s Handbook, detailing character creation, spells, equipment, and general rules for playing the game
A 96-page Game Master’s Guide packed with adventure, monsters, magic treasures, and advice on how to create and narrate tales all your own
A complete set of 7 polyhedral dice
More than 80 full-color pawns depicting diverse heroes and monsters
Four pregenerated character sheets to throw you right into the action
Four blank character sheets to record the abilities of your custom-made hero
A durable, resuable, double-sided Flip-Mat play surface that works with any kind of marker
While the D&D box included:
• 32-page book for players, with a solo adventure
• 64-page book for Dungeon Masters, with the rules of the game, advice on how to run the game, and adventure content
• 2 sheets of die-cut tokens for characters and monsters
• Cardstock character sheets and power cards
• Double-sided dungeon map
• 6 polyhedral dice
I believe PF box took characters to 5th level, while the D&D one only to 3rd (and had no character creation rules).
And on the books, no, I have never seen a 4e second print run. I once heard from someone that the 1st printing was all that was ever done. Don’t know how true that is.
hccummings
March 19, 2014
Disappointing that they’re not making the Beginner Box more like Paizo’s. With Pathfinder’s Beginner’s Box, you could play whole campaigns (albeit at a low-level). I’ve heard with D&D Beginner Box, once you played it, that was it. You had to buy the full game to continue and the production values weren’t nearly as good.
newbiedm
March 19, 2014
The 4e box was crap. I hated, hated, hated it. D&D set the bar so high with the first red box, that anything they try to do will be judged against that standard. And especially 4e’s which tried to ride a nostalgic wave with its marketing, art, etc. It sucked.
Mike
March 19, 2014
@newbie, when you describe hating the 4E box, are you talking about the original one they released at launch or the red box they released a couple years later?
newbiedm
March 19, 2014
Essentials box a few years later.
medievalmike
March 19, 2014
Ok, yeah, the Essentials Red Box was a disappointment. But I wonder if that’s what they’re comparing it to, or if they’re comparing it to the original 4E starter box set as seen here:
http://tinyurl.com/lnkg6qc
Lokiare
March 24, 2014
Personally the comment about gary and arneson gives me pause. Do they mean they will leave half of the design of the game to DMs and they will include many subsystems that contradict each other or do they mean something else? For its time 0E, 1E, and 2E were ground breaking. Now that we know more about game design and psychology we can make better games.
Chule
March 24, 2014
@Lokiare
Let’s hope that’s exactly what they mean. But I doubt it very highly. More likely they mean that they’ll design a game with an “elegant” unified mechanic that doesn’t do a good job of representing the wide variety of tasks that need to be resolved in something as diverse as a role playing game. Leaving the game to DMs is kind of what made D&D what it was. It’s not bad design and it’s not half a game. It’s intentional and sadly I’ve yet to see it bested. I get that some may not like it, but a whole lot of people do.
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July 3, 2014
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