Wizards' Keynote Address At Gen Con...

For those interested in Dungeons & Dragons Next (hate the name, just call it Fifth Edition), here is the entirety of Wizards Of The Coasts' hour-long keynote address on the future of the game.

Personally I wasn't overly impressed, but your mileage may vary.

A lot of words are used, but very little of any substance is said, for instance why does Mike Mearls spend several minutes explaining what D&D is to an audience at Gen Con, of all places?

I mean, who knew that D&D was "more than a game, it is a shared experience. It is about drama, the table, the thrill of victory, and the agony of a natural one"?

The address was all marketing fluff and the moment Ed Greenwood walked on stage you knew the setting of choice was going to be ultra-bland/generic Forgotten Realms (because that's what sells).

But then again Wizards is a company that needs to make money from its product and launching a new version of D&D with a niche background like Ravenloft or Dark Sun isn't going to shift the units.

I think it's a great shame they didn't choose Greyhawk though, as that has far more character to it.

Not that I'll probably ever play D&D Next anyway, but this whole "designed by committee" and "we'll throw everything in there so we can please everyone" approach seems destined for failure.

For instance, Mearls says there will be THREE different rules sets for magic, so does that mean an adventure featuring a magic-user would need to include THREE different ways of using him (to cater for different DMs' approaches)?

That said, I actually looked at the playtest packet for the first time the other night and was reasonably impressed. Still don't understand why we need to the Strength and Charisma of a giant beetle, but at least the monster stat blocks aren't quite as unwieldy as with 3.5/Pathfinder!

As with previous editions I expect I'll buy a copy, cherry-pick the "good bits" for my game and junk the rest. If nothing else, it's always interesting to see alternate interpretations of this great game.