D&D (2024) Predictions for Playtest packet 7's arrival

[bedir than]

The sad part, for at least some humans, of not having it for the long weekend, is that the design team is going to be working through the long weekend.

They'll be at PAX West

 

[MonsterEnvy]

Here is hoping next week.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

The sad part, for at least some humans, of not having it for the long weekend, is that the design team is going to be working through the long weekend.

That seems unlikely to me.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

Oh wow so WotC have completely totally lost their minds or entirely given up on 2024 releases or both?

That's insane. I missed that. That's absolutely demented out-of-their-minds insane though.

They haven't got time for that. They're going to be hard-pressed to get anything about by Q4 2024 at the current rate. If they delay DMG and MM printing several months further, those are easily going to slip into 2025, it won't even be a question.

God, I thought WotC were kinda dumb, but I didn't think they were outright insane. This is actual active "fire people now" mismanagement.

Also real talk - what the hell can they even ask about the DMG and MM? MM-wise, they've clearly chosen the direction of monster design now, as seen in every book featuring monsters since MotM. It's a much more streamlined and well-considered approach, more reminiscent of 4E than initial 5E approach. It's not top tier but it's solid. Why would they need to ask questions about that? With the DMG, they've actually talked about what they felt was wrong with it, and they were right - they nailed the major points. So what on earth could they ask? To my mind, it seems like asking a bunch of ultra-hardcore grogs what they think should be in the DMG would explosively counterproductive.

Honest I don't know if they plan on playtesting anything for the MM at all, the playtesting seems to skip MM playtest period, going straight to DMG. They usual don't playtest monsters very often anymore. What the last book they playtested Monsters for?

And think about what they need to playtest for the DMG, Bastions and what else? Faction Rules and Piety system have been explored and polished in various setting book, no need there. Beyond Bastions I don't what kind of DMG stuff needs testing. So I don't expect alot playtest packets for the DMG.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

I've got a feeling that, after the success of BG3, the design might have returned to the drawing board in a hurry to test some things from the video game that people loved. Just a hunch.

 

[Osgood]

While I suspect they planned to release this week, something must have derailed them. It seems unlikely it will be released today, which is a shame because a long weekend is a perfect time to give folks a chance to review it.

As far as MM testing, I doubt we'll see much there for stats, I thinking after Monsters of the multiverse they know where they are going. About the only thing I could see is if they wanted to test out any new concepts. Maybe a new way of handling templates (which I think have been pretty underutilized), a different way of presenting variant creatures, or a new way of increasing a creature's CR.

 

[tetrasodium]

While I suspect they planned to release this week, something must have derailed them. It seems unlikely it will be released today, which is a shame because a long weekend is a perfect time to give folks a chance to review it.

As far as MM testing, I doubt we'll see much there for stats, I thinking after Monsters of the multiverse they know where they are going. About the only thing I could see is if they wanted to test out any new concepts. Maybe a new way of handling templates (which I think have been pretty underutilized), a different way of presenting variant creatures, or a new way of increasing a creature's CR.

They may be putting it off so that long weekend can be enjoyed.

That might be a wise choice even given how the July fourth weekend influenced thoughtful discussion here and elsewhere. It was probably less than helpful the way multiple threads exploded in many pages of adpopulum smokescreens over that weekend. The way discussion simply went back to the original tangent when everyone got done eating ribs and such on the fifth here demonstrated pretty clearly that the wu mao style page fill was not even interesting to anyone either.

Avoiding a repeat of that so wotc folks can (possibly?) Enjoy their holiday is probably in everyone's best interest. Wotc gathered up emails at the creator summit and could even use them to drop a "prep your videos for the Nth of September when we release using this embargoed preview " release without the previous holiday problem if they wanted to make some constructive use of the long weekend without creating a bunch of pointless noise to wade through for themselves.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I've got a feeling that, after the success of BG3, the design might have returned to the drawing board in a hurry to test some things from the video game that people loved. Just a hunch.

I'd like to think that, especially after Hasbro's extremely positive comments about it, but I very much doubt it. BG3 has a fundamentally different course to 2024 as a whole, going for a much more permissive and aggressively fun take, on the whole (which to be fair is how a lot of home games actually run), and well as being tonally much darker and more similar to previous editions and early 5E.

I suspect it's actually just as @tetrasodium says, they want to enjoy the holiday weekend. I don't think they're even thinking about the discussions, I think they were just pressed for time and rather than really putting themselves under the hammer to get something out for today or earlier, they just said "Let's chill, it's the end of summer, come on!".

Which 100% I support as a human lol.

 

[Parmandur]

Honest I don't know if they plan on playtesting anything for the MM at all, the playtesting seems to skip MM playtest period, going straight to DMG. They usual don't playtest monsters very often anymore. What the last book they playtested Monsters for?

In point of fact, for UA they have never tested a Monster at all, except for Spell or Class feature Summons. Never once. No stat block in Volo's, either Mordenkainen's, Fizban's or Bigby's was ever playtested publicly. And that makes sense, ancestors UA is just a temperature test to see if people like an idea, which isn't that vital when you are dropping a book with dozens of Monsters, each of which will last 2 or 3 Rounds of combat rather than linger through an entire campaign.

As far as MM testing, I doubt we'll see much there for stats, I thinking after Monsters of the multiverse they know where they are going. About the only thing I could see is if they wanted to test out any new concepts. Maybe a new way of handling templates (which I think have been pretty underutilized), a different way of presenting variant creatures, or a new way of increasing a creature's CR.

I think they might want to air out any format changes they might be pursuing.

 

[Charlaquin]

In point of fact, for UA they have never tested a Monster at all, except for Spell or Class feature Summons. Never once. No stat block in Volo's, either Mordenkainen's, Fizban's or Bigby's was ever playtested publicly. And that makes sense, ancestors UA is just a temperature test to see if people like an idea, which isn't that vital when you are dropping a book with dozens of Monsters, each of which will last 2 or 3 Rounds of combat rather than linger through an entire campaign.

I think they might want to air out any format changes they might be pursuing.

Even in D&D Next, they presented monsters for use in the playtest modules, but they never really iterated on them in the open playtest or asked for feedback on them in the surveys. Early on they did some polling on concept art for some iconic monsters that were receiving redesigns, as well as the visual presentation of monster stat blocks. But they never really solicited feedback on the actual monster stats in the open playtest, and were constantly reiterating that monster stats would get balanced in internal testing.

The one monster stat related thing they did present for feedback was legendary actions. And that was to see how people felt about the concept, not the specific actions themselves. (Turns out, people liked the concept.)