D&D (2024) RD&D MM will have nearly 500 Monsters, and new NPCs.

[Dannyalcatraz]

Mod Note:

Some of the rhetoric in here is getting rather pointed. The snark level is a bit high as well.

Let’s tone it down a bit.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Honestly, that's just corporate BS piling corporate BS: "Advanced" Dungeons & Dragons was a cynical and transparent legal ploy that didn't even hold up in court, and it wasn't even the line most people had played prior to 3E, by all the numbers I've seen. "Basic" was the mainline for most of the game. That they've recognized the absurdity of the naming scheme and are trying to avoid it is equally silly as a ".5" Edition, on the face of it: no more, no less.

If they came clean and called the new revision 17th Edition (I counted previously: it's at least the 17th full rules revision, arguably up to the 21st; one can also make a reasonable case for 9th Edition based on publiahing standards, since it will be the 9th set of ISBNs for the titles PHB and DMG though only 7th for the Monster Manual), that would be sensible but probably confusing for people. And avoiding market confusion is their prime directive here: for 12 year olds and their relatives browsing the vooks section of Target at Christmas, not hobbyists who can follow our bananas conversations here.

I kind of love this rant for you and just generally too (for reals), so I won't critique it beyond saying that, I get avoiding confusion - but I think that actually cuts both ways here.

Presumably, WotC would prefer if 12 year olds in Target or grandmas on Amazon purchased the latest version of D&D, and I think they insist on making the distinction so small as to be "2014 core rulebooks" vs "2024 core rulebooks" they may find people are, in fact, confused. Certainly given the flat-out huge improvements they sound to be making with the DMG, and the big strides in super-friendliness they discussed with the PHB, and the probably much-improved MM, I'd want my customers buying those, even if I was in no way invested in the actual rules-changes.

So I think not changing the branding, not having a new name, is a double-edged sword. At least for the first year or three whilst the older books are in inventories and on sale, it will cause some problems.

(I'd also say that the bizarre and transparently false (and I do mean factually false not "opinion I disagree with") claims Crawford made about 3E > 3.5E were very strange to make to a bunch of hobbyists and experts, but that's who they made them to, but that's a separate issue.)

 

[Parmandur]

I kind of love this rant for you and just generally too (for reals), so I won't critique it beyond saying that, I get avoiding confusion - but I think that actually cuts both ways here.

Presumably, WotC would prefer if 12 year olds in Target or grandmas on Amazon purchased the latest version of D&D, and I think they insist on making the distinction so small as to be "2014 core rulebooks" vs "2024 core rulebooks" they may find people are, in fact, confused. Certainly given the flat-out huge improvements they sound to be making with the DMG, and the big strides in super-friendliness they discussed with the PHB, and the probably much-improved MM, I'd want my customers buying those, even if I was in no way invested in the actual rules-changes.

So I think not changing the branding, not having a new name, is a double-edged sword. At least for the first year or three whilst the older books are in inventories and on sale, it will cause some problems.

(I'd also say that the bizarre and transparently false (and I do mean factually false not "opinion I disagree with") claims Crawford made about 3E > 3.5E were very strange to make to a bunch of hobbyists and experts, but that's who they made them to, but that's a separate issue.)

Well, even though we mixed 3E and 3.5 happily enough, WotC did not care about creating a disjunction in the rules then, we just lived with the chaos. This time, they are bending over backwards to ensure interoperability as a prime design goal. That's what he means, I reckon.

As to people getting confused on what they are buying: notice hiw steep the discounts on the core books are on Amazon right now...? I haven't seen a PHB in Target in about 6 months, though they carry Golden Vault, Tyranny of Dragons, and Dragonlance (plus the starter and essential boxes in the board game aisle). I wouldn't bet they are doing any new printings now. By the time the new Core hits, clearance sales will have probably made the path clear.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Well, even though we mixed 3E and 3.5 happily enough, WotC did not care about creating a disjunction in the rules then, we just lived with the chaos. This time, they are bending over backwards to ensure interoperability as a prime design goal. That's what he means, I reckon.

Per Art & Arcana, they knew the chaos would drive 3.5 sales. As you say, this time, they don't want there to be too much disruption, because they're not 100% sure all these new 5E fans won't just bolt to something else. They cannot afford to have a similar break point.

 

[Parmandur]

Per Art & Arcana, they knew the chaos would drive 3.5 sales. As you say, this time, they don't want there to be too much disruption, because they're not 100% sure all these new 5E fans won't just bolt to something else. They cannot afford to have a similar break point.

Exactly. And I think that's what Crawford was saying.

 

[Clint_L]

Previous editions were always done to jazz up sales (well, and also to try to screw Dave Arneson out of royalties), so they've always been done from a place of weakness. The 2024 revision is a totally different animal: the game is as hot as it's ever been, so they don't need a sales spike, they just need to keep things rolling.

Think of it like a restaurant that kept changing the menu to try to keep up customers interested through novelty, but has finally hit on a menu that isn't losing popularity. You don't throw that menu out, you keep it, and get feedback on how you can refine it to make it even better. Maybe you add a bit of spice to your ketchup or something, but you don't replace it with horseradish.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Think of it like a restaurant that kept changing the menu to try to keep up customers interested through novelty, but has finally hit on a menu that isn't losing popularity. You don't throw that menu out, you keep it, and get feedback on how you can refine it to make it even better. Maybe you add a bit of spice to your ketchup or something, but you don't replace it with horseradish.

I love this analogy.

 

[MechaTarrasque]

Given the whole Ardling thing, I assume there will be some more critter-based celestials. I thoroughly approve.

I would be okay with fewer vanilla orcs, goblins, etc, and have some more NPC types that fit their roles, maybe with examples, so something like Marauder is an evil fighter-type NPC, and you can have an orc marauder for the medium-sized version and a gnome marauder for the small-sized version as examples. No one has to worry about "are orcs evil?", because marauders are evil, and the marauders you ran into just happen to be orcs. Keep special things like Eye of Gruumish orcs (to add some flavor to your pack of orc marauders).