D&D 5E What I want: 17 books or book series (and two boxes) for a Third Golden Age

DnDPhilmont said:

Don't you think that Paizo is a quality steward of the D&D game? If the Hasbro faction of D&D stewarship fails and falls, then I say: so what? Pathfinder and Paizo would continue--it's D&D under a different name.

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I don't understand how in one breath you can complain about corporatist mindsets harming D&D, and then in the next praise Paizo as a quality steward of the D&D game. I mean, I like Paizo...but I am a corporatist, and Paizo is definitely a proponent of a corporatist mindset. Have you seen the quantity of content they pushed out in the past two years? The cross-promotional links they've weaved between them to persuade people to buy additional books? The quantity of advertising and marketing they've promoted? The cross-branding push they've made? I mean come on - either you're an anti-corporatist and therefore you don't like Paizo as a quality steward, or else you're not anti-corporatist, in which case I am curious what your motives were earlier for bashing WOTC and their fans on that basis.

DnDPhilmont said:

]It's a touchy subject. Many many people would also say "people eat at McDonalds because they like the taste, they like the food, and the price is right."

Looking at the trajectory of eating systems, and the role of advertising-driving consciousness, there's more to it than that.

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Of course there's more to it than that. That doesn't mean that we should dismiss anyone who eats at McDonalds as corporatists.

If I run a campaign in Golarion or Toril, then there's a feeling that the world isn't really my own, and that its divergence from canon makes it just a "fan work", and none of my investment in that world can be used for anything except my local gaming group, and maybe some fan-articles on the web.

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You can't share a world that you've patched together from other people's pieces, either. If you want to do more then put a world on the net, you need to make sure it's completely free of stuff like that.

And I would like the published settings to flourish...but without that pre-published mindset being embedded into the core rules

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I don't see it. I haven't read the entire 5E book, but if that's embedding the pre-published mindset, that would be the first. All the
versions of the game have provided support for rolling your own setting.

Okay, I understand now that when you said: "I'm pretty sure history backs me up in saying that the time and effort spent building a generic D&D world does not pay back at the table", you meant: "building any kind of D&D world (whether it be standard D&D fantasy, or distinct worlds like Dark Sun) does not pay back at the table."

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Putting words in my mouth is not a good way of communication. Building a campaign setting takes a lot of work. The simple fact is that building a generic D&D setting will not do much; you'll end up spending hours for what won't make that much difference in game. Building a distinct setting will at least produce an interesting new setting for a game.

Mistwell said:

I don't understand how in one breath you can complain about corporatist mindsets harming D&D, and then in the next praise Paizo as a quality steward of the D&D game. I mean, I like Paizo...but I am a corporatist, and Paizo is definitely a proponent of a corporatist mindset. Have you seen the quantity of content they pushed out in the past two years? The cross-promotional links they've weaved between them to persuade people to buy additional books? The quantity of advertising and marketing they've promoted? The cross-branding push they've made?

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Paizo is only relatively healthy. It is half-free culture. It's half-corporatist. Unlike Hasbro, Paizo has an open SRD (though not Public Domain, which is a step further), and nurtures a relatively free-handed third-party publishing culture and aficionado self-publishing culture.

Paizo is like WotC was between 1997 to 2003. A smallish company who loves D&D, and who expresses this by opening the game up for other hands to cultivate.

I'm not here to villify Hasbro. It's conceivable and possible Hasbro could open the game up in early 2015, and do Open Gaming right. I'm not going to the trouble of writing my suggestions in hopes that Hasbro will stumble again, like it did with the GSL.

I mean come on - either you're an anti-corporatist and therefore you don't like Paizo as a quality steward, or else you're not anti-corporatist, in which case I am curious what your motives were earlier for bashing WOTC and their fans on that basis.

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Nope. That's an either-or binary.

"Bashing" is an overstatement. I have written much positive about the Hasbro team and the prospects for an Open Fifth Edition SRD come springtime 2015.

I like much of what I've seen of 5E as a coherent rules-set.

And even when I've pointed out that certain corporatist-bent thoughts have been expressed here in the EN World forums, in real life, I'm sure I'd enjoy playing some D&D with whoever expressed those thoughts.

prosfilaes said:

Of course there's more to it than that. That doesn't mean that we should dismiss anyone who eats at McDonalds as corporatists.

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Though I spoke sharply, I'm not dismissing anyone as a corporatist. I'm a corporatist. One can hardly be a human being in these times without our thoughts and desires being shaped by one-sided commercial forces.

You can't share a world that you've patched together from other people's pieces, either. If you want to do more then put a world on the net, you need to make sure it's completely free of stuff like that.

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That's true. I meant to say that the desire to be free to share my "legally derivative/plagaristic" contributions to D&D culture is a reason why I like the homebrew worldbuilding method.

In contrast, the mix-and-match method is half-homebrew, half-pre-published (using pre-published adventures and their overland maps, but not buying a layed out campaign setting). A reason why I like mix-and-match method is that I want to be frugal and use what adventures I already own. And I do like several of the published and classic adventures.

I don't see it. I haven't read the entire 5E book, but if that's embedding the pre-published mindset, that would be the first.

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I see it. I have suggested in the past, and again recently, that all WotC-published adventures have a one-or-two-page "localization appendix" or web enhancement which includes two things:

1) Suggestions for placing and adapting that adventure to each of the other WotC-published worlds. (For example, Tiamat could be an aspect of the Immortal goddess named Hel in the World of Mystara. And there could be a little map showing a fitting way to fit the adventure onto the map of the Known World. Localization could likewise be done for Greyhawk, Dark Sun, Dragonlance, Eberron, and Nerath.)
2) A table of alternate names for all of the main NPCs and places, to jog the imagination of the DMs who are using homebrew worlds. (For example, Tiamat might be just called "The Dragon Queen" or the "The Chromatic Dragon" or "Avarice" in someone's homebrew world.)

Those two bits alone would "dis-embed" the product from the pre-published mindset, as seen in the Tyranny of Dragons adventure path.

Granted, the rulebooks themselves do provide examples from all of the main D&D worlds, which is along the lines of suggestion #1. I like that.

Yet I'm also looking for #2.

All the versions of the game have provided support for rolling your own setting.

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It was often lip-service. Sure, 4E could be used for any homebrew world. Yet the Nerath gods and geography and so forth were embedded into the 4E rules. Same for Greyhawk and 3E. Same even for Mystara and BECMI. Though the 2E PHB wasn't tied to any setting, 2E went wild with producing setting-dependent "collectorism".

I like those worlds, but I want them to flourish alongside a new generation of worldbuilders. The Worldbuilder Guides were just one product within a 60- or 100-product line. I'm asking for the meat of the Worldbuilder book to be included in the DMG, as a vigorous and clear way of initiating a worldbuilding, kitbashing culture into this edition.

Putting words in my mouth is not a good way of communication.

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Fair enough.

Building a campaign setting takes a lot of work. ... Building a distinct setting will at least produce an interesting new setting for a game.

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Okay. "My Own Fifth Edition" RPG is coming out soon, and it will show what I mean. I agree with you.

So I have read through this thread. While some of your ideas are cool they are unrealistic, way too risky and sometimes just redundant and useless.

From what I can tell you say you like what you have seen of 5e. But because you dislike Hasbro and by extension Wizards of the Coast due to Hasbro owning it. You refuse to support the game and buy any of the books. Unless they make all the content free. Do you even know what the PHB contains.

I also must admit that your dislike of the Elemental Adventurers handbook for no reason confuses me. Also most of your wishes for the game are kind of redundant as they plan on releasing conversion guides.

The only things I really agree with you on your wish list are

Rules Cyclopedia.I would never buy it myself as I find reading just rules to be kinda dull. But for people who just want rules and don't care about D&D it's nice. Though it should not include the MM stat blocks.

Manual of the Planes. However it should not be as pointlessly huge as you want it to be. It should just focus on the planer setup in the the PHB. On your "Recognize that each DM's or gaming group's D&D Multiverse is a separate Multiverse." They already do that in the PHB.

Campaign Settings. On this I the ones the PHB calls out and gives a lot of support for and even names gods for are Greyhawk, FR, Ebberron, Dragonlance and Dark Sun. These 5 are the ones most deserving of getting settings. Also the logo things is super petty and pointless. There is also no need to connect the settings and for people that want to, it should be in the Manual of the Planes not the setting books.

Deities & Demigods. Should just focus on the Gods in the PHB. There is more then enough there to make a great book.

Everything else you named is just sort of Unneeded and is already covered by stuff in the books coming out and the ones named above.

DnDPhilmont said:

Paizo is only relatively healthy. It is half-free culture. It's half-corporatist. Unlike Hasbro, Paizo has an open SRD (though not Public Domain, which is a step further), and nurtures a relatively free-handed third-party publishing culture and aficionado self-publishing culture.

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OK first, that's only because they HAD to do that as a company using Hasbro's IP to publish their books under the OGL. Second, when a competitor decided to use that OGL to do the same to Paizo and publish an online PF SRD, Paizo reacted to the competitor by co-opting the idea (which essentially drove that competitor away), so they could control it and push their advertising using it. There is nothing "free" about that corporatist behavior they exhibited. Third - Hasbro absolutely has the same open SRD - where they heck do you think Paizo got their initial content from? It's just that the Hasbro open content is from 3.0 and 3.5, not 4e or 5e. But so what - they did it first, they did it arguably more openly than Paizo, and it remains the most prolific SRD used in the business. So if you are going to credit Paizo for that thing they had to do, you might want to credit Hasbro for doing it first and with even more impact.

Paizo is like WotC was between 1997 to 2003. A smallish company who loves D&D, and who expresses this by opening the game up for other hands to cultivate.

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No, that is a myth. Paizo has WAY WAY WAY more employees at this point than the D&D team at WOTC. And more marketing behind their efforts. And more branding, and cross-promotionals, and overhead devoted to Pathfinder, etc.. In terms of what makes a company corporatist, Paizo is doing that way bigger than the D&D team at WOTC. Again, in the past two years Paizo has churned out more content on a page-for-page basis than WOTC has ever done. And they've intentionally cross-connected them, like some comic companies have done in the past, to persuade you to buy all the rest of their content. And they've done all that with a massive ad and marketing campaign. This is not a smallish company like the D&D division of WOTC between 1997 to 2003, this is more akin to TSR at the height of 2e, when they were spamming so much content it was hard to keep up with it, as the industry leader in the RPG field.

Now again, I just see this as the reality of the market, and I like Paizo and the people who work there. But - I also appreciate corporatism, and Paizo right now is the leading juggernaut in this industry in terms of corporatist practices.

So I ask again, why do you seem to give a pass to corporatist Paizo actions, but you don't give a pass to WOTC corporatist actions? It sure seems like you either have an agenda here you're not talking about, or you've let some bias influence your principals.

Mirtek said:

I agree. But since the particular economic body is not in it to satisfy some idealistic goal but solely for it's own economic result, why should they chose a course that may strengthen the game and it's culture but is bad for themselves?

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Every human social body, whether it's an economic corporation or a non-profit organization, has to have a interplay of genuine ideals and economic pragmatism. Ideals without pragmatism means those ideals can't manifest. Pragmatism without authentic ideals results in crass commercialism.

What you're saying is that Hasbro is entirely pragmatic, with no ideal except for making the most money in the shortest amount of time. While that quality of efficiency could be admired, why would I really want my imagination and consciousness to take part in that flat, opportunistic culture? or to share this hobby (in its "D&D brand" form) with younger people, so that their imaginations too, can be nursed on books which were made by an entity which is devoted to extracting as much money from us as possible?

I myself don't suppose Hasbro and its various internal factions are 100% corporatist ("pragmatic" is a nicer word), otherwise, I wouldn't bother sharing what I prefer to see come springtime.

[MENTION=6706188]MonsterEnvy[/MENTION], I appreciate your engaging with the tread and giving my effort consideration. I hope that the cool ideas we share become reality.

DnDPhilmont said:

Every human social body, whether it's an economic corporation or a non-profit organization, has to have a interplay of genuine ideals and economic pragmatism. Ideals without pragmatism means those ideals can't manifest. Pragmatism without authentic ideals results in crass commercialism.

What you're saying is that Hasbro is entirely pragmatic, with no ideal except for making the most money in the shortest amount of time. While that quality of efficiency could be admired, why would I really want my imagination and consciousness to take part in that flat, opportunistic culture? or to share this hobby (in its "D&D brand" form) with younger people, so that their imaginations too, can be nursed on books which were made by an entity which is devoted to extracting as much money from us as possible?

I myself don't suppose Hasbro and its various internal factions are 100% corporatist ("pragmatic" is a nicer word), otherwise, I wouldn't bother sharing what I prefer to see come springtime.

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You know this about Hasbro how. You do nothing about D&D was changed until 2008 when they brought out 4e. 3.5 was not a huge cash grab. 5e has also shown a huge amount of love. You are also overestimating the amount of influence Hasbro has in Wizards of the Coast. WotC are owned by Hasbro but they are still their own company.

DnDPhilmont said:

2) A table of alternate names for all of the main NPCs and places, to jog the imagination of the DMs who are using homebrew worlds. (For example, Tiamat might be just called "The Dragon Queen" or the "The Chromatic Dragon" or "Avarice" in someone's homebrew world.)

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Really. If someone is unable to do that themself, I think it would do them a disservice to help them.

Same for Greyhawk and 3E.

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Again, you can not tell me that people should be encouraged to stick a setting together by borrowing parts of other settings and then complain that about a list of gods in the PHB. You think it's enough to rename the gods, here's a bunch of gods to rename. There was basically no support for Greyhawk in 3E and even the gods were genericized before being put in the PHB.

If a player can not rename Tiamat themself, it is a disservice to help them. They should be using a campaign world, because they obviously aren't into making their own world. People who have no interest in making worlds should not be encouraged to put a lot of work into something they don't have interest in.

I don't remotely understand how you can object to preformed settings and yet expect things to be spoonfed to people.