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

[JRRNeiklot]

There's a Third Golden Age of D&D for you.

There was a second?

 

[Olaf the Stout]

No. You're expressing the remarkably specific and esoteric want list of one hardcore D&D player. Everyone on this site could post their own such wish list, and they would all be different. Most of the books you list would sell no more than 100 copies, and those to well-heeled completionists. A publication schedule that would almost certainly bankrupt a company is hardly 'wise.'

I agree. The OP reads like a dream list of products he'd like to see if he was running WotC. Some of them are very specific. I don't know about the 100 copy number, but I doubt a couple of them would sell enough copies to turn a profit (the language book for example). Dream lists or dream products are nice to have, but most often these products are not made because they just wouldn't be popular enough.

 

[Dungeonosophy]

Coins have done fairly well on Kickstarter, but they've all been pretty generic or offering a variety of patterns. I suspect they would be expensive enough, and marketing them as D&D may push away the boardgamers who I suspect have been a large market for coins on Kickstarter.

Couldn't the kickstarter just say: "Great for boardgames too!"

Unlike coins, outside Tolkien and Klingon, I don't know of a single commercially noticeable book publishing a language for a fictional people.

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Galactic_Phrase_Book_&_Travel_Guide

The Tsolyáni Language has reached copper status of DriveThruRPGs, I guess.

Good to know.

If you really believe that what the world needs is new invented Dwarvish, Elvish, Orc and Halfling languages, then write them up and sell them on Amazon or DriveThruRPG.

Maybe. But it'd be even better for D&D's sake if the existing language lore (e.g. bree yark) were incorporated into the book.

 

[Dungeonosophy]

There was a second?

2000-2003. From the release of 3.0 to the release of 3.5 (which began to fracture the culture). 70 conversions of existing IP to d20 (Conan, Star Wars). Hundreds of new D&D/d20 IPs (Freeport, MnM).

 

[Dungeonosophy]

The OP reads like a dream list of products he'd like to see if he was running WotC. Some of them are very specific. I don't know about the 100 copy number, but I doubt a couple of them would sell enough copies to turn a profit (the language book for example). Dream lists or dream products are nice to have

Olaf, I'd be genuinely glad to see your dream list. I like hearing what people really want.

"Dream" has a loaded connotation though. What's your "preferred product release schedule" for the next three years?

There's nothing wrong with a consumer or patron of WotC expressing what products they prefer.

 

[Dungeonosophy]

Wow, what a list. A lot of good ideas there, @DnDPhilmont, although I agree that some of it is rather specific for wider publication. I also see a "quantity over quality" approach, and is largely doing exactly what you say you don't want to see happen - reinvent the wheel.

It's not reinventing the wheel. It's taking the four wheels of the previous edition and re-tooling them to run the 5e vehicle.

The reference/compendium series wouldn't include all the fluff and optional rules--it'd just be cut-and-dried 5E reference books for each of the main elements of D&D, the main ones being:

All the PC races
All the classes
All the spells
All the magic items
All the monsters

I'd rather see WotC:

1. Create a "Classic Worlds of D&D" product like you mentioned a few weeks ago, and then update a few of the more popular classic settings to their own standalone books (e.g. Realms, Greyhawk, Dark Sun, Sigil in the 5E MotP).
2. License out the settings that they don't want to do anything with to other publishers (e.g. Dragonlance, Mystara, Ravenloft, Birthright, etc).
3. Re-issue and update the classic adventures in hardcover omnibuses.
4. Take a "less is more" approach to splats ala Paizo and create fewer, but better, supplement books.
5. Focus on new world(s) and adventures.

I'm glad to hear what you and others really imagine and desire, without self-censoring yourself. Self-censoring our imagination based on our incomplete picture of a company's business plan is an example of corporatist-shaped imagination. That's why I like to hear what you and others really want.

My problem with your approach is that it is largely focused on stuff that's already out there, in print or PDF. I totally understand the need for updates of classic settings etc, but I'd rather see WotC spend their setting development time and energy on something new, rather than yet another cycle of FR books. The same with adventures.

This is why it'd be complementary for all the out-of-print PDFs to be freely released. The compendiums would just contain the crunch, stripped of art, black and white interiors (like the 2e Spell Compendium) and gathered from all the hundreds of PDFs from all worlds. The PDFs would remain a value resource for fluff. Except for the adventures, I'm not talking about going back and putting 5E stats in old books.

The adventure compendium wouldn't just be a reprint. They'd give adventure path flowcharts and segways, canonical placement and adaptation for each published D&D world, and suggestions for scaling the challenge level of each adventure up or down so they could be played in a different order.

Yes, re-issue old classics, but let's see something new. Get the creative juices flowing!

I saw enough of a deluge of new content in the 4E era. I don't want much of anything new until those reference compendiums are out, so that all of the previous, fragmented heritage of D&D has been digested and coherently integrated into the 5E D&D Multiverse.

Then I'd be ready for new material, such as a new campaign setting. Put these compendiums out over the next 3 years, and then bring a new world into this newly integrated, coherent D&D Multiverse.

 

[Rygar]

Actually, the OP's wishlist isn't all that impossible.

Coins - Right now WOTC is creating silver "Coins" for Mtg.

http://archive.wizards.com/Magic/magazine/article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/news/281

If D&D took off, coins are a definite possibility.

As far as languages go, much of Dragonlance's languages were based upon rudimentary language systems such that it would be fairly easy to extend them to full languages. Solamnic is based on Latin phonetics, Magic is based on Indonesian phonetics.

 

[Dungeonosophy]

Every time you say something like this, you alienate a segment of your audience - you are telling them that their minds are in a corporate-shaped box, insulting them.

I'm not here to please everyone. It's not a tragedy if a segment doesn't like me.

If you witnessed the 3e/4e transition, you should note that negative marketing has some nasty repercussions.

I'm not following you. I stopped following D&D once 3.5 came. What repercussions do you mean?

The trick is to tell people how great the thing you want is, *without* implying (or outright stating) that the thing they currently love is somehow bad, or that they are somehow bad or limited for buying them.

That's not a bad trick. I don't want people to feel ashamed of their interest in D&D. D&D is just about my favorite form of play. As I've said before, I'm not opposed to anyone being enthusiastic about 5E. I like the Basic Rules--I DM'ed my first 5E session last Sunday (here's the story log, with two TPKs).

 

[Dungeonosophy]

No. You're expressing the remarkably specific and esoteric want list of one hardcore D&D player.

I'm noted for my specificity. I lean toward the specific moreso than to the vague.

Everyone on this site could post their own such wish list

That's exactly what I'd like to see! Haffrung, would you please tell me your wish list?

 

[Dungeonosophy]

I wouldn't hold my breath.

My expression of what I want to see is not an attempt to predict what Hasbro/WotC will do.

See, I'm having a hard time seeing why "Races of D&D" is Goodsplat but an Elemental Book is Badsplat.

It's the difference between another 3 elemental races and classes, and another 12 or 20 new elemental spells and magic items tucked into a $40 book ($30 at Amazon), along with a few more this, a few more that...or lovingly gathering, updating, and integrating the hundreds or thousands of races, classes, and spells (including elemental races, classes, and spells) which already exist in the D&D Multiverse, and which are dustballed in the 2E Spell Compendium and tucked away here and there in the 3E corpus.

Its early in the edition: a lot of the book is going to be tied to updating some elemental things anyway (wild guess: genasi, elementalist wizards, elemental domains).

So I'd prefer that updating be done systematically, in a concentrated form, without the fluff, instead of dragging it out in piecemeal, scattered bits.

I certainly can get as much use out of that as I can a book of the 400 races D&D has sought to print. (and don't get me wrong: I love settings and I love races and I love genre books, but aside from an inherent "old stuff is better than new stuff" vibe,

It's not about "old is better". It's about the continuity and coherence of the D&D Multiverse and its myriad of D&D Worlds and Planes, in which all this stuff has appeared (and which presumably still exists in there somewhere.) Even though I skipped over Nerath, I'd actually be interested to see it take its place as just another 5E D&D World in the Multiverse.

I don't see much difference between the objects you say are "good" and the ones you say are "bad").

I admit I've picked on the Adventurer's Handbook of Elemental Evil. I'm sure Sasquatch will do a fine job with this contracted work. I'm sure it will be a nice book. It's just not what I'm looking for.

I can't imagine a hardback tome

I prefer softcover.

Mearls doesn't see a dime for his work.

Yes he will. I already mailed him some bread in unforced appreciation for the 5e Basic Rules.

I'll tell you what. Devote the next two years to writing a completely open RPG. Design all the rules, playtest them, get feedback and revise, proofread it, add art, and release it to the Public Domain. I promise I'll download them.

Hmm! I'll consider it.

"My Own Fifth Edition" is proceeding apace.