D&D 5E fifth edition release schedule ... cart before the horse?

[Mistwell]

I know from the 4E era having monster math that was not quite right was pretty annoying. And I was just looking at one of the next adventures. I would like to use it at some point, and again felt that same sense of annoyance.

Which was annoying.

5e really isn't that sensitive to minor variation in the numbers. The tolerance levels are pretty flexible.

 

[Dausuul]

@Maldavos i pretty much consider all 'homebrew' worlds to be inferior (some might be good...most of them definitely are not). but with a new edition i definitely consider all homebrew material to be inferior.

I take it you didn't play "Keep on the Shadowfell," then. It was the first published 4E adventure, and it was awful. Every homebrewed 4E adventure I played in, throughout the entire edition under multiple DMs, was substantially better.

Like it or not, the D&D staff at WotC has been drastically cut back. We simply cannot expect that they will come close to the same level of output we saw in previous editions. Between "Hoard," the option to convert older modules--including Paizo's 3E-era APs!--and homebrew, I think we've got plenty of material.

 

[Henrix]

I know from the 4E era having monster math that was not quite right was pretty annoying.

What is the problem with the math not being exactly as the guidelines say?

I mean if a typo gives an orc 280 hp instead of 28, sure. But +5 instead of +6?

Isn't it more interesting if it is a good monster or not? What strength or wisdom it gets is up to whoever makes it anyhow.

 

[Selkirk]

i'm not sure why everyone thinks 15 people is a skeleton staff . they aren't creating a new game from scratch...they have roughly 40 years of content! (settings/monsters/rules). and a 2 year lead in on this project. i've pretty much moved on from wotc as content creator at this point. dm's im working with will do homebrew ( yes i have switched gears on this-but i trust them ).

for the larger gaming community i think the quasi-ogl (the cobbled together 'ruleset'-3.5 rules made to look like 5th edition) that 3pp are using now will be the future. that cart is already rolling....with a horse !

 

[Trickster Spirit]

i'm not sure why everyone thinks 15 people is a skeleton staff . they aren't creating a new game from scratch...they have roughly 40 years of content! (settings/monsters/rules). and a 2 year lead in on this project. i've pretty much moved on from wotc as content creator at this point. dm's im working with will do homebrew ( yes i have switched gears on this-but i trust them ).

for the larger gaming community i think the quasi-ogl (the cobbled together 'ruleset'-3.5 rules made to look like 5th edition) that 3pp are using now will be the future. that cart is already rolling....with a horse !

Well, skeleton staff is a bit of a misnomer; I'm pretty sure Chris Perkins is actually a Wight, and all the evidence seems to point to Mearls being some kind of undead Beholder (that is, unless I misunderstood what the D&D team was trying to get across when they started whispering about "the Death Tyrant")...

But really, I think everyone is just referring to the fact that they don't have the manpower to put out splatbook after splatbook every month as in the 3.x and 4E days. Right now, they're focusing on finishing the DMG and are also working on their next few projects, probably including ones that haven't been announced yet. They seem to be comfortable with the prospect of putting out about 2 adventure paths and related sourcebooks a year - sure, to some it may sound like carts without horses, but why the insistence that they ought to be hitting the same targets they always have, especially when that pace of content production has continually shown itself to be unsustainable and eventually unprofitable?

I mean, horseless carriages have been around for decades now, and a great many people actually prefer them to the old horse-driven model; for one thing, the increased ability to focus on one project at a time means we're less likely to wind up with horse-$#@&!

 

[Tormyr]

Well, skeleton staff is a bit of a misnomer; I'm pretty sure Chris Perkins is actually a Wight, and all the evidence seems to point to Mearls being some kind of undead Beholder (that is, unless I misunderstood what the D&D team was trying to get across when they started whispering about "the Death Tyrant")...

I thought they were all Mind Flayer thralls?

 

[Trickster Spirit]

Don't be absurd, WotC has quite clearly gone on record stating that Mind Flayers absolutely, utterly and completely do not exist.

You fool, are you trying to get all of our brains slurped out?!

 

[Mistwell]

further, this third party stuff you keep talking about is just that a bunch of talk...this is not 5th edition material...not compatible(which is why they do everything with a nod and a wink).

I Tweeted Goodman Games your comment, and this was their reply, "Not only are they compatible, the digital editions were just updated to be more compatible based on info we learned in the MM."