D&D 5E Light release schedule: More harm than good?

[Nellisir]

A lot of the APs are.
Jade Regent has the caravan rules, Skull & Shackles as ship combat, Kingmaker has kingdom building, Wrath of the Righteous has mythic and mass combat, Carrion Crown has madness, and so on. There's very often a subsystem of mechanic that would need to be converted.
Plus you'd also need to convert the treasure, since PCs need far less gold. And the number of encounters and overall length would need to be watched.

Not insurmountable, but something to warned about. It's not just swapping monsters.

And that's what I get for opening my mouth and pretending to know something about something I've never actually done.

 

[Talmek]

IMO what they need to do is announce some form of the OGL so 3rd party publishers can fill the void and this wont be an issue.

This.

If they don't want to produce and release frequently, then I can definitely understand and accept that. However, to prevent others from doing so (while making perfect business sense in preventing others from cashing in until WotC has had their opportunity) just will not keep the customers from looking elsewhere. I myself am a D&D book "addict", meaning that usually as the editions come out I try to purchase everything "official" that comes out for it. Needless to say, 3.5e was PAINFUL to try and approach in this manner and 4e wasn't really accepted by my group well enough to justify doing so.

 

[HobbitFan]

I'm beginning to think that it's not just that WOTC doesn't want to do more because of fear of bloat but also that with staff levels so small they can't do more than they are doing.

If that's the case, then getting the 3rd party stuff figured out right quick becomes even more important.

 

[Jeremy E Grenemyer]

People are making too much out of the low staff levels.

Teams of three writers are sufficient to produce 100-200 page books. A team of 5-6 writers can do something on the scale of the Forgotten Realms Campaign a Guide.

Seems to me like WotC are trying to learn how to outsource efficiently. Once they figure this out, and if they produce stuff that sells with this method of production, then I think we'll see the pace pick up.

 

[HobbitFan]

Another thing to think about with the limited amount of releases...with a small number of products coming out, more pressure mounts for each one to be a success. Which means more design by committee type products where they try to create stuff by checklist to sell to the most people. And we know from hollywood that with alot riding on something and people trying to play it safe then you get mediocrity. This "blockbuster" method of adventure path complete with inane marketing taglines like " Rise up or bow down" or "Unearth the Deception" is an example of them dumbing down things to an extent that creativity and innovation is being designed out of their products. Which is really sad because innovation and creativity is the hallmark of this hobby.

I hope I'm wrong about this and they wow us with their creativity in their next release but I don;t think so.

Movies and comic books should be showing WOTC that you can't do a big Summer Blockbuster all the time, you can't do a Crisis or Civil War type storyline everytime, you just can't. It's not good over the long haul for the genre and fans will burn out and tune out after a while.

 

[Sailor Moon]

A lot of the APs are.
Jade Regent has the caravan rules, Skull & Shackles as ship combat, Kingmaker has kingdom building, Wrath of the Righteous has mythic and mass combat, Carrion Crown has madness, and so on. There's very often a subsystem of mechanic that would need to be converted.
Plus you'd also need to convert the treasure, since PCs need far less gold. And the number of encounters and overall length would need to be watched.

Not insurmountable, but something to warned about. It's not just swapping monsters.

I have most of the Pathfinder modules and you have only named just a fraction of what's out there, plus those are AP's. Changing treasure is probably the easiest thing to do because you can just remove it and add what you like based on how much gold you want circulating.

Once again, if you have time to read them run them, then you have time to quickly convert them. If you are that pushed for time then you couldn't run an already converted module anyway.

 

[Eric V]

Give me an example of converting on the fly, please?

Monsters that have a direct equivalent, ok. What about new monsters? What about traps? Treasure? Any other mechanics I need to worry about?

 

[BryonD]

People are making too much out of the low staff levels.

Teams of three writers are sufficient to produce 100-200 page books. A team of 5-6 writers can do something on the scale of the Forgotten Realms Campaign a Guide.

Seems to me like WotC are trying to learn how to outsource efficiently. Once they figure this out, and if they produce stuff that sells with this method of production, then I think we'll see the pace pick up.

I agree with you.

I find myself wondering what the heck those people are doing. There seems to be way to little on the way for the staff they do have.
(Hopefully this means there is something else not announced)

 

[Sailor Moon]

Give me an example of converting on the fly, please?

Monsters that have a direct equivalent, ok. What about new monsters? What about traps? Treasure? Any other mechanics I need to worry about?

1: You substitute a new monster for one in the MM.
2: You replace them with traps in the DMG.
3: I've already told you about treasure. Treasure is a reward, not necessarily a necessity. You add what ever treasure you want.

Most modules do not require Pathfinder mechanics in order for them to run. You plug and play what ever mechanics you want. 5th editions mechanics are easy as hell to plug in. Everything you need is in the three corebooks.

I think you are making it harder on yourself by throwing up your own roadblocks.

 

[delericho]

I find myself wondering what the heck those people are doing. There seems to be way to little on the way for the staff they do have.
(Hopefully this means there is something else not announced)

My best guess is that they're working on the tie-in products for the movie - an adventure, maybe a setting, board games, video games, card games, toys, etc etc.

Of course, with the ongoing lawsuit they can't currently be certain that there even will be a movie, so announcing anything would be premature.