D&D 5E Where are the options?

[Maxperson]

Hiya!



Anecdotal evidence here on my part, but I haven't seen this bare out in any real way. When 5e hit the shelves a year'ish ago it sold quickly. After that, it sold consistently; a dozen PHB's would come in and they'd be sold within the month (I live in what others would consider a 'small town'; about 23k people...yeah, it's the capitol city of the Yukon). This rate is maintained with pretty much every 5e book that's been put out. A dozen get in, all are get sold out in a consistent time. No, it's not "gone in a day", but as I said, for us up here in the Great White North, it's a telling thing.

I would hazard a guess that the folks who are seeing and/or complaining about lack of "stuff" are the ones that either have so little time to put into a campaign...probably shouldn't be trying to play RPG's; or got into the hobby with the end of 2e or beginning of 3e. In those latter cases, they are just used to having "stuff". The 3.x+ version in particular didn't teach or encourage DM's or players to use their imaginations and make up. Those versions encouraged DM's and players to throw money out and buy a book that had new stuff in it...and then another book...and another...and another...etc. Or, to put it another way, "old schoolers" like myself don't need or even really want "more rules". We find more enjoyment thinking about what we like, using our imaginations, taking a few hours to write out what we need/want, and use that for the next game. If I need more "earth based" spells, I'll make them up. If I need some "earth based creatures", I'll make them up. If I want a new underground-focused druid-ranger type class or archtype, I'll make it up. If I need rules for suffocation, air quality, or how much space a person needs to squish through a small opening, I'll make it up. To old schoolers, this is one of the things we enjoy. Er, at least I do.

Anyway...yeah...with 5e focused more on 'story' and less on 'splat', I think they (WotC) have expectations of revenue to match. I don't think they'll "turn off people" who come into the hobby...and, from yet more anecdotal evidence, 5e seems to have brought back a lot of older players as well as introduced a lot of new ones. So if this demographic is high enough, what they will expect is "one hardback every 6 or so months", and that will be normal. It's the poor folks who loved and got used to the "book a week" club that 3.x/PF/4e was doing that are going to complain and threaten to leave because "there's no stuff".

^_^

Paul L. Ming

Yeah. I'm not saying it's a failure so far, but people are going to want official mechanical support that is more than tidbits in adventures. As they play more and more of the same ole, same ole, it's going to get old if there isn't new content being released. A few more years of almost no support and I think people will start leaving for more supported systems.

 

[MechaPilot]

I want to state first that I'm not trolling in any way. I've been playing D&D since 2E, happily made all the edition jumps since then, and then was very turned off by Essentials and basically stopped buying product. I haven't been following much news

I've been playing other systems since then - NWoD and Numenera, mainly. I ran a brief little campaign for some coworkers using 5e, though, and thought, "This really seems like a nice system. It will be great when there's actually some meat there as far as character options." So I've been waiting and... nearly nothing, more than a year later. There are a handful of options in EE player's companion, as well as the Sword Coast Player's Guide and some stuff on the website, but that's it? Not even enough to make a full splatbook full of rules, it seems.

I guess I'm wondering what the designers are even up to with their time. Writing a few adventures? I guess those are nice, but I've always found running modules boring as a DM and have avoided them. But I thought it had been established long ago that adventures were never going to be as profitable as rulebooks? I want classes and monsters and spells and psionics and other interesting character options to play with. I at least want the rules I need to play Eberron properly. It seems like there would be more out by now unless there's like just Mike Mearls and one other guy working in an empty building on D&D.

I'm starting to wonder: Are they ever planning on supporting this ruleset in the way I would expect them to? Or did they leave behind players like me when they went to 5e?

Like you, I find myself thirsty for more options for 5e. However, WotC is banking on adventures being their bread and butter, while also taking a cut of things sold on the DM's guild. They get to make the lower-cost, lower-maintenance product (adventures), and they get a cut of the unofficial stuff on the guild, while also potentially being able to assimilate the best parts of the guild content into official content (a process in which no one really knows how that will work at the moment).

The general gist of it is that WotC is not in the business of making mechanical content, except where it seems required or highly relevant for their adventures, anymore. If you want mechanical content, you need to make it yourself, convert it from another edition, buy it off the DM's Guild, or commission someone to make it for you.

 

[Tony Vargas]

First, because you can make changes, there's less pressure to get it right the first time.
Second, because anything could be updated, you always need to check to see if it has, slowing down play.
Because the first printing could (likely would) be updated it devalues that printing and encourages people to wait for a second printing.
Lastly, it creates a situation where people are told their character doesn't behave how they think, leading to an ugly surprise.

"Get it right the first time" is certainly a better policy than "we can fix it post" or "don't like it, fix it yourself," sure.

IMHO, errata is just honest. If you goofed, own up to it and fix it.

5e, though, anything more than that makes little sense. It's not like everyone's in the grip RAW obsession anymore. If a certain rule doesn't work for a certain group, their DM's already overruled it, maybe even with a formal house rule. If a certain option isn't up to snuff for some folks, it's just not being opted into.

Besides, 5e is a fifth (really more like 8th or 9th if you count half-eds and two-pronged approaches) edition of a 40yo game, anything they haven't gotten right by now, they (or the fans) don't want to ever get right! ;P

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

0 is not a middle ground. There have been no books dedicated to rules. The tidbits they toss into adventures and then cobble together into an amalgam of tidbits isn't anywhere remotely close to the middle. It's just to the right of nothing.

What you have said is not "they are not in the middle ground," but rather "they are not in the only middle ground that I prefer them to be in."

 

[Maxperson]

What you have said is not "they are not in the middle ground," but rather "they are not in the only middle ground that I prefer them to be in."

You do understand what "middle" means, right? It's not a point on the line that is not in the middle. What you are suggesting is that literally everything not at an end is in the middle and that's a false statement. A point on the line that is just a hair away from the end that is 0, is not even close to being in the middle. .

 

[Mistwell]

Yeah. I'm not saying it's a failure so far, but people are going to want official mechanical support that is more than tidbits in adventures. As they play more and more of the same ole, same ole, it's going to get old if there isn't new content being released. A few more years of almost no support and I think people will start leaving for more supported systems.

If you had to guess what people wanted prior to 5e being released, would you have guessed no rules-focused support in the first two years would be this successful?

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

You do understand what "middle" means, right? It's not a point on the line that is not in the middle. What you are suggesting is that literally everything not at an end is in the middle and that's a false statement. A point on the line that is just a hair away from the end that is 0, is not even close to being in the middle. .

You do understand that "middle ground" is a phrase referring to a compromise between two positions, and not something that requires a line graph with a point actually near the middle of the line between two other points, right?

Of course, the real issue here is not that you are trying to make non-math into math - but that you have claimed superior authority on the topic of defining the value 0 in such a way that if I were to apply it to how many keyboards I used to type this post I would be able to say "I typed this on 0 keyboards."

 

[pming]

Hiya!

Yeah. I'm not saying it's a failure so far, but people are going to want official mechanical support that is more than tidbits in adventures. As they play more and more of the same ole, same ole, it's going to get old if there isn't new content being released. A few more years of almost no support and I think people will start leaving for more supported systems.

Y'see, I'm not so sure of this. I see what you are saying, but I think that 5e's baseline of "Rulings, not rules" mentality coupled with their distinct focus on non-mechanics stuff is only really going to "alienate" those who are used to the 3.x/PF/4e style of production. I think that 5e's focus on empowering the DM and players over "just go buy a splat book" is not going to, how do I say it..."create the type of people who are going to want official mechanical support that is more than tidbits in adventures".

I think that the type of DM, players and campaigns that 5e fosters very much plays into the exact opposite of what you wrote. Personally, I specifically don't want official mechanical stuff. The more of that they put out, the less and less interested in "keeping up with 5e" me and my group get. In another couple years the typical 5e DM/player will be looking at what 3.x/PF/4e was doing and they'll think "Holy moly! Why would anyone want all that stuff? Why would someone spend $30 on a book that they probably won't use very often, or only use a couple things from it? And then do it again every few weeks or month? Crazy!". Kind of like the opposite of what a fair number of 3.x/PF/4e folks are all up on about (re: "Holy moly! Why would anyone play 5e for more than a few months when there are literally no other books out there with more Feats, Races, Classes and other mechanical goodies? Crazy!").

So, if the "3.x/PF/4e mentality of expectation" somehow seeps into all the new (or born-again) roleplayers of 5e, then yeah...I totally agree with you. However, I really don't think that will happen. I think the age of the "mechanics optimization via splatbooks" generation of RPG'ers is coming to an end (thankfully, IMHO! ). I think the majority of 5e players are more accepting of, and enthusiastic about, creating their own stuff or grabbing stuff from others they talk with on forums, at cons, or online VTT's. I suppose this is one of the reasons why a lot of my posts replying to folks asking "can I do this?" or "how do I do this?" seem either a bit negative and pompous. I'm trying to foster the 5e "Rulings, not rules" over the "RAW says..!" every chance I get. I want to hear of how some other DM handles PC's holding their breaths, or rules for rooftop chases, or underwater spell and weapon uses, etc. I don't want to hear nine different replies to those things that all basically say "No, as per RAW" or "Well, go buy Splatbook X".

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[Maxperson]

You do understand that "middle ground" is a phrase referring to a compromise between two positions, and not something that requires a line graph with a point actually near the middle of the line between two other points, right?

Of course, the real issue here is not that you are trying to make non-math into math - but that you have claimed superior authority on the topic of defining the value 0 in such a way that if I were to apply it to how many keyboards I used to type this post I would be able to say "I typed this on 0 keyboards."

You just walked up to someone and told him that his ankle was in the middle of his body. Right now there is no compromise between WotC's old release schedule and anything. They virtually stopped rules releases and that's no middle ground no matter how you want to spin it Aaron.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

You just walked up to someone and told him that his ankle was in the middle of his body.

Nope.

Right now there is no compromise between WotC's old release schedule and anything.

Yes, there is - there is the compromise between WotC's old release schedule and never releasing another D&D table-top RPG product. You know, since that's the default response from a company regarding a product that isn't performing as well as they'd like, to just cancel production on that product entirely.