D&D (2024) 6E When?

[NineLizards]

I don't need a 6.0 or even a 5.5 yet. But witch the much larger market (as compared with a number of years ago) and the amount of experience with 5.0 I could live with a 5.1, something with errata included, a reworked PHB with some new better clarified text, some new artwork, a few extra classes / feats / skills, all in that new PHB. As long as there are new players incoming they would be buying the slightly newer, slightly better version, and so would many of the existing players, just to keep up to date (and replace an older, battered PHB). In a way, if the new rules / improvements are presented as 'optional', 'suggested' etcetera, and they would keep 5.0 and 5.1 rule compatible (like the Basic Rules and the PHB) it might actually even increase sales, as many older PHB's just might be passed on to relatives / friends / siblings increasing the user base.

Same goes for the DMG. I've been comparing the 4e and 5e DMG lately, and I think the 5e PHB could definitely use a reworking, even more so than the PHB.

And, of course, don't try to repack it as '5e Essentials', we've seen what happened to D&D with '4e Essentials'...

So don't give me 5.0 Essentials, nor 5.5 nor 6.0. Give me 5.1

 

[Zardnaar]

They won't make a .5 edition again or phb2.

Xanathars is more like 2E Tome of Magic.

They might make a phb2 type book but it will be called something else.

 

[Tony Vargas]

And, of course, don't try to repack it as '5e Essentials', we've seen what happened ...

Amusingly, there's already a 5e product called "Essentials."

No worries. Just like 5e fighters actually cast spells to no controversey whatsoever.

Heck, 5e, like 3.5 did, could probably get away with a PH2.

 

[Parmandur]

Not their only audience, no, but a critical one. It's their reaction to a new edition that can encourage people to try it - or turn the environment around it toxic.
5e made a lot if compromises to keep that segment happy, and rolling rev, again - especially, with any changes, let alone improvements, risks that accomplishment.
At some point enough of them will stop paying attention or just die - but, by then, the current crop will have likely been winnowed of any not equally insistent on the status quo.

So my prediction - and, I hasten to admit, I have never been right with one of these before - is that we will most likely see no substantive changes to the game for the foreseeable future, any new editions will be mainly cosmetic or y'know "re-arranging deck chairs." The analogy to 2e Revised was a good one.

That's true enough: what they found is that continuity sells better than radical change, even for the young and new.

The youth are the ones doing most of the spending and playing, though, and the future youth will be the target audience for any future edition: and they won't be tired of old mechanics, because as NBC said, if you haven't seen it, it's new for you!

 

[Tony Vargas]

That's true enough: what they found is that continuity sells better than radical change, even for the young and new.

Not what I said. Continuity means nothing to the new player, they've yet to experience it.
Not does continuity preclude substantive improvement or gradual change... heck, 5e /is/ gradually being changed and added to.

If there's a general case, here, it's not that, it's the tricky business of balancing acceptability to an established (geeky, nigh 'cult') base, without which you will have nerdrage/controversy and accessibility to the mainstream, without which you have few potential new customers.

WotC threaded that needle, this time.

 

[Parmandur]

Not what I said. Continuity means nothing to the new player, they've yet to experience it.
Not does continuity preclude substantive improvement or gradual change... heck, 5e /is/ gradually being changed and added to.

If there's a general case, here, it's not that, it's the tricky business of balancing acceptability to an established (geeky, nigh 'cult') base, without which you will have nerdrage/controversy and accessibility to the mainstream, without which you have few potential new customers.

WotC threaded that needle, this time.

But the potential new customers, the youth, don't come from a vacuum. I didn't play D&D until college, but there were cultural elements going back through my childhood, through video games particularly. WotC is being extremely proactive about cultivating tomorrow's player base right now.

 

[Tony Vargas]

But the potential new customers, the youth, don't come from a vacuum. I didn't play D&D until college, but there were cultural elements going back through my childhood, through video games particularly.

Nod, and MMOs, because both ripped off D&D. But, if WotC were to maximize accessibility to new players coming from that end of the broader genre, they'd outrage enough of their fan base to create that toxic controversy that'd keep those potential new players away.

I'm sorry, I just phrased that as a hypothetical, when we all know it already happened 10 years ago.

 

[Parmandur]

Nod, and MMOs, because both ripped off D&D. But, if WotC were to maximize accessibility to new players coming from that end of the broader genre, they'd outrage enough of their fan base to create that toxic controversy that'd keep those potential new players away.

I'm sorry, I just phrased that as a hypothetical, when we all know it already happened 10 years ago.

Weeeell, but I come from the video game end of things: I played World of Warcraft when it was new and hip, I played Bards Tale and Dragon Wars (never saw a dragon, there was no war?) when they were old and I had no idea how the game's worked because I was 7.

Coming from a video game background, 5E is more accessible than 4E, whose "video gaminess" was always overblown. It really is more of a miniatures war game in style.

One thing 5E has going for it, is that it leans into the parts of TTRPGing that video games can't replicate, and easing up on the areas where computers will always be better.

 

[darjr]

There is also a strange boom or rebellion going on. People want the stuff of video games but the stuff of parties and hanging out away from the screen. It started with board games and continues with them, and now D&D.

 

[Tony Vargas]

4E, whose "video gaminess" was always overblown. It really is more of a miniatures war game in style.

Both mischaracterizations were overblown edition war rhetoric. It was a TTFRPG, just one that erred too far on the side of accessibility (and, specifically, accessibility to potential customers with exposure to the huge MMO phenom) and alienated a sufficiently nerdrage-prone segment of their base to get overblown rhetoric like that repeated, even now.

Really, WotC tried to thread that same needle each time, with Essentials, with 4e, probably even with 3.0 (which arguably erred the other way, appealing too much to hard-core system-mastery at the price if accessibility) they just finally got it right with 5e.

Not a risk they should take again anytime soon.

One thing 5E has going for it, is that it leans into the parts of TTRPGing that video games can't replicate, and easing up on the areas where computers will always be better.

Not meaningfully different from any other TTRPG, that way.