D&D 5E Volo's 5e vs Tasha's 5e where do you see 5e heading?

[Ruin Explorer]

Greek mythology was pretty well tapped in the years prior to Theros, and it still wold well. With an audience of 50 million, many of them literally children, you overestimate the need for speedy innovation.

Yup. Innovation isn't what is needed. Exciting ideas are. Books that provide new ways of playing, especially if there's demand for that. Ravenloft is a great example of this. Dark Sun sticks out because it could actually do really well here as well. So could a Planesjammer-type affair. Dark Sun potentially hits a sort of "fight the man", "try to survive in a harsh environment", and "be powerful and strange" deal that hasn't been fully explored in any setting yet. I don't say this to big-up Dark Sun, but rather because it fits the model pretty well. Stick a new class in there as well and however much people sneered at the Mystic a few years ago, it'll sell like hot cakes to that 50 million (is it really that many? Amazing!).

Anecdotally, it worked on me, and Magic is seeing massive, massive growth the last couple years. If anyone has evidence if it is the case, WotC does. Technically, D&D has the larger player base, by a significant degree, it's just not the money sink Magic can be.

Sure, and anecdotally, it didn't work on a single person I know who plays D&D IRL. A couple of them even quit Magic in the last few years lol (unrelated reasons). So YMMV there.

But massive growth in card games doesn't seem to have much to do with D&D, I'd suggest - just look at the utterly demented stuff going down with the Pokemon TCG right now - it's selling so insanely that Target and Gamestop stopped carrying it because it was scaring other customers and causing the staff to be threatened with violence!

If MtG was growing faster and bigger than other stuff, you might be able to at least assert the possibility of a causal relationship, but AFAICT MtG is expanding a lot, lot slower than stuff like Pokemon (I forget what the other stuff selling ridiculously is - but basically all these card things seem to have gone insane since the pandemic).

And yeah WotC will know. If they keep putting out MtG books steadily it hints that they see some kind of connection. If Theros is the last for a while, there probably isn't a strong one. We shall see of course.

 

[Parmandur]

The word "moding" implies changes rather than mere additions. It's telling that while trying to talk up modular additions to 5e you needed to lean so heavily on mere additions & the hadcover APs. We have a core book that shows there are crunchy components like the tactical grid based stuff they realized were important. If not we wouldn't have things like flanking & facing in the dmg... Problem being they pretty much let someone who dislikes them to design those optional rules in a way that checks a box while failing to meet the need in nearly every possible way.

Mods do not necessarily mean just alternatives, as additions can also be modules. Both Xanathar's and Tasha's do have straight up alternative options, however, as do other books. WotC is living up to what they intended by making a modular game: none of the options they have put out break break game, or are "necessary " for anything. Mission accomplished.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

We have a core book that shows there are crunchy components like the tactical grid based stuff they realized were important. If not we wouldn't have things like flanking & facing in the dmg... Problem being they pretty much let someone who dislikes them to design those optional rules in a way that checks a box while failing to meet the need in nearly every possible way.

This is one of the hardest problems to resolve with 5E D&D - almost all the optional rules in the DMG are absolutely terrible and really feel like they were extremely rushed or done by someone actively opposed to their existence. It's quite odd. Never seen anything like it before. Ravenloft took the Fear/Stress rules and replaced them, at least, so maybe going forwards other books could do the same.

 

[Mistwell]

For some, maybe not. In general, yes. Again, we just had a big book of modules drop in the last week

Mike Mearls described in some detail what he planned for modules, and they never went forward with most of it. What we're getting now is modularity, but not the originally announced modularity Mearls talked about long ago.

Mearls specified things like (and this isn't all he specified, this is just what he mentioned in the one article):

Another area where that can pay off is areas covered by other indie games, like Robin Laws’s GUMSHOE, where players have increasing power to affect the narrative. Those mechanics speak more to the player than the character. We can use a rules module that adds that element.

When you think of exploration, interaction, and combat, our three pillars theory, the people who like combat want more rules...

Could you see there being a module that more gamifies the social interaction, or the exploration?

MM: Oh yeah, absolutely. You can definitely imagine that. I didn’t use that example by accident: if you’re a tactical gamer, can I make interaction tactical? Can I make exploration tactical? When you’re negotiating or exploring, can I bring that same puzzle from combat to it? There can be a crunchier system for that. We can add more prescribed options to it: do I want to intimidate this guy, or give him the soft sell? That way, you can think about it more tactically. That way you’re saying, so you like this about D&D, let’s extend that to other areas, because that’s what your group is opting into. We’re not trying to make everyone play that way.

This one is "kind of" in the game, but not really the way he described it:

I’m working on the tactical rules this week. What I’m trying is to do, and we’ll see if it works, is to make it a layered approach. Imagine if the rules are eight pages long. So you can say: just use the first page if you want miniatures and the grid. Then use the second page for cover and stuff. If you want a knockback system and you think it’s cool and want to bake it right in, add this section. If you add all eight pages, you have a very tactical combat system.

He also talked about modules which adjusted the length of combat. One which would dial it to 5 minute combats (in real time) and others which would lengthen that time out, with rules listed for each length of time you were looking for which increased the tactical depth and therefore the time spent in combat.

Those were specific modules Mearls talked about that he was working on for D&D Next, which have never seen the light of day.

 

[Oofta]

Mike Mearls described in some detail what he planned for modules, and they never went forward with most of it. What we're getting now is modularity, but not the originally announced modularity Mearls talked about long ago.

Mearls specified things like (and this isn't all he specified, this is just what he mentioned in the one article):





This one is "kind of" in the game, but not really the way he described it:



He also talked about modules which adjusted the length of combat. One which would dial it to 5 minute combats (in real time) and others which would lengthen that time out, with rules listed for each length of time you were looking for which increased the tactical depth and therefore the time spent in combat.

Those were specific modules Mearls talked about that he was working on for D&D Next, which have never seen the light of day.

They had a lot of ideas while trying to figure out what to do with 5E. Some of the ideas worked, some didn't. During development you have a ton of ideas that you throw at the wall and see what sticks. Modularity to the point they considered for what appears to have been a very brief period of time before reality set in was just one tiny aspect of the game that never saw the light of day.

So Mearls thought about how to implement some stuff that never got implemented. So the **** what? They couldn't make it work so they dropped it. Can we please stop complaining about something that didn't get implemented that we only know about from an off-the-cuff interview 9 years ago?

The development of 5E had far more polling and feedback than any previous edition. Obviously significant modularity didn't make the cut. There were other things that also never saw the light of day like detailed stealth rules. We are getting modularity, just not everything Mike discussed.

 

[Sacrosanct]

The 50th anniversary in 2024 is important. I expect that Wizards will do something special for it, and that it will be a 5e product.

Of course, because "5e for 50!" rings better than "6e for 50"

 

[Parmandur]

This is one of the hardest problems to resolve with 5E D&D - almost all the optional rules in the DMG are absolutely terrible and really feel like they were extremely rushed or done by someone actively opposed to their existence. It's quite odd. Never seen anything like it before. Ravenloft took the Fear/Stress rules and replaced them, at least, so maybe going forwards other books could do the same.

Ravnica also has a replacement Faction ssystem, and Theros has a replacement Piety system. In both of those cases, written by the author of thebDMG, even.

 

[Parmandur]

Mike Mearls described in some detail what he planned for modules, and they never went forward with most of it. What we're getting now is modularity, but not the originally announced modularity Mearls talked about long ago.

Mearls specified things like (and this isn't all he specified, this is just what he mentioned in the one article):





This one is "kind of" in the game, but not really the way he described it:



He also talked about modules which adjusted the length of combat. One which would dial it to 5 minute combats (in real time) and others which would lengthen that time out, with rules listed for each length of time you were looking for which increased the tactical depth and therefore the time spent in combat.

Those were specific modules Mearls talked about that he was working on for D&D Next, which have never seen the light of day.

So they tried out some modules and ended up not including them. Still a modular game in the end.

 

[tetrasodium]

This is one of the hardest problems to resolve with 5E D&D - almost all the optional rules in the DMG are absolutely terrible and really feel like they were extremely rushed or done by someone actively opposed to their existence. It's quite odd. Never seen anything like it before. Ravenloft took the Fear/Stress rules and replaced them, at least, so maybe going forwards other books could do the same.

Absolutely on the first part. Once you've been playing a while or if you spend a bit of time looking the shredded remnants they couldn't purge start becoming obvious. For example compare the 3.5/4e handy haversack to the 5e one to see what's missing & compare the rare 5e haversack to the uncommon 5e bag of holding where you have the exact same interaction mechanics with vastly higher capacity. PHB167 point 3 on the non-errata'd grappler feat gives anothr obvious leftover from a rushed purge of badwrongfun while phb197 systemically inserts itself as a keystone other parts of the system are rooted in to fight unacceptable gameplay styles.

I'm not optimistic about the chances of wotc's very minor fear/stress rework for the basically unworkable dmg equivalent showing a maybe for them starting to introduce support for the playstyles they put effort into purging any time before some fork of 5e actually does it while replacing the parts of the system that fight against those playstyles in need of well written versions with parts that compliment them.

 

[Hatmatter]

I'm not optimistic about the chances of wotc's very minor fear/stress rework for the basically unworkable dmg equivalent showing a maybe for them starting to introduce support for the playstyles they put effort into purging any time before some fork of 5e actually does it while replacing the parts of the system that fight against those playstyles in need of well written versions with parts that compliment them.

And, Tetra, my colleague, after reading this sentence five times, I am not optimistic about my ability to decipher it.

I have been reading your posts for pages in this thread and can tell that, likely, English is not your first language, so my hat(matter) is off to you for participating in the forum when you have to translate on the fly...that is more than I could do.

However, when you are criticizing a publisher for including "shredded remnants" of an earlier draft in their work and for failing to publish "well written versions" of their ideas, please proof read and revise your own posts before you click "Post reply" so that people can at least follow what you are saying and, thereby, respond to your ideas in the manner that you deserve.

I do not say this out of a need to be some kind of language police...I have not said anything until now, for example. Rather, it has gotten to the point where I find this sentence incomprehensible and I value you and what you have to say and, so, want to comprehend it.

Cheers!