D&D (2024) When are we getting the second playtest document?

[doctorbadwolf]

I like it, yes, because I find it very much less problematic than the hybrid vigor/blood quantum ickiness inherent in traditional D&D Half-Elves and Half-Orcs which TSR and WotC never managed to escape.

I have never heard anyone suggest such a thing in my life, and I find the notion rather odd. The tie between D&D races and IRL races is how D&D races can speak to an experience. Half elves speak to certain mixed race experiences, as do half orcs. They do so differently from eachother, as well.

Yes, mechanics are just mechanics. This provides a scaleable solution that allows for greater variety in character concept realization.

No. If you say, “you can call you elf a gnome” and provide no actual gnome mechanics, in a game based on concepts represented with distinct mechanics, you’ve removed gnomes. Full stop.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

At the same time most casual players probably don’t even know about this.

Given how many people downloaded the playtest document, I'm not sure if that's a big enough number to worry about.

It would be nice for WotC to get more engagement from the player who only plays with their family every year at Christmas, but it's hardly essential for this survey to reach them.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

It’s also possible they add an entire new class to the PHB, like the Artificer. Again, depending on the extent of new material that could be it’s own UA.

I still fantasize about them swinging for the fences and bringing back the Marshal/Warlord.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

after tashas rangers do not need more help

Yeah, I expect 99% of what's in Tasha's to be added to the 2024 rulebook, along with maybe a balance pass on the subclasses, and they'll call it a day.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I have to say, focusing on playtesting monsters is kind of weird, unless they're trying for a very different format.

I mentioned it on another thread, but this is a monster book format I'd love to see 5E adopt: The Monster Overhaul.

I appreciate that there's an audience for RPG books as books to just be enjoyed, but I think maximum utility at the table is what should be guiding most game publishers' design decisions. Give me an MM that will negate the need for me to have a half dozen other books nearby to fill in the gaps, including a print out of my Google Doc of random names by NPC type.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I have never heard anyone suggest such a thing in my life, and I find the notion rather odd. The tie between D&D races and IRL races is how D&D races can speak to an experience. Half elves speak to certain mixed race experiences, as do half orcs. They do so differently from eachother, as well.

You haven't heard of the staggeringly precise quantifications of how Black ancestry granted differing civil rights, both in the U.S. and South Africa (and I suspect, elsewhere), along with the incredibly racist bases for such reasoning?

I hear you on wanting to feel represented in D&D, but does that necessarily have to come with being multi-racial gives a character mechanical benefits distinct from either parent?

It's not my personal experience, so I'm asking and listening here: Are the specific half-ancestry mechanical differences required to tell those stories and represent characters of that sort of background?

 

[Micah Sweet]

I mentioned it on another thread, but this is a monster book format I'd love to see 5E adopt: The Monster Overhaul.

I appreciate that there's an audience for RPG books as books to just be enjoyed, but I think maximum utility at the table is what should be guiding most game publishers' design decisions. Give me an MM that will negate the need for me to have a half dozen other books nearby to fill in the gaps, including a print out of my Google Doc of random names by NPC type.

I'm in the audience you're talking about, and have been since the mid '80s. I would never buy any book that is presented as you describe. 4e wasn't nearly that bad and it still turned me off for that reason.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I'm in the audience you're talking about, and have been since the mid '80s. I would never buy any book that is presented as you describe. 4e wasn't nearly that bad and it still turned me off for that reason.

You were turned off because the books were too useful? I feel like I'm not grasping your meaning here.

I don't mean that books shouldn't be beautiful or have nice fluff. I'm on record as thinking the 3E Draconomicon is arguably the best first-party D&D book of all time.

But I think of the 3E Monsternomicon or Atlas Games' Penumbra Fantasy Bestiary. Both of them were gorgeous, but were so overly designed that, with the Fantasy Bestiary especially, it greatly slowed down play at the table just trying to find the information I needed at the table. (Which is a shame, because the Fantasy Bestiary is stuffed full of great monsters that are just my style.)

 

[Faolyn]

You haven't heard of the staggeringly precise quantifications of how Black ancestry granted differing civil rights, both in the U.S. and South Africa (and I suspect, elsewhere), along with the incredibly racist bases for such reasoning?

I hear you on wanting to feel represented in D&D, but does that necessarily have to come with being multi-racial gives a character mechanical benefits distinct from either parent?

It's not my personal experience, so I'm asking and listening here: Are the specific half-ancestry mechanical differences required to tell those stories and represent characters of that sort of background?

I think it's less about mechanics and more about recognition and validity. If only "whole" or "pure" races are presented (in a game that has traditionally had half-races), then it suggests that those people of mixed ancestry don't count and even don't exist. As I suggested earlier, they could have simply let people switch out one or a couple of abilities rather than create half-elves and half-orcs and even that would be enough to show that mixed ancestry is a thing that is recognized as valid.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I think it's less about mechanics and more about recognition and validity. If only "whole" or "pure" races are presented (in a game that has traditionally had half-races), then it suggests that those people of mixed ancestry don't count and even don't exist. As I suggested earlier, they could have simply let people switch out one or a couple of abilities rather than create half-elves and half-orcs and even that would be enough to show that mixed ancestry is a thing that is recognized as valid.

I suspect they're worrying about folks min-maxing those rules, but off the top of my head, I don't see any egregious ways to break things by allowing that. If you haven't submitted a survey yet, I'd put that in the big block at the end as a suggestion.