IT isn't just them wanting broken stuff (but look at my screen name i know people who that is true for) it's Ross wanting a new cool warlock pact, and Jim wanting the werewolf class from this, and kurt wanting just these two feats from these two books.... it adds up
Whereas if a player gets Tasha’s before I do, I only need to read their character once made to see what it’s strengths and weaknesses are in order to better run a fun and challenging game, same as if I ran a PHB only game. I don’t need to check for balance, because nothing they’ve printed so far has been outside the phb balance, and the PHB is much narrower than folks act like it is.
As @darjr pointed out, realistically, there will still be plenty on the shelves for quite a while, and even after that, used ones will likely be extremely cheap, but pretending WotC are going to keep publishing them, even though would make no sense whatsoever, and they haven't said they would, just because, technically have definitely said they would is absolutely ludicrous behaviour.
The 2014 core books are not the exclusive entirety of 5e D&D. New revised versions will still be 5e. This whole line of thought relies on bunk premises.
2 : characterized by lack of truth, honesty, or trustworthiness : UNFAIR, DECEPTIVE
Actually fascinated because I didn't know the obsolete meaning!
But unless you regard all marketing and opinion as "lacking in trustworthiness", which y'know, fair if you do, I don't think there's anything particularly egregious about KP's statement. And if you do regard marketing that way, then the entire D&D Direct we just have from WotC should be characterized as "dishonest".
And as I keep saying, the "our version will be closer!" is just opinion/marketing. Is it kind of funny? Yeah a little bit. But it's not "wrong" or something,
1. 5th Edition Core Rulebooks are going away.The 5E Monster Manual, Player’s Handbook, and Dungeon Master’s Guide will not stay in print. New players must either use purely digital rulebooks (which works for some people) or find a new version.
this dishonestly indicates that the 2024 rule books won’t be 5e, and even implies (accidentally if we give them benefit of the doubt, but they refuse to change it so I don’t care if it was accidental) that wotc will reduce or remove support for 5e that isn’t digital, especially by saying “or find soemthing new” in contrast to that statement.
That isn’t just marketing or opinion, it is a communication presented as statements of fact that are not accurate, and indeed are inaccurate in ways that we can and should expect them to know are innacurate. That’s dishonest.
We aim to keep the spirit of tabletop alive by producing beautiful, inviting versions of the core rulebooks for those who prefer to play face-to-face and those who don’t want to pay a monthly subscription to play.
Indicating as if factually that wotc won’t be keeping the spirit of tabletop alive, and that sticking with official 5e will require a monthly subscription, which isn’t remotely in evidence.
Also positions them rhetorically as the saviors of tabletop roleplaying, which is insanely arrogant, and relies upon fear-mongering sourced in, at best, debunked rumors and “reporting” from known liars.
We want to keep 5E vibrant and strong at the heart of a community of players and publishers. Your investment in 5E will be supported by Project Black Flag because it is compatible with the game you already know.”
This is the only part of this bullet point that is just marketing. The only issue is that combined with the above it implies a disparity between this and what wotc is doing, which is not in evidence.
This is a disingenuous query. It is extremely clear that they are saying no such thing, and that you are twisting their words and using pedantry to target the way the talk rather than the substance of their statements.
If you said "distasteful", I wouldn't really argue, to be honest. I don't agree but that's literally a matter of taste.
"Dishonest" is what I have a problem with, because it invokes a much stronger notion that there's something fundamentally incorrect, and I don't think anyone has demonstrated that. Calling it a "dark road" is also ludicrously dramatic I would personally suggest.
You’re quite clear, and are being pretty egregiously gaslit, talked down to for no reason, and generally snarked at way beyond what could ever be called appropriate.
I knwo this wasn't directed at me, but I think I have a pretty fair answer...
IF 1D&D is just a slight variation but still 5e, then so is black flagg
if 1D&D is enough of a change to be a new half (0.5) edition, then so is black flagg
if 1 D&D is enough of a change to be a new edition (6e) then so is black flagg
again this is based on what we have seen... they seem to be changing the same amount of things. So you MIGHT hit any of those 3 conclusions and be pretty fair.
the unfair reading is "1 D&D is enough of a change to be a full or half edition change but Black flagg isn't"
Right, and the idea that wotc is abandoning 5e by revising it a bit, while KP is “keeping it alive” by…revising it a bit, is dishonest. It is misleading, indicating a dynamic that isn’t extant from any evidence available to us, and relies on viewing “5e” as only the 2014 core book set in one part, but defining it much more loosely in another, in order to paint themselves as the saviors of 5e D&D.
I literally don't know what that means. Indeed, if you're merely incorrect, you're not being dishonest - you need mens rea - i.e. to knowingly mislead - to be dishonest.
Your apperently interpretation of the definition you snidely posted (dictionary quoting, really?) indicated that the statement needs be incorrect in order to be dishonest. They are saying that this is incorrect. It’s not remotely a confusing statement.
Which still, to me, is a completely unjustified double standard. The one and only difference between the two is that you may have already read the WotC content. But if someone brings Tasha's to a table that hasn't bought it yet, there's literally nothing different between it and 3PP: both have dubious playtesting, and baseline 5e is, shall we say, erratic about power levels.
Wotc material is vastly better balanced, and its playtesting isn’t remotely “dubious”, you just dislike the communication about it because they don’t break down the nitty gritty math of the results.
If you think 5e is erratic about power levels, I’m not sure what to even say to that. Did you ever play any D&D before 4e? Because 5e is barely less balanced than 4e, just more loosely defined, but previous editions were about as balanced as a tumbleweed that’s been run over a few times, in comparison.
There is an immense different between official 5e and any 3pp I’ve read this far, from small publications to Green Ronin and Kobold Press. I don’t have to review 5e books before letting players use them. At all. They just work. I have to rebuild KP books before use.
I mean, people still call the Hexblade and Gloomstalker “broken”, so I don’t expect to see much great balance analysis online about wotc products, but come on, this is kinda silly. It’s like people screeching that the ranger was broken in 4e and the assassin was “worthless”, when in reality the power difference was barely noticeable in play, akin to differently built members of either class.
4e did have excessive amounts of feats (and powers), but not to the degree most folks think. 3e absolutely had an excess of feats, and PF continued that trend. Two thirds or more of 3e feats could be eliminated without negatively impacting the game at all. The same cannot be said of 4e, mostly because a lot of 4e feats are simply narrow-but-useful, or categories (e.g. all the dozens of armor or weapon proficiency feats.) Probably the only feat category that never justified its existence in 4e was Teamwork feats. In theory they're a great idea, in practice they're never good enough to be worth spending a feat on, and if they were they'd probably be OP.
4e had exponentially more feats than would have been reasonable. It had too many by a wider margin than most people think. It had so many feats most players I know absolutely despised even thinking about feats, much less choosing one, by the time our 4e games finally slowed down as we grudgingly checked out 5e around 2015ish. We were grateful for the character builder separating feats in such a way we could just only look at a couple dozen at most, and pretend the rest didn’t exist, especially after essentials came out.
Folks, let me reiterate, and expand on, what I said earlier - I think this is really a case of misreading and/or misunderstand the FAQ.
And I don't mean that to sound negative! I can absolutely see how it could have been misconstrued.
I’m sorry, but putting the misunderstanding on the reading is unfair in this case. If you can see why the message was unclear, why haven’t you at least stated an intent to fix it? (If you have and I missed it I apologize)
As others have said, including me, marketing and messaging is a difficult and nuanced thing, and we hear those folks who feel that the statements being referred to were not as clear as we intended - we honestly do! We are ALWAYS listening, both to our fans, and those with critiques, and we are always striving to be better.
Our point was very simply this:
The current 5E Players Handbook, Monster Manual and DM's Guide will not continue to be in print once the new version, or edition, or whatever it is being called is released. Those 3 books will still be available in stores as long as their current stock remains, but they will be more and more difficult to buy over time, and eventually those hardcovers will be very tough to find
Okay but if the new ones are revisions, not a new game, then it is incorrect to say that they won’t be printing 5e books. They also have in no way indicated that existing 5e supplements won’t continue to be supported, and indeed the opposite has been strongly indicated.
Wizards seems to taking a more digital, subscription-based model. This does NOT mean we were in any way trying to imply they would not sell the new books in print! In fact, there is no indication that they will not still sell the books for the new (edition / version / incarnation, etc.) in physical format, but they are absolutely going more heavily with the digital, subscription-based model
But we already know they aren’t pushing digital in a way wherein players would need to choose between wotc’s 5e D&D and being able to continue playing new 5e content without a digital subscription, which is what you very strongly imply in the FAQ.
The point of the FAQ is simply to say that the new Project Black Flag books will be produced in beautiful hard cover, as well as PDFs and VTT, and there will be no subscription-based model.
That is wonderful to hear, even though I love subscriptions that aren’t predatory, and I hope you guys revise the faq to be more clear on that, leaving out the implied digs at wotc for planning on strongly supporting digital and print, and indeed focusing a lot of the digital efforts on supporting tabletop play.
Again, we get that some folks did not get that from what we said, and we acknowledge that we could have said it in a way that made it more clear. Bottom line is this - we are working extremely hard to make something truly great that is firmly routed in the 5E game many of us love, while at the same time improving those aspects we (and many others) feel need to be improved. We hope that many of you love what we do, and having seen what's happening 'behind the curtains" I really think you will! But for those that end up not liking it, or deciding to play a different game, or playing both, or whatever - it's all good! The main thing is play what you want and have fun!
I would just ask that folks maybe consider not continuing to ascribe such nefarious or otherwise disingenuous motives. Kobold Press is made up of an extremely talented and dedicated group of people the LOVE gaming and love 5E, and really the main motivation is to make a game that folks love
I know some folks I have blocked are being jerks about it, and I’m sorry if my posts seem to pile on as a result of those posts I can’t see.
I for one, and I know at least @Bolares as well, like KP and plan to continue buying KP products. Black flag looks like a cool revision of 5e that I figure (so far) I’ll be able to mix and match with the 2024 PHB and ongoing supplements for all the newly branching pathways of 5e D&D, official and third-party.
I believe so, but it is really hard to tell. Definitely from the Next playtest to 5e there were things that were never playtested. Similarily, things that were liked in UA throughout the years are often changed a bit before they appear officially. I don't know the numbers (they haven't always made them public), but UA stuff I liked definitely hasn't made it into official releases.
Not sure why you're tagging me since he/she/they are clearly stating they just aren't sure as opposed to your posts which keep implying WotC is placing business decisions over game design decisions/creative vision... without being able to determine what their creative vision is, without criteria for how you determine whether a company is or isn't following it, while equating business decisions with short term decision and so on... But yeah I included myself as well as far as opinions being irrelevant... especially when the evidence we do have doesn't support the theory being put forth.
See, that's the thing. It's a big deal if you don't like the changes, and not a big deal if you do. Everything else is just our personal spin/opinion on it. And liking the changes doesn't make you "right" any more than not liking the changes makes me "wrong".
See, that's the thing. It's a big deal if you don't like the changes, and not a big deal if you do. Everything else is just our personal spin/opinion on it.
eh, it’s not a big deal if I do not like them either, I am not as invested as you are. If I do not like them I stick with 5e or try something else.
Heck, I’ll look into others regardless.
If I liked LU as much as you seem to (haven’t looked into it enough to say either way) I’d not care about 1DD at all.
