D&D General The Double-Edged Sword: Is The New D&D Edition a Cash Grab in Disguise?

[Parmandur]

I think everyone understands that a company releases a product in order to make a profit, so you don't often hear people complaining about this. At least I don't recall a whole lot of people pointing to the release of the 5th edition Player's Handbook or Curse of Strahd as cash grabs. When somebody refers to something as a cash grab, they're aruging the company is releasing an inferior product in order to make a quick buck.

Yeah, but thst standard doesn't seem to apply here: take it or leave it, they've spent years on these revisions.

 

[Kurotowa]

Yes im sure WotC is benevolent at heart and isn’t concerned about profit at all.

It's not a binary. Creators who completely disregard profits end up out of business and able to create nothing. That's the reality of living in a capitalist system. If you want creators to be able to create with no business interest at all, go fight for a Universal Basic Income. Maybe when we're living a post-scarcity socialist utopia, profit motive will be a pointless distraction.

In the here and now, though, it's a spectrum. And no, the Revised core books are not that far on the "cash grab" end of it.

 

[mamba]

Can you talk more about how it's a blight on this industry? It stopped the OGL nonsense.

the clickbaity videos did not stop the OGL, there were plenty of other ways the word got out. The fans stopped the OGL debacle, the clickbaiters before, during and after are just parasites on the TTRPG ecosystem

 

[mamba]

We can all pretend it's not a new addition, but all classes, races and backgrounds are different. All 12 classes, from Barbarian to Wizard, are undergoing revisions.

meh, there are changes, of course there are, that is the whole point, but they are compatible with 5e. If WotC says this is no new edition then I do not really have a reason to disagree with that

 

[Thomas Shey]

So you would say this is a new edition of a very familiar old thing?

One of a long string.

 

[Zardnaar]

I do not regard it as a cash grab. It's been 10 years and 5E has various issues that would be nice to have them fixed.

The following editions I regard as cash grabs. That being money being the over riding factor vs a somewhat genuine desire to make a better game.

1E. Screw Arneson out of royalties.

3.5 and 4E rushed out the door after a very small time frame.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Yeah, but thst standard doesn't seem to apply here: take it or leave it, they've spent years on these revisions.

They don't seem to have been working on them very intensively for the 1.75 years or so it's been since the playtest started. Rather it looks like the changes have been somewhat slow/light - we're talking the same time period that 4E and D&D Next/5E went from nothing to "full games", and given you yourself have claimed these changes are "less than a .5 edition", it seems weird to simultaneously appear to imply they're super-high-effort, given that.

Also, at least 30-50% of what they've presented has involved bizarre and terrible ideas no-one asked for, and the community as told them such. So I feel like there's been a fair amount of wasted effort that was "obviously" going to be wasted. I will note the stuff the community has said "HELL NO" to has pretty much 100% been stuff I read and immediately "God that's a terrible idea", and I'm mystified that WotC's designers even put it through (like nerfing Rogues, for god's sake lol! Rogues!)

As for a "cash grab", well, I think what defines a cash grab is usually the "grab" element - you don't usually see a "cash grab" followed by longer-term support. If 5E goes on another 5-10 years with the 2024 design, and is supported at at least the level if has been since 2014 (which has varied a bit, but we know what it is), I don't think 2024 can reasonably be called a "cash grab". If, on the other hand, if D&D suddenly has a massive drop in non-digital support in say, 2 years, then yeah, we might have to go back and take another look at whether it was.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

3.5 and 4E rushed out the door after a very small time frame.

5E was also rushed out after a very small time frame, let's not pretend - it was developed in about the same amount of time as 4E (i.e. - not enough - both were rushed out the door) and developed fewer years after 4E than 4E was after 3E.

 

[Zardnaar]

5E was also rushed out after a very small time frame, let's not pretend - it was developed in about the same amount of time as 4E (i.e. - not enough - both were rushed out the door) and developed fewer years after 4E than 4E was after 3E.

3 year development cycle. 4E on paper but apparently they started over and rushed it out the door incomplete. 5E was 3 years , 4E was more lije 2 with some saying 18 months to less than a year.

How many races and classes were missing from the 3.5 phb?

They cut content to sell it to you later, pushed the VTT at expense of quality and that release schedule and "everything is core".

 

[cbwjm]

I really don't think the new books are a cash grab. It's been 10 or so years and a lot has changed since 2014. I think they're taking on all of the changes they've already made as well as feedback from players to make what they think will be positive changes for the game.