D&D (2024) WotC Fireside Chat: Revised 2024 Player’s Handbook

In this video about the upcoming revised Player’s Handnook, WotC’s Jeremy Crawford and Chris Perkins reveal a few new tidbits.

• The books are near final and almost ready to go to print
• Psionic subclasses such as the Soulknife and Psi Warrior will appear in the core books
• Named spells have art depicting their creators.
• There are new species in the PHB.

​

 

[Micah Sweet]

You do realize that even if you don't sell a book, it still costs money to make, right? And money to store. And if you just make a small print run, then you can run into issues of greater demand the problems with the extra cost to do an emergency print run to meet demand.

Sure, on the consumer side, I'm not technically harmed by any of this. But I'd prefer the company NOT to hemorrhage money.

If the company wants to make smarter business choices, that's their prerogative. But that has nothing to do with my lack in belief in bloat as a real problem for a game, from the consumer point of view I am taking. TSR made a ton of product that defied business sense and led to their demise, but I'm very happy from a consumer perspective that they did.

 

[Oofta]

If the company wants to make smarter business choices, that's their prerogative. But that has nothing to do with my lack in belief in bloat as a real problem for a game, from the consumer point of view I am taking. TSR made a ton of product that defied business sense and led to their demise, but I'm very happy from a consumer perspective that they did.

It's a problem because it's impossible to keep up either everything. Joe buys the Complete Book of Ducks which has the Quack Them Up spell. As a DM I know have to buy, borrow or double check at the table wasting time. Joe has a tendency to read things in his favor (not necessarily on purpose), so I like to double check. Then Kim gets The Greater Goose so she can play the Glorious Honker bard.

But it gets worse. Because there are so many feats, spells and combos there are trap options and incredibly OP option. Combine the Birds of a Feather feat with Quack Them Up and a Glorious Honker, throw in My Little Chickadee and suddenly you have an unstoppable gander. Don't even get me started on the combos if we throw in Glorious Groundhogs.

I could go through and weed all those out but I'll have frustrated players and I waste a lot of time and money as a DM. That, and because they needed more books they published Radical Rats which is just garbage.

Last but not least, people in all roles are just overwhelmed with the options. The paradox of choice makes it so they don't know what to do.

There are a lot of issues with bloat IMHO.

 

[Cadence]

It's a problem because it's impossible to keep up either everything. Joe buys the Complete Book of Ducks which has the Quack Them Up spell. As a DM I know have to buy, borrow or double check at the table wasting time. Joe has a tendency to read things in his favor (not necessarily on purpose), so I like to double check. Then Kim gets The Greater Goose so she can play the Glorious Honker bard.

But it gets worse. Because there are so many feats, spells and combos there are trap options and incredibly OP option. Combine the Birds of a Feather feat with Quack Them Up and a Glorious Honker, throw in My Little Chickadee and suddenly you have an unstoppable gander. Don't even get me started on the combos if we throw in Glorious Groundhogs.

I could go through and weed all those out but I'll have frustrated players and I waste a lot of time and money as a DM. That, and because they needed more books they published Radical Rats which is just garbage.

Last but not least, people in all roles are just overwhelmed with the options. The paradox of choice makes it so they don't know what to do.

There are a lot of issues with bloat IMHO.

I was doing well with one group that used my DDB for our campaign. If there is something they wanted that I hadn't already gotten and seemed reasonable, then I would a la carte just buy that one race/spell/archetype to add (there aren't that many, and they would be there for ever). WotC doing in a la Carte will nuke that. And of course it doesn't help if someone isn't using DDB.

 

[Oofta]

I was doing well with one group that used my DDB for our campaign. If there is something they wanted that I hadn't already gotten and seemed reasonable, then I would a la carte just buy that one race/spell/archetype to add (there aren't that many, and they would be there for ever). WotC doing in a la Carte will nuke that. And of course it doesn't help if someone isn't using DDB.

Yeah, DDB is going to get a lot less money from me in the future. I never buy adventure books but I'm a suckered for new monsters. Ah well.

DDB helps, but I still need to go through everything. Probably the biggest issue I have with bloat is that there are only so many ideas that fit and inevitably they do lower quality stuff.

 

[Micah Sweet]

It's a problem because it's impossible to keep up either everything. Joe buys the Complete Book of Ducks which has the Quack Them Up spell. As a DM I know have to buy, borrow or double check at the table wasting time. Joe has a tendency to read things in his favor (not necessarily on purpose), so I like to double check. Then Kim gets The Greater Goose so she can play the Glorious Honker bard.

But it gets worse. Because there are so many feats, spells and combos there are trap options and incredibly OP option. Combine the Birds of a Feather feat with Quack Them Up and a Glorious Honker, throw in My Little Chickadee and suddenly you have an unstoppable gander. Don't even get me started on the combos if we throw in Glorious Groundhogs.

I could go through and weed all those out but I'll have frustrated players and I waste a lot of time and money as a DM. That, and because they needed more books they published Radical Rats which is just garbage.

Last but not least, people in all roles are just overwhelmed with the options. The paradox of choice makes it so they don't know what to do.

There are a lot of issues with bloat IMHO.

Those are IMO choices on the part of the player and the DM. You don't have to stress about all that stuff. It's just personal preference, and I don't think your discomfort with being "forced" to vet incoming material should be a reason others get less content.

 

[Remathilis]

Those are IMO choices on the part of the player and the DM. You don't have to stress about all that stuff. It's just personal preference, and I don't think your discomfort with being "forced" to vet incoming material should be a reason others get less content.

I knew a DM who had a very nonchalant opinion on the matter: "if I throw a dragon at the party and they beat it easy, I throw two dragons at them next time." The one-upsmanship ended when the green dracolich from the FRCS tpk'd a 12th level party.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I knew a DM who had a very nonchalant opinion on the matter: "if I throw a dragon at the party and they beat it easy, I throw two dragons at them next time." The one-upsmanship ended when the green dracolich from the FRCS tpk'd a 12th level party.

I don't really see the relevance. Nothing I've heard here convinces me that RPG companies should produce less stuff. For example, there are tons of 3pp for 5e play out there right now. I know I am unaware of/ignore a lot of it, and I suspect you do too. Is that a problem? If not, I don't see how any one company making a lot of products would be. No matter who makes it, it's all just stuff you can take or leave.

 

[Epic Meepo]

Combine the Birds of a Feather feat with Quack Them Up and a Glorious Honker, throw in My Little Chickadee and suddenly you have an unstoppable gander. Don't even get me started on the combos if we throw in Glorious Groundhogs.

Please don't repost this on a MtG forum. It might give WotC ideas.

 

[Remathilis]

I don't really see the relevance. Nothing I've heard here convinces me that RPG companies should produce less stuff. For example, there are tons of 3pp for 5e play out there right now. I know I am unaware of/ignore a lot of it, and I suspect you do too. Is that a problem? If not, I don't see how any one company making a lot of products would be. No matter who makes it, it's all just stuff you can take or leave.

Oh, he was agreeing with you. One PC was a literal lich from the MM, another was a Psychic Warrior who could crit on a 12 or higher for x4 damage. That was 3.0 mind you. I'm pointing out it lead to an arms race and the DMs used a dragon built to challenge 16th level PCs (I don't recall the CR, it's been literal decades) to challenge 12th level ones and the DM saw that as the cost of doing business.

Let the PCs do their thing, the DM can always kill them when they want to.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Oh, he was agreeing with you. One PC was a literal lich from the MM, another was a Psychic Warrior who could crit on a 12 or higher for x4 damage. That was 3.0 mind you. I'm pointing out it lead to an arms race and the DMs used a dragon built to challenge 16th level PCs (I don't recall the CR, it's been literal decades) to challenge 12th level ones and the DM saw that as the cost of doing business.

Let the PCs do their thing, the DM can always kill them when they want to.

Oh, fair enough. Sorry for the "come at me, bro" attitude there. I'm often keyed up for people to go after my opinions.