Except we don't know that they will not be republished. As I have said over and over again the past few days: I am hopeful they will release a UA/Xanthar's/Tasha's style book that will include variant and optional rules (among other things). Such a book seems likely to me, I just don't know if it will include variant rules or not. But I am hopeful that it does for those who want them.
Who cares if it's the "same game"?
Well for sure inside the dungeon you are probably tracking it closer than when the group is in downtime. I need to know when "The present" is though because the Duke is getting assassinated on the timeline. You see I work out events in my world that will occur unless the PCs stop them. But sure we may just say a week passes as the group has downtime after an adventure. I'm not marking every turn in that week.
If they were popular, they would have been in the core rules. There is no reason to expect WotC will publish a book of unpopular rules.
Agree with your point. I think this is why I quit play D&D and went to other D&D like games. WOTC just doesn't give a flying fig about me or my playstyle. They wouldn't put one word in the DMG to make me happier. In fact, if they knew I really wanted that word they'd probably remove it. They are pushing a different style of game with D&D flavor but not really D&D experience. They will churn through players but will new 5e players today still be playing 5e2048? I doubt it.
Are they? Maybe these are mostly for new people? I mean, from everything I have seen and heard I would much rather new people (particularly DMs) get the new books than the old ones. So it seems like a good move on several levels to me. Also, spending $150* bucks on very similar books every 10 years is still a great value IMO. And the great thing is you don't have to buy them to play 5e! Seems like a win / win to me.
No they will be play 7th or 8th edition, as WotC, or whoever owns the company then, would want.
It is a cheap hobby. This is why WOTC seems to eternally struggle. If they could monetize the real value, they could have 10% the players and make far more money. In fact there is a market for them to support every edition of D&D as if it were live, if they could monetize it correctly.
You could be correct; however, IIRC, they already said there will be a Xanthar's/Tasha's style book that comes out fairly soon after the core books. It seems like it would have room to include things that are not in the core books besides just races, backgrounds, and the artificer. I am hopeful that book will include variant rules, but I am not particularly optimistic it will. I can definitely see their reason that the 2024 DMG is geared heavily to new DMs, and maybe they think variant rules might be for more seasoned DMs.
I'm going to support this and call attention to the fact that in places where the new dmg seems to leave GM's unsupported ∆, the phb side of resting and recovery gives rules with a very specific very low bar rather than calling for trust in the gm
