D&D (2024) Kobold Press posts 2024 DMG Hit Piece

[Mort]

I'll have to look at it. As a whole, though, D&D has been getting blander and blander since 5e came out.

Well, the perils of courting mega corporationdom.

But, I don't know. I took a look at Phandelver and Below, and while I HATED the direction they went, I certainly wouldn't call it bland.

 

[Parmandur]

Well, the perils of courting mega corporationdom.

But, I don't know. I took a look at Phandelver and Below, and while I HATED the direction they went, I certainly wouldn't call it bland.

Phandelver & Below is probably the low point of the past 3 years of products...but even the stuff past Lost Mines is still pretty usable, and actually a bit wild. "Lack of creativity" is not the problem with that campaign.

 

[TheSword]

I'll have to look at it. As a whole, though, D&D has been getting blander and blander since 5e came out.

Check out Keys from the Golden Vault too. A lot of the adventures are really good. On par with some of the best Dungeon Magazine adventures. Murkmire Conspiracy, Stygian Gambit and Masterpiece Imbroglio are the best.

 

[Mort]

Check out Keys from the Golden Vault too. A lot of the adventures are really good. On par with some of the best Dungeon Magazine adventures. Murkmire Conspiracy, Stygian Gambit and Masterpiece Imbroglio are the best.

I really like the adventure collections offered from WoTC recently. Not all the adventures are great, or even good, but there are quite a few real winners and since they're so plug and play, you can just use the ones that work for you.

 

[LordOfTheWaffleHouse]

You're missing the point. The 2014 options worked because WE (the DMs) knew how to make them work. For example, there is an option to make short rests 5 minutes and long rests an hour. It's called epic heroism and it's given two whole paragraphs in the DMG. The only suggestion it gives is couched in "you may want to" and that's still "slow down spell slot recovery and consider using harder fights".

Now, you and I know that making rests that easy means PCs will chew through material much above their level, the encounter guidelines are useless, treasure needs to be reduced to compensate, and there is absolutely no way you can run any adventure as written. We know this because we are familiar with the general balance of D&D and 5e in particular. But what does a new DM (or one who doesn't dive into the metrics of the game, there are DMs who don't care about such things) do when they see that, think "yeah, that sounds cool" and implement it for their next campaign? Disaster. And WotC doesn't explain why you have to do more than add an extra few monsters to the fights.

For such a system to work, a lot of things need to be accounted for. The recovery rate of spell slots, character features tied to SR/LR. Magic items. Encounter building. Adventure design. Things that take more than two paragraphs to explain. And that is one example. What if I combine Epic Heroism with Spell Points? What are the perils of that?

So maybe it's better to take things that easily break the game and remove them for the core books. Put them in a supplement where they belong (be it an official or a 3pp one) where the ramifications can be spelled out in more than two paragraphs.

To be fair, they did this in 3.5 and it contributed to 3.5 having such poor sales in many titles. Certain supplements were amazing, while others were okay, and some were bland. Many players (myself included at the time I got into dnd) had no idea how to navigate all of those additional supplementary materials. For new DM's, this is off putting, and does effectively keep newer players from even giving the game a try or, god forbid, attempting to DM themselves. At this point you almost need a master-apprentice style teaching relationship to DM properly because the DMG for 5e was... Well largely useless, and from it's core many mechanics and rules seem very unfinished or rushed.

I think this is a problem with WotC's current philosophy more than anything else, which reminds me of Bethesda's general style of releasing games, which is to say "release it broken, the modders will fix it later". At the end of the day, the core rule books should explain the BASIC. RULES. required to play the game. The biggest gripe I had with the DMG was the distinct lack of pricing or tables and the lack of most other rules that previously existed, such as magic item creation, and I ultimately used the DMG very, very sparingly. For a veteran or experienced DM, it's not all that helpful, but the problem is that even for new DM's who had no experience, it was confusing and almost useless without homebrewing.

They really need to just get a handle on the core rules and include them, in plain English, and in a proper order. That's it. We don't need the DMG to be this spectacular, grandiose second coming of RNGesus or something like that. We just need it to index tables and less used rules like grappling, and actually explain them.

 

[Maxperson]

Check out Keys from the Golden Vault too. A lot of the adventures are really good. On par with some of the best Dungeon Magazine adventures. Murkmire Conspiracy, Stygian Gambit and Masterpiece Imbroglio are the best.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that they aren't putting out some quality adventures. I'm just lamenting the loss of the uniqueness that was in the original Spelljammer, Dark Sun, Planescape, Birthright, Council of Wyrms, etc. They had very unique settings with a lot of unique things about them.

I'll bet you could plug most or all of those Golden Vault adventures into pretty much any currently published setting.

 

[mamba]

I'll bet you could plug most or all of those Golden Vault adventures into pretty much any currently published setting.

that kinda was the point though

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Being unwilling to throw more money at WotC at this point is I think a measured, intelligent choice given that situation.

So. I assume you wanted to say:

"I assessed the situation given my preferences and decided not to buy WotC stuff for several reasons. I do aknowledge however that other intelligent people come to different conclusions."

And did not mean:
"I am intelligent, so I don't buy WotC stuff, unlike the dumb fanboy sheeps..."

 

[Maxperson]

that kinda was the point though

If that was the point, it wasn't really answering what I've been saying which is there is no uniqueness and they've gone generic and kitchen sink. A good generic kitchen sink is still a generic kitchen sink.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

The most astonishing thing to me is the claim that the mere existence of an appendix n encourages gatekeeping. That's like claiming the mere existence of a rifle encourages murder, rather than hunting or target practice.

Having easy access does mean that more accidents happen. Because people who don't know or care about security will use them.

Or the existence of a hammer encourages hammer assaults, rather than hitting nails.

I would put the hammer in a place that is not easily accesible for my young kid though.

The mere existence of a tool does not encourage misuses of that tool.

You still don't want to have kids play with them. Some tools require spcial training. Even trained people get hurt using tools, because they are sometimes careless or assess something wrong.

Short of language in an appendix n asserting that people should use it for gatekeeping, or the company uses it for gatekeeping, or other similar language, no such encouragement exists.

People who misuse a tool are 100% at fault. Not the tool in any way.

No. But people leaving nails carelessly on the floor of a children's playground.

So while I do think that there would have been place in the different play style chapter to mention that for some games less rests or more rests are appropriate, those rolls need some context and warning.

I mentioned it before. But I played Monopoly with official rules for the first time in my life last year and the game was actually fun...
and playing Doppelkopf with official rules is also more fun than using all those house rules.

So either designers actually thought about some rule implications or over time the best games with the rules have persisted.