D&D General Former WotC Employee Greg Bilsland Returning to D&D?

[Henadic Theologian]

Honestly, I think their departure makes radical shifts to tge Core Rules less likely, not more.

I don't expect any changes to the core rules period until 6e.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

Even if the next 5 years are planned out by WotC - which I think is unlikely to be true in any meaningful sense - the odds of them sticking to that plan with new people in charge seem very low.

A road map is mostly just like

Year 1: MM, Dragon Delve, Box Set, Eberron: Forge of the Artificer, Lorwyn, Forgotten Realms Player's Guide, Forgotten Realms Adventurers Guide

Year 2. Book A, Book B, Book C, Book D

Year 3 Book E, Book F, Book G, Book H

Etc...

With leads picked for each planned Book.

 

[MNblockhead]

He’s the DM in this video.

Blast from the past. I remember watching this to get a sense of how the game played.

 

[darjr]

Oh wow! It's got 1.1 million views! How many other actual play videos have that many views?!

 

[overgeeked]

Oh wow! It's got 1.1 million views! How many other actual play videos have that many views?!

You’re looking at Critical Role and Dimension 20 territory there. I doubt anyone else even comes close.

 

[Parmandur]

I don't expect any changes to the core rules period until 6e.

I don't expect a "6E" per se ever again: more 5E iterations periodically, maybe.

 

[Parmandur]

Oh wow! It's got 1.1 million views! How many other actual play videos have that many views?!

Critical Role pretty regularly pulls multiple millions per video, at least. Though obviously they are top of the heap.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

A road map is mostly just like

Year 1: MM, Dragon Delve, Box Set, Eberron: Forge of the Artificer, Lorwyn, Forgotten Realms Player's Guide, Forgotten Realms Adventurers Guide

Year 2. Book A, Book B, Book C, Book D

Year 3 Book E, Book F, Book G, Book H

Etc...

With leads picked for each planned Book.

Yeah, I'm aware.

I think it's unlikely actually has a 5-year roadmap at that level of detail (which isn't even a high level, I agree) for 5E 2024, and even if they do, it's wildly unlikely that the new people coming in are going to stick to it. Frankly it's unlikely even if the old team was still there that they'd have stuck to it.

 

[DEFCON 1]

I don't expect a "6E" per se ever again: more 5E iterations periodically, maybe.

Had Project Sigil continued on and finally got released in its full version with 5E mechanics programmed and available to players within it, I might have agreed with you-- especially if the program gained real traction with gamers across the globe. At that point you wouldn't want to require massive changes to the programming by creating a whole new edition's worth of mechanical changes. Same way Blizzard has never done a full reboot/sequel to World of Warcraft, they've just iterated and maintained in order to keep the programming on the same path that all their players have been able to keep up with.

But now that Sigil is seemingly done and instead WotC/DDB is now using Maps as their baseline VTT? That would be able to support a much larger mechanical change in framework that we would probably see in a 6E down the line. And quite frankly... I would be very surprised if Wes Schneider, Justice Arman, MacKensie Armas, and now Greg Bilsland all remained fine being just custodians and stewards to a D&D edition whose original design they had little to nothing to do with. At some point as is always the case with a changeover in design and development staff... the new crew will have dealt with and been annoyed by all the proud nails in the game for so long that they will want to do a fuller reboot just to clean stuff up that has always bothered them. And with Mearls, Perkins, and Crawford no longer there to keep a gentle hand on the game edition they created... everyone else can now think about what the future might bring.

 

[Parmandur]

Had Project Sigil continued on and finally got released in its full version with 5E mechanics programmed and available to players within it, I might have agreed with you-- especially if the program gained real traction with gamers across the globe. At that point you wouldn't want to require massive changes to the programming by creating a whole new edition's worth of mechanical changes. Same way Blizzard has never done a full reboot/sequel to World of Warcraft, they've just iterated and maintained in order to keep the programming on the same path that all their players have been able to keep up with.

But now that Sigil is seemingly done and instead WotC/DDB is now using Maps as their baseline VTT? That would be able to support a much larger mechanical change in framework that we would probably see in a 6E down the line. And quite frankly... I would be very surprised if Wes Schneider, Justice Arman, MacKensie Armas, and now Greg Bilsland all remained fine being just custodians and stewards to a D&D edition whose original design they had little to nothing to do with. At some point as is always the case with a changeover in design and development staff... the new crew will have dealt with and been annoyed by all the proud nails in the game for so long that they will want to do a fuller reboot just to clean stuff up that has always bothered them. And with Mearls, Perkins, and Crawford no longer there to keep a gentle hand on the game edition they created... everyone else can now think about what the future might bring.

The Beyond platform, full of a decade of first and third party compatible material, seems more than sufficient to dampen the desire for change.