D&D (2024) Revised 6E prediction thread

By the same token, the people who demand more and more crunch will also be disappointed, because that's not the sweet spot of the mass market any more.
Your own post nicey illustrates why that bolded bit is probably off. There might be degrees of "I wanted more crunch than we got" or "I wanted crunch in other areas than we got", but the simplicity for the sake of simplicity excludes people who want crunch by removing the dials knobs & hooks needed
But that's not what is likely to happen. D&D is the "big tent" TTRPG. Which means that the people who want it to completely eschew the past (get rid of classes! get rid the standard six ability scores! use a Blades in the Dark inventory system!) will be disappointed, because a huge selling point of D&D is the legacy and the nostalgia.
Yes to a degree it's a big tent, but that means the tent needs to include wide disparate groups. In the case of people who want more crunch it's possible to include both people who want crunch as well as people who think that simplicity for the sake of simplicity is the best thing ever in one of a few ways
  • You include the crunch in the core & add a one sentence. I'll use the tactical elements & AoOs as an example "variant: Optionally for a $verb $adjective game you can can choose to ignore all Attacks of Opportunity other than making a ranged attack while within reach of a hostile opponent & leaving the reach of a hostile opponent without first using the disengage action"
  • Include hooks for the crunch but hide the crunch itself in a sidebar or table somewhere such as "abilities with (Su) (Sp) tags will provoke an attack of opportunity as will making a ranged attack while threatened or moving more than 5 feet through threatened terrain without taking the disengage action"
The first one is going to be easier & more future proofed since people who don't want the AoOs in later additions can just ignore them while future additions could trivially require a complete rewrite of the sidebar or table. A big tent philosophy and one true way drawing lines of exclusion to say crunch is bad so must be excluded are at odds with each other
 

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Depends on taste i suppose. I get where you're coming from, but it'd depend a bit how the system worked. A barbarian with 5 Con is damn near as hamstrung as the 5 Wis cleric, for instance and a low-Dex monk is a very sad panda, but i suppose a variant of the system that allocated different numbers of dice to multiple abilities in the case of MAD classes could work.

Having said that, the dice fall where they may. My first ever D&D game was 4d6 drop lowest, roll 7 times and discard the lowest result, then arrange as preferred. I rolled 11, 10, 8, 7, 7, 5, 4. Tell you what, as a keen youngster, that was deflating as hell, though my more-experienced DM was kind enough to let me throw those stats and re-roll.

Which is why I think stat generation methods will remain largely as they are in any future 6e. We allow players to pick every other aspect of their character, so why bind them to the whims of the dice for ability scores in particular? And this is especially relevant for new players, who are more likely to get discouraged if they feel underpowered at the table compared to someone who had better luck with the dice during chargen.

Though in reference to the original conversation, I agree I would love to see abilities being more relevant to classes even if they're not a prime requisite. Str in particular is wonderful for armoured frontline melee combatants and absolutely useless for anyone else. You can't even make a brutish Str-based rogue without being wildly suboptimal, given sneak attack is restricted to Dex weapons.
If Characters are going to pick their scores they are naturally going to pick which score to make their lowest (say intelligence for the Barbarian or strength for the Rogue). There is no way to eliminate this without taking away abilities all together. No matter wheat you do some abilities will be worth dumping. A high strength or expertise in athletics is required for any character to be effective at grappling or shoving. A high wisdom is required to be able to be able to stay in coontrol of your character against wisdom saves. More hp helps everyone. The reason these are dumped by certain classes is because they are less important, not becuse they are unimportant and players will always consider those tradeoffs if they are choosing what scores to make high and low.

Rolling and arranging them is no better than point buy in this regard, just brings an element of chance to it. The only way to really do this right is to lock scores in place.

A str based rogue is very viable if you roll a high strength on your rogue and can't reduce it by putting another roll in its place or reducing the score in another ability and the strength-based rogue has the same attack and damage bonus as the dex-based rogue with the same score.

Most DMs don't allow below an 8 in any score, but if you do have an 8 build your character around it. Barbarian with an 18 strength and 8 constitution - use finnesse weapons, take some levels in Rogue and get SA dice while also getting advantage every time you are in reckless rage .... or if you have a high wisdom take a few monk levels, or if you have high intelligence take 2 levels in wizard to get bladesong a couple shields to use when not raging.
 

If I am being honest with myself:

I don’t think there will be a 6e per se. much as I can play my Xbox series x with buddies and who have the Xbox one, I think the rules will mesh. There will be new fluff and new options and certainly new language but I think they will keep the core mechanic and the current rules will be compatible if not a step behind.

they will count on people buying into the new art and new options. I think bounded accuracy and the action economy will be roughly the same.

I think they will have a disclaimer about the new rules trumping the old where there is disagreement.

tashas will be core so to speak. The whole lineage and species thing will certainly happen. There will be lots of disclaimers and changes due to sensitivity issues. They will try to get rid of most narrative tropes but will keep the class based system.

it will be easily recognizable and usable for current 5e players. As a result, being generally satisfied with the current edition (not completely but is that possible) I don’t predict much of a need for me or my group to purchase it.

75% of the changes will be cosmetic and driven by concerns other than game design.

they will clean up bonus actions I suspect. I am thinking they include errata of course, many sage advice rulings and plaster coat and insert new disclaimers and narratives for reasons well telegraphed.

my big question is how long will this stay so popular? Genuinely. Now at my kids school they are playing at lunch and in clubs! like we did at recess.

I wonder how long that will last.

broadly, the further forward we go the more the game will be divorced from its war game roots and skilled play imperative. Not that this is inferior per se, just that even as the rules may not change a ton, play examples and media will focus more and more on narrative and story telling.

min my group story is frequently emergent based on in game decisions and then we improvise and roll with it based on what we think about our pc.

down the road I predict the encouragement will be for more shared world building, more realizing what the character has written for their background with dm being encouraged to not only use it but to her more closely to the player’s narrative.

mall that said, I don’t think the rules will change dramatically in any next iteration.
 



I would love to split the “background” “Linage” and “culture” all get fleshed out more to replace race/subrace.
I would LOVE if all the classes had the warlock treatment. 2 sub classes (1st and 3rd level) plus lots of little choices (invocations) with your choices giving you daily at will and short rest abilities.
 


Posters keep using that word. I do not think it means what they think it means.
Oh, I can't resist:
1612284882434.png
 


Yeah, should have said 'lie'.

Funny. But still not accurate (as far as I know*).

"Hey, we are going to do X!" followed by "Hmm....X didn't really work out like we hoped." is neither a lie nor a promise broken.

*Caveat: I suppose it's possible they knew it wasn't true when they said it. :-/
 

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