D&D General The Double-Edged Sword: Is The New D&D Edition a Cash Grab in Disguise?

cbwjm said:

I really don't think the new books are a cash grab. It's been 10 or so years and a lot has changed since 2014. I think they're taking on all of the changes they've already made as well as feedback from players to make what they think will be positive changes for the game.

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DarkCrisis said:

More like

“How can we get them to buy the 3 core books again?”

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Ruin Explorer said:

They don't seem to have been working on them very intensively for the 1.75 years or so it's been since the playtest started. Rather it looks like the changes have been somewhat slow/light - we're talking the same time period that 4E and D&D Next/5E went from nothing to "full games", and given you yourself have claimed these changes are "less than a .5 edition", it seems weird to simultaneously appear to imply they're super-high-effort, given that.

Also, at least 30-50% of what they've presented has involved bizarre and terrible ideas no-one asked for, and the community as told them such. So I feel like there's been a fair amount of wasted effort that was "obviously" going to be wasted. I will note the stuff the community has said "HELL NO" to has pretty much 100% been stuff I read and immediately "God that's a terrible idea", and I'm mystified that WotC's designers even put it through (like nerfing Rogues, for god's sake lol! Rogues!)

As for a "cash grab", well, I think what defines a cash grab is usually the "grab" element - you don't usually see a "cash grab" followed by longer-term support. If 5E goes on another 5-10 years with the 2024 design, and is supported at at least the level if has been since 2014 (which has varied a bit, but we know what it is), I don't think 2024 can reasonably be called a "cash grab". If, on the other hand, if D&D suddenly has a massive drop in non-digital support in say, 2 years, then yeah, we might have to go back and take another look at whether it was.

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Zardnaar said:

1E. Screw Arneson out of royalties.

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teitan said:

Let's be honest though, 1e needed to happen because OCR had quickly become a confusing mess. The Paladin Class, for example, was hidden in Greyhawk as a comment on updates with the Fighting-man and the combat system that was becoming default was in Greyhawk, the rules relied on games owned by other systems, like the Avalon Hill game board for overland exploration, and even the original LBB weren't self contained. Sure, let's screw Dave was a major factor but it needed it and B/X to happen.

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DarkCrisis said:

Yes im sure WotC is benevolent at heart and isn’t concerned about profit at all.

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MGibster said:

I think everyone understands that a company releases a product in order to make a profit, so you don't often hear people complaining about this. At least I don't recall a whole lot of people pointing to the release of the 5th edition Player's Handbook or Curse of Strahd as cash grabs. When somebody refers to something as a cash grab, they're aruging the company is releasing an inferior product in order to make a quick buck.

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Clint_L said:

Except in every interview they keep emphasizing that you don’t need the updated books to play 5e, and that you can incorporate some, all, or none of the changes as you see fit. In the old days, an edition meant replacing everything. They keep telling us that this is not that, and having been personally play testing the new material for the better part of a year, I agree.

When I compared it to Tasha’s, I wasn’t being hyperbolic. Including the UA material has been as non-disruptive as adding various optional rules and changes from that book. It does not feel like a new edition. It feels like 5e with some tweaks..

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