D&D (2024) 2024 Player's Handbook preview: "New Spells"

[Micah Sweet]

This appears to assume a game that never corrects brokenly powerful stuff is good for players. It's not.

2024 D&D is all about WotCs coffers.

If it was all about the players WotC wouldn't have hesitated taking away as well as giving.

But the true purpose of not nerfing things is to make it undesirable to stay with the 2014 rules.

I am not assuming that. I am assuming that WotC cares about player "fun" through awesome super powers more than GM enjoyment in running the game, presumably because there are more players than GMs, and therefore more potential profit from focusing on them.

 

[Micah Sweet]

“You used to be about the music, man, but you sold out!”

I do think the owners of D&D used to be more about the music than they currently are. Was TSR a publically-traded company? And if so, when did they make their public offering? I firmly believe that shareholders are a damper on creativity.

 

[Weiley31]

Must be a drow. They're purple now they've always been purple.

Yes, but they are also <REDACTED> as shown previously before in various books.

 

[Alby87]

Have they mentioned of a index of spells? A table with all spells, ordered alphabetically, with a one sentence description, for quickly lookup?

 

[Kobold Stew]

Not with a 1-sentence description, but they have (I believe) said this:

• Each class will have a spell list with the class. (Compare how the spell list for Artificers was presented in Tasha's). I imagine this will b e organized by level, and (hope) that there will be tags for Ritual and maybe Concentration and expensive components.
• The spell list will be in a separate chapter, and will be ordered alphabetically.
• Entries for individual spells will have full descriptions, which may include "easter eggs"; each spell will also list which class has it on the list (no word about subclasses; my guess is that they won't be indicated). The Ritual tag will be identified on the Casting Time line.

That's what I'm expecting, given what we've been told.

 

[Remathilis]

I do think the owners of D&D used to be more about the music than they currently are. Was TSR a publically-traded company? And if so, when did they make their public offering? I firmly believe that shareholders are a damper on creativity.

TSR was private. There would have been a far larger crater left in the 97 bankruptcy if they were public; Enron in style (but not in size).

 

[TiQuinn]

I do think the owners of D&D used to be more about the music than they currently are. Was TSR a publically-traded company? And if so, when did they make their public offering? I firmly believe that shareholders are a damper on creativity.

I think there have been times it was ran by people who were better than others about this but I’m also not going to beatify anyone - the premise that a business is created products is not doing it for financial reasons is like saying the Pope is Catholic.

 

[Micah Sweet]

TSR was private. There would have been a far larger crater left in the 97 bankruptcy if they were public; Enron in style (but not in size).

There you go. They were ultimately making things they wanted to make, not what their shareholders wanted.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I am not assuming that. I am assuming that WotC cares about player "fun" through awesome super powers more than GM enjoyment in running the game, presumably because there are more players than GMs, and therefore more potential profit from focusing on them.

Really? My experiemce tells me that DMs spend more money than all players together. Also WotC is heavily invested in increasing the fun for DMs by making stat blocks more useful. Also keeping DM spells im the book. Giving better guidelines. Better organization.

What you say is mostly not correct, at least one sided.

 

[Remathilis]

There you go. They were ultimately making things they wanted to make, not what their shareholders wanted.

They made what they thought we wanted, not what we actually did. Which is why Dragon Dice, Spellfire cards, and other projects failed and cost them large amounts of cash. Don't let the lack of shareholders fool you, TSR was as oblivious to their customers as any public company.