D&D General 6E But A + Thread

[Micah Sweet]

You folks know that isn't what "fantasy heartbreaker" means right?

I think it is pretty hilarious for people to draw lines where THEIR preferred changes would be a 6E, but not these other ones.

I have said many times I have what I want already (short of some IP stuff), and my preferred 6e is not what I would want to play personally. Quite the opposite.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I'm sorry. I though I was specifically told we weren't supposed to consider what the people who own the D&D brand would actually make, only what we want them to make.

I wasn't aware of that.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I wasn't aware of that.

I was unofficially admonished for bringing up Hasbro.

 

[Scribe]

I feel like a lot of these discussions tend to veer away from making D&D a better game and turn into making D&D more like a different game they like more. Going back to just four classes, or centering the gameplay around a meta-currency, dropping higher level support... this is all stuff other games do successfully but things I cannot imagine being acceptable in a numbered edition of D&D.

Especially after how much crap 4th Edition got for Roles and ADEU.

On the one hand, sure.

On the other hand, 5e is not the bleeding edge of the craft, and there is room for improvement.

 

[mamba]

Much of these "next edition" threads end up thinly disguised sales pitches for the posters preferred fantasy heartbreaker.

Can't speak for anyone else, but I came at it with what I would like D&D to be like, then thought about what mechanics fit that and that is when I wrote those down.

That most of these exist in some TTRPGs and I happen to know / mention them for some does not mean that I want D&D to be more like that game specifically, only that the game has some features I prefer over how D&D does the same / a similar thing. That something similar exists in some other TTRPG should also not be a surprise...

Take the broader subclasses for example, you can accomplish this by having different feats / skills to select from, and having skill chains. Add to this the desire for progression to be synchronized and the two-tiered subclass approach from Shadow of the Weird Wizard looks like a great way to do this in a way that is familiar to players of D&D and accomplishes basically all of it in a very flexible manner. So in the context of D&D, I think the SotWW approach is probably the right one to go with if the end goal is what I wanted in the first place.

Or take the combat with no attack rolls and tiers of success, I want combat to be sped up and more interesting that just 'you miss, you do 6 damage, you do 9 damage, ...' tiers speed it up and they can allow for more interesting results than rolling 1d8 to determine the damage ever would. I also like the mechanics to be the same for melee and casters, this accomplishes that too.

In summary, what I describe is my platonic ideal for D&D, not an unholy mix of D&D and two or so other games I wish it would be like more.

 

[mamba]

I have said many times I have what I want already (short of some IP stuff), and my preferred 6e is not what I would want to play personally. Quite the opposite.

yeah, you basically recommend they make a 6e you are not being tempted by, interesting take

 

[Marandahir]

In a word: Intentional.

What should D&D be? If we have tactical games (Draw Steel) story games (Daggerheart) and great games (Shadowdark) what is it that D&D wants to be?

I'd say it needs to try and be the jack of all trades, and a little bit of tactical, story, and straightforward, simple dungeoncrawl, all in one.

There are still things which D&D does, that it has gotten away from that could cement what 'D&D' is. All of this is IMO of course.

The Sacred Cows

This stuff needs to be there

Attributes (Str/Dex/Con/Int/Wis/Cha) - Not much to say here.

Ancestry (Human, Dwarf, Elf, Halfling, Tiefling, Aasimar, Half Elf, Half Orc, Gnome, Goliath, Warforged, Dragonborn, Goblin as a treat) - I think Daggerheart does Ancestry much better, with a much more elegant way of managing mixed ancestry, D&D could for sure lift from there, but if they do not...a solid list of options is a must.

Classes/Subclasses - The main class options are fine, but the design could be dramatically tightened up. I would shove multi-classing into a sidebar deep in the DMG, and would put subclasses at Level 1, and have something meaningful happen on every level up.

Alignment - This is a D&Dism, that absolutely should be leaned into. Put it into Class design, Ancestry design, Spell design. It should be fundamental to the game. If D&D wants to be this multiverse, planar, city of doors, spelljammer, planescape gonzo setting? Alignment, make it happen.

At the crunch level? Jesus clean things up. Masteries are fine in concept, but some of the theory craft is just horrific to read. Much like multi-classing, stick this deep in a sidebar as optional somewhere. Actually refine the concepts of the Wizard. It cannot, should not, be a dumping ground of just 'everything arcane'. Sorcerer seems to have a better definition that Wizard does now, its crazy.

Look at the design of games which are intentional in what they want to be, strip out the excess. Do not bother with rolled stats, just go with Array.

"Three Pillars" - If they are going to do it. Do it. Enough with the partial design, half measure stuff. Get the combat (done) exploration (not really done) and social (not really done) actually defined, documented, and put down in the rules.

And then, strip out everything that is not about the game, and toss it into a super clean SRD.

I dont know, I dont feel like it should really even be as difficult as it seems. The biggest thing missing, is the focus on Alignment to make it a truly epic "Good and Evil, Law and Chaos" crazy high concept Fantasy.

Do not try and be 'grounded' we have other games for that. Go wild, go planar, go multiple words and realms of the gods.

I don't agree with half of your ideas, and I'm mostly satisifed with 5e 2024, but I agree with the theory approach behind this.

D&D's role amidst all other TTRPGs is the jack of trades. It has to make sacrifices of the specific to mold to the general.
But to be able to dial up into various aspects of the hobby, they need rules kits dials and subsystems, and the social/exploration pillars need a huge lift, as you say. Half-measures aren't going to cut it.

But they don't NEED to be half-measures, if the next edition builds upon feedback and mechanical designs from 5e. No need to completely start over from scratch this time; use the next 5-10 years to figure out these dials so that they can launch right out of the box in 6E.

 

[Older Beholder]

Modern D&D is hardly even trying to be a medieval fantasy world anymore. More's the pity.

Why is it a pity?
I thought your homebrew campaign was a post-apocalyptic, future Earth setting?

 

[Older Beholder]

I have said many times I have what I want already (short of some IP stuff), and my preferred 6e is not what I would want to play personally. Quite the opposite.

I guess this is related to me previous question in a way, why do you want someone to make a game you aren't interested in playing?
I'm lost as to the logic, do you want them to make something for you to complain about?

 

[billd91]

I'm lost as to the logic, do you want them to make something for you to complain about?

That would be my assumption at this point.