D&D General Ben Riggs interviews Fred Hicks and Cam Banks, then shares WotC sales data.

[Zardnaar]

This is one of the ideas that got me all fired up in this thread. I don't think I heard it here but in other threads and other conversations I heard:

"I want a new D&D where they get rid of ability scores and bonuses and make it class-less and level-less" and I just shake my head. It's like saying "I want a D&D where the whole conflict resolution takes place by playing a game of Jenga. No, I don't want to play Dread. No one knows about Dread."

Why set ourselves up for disappointment like that?

Yup. D&D design is constrained by expectations of it being D&D.
Classes are going nowhere, we,'re probably stuck with dailies and 20 levels vs say 10.

Might make a better game but that game wont be D&D.

You would really need to do some polling over dumping something like alignment.

 

[Staffan]

Good point. The delve might be OK for complicated encounters either because of the NPCs/Monsters involved, because of the setting, or because of other weird conditions and setup. In defense of the delve format's use in 4e, that was kind of 4e's main mojo - focusing on the encounter and how to make them thrilling (within certain "get to the fun" definitions of thrilling that may not apply to everybody).
But if you aren't thinking of your encounters as these set pieces, their presentation is kind of unnecessary. They were pretty, I'll give them that. But I also expect they were a resource sink in layout time, additional art/cartography, and page count of the end product.
I wouldn't oppose seeing them again for particularly elaborate situations in published modules, but I wouldn't want to see them return as a norm.

Huh. I was just thinking that they were probably a good way to pad out page count with fewer designer resources. As an example, in Shadows of the Last War you have an outdoor "dungeon" that covers 8 pages + 1 page of map. These include seven similar encounters in different locations, one location the PCs do best in avoiding but where they might get into a huge fight, and two locations where there are relevant encounters. Using the delve format, that would likely add 13 pages to this section, possibly saving 1-2 pages because stats get moved to the relevant delve page(s). The overall map is already accounted for, so I don't know how to what degree the zoomed-in maps of each encounter would cost in development resources. More layout resources perhaps, but fewer adventure writing ones.

 

[Lanefan]

Which has been my basic point all the way along despite the words being put in my mouth.

D&D has NEVER been allowed to really make any changes. Any changes are tiny, incremental and take a really long time. Which is, IMO, the opposite of being innovative. I mean, good grief, @Alzrius has to dredge up changes that were made decades ago to find actual changes in the game. If the last time we've seen a big change in the game was thirty or forty years ago, is it really all that unfair to say that D&D isn't really all that innovative and the fandom is not interested in innovation?

Take cars.

They achieved their basic form and function by around 1920 if not sooner, and from then until about 2005 all we saw were incremental innovations and tweaks which in aggregate a) made a 2005 car immensely different than a 1920 car and b) still recognizable as a car both externally and under the hood. In the meantime, a huge number of special-purpose vehicle types based on that design - everything from ambulances to dump trucks to riding mowers - have been developed for specific uses and purposes and are generally only used for such.

The first really major automotive innovation started appearing around 2005 with the advent of the electric-powered engine, and 20 years later it still has yet to really catch on.

The same can be said for D&D only over maybe half that timespan - after 50 years of incremental changes (and no small amount of experimentation) 5.5e D&D is immensely different from 1974 D&D and yet still recognizable as D&D. In the meantime, a growing number of special-purpose games based on that design have been developed for specific needs and purposes and are generally only played as such.

This is not a bad thing.

 

[Lanefan]

On the topic of innovation, it was interesting to see that the new D&D 2024 Forgotten Realms Adventures book has a big focus on bastions and renown. You can decide for yourselves if you think either of those are truly innovative or if you like them at all, but WOTC is clearly focusing on that.

And in case someone hasn't already mentioned this, those things are themselves largely recycled from 1e (stronghold rules) and 2e (most of the Birthright setting).

Still nice to see WotC bringing this element back into the game, though.