D&D 5E D&D Head Talks Future Plans (Sort Of)

WotC has launched a new design blog. The first edition is written by D&D head Ray Winninger, and he talks a little about future plans.

"Later in the year, Chris will return with our big summer adventure, James Wyatt will deliver a substantially improved version of a concept that I initiated myself, and Amanda Hamon will close us out with a project that was jointly conceived by herself and several other studio members. As usual, Jeremy Crawford is working with all of our leads, overseeing mechanical content and rules development.

In addition to these five major products, look for a couple of additional surprises we’ll unveil in the months ahead."

You can read the full blog here:

Who We Are & What We Do | D&D Studio Blog | Dungeons & Dragons

The first of many design blogs, direct from your friends at the Dungeons & Dragons Studio!

dnd.wizards.com

He also mentions that a D&D book takes 12-14 months to make, and half the projects developed don't make it to market. Winninger describes the structure of WotC's 'D&D Studio':

"The D&D Studio itself is organized into four departments: Game Design, Art, Production, and Product Management, each led by a department head. Game Design is responsible for the developing game mechanics and stories. Art establishes the “look and feel” of Dungeons & Dragons by creating visual concepts, directing our freelance illustrators, and creating innovative graphic designs. The Production department manages our project schedules, interfaces with manufacturing experts, and generally handles administrative matters for the studio. The Product Management department interfaces with sales, marketing, and market research. They also own our long-term product roadmap and look after the D&D business."

The studio has five Product Leads: Jeremy Crawford, Amanda Hamon, Chris Perkins, Wes Schneider, and James Wyatt.

 

[Parmandur]

I'm with @Whizbang Dustyboots here in that I seriously doubt that 6E will be in the credits. I'm fairly certain WotC is totally unwilling to create "edition confusion" by drawing a line in the sand (even if it's only by name) by saying "6E starts here." Maybe they'll update things in a way that it is still backwards compatible, that makes sense to me. But actually calling it 6E? No way.

I guess they could call it 5.5 if it's still backwards compatible (hey, 3.5 essentially was that). But I still find it more likely that they won't call it anything other that "Anniversary Rulebooks" or something else meaningless, and then the playerbase is the one who actually refer to it as 5.5.

They already don't call 5E "Fifth Edition"...anywhere. It's just a note in the credits, the game is just called "Dungeons & Dragons." We call it 5E all the time, casually, but WotC talks about "This is how 5E works" as "this is how Dungeons & Dragons works..." very consistently. Acknowledging an "Anniversary Edition" brush-up as a Sixth Edition isn't actually a big deal as long as they maintain focus on "Dungeons& Dragons" as the brand and make it clear that it is backwards compatible. As long as they don't repeat the mistake of seeing an Edition change as a complete revroll, most people won't care. TSR did that with Basic D&D four times, and it remained extremely popular, and original BD&D material remained compatible with the Rules Cyclopedia in the end.

 

[Hussar]

Realistically, with the core books still in the low hundreds of all books at Amazon, you really won't likely see a completely new edition in 6e. Why would you possibly kill your bread and butter like that? The reason we got new editions in the past is because the game wasn't selling to expectation. That isn't happening. And you certainly don't mess too much with double digit growth numbers if you want to keep your job.

So, yeah, we'll like see a 50th anniversary reprint of the core books. New art, pretty covers, and some touch ups inside to bring things more in line with current trends - like Tasha's rules for racial stat adjustments which seem to be the new standard. Cleaning up verbiage, that sort of thing. But, I strongly doubt, unless things go seriously pear shaped in the next three years, we're going to see anything too radical.

 

[Jaeger]

Not really though. Read the text again:

"You expend a number of spell points to create a spell slot of a given level, and then use that slot to cast a spell."

That is functionally the same as you spend the spell points need to cast the spell. It is no different mechanically. It is just fluff.

Spending 13 points to create a 9th level spell slot and then casting the spell is the same as spending 13 spell points to cast a 9th level spell. The only difference comes in a limitation on the # of slots, which you can simply ignore (which we would). Now I would keep the restriction on the highest level of spell you can cast (regardless of your spell point total).

My point is there is a perfectly good framework in the books now.

I disagree.

It is an inelegant, fiddly work-around that still keeps the spell slots and spell 'level' concepts.

If all the spells on a given spell level all have the same spell point value; Then spell points are an unnecessary complication.

And now not only do you have spell slots by spell level; Which is not the same as your character level. The spell slots of each spell level have a spell point value; which is not the same number as the spell level. No way anyone new to the game would get confused at all...

Just keep the slots concept and make them more universal by not tying them so rigidly to the spell level. That would actually make things more flexible and straight forward. (and yes there would be knock-on effects to power balance with that as well... Which might make even that proposal untenable in actual play.)

IMHO 5e's magic system doesn't lend itself to any modding that tries to break away from its established spell-level/spell-slot design paradigm. Because that is what the magic system in 5e is balanced around.

If you are going to be serious about really changing the way magic works mechanically in D&D; the whole magic system needs to be re-designed from the ground up.

Which will not happen because the overwhelming majority of the 5e base has no real issues with the magic system as is.

 

[humble minion]

Realistically, with the core books still in the low hundreds of all books at Amazon, you really won't likely see a completely new edition in 6e. Why would you possibly kill your bread and butter like that? The reason we got new editions in the past is because the game wasn't selling to expectation. That isn't happening. And you certainly don't mess too much with double digit growth numbers if you want to keep your job.

So, yeah, we'll like see a 50th anniversary reprint of the core books. New art, pretty covers, and some touch ups inside to bring things more in line with current trends - like Tasha's rules for racial stat adjustments which seem to be the new standard. Cleaning up verbiage, that sort of thing. But, I strongly doubt, unless things go seriously pear shaped in the next three years, we're going to see anything too radical.

Yeah, I reckon you're very right here. We talk a bit about the painful lessons WotC learned from the 4e era, but they'll be pretty twitchy about going through the whole 3.5e drama again too by releasing a 5.5e either. Accusations of money-grabbing, kinda-sorta-but-not-quite invalidating a bunch of sourcebooks with a new ruleset that is just different enough to the old one to be confusing... I suspect core 5e will remain basically the same going forward until 6e is good and ready, and this time is more likely to be more than 5 years rather than less. We're already seeing WotCs way of fixing issues in the core rules I think - optional rules in the 'of Everything' line so people can use the fixed rules if the problems really bother them, or else play standard if they don't want to overcomplicate.

There's piles of big options for the 50th anniversary. I'd certainly expect to see new commemorative covers, probably 'inspired by' and very reflective of the original artwork. They may even go wild with releasing updated classic settings or adventures - a big hardback War of the Lance campaign for instance, or something from Greyhawk or Mystara. Aim hard at the nostalgia buttons. But going through all the stress of an edition change, when the current edition remains wildly popular, just for the sake of an anniversary? Can't see it happening.

 

[dave2008]

I disagree.

It is an inelegant, fiddly work-around that still keeps the spell slots and spell 'level' concepts.

It is a work around, that should be expected if it is not built for it from the ground up. However, we found it extremely simple and fun to use. Have you tried it? I think it may be one of those things where you don't like it on paper, but it actually works quite well.

 

[Wrathamon]

I strongly suspect they aborted a Dark Sun release at some point, probably due to the poor reception of their various attempts to implement psionics. Hopefully they have another go down the track.

I would think it has more to do with the exclusiveness of the setting and less to do about psionics.

 

[Demetrios1453]

Yeah, I reckon you're very right here. We talk a bit about the painful lessons WotC learned from the 4e era, but they'll be pretty twitchy about going through the whole 3.5e drama again too by releasing a 5.5e either. Accusations of money-grabbing, kinda-sorta-but-not-quite invalidating a bunch of sourcebooks with a new ruleset that is just different enough to the old one to be confusing... I suspect core 5e will remain basically the same going forward until 6e is good and ready, and this time is more likely to be more than 5 years rather than less. We're already seeing WotCs way of fixing issues in the core rules I think - optional rules in the 'of Everything' line so people can use the fixed rules if the problems really bother them, or else play standard if they don't want to overcomplicate.

There's piles of big options for the 50th anniversary. I'd certainly expect to see new commemorative covers, probably 'inspired by' and very reflective of the original artwork. They may even go wild with releasing updated classic settings or adventures - a big hardback War of the Lance campaign for instance, or something from Greyhawk or Mystara. Aim hard at the nostalgia buttons. But going through all the stress of an edition change, when the current edition remains wildly popular, just for the sake of an anniversary? Can't see it happening.

You know, they've said in the past that they have a problem with coming up with a unique hook for Greyhawk, so using the 50th anniversary as its hook ("Play in the original campaign setting for D&D!") would make a lot of sense...

 

[Ibrandul]

They already don't call 5E "Fifth Edition"...anywhere. It's just a note in the credits

You're right in spirit, I think—they're treating 5e as "the" D&D and downplaying the edition number—but it's not precisely true that they exile the term to the credits. The words "fifth edition" do appear on the back cover of every book they've released so far.
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[Whizbang Dustyboots]

You know, they've said in the past that they have a problem with coming up with a unique hook for Greyhawk, so using the 50th anniversary as its hook ("Play in the original campaign setting for D&D!") would make a lot of sense...

If it were me, I'd do either a big Greyhawk or Forgotten Realms setting book in 2024. (The argument for the Forgotten Realms is that, for many people, it's what they played in back in the day, and will play upon their nostalgia.)

 

[Hatmatter]

If it were me, I'd do either a big Greyhawk or Forgotten Realms setting book in 2024. (The argument for the Forgotten Realms is that, for many people, it's what they played in back in the day, and will play upon their nostalgia.)

Whatever they do, as long as it is not some attempt to create a new iteration of the entire game, I will be a happy camper.