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.

 

[teitan]

I'm with you, but a lot of folks -- who still grouse about the quality of the WotC books, interestingly -- will only use a D&D book that has the "official" pixie dust sprinkled all over it.

Yeah I view it like I do GW, the fans will complain until the cows come home no matter how high a quality is put out so when the company isn't 100% it looks even worse. Cursed City drama notwithstanding of course.

 

[teitan]

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.

Oh man, I disagree with 3.5 being compatible with 3e. So many small changes resulted in large conversion documents for Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil, City of the Spider-Queen and some 3e books were useless. They had to completely revise the Psionics Handbook and they never touched the Epic Level Handbook (which was already a mess). They even had to put out a conversion book for the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting updating the classes, feats & races to 3.5, the Player's Guide to Faerun. Changes to how weapons interact with monsters was a mess to deal with on the fly when it wasn't a monster from the Monster Manuals. Could it be done? 2e had a lot of changes but stat blocks weren't rendered obsolete in that change so grabbing Slave Lords, for example, wasn't a big deal and grabbing any of the basic line was pretty easy. Even BECMI was still usable with a 1st print of B2.

 

[Nellisir]

... I'm not sure what you mean by "homebrew isn't kitchen sink".

Just because the DM creates the campaign world (homebrews it) doesn't mean that anything and everything is included (and the kitchen sink).

I've always had a homebrew campaign world, and there are many things that don't fit/aren't included. Talk to me, and we'll come to a compromise, but if you just assume you're going to play a dragonborn gunslinger, you'll be better off in a different group.

 

[teitan]

I think hat I agree with a lot of what your saying & would add that it needs to be made more clear that the gm isn't some kind of monster just because they want to add their own rules even if those rules lower the power scale on players to achieve a certain style of campaign... but I'm not sure what you mean by "homebrew isn't kitchen sink".

It means anything and everything that WOtC publishes is legal in every game and it’s not true. Most seem to think the that every table follows AL guidelines, that feats are default to all tables etc. and that if you don’t follow AL guidelines you’re a bad wrong fun no good DM. You can get on various social media groups where they will say this very matter of factly. Kitchen sink means everything goes.

 

[teitan]

Just because the DM creates the campaign world (homebrews it) doesn't mean that anything and everything is included (and the kitchen sink).

I've always had a homebrew campaign world, and there are many things that don't fit/aren't included. Talk to me, and we'll come to a compromise, but if you just assume you're going to play a dragonborn gunslinger, you'll be better off in a different group.

Yeah exactly. I try to keep my games simple in case of death at higher levels, for example, I don’t really like feats because it draws away from taking 15 minutes to create a character. It’s added complexity that is great usually but can hamper a game. I tried requiring a back up character but nobody ever has one.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

Oh man, I disagree with 3.5 being compatible with 3e. So many small changes resulted in large conversion documents for Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil, City of the Spider-Queen and some 3e books were useless. They had to completely revise the Psionics Handbook and they never touched the Epic Level Handbook (which was already a mess). They even had to put out a conversion book for the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting updating the classes, feats & races to 3.5, the Player's Guide to Faerun. Changes to how weapons interact with monsters was a mess to deal with on the fly when it wasn't a monster from the Monster Manuals. Could it be done? 2e had a lot of changes but stat blocks weren't rendered obsolete in that change so grabbing Slave Lords, for example, wasn't a big deal and grabbing any of the basic line was pretty easy. Even BECMI was still usable with a 1st print of B2.

I believe the initial intent was for there to be backwards compatibility, but I think that fell apart eventually.

 

[Hatmatter]

2024 is mentioned because it's the 50th anniversary of D&D and it seems very, very unlikely that WotC would miss that opportunity to make All The Money. And the easiest way to do that is a new edition, even if it's only a lightly cleaned up 5E.

We'll see. I do not know what you have in mind, Whizbang, when you write "a lightly cleaned up 5E." If you have in mind what others have written that it will be an anniversary edition with new artwork with some minor reorganization of information, then I think that is likely. Wizards certainly likes their special editions. I doubt, though, that they would start putting races or subclasses from Volo's or Xanathar's or Tasha's in the PHB as some have suggested. I think they'll likely keep those books in print by keeping the material unique to them in them and not the PHB.

If, however, you think that a new edition of the game is one where some fundamentals of the game are changed, I will go on the record saying that I think that is neither an easy opportunity to make "All The Money," nor does it accord with what I have observed from Wizards since the launch of the latest edition in 2014; finally, it is not what I think will happen. But, as I said, I don't quite have my crystal ball with me so I am happy to sit back and just compare notes with each other in three years.

 

[Wrathamon]

Huh?

Darksun has several pillars and one of them is what isn't in the setting to help make it feel different.
Sure their is a lot of unique and alien things to explore but your players handbook and all the other books you bought don't play as nicely as say an Eberron.

There are no dieties, 1/2orcs, gnomes. tieflings, dragonborn, etc. and because of this it is very exclusive to previous content and not inclusive of everything.

Also, it has some very harsh themes with slavery and oppression that I'm not sure wotc wants to go down at the moment.

I dont think it has to do with psionics.

 

[Mercurius]

Darksun has several pillars and one of them is what isn't in the setting to help make it feel different.
Sure their is a lot of unique and alien things to explore but your players handbook and all the other books you bought don't play as nicely as say an Eberron.

There are no dieties, 1/2orcs, gnomes. tieflings, dragonborn, etc. and because of this it is very exclusive to previous content and not inclusive of everything.

Also, it has some very harsh themes with slavery and oppression that I'm not sure wotc wants to go down at the moment.

I dont think it has to do with psionics.

OK, that makes sense - that is, if by "exclusive" you mean that it excludes a range of D&D ideas and tropes that are part of the core game. I personally don't think that is grounds not to publish it again, as there is a place for "tightly thematic" worlds.

 

[tetrasodium]

OK, that makes sense - that is, if by "exclusive" you mean that it excludes a range of D&D ideas and tropes that are part of the core game. I personally don't think that is grounds not to publish it again, as there is a place for "tightly thematic" worlds.

The remaining races are different from the phb FR elf/dwarf/halfling to a massive degree & although different have much more in common with some of eberron's but still many differences & many races are missing because they werekilled off by the sorcerer kings during the cleansing war with some evil badguy power grab reasons behind the genocides. With that said, there have been things like an underground gith colony trapped there since before the sphere was sealed so it's not impossible that some survivors exist. Any survivors would be batsignal level obvious out of place though so showing up in tir or something might not be in their best interests.