So you believe they will try to sell the VTT and highlight its bells and whistles.
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Yes. Obviously.
Glad we've established that.
Do you know how many unique and custom spells have been researched by PCs in all of the dozens of games I've played in 5e over the past decade? Zero.
Which is a commentary on
your games, but other than that doesn't really speak to the broader point. The scope of imaginative play is limitless, which by definition means that no one person or group will be able to make use of all of the available possibilities. But just because
you don't use those possibilities doesn't mean that they're not valuable or worthwhile. Someone else might very well make use of them, and so something which constrains even the
awareness of them (even if inadvertently) is something which I think is ultimately bad for the hobby, compromising the central "anything can be attempted" principle of TTRPGs.
No one has ever researched a custom spell in all that time. I've homebrewed some spells as a DM, but never done any custom research.
Again, this is an argument of personal practicality, rather than the potential effect on the hobby as a whole. Your own experiences with your own group are just that: yours. If you've never played a particular class, that doesn't make that particular class worthless, and if you've never designed a custom spell, that doesn't mean the activity isn't worth at least having an awareness of.
I also will note that, to my knowledge, custom spell research has not been a player facing mechanic for... Well, I don't have an easy way to look at 2nd edition, so I'll assume it was there and so it has been 24 years since that was a player facing option.
The option has been consistently minimized across editions, to be sure...which is why I think it's emblematic of something with the potential to be minimized to the point of being almost totally forgotten if existing spells have so many bells and whistles added to them in the VTT. Again, the option is further narrowed by the more conventional options being so highlighted.
Rules for it were in the 3.5 DMG, just like rules for homebrew spells exist in the 5e DMG, but it wasn't a player facing option.
As I recall, those were more like guidelines [insert
Pirates of the Caribbean meme here] than full-on design rules. And they've been further minimized since.
Also, the game doesn't provide rules for custom magical items to mu knowledge, but it does have rules for custom monsters. Now, it is possible that the WoTC VTT won't include the ability to make custom monsters. That would.... make it a worse product than the other VTT's on the market and they would lose business as people move to the superior VTTs.
Whether or not they'd leave the VTT in favor of another is a more complex question than that, simply because the VTT will integrate with DDB to a degree, and leaving one means essentially leaving everything you've put into DDB. It's sort of like the Apple Store effect, where people keep their account there because leaving means having to basically recreate everything you've assembled in that particular venue. Likewise, the game not having rules for custom magic items dovetails with what I said before, insofar as those options are being continually minimized; adding bells and whistles to existing magic items further distracts from custom ones being recognized as even a possibility.
But even if they don't have those features, and even if it doesn't cause a mass exodus from the VTT for it being an inferior VTT.... why would they take the rules for custom monsters out of the DMG?
Again, no one is suggesting that they would take them out of the DMG. The suggestion is that, without custom minis, which are likely to be animated and so more likely to be used, custom monsters will be (further) de-emphasized.
I will guarantee you those rules are in the 2024 DMG, so those rules will exist at the same time the VTT is launched, why would they take them out?
See above. Being taken out isn't the issue. It's that they'll be less enticing than a flashy mini that's fully modeled, animated, and has sound effects.
The VTT will be a settled product by the time they are releasing another DMG after all. It won't make more people likely to use it, if a feature they wanted not only isn't added, but is removed from the core books instead.
Again, that's not the issue I'm speaking about. The VTT will make some things sexier, easier, and more fun to use than others, simply due to technical limitations. Those will, in turn, draw more players to them, pushing the non-sexy options further out of mind, and so (inadvertently or not) discouraging the wider areas of imaginative play.
Again though, we know that if we are playing pencil and paper we won't have the fancy visual effects and minis of the VTT.
Precisely, meaning that imaginative play remains imaginative, and there are no bells and whistles to make the familiar more appealing than the wider areas of possibility.
Obviously. For that to be a problem to the extent that it begins altering the core rulebooks, you have to assume that so many people will be so enthralled with the VTT and its functions, that they won't WANT to play pencil and paper.
Which strikes me as a reasonable assumption, to the point of what I think WotC is going to not only want to happen, but encourage. Hence the recurrent spending environment.
Which gets back to what we keep saying. What you are describing is essentially "But what if this is a massively successful product that the majority of the DnD community wants to use!" Well... then they made a really good product?
Which is good for WotC, but that doesn't mean that it's good for the hobby. There are a lot of products that are popular and sell well, but which have detrimental effects elsewhere. Insofar as imaginative play goes, this strikes me as being such an instance, where profit maximization runs counter to the idea of anything being able to be attempted, which is the heart of what TTRPGs are about.
Step two of "and then they ruined the game by stripping all the fun out of the core rulebooks so that they are as limited as the VTT".... is not a likely outcome.
Hence why I didn't predict such a thing. I'm just pointing out that the rulebooks will likely be made to dovetail with the VTT. If you can have fun that way, good for you, but it's the people who won't even realize that there's more than what's there whom I'm concerned with. Such as the people who won't see guidelines for custom magic items and so won't think that's even a possibility.
It just doesn't make sense,
I disagree quite strongly.
because the VTT is going to be successful or a flop based on the 2024 rules, which are not stripped like you keep fearing.
In point of fact, we don't know what's going to be in the 2024 rules yet, and won't until they come out. As for how those rules are further modified down the line (as I recall WotC has mentioned this being the "last edition" which will be changed via small updates in future releases...kind of like software), that's likewise ambiguous, but seems likely to serve their overall goal of moving people to the money-making VTT.
So, it will be a massive success, then they will ruin the game seeking to make it a bigger success in ways that it doesn't need?
Again, something can be a financial success while being artistically barren. If all you see is the flashy spell animations, and there are little-to-no rules for custom spells (which aren't in the DDB's integrated database which the VTT uses anyway), then expect that to drop off even more.
Okay, so it will be a pretty map with pretty miniatures.
Still overly reductive compared to what WotC's promoting.
There already IS little to no mention of custom spell creation, custom magic item creation, ect.
Which is why they'll be minimized in the minds of players even further when the ones that are already there are animated.
The only mention of homebrew spells is in the DMG, there is no player facing information I am aware of that talks about making your own spells. I don't think there are ANY rules for custom magic item creation, not even in the DMG, and if there are, well, kind of proves my point that there is little mention of them if a long-term DM who has made a bunch of custom items didn't even know those rules existed.
See above with regard to why this further discourages exploring those options in the course of imaginative play.
So, again, I have to wonder.... what are you talking about?
I believe I've made it very clear, and that your saying "eh, that's not such a big deal" doesn't speak to the points I've raised. Just because you don't think it's a concern doesn't mean it's not a concern.
Your rule changes you are claiming will come... EXIST.
And they'll be supplemented by the changes I've already outlined in what the VTT does, further discouraging looking beyond them. Likewise, expect the rules to similarly give less verbiage to things that the VTT doesn't make sexier.
IT is already a factual part of the game that most tables don't have PCs making custom spells or custom items.
Have you polled most tables? Because I'm not sure why you deputized yourself to speak on their behalf.
Heck, I've given people more advice on custom monsters than the 5e DMG from 2014. So, again, it seems like the VTT... will change nothing.
Animated spell effects are nothing? Really? Having moving, 3D minis that have sound effects are nothing? Fully modeled magic items are nothing? Because those don't sound like nothing.
