D&D 5E D&D New Edition Design Looks Soon?

WotC’s Ray Winninger has hinted on Twitter that we may be seeing something of the 2024 next edition of D&D soon — “you’ll get a first look at some of the new design work soon.”.

 

[Greg Benage]

You assume thst the afterlife won't be an eternal 4E session.

Ah...

Ah naughty word.

In all seriousness, I didn't play 4e and sat out the edition wars, so I don't have any personal investment in whether it's "good" or "bad." But that's also why I'm not really vibing on the endless relitigation.

 

[Micah Sweet]

You assume thst the afterlife won't be an eternal 4E session.

As long as I'm not the DM.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

I have never heard of anyone coming to the table asking to.play a duskblade based on a novel they read recently. Unlike, say, wanting to play Aragorn or the narrstor from Name of the Wind.

a dusk blade by name no... a swordmage and a bladesinger yes, and arcane swordsman yes (although it is almost always sword)

 

[MonsterEnvy]

We don't know enough about the new Core to declare if it's a new edition or not.

 

[Alby87]

IF the 50th Anniversary stuff is going to be fully (or near-fully) backwards compatible, then the big room for innovation comes in presentation. If you will indulge me: I'd like to talk a little about what I'd like to see in that area.

I think the no. 1 thing (rules all being the same, or same-ish) that the game could use is presenting complex rules subsets (such as spells, feats, and some class abilities) TWICE officially. Once, for the full, complex rulings, which could include discussions of corner-cases and how the elements interact with other parts of the game, and 2nd, in a concise "character-sheet friendly" format.

If that's not clear, here's a homemade example:

(Current PHB version, which would be type 1 in the above, though they could add more to it, if it was a spell more complicated than this example is):

Detect Magic
Concentration Ritual
LEVEL 1st
CASTING TIME 1 Action Ritual
RANGE/AREA Self (30 ft )
COMPONENTS V, S
DURATION Concentration 10 Minutes
SCHOOL Divination
ATTACK/SAVE None
DAMAGE/EFFECT Detection
For the duration, you sense the presence of magic within 30 feet of you. If you sense magic in this way, you can use your action to see a faint aura around any visible creature or object in the area that bears magic, and you learn its school of magic, if any.
The spell can penetrate most barriers, but it is blocked by 1 foot of stone, 1 inch of common metal, a thin sheet of lead, or 3 feet of wood or dirt.

(My version 2)
Detect Magic (R)(VS). For 10 min (C), you can use your action to sense the presence (& school) of magic within 30 ft. of you if it is not blocked by 1' stone, 1 ft. metal or 3 ft. of wood or dirt or hidden by invisibility.

Heck, they could ditch that last bit about what blocks it if they just make a common standard for what typically blocks divinations.

These "V2" rules could be used on Monster Stat-blocks and Character Sheets, for quicker reference. I don't think that it would be a waste of space and would (IMO) vastly improve the game's playability if it were built-in. I mean, sure, we can all make up our own, but to have a consistent, accepted version? Much better.

ABSOLUTELY this. A quick glance table with one sentence for those huge list would be fenomenal. I couldn't find anywhere something similar for 5e. I've seen this in 3.5 official books, or Pathfinder 1e, but never on D&D 5e. The only time they tried this and I liked it was on their Monster Compendium 1 PDF about Spelljammer Monsters. I opened a thread about this here D&D 5E - Monstrous Compendium 1 brings the MOST USEFUL feature ever made for Bestiary (IMHO)
I really wish there were some PDFs with something done like this for all the official Monsters, Spells and Feats.

 

[darjr]

I know WotC has reasons for refusing to make a clean break. I just would vastly prefer that they did, and feel their reasoning for not doing so is disingenuous and crass, since in my opinion they want to make a new game creatively, but won't for financial, got to keep your shareholders happy reasons.

I get that. And I don’t know where that comes from. I don’t see evidence they want to make a new game. In fact I see the creators looking for ways to improve the given game.

The three mentioned in the tweet that started this are fans of 5e. Chris in particular has seemed delighted that it’s given him the kind of flexibility to do things like Witchlight.

If it were a crass money grab, especially a corporate one, they’d go whole hog in the NEW NEW edition and grab that high sugar short term gains, screw the future or health if the hobby.

The fact they are not and actually have the corporates on board is, I think, a minor triumph for the hobby.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I get that. And I don’t know where that comes from. I don’t see evidence they want to make a new game. In fact I see the creators looking for ways to improve the given game.

The three mentioned in the tweet that started this are fans of 5e. Chris in particular has seemed delighted that it’s given him the kind of flexibility to do things like Witchlight.

If it were a crass money grab, especially a corporate one, they’d go whole hog in the NEW NEW edition and grab that high sugar short term gains, screw the future or health if the hobby.

The fact they are not and actually have the corporates on board is, I think, a minor triumph for the hobby.

In my opinion, there is no reason for these changes to not be labeled as a new edition of the game that is not financially-based. I have no doubt that the designers are exciting about making the changes; many of them are probably things they wanted to do back in 2014. But they didn't, and so we had 2014 5e, which I liked quite a bit and which had a very different philosophy behind its creation than whatever they're going to call the hame in 2024. Calling it the same game is just confusing.

 

[teitan]

That was for different reasons. 5e design, both in aesthetic and mechanics, seems clearly influenced by Marvel and Harry Potter and others. Just look at the art (PCs are almost always depicted as heroes). Almost every class has magic. Sure, there's the Hawkeye (champion fighter), but every other class has powers

Considering when 5e began development Marvel was just starting to gain steam and they were still talking about the superhero movie bubble bursting any day now I don’t see it. The powers aspect was to decouple magic items as a part of the the expected play pattern. It eliminated the Xmas tree or golf bag of magic items style of play that dominates 3.x era game play from the decisions made in 3.5 regarding how damage reduction and magic resistances would work. The heroic art was a transition that started with 2e’s emphasis on players as heroes and the slow progression of that representation into 3.x, again, era artwork with artists like WAR and others. It was a distinct tonal shift in the presentation of D&D heroes being on the edge of failure to the edge of success.

 

[teitan]

I really hope it's fairly compatible. I can't really see WotC go full edition change but who knows. It'll be hard for me to buy in if it's radically different. 5e just got a lot right for me, it was super easy to get new players and teach the rules. 3e and 4e were the exact opposite in my experience. The exception being people who were already into RPGs or people really ready to dive in head first.

Considering that outside of D&D, Shadowrun and Pathfinder full edition change isn’t a thing really, they were always small changes, clarifications and tweaks to things that didn’t work, I’m hoping they’ve learned their lesson after 3 editions that were wholly different games. 5e is lightning in a bottle. Mearls was a genius with the design and the design goals and how he led the team on that one and the early days of the game.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

You assume thst the afterlife won't be an eternal 4E session.

One of my friends occasionally expresses a wish to achieve immortality via upload. I generally respond that he should be careful what he wishes for. We might just have to and be forced to work for eternity as npcs in an MMO.