D&D 5E (2024) D&D Pre-orders; this is sad

[KYRON45]

That's right! We had to navigate by the stars. We couldn't no shiny "sun" so it was always dark. And we liked it!

The before times sound horrible.

 

[Oofta]

The before times sound horrible.

Eh. You get used to eating dirt.

 

[KYRON45]

Eh. You get used to eating dirt.

Is there an RPG based on this nightmare experience?

 

[Oofta]

Is there an RPG based on this nightmare experience?

There was. We had to have it buried in consecrate ground because ... well the details are far too gruesome to share here.

 

[KYRON45]

There was. We had to have it buried in consecrate ground because ... well the details are far too gruesome to share here.

Get off my unspeakable lawn!!! Meddling kids!!!

 

[Hussar]

As someone who only gets physical books, I am sanguine about the hobby evolving.

Honestly? This is the healthiest attitude.

If nothing changed from today? I'd still have Fantasy Grounds. I've been running VTT games for longer than I've played face to face and I started in the 80's. So, yeah, color me kinda excited that an TTRPG company is FINALLY going to make a VTT that is specifically tailored to D&D. Yay. No more having to deal with eight billion different games on my Fantasy Grounds when I only ever play D&D. I couldn't care less about updates to other games. I'm sorry, I don't. But, every time I turn around, I'm downloading updates for Pathfinder or various other games.

Maybe we'll actually get a VTT that is user friendly and doesn't require me to depend on kindly strangers spackling over the cracks in the VTT that I am using, just to get basic functionality. I mean, I had to download two different add ons, one of which only recently started being supported again, just to get a Totem Barbarian's wolf totem to actually work.

Ten freaking years and a PLAYER'S HANDBOOK option doesn't work on the most expensive VTT on the market.

So, yeah, totally color me hopeful that WotC will actually have a good D&D VTT instead of the horrible kludges that exist on the market today.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

Foundry is probably the nicest of the current VTTs

 

[DarkCrisis]

Book stores have been dying for awhile. Same with most print media.

The second it becomes more profitable to release things digitally over printing books you can bet they will do it.

I would hope they might still have like print to order books like on Drivethrurpg etc

 

[Remathilis]

Book stores have been dying for awhile. Same with most print media.

The second it becomes more profitable to release things digitally over printing books you can bet they will do it.

I would hope they might still have like print to order books like on Drivethrurpg etc

Ebooks (Kindle, Nook, etc) have yet to establish a strong market over books, especially hardbacks. They are a niche market and most serious readers prefer ink on page. Like vinyl records (which made a stunning comeback despite how abundantly easy it is to steam music), hardback books aren't going away, they are just going to be a luxury item.

And WotC knows gamers love status items. That's why they sell foil, full art MTG card variants. It's why they sell alternative covers for D&D books. You're already paying the luxury markup since D&D Beyond books are on average $20 cheaper than hardbacks. To reach the point where book sales are no longer viable, the cost of paper and printing is going to have to reach catastrophic levels and to be honest, if we reach that point we have far bigger societal worries than not getting Jaraxle's Bag of Everything in print...

 

[Hussar]

Book stores have been dying for awhile. Same with most print media.

The second it becomes more profitable to release things digitally over printing books you can bet they will do it.

I would hope they might still have like print to order books like on Drivethrurpg etc

If by "a while" you mean decades, then, well, sure. That's not bookstores dying though - that's just brick and mortar getting hammered by online shopping.

I mean it's already FARRRR more profitable to release things digitally over printing books. Yet, we still have print books. People have been predicting the death of print since the late 90's. And, like the death of RPG's, it still hasn't happened.



Then again, I am continuously baffled by the notion that we live in some sort of dystopia. Good grief, it this is dystopia, I cannot imagine how good things are in a utopia. I dunno about you, but, I don't know anyone that has died of syphilis, or lost 80% of their children in childbirth. I'm over 50 years old and I've only been to a small handful of funerals, as opposed to someone my grandparent's generation, who would have been to more funerals by the time they were 20 than I'll go in my lifetime. I don't know anyone who has starved to death. I've never known hunger - as in been in danger of actually dying from hunger, nor has anyone I've ever known. I live in a country with a life expectancy of over NINETY years.

By every possible measure life is better than it was 50 years ago and mind bogglingly better than a 100.