D&D 5E (2024) D&D Survey Results and The Future of Playtest | Unearthed Arcana

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I would like an option for spell-less paladin.

Only lay on hands and smites.

Castles & Crusades would love to have a few minutes of time to share some of their literature with you.

 

[Hussar]

"People didn't like the thing I liked which makes WOTC bad" is a poor argument. Branduil, people didn't like it, after multiple attempts at it. Why would they support stuff people don't like at the expense of pages devoted to what people like?

Very true.

But the next time someone brings out the old chestnut that WotC never does anything original or interesting, it would certainly be worth pointing to the fact that every time WotC tries to do something new or creative, the fandom shuts it down.

 

[James Gasik]

Very true.

But the next time someone brings out the old chestnut that WotC never does anything original or interesting, it would certainly be worth pointing to the fact that every time WotC tries to do something new or creative, the fandom shuts it down.

Nothing new really. I remember howls of dismay at the 3.5 Warlock "what do you mean he can fire off eldritch blasts at will, all day long? The game will be ruined! One Warlock can destroy an entire dungeon!" and let's not forget The Tome of Battle, and pretty much the entirety of 4e, lol.

 

[Hussar]

Nothing new really. I remember howls of dismay at the 3.5 Warlock "what do you mean he can fire off eldritch blasts at will, all day long? The game will be ruined! One Warlock can destroy an entire dungeon!" and let's not forget The Tome of Battle, and pretty much the entirety of 4e, lol.

Oh, I totally agree. 5e is the D&D that people want. Full stop.

No matter what, if WotC doesn't 100% toe the line here, they get nothing but endless flack. Try a new format - a la Spelljammer? It's a total money grab and terrible product. Try a module where you don't have to kill everything? Total waste of time, piece of crap, stupid. Try a module where you have 4 different potential adventures in the same product? Nope, total garbage.

Write a pretty straight line railroad adventure path set in a totally familiar location, using nothing original or new? Best selling adventure of the edition.

And people wonder why 5e is bland and generic?

 

[James Gasik]

Oh, I totally agree. 5e is the D&D that people want. Full stop.

No matter what, if WotC doesn't 100% toe the line here, they get nothing but endless flack. Try a new format - a la Spelljammer? It's a total money grab and terrible product. Try a module where you don't have to kill everything? Total waste of time, piece of crap, stupid. Try a module where you have 4 different potential adventures in the same product? Nope, total garbage.

Write a pretty straight line railroad adventure path set in a totally familiar location, using nothing original or new? Best selling adventure of the edition.

And people wonder why 5e is bland and generic?

Well yeah, I made this thread "Things people want", where I tried my best to compile things that people on these forums passionately want to be part of 5e. And often these desires are completely incompatible with the things others want.

It illustrates the real problem 5e faces. WotC did it, they got the majority of players on board. Now, unfortunately, they have two problems.

The first? Everyone wants different things from the game.

The second? They can only afford to cater to what the majority want. The days of throwing random books out into the ether so everyone can find one they can latch onto, be it Unearthed Arcana full of optional rules, or the Tome of Magic or Magic of Incarnum, or even the Complete Psionics Handbook, for people who want something other than standard magic everywhere...those days are gone.

Hasbro has said WotC needs to be a profit generating machine. That means experimental products are out the window. We need to make those ourselves now, or hope some 3rd party does it (I want to plug Steampunkette here for doing the hard work of giving 5e a real psionics system).

We can't expect to get "the thing we want" unless a lot of other people want the same thing. If the fanbase is split apart into a bunch of different factions, with one clamoring "change this!" and the other demanding "change nothing!", what do you suppose will happen?

The time and energy of game developers costs money. You put a few guys on "ok, make a 5e Incarnum system", they aren't working on anything else. You're paying them for their time. The resulting book had better sell! And if it doesn't, well, that will doom any other such project for years to come.

That's why WotC makes all these Unearthed Arcanas, to show us stuff they are interested in developing. Now you'd think, if that's not what you want, well, you'd keep quiet about it.

But there are some people on this very forum who will cry havoc at the idea of WotC working on an idea they don't care for, instead of working on what they want. Don't take my word for it, see for yourself. So yeah, of course WotC is going to be conservative.

I don't like it. I'm not defending it. But that's how it is. The TTRPG market is rough. Like anthropologists, you publish or die. But unlike them, if the thing you publish doesn't sell X amount of units, it makes the company lose money for going to bat.

WotC needs assurances that they will get your almighty dollar; without that, you can't get the things you want.

 

[Branduil]

Are you suggesting that people not liking the Ardlings playtest is anti-queer?

No, of course not.

I am suggesting that there's a sizeable number of D&D fans who are anti-furry, that there is overlap between furry and queer culture (and similarly overlap between anti-furry and anti-queer arguments), and that some of the reaction to Ardlings is due to this factor. It's obviously not the whole picture, but without accusing any single person, I think when you look at the reaction to something like Ardlings vs. Goliaths, it's clear to me there's a more vehement dislike for the whole concept. You could call it something like the "anti-pink hair faction"-- there's always been some people in the D&D community who want to gatekeep it from people who are just a little too weird for their tastes.

 

[Kobold Stew]

No, of course not.

I am suggesting that there's a sizeable number of D&D fans who are anti-furry, that there is overlap between furry and queer culture (and similarly overlap between anti-furry and anti-queer arguments), and that some of the reaction to Ardlings is due to this factor. It's obviously not the whole picture, but without accusing any single person, I think when you look at the reaction to something like Ardlings vs. Goliaths, it's clear to me there's a more vehement dislike for the whole concept. You could call it something like the "anti-pink hair faction"-- there's always been some people in the D&D community who want to gatekeep it from people who are just a little too weird for their tastes.

This is a great reason for including Aardlings in the next PHB.

 

[Charlaquin]

Still not a contrast, even assuming increasing carrying capacity was enough to make someone "beefy and brawny".

Contrast was a poor choice of words. What they wanted was for players who want to play a species that is known for being big and strong to have more than one option for doing so in the PHB.

 

[Charlaquin]

What options do elves represent one of two choices on? Or dwarves?

For elves, it’s magical Fey-adjacent species, for which the alternative is gnomes. For dwarves, it’s underground-dwelling craftsmen species, for which the alternative is also gnomes. For halflings, it’s mirthful short folk, for which the alternative is… also gnomes. Gnomes do a lot of heavy lifting as the off-brand version of other species.

 

[Mistwell]

No, of course not.

I am suggesting that there's a sizeable number of D&D fans who are anti-furry, that there is overlap between furry and queer culture (and similarly overlap between anti-furry and anti-queer arguments), and that some of the reaction to Ardlings is due to this factor. It's obviously not the whole picture, but without accusing any single person, I think when you look at the reaction to something like Ardlings vs. Goliaths, it's clear to me there's a more vehement dislike for the whole concept. You could call it something like the "anti-pink hair faction"-- there's always been some people in the D&D community who want to gatekeep it from people who are just a little too weird for their tastes.

I think that's somewhat a fair take. I would I guess liken it to people who are so vehemently against the Twilight books/movies that they're way over the top extra objecting to any mention of those books/movies when it comes to D&D or anything that touches on other genre stuff they like. As if liking those books/movies, or even not going out of your way to object to them, makes you too weird. That it's part of their identity to be anti-Twilight, as part of their larger nerd/geek identity.

So I suppose if you substitute furry for Twilight in that, you might get the same result.

For me, I just thought Ardlings didn't work. I wanted something like that in the game and still do. I just didn't think they came close to executing it well. Not in the mechanics, and not in what they should look like either. Most objections I saw seemed to share my impressions of them and never seemed to even hint they hated even the concept of such things. Which is what I would have expected if part of their identity was to be anti-Furry and this thing smacked too close to them of being pro-Furry.