D&D 5E Grumbling about New (and Announced) Releases

[Parmandur]

the whole selling it as part of a boxed set thing is crummy behaviour, and only forgiven because perhaps it's mostly a production issue.

They have confirmed that the book will be available separately, though it's premiering in the gift pack.

I'd buy a Feywild setting book but am unmoved by a big top/funfair (puke) themed adventure. Not much I dislike more aesthetically than that. Yeah I did NOT enjoy The Greatest Showman, thanks!

The weird part there is that the carnival is a minor note in the book: the core of the book is 5 pretty seperate 32-page modules, and only the intro module is carnival related. The other 4 are very, very different.

If they manage to compound this by, say, a pure Spelljammer setting (yawn), and then failure to provide either a full Planescape (no Manual of the Planes nonsense will be acceptable if they go all in on SJ) or Dark Sun (either with a Psion or the setting reworked in a genuinely cool way that preserves the key themes) well, I may take a break until 5.5/6E, at least DMing-wise.

I fully expect to see all 3 in the next few years.

 

[FrozenNorth]

There's more content than I can reasonably use. I'm interested in the Strixhaven book and the Critical Role adventure, but the fact is that I'm still in the middle of Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden and Baldur's Gate: Descent into Avernus campaigns and will likely be playing them well into 2022. I own both Candlekeep Mysteries and Wild Beyond the Witchlight and haven't even read them. So in terms of adventures I feel like I'm swimming in them, and there's a backlog.

This is where I am as well. I am very excited about “the Wild beyond the Witchlight” (one of my best purchases back in the AD&D days was “Tall tales of the Wee Folk”). However, I look back at all the adventures that I own that I hadn’t had time to run, and all the home-campaign ideas I have that I also haven’t had a chance to run, and I reluctantly find myself putting the book back onto the shelf until I am certain that my group chooses that as the next campaign (I give my players a vote on the campaign to run).

 

[Parmandur]

People write what they know. I don't see anything wrong with that. I would rather that than have them make a pigs ear of trying to make it British. To non-Americans it has novelty value. There are some things that might need more explanation though.

It's true, I think a lot of people were just jarred by the juxtaposition of Oldde Tyme Oldde World aesthetics with American College sports and such.

 

[AverageMojito]

My discounting of CR material is that - while I'm not a fan - a number of my players are. They will know more about the setting than I will, and the comparisons to how Matt Mercer runs his game is something I don't want.
I also don't like running things in other established campaign settings the players are familiar with. I want to make it my own, I want them to be surprised when they encounter NPCs and locations.

That's a fair point. FWIW, when I run a game in a published setting, I set the expectations for canon at the lowest rate for my players. "This is our game, guys, not theirs" kind of statement.

That being said, a fandom can have a hard time separating these things, and they might get excited over locations the GM is not really aware of the importance in the show and may fail to deliver such expectations. I get your point.

 

[rgoodbb]

We've recently rewound back to Saltmarsh as it is more interesting to us than anything else released recently. Actually liking it more than I thought.

Other than that, I sit in a dark room and await one book. Dark Sun.

 

[Charlaquin]

Well, if you've played any adventure published for 5e (and most of D&D history), you've played in someone else's setting. All major 5E AP were played in Ed Greenwood's home setting (admittedly, a very different Realms from his home Realms for a while now). The highly praised classic modules were played in Gygax's or Arneson's home setting. So, not exactly a new thing.

Oh, I know. And Eberron is Keith Baker’s setting, etc. Every published setting is someone’s baby. But for whatever reason, I feel it with Exandria in a way I don’t with other settings. Maybe because I’ve watched him run his game in it so much, or maybe because I can clearly see the mix of influences from other settings which makes it feel extra like some DM’s homebrew to me. It’s not rational, but it is how I feel.

 

[Greg K]

I have found all of WOTC's 5e supplements to be disapointing and/or of no interest. The current releases just continue that trend.

Strixhaven: A magic school is something in which I would, normally, be interested. However, in addition to having no interest in MTG or MTG settings, the previews sold me off of this book hard. Time to track down Redhurst Academy (although I would just use 3e rather than convert it to 5e) or just run a Magic Academy in some other system (e.g. Cortex Plus, Pip System

Witchlight: Despite liking the idea of the Feywild and researching third party Fey products, I have no interest in adventures. I will, however, probably look for reviews of the Domains of Delight pdf that WOTC posted to Dungeon Master's Guild. It appears to be about the Feywild and creating one's own Domains of Delight. To bad, there is no print on demand option should I be interested.

Fizban's: A dedicated dragon book can be cool. However, like the 3e Dragonomicon, I will be giving this a pass. Based on a video overlook of the book, only Chapter 5 (and, maybe, Chapters 3 & 4) are of interest to me along with the Dragon Turtle, Sea Serpent in Chapter 6 (I can take or leave Draconians and the gem dragons). Granted, pagewise this is more than I found of interest in SCA, Xanathat's, and Tasha's combined, but it does not make the book a worthwhile enough purchase for me.

The Critical Role book, as with the other books, I have no interest.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

I try to approach every announced release with a degree of optimism. I am not a Magic the Gathering player, but Ravnica absolutely inspired a ton of stuff in my homebrew world of Zuur, and I would run a game in Theros in a heartbeat.

Was I super-excited to get ahold of Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft? Do I still hope for Spelljammer or Dragonlance to return? Heck yeah. I've been a D&D fan for a long darn time. But what kind of fan would I be if I only appreciated the stuff that directly catered to my particular nostalgia? I'd be like the people that go to concerts and only care about hearing that one song they first heard when they were 18 years old, despite the band having a catalog that spans decades....

As for the tone, I'm fine with them focusing more on whimsy and the fantastical. I played RPGs plenty in the 90s, so my edgy-dark tank is probably still close to full. Now more than ever, I think people need that sense of escapism and joy.

 

[Charlaquin]

The weird part there is that the carnival is a minor note in the book: the core of the book is 5 pretty seperate 32-page modules, and only the intro module is carnival related. The other 4 are very, very different.

Wow, what a bizarre choice to lean so hard into the carnival in the marketing then. “5 short Faewild adventures, one of which takes place in a carnival” is a much more appealing pitch to me than “Adventure path revolving around a carnival that shows up and whisks people away to the Faewild and also is apparently connected to the carnival domain in Ravenloft somehow.”

 

[Bolares]

Wow, what a bizarre choice to lean so hard into the carnival in the marketing then. “5 short Faewild adventures, one of which takes place in a carnival” is a much more appealing pitch to me than “Adventure path revolving around a carnival that shows up and whisks people away to the Faewild and also is apparently connected to the carnival domain in Ravenloft somehow.”

The carnival is as prevalent as baldur’s gate on the baldurs gate adventure