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

[Stormonu]

I'm out of the loop on Critical Role (don't really WANT to know about it, frankly), and the high magic of base D&D bothers me intellectually at times, though at the table I'm quite happy with the likes of my Centaur Cleric of Karametra with his ironwrought raptor sort of character.

I did pick up the Witchlight* book after initially having no interest, and will be picking up the Strixhaven book (been wanting to do a Harry Potter style magic school since I first saw the Sorcerer Stone movie), but I'm going to be passing on the upcoming Fizban's and Mord's book - especially the latter is just a retread of already printed material with stat block updates I'm not quite on board with.

I will say that ever since Tasha's came out, at least for player content books, it feels like they've been scraping the bottom of the barrel for content. The campaign books and adventure releases are fine, I just don't feel all that great where player-facing content is going - and now monsters are getting a bit iffy.

* Haregons, Kelek, Zaray & Warduke o my! And if the "adventure without combat" option holds up, I think that's fantasic!

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I didn't want to rain on the parade in the thread about the newly announced Critical Role adventure, but I'm just not excited at all about it - or for that matter the Dragon book, the Feywild adventure, or the upcoming magic college setting.

Some could perhaps attribute this to burn-out - after all, I've purchased (and used) many of the official 5e books over the years. However, I think there's something more to it. I still look at third party stuff for my once-in-a-blue-moon 5e game. I get excited about releases for other systems. I eagerly backed Level Up.

I think it's the high magic feel.

Anyone else feel similarly?

I'm also not excited about any of these, however, I am pretty keen to see the new monster book, though 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. If they do it again it will not be forgiven.

I am also excited to hear about the new settings and potentially interested in other stuff.

I think with these I just find them specifically boring. Dragons have never excited me, I feel like they're overexposed and it doesn't sound like Fizban adds any new ideas or takes. 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! As for the magic college, I'm not a Harry Potter fan, nor an MtG fan, I went to the sort of school that has "houses" (less fun than it might sound), and without the more daring mechanical stuff they were trying, it doesn't appeal.

So long as there is an audience,and I certainly believe there is for all three, particularly the magic college, and WotC isn't TSRing itself, I'm okay with just an unlucky line up of books.

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.

So I guess for me it's not exactly knife edge and it's not burnout, but if they keep boring me, I won't be picking stuff up. So long as a significant proportion of the audience does, cool. I do slightly worry they might still TSR themselves though no doubt less severely, but the long term consequences could actually be worse for D&D if they did it as part of Hasbro and having been a massive profit center. I think it would take a ton of mistakes for multiple years to do that. That or the D&D movie being so bad it's embarrassing for young people to be associated with D&D lol.

 

[Minigiant]

I get more excited for stuff built specifically for a system. So I get it. All life reprints of older a classic material doesn't excite me because it is often just layering stuff on top because the icing is cool.

I like books when I can dig him hands into the material and see how, why, and what the writings are expanding on/with. Conversions and adaptions are nice but I want something deep and fresh. That's why I like Xanatar and Tasha because they create something new while entangling the rules and lore.

 

[Morrus]

I generally feel they release so much these days that for any given book I'm not personally into, two other books I like the sound of will pop up shortly.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

To the OP, in general to answer your question No.

First off I am fed up to the back teeth of Grimdark, dystopian nihilism. If I want that I can turn on the news. I want a little whimsey and escapism in my fantasy. So i like Wild beyond the Witchlight. I like the idea of Strixhaven but have not decided to buy it or not. Did not think I would be interested in Fizban's but coming around.
Not buying the boxed set and if I get the now Mord monster book it will be as a FantasyGround add on. I do not read monster book in general. The CR adventure, probably not, not bought any of the setting material and I have enough adventures that I do not want another that I have not gotten to use. Depends, if any of the players want to play in that world I might reconsider.

 

[Frozen_Heart]

The dragon book is probably my most hyped book since xanathar's. What is Dungeons and Dragons without plenty of dragons?

Strixhaven and the Feywild book don't grab me at all.

Cautiously hyped for monsters of the multiverse. I'm hoping genasi get a full revamp. I get a bad feeling that the entire book will just be 'pre set ASI's no longer allowed' without fixing any of the less interesting and viable player species.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I went to the sort of school that has "houses"

To be fair, I suspect it will be more American College than British public school. Fewer cold showers.

 

[Nefermandias]

I didn't want to rain on the parade in the thread about the newly announced Critical Role adventure, but I'm just not excited at all about it - or for that matter the Dragon book, the Feywild adventure, or the upcoming magic college setting.

Some could perhaps attribute this to burn-out - after all, I've purchased (and used) many of the official 5e books over the years. However, I think there's something more to it. I still look at third party stuff for my once-in-a-blue-moon 5e game. I get excited about releases for other systems. I eagerly backed Level Up.

I think it's the high magic feel.

Anyone else feel similarly?

Yes, I'm really disappointed too, but not because of "high magic". I just happen to hate Critical Role with all my heart and I also hate WoTC trying to force MtG into D&D.

Ah, and their insistence on using "NPC guide to something" format for this new Draconomicon also makes me very very angry.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

I missed the boat with Critical Role so adventures and settings tied to it don't grab my attention. I might have been more interested in Fizban's if I wasn't coming off a long run of Rise of Tiamat. I'm good on dragons for the foreseeable future. The feywild doesn't do it for me as a setting. I prefer the feywilds to be setting adjacent if that makes any sense. Strixhaven is a cool concept but I'm not sure I need anything more than what I've already got to run a magical school setting. Ravenloft has never appealed to me though I wouldn't ditch the table if that's what everyone else wanted to play.

Just a bad run for me but there's always something around the corner.

I think the regular Shadowfell and Feywild ARE setting adjacent, it's the demiplanes within them (Domains of Dread and Domains of Delight), that are seperate setting. So Feywild Toril/Realmspace and Shadowfell Toril/Realmspace is really part of the Forgotten Realms, but the Domains are seperate settings. The Domains of Gods however are a very different thing entirely.

 

[Frozen_Heart]

I mean,the entire book of dragons helps with the variety aspect, but I have trouble imagining dragons as uninteresting.

But what of they were a drsgon...man? Burnanating the countryside...?

I mean the monster manual 5e dragons are pretty dull tbh. 'here is big stack of HP which sometimes does a damage cone'

That's literally it.

Then again, that sums up most 5e stat blocks. As interesting stat blocks were a part of 4e design, and therefore had to be removed.