D&D 5E (2024) Have the 2024 PHB Reveals changed your intentions re: purchasing D&D 2024/25?

[Chaltab]

I hadn't planned to buy it unless Cao and Cocks were gone... and I know Cocks is still there. Still gonna pilfer things I like from the SRD.

 

[beta-ray]

No change. I thought I'd buy it and still will.

 

[DEFCON 1]

I don't see a reason to buy a rulebook if you don't care about the rules. Are you looking forward to new WotC lore? Do you like art that much?

Because new core books are cool. And I like D&D so I buy almost every new core book set when they come out. Because why not? It's not like it's a money issue, because we've had more than 24 months since the announcement of these new books to actually save the cash-- it was only about $7 a month I believe. Plus, buying the books allows me to play the current version of the game which is great when I'm at conventions and places like that where that's the game that is available at most tables, plus I can actually speak about things here on EN World and actually have up-to-date and correct information from experience, rather than talking about of my rear end.

But it's okay too if people only want to play older versions / editions or different games altogether. That's great for them. Nothing wrong with that at all. But that does comes with risks of player availability and filling out a table with players who jive with their gaming sensibilities. So one better be ready for that constraint and accepting of that possibility.

 

[Daztur]

Because new core books are cool. And I like D&D so I buy almost every new core book set when they come out. Because why not? It's not like it's a money issue, because we've had more than 24 months since the announcement of these new books to actually save the cash-- it was only about $7 a month I believe. Plus, buying the books allows me to play the current version of the game which is great when I'm at conventions and places like that where that's the game that is available at most tables, plus I can actually speak about things here on EN World and actually have up-to-date and correct information from experience, rather than talking about of my rear end.

But it's okay too if people only want to play older versions / editions or different games altogether. That's great for them. Nothing wrong with that at all. But that does comes with risks of player availability and filling out a table with players who jive with their gaming sensibilities. So one better be ready for that constraint and accepting of that possibility.

It's a bit too early to tell how things will sort out wrt adoption of 5.5e and player availability. Three basic options:

1. Same thing that happened with 3.5e: 5.5e quickly supplants 5.5e as the default RPG game and some 5e subclasses etc. that don't have 5.5e updates are used for a little while but 5e content quickly fades away in actual play.

2. Same thing that happened with 4e: enough backlash against the new rules that there's a big splintering between 5.5e, 5e holdouts, OGL games, and non-D&D-based RPGs.

3. People will embrace backwards compatibility and 5e and 5.5e content will mix freely in actual play.

I think #3 is very unlikely but either #1 or #2 scenario is possible at this point. 5.5e is not such a deviations from what people expected that I can't see it having a fraction of the backlash that 4e had, but at the same time 5e has a lot more goodwill and staying power than 3e had.

If WotC loses half their market share in the edition changeover that would be very painful financially for them, but that would leave 5.5e still easily the biggest RPG on the market as people not changing over from 5e would be a big mix of people who don't see a reason to change over from 5e or people who are sick of 5e and don't see 5.5e as fixing what they want.

Also with online play becoming more common it should be easier for people to find groups for relatively niche games than in the past.

 

[DEFCON 1]

If WotC loses half their market share in the edition changeover that would be very painful financially for them, but that would leave 5.5e still easily the biggest RPG on the market as people not changing over from 5e would be a big mix of people who don't see a reason to change over from 5e or people who are sick of 5e and don't see 5.5e as fixing what they want.

I personally don't think WotC is worried too much if some people decide to just stick with 5E14... because a lot of their books-- the adventure paths, the books of shorter modules, and any new campaign settings-- will be able to be used by those people too. Most of the "rules" that are found in books like these are generic bolded statblocks (which a person can decide to use the 5E24 version, 5E14 version, or a block from any other monster book they own whose monster matches) or they are standard d20 checks that any 5E or 5E-adjacent ruleset can use out of the box.

The only books that wouldn't get bought by potentially all 5E players are the splatbooks they make for 5E24. But those are a very minor part of their publishing process (having made only 2 of them the past 10 years.)

 

[Reynard]

I think how WotC decides to implement the update on Beyond is going to have a significant impact on how it is adopted by the player base.

 

[Micah Sweet]

There was a list of stuff about the the theme of the DMG. It sounded really useful

All marketing copy until we see at least one preview.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I personally don't think WotC is worried too much if some people decide to just stick with 5E14... because a lot of their books-- the adventure paths, the books of shorter modules, and any new campaign settings-- will be able to be used by those people too. Most of the "rules" that are found in books like these are generic bolded statblocks (which a person can decide to use the 5E24 version, 5E14 version, or a block from any other monster book they own whose monster matches) or they are standard d20 checks that any 5E or 5E-adjacent ruleset can use out of the box.

The only books that wouldn't get bought by potentially all 5E players are the splatbooks they make for 5E24. But those are a very minor part of their publishing process (having made only 2 of them the past 10 years.)

You don't think they're going to churn out a whole line of them to "update" all the player options from 5.0 that weren't in the 5.5 corebooks?

 

[Reynard]

You don't think they're going to churn out a whole line of them to "update" all the player options from 5.0 that weren't in the 5.5 corebooks?

My guess is that will happen, but slowly.

 

[DEFCON 1]

You don't think they're going to churn out a whole line of them to "update" all the player options from 5.0 that weren't in the 5.5 corebooks?

No, not a "whole line". A single book that will take care of most of the more popular subclasses? Sure.

But a good number of subclasses are barely used or considered by anyone, so there's not much need to "update" them in an official book any time soon... because individual players can either just do it themselves or someone else can make a little bit of coin by doing their own book of "updates" on DMs Guild for the ones that WotC doesn't.

The Arcana domain cleric... the Long Death monk... the Purple Dragon Knight fighter... the Oath of the Crown paladin... the Horizon Walker ranger... any of these could not be updated any time soon and not be bothersome to anyone except for a few, very small select group of players.