D&D 5E How Do You Feel About the Rate of New WotC Game Content for 5E DMs?

[Hexmage-EN]

Thing is, collecting those 10 APs ends up being a lot of Setting information.

For the adventures set in the Forgotten Realms that is the case.

For Spelljammer it resulted in their essentially not being any setting other than a homebase (the Rock of Bral) and two barely described Wildspace systems where you only actually land on a single planet in one of them for one or two combat encounters.

As a sidenote, I strongly suspect that something happened during the Spelljammer 5E development phase that shook the project up, perhaps the transition from a more standard release to the new three book box set format. For example, early images show a map featuring Athaspace where in the final product it is not featured. WizKids also released a set of minis for the final combat encounter in the Light of Xaryxis adventure that features a character named Prince Xavra who isn't in the final product.

 

[Parmandur]

For the adventures set in the Forgotten Realms that is the case.

For Spelljammer it resulted in their essentially not being any setting other than a homebase (the Rock of Bral) and two barely described Wildspace systems where you only actually land on a single planet in one of them for one or two combat encounters.

As a sidenote, I strongly suspect that something happened during the Spelljammer 5E development phase that shook the project up, perhaps the transition from a more standard release to the new three book box set format. For example, early images show a map featuring Athaspace where in the final product it is not featured. WizKids also released a set of minis for the final combat encounter in the Light of Xaryxis adventure that features a character named Prince Xavra who isn't in the final product.

View attachment 386499

Yeah, it does really seem that there were cuts to content for that: Planescape is much better, with the only change being 32 more pages for the Setting guide and 32 more pages for the Campaign (though Spelljammer has a very good campaign). The same material we got, plus not that many ybpahes would have made it a huge triumph.

 

[mamba]

But if WotC can get 100,000 people to buy 5 each of them, whereas only 20,00o would buy the pure Setting book...why wouldn't they go for Option A...?

assuming they can, they would, yet we are getting two FR setting books so my guess is your numbers are way off

 

[Parmandur]

assuming they can, they would, yet we are getting two FR setting books so my guess is your numbers are way off

Just a for-example: mod again, an awful lot of those "Setting" book will be Monsters and Adventure, mark it.

 

[Older Beholder]

The ideal approach would be to keep them entirely separate, so for something like Ravenloft you'd have a core Ravenloft book with perhaps a tiny adventure in it, and then a book that is focused on an actual campaign.

Isn’t this exactly what they did for Ravenloft, only in reverse order? With Curse of Strahd being the adventure/campaign and Van Ritchtens guide to Ravenloft being the setting book with a short adventure.

 

[Hussar]

People seem to forget history.

Remember when we had new editions every three years or so? When they basically chucked out all the previous setting information each time to "update" the settings? 2e did it, then 10 years later, 3e, with three year gaps between 3e, 3.5 and 4e then 5e five years after that. Remember that? Remember how they "updated" each setting each time to force you to buy endless streams of setting guides?

I remember that.

No thanks. I'll pass on the edition churn. Heck, I did for years. I refused to buy setting guides for exactly that reason - they'd be out of date or invalid before I even got a chance to use them, most of the time. Because by the time I was ready to use this or that setting guide, along came another guide, or fifteen novels or whatever, and poof, gone away.

I'd much rather the way things are now. Fairly static settings, no changes, and only the modules. If we have settings that are so vast, like FR, or whatever, we don't need fifteen thousand new books detailing the same region over and over and over again. How many versions of Waterdeep are there? How many Thay books are there? Underdark has been written and rewritten a thousand freaking times.

Yeah, no thanks. I'll happily keep patting WotC on the head for this approach.

 

[mamba]

Fairly static settings, no changes, and only the modules. If we have settings that are so vast, like FR, or whatever, we don't need fifteen thousand new books detailing the same region over and over and over again.

I am fine with being static, but let's face it there is a lot of settings that have so far barely scratched the surface in 5e support and even most of the FR lives up to its name

 

[Hussar]

I am fine with being static, but let's face it there is a lot of settings that have so far barely scratched the surface in 5e support and even most of the FR lives up to its name

But that’s my point. Even though the Sword Coast is just a small slice of FR, we can set what fifteen full length campaigns there with no problem and space to spare.

Who cares about the rest of the setting. If you want lore about the Shining South, there’s a great big 3e book right there for you.

The days of vanity press level publications from WotC have been gone for a decade.

 

[Vaalingrade]

I am fine with being static, but let's face it there is a lot of settings that have so far barely scratched the surface in 5e support and even most of the FR lives up to its name

How does 'FR' live up to 'the one setting that matters'?

 

[mamba]

Who cares about the rest of the setting.

people that want to see something else every once in a while. That is why we do have different settings to begin with, or different regions within the same one

If you want lore about the Shining South, there’s a great big 3e book right there for you.

The days of vanity press level publications from WotC have been gone for a decade.

whether it is vanity or not is imo an open question, and I doubt most 5e players would buy a 3e book, even if they knew it existed

Sounds like the new FR book will cover some regions so far neglected in 5e, but with material in older editions too, so it’s not like WotC thinks everyone should just get the old stuff instead. Look at their adventure anthologies too, many rehash old material