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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ruin Explorer" data-source="post: 9438294" data-attributes="member: 18">I guess the thing is, that's grading on a curve to a degree so extreme it doesn't really feel like it's experimentation in any meaningful sense of the word.In no other edition of D&D would either Wild or Radiant be considered "experimental". They would be run of the mill products. Comparing either to Obojima/Ryoko does 5E no favours here - both are vastly more daring and contain far more in the way of new and unusual concepts and rules. Radiant Citadel is the more "experimental" of the two 5E examples, and it's just "What if the hub for some adventures was somewhat diverse and the writers of the adventures were linked to the cultures they were describing (rather than a buncha white dudes)?". Most of the actual adventures themselves are pretty bog-standard tales, just with a perspective that's more favourable to and comprehending of the cultures involved, and less "Look at this exotic and mysterious culture!" like it would definitely have in 1E, probably 2E, maybe 3E.I think it could be argued that the notion of using MtG settings as D&D settings was an experiment, clearly one WotC considered successful enough to repeat.The only thing 5E has really shown much interest in experimenting with is the format of the books, and so far this has largely been to our detriment. Specifically the actual "experiments" I've seen with 5E boil down to:1) Doing settings as one big adventure with some setting details - Strixhaven and Dragonlance - I don't think either was entirely successful, but not really because of the concept, but rather the specific implementation.2) Doing settings as three separate hardbacks which cost way more, and simultaneously massively increasing the size of the "adventure" part of the product. I would say this was unsuccessful with Spelljammer - which took the additional step of not even having a starting adventure, what you're given is essentially the part 2 of an adventure that came out on Beyond! That's er... experimentation, for sure. Manipulation too! Planescape was more successful but I think a lot of people would agree that less adventure and more setting would have been preferable.I guess there's a third experiment - attempting to add a boardgame to substitute for/supplement the mechanics from an adventure - we saw this with the Dragonlance: Warriors of Krynn boardgame. This was clearly a failure, given that the boardgame ended up in Ollie's really surprisingly soon (even if it didn't sell well, it feels like WotC just dumped it a bit fast).None of these are particularly impressive experiments, and none of them are really directed at giving the players something they asked for, or something genuinely new/interesting. That's not a critique, necessarily, but it does I think make it easy to suggest 5E has been probably the least experimental edition of D&D, even behind 4E. 2E would be the most, followed by 3E.</blockquote>

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