D&D 5E I think the era of 4th edition Dungeons and Dragons had it right. (not talking about the rules).

[Sacrosanct]

It is pretty rough to go around intentionally killing PCs but I guess if it helps you to go through content faster then it is all good.

Intentionally killing off PCs is really bad DMing, IMO, especially if it's for such a dubious reason as just to go through content faster. The game is not the DM vs the Players. The DM was originally called a referee for a reason. Impartiality is important.

I can't speak for others of course, but the minute I get the vibe from the DM that he or she is against us players, I stop playing with them. After all, the DM has all the power. Not a very fair competition when they can add/change or just "poof" anything they want into the game.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I have one easy way for you to increase your consumption rate: Increase the Difficulty rating of the Monsters faced. A few player deaths should help to dig through that backlog of material. #cantkeepup

This is kind of an odd recommendation for a couple of reasons.

First, killing PCs does not necessarily mean the game will speed up. Usually, a player will create a new character and insert them in the old character's place. No change of pace...unless the group prefers for such arrivals to be points of interest and explained within the fictional world...in which case, they would add time to the game.

Second, if you mean that a TPK would mean you would call an end to the current adventure, and start on the next, then I suppose you might be right. You'd get through the adventures more quickly...but they'd be incomplete, and likely

Not everyone is in a rush to get to the next thing. I think most people would prefer to enjoy the game they're playing as opposed to always lookin for the next game.

 

[PMárk]

A couple of things:

- If you want to play every AP and you like them, then yes there's a lot of material, because they are somehow able to churn out 2 of them every year. If you want to play anything else, then, no, there's very little material.
- The corebooks are already had more than enough material. Sorry, no. I'm not interested in every option in the PHB, while not getting options I might be more interested in.
-3rd party. Again, sorry, I don't think it's a valid excuse for WotC don't making content. There are excellent products, yes. They also not allowed in organized play and a lot of DMs have serious problems with 3rd party and homebrew content, because they don't know how much it got playtested, how broken it is, etc. The advantage of the "official stamp" is the assumption of quality insurance. Yes, big 3rd party names are a lot less problematic but still, they aren't allowed by default and not in organized play.

Also, while 3rd parties are making excellent things, they can't make the old WotC settings. The Blight, Primeval Thule, Middle Earth are still not Ravenloft, Planescape, Spelljammer or FR. If WotC would license out these settings as they did with RL in 3e, I'd have zero objections.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Also, while 3rd parties are making excellent things, they can't make the old WotC settings. The Blight, Primeval Thule, Middle Earth are still not Ravenloft, Planescape, Spelljammer or FR. If WotC would license out these settings as they did with RL in 3e, I'd have zero objections.

They do. The DM's Guild allows you to use nearly everything that's been previously published. I think a couple settings like Dark Sun is still off limits, but I'm sure it will be allowed in the future.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I wasn't going to say anything about it because it seemed well explained enough by others, but...

I can't keep up with the 5th edition release schedule either.

I've been playing as much D&D as my group can stand to (averages out to about 2 sessions per week, though not of the same campaign) since the Starter Set came out, but we've barely scratched the surface it seems:

• None of my players have played every class they want to try out yet.
• I haven't used all the monsters I want to from the Monster Manual, and Volo's Guide is around the corner giving me even more of them.
• One campaign started with Hoard of the Dragon Queen the week it came out and hasn't finished yet, plus the campaign we started with Lost Mine of Phandelver is still going, and my home-brew campaign on top of that
• I haven't even bought Curse of Strahd or Storm King's Thunder yet because I've already got Princes of the Apocalypse on the shelf waiting to be started

And that's not even counting the side campaigns I run whenever players in the normally schedule campaigns can't show up or a few people have an extra day they can squeeze in a session, or any of the 3rd-party or DM's Guild stuff that interests me.

So just because the schedule is slower than prior editions, or because you don't personally like or "count" whatever is on the schedule, doesn't mean that people saying they can't keep up with it shouldn't be taken seriously.

Cannot agree with this post hard enough. This post make me believe love is real. If this post was a man it would be so sexy that I would question my sexual orientation.

...but I've been reading too much Chuck Tingle...

At any rate, +1 agree.

 

[PMárk]

Yes, but DMsG isn't official. When WW-Arthaus did Ravenloft, that was official, that was RL during 3e. As things stand, there is multiple RL conversions on DMsG and neither of them is official.

That they provided a platform, for basically fan-fiction (I'm not being condescending, it's not a question of the quality of certain works, but the plain nature of the material there) is not equal to licensing out the setting and acknowledging the licensed product as official. Kobold Press made adventures for WotC and those are official. their Tome of Beasts isn't official.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Yes, but DMsG isn't official. When WW-Arthaus did Ravenloft, that was official, that was RL during 3e. As things stand, there is multiple RL conversions on DMsG and neither of them is official.

That they provided a platform, for basically fan-fiction (I'm not being condescending, it's not a question of the quality of certain works, but the plain nature of the material there) is not equal to licensing out the setting and acknowledging the licensed product as official. Kobold Press made adventures for WotC and those are official. their Tome of Beasts isn't official.

I'm confused. You said 3rd parties can't do official settings. I said they can, per the DM's Guild. And now you're saying that doesn't count because it's not official? I'm confused, because 3rd party has never "truly" been official. That's what 3rd party means.

DM's Guild is new, and IIRC, hasn't been done before in the industry. It's always been one-off 3rd party licenses. Now WotC is saying they give their support for all 3rd parties, and is allowing people to use their IP. So everything on the DM's Guild *is* 5e D&D

 

[PMárk]

A license means the material the licensee puts out IS official, because WotC acknowledges it as such.

If you make some FR material and I make some too then bot of us puts them out in DMsG, neither is official. WotC just allowed us to make fan-fiction and publish it on their platform.

For example, if Kobold Press would receive an official license for Planescape and then puts out a Planescape CG, that would be THE official Planescape version for 5e as long as WotC doesn't withdraw the license and makes their own. Your and mine Planescape documents on DMsG wouldn't be official material. It's not the distribution channel that matters, it's the official license that matters.

Or, if I'm putting out an FR material on DMsG that contradicts WotC's material, their material is the official and not mine regardless of I'm allowed to use the setting.

I'd correct my argument: "Also, while 3rd parties are making excellent things, they can't make the old WotC settings in a way that counts as the official iterations of those settings in 5e. The Blight, Primeval Thule, Middle Earth are still not Ravenloft, Planescape, Spelljammer or FR. If WotC would license out these settings as they did with RL in 3e, I'd have zero objections."

And I think the big 3rd parties won't make any comprehensive material, or really any material for the D&D settings for 5e, exactly because the danger of WotC putting out their own official material for those at any time, thus invalidating their work.

​

 

[Shasarak]

This is kind of an odd recommendation for a couple of reasons.

First, killing PCs does not necessarily mean the game will speed up. Usually, a player will create a new character and insert them in the old character's place. No change of pace...unless the group prefers for such arrivals to be points of interest and explained within the fictional world...in which case, they would add time to the game.

Second, if you mean that a TPK would mean you would call an end to the current adventure, and start on the next, then I suppose you might be right. You'd get through the adventures more quickly...but they'd be incomplete, and likely

Not everyone is in a rush to get to the next thing. I think most people would prefer to enjoy the game they're playing as opposed to always lookin for the next game.

That is why complaining you can not keep up is so hilarious. If you are enjoying your slow and steady pace through the Rise of Tiamat or whatever then just keep on going enjoying your trip. I dont see any sense complaining about something that you are not actually willing to do anything about in the first place.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

5E is doing really, really well, right? So it seems that what they're doing is pretty good for D&D, regardless of not pleasing what seems like a small minority of fans. There are always going to be some folks who aren't happy, who aren't getting what they want--and maybe most of us won't get exactly what we want. But it seems that WotC has found a nice sweet-spot with 5E where they are pleasing a large number of folks and maintaining economic success. Why mess with that?

Now maybe that will change. Maybe at some point they'll say, "let's do things a bit differently." Right now they're still maintaining high sales without putting out more product, but perhaps at some point the sales on the PHB start declining. At some point they'll want to boost that, perhaps with another yearly book ala the 1E era.

Anyhow, I think it is time to accept the fact that not only will they never go back to the 2E-3E-4E gluttony era, but the reason they won't because it is bad business, it is bad for the game, and what they're doing is working. But again, I wouldn't be surprised if they added another book or two a year at some point. Expanded a bit. There's a lot of degrees between 5E's three-books-a-year and the 10-20+ books of years past. How about 4-5 books a year? Maybe once they get past that three year mark, they'll expand a bit. But I think they will do so only slightly, and at a conservative pace.

I think this pretty much sums it up.

And heck, I've barely scratched the surface as well since I've never even played the game yet, only DM'd them. So all the classes are wide open for me still.