D&D 5E Light release schedule: More harm than good?

[Hussar]

They initially said you could download everything to save offline, but they quickly stopped producing the monthly compilations PDFs, meaning you would need to download everything as HTML and hope that the images, styles, etc. didn't get messed up in the process.

everything was still in pdf form though. Just snippets instead of compilations, but, still all in pdf.

 

[Jeff Carlsen]

There are a few approaches for the magazines that could work, but this is something I would crib from Paizo's playbook. Each month is a 64-96 page softcover with a different topic. Sometimes it's an adventure, or a delve into a particular race or monster type, or a book of strange magic items. You can buy the ones you want, or subscribe.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

To be fair, that's exactly what DDi Dungeon and Dragon were. You didn't have to keep subscribing at all, except to get new issues of course. You could easily download everything to read offline. I have pretty much all the articles I wanted on my hard drive. It was only the tools that you needed to be subscribed to to use.

Now, if they would print in single column format so that it reads easier on a text reader, that would be fantastic.

That's cool then. As long as I don't lose the content I've already paid for I'm fine.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Just as I find 5e's mechanics and attitude hearkening back to the earlier era of the hobby charming, I find the slower release schedule nice in the same way. It's like the 80s, when the frenetic book-per-month-per-product-line pace WWGS kept up with the WoD wasn't the trendsetter for the industry. Slower pace means the inevitable power inflation and bloat that less evolved, list-based, games like 5e are so terribly vulnerable to is put off for years, instead of requiring a half-ed system re-boot a couple of years in.

 

[Sailor Moon]

Anyone want to remind me again why these bloat comments keep getting thrown in? Nobody here has said they wanted bloat. Some of us want a release of a bit more product. Also, it doesn't have to be rules.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

To some maybe one more book is too much bloat. Bloat is in the eye of the beholder. Some people are bloated after drinking 3 beers. It takes me more like 17 but I'm not going to look down on those whose bloat tolerance is lower.

 

[Trickster Spirit]

To some maybe one more book is too much bloat. Bloat is in the eye of the beholder. Some people are bloated after drinking 3 beers. It takes me more like 17 but I'm not going to look down on those whose bloat tolerance is lower.

You, sir, must have one heck of a CON modifier.

 

[Hussar]

Anyone want to remind me again why these bloat comments keep getting thrown in? Nobody here has said they wanted bloat. Some of us want a release of a bit more product. Also, it doesn't have to be rules.

Say we go with a book every two months. Fairly meaty book, it's going to have mechanics. They are not going to start banging out systemless books after all. Class options, new monsters, new magic items, etc, the list goes on.

After three years, now you have eighteen books. That's a very large page count. That's more than the entire 1e line and that took nearly ten years to achieve. Heck, it equals 1e after the second year.

Bloat occurs very quickly. I'm guessing that they're looking at that many books (18) over the course of about ten years. Which gives tons of time for corrections and play testing, meaning that that books that do come out aren't going to break the game. Because that's the other side of the coin. With a book every two months even, the people working on one book might not have a strong grasp on what's happening with another book. Which is where bloat and power creep start jumping in because you get all the weird interactions. With a much slower release schedule and a much smaller design team, everyone should have a decent line on what's been done and what direction they are going next.

That's why bloat comments keep coming in.

 

[bmfrosty]

Maybe they should split some of the other settings into differently brandings. It's still D&D, but here it's D&D Eberron. Here it's D&D Planescape. Here it's D&D Dragonlance.

I wonder if that would be considered more bloat or less bloat, or if the different brandings would seem as bloat in and of themselves.

 

[Nellisir]

Say we go with a book every two months. Fairly meaty book, it's going to have mechanics. They are not going to start banging out systemless books after all. Class options, new monsters, new magic items, etc, the list goes on.

After three years, now you have eighteen books. That's a very large page count. That's more than the entire 1e line and that took nearly ten years to achieve. Heck, it equals 1e after the second year.

Bloat occurs very quickly. I'm guessing that they're looking at that many books (18) over the course of about ten years.

You're saying less than 2/year, and using 6/year as your example. Let's try 3-4/year.

• Over 3 years, that's 9-12 books.
• 6 of them are adventure paths.
• 2 of them are campaign settings.
• 1 of them is a monster manual.

That leaves a possible 3 books in 3 years to provide additional campaign/story/adventure path support/DMG 2/bloat. That's not terrible.

And regarding the earlier "story" comment (from Jester, I think), about how Monster Manuals aren't about "story"...MY MM is FULL of story. Far moreso than any past edition.