D&D 5E Mearl's Book Design Philosophy

[Maxperson]

...but if the water's full of life preservers, and you continue to drown because you're not willing to swim a few strokes...


...and if you're not willing to take the preserver when one lands on you just because it wasn't thrown as fast as you would like...

Cute metaphors are well and good, and you can determine for yourself which products "cut it" and which don't, but it might be worth appreciating what others might want out of the game as important and relevant, too.

That's simply not the case, though. Support for me is non-existent at this point. It's not as if it exists and I am not making use of it.

 

[Maxperson]

Support for a specific person would be conditional...and you said your requests were not conditional. In which case, we're talking about support in the general sense.

Do you seriously believe that I am alone in this? Or even close to alone?

 

[PMárk]

They're selling the classic books from past editions as PDFs on their site. If people want one of the several manuals of the planes, which were mostly non-crunch material anyway, they can still buy any of them.

Ok, let's repeat my post's second part, because it apparently got lost somehow:

And what about system updates, new material, even the dreaded metaplot, because some people like living, evolving settings? DMsG material is ok, but it's old. Old as layout, old as artworks (although I like a lot of the old books' visual style) old as story, old as plot, old as system. It's not backward-compatible, and in the case of living settings, like FR, even the lore is not the same.

I generally haven't got any personal problems with Mearls. I enjoy a lot of his writings, regardless of how I like the current approach of D&D or not. I generally try to not make any personal attacks when criticizing it. But this specific quote for me is just PR talk, which wants to show in a more flattering way something, what ultimately is just "because it won't make enough money and we have to make money".

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[Shasarak]

...if you'll only ever drink one thing...

I have seen what happens when you mix your drinks.

 

[Maxperson]

Ok, let's repeat my post's second part, because it apparently got lost somehow:

And what about system updates, new material, even the dreaded metaplot, because some people like living, evolving settings? DMsG material is ok, but it's old. Old as layout, old as artworks (although I like a lot of the old books' visual style) old as story, old as plot, old as system. It's not backward-compatible, and in the case of living settings, like FR, even the lore is not the same.

I generally haven't got any personal problems with Mearls. I enjoy a lot of his writings, regardless of how I like the current approach of D&D or not. I generally try to not make any personal attacks when criticizing it. But this specific quote for me is just PR talk, which wants to show in a more flattering way something, what ultimately is just "because it won't make enough money and we have to make money".

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This. Plus I will add that I simply don't have the time to convert things myself. Between work and family, I only get about 6 hours a week including game time to devote to D&D, often I lose that 1 hour of prep time. I need most of the work to be done for me. I can tweak what little needs tweaking, but I don't have time to do more.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Do you seriously believe that I am alone in this? Or even close to alone?

Nope. That's my whole point...we're not talking about just you.

 

[Morrus]

However, my BS meter went off with that quote.

Repackaging old adventure themes from previous editions with some twists....Princes, Strahd, Storm King, Tyranny.

Yeah. I'm not the world's biggest Mearls fan, though, so take my view with a grain of salt.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I don't think I'd have a problem with that at all, for the most part. I feel like that's what makes the most sense. I also feel like that's how a lot of the old products were...except they'd come in a boxed set and have smaller softcover books for each section.

I tended to love boxed sets, so I'd dig that approach for sure. Even without the boxes.

There was a Shadowfell boxed set in 4e that had an adventure/Shadowfell DMs guide, maps, and IIRC some tokens? Anyway, make heroes of shadow a paperback and add it to that box and that would be my favorite thing ever. Do one for the feywild and the planes? Yes plz.


Id also love a book/set like that or Volos for settings. I'd even down for sets that are focused in content type, with coverage of how that content works in different settings. Like if volos had half the content but made up for it with info on each race and monster in Eberron, dl, ds, planescape, and mystara, etc.

 

[hawkeyefan]

There was a Shadowfell boxed set in 4e that had an adventure/Shadowfell DMs guide, maps, and IIRC some tokens? Anyway, make heroes of shadow a paperback and add it to that box and that would be my favorite thing ever. Do one for the feywild and the planes? Yes plz.


Id also love a book/set like that or Volos for settings. I'd even down for sets that are focused in content type, with coverage of how that content works in different settings. Like if volos had half the content but made up for it with info on each race and monster in Eberron, dl, ds, planescape, and mystara, etc.

It sounded to me from the article that the success of Volo's Guide will impact how they design future releases. I'm hoping it's successful, and we see the kind of material you're talking about. I don't think it would be viable to do each setting in that format, but one or two, definitely.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Why would a setting specific book count as a general release for all games? I also didn't actually look at dungeonology and just assumed that it was a general release book. My bad. I should have known better.

So we only have one book in more than 2 years that is general release, and it's a monster book. Color me unimpressed.

Because The actual options are all super easy to use in any setting?