D&D (2024) New Jeremy Crawford Interviews

[UngeheuerLich]

Popularity and quality are not synonyms. I'll die on this hill.

Nope. But they don't exclude each other.

Edit:
To repeat myself...

https://www.southpark.de/en/episodes/13y790/south-park-gnomes-season-2-ep-17

 

[Oofta]

Sure, but that has nothing to do with whether or not the designers made the game they wanted to make, that met the goals they wanted to meet. All that says is that the game they are currently iterating on was and is popular.

There's also no reason to believe a complete redesign of the rules would be better in any measurable sense. There are significant advantages to using the current rules as a starting point and only tweaking them. They've had a decade of play and feedback to figure out what works and what doesn't. Combine that with surveys (even imperfect ones because all surveys are imperfect) and play testing done by people who have been playing the game for year.

Whether you liked 4E or not, it came close to being the last version of D&D ever made, 5E was a Hail Mary that succeeded far beyond expectations. It would have been foolish to reinvent the game yet again, there really is no upside that I can see. Theoretically a redesigned game could be "better". But the odds of it being a better game for the majority of people playing 5E are slim.

As far as "greed" and "under-monetized" I think that's a complete non sequitur. Of course they want to make a profit. But I see no evidence of them cutting corners. They could have released a new version with no public testing, they could have released a 5.5 years ago. I'm actually a bit surprised they waited this long, and if it hadn't been for the 50th anniversary I'm not sure they would have.

 

[mamba]

Like making other games. You know, like a lot of other companies do.

other TTRPGs? why would they, I do not see that as benefiting WotC

 

[Oofta]

Having the most popular game ever is a sign that they already made a great game.

Which also, just to be fair, doesn't mean there aren't other great games out there that will never be as successful. But you don't get, and sustain, the number of players 5E has with a bad game.

 

[Chaosmancer]

I am not effectively calling to give more spell slots.

As I understand it, the 5e24 version receives spells earlier.

As my suggestion was to not use spell slots, the claim that I want to "effectively" add spell slots is objectively false.

Right, you are suggesting that they not use spell slots to smite. This means more spell slots for their spells. If Divine Smite and all the others no longer take spell slots, but instead some new resource that has no connection to spell slots... then it is effectively giving them more spell slots.

 

[Micah Sweet]

other TTRPGs? why would they, I do not see that as benefiting WotC

It would bring in gamers who don't like WotC 5e, at least potentially. Again, they used to do this, and many other game companies do it now.

 

[Oofta]

It would bring in gamers who don't like WotC 5e, at least potentially. Again, they used to do this, and many other game companies do it now.

TSR used to do it, we know how well that worked for them. For better or worse, people associate WotC with D&D. That, and from a return on investment point of view, there's little motivation to do so considering all the competition. Splitting focus among multiple products can work sometimes, not others.

Last, but not least, why do you think they would produce anything else you would be interested in? If you don't want to play D&D, there are plenty of other options out there.

 

[Argyle King]

Right, you are suggesting that they not use spell slots to smite. This means more spell slots for their spells. If Divine Smite and all the others no longer take spell slots, but instead some new resource that has no connection to spell slots... then it is effectively giving them more spell slots.

No. There wouldn't be spell slots.

 

[Micah Sweet]

TSR used to do it, we know how well that worked for them. For better or worse, people associate WotC with D&D. That, and from a return on investment point of view, there's little motivation to do so considering all the competition. Splitting focus among multiple products can work sometimes, not others.

Last, but not least, why do you think they would produce anything else you would be interested in? If you don't want to play D&D, there are plenty of other options out there.

I told you before, this isn't about me. I'm just discussing a topic I find interesting, and engaging the D&D community in the one area that receives nearly all the attention lately. How many people on this site are engaging in regular, frequent conversation about anything other than 5.5?

 

[Chaosmancer]

Maybe, but I'm not going to forget that "D&D is undermonetized" comment any time soon. Given how successful the game was at that point, there's no non-greed way to look at that.

The fact that, at the time, they were not leveraging their brand to make apparell, video games, comics, TV shows, movies. and other media which would both be a boon for consumers because they would get more creative DnD-brand products and would be further monetizing their brand?

No, no, it MUST be that they are just greedy and want to make a worse version of the core rules to make more money. What else could they possibly have wanted.