D&D 5E On 5e Splatbooks

[Yora]

If you enjoy crunch and fluff, you can buy both the crunch books and the fluff books.

For example Races of the Wild, which I would call quite fluff-heavy, has 40 pages prestige classes, 20 pages feats and ACFs, 15 pages items and spells, anf 10 pages of tables and generic NPCs.

That's 85 pages out if 190. I much rather had a "Heroes of the Wild and Stone" and a "Adventures in Forests and Mountains" book and only buy the later.

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hey all!

Personally I don't think 5E should produce any splatbooks in the traditional sense. However, given that WotC still need to release books to make money, what I think they should so is cross-pollenate EVERY book with an adventure or adventures. So, for instance lets say we release a book about...

- New Assassin Class...tie that in to something like the Assassin's Knot adventure.
- Running a Stronghold...tie that into a Keep on the Borderlands style adventure.
- Adding Sci-fi Elements...tie that into an Expedition to the Barrier Peaks.
- Wilderness Survival Guide...something like Isle of Dread
- Book of Traps...tie that into a Tomb of Horrors trap-fest
- New 'Themed' Monster Book...dungeon delves adventure anthology.
- New Planar book...Dead Gods (Astral), Temple of Elemental Evil (Elemental)
- Book of Magic Items...find them at White Plume Mountain
etc.

Just for the record I am not necessarily advocating the re-release (or in many cases re-re-re-release) of old adventures, I am just using the above as examples. There is no reason why the adventures couldn't be wholly new.

The benefits of this method are:

1. More Adventures: Adventures were much neglected by WotC because they apparently don't sell well enough. By tying the adventure portion to specific design mechanics they could give them a new lease of life.
2. Show Don't Tell: In the adventure format, the designers can show exactly how assassin's operate or how to best set up traps. Its like a step-by-step DIY guide.
3. Fluff + Crunch: Any adventure needs to tell a story and thus strikes a healthy balance between fluff and crunch.
4. Invention: The marriage of adventure + mechanics could see a return to the inspired adventure design of the past. Instead of 'just another dungeon', each adventure would literally add something new to the game.
5. New Approach: How many Manuals of the Planes, Draconomicons and Complete Fighters do they expect us to buy. I'm a bit worn out by the 'same old same old'. Try something new.

 

[Sunseeker]

Avoid a 5E Book of Erotic Fantasy altogether.

Some of the Erotic rules invented by players and other developers are IMO, some of the most interesting rules regarding merging simulation and gaming.

Anyway,m I would prefer they keep adventure books and class books separate from each other. I don't like having to be forced to pick up some adventure path I'm never going to play just so I can play a single new class.

 

[Hassassin]

Hey all!

Personally I don't think 5E should produce any splatbooks in the traditional sense. However, given that WotC still need to release books to make money, what I think they should so is cross-pollenate EVERY book with an adventure or adventures. So, for instance lets say we release a book about...

Interesting idea. Maybe not for every book, but I think publishing Adventure Paths with one player-friendly rules and options book would be cool.

For instance, looking at Paizo's Kingmaker, it could easily have included a whole book dedicated to character options, kingdom rules and mass combat. The character stuff would have included the campaign traits, but also feats and skill uses that tie with the kingdom and mass combat mechanics.

 

[Number48]

For the old-schoolers, how about a book of random charts for creating your own random charts?