D&D 5E Pages from the PHB

[Agamon]

Good catch I always thought the term was "lost" leader.

I still say the term applies to Basic D&D.

It's not a produced item and it's not being sold, so technically, it's not. I get your jist though, it's something they are making available to attract more customers. I think everyone would agree to that.

 

[Jeff Carlsen]

Good catch I always thought the term was "lost" leader.



I still say the term applies to Basic D&D.

Basic D&D is a loss leader. It costs more to provide than it sells for in the hope that the audience it creates buys more stuff down the line. I don't think that can be reasonably denied.

But it also serves as the heart of the game. The PHB, MM, and DMG are each being written to not require the other two as best as possible. The rules are definitely intended to be fluid, differing from game to game to suit the needs of the table. Basic represents the simplest practical rule set for a D&D game. That makes it easy to see and use as a mutual baseline. But it no more represents the true form of the game than any other set of optional or house rules. Like water, the game takes the form of the space it occupies. It has no true form.

 

[Scorpio616]

Ah, the wild mage from 2E was a fascinating concept.

As the DM (and for some of the players), it was fun for me because the randomness meant that even I didn't know what was going to happen. However, some of the players ended up feeling that the whole thing was a distraction - and an annoying one at that.

Suffice to say, it may split the party.

Yeah, it's like those berserk / frenzy mechanics in various games. Some folks find the person not being in complete control an interesting angle. Other folks will just kill the character in preemptive self defense.

 

[Scorpio616]

And these days, a free, introductory digital product is neither.

Actually it certainly IS a loss leader. Time is money, so anything a company has an employee do costs money.

 

[Echohawk]

Basic D&D is a loss leader. It costs more to provide than it sells for in the hope that the audience it creates buys more stuff down the line. I don't think that can be reasonably denied.

I'm not a marketing expect, but my understanding is that something has to actually be sold to technically be called a loss leader. Something that is given away, like Basic D&D, would probably be better described as a free sample, or a demo product. Like a loss leader, a free sample still has a cost associated with it, but no effort at all is made to recuperate any part of the cost through a sale. Of course, that's really a semantic distinction; whether Basic D&D is a loss leader or a freebie, it serves the same purpose.

 

[SavageCole]

It's totally cool if people don't want a Wild Sorcerer at their table. But clearly, some of us do. Some of us are excited about the very things others of us don't like.

So I'm glad they went with the more inclusive approach.

Well said, Thaumaturge. There are so many camps and individual tastes with opinions on what is core d&d that the devs cannot possibly make everyone happy. If they only published what was universally agreeable to all players, we would have a dull, lowest common denominator of a game.

I embrace content that pushes me out of my d&d comfort zone. Races, classes, features that don't align with my Old School mentality are something that I may or may not use, but I appreciate that they're in their for my group's consideration.

At the end of the day we're talking about a game of make believe here, where we pretend to be elves, dwarves, warriors and wizards fighting monsters, right? So, let's not take ourselves too seriously.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

The thing is that the other way is rather awkward wording. It would be something like:

"Your character's personality changes such that she now makes the choices that a character of opposite alignment would make. I.e. if your character was Lawful Good, she now acts like a Chaotic Evil character."

Simply saying that your alignment switches is a shortcut that we all understand.

I don't really agree, and as Dausuul points out, the current wording is somewhat ambiguous in that it doesn't say your behaviour changes. By breaking the link between behaviour and alignment, which imho, is putting the cart before the horse, one creates a confusing situation.

Just as a side-matter, literally every single problem I've ever seen alignment cause, without exception, has been because of people taking an approach where they derive their PC's behaviour from their alignment, which is often narrowly defined (5E has pretty good, even great definitions, at least, except Neutral, which has dangerous-if-distant echoes of "TRUE NEUTRAL!!!"), rather than making a character with a personality, and then deciding what alignment would be appropriate. This is why so many Paladins caused problems - people saw the LG, and tried to work from that, rather than making a character who would naturally be LG. Well it's a long discussion and probably for another thread, but anyway, I think they'd be better off just removing that particular entry. Or just make it the "mechanical only" change - in that you continue to be you, but suddenly supernatural beings are reacting to you very differently. That seems more in-keeping with a Wild Mage anyway. If they don't remove I'll probably do one of those myself. I'm pretty sure that if I run 5E I have a player who will be irresistibly drawn to Wild Mage...

 

[Li Shenron]

As someone with a D&D-curious 5 year-old daughter, I'm very much liking what I've seen of the 5e art direction. The pictures are cool and evocative, and they don't rely on sex appeal.

Thaumaturge.

I am having a slight disappointment with the inner* art preview (less evocative than I was expecting), but what you say is really important for me too!

*covers are OTOH fantastic

 

[MortalPlague]

I am having a slight disappointment with the inner* art preview (less evocative than I was expecting), but what you say is really important for me too!

*covers are OTOH fantastic

You hit the nail on the head, I think. The interior art piece here just has nothing evocative about it... it feels much more cartoon-ish than I like out of my fantasy art.

Then again, tastes vary. I've been pleased with almost every other piece so far.

 

[SavageCole]

I don't really agree, and as Dausuul points out, the current wording is somewhat ambiguous in that it doesn't say your behaviour changes. By breaking the link between behaviour and alignment, which imho, is putting the cart before the horse, one creates a confusing situation.

Just as a side-matter, literally every single problem I've ever seen alignment cause, without exception, has been because of people taking an approach where they derive their PC's behaviour from their alignment, which is often narrowly defined (5E has pretty good, even great definitions, at least, except Neutral, which has dangerous-if-distant echoes of "TRUE NEUTRAL!!!"), rather than making a character with a personality, and then deciding what alignment would be appropriate. This is why so many Paladins caused problems - people saw the LG, and tried to work from that, rather than making a character who would naturally be LG. Well it's a long discussion and probably for another thread, but anyway, I think they'd be better off just removing that particular entry. Or just make it the "mechanical only" change - in that you continue to be you, but suddenly supernatural beings are reacting to you very differently. That seems more in-keeping with a Wild Mage anyway. If they don't remove I'll probably do one of those myself. I'm pretty sure that if I run 5E I have a player who will be irresistibly drawn to Wild Mage...

Alignment is a broad, limiting concept from a personality standpoint compared to a whole personality for a character. While I would argue that actions and behaviors are very much a product of values and mindsets, alignment is a clumsy, simplistic way of defining a character's values and mindsets. I think replacing the alignment change entry with some specific personality shift would be a better play, too.