D&D 5E Products You Would Like to See WotC Publish For 5E

[Jester David]

I'd like to see a couple hardcovers every year in addition to the adventures: a setting-esque book and an accessory.

Setting/environment books can be fluff heavy. We don't need much crunch in a Forgotten Realms book or a Manual of the Planes.

The first accessory can be the big expansion, with new player options and new and expanded rules modules for the DM. After that they really *need* a theme. Like psionics or epic. Monster books would also fit into this category

 

[Blackbrrd]

I would like more short adventures. The starter set was a good length. It's adventures that are easy to expand upon, and easy to run as written. The length (approx 50 pages) was very good. Shorter adventures (32 pages) would work out fine as well.

A campaign supplement in the form of a sandbox* would also be interesting. In other words, a description of a small area with some areas fleshed out with game statistics. A description of events of likely unfolding of story and some fleshed out events that the PCs could get caught up in. Another way to describe it would be as an unfinished adventure, or an adventure without a red thread. That would be left to the players and the DM to create, in or out of game.

*not in the strictest interpretation of the word, more like 70% sandbox/30% story.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

Really just regular old 16-32 page adventures with nice maps . Dragon and Dungeon would be nice but I'm kind of picky about format. Maybe one more monster book but to be honest there are enough in the MM to hold me over. I'd probably buy a Greyhawk setting book, but then I'd just whine about how they messed it up.

Things I have no interest in are splats, more rule books, and adventure paths.

 

[Stormonu]

I'd definitely like to see more 32 page adventures (with removable map folder covers - hate having to flip back between maps and the text).

Monster books, I'll always buy. I'd be interested in campaign books, especially if they offered something unique - kingdom rules for Birthright, Psionics/Survival for Dark Sun, Alchemy/Artifice for Eberron, Sellsword/Mercenary for Greyhawk, Epic play for Forgotten Realms, Moon magic/Wizard Orders for Dragonlance, Wuxia for Karu Tur, Fate, Karma and Reincarnation for Al-Qadim, etc. It might mean tweaking some of the campaign worlds, but if done well, I think it'd make each stand out.

It would be nice if they could bring back Dungeon and Dragon. Especially if they use Dragon as both a DM's blog/help guide/toolbox as well as a testbed for new content. In the latter, put new rules and items out in Dragon, let the masses playtest it and then bind it up in a book a year later (I think they did some of this for 4E).

<Edit> Also wouldn't mind seeing "Complete" books that add a few more backgrounds, paths and the like - as well as a good dose of helpful tips aimed not just at combat and optimization, but roleplaying as well (including expanded background tables and maybe even mad lib-style character back stories). For example, offer advice on what classes and backgrounds to make, say a demon hunter or dragon slayer.

 

[Irennan]

I voted for campaign settings, regional campaign settings, short adventures and monsters books (I don't use 5e or any D&D-like system at all, but those are full of ideas and inspiration and are interesting to me nonetheless). I'm surprised to see CS being so popular. With all the comments on the big APs being a substitute to them that I've seen around these forums, I would have expected them to be near the bottom (even if with the light background that WotC is putting into the APs, they actually can't take the place of a CS nor of a regional sourcebook).

 

[fuindordm]

I would buy:

A psionics book. I don't need psionic versions of every magic-using class, and I don't even need psionic characters to have a spell point system (the slot system works well), but a handful of classes and a nice collection of psionic "spells" and monsters would be great.

An updated Eberron campaign guide (small book) that supports all setting-specific features under the 5E ruleset. Eberron is perhaps the setting that is most deeply tied to the 3E ruleset and requires the most work to convert. There are lots of monsters, religions, and player options that need a very careful look. For example, the Blood of Vol and the Silver Flame should both have unique domains (not just death and light); countries have industrialized the creation of common and uncommon magic items, so there should be more robust and granular rules for players to work with these; etc. etc. This could easily be a 96-page softcover. Heck, I would probably buy it as a 300-page hardcover too.

For other campaign settings, I would buy a 96-page softcover but not a big hardcover.

More monster manuals.

Short modules that are only loosely tied to a setting.

Player option books or a PH2 with more races, subclasses, feats, and spells.

 

[Reynard]

Some observations after 100 responses:

Despite there being no clear "must publish" with a super high vote, the things that at least half of respondents want to see are big campaign setting books, shorter modules, more monster manuals and Dungeon magazine. Now, the question was what should WotC publish. I wonder if that many folks feel the game is pretty complete as is or if there is a preference for third party companies to produce this stuff.

It also is suggestive of rollout strategy. For the sake of argument, let's say these responses are in line with WotC's research. If they know that they are only going to sell 60 MM2s for every 100 MMs they originally sold, that is going to weigh heavily on the production budget. There must be a point of diminishing returns where however much we might want a MM2 or MM3 it just is not worth WotC's cost.

I wonder if something like this is behind WotC sort of turning a blind eye to unofficial 3rd party books: they get the same benefit of an official OGL (i.e. Others shouldering the costs of the less profitable supplements) but do not have to take the responsibility of one.

 

[tgmoore]

1st priority should be getting Dragon and Dungeon back in monthly production. There should never have been let to lapse. This will quench some of the thirst for new 5E material.

I'd like to see drop in adventure modules styled ala 1st Ed with maps in the removeable cover.

Never will I complaint about more monster manuals just love them.

I'be always thought it would be neat to bundle pre paint D&D minis with adventure modules but not everyone will like this as some don't use minis and most of us have enough minis (there is no such thing as too many minis)

 

[bmfrosty]

It would be very interesting to see them bring back Dungeon magazine (it's 4th) and have it cover new monsters and shorter modules.

Do up a 100ish page PDF that includes in each issue some sort of new short module (3rd party sourced), one older module that's been converted to 5e (by a 3rd party), a few pages of monsters, a letters to the editor section, announcements, and include in the subscription access to online tools.

They could handle those three three smaller of the top 4 in one shot.

Possibly even include in the subscription online access to a living PHB, MM, and DMG - like an enhanced version of this:

http://dnd.wizards.com/products/tabletop/players-basic-rules

I guess the question is, at $5 a month, how many subscribers would they need to make something like this break even?

Maybe start off with a bang with Keep on the Borderlands as the older module conversion?

 

[Kramodlog]

Unearth Arcana. Options and variantions are the awesome!