D&D (2024) Pulse check on 1D&D excitement level

[Uni-the-Unicorn!]

I'm in a similar boat as @Micah Sweet but perhaps we got there by different methods.

I loved 5e when it came out. I ran a 4 year long campaign that some in my gaming group of 20ish years have said it was their favorite.

I have a homebrew campaign and setting. I don't use published campaign settings. I don't use published adventure paths.

Over time it became clear that the content of WotC published content was very very different than all previous editions. Books which were "general use" for any table were not being made.

There have been released in the post-launch 5e lifetime two generic rules additions, two generic monster books, one reprint monster book, and maybe a generic dragon book (I've never picked up Fizbans). Lets say that is 8 full books of generic content over 8 years.

This is a slower release rate than any other edition for what is useful at my table.

Yes, I can and do supplement my game with third party material, but this is about how excited I am for 2024.

Why would I be excited that the 9th, 10rh, and 11th releases for 5e are the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th reprints of things I already have?

I see what you are saying and that makes sense.

The only thing I disagree with is that they haven’t produced general use content. We play in our own campaign setting too, have for 30 yrs, yet my DM has bought more content in 5e than any other because almost all of the books are generally useful. We don’t play in FR, or Eberron, or Ravnica, or Raveloft,etc, but he bought all those books and more because there is content in this books, a lot of content, that is generally useful

 

[theCourier]

Tons of games out there take less than half the time to learn, prep for, and play than 5e so the "I don't have the time" excuse is always so weird to me.

AND they come in different genres/tones too, so no need to convert existing material to fit a new type of setting, either.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Tons of games out there take less than half the time to learn, prep for, and play than 5e so the "I don't have the time" excuse is always so weird to me.

AND they come in different genres/tones too, so no need to convert existing material to fit a new type of setting, either.

I was recently asked to GM for my son's school D&D club. I switched them to Five Torches deep on the first session, having never actually played it myself, and in the first session we made characters and started adventuring. Then in the next session I switched them to Shadowdark, and again we made characters and started adventuring and everybody had a blast.

So I'm not buying the "I'm too busy to try new RPGs" argument. Especially not from people who post here all day long. :-/

 

[Dausuul]

At this point, with some distance from the OGL fracas...

I was pretty excited about the initial playtest packets. I really like what they're doing with feats, and many of the tweaks to the mechanics are long overdue.

However, the class redesigns so far have left me cold*. There are improvements here and there (mostly known balance problems and exploits being addressed), but I really don't like the new approach to spell lists, and I'm also not fond of the decision to move all casters -- at least so far -- onto the spell prep model. The 1D&D classes we've seen feel very bland.

My hope is that they are deliberately taking the "streamline and simplify" approach to its limit, to gauge the reaction and see what works, and they will then pull back where appropriate. However, there's no guarantee of that, so at the moment my overall response is "Meh."

*Or maybe that's the weather. We've had more snow in March than we got in January, and it's not even halfway through the month. What gives?

 

[Jeff Carlsen]

I've been through too many edition changes to feel anything but trepidation about the community going through another one. 5E is good enough. 6E needs to offer a substantial at-the-table improvement for me to get excited.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Tons of games out there take less than half the time to learn, prep for, and play than 5e so the "I don't have the time" excuse is always so weird to me.

AND they come in different genres/tones too, so no need to convert existing material to fit a new type of setting, either.

It's because they learned the one game and think they all generally take the same amount of time.

 

[mamba]

Tons of games out there take less than half the time to learn, prep for, and play than 5e so the "I don't have the time" excuse is always so weird to me.

what are some medium crunch games (ie 5e levels) that require a lot less time? I am not looking for the narrative, handwave everything kind of games

 

[CleverNickName]

Very low for me. But it's not some weird anti-Hasbro agenda; it's true for every RPG at the moment: we just started a new 5E D&D campaign. We're not interested in a different system, my reading list is full, and we won't be making any room in our gaming schedule to playtest anything.

 

[ZetaShift]

Excitement tanked after the recent playtest. Initially, I was hyped with the reworks to the background and feat system. It all seemed promising. They were addressing key issues and I was expecting new, big content drops to add on or replace some 5e systems, like a multiclassing change or a reimagining of all classes. That is, until they actually started dropping the class "reworks". There wasn't much changed to them, so it didn't feel "new and exciting!" moreso they sprayed a new paintjob on an old car and resold it. The OGL fiasco soured my mood as well.

As someone who mainly plays Martials, I'm worried that nothing will be done to address the issues and concerns that martial players tend to have towards balancing/game design. The Druid playtest is (hopefully) balanced around the coming Warrior playtest, and if it turned out like that, then I'm somewhat afraid to see what they have in mind for the Warriors.

 

[Sorcerers Apprentice]

I was recently asked to GM for my son's school D&D club. I switched them to Five Torches deep on the first session, having never actually played it myself, and in the first session we made characters and started adventuring. Then in the next session I switched them to Shadowdark, and again we made characters and started adventuring and everybody had a blast.

So I'm not buying the "I'm too busy to try new RPGs" argument. Especially not from people who post here all day long. :-/

"Too busy to try new games" really means "I don't want to spend my limited gaming time testing new games when I can instead play a game I know that I like"