D&D (2024) RD&D MM will have nearly 500 Monsters, and new NPCs.

[FitzTheRuke]

Yes I have.

That sucks. Isn't the whole point of session zero supposed to be to avoid that sort of thing? You're saying you've seen it backfire bad enough to cause the kind of things that it's supposed to prevent? Enough so that you think S0 is actively worse than no S0?

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Once the new books come out, I predict that it's going to work out exactly as WotC intended: People will just call it "Dungeons & Dragons."

There will, of course, be a forever thread on reddit and a forever thread here arguing about the nomenclature, but 99.9% of the audience just won't care. (Honestly, all the talk about it this week has pretty much maxed out my interest on the subject forever.)

Ironically, because of the insistence on loud backwards-compatibility, I don't think so.

We can see the evidence of this already on Twitter, reddit, etc, because it's not some sort of elevated ENworld-weirdo-like-me-only concern, it's something that a lot of other people are discussing.

If WotC had actually called it a new edition, and not gone on about backwards compatibility and then tried to play down it even being a new 0.5 (lol), but otherwise designed it identically, I think people would have taken it in their stride. But now they've created a situation where the "forever threads" will keep running, and not just about nomenclature.

Instead there will forever (well, until 7E) be threads and TikToks and YouTubes and so on about whether you can really use X 5E class in a 1D&D game, how you should update/adapt adventures, whether you even need to, and so on.

I've never felt that druids should be shapeshifters. Shapeshifters should be shapeshifters. It could be a whole class to itself. Both it and druids would be better for it.

That horse has not only bolted but is a great grandfather living in Hawaii at this point.

not that different from 5.5, just a different version number really, not conceptually different

Sure, but that's why largely only ENworld people, and few even of them, use that term!

why you would like any of them better

It's not about whether I like them. I don't like 1D&D, but that's what's stuck.

that was the codename for the playtest, never understood it as anything other than this version's 'D&D Next'

Sure, but the internet felt differently, so that's irrelevant.

I guess we will see. 95% of players have not even heard of it yet, or at least are not stuck to a name yet. Most of those will probably hear of it from WotC marketing for the first time. So WotC still can shift that name, but the longer they wait / the wider it spreads, the harder it will be.

Absolutely!

WotC still have everything to play for naming-wise.

But this is a company that's spent the last 15 years engaging in an amazing sequence of PR screw-ups and slow recoveries. And right now, they're playing like absolute numpties. Just scoring own goals. They need Ted Lasso, and Kyle Brink doesn't seem to be him. Perkins and Crawford certainly aren't.

All they need to do is pick a name. It has to be short and snappy, but they need to pick it. Otherwise the community will stick with 1D&D, I would expect.

The term 'edition' clearly is meaningless (in that it has no defined meaning) given the different uses we had over time. This does not mean that there is no reaction to it in the community or that a different edition does not automatically imply incompatibility, whether it exists or not. This is what WotC wants to avoid, the impression of drastic changes and incompatibility that an edition change comes with, which will exist regardless of the facts

Uh-huh and by doing things like the weird lies about 3E > 3.5E, they're not helping the problem, they're making it worse.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

Thank you for your thoughts and critiques. I will consider them in my introspection on how to better present myself. I'm obviously not doing a good job.

You are doing an excellent job. You're just faced with some adversity. Don't let it scare you off!

 

[mamba]

Instead there will forever (well, until 7E) be threads and TikToks and YouTubes and so on about whether you can really use X 5E class in a 1D&D game, how you should update/adapt adventures, whether you even need to, and so on.

yes, there will be maybe 20 people discussing this for the next 2+ years, and I will happily ignore them

If I have learned one thing on the internet, then that there will always be a bunch who keep at some meaningless topic for the rest of time

Sure, but that's why largely only ENworld people, and few even of them, use that term!

for 1DD yes, for 3.5 it seems pretty established

 

[Emberashh]

You've got to recognise that you're somewhat biased. You're working on your own game, so you are looking at everything with the lens of "how can I do this better?"

Its less that and more that I can no longer ignore the issues 5e has now that Im viewing these games from a game design perspective.

And thats a potent issue for me because for the longest time, 5e was the sole closest game to what Id consider ideal in an RPG, and in some ways it still is, but I simply can't be bothered to play it in its state anymore.

Whereas with DCC, which also isn't perfect from either of those perspectives, I don't have such issues because theres less I have to homebrew out of the system compared to 5e (and both have dramatically less than say, PF2E or even 1E), and also no drama that makes wanting to engage with the game an exercise in cognitive dissonance, but I don't hold that against the game itself.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

That horse has not only bolted but is a great grandfather living in Hawaii at this point.

No kiddin'. I have no expectations whatsoever to see anything like it.

All they need to do is pick a name. It has to be short and snappy, but they need to pick it. Otherwise the community will stick with 1D&D, I would expect.

The name is so obvious that I've mentioned it numerous times before. It's so obvious, that I could see them assuming that everyone knows that they're going to use it, so that they don't even need to announce it until it's time to reveal the covers.

It's 50th Anniversary Dungeons & Dragons.

We can call it "Fifty" if we're so inclined. Sounds very close to "Five-Ee" but different enough to call out the revision.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Interesting. Do you even see your own hostility and patronization? I've been a lurker for a while, so I've been watching, and you are certainly one of the people that makes me feel unwelcome to engage with you.

Yes, I'm aware of how certain people perceive me, and the people I clash most with are people who I would perceive as being themselves guilty of patronization, and aggression, even if they're unwilling to face that.

I'm sorry if I offended or triggered you.

To be clear that's what's called a "non-apology". It's when someone intentionally doesn't take responsibility for offence caused, and instead blames the person they offended. It used to be common in corporate "apologies" before the public started seeing through it. If you mean to actually apologise, I suggest using "I'm sorry that I offended or triggered you.", because then you take responsibility. You'll notice I always avoid the "if" formulation (because sometimes I do have to apologise!).

And the patronization is in the suggestion that anyone who doesn't agree with you is a bad person or needs help or guidance or the like. Even I don't think that's the case with people who disagree with me (on the contrary many have excellent ideas and good intentions, to be clear), but you explicitly laid it out in your post.

I will consider them in my introspection on how to better present myself. I'm obviously not doing a good job.

Some people will like it - there's always a market for people claiming to be unifiers whilst actually taking a "my way or the highway" attitude. And your attitude is explicitly "my way or the highway", as inarguably demonstrated when you told people who disagreed to go play other games instead. I'm not suggesting you return to lurking, but if you come here saying "agree with me or you suck", well, I don't think that's going to end well.

 

[tetrasodium]

That sucks. Isn't the whole point of session zero supposed to be to avoid that sort of thing? You're saying you've seen it backfire bad enough to cause the kind of things that it's supposed to prevent? Enough so that you think S0 is actively worse than no S0?

I'm saying that it's become a useless excuse for blame shifting with one party being given all of the responsibility for any failures through the entire campaign that could have been covered in s0 while the other participants are freed from any responsibilities from cradle to grave of the campaign. D&d doesn't work automatically because people show up, it's a team game that requires everyone to put in effort sharing the load to make it work every session but nothing in the 5e ruleset admits that or gives the gm support they can point at to help grease the gears.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

It's 50th Anniversary Dungeons & Dragons.

We can call it "Fifty" if we're so inclined. Sounds very close to "Five-Ee" but different enough to call out the revision.

That is obviously smart and it fits the criteria - at least for being written down - it might not work in speech and Gen Z uses speech more online than Millenials and Gen X, so we'll see. But it's good.

I don't WotC's PR is that smart. They should hire you, at least as a consultant, frankly.

But yeah if they do call it 50th Anniversary D&D I absolutely expect "Fifty" to catch on. 50A or something (which is distinct enough from 5E but still reminiscent of it).

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I'm saying that it's become a useless excuse for blame shifting with one party being given all of the responsibility for any failures through the entire campaign that could have been covered in s0 while the other participants are freed from any responsibilities from cradle to grave of the campaign. D&d doesn't work automatically because people show up, it's a team game that requires everyone to put in effort sharing the load to make it work every session but nothing in the 5e ruleset admits that or gives the gm support they can point at to help grease the gears.

This is actually an extremely good critique.

I was kind of thinking, unfairly, you maybe just hated S0, but nope, I can see the logic. I haven't had a campaign which used an S0 to establish boundaries go past those yet, but I've seen a couple of times when it could have happened, because we hadn't ruled off every potential issue.

This is why I like the X-card approach, personally, because you can use that when things start going wrong, rather than having to magically spot every problem beforehand, and possibly limit the game in ways it didn't need to be - on the off-chance of them going wrong.

And agree completely re: 5E's current approach not giving any real regard to how D&D is a team effort. 1D&D's version could help with that, but there's limited sign of it so far, though how they talked about the DMG gave some, very limited, reason for positivity.