D&D 5E Recent Errata clarifications

[Parmandur]

I'm curious, how do you reconcile with yourself the Lord of the Ring mythos to enjoy the films or the upcoming series?

Tolkien was never satisfied with his own depiction of Orcs. He wrote multiple lengthy essays on the metaphysics of Orcs, and it always bothered him. As it ought to.

 

[Faolyn]

I've discussed this in other threads, but it's primarily due to there not just being Planes of Existence for every alignment, but also for every in-between alignment. Like, I'm fine with the Abyss and Nine Hells, but Hades, Gehenna, and Pandemonium are really unnecessary. The same applies to most of the Upper Planes as well. Also, it doesn't make sense that there are two separate Planes of War (Ysgard and Acheron), and believe that the setting would be better if they were just combined into one Plane of War (like Shavarath from Eberron did), and, in general, there's just too much grid-filling in the cosmology and not enough consideration of how to run adventures in the planes.

Funnily, I find the in-between planes far more interesting than the straight-alignment planes. I'd rather have Gehenna, Pandemonium, and Acheron (Hades is NE) than either the Hells or the Abyss.

 

[JEB]

How do you differentiate between inspiring players and dictating to players?

Include more blatant indicators that any description of a PC race, monster, etc. is a default, and can be changed. And demonstrate this with ideas for alternatives and variations as much as possible, right alongside whatever default is provided.

Because once they "stop giving their money to WotC", there will be two other new players replacing them that will.

Either that, or they'll just play their previous D&D editions and still occasionally give their money to WotC by buying older stuff off of DMs Guild. And WotC doesn't really care, they just want people to play anything-- it doesn't matter to them what people play.

I'm pretty confident that Wizards would much rather have veteran fans keep buying $50 books every few months, than the rare $10ish PDF, or nothing at all. Hence bits like the Easter eggs in Witchlight. If they sense that a significant number of veteran fans are abandoning ship, I think that trend would matter very much to them...

 

[Charlaquin]

Tolkien was never satisfied with his own depiction of Orcs. He wrote multiple lengthy essays on the metaphysics of Orcs, and it always bothered him. As it ought to.

And also, like… It’s entirely possible to recognize and be critical of problematic elements of something while still enjoying the thing. I do that with… Well, basically everything I like?

 

[Charlaquin]

I'm pretty confident that Wizards would much rather have veteran fans keep buying $50 books every few months, than the rare $10ish PDF, or nothing at all. Hence bits like the Easter eggs in Witchlight. If they sense that a significant number of veteran fans are abandoning ship, I think that trend would matter very much to them...

Only if it loses them more money than it makes them from newer players.

 

[JEB]

Only if it loses them more money than it makes them from newer players.

Good luck to the Wizards designers who make that pitch to Wizards execs and Hasbro; they'd better have some strong survey and sales data on their side.

 

[Parmandur]

And also, like… It’s entirely possible to recognize and be critical of problematic elements of something while still enjoying the thing. I do that with… Well, basically everything I like?

For real, right?

Being critical isn't dismissing or outright rejecting something, it's engaging with it.

 

[Minigiant]

I've discussed this in other threads, but it's primarily due to there not just being Planes of Existence for every alignment, but also for every in-between alignment. Like, I'm fine with the Abyss and Nine Hells, but Hades, Gehenna, and Pandemonium are really unnecessary. The same applies to most of the Upper Planes as well. Also, it doesn't make sense that there are two separate Planes of War (Ysgard and Acheron), and believe that the setting would be better if they were just combined into one Plane of War (like Shavarath from Eberron did), and, in general, there's just too much grid-filling in the cosmology and not enough consideration of how to run adventures in the planes.

Funnily, I find the in-between planes far more interesting than the straight-alignment planes. I'd rather have Gehenna, Pandemonium, and Acheron (Hades is NE) than either the Hells or the Abyss.

I don't think the problem was the grid filling as much as the idea of using the whole grid/wheel. It's too much and people struggle to use all of it. And there's little guidance to cut up the bits an use what you want. "Pick a good plane, an evil plane, and 2 other planes and poof yousgotta setting"

I feel have the problem we see on foes and planes is that they seemed to all be created to have simple ways to make more and more simple enemies. And the more simple enemies and ares you use, the less space you have to make sense of them. and the, for lack of a better world... stupider everything becomes. A million simple solutions and you get a complex mess.

 

[Charlaquin]

Good luck to the Wizards designers who make that pitch to Wizards execs and Hasbro; they'd better have some strong survey and sales data on their side.

I don’t think we’d be seeing these changes if they didn’t. Until recently, “don’t rock the boat” seems to have been the motto WotC was operating under for 5e. Now, suddenly we’re getting errata leading up to revised core books in ‘24? Yeah, I’d say they must have some pretty compelling data to have gotten these changes greenlit.

 

[JEB]

I don’t think we’d be seeing these changes if they didn’t. Until recently, “don’t rock the boat” seems to have been the motto WotC was operating under for 5e. Now, suddenly we’re getting errata leading up to revised core books in ‘24? Yeah, I’d say they must have some pretty compelling data to have gotten these changes greenlit.

These changes are far from indicating that they've given up on appealing to veteran fans. We wouldn't be seeing damage control like these clarifications, or the restoration of monster statblock alignment in Fizban's, if they had; they'd just double down, certain that they could leave the old folks behind. They also wouldn't still be trying to tap into nostalgia through bits like the NPC cameos in Witchlight, or the Spelljammer races in the latest UA.

I think it's more likely they're attempting to see how far they can push changes intended to widen the audience without alienating their existing one. That's certainly the safest move for a big company with a successful product to make.