D&D 5E (2014) Splatbooks in 5E, way or no way?

[Agamon]

It would be nice if there was just one general splat per year, with some crunch included in setting material they intend to release. That way, they can include new stuff in adventures. So, an NPC wizard in a Dark Sun adventure with spells from the Dark Sun setting book makes sense.

 

[TDarien]

What happens when new player rules options
are released?
New player rules for characters are tied to storyline
seasons. When you create a character, you choose
the story origin for the character, which defines what
rules you can use for the duration of the character’s
career. If you want to use a new rules option from a
book outside your character’s allowed rules, you need
to create a character with a story origin that allows that
rules option.

This is an interesting thing I found. It heavily implies that new character options will only be available through storyline supplements. Now obviously doesn't mean that that will be maintained throughout the life of D&D, nor does it mean that there might be supplemental material that's not legal for Adventurer's League, but I think it's a good sign that we won't see a glut of new options anytime soon.

 

[Dausuul]

I love options. The only issue I ever had with these books is with 4e DnD Insider. Having _all_ the options in an electronic format slowed down character creation to a crawl, made it more likely to have unbalanced options, encouraged min/maxing a bit too much for my tastes, and put me in a position of saying "no" more than I like as a DM. With physical books you could have exactly the same issues, but in my experience we did not have it to that extreme.

So while I love options, I'm hoping that future electronic tools make it easier for me to filter out the options I don't like, and I'd be happier with fewer, higher quality options. I like to say yes to my players, not no.

Yes. This, a thousand times. Electronic tools are nice, but not if using them means I have to drink from the firehose.

 

[Jeff Carlsen]

The most valuable thing the development team can do it so plan far ahead. They should consider what a complete D&D 5E collection will look like in 5 years, and what that shelf will look like to a new player.

Each book should be a major event, and I'd be all for one or two per year, each being a 320 page masterpiece covering a broad topic. I wouldn't mind seeing something like this:

• Player's Handbook
• Adventurer's Handbook
• Psionics Handbook
• Society and Races Handbook

• Monster Manual
• Monster Manual 2
• Magic Item Manual

• Dungeon Master's Guide
• Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide
• Forgotten Realms Guide to the Sword Coast
• Planescape Campaign Guide
• Ravenloft Campaign Guide

In this example, handbooks have character options, are deeply themed, and represent only a third of released products. Manuals are mostly for the DM, and simply provide more "things". Guides combine settings with thematically related rule modules. Planescape would include guidance for creating planar structures. Ravenloft would include rules and advice for running horror campaigns.

Each year would see the release of one handbook or manual, plus one guide to coincide with related storylines and adventures.

 

[Rod Staffwand]

No game system that ever did good business with their core books stopped with their core books.

I hope 5E's expansion will be carefully considered and properly playtested before publication. If the idea is simple a slight variation on already existing material, it should be avoided (a noble class, for instance, when the noble background already exists). New subclasses should take precedence over new classes, if possible. Identifying an fleshing out fantasy archetypes not yet serviced by the rules should be the priority rather than mechanical fiddling for the sake of fiddling mechanics.

Also, designers, there doesn't need to be a spell for everything. That idea you have for a cool spell? We don't need it. It'll either be too situational to be of much use; more powerful than the iconic spells that it will quickly replace; or just outright broken. See the 3.5 Spell Compendium for examples (literally, just pick any spell...).

Furthermore, ditch the poorly-vetted splat articles in whatever Dragon Magazine ends up being. I know they're popular, but they are empty RPG calories and will spoil your diet.