D&D (2024) Twelve actions for an even fresher 6th edition, or for an ultra-basic retooling of 5e

[Sadrik]

Action 1: Keep it Simple.

Yes simplicity. 4 classes, the four most basic classes Fighter/Rogue and then Magic-user/<armored caster>. I might even say only human in core. Then spend most of your page count on equipment. Have a simple spell system, perhaps even as simple as calling the schools the spells abjuration, evocation, etc. as the spells themselves. For non-spell casters they need a combat ability. Each class and spell system could be further defined in the excursion rules and more specialties and add on systems given. A stripped down muscle car.

Action 2: Core D&D is D&D.

Yes, a core book that is made under several price points and formats.

Action 3: A Cultural Community of Authors.

Keep a license that allows for others to add to the tapestry that is D&D.

Action 4: World-Hopping is D&D.

Not necessary. Allow DMs to determine if a central setting is needed. A multi-genre setting is neat, but not all would like it. It would have to be an option not a characteristic of D&D.

Action 5: All Genres are D&D.

D&D is synonymous with RPG. Make the system allow any type of settings. How gritty the setting is can be set in the excursion rules. I think this is an excellent notion.

Action 6: In the Business of Excursions.

Yes with a simple core, you can add all the complexity into the excursions. Write lots of them. Perhaps do a manual of different settings and only provide enough to get the setting started for character generation and throw a few ideas for a DM. Then popular ones get more. Crisis on infinite D&D.

Action 7: Appendices for Localizing and Scaling.

Yes with many excursions you would need to have lots of conversion notes. Then this adds to the playability of any of the excursions in the various settings.

Action 8: Mastery and Renewal of Worlds.

Not sure about this one, but updating and including the previous modules and adventures into the game could be good. It will keep those shared experiences alive.

Action 9: A Cross-Platform Effort.

Would be nice, however, they have their own games and systems and may be like um... why would I compete with myself?

Action 10: Forays into Strange Waters.

Sure. Low priority though.

Action 11: Advanced is Unearthed.

More the complexity to another book.

They could also treat the current 5e PHB as the complex "advanced" book and have a new simple D&D 5e core book that does everything you are looking for. I would be interested.

Action 12: Plastic is Chintzy.

Um, non-issue.

Good ideas, I support a simpler game that has added on complexity. I role-play for the game events and camaraderie not the crunch. I also am interested in experiencing settings through the game rather than simply reading about them in a source book. Shearing complexity allows more space for fostering ideas and creativity.

 

[Parmandur]

Just keep in mind that listening works both ways. You may have an interesting, even potentially highly successful concept....but it may not work as a D&D for the generation of fans out there now. It might create a new player base for a different kind of crowd, though. I know as I was reading your OP I was stopped hard in the first line....my thought being, "This is a game, and it could be D&D licensed, but it would definitely not be D&D."



Tradition sucks, but sometimes the issue is simply that change makes something fundamentally different. What you have described, taken in and of itself, intrigues me. But as a 6th edition D&D that has been Eurogame-treated it sounds like my exit from the hobby.

Yeah, just not all that appetizing...

 

[Polyhedral_Columbia]

Just keep in mind that listening works both ways.

When I start a thread, I do try to listen and respond to nearly everyone.

Tradition sucks, but sometimes the issue is simply that change makes something fundamentally different.

Another way of handling "tradition" is to ask "what is organically the next step?" I agree that the next step needs to be an organic continuation from where we are now. Otherwise, there's a rupture, like occurred between 3E and 4E. Yet I feel that much of my vision for D&D is organic, *if taken all together.*

And though I titled the OP "Sixth Edition", most or all twelve points could be implemented even within 5E.

Even the super-simplified Core D&D idea could be offered as a separate line alongside the 5E line. Mearls has stated that he wished he had offered 4E as a separate tactically-oriented D&D-branded game, while keeping 3E as as the traditional TTRPG. Likewise, an experimental Ultra-Basic D&D TTRPG could be offered alongside the existing product line.

D&D that has been Eurogame-treated it sounds like my exit from the hobby.

and

Yeah, just not all that appetizing...

Despite the confusing title, my OP was actually written to *counter* the idea that D&D should just become a boardgame, or just a series of unconnected pre-generated quasi-RPG boxed sets. People are seriously suggesting that over in the Mearls Tweets thread. And it sounded not all that appetizing...like my exit from the hobby.

An earlier poster was right--the twelve points I wrote have little to do Eurogames or any other kind of boardgame. I used the word “Eurogame” in the sense of making products which are intended to stay in-print for a long time.

The twelve points are basically just a fresh concept for 6E. Or a way to retool 5E without an edition change.

 

[Sadrik]

And though I titled the OP "Sixth Edition", most or all twelve points could be implemented even within 5E.

Even the super-simplified Core D&D idea could be offered as a separate line alongside the 5E line. Mearls has stated that he wished he had offered 4E as a separate tactically-oriented D&D-branded game, while keeping 3E as as the traditional TTRPG. Likewise, an experimental Ultra-Basic D&D TTRPG could be offered alongside the existing product line.

The twelve points are basically just a fresh concept for 6E. Or a way to retool 5E without an edition change.

I concur, an idea like this could be implemented right now. 5e can support a stripped down 5e core rules book. The 5e rules are elegant enough to do it. From there, it would not be so difficult to extrapolate other setting books and games with their version of the material presented in the PHB/DMG/MM (though likely not in that format). These settings could attract those to play them.

What you do not want to happen though. D&D gives a very D&D RPG experience. You want to make sure that experience can happen still. Watering down the offerings on D&D may give the impression that efforts are spent elsewhere. While some may be ok with that others will rip wotc for deciding to make a star frontiers game in 5e for instance. To be clear, I would like to see more settings and a stripped down system to handle them. I am not everyone.

How do you appease the I only play D&D crowd with the I play RPGs crowd? While making them both feel at home? It is a difficult thing.

 

[Polyhedral_Columbia]

How to not get stuck in re-capitulating each campaign setting every time a new rules edition comes out.

I concur, an idea like this could be implemented right now. 5e can support a stripped down 5e core rules book. The 5e rules are elegant enough to do it.

Yes, exactly.

Watering down the offerings on D&D may give the impression that efforts are spent elsewhere. While some may be ok with that others will rip wotc for deciding to make a star frontiers game in 5e for instance. [...] How do you appease the I only play D&D crowd with the I play RPGs crowd? While making them both feel at home? It is a difficult thing.

This is what I propose, as the way to "satiate" interest in the existing D&D worlds. Instead of the existing model (adopted by WotC from Paizo) of writing more and more Adventures (e.g. The Rise of Tiamat, Out of the Abyss), I would only release what I call "Excursions". Excursions are Adventure + Worldbook rolled into one.

Only after these 12 Excursions are published, would I move on to other settings.

1) Excursion to Toril: The World of Forgotten Realms
2) Excursion to Oerth: The World of Greyhawk
3) Excursion to Krynn: The World of Dragonlance
4) Excursion to Eberron: A World of Swashbuckling Action and Dark Adventure
5) Excursion to the Known World: The Classic D&D World of Mystara
6) Excursion to Athas: The World of Dark Sun
7) Excursion to Aebrynis: The World of Birthright
8) Excursion to Nerath: Points of Light in a World of Untamed, Mysterious Darkness
9) Excursion to Blackmoor: The First Fantasy Campaign
10) Excursion to Ravenloft: The Demiplane of Dread
11) Excursion to Wild Space: The Worlds of Spelljammer
12) Excursion to the Great Wheel: The Worlds of Planescape

I would publish these within the course of 2 to 3 years, and get them out of the way, so that the next 7 years of this D&D edition can be devoted to *new* settings!

Each Excursion would contain:

• An all-new, complete, medium-length adventure, located within an iconic place of that world, or which visits several key countries of that world. There would be a segway for running this adventure as a world-hopping excursion, arriving from another D&D world (implied by the word "excursion"). Or the adventure could optionally be run as the start or continuation of a single-world campaign.
• A world map showing the entire planet and its continents. (For the Spelljammer and Planescape excursion, there would be a map of Wild Space and the Great Wheel.)
• A succinct overview of the world. What is unique about this world? Boil down the fluff of the earlier Campaign Setting books into a single chapter!
• The key new PC races, classes, and spells. Of course this could only be a sampling.
• A Localization Appendix with a detailed adaptation of the adventure for each of the main D&D worlds.
• A Scaling Appendix which gives statblocks for adjusting the adventure to any level between 1 and 20. That way, any Excursion can be played in any order!
• A brief out-of-game Publishing History and complete Product Listing for that world (in small print!), with the URL to the D&D Classics website.*

*Note about stoking synergy between the Excursions and the D&D Classics PDFs: All of the D&D Classics PDFs would be connected with a print-on-demand service. And simultaneous with each Excursion, "crunch update" PDFs begin to be written for each of the D&D Classics PDFs from that world. Within a few years, all of the previous editions' adventures and sourcebooks would have a web-enhancement with updated stats for all the crunch. These are just plain black-and-white PDFs with no fluff--only statblocks and rules updates. The reader is even encouraged to print it off and cut out the statblocks and lightly tape them to the page in their Classic book. "Crunch" includes not only NPC and monster stats, but also a new version of whatever new classes, PC races, and so forth are found in that book. These simple PDFs take the place of having to regurgitate the entire world every time a new rules edition comes out--a trap which all previous editions have either fallen into (by writing yet another Campaign Setting book for the same world), or turned away from (by mothballing lesser-used worlds). The massive task of writing these PDF sheets is either done by paid freelancers, or by explicitly encouraging D&D aficionados to write these; either way, they are made available by hosting them at an official website for each world (e.g. the official "fan" sites) and by bundling them with each D&D Classics PDF.

Each world only receives one book. Every other yearning is satiated through the making all of the vast published corpus available as a print-on-demand, with a PDF "crunch update."

Then the worlds are "complete", and we can at last move on to new worlds.

 

[Polyhedral_Columbia]

es with a simple core, you can add all the complexity into the excursions. Write lots of them. Perhaps do a manual of different settings and only provide enough to get the setting started for character generation and throw a few ideas for a DM. Then popular ones get more. Crisis on infinite D&D.

Yes, I hadn't thought of also offering a book which packs in a whole bunch of different Campaign Models, each with a Mini-Excursion. Sweet.

I agree with, and am edified by most of your feedback.

I role-play for the game events and camaraderie not the crunch. I also am interested in experiencing settings through the game rather than simply reading about them in a source book. Shearing complexity allows more space for fostering ideas and creativity.

My experience exactly. That's what I'm trying to say.

Would be nice, however, they have their own games and systems and may be like um... why would I compete with myself?

Well, Green Ronin is hoping to offer its renewed Blue Rose setting in two different rules systems: its own Fantasy AGE house system and FATE, another company's system. And GR has offered Freeport in several different systems (3E, True20, Pathfinder, Savage Worlds, FATE), some of which are owned by other companies. There are probably several other examples. Theoretically this is "competing with themselves", but another way of looking at it, is as a synergistic penetration into various cultural communities, to the benefit of both. It's kind of like making a novel available in different formats (Kindle, Large Print, Audiobook) and also translating it into different languages.

Those companies which made D&D-Compatible excursions, would be tapping into a the large player network / customer base of the D&D cultural community. Since the Excursion would be free to include a "to-and-from" conversion guide, along with a product catalog, this could be a boon for any game company. There'd be a certain number of D&D players who purchase the "Excursion to Golarion" (by Paizo) or the "Excursion to Middle-earth" (by Crucible 7), and then decide to purchase PF Golarion sourcebooks and The One Ring sourcebooks for use in their D&D game.

And to reiterate Hasbro's gain: Unlike the 3e-era OGL, but like the Pathfinder Compatible license, none of these Third Party Excursions would be allowed to be standalone. (E.g. the new SRD could not be used to publish something like the 3e-era Conan RPG- or MnM-style standalone d20-based games.) They'd all have to refer back to the Core Rules, thereby fueling Hasbro sales. And it would grow the D&D cultural community, instead of fracturing it in a neverending, mercantile, dog-eat-dog, edition war.

 

[Doctor Futurity]

Oddly reading more about this in the recent posts is making me think more of Basic/Expert D&D and the gazetteer series of old...

 

[Polyhedral_Columbia]

Culture Excursions

Besides the "Big Twelve" D&D fantasy worlds, here are some other possibilities.

"Culture Excursions" modeled on Oriental Adventures, but with Kara-Tur broken out into separate "Chinese" and "Japanese" soucebooks--we have enough experience of Wuxia films and Samurai films to know the difference! Some of the books could be shorter than others, or some could be grouped together into a single book, but here's a rough list:

Excursion to Shou Long: A Land of Wuxia Adventures
Excursion to Kozakura: A Land of Nipponic Adventures
Excursion to Al-Qadim: A Land of Emirate Adventures
Excursion to Maztica: A Land of Mesoamerican Adventures
Excursion to Anchorome: A Land of Turtle Island Adventures
Excursion to Katashaka: A Land of Nubian Adventures
Excursion to Osse: A Land of Dreamtime Adventures
Excursion to Mulhorand: A Land of Pharaonic Adventures
Excursion to Unther: A Land of Babylonian Adventures
Excursion to Chessenta: A Land of Hellenic Adventures
Excursion to the Shining Lands: A Land of Bollywood Adventures
Excursion to the Moonshae Isles: A Land of Celtic Adventures
Excursion to Rashemen: A Land of Slavonic Adventures
Excursion to the Hordelands: A Land of Tartarian Adventures
Excursion to Koryo: A Land of Coreanic Adventures
Excursion to the Island Kingdoms: A Land of Austronesian Adventures
Excursion to Tabot: A Land of Himalayan Adventures
Excursion to Malatra: Adventures in the Golden Land
Excursion to the Uthgardt: A Land of Northern Adventures
Excursion to the Great Glacier: A Land of Hyperborean Adventures
Excursion to Lopango: A Land of Amazonian Adventures

Each "Cultural Excursion" contains:

• An adventure. The adventure is set in the Forgotten Realms country which most resembles that Real World culture. FR because it's the most popular world. (But see the "Localization Notes" below.)
• A map of the Forgotten Realms country in which the adventure is set.
• A Scaling Appendix for using the adventure for any challenge level between 1 and 20.
• New PC races, classes, spells, and monsters inspired by that Real World culture. Note that even though FR is the model setting, it doesn't use these cultural parallels without altering them a bit.
• A D&D pantheon (such as Asgardian, Celtic, Olympian, or Pharaonic). All of these pantheons exist in the Great Wheel.
• A "Gamer's Glossary" which gives the names for the Core classes, races, equipment, spells, and monsters in that Real World language. For example, bushi = Japanese for "fighter" and wushi = Chinese for "fighter."
• A Localization Appendix, with detailed suggestions of how to use and place this content in each of the main D&D worlds. Some D&D worlds have parallels (or mixed parallels) to many of these cultures; in such cases, the conversion notes are especially ample, and even include a map showing the equivalent country in each of those settings. (e.g. Mesoamerica = the Olman Isles in Greyhawk, and the Tiger Clan and the Azcan Empire in Mystara). The D&D Earth localization notes suggest how tho use this with the Modern D&D campaign models: e.g. China and Japan in Urban Arcana or Dark•Matter.
• Explicitly explains how some settings, such as Mystara, contain close parallels to Earth cultures, while others are somewhat more mixed (Greyhawk and Forgotten Realms), and some have only faintly Earth-inspired elements (e.g. the Plains Barbarians of Krynn are only slightly reminiscent of the Indigenous cultures of the North American plains), while some worlds avoid any cultural parallels (e.g. Dark Sun). Also, in some cases, there are multiple parallels in the same world (such as Toril's three Arabian-style cultures: Calimshan, the Bedine of the Anauroch Desert, and in entire Zakhara continent); all of these parallels are included in the localization notes.

The various "localizations" in each of the D&D worlds are listed here: https://sites.google.com/site/dndphilmont/culture-books

I don't know of Roman or Andean parallels in Toril, so those Cultural Excursions would need to be based in a different D&D World (e.g. Thyatian Empire and Oltec Empire in Mystara), or in D&D Earth.

As I said, some of these books could be combined into one, but that's roughly what I'd like to see.

 

[Polyhedral_Columbia]

Genre Excursions and more

Various modern, future, and historic genres:

• Excursion to the Sea of Fallen Stars: D&D Pirate Adventures. (Uses FR as example setting, but provides Localization notes for the Pirate cultures of all the D&D Worlds.)
• Excursion to the Imperium Romanum: D&D Roman Adventures. (James Wyatt's two Roman-themed campaign models -- Imperium Romanum and Shield of Faith. And Localization for using elements of the book for the Minotaur League of Krynn, for the Thyatian Empire of Mystara (though it's mixed with Byzantine Greek culture), and a time-travelling excursion to the Old Oeridian Empire of Greyhawk.)
• Excursion to Camelot: D&D Arthurian Adventures
• Excursion to El Dorado County: The Wild West D&D World of Boot Hill (Includes Localization notes for Mystara's Cimmarron County...the only Wild West culture I know of outside of D&D Earth. Oh, and Murlynd from Greyhawk had pistols. If Old Western won't sell, then Boot Hill could be folded into the Modern Fantasy book as a campaign model.)
• Excursion to D&D Earth: Modern Fantasy Adventures. To test the waters, could contain short campaign models for Urban Arcana, Dark•Matter, and others. Localization notes for the "future modern" version of each of the main D&D worlds: Greyhawk 2000, "Modern Realms" (with the "United Realms of Anchorome", the "Faerunian Union", and the "People's Commonwealth of Shou Long"...)
• Excursion to the Future: D&D Science Fiction Adventures. To test which settings people are interested in, this could contain brief campaign models for all the TSR/WotC SF settings, such as Barsoom/Mars, Gamma World, Star Frontiers, Star*Drive, The Galactos Barrier (TSR's very own "Star Wars"), Once and Future King ("Arthur...in space"), and Mystara's Galactic Federation (TSR's own "Star Trek").
• Excursion to the Fading Realms: D&D Comic Adventures. Includes a campaign model for each of the HackMaster-licensed versions of the D&D worlds. Jester PC class. Best of the joke stuff from years past...dread gazebo.

There's a fuller outline of the genres here: https://sites.google.com/site/dndphilmont/genre-books

The "culture excursions" and "genre excusions" could be interspersed with some of the one-off classics:

• Excursion to Pelinore: The Classic D&D World of TSR UK's Imagine Magazine
• Excursion to Io's Blood Islands: The World of a Council of Wyrms
• Excursion to the Realm of the D&D Cartoon Show
• Excursion to Jakandor: Land of Legend and Isle of Destiny
  

And sometime after the "Big Twelve" worlds are done, show us the two runners-up to the contest which Eberron won:

• Excursion to [the world of Rich Burlew]
• Excursion to [the world of Nathan Toomey]

Then have another Campaign Setting Search, and include the dozen winners as Campaign Models, packed into a single book!

Hey, I think WotC ought to hire me as product consultant.

 

[Yaarel]

Theres no need to make an ‘excursion’ an entire world. Make it a region, or even a locale.

The ideal example is the Menzoberranzan locale, one of the Drow subterranean cities from the Forgotten Realms world. If the players want to explore Drow flavor, just plug the city somewhere in whichever world setting one is using.

Want Gith flavor? Figure out how to fit in a Githyanki city or a Githzerai settlement. Done.

Even a futuristic setting, can be an isolationist utopian city, in a medievalesque world but normally inaccessible.

Settings dont need to be entire worlds. Focus on the interesting stuff, and mix-and-match. Build worlds like lego bricks.