D&D 5E Tyranny of Dragons: The New Edition?

[Jester David]

I'm not asking if Tyranny of Dragons is being written for D&D Next, although I expect at least one commenter will reply "that's the new story planned for the fall".

Mearls and co. have repeatedly said they're focusing on story this edition pushing that to the forefront, but they also don't want to call the game 5th Edition. The recent press release focused on the event "Tyranny of Dragons" and the Pax East panel really seems to put that Event to the forefront, above the new edition.

Could Tyranny of Dragons BE the next edition?

Much like Fantasy Flight Games' Star Wars RPG isn't just "Star Wars" but "Star Wars: Edge of the Empire" with the follow-up the next year being "Star Wars: Age of Rebellion". Could we be getting D&D: Tyranny of Dragons this summer, with a focus on classes and options and story elements designed around kicking dragon butt? (I.e. classic monster fighting good versus evil gameplay.) And next year, we get a new event with related sourcebooks and different options?

--edit--

To clarify/ expand:

There are a couple ways they could do this. For ease of reference we can refer to them as “Old World of Darkness” and “New World of Darkness”.

In the oWod, there were multiple story-based product lines, each with their own core book. This is similar to the aforementioned FFG Star Wars lines. The advantage to this method is that people only interested in <Campaign Style Y> don't need to buy a book with options for <Campaign Style X>.
In the nWoD, there was one core book (called World of Darkness) and product lines that expanded on that book. The advantage to this is people interested in multiple options don't buy the same content twice, and there's a generic option for people who don't want specific.

D&D could take either approach.
There could be a Tyranny of Dragons: Player’s Handbook with related rules to play the game and subclasses and options that work with that campaign and campaigns of a similar style. Each subsequent year would have a new PHB with different subclasses and expansions for the new Event (read: Adventure Path storyarc).
Much like how each annual Magic: the Gathering release has a theme and Core Set.
Or there could be a generic Player’s Handbook that is independent, but instead of generic accessories (splatbooks) they release Event-based Sourcebooks that expand on the generic content

--end edit--

Would this be a good thing? A bad thing?

Discuss.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Could we be getting D&D: Tyranny of Dragons this summer, with a focus on classes and options and story elements designed around kicking dragon butt? (I.e. classic monster fighting good versus evil gameplay.) And next year, we get a new event with related sourcebooks and different options?

Would this be a good thing? A bad thing?

Discuss.

I wouldn't expect the Player's Handbook or Monster Manual to be that plot-specific... if for no other reason that D&D has way, way, way too broad of an audience to need to focus in on a single story like that. They'd get hammered flat by much of the gamer audience if they were to focus character options just on a Forgotten Realms Tyranny of Dragons story.

That being said... I also wouldn't think that a DMG that was ToD based would be out of the question. DMGs nowadays have had a "starting area" in it (Saltmarsh in 3.5s DMG2, Fallcrest in 4E)... so having a ToD-based "starting area" and a bunch of info for that type of campaign in and around other DMs options would not sound far-fetched. And then in a year or two when they decide they want to put out another book of options, they could release a DMG2 (or UA or whatever they would call it) that could have a new "story" connected to it.

Truth be told though... I don't expect the DMG to have that either. Too many non-FR players out there that would get annoyed with ToD references... and enough FR fans that you could produce a standalone FR ToD storyline campaign guide. No need to combine the two books together.

 

[Kinak]

Well, releasing mechanics to support adventures works pretty well for Paizo, so I'm sure it's at least come up across town.

I wouldn't be surprised to see something along those lines, with player books and monster manuals synched up to support the current adventure theme. I'm... actually kind of surprised they never did that for encounter seasons. Maybe they did and I just never noticed.

That said, I don't think they'd go as far as FFG, presenting all the material you need to play the game under each subtitle. The plan still seems to be having a shared PHB, which doesn't necessarily mean they can't have a complete PHB for each theme... but seems to suggest that's not the plan.

Cheers!
Kinak

 

[I'm A Banana]

Much like Fantasy Flight Games' Star Wars RPG isn't just "Star Wars" but "Star Wars: Edge of the Empire" with the follow-up the next year being "Star Wars: Age of Rebellion". Could we be getting D&D: Tyranny of Dragons this summer, with a focus on classes and options and story elements designed around kicking dragon butt? (I.e. classic monster fighting good versus evil gameplay.) And next year, we get a new event with related sourcebooks and different options?

Would this be a good thing? A bad thing?

I don't imagine D&D is in much of a position to be able to go that route, just speaking practically. Tyranny of Dragons is the marketing hotness, but it cannot define D&D (any more than the Greyhawk Wars or Driz'zt or the Prism Pentad or the Dragonlance Saga is definitive of D&D). The game is too big to be entirely shoved into one plotline and also meet the needs of its huge, diverse audience. No matter how vast and sweeping and dramatic and awesome that plotline is, it cannot be all things to all D&D players. There will be a vast sea of "meh" in reaction to it. Unless they want all those people to just not buy D&D because this particular plotline doesn't interest them, this wouldn't be a wise course.

That said, I think it's an interesting approach, and part of me is fond of the idea of centering the mechanical direction of the game around the story that the game is telling "this season." It owns its specificity, which is always something I like to see.

What might be a good if you were interested in both here is to build 5e as a platform first, with initial rules that show folks how to do different things with that platform. And then use the stories to drive the splatbooks. Have a "season" where the adventure chain is about the return of Kalak to Tyr in Dark Sun, and use that season to publish the Dark Sun setting and options for low-magic campaigns and psionics and whatnot. Next "season," we're in Dragonlance and there's kender and tinker gnomes and a DM-focused book for running highly narrative, save-the-world style games. The season after that, we're in Ravenloft and there's firearms rules and Van Richten gets to write an MM, and gothic horror becomes the thing.

That could work really well, and I'd be quite fond of such an experience. The only issue would be a lesser version of the same issue as making ToD the game: people who didn't like Dragonlance at all just wouldn't buy anything for...quite some time....

You can mitigate that with various means (subscription services, Dragon/Dungeon magazine, some general options splats), of course, but this kind of weakens the central experience. So there's a trade-off.

But it's a cool idea.

 

[Jester David]

Edited into the main post:
There are a couple ways they could do this. For ease of reference we can refer to them as “Old World of Darkness” and “New World of Darkness”.

In the oWod, there were multiple story-based product lines, each with their own core book. This is similar to the aforementioned FFG Star Wars lines. The advantage to this method is that people only interested in <Campaign Style Y> don't need to buy a book with options for <Campaign Style X>.
In the nWoD, there was one core book (called World of Darkness) and product lines that expanded on that book. The advantage to this is people interested in multiple options don't buy the same content twice, and there's a generic option for people who don't want specific.

D&D could take either approach.
There could be a Tyranny of Dragons: Player’s Handbook with related rules to play the game and subclasses and options that work with that campaign and campaigns of a similar style. Each subsequent year would have a new PHB with different subclasses and expansions for the new Event (read: Adventure Path storyarc).
Much like how each annual Magic: the Gathering release has a theme and Core Set.
Or there could be a generic Player’s Handbook that is independent, but instead of generic accessories (splatbooks) they release Event-based Sourcebooks that expand on the generic content

 

[am181d]

Wizards has recently said that there will only be one Player's Handbook, one Dungeon Master's Guide, and one Monster Manual for this edition. So I think the answer is a pretty clear "no."

Although it's an interesting idea for an alternate approach to the game.

A month or two back, I was suggesting a format for "Basic D&D" which was basically a set of self-contained new gamer friendly boxed sets using 10-level adventure paths and pre-gen characters with limited customization options. A "Tyranny of Dragons" boxed set at Walmart would fit this mold.

But, no, it looks like they're going in a much different, much more traditional direction.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

Isn't Tyranny of Dragons just the name of the FR plotline, in much the same way "Time of Troubles" and "The Spellplague" were.

 

[Sunseeker]

I certainly hope that the Core books are not intimately tied to a specific story. Having them tied to a specific realm I can live with. I would hope that we get the usual story-free Core, and a campaign source-book for anything specifically story related.

It's actually one of the reasons I don't play SWEotE, I really don't like that setting and it makes it difficult for me to get into the game as a whole because it's so closely tied to that setting.

 

[mhensley]

Interesting idea. Whatever they are going to do, I just wish they would hurry up and tell us.

 

[Saplatt]

Isn't Tyranny of Dragons just the name of the FR plotline, in much the same way "Time of Troubles" and "The Spellplague" were.

That's my understanding, but we'll know more later on.

I haven't read a lot of FR fiction, but I do like Richard Lee Byers. I put off reading the "Brotherhood of the Griffin" series for a long time and then was pleasantly surprised when I finally got around to it. I still haven't completed it, but there's a lot of dragon and Tiamat-related stuff in there and I wonder how much of it is going to be carried forward.