D&D 5E (2024) What will D&D 6th edition be like?

[MechaTarrasque]

If the D&D movie is a success, then then 6e will be whatever is necessary to make movie fans feel like they are playing in the movie (and since it is a Hasbro movie, they will make changes).

If the movie bombs, Hasbro will sell WotC, and Mattel will buy it (cheap) so the 6e will be set in Eternia. Dark Sun will take place in the Sands of Time, Eberron will be in the Three Towers (and instead of warforged, you can play a Horde Trooper), etc. When they do expand to another world, it will be Thundera.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

I see three phases in the last editions. The first is "we want the return of X title". The second phase is "we want new things" and the final phase what is about compilations and they dare to publish riskier ideas.

The plans for 5E are different, more linked to multimedia projects. For example Dragonlance will not comeback until the screen adaptation, and this will be after to find the right key for blockbuster movie or teleserie. Birthright will be published after a strategy videogame.

I allow myself to speculation and my theory is WotC wants an Universal d20, easy to be used for all genres. This is a serious challenge for game designers to find the right power balance when there are different factions with different level of technology and spellcasting, for example the d20 version of Mortal Kombat characters couldn't survive an encounter against the monsters of a d20 Doom Eternal, or d20 Street Fighters can't defeat d20 Overwatch.

And today some players start to ask "when digital immortality+mind uploading" like in the teleserie "Altered Carbon"?

We may see a revised 5ed, practically a 5.1 and this isn't not wrong, and some other RPGs not D&D but d20 and allowing to test some different ideas.

 

[Lanefan]

What will 6e be like? I suspect we'll be waiting quite a long time to find out.

Hope we're all still around to see it.

 

[MNblockhead]

Maybe instead of new editions of 5e, they will go the Hasbro Monopoly route. No need to change make new editions, instead have variants tied to various other IPs and interests.

It seems that this is already the route they are going with the boxed sets and settings books: Stranger Things, Rick & Morty, Critical Role, Acquisitions Incorporated. Each offer new fluff and but also some crunch that you can use to make core D&D fit the setting.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

They are very slow with the crunch, and I don't blame them. The crunch is going to suffer a true litmust test the videogame adaptations. A year of gamers is like munchkins trying to find the best combo for three years, or five years if the videogame becomes too popular and lots of gamers are trying to find the best tricks and techniques.

And the crunch could alter the background, for example new characters based in the last published classes.

 

[Krachek]

Even if I don’t believe in 6ed, here some of my guess.

• UA class variant will become official.
• disappearance of the bonus action.
• concentration break on damage will also go.

 

[Aldarc]

Is that actually what is happening though?

Looks on homebrew material on DMsGuild and other 5e-based 3pp... Yep... That's what's happening.

 

[Vael]

6th Edition will herald the unification of Dungeons and Dragons and Magic the Gathering. Wizards will have to tap lands for spells and learn new spells from randomized booster packs.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

The class variants are perfectly possible. My doubts are about the classes with special rules after the psionic manifesters, the martial adepts, the vestige pact binders and the incarnum soulmelds. If the totemist shaman class comes back, it will be totally remake. Maybe the incarnum will work as metamagic feat effects or adding monster traits, so simple DMs will can use monster with incarnum soulmelds in fast fights. The vestige pact magic will work like a temporal mini-advanced class or a monster template. Maybe we will see a Kara-Tur with martial adept classes using martial maneuvers like the ones from "Tome of Battle: Book of Nine Swords".

* The next edition will be a spin-off, a board game with simpler rules for +10y children, and with the option of solo games with a mobile app as AI (for monsters and hidden traps+secret doors). I suggest the name "Endless Quest" as a spiritual succesor of the famour Hero-Quest dungeon-crawnling tabletop game.

* The challenge for the d20 system is you can create a d20 Conan and a d20 Salomon Kane, but they can't face each other without troubles for the power balance.

* I am thinking about other of my crazy ideas. A D&D version of my little pony but with centauresses, and theses have got different morphologies. A cute face with equine traits, like horse-girls from furry fandom ( = antropmorphic animals) cartoons, with big nose holes to aspire more air for great physical efforts, like races), and the ears on the side like humans, monkeys and apes, not like horses, and below the baist wouldn't be like the classic centaurs, but more like four-legged humanoids. The lower limbes would have got fingers, one of them a true hooeve, and two of them opposible, allowing to be no-so-bad climbers. The lumbar vertebrae wouldn't be too long, allowing to brush their hairy tails with their ownn hands (upper arms are longer than usual body proportions for humanoids). Only one rig cage (proportionally bigger than the rest of humanois) with a mixture of shoulder blade and pelvic girdle for the limbs in the midle), and two lungs and one heart. The body proportions would be more like the fuko figure of Orisha, the centaur-like robot from Overwatch.

 

[atanakar]

6th Edition will herald the unification of Dungeons and Dragons and Magic the Gathering. Wizards will have to tap lands for spells and learn new spells from randomized booster packs.

Sadly, WoTC tried to introduce random booster pack with Gamma World (the edition based on 4eD&D). It back fired really bad. I don't think they would tried that again. Instead they created a setting book based on Magic.