D&D 5E What would be your ideal 5E yearly product output?

[Jester David]

I want to see two or three more products in addition to the storylines in addition to a campaign setting.
Not per year. Total.

A psionic book would be good (Psionics Handbook) and I think you can justify at least one more monster book (Fiend Folio), and maybe something else (Manual of the Planes, Deities & Demigods, Dungeoneer's Handbook, Wilderness Survival Guide). I want books that are big and comprehensive and excellent additions to my gaming library for years to come. Definitive versions of the books. They can space that out, with one book every couple of years, released when it's done. Possibly with a playtest so people who need it for their games can do something sooner.
After that I'm good. The storylines serve me, as does Unearthed Arcana and the smaller free storyline accessories. Any gaps I can fill with homebrew content or old releases or PDFs from DnDClassics.

That said, I would also like to see the OGL come in and allow 3rd Parties to offer content for the people who do want more books. And for the people who need more settings, more setting specific material, or don't feel comfortable building their own content. But I don't think we need anything else from WotC.

 

[steeldragons]

Just for gits and shiggles ( ), since I'm just hanging out waiting for my affianced to finish the GREs, I'm gonna throw out a completely pointless speculative hypothetical schedule...I know we had a thread that did this a while ago and I went into great detail. But now that we actually HAVE PHB, DMG and MM, we can be a little less speculative and make decisions based off of that, at least.

So, we've gotten what APs already? Dragons/Cultists, Elementals/Temple of Elemental Evil...and Demons/Underdark is in the oven.

I would really like them to scale back the "world-threatening culitists and biggest baddest evils from the MM we can find", so I"m going to say, for our hypothetical schedule for next year's release schedule:

AP I: Sinister Secrets of the Slavelord's. A Saltmarsh/Slavers series mash-up rehash. Take on organized crime, interspersed with political challenges and, ultimately, saving yourselves and others from the POWERFUL men and women at the top of the food chain. Your biggest bads are the other CHARACTER-CLASSED NPCs, from the low-level Illusionist Wizard smuggler to the top 6 "high council" of the Slave Lords in their island "aerie."

Non-AP I: Setting Guide: Eberron (I can't stand it, but it's popular and a bunch of the material has already been done/begun. So, go for it.)

AP II: The Lost Castle of Horrors: Undead and madness are your foes in this mash-up/ rehash of Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth, Ravenloft, and Tomb of Horrors. A lengthy dungeon delve culminating in Vampires teaming up with Liches teaming up with Vampires...teaming up with Liches.

Non-AP I: Psionics Manual. The classes, the races, the system, the options/variants...TEAR OUT that damned wall and do Psionics the way it's supposed to BE!

Year 2
AP I: White Bone, Amber Plume. Mash-up/rehash of Secrets of Bone Hill, Castle Amber and White Plume Mountain. But the wizard from WPM [what was his name again?] is actually involved/behind everything and is actually encountered as the final climactic battle (with the undead dragon, Dragotha, as an ally .

Non-AP I: Setting Guide: Greyhawk. It's been way WAY too long.

AP II: Dwellers of the Hidden Shrine of the Cult of the Giant God: mash-up/rehash of the Dwellers of the Forbidden City, the Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan, Cult of the Reptile God and Against the Giants. World-threatening huge threats return as a series of archaeological expeditions reveal a massive plot [with cultists involved, of course!] for the return and subjugation of the realms by Giant-kind.

Non-AP II: Battles & Bastions. A formalized manual for [simple/fast] mass combat, stronghold building and dominion ruling: Not just castles, temples, towers, but Guilds for Thieves, Lodges for Rangers, "Great Halls" for Barbarians, "Academies" for wizards, etc.... How to incorporate all of that and keep the adventures flowing. Coupla new classes or sub-classes for military types (Cavaliers? Maybe an official Warlord/Marshal? Elfin Griffon Knights?) and whatnot.

Year 3
AP I: The Lost Beacon of Desolation: Mash up/rehash of the Desert of Desolation series, Baltron's Beacon and the Lost City. The undead are at it again, but this time it's some Mummy lord/ghost/spectre guy.

Non-AP I: Setting Guide: Dragonlance. There's enough setting specific material here to warrant this.

AP II: Beyond the Isle of the Crystal Land of the Dread Magic Mirror. Mash-up/rehash of Beyond the Crystal Cavern, Isle of Dread and the Dungeonland duo. The fae in all of their fun-loving forms, mischievous magic, and capricious cruelty from the happy-friendly-faerieland to savagely strange, demi-plane jumping goose-chasing jaunt, and, finally, the wicked warmongering of the darkest and most malevolnent archfey to reclaim the world of mortals and end the reign of the "gods of men."

Non-AP II: ummmm...OH! FIEND FOLIO! A comglomeration fo new monsters that have been appearing throughout all of the APs, UAs and maybe some popular fan creations that have been piling up since the MM released.

That's enough for now. If 5e is still going strong in 3 years, give me a holler. I'll come up with s'more.

 

[Psikerlord#]

[DND][/DND]I ticked just core. But the poll didn't really have my preference, which is: (i) lots of short adventures and/or a couple of very sandbox "adventures", plus (2) settings such as Dark Sun, Planescape and Ravenloft. This is assuming they still release UA with new rules etc to experiment with.

I don't need any more official rules books. And I dont like big AP's.

Ideally though I'd like to see an OGL. Then 3rd parties can go nuts and everyone can just pick up what they like.

 

[Logan1138]

AP I: Sinister Secrets of the Slavelord's. A Saltmarsh/Slavers series mash-up rehash. Take on organized crime, interspersed with political challenges and, ultimately, saving yourselves and others from the POWERFUL men and women at the top of the food chain. Your biggest bads are the other CHARACTER-CLASSED NPCs, from the low-level Illusionist Wizard smuggler to the top 6 "high council" of the Slave Lords in their island "aerie."

AP II: The Lost Castle of Horrors: Undead and madness are your foes in this mash-up/ rehash of Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth, Ravenloft, and Tomb of Horrors. A lengthy dungeon delve culminating in Vampires teaming up with Liches teaming up with Vampires...teaming up with Liches.

Year 2
AP I: White Bone, Amber Plume. Mash-up/rehash of Secrets of Bone Hill, Castle Amber and White Plume Mountain. But the wizard from WPM [what was his name again?] is actually involved/behind everything and is actually encountered as the final climactic battle (with the undead dragon, Dragotha, as an ally .

Non-AP I: Setting Guide: Greyhawk. It's been way WAY too long.

AP II: Dwellers of the Hidden Shrine of the Cult of the Giant God: mash-up/rehash of the Dwellers of the Forbidden City, the Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan, Cult of the Reptile God and Against the Giants. World-threatening huge threats return as a series of archaeological expeditions reveal a massive plot [with cultists involved, of course!] for the return and subjugation of the realms by Giant-kind.

Year 3
AP I: The Lost Beacon of Desolation: Mash up/rehash of the Desert of Desolation series, Baltron's Beacon and the Lost City. The undead are at it again, but this time it's some Mummy lord/ghost/spectre guy.

I like the cut of your jib, good sir!

These are pretty sweet adventure ideas and, yes, we need a Greyhawk update...badly.

 

[Staffan]

Oh gods, I don't want to see a PHB II EVER! lol.

Depends. I wouldn't want a book by that name, but I would want a book that was pretty much what the 3.5e PHB2 was: a few new classes (though subclasses would probably work better for 5e), variants on the old ones (I absolutely loved the shapechanger druid from PH2), new feats that were actually fairly good and useful instead of being mostly filler, new spells, and some new subsystems like organizations with benefits, retraining, and such.

I think that a book like that every now and then (maybe every other year?) is a much better way of delivering new "crunch" than focused "splatbooks", because it's awfully hard to come up with enough stuff on a particular topic to fill said splatbook. By widening the focus, you leave more room for all sorts of good ideas.

And it doesn't need to be limited to player-focused material either. Monsters should probably be left to their own book(s), but some cool DM material in there too might be cool, and/or smaller sub-systems that don't have enough depth to them to fill out a full sourcebook - like expanded downtime rules, dominion rules, and so on.

 

[DaveDash]

More monsters manuals, NPC codex, and potentially equipment books but not magic items, rather flesh out stuff like more armors, weapons, siege weapons, and items from other historical periods.

 

[KirayaTiDrekan]

My ideal (pipe dream) product schedule in a year would be...

A campaign setting boxed set (or two hardcover books similar to 4E's scheme if I can't have boxed sets) presenting an overview of the setting, character options specific to that setting, and monsters specific to that setting.

An adventure path or story arc or whatever specifically designed for that year's setting.

A more generic adventure path.

Continued setting support via small PDFs - think the old 1E/2E FR series or the BECMI GAZ series - but in PDF form, about one per setting per six months so we get one a month, total, but still supporting most of the old settings.

One shot adventures not tied to story arcs of varying levels, also via small PDFs, about one per month. Some can be setting specific, others can be more generic.

And that's it. Slightly similar to Paizo's current schedule with Pathfinder, but omitting the core rulebook and player's option lines of products. What I specifically don't want...

Character options for the sake of character options. I like my character options to be tied to a setting or theme, not just a string of game mechanics with a name attached.

Monsters for the sake of monsters. Monsters, too, should be tied to a setting, with a purpose and niche in the world's ecosystem and story.

 

[Quickleaf]

Good thread topic!

I'd say 3-5 per year, with the caveat that some shorter DUNGEON magazine style modules should feature in the mix.

Since I'm not really into running adventure paths, it would be nice to see some products appealing to the kit bash / Homebrew / make-your-own campaign type of DMs. 3-5 products per year allows them to do 2 adventure paths appealing to those DMs who run them, as well a product or two for DMs like me!

Also I am eagerly anticipating a Monster Manual 2

 

[the Jester]

My preference: The two big stories per year they are doing now, plus two small adventures per year and one book of expanded material per year. My preference is- year 1 (of this strategy): Monster Manual 2; year 2: Expanded Players' Option book; year 3: book of magic items (Adventurers Vault?); year 4: Fiend Folio. Then I dunno, maybe a book focused on 'weird play' options, including epic material, underwater, genre-bending (Boot Hill and Gamma World conversion type stuff), etc.

So a total of 5 products per year, three large/hardback and two smaller, 32ish page adventures.

 

[delericho]

I went for 3-5, but I'd be equally happy with 6-9. (Actually, I'd be happy with more even than that, but I fear bloat would rapidly set in.)

Having said all that, I suspect the real answer is that I'd actually be satisfied with two specific books (an MMII the same size and quality as the current MM, and a 5e Eberron Campaign Setting that converts everything from the 3e version of the same), plus the return of the magazines (not counting D+ as a replacement for Dragon). Though I'm not 100% sure - I suspect I'd then want a mega-supplement somewhere down the line, to keep the game fresh, but that's probably a one-off event for 1-3 years from now.