D&D 5E Where are the options?

[Tony Vargas]

So wait, you are saying that quality is irrelevant in gaming products?

No, no, of course not. Quality is a plus for most games shooting for even modest success. It's just largely irrelevant for D&D, specifically.

If material is good, and you really like it what does it matter if it is official?

It does, yes. There are DMs who won't accept it (rather, there may or may not be any at all that will accept it), and there are players who might balk at another playing it at the same table. People play D&D because it's D&D. Unofficial is not as D&D as official. DMsG is more 'really D&D' than 'some random post on the internet,' less so than a well-done 3pp supplement and much less so than even the most obscure WotC supplement, on-line goody, or off-hand Mike Mearls tweet. FWIW.

Lets say someone produces a book of prestige classes for 5E and after reading it, you decide that the options are awesome and want to include them in your game. In what way would not being official suddenly make this great material terrible?

You're running an AL game. You mention you're going to introduce said material and a player ragequits. You're not even the DM, and the DM running your game doesn't like it.

It's part and parcel of DM Empowerment, really.

I have no real idea what your games are like, but if constant new mechanical bits are needed to maintain interest then the actual campaign material must be very dull.

Regardless of the details of individual campaign, new material keeps the whole community more vibrant. Of course, 5e /has/ new material every year, just w/o much crunch, so it's keeping the community vibrant, in most ways, but not for everyone. Some styles place more emphasis on crunch, and they're being under-served and could potentially lose interest.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

Based on personal experience, official product is far, FAR more likely to contain high quality balanced material, and unofficial product is far, FAR more likely to contain unbalanced junk. This is the way it has always been and I see no reason that it should change now just because you personally wish it to be so.

My personal experience has been that official WotC material was no less prone to being entirely unsuitable to my campaign than any other party that published professional-looking materials (meaning not in horribly formatted, amateurishly laid-out, nearly unreadable "cool looking" fontage documents riddled with art I would believe to be the first piece a particular artist had ever attempted in something other than finger paint, crayon, or sidewalk chalk if someone told me that's what it was).

In fact, I got much more usage from the materials found in Scarred Lands and Ravenloft products (from White Wolf publishing) than I did from anything else published for D&D 3/3.5 besides the (also terribly done, in my opinion) core rule-books.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

People play D&D because it's D&D. Unofficial is not as D&D as official. DMsG is more 'really D&D' than 'some random post on the internet,' less so than a well-done 3pp supplement and much less so than even the most obscure WotC supplement, on-line goody, or off-hand Mike Mearls tweet. FWIW.

I've always felt that D&D was more of a language rather than a bunch of classes and spells and monsters. Things in the book are just examples, and you're supposed to be making up your own stuff, using that as a guideline.

Anything you make up on your own is more 'really D&D' than something you just copy out of the book.

 

[ExploderWizard]

No, no, of course not. Quality is a plus for most games shooting for even modest success. It's just largely irrelevant for D&D, specifically.

I honestly can't tell if you're serious. Well played.

It does, yes. There are DMs who won't accept it (rather, there may or may not be any at all that will accept it), and there are players who might balk at another playing it at the same table. People play D&D because it's D&D. Unofficial is not as D&D as official. DMsG is more 'really D&D' than 'some random post on the internet,' less so than a well-done 3pp supplement and much less so than even the most obscure WotC supplement, on-line goody, or off-hand Mike Mearls tweet. FWIW.

Well then play PHB only. It will be official. Oh wait.

Being official has jack to do with what a DM wants or doesn't want to include. ANY material regardless of source should be agreed on by the table. Being official doesn't change that.

You're running an AL game. You mention you're going to introduce said material and a player ragequits. You're not even the DM, and the DM running your game doesn't like it.

It's part and parcel of DM Empowerment, really.

AL is its own beast. You give up a lot of creative control in exchange for the organized structure. In a regular campaign it isn't for the player to keep bringing in new crap to use just because it exists. You get players showing up with new splatbooks every month wanting to make new characters, and ditch their old one simply because a new toy exists that they have to play RIGHT NOW. I'm so glad WOTC stopped the spew of player based splat.

Regardless of the details of individual campaign, new material keeps the whole community more vibrant. Of course, 5e /has/ new material every year, just w/o much crunch, so it's keeping the community vibrant, in most ways, but not for everyone. Some styles place more emphasis on crunch, and they're being under-served and could potentially lose interest.

If the player base interested primarily in building better mechanical mousetraps and scouring splatbooks for the most abusive combinations lose interest in 5E I really can still sleep like a baby.

 

[TwoSix]

I've always felt that D&D was more of a language rather than a bunch of classes and spells and monsters. Things in the book are just examples, and you're supposed to be making up your own stuff, using that as a guideline.

Anything you make up on your own is more 'really D&D' than something you just copy out of the book.

What's more D&D: the game you play at your table or the game you talk about here on ENWorld?

I know most people will probably say "their home game," but your presence here shows at least a little concern with the view of the game for the larger community. And official material is stuff that we can discuss here, or with other D&D players outside of our home games, far more than unofficial material.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

I've always felt that D&D was more of a language rather than a bunch of classes and spells and monsters. Things in the book are just examples, and you're supposed to be making up your own stuff, using that as a guideline.

Anything you make up on your own is more 'really D&D' than something you just copy out of the book.

Absolutely.

Fun anecdote so that I'm not just making a one word reply: There is only one game designer in the entire world who hasn't had any of their content excluded from my game-play: Me.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

...your presence here shows at least a little concern with the view of the game for the larger community.

False. My presence here, and anyone's else, only inherently shows a desire to discuss topics appropriate for this forum. There is no inherent "concern with the view of the game of the larger community."

And official material is stuff that we can discuss here, or with other D&D players outside of our home games, far more than unofficial material.

It is very odd that you say this and yet even threads which ask specifically about official material include discussion of home games and unofficial material, because whether it is official, unofficial, home-brew, or theoretical - we can discuss it here (excepting language and content banned by the user agreement, of course).

 

[ExploderWizard]

What's more D&D: the game you play at your table or the game you talk about here on ENWorld?

I know most people will probably say "their home game," but your presence here shows at least a little concern with the view of the game for the larger community. And official material is stuff that we can discuss here, or with other D&D players outside of our home games, far more than unofficial material.

This is also the place to discuss all the unofficial material we use in our games. Our ideas for new monsters, classes, spells, & rule variants. Everyone has the official material and we can debate the merits of the bits we like or dislike, but I find the most interesting conversations involve official material we wish had been done differently followed by all kinds of cool ideas about how to actually DO it differently.

 

[TwoSix]

It is very odd that you say this and yet even threads which ask specifically about official material include discussion of home games and unofficial material, because whether it is official, unofficial, home-brew, or theoretical - we can discuss it here (excepting language and content banned by the user agreement, of course).

That hasn't been my experience. People discuss their home game situations, but they rarely suggest rules material that isn't the in the core books as being usable character-focused material.

Heck, in the character build forum, I don't see a single thread about a 3rd-party or houseruled option on the first page at all.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

What's more D&D: the game you play at your table or the game you talk about here on ENWorld?

I know most people will probably say "their home game," but your presence here shows at least a little concern with the view of the game for the larger community. And official material is stuff that we can discuss here, or with other D&D players outside of our home games, far more than unofficial material.

There are two aspects to the canon which are very important:

1) We can all talk about it, because it's something shared between tables (to a useful degree).

2) It provides a baseline, against which our own creations can be compared. The Witch class I create might be different the Bruja class that you create, but since we're both using the classes in the PHB as a starting point, we can be reasonably certain that both are within the same scope of action to each other.

All of that is really meta-game stuff, though - it's talk about how to play the game. It is not the game itself, which is what actually happens around the table.