D&D 5E Which three topics do you most want to receive official (WotC) treatment?

[jmartkdr2]

I voted for "new settings" but I really only want them if they use influences that existing settings don't - especially Africa or India or Precolumbian Americas, but mostly just not Europe or East Asia.

 

[Helldritch]

Ouch.
You might have, but many people didn't; and the real problem with published settings is when the players know it better than the DM (and even worse, when they complain about the DM's changes to it).

Some would. Other won't. You see, I live in a French environment. Most of my players do not speak english nor can they read it.

Yikes! That campaign will be over before it starts!

Ha HA! A sandboxer.
I do it the other way around. I manipulate the events so the players feels they are the ones pulling the strings but I manage for them to go where I want. It is a mix between the railroad and the sandbox. When I do pure sandbox, it is usualy full improvisation. Otherwise, the players are aware that we are trying to build ourselves a story. The prep and the time for it are not infinite nor are they cheap. If they are not ready to accept a certain amount of railroading then they should try to find an other DM and leave their place to a newer player that will be more than happy to have a bit of railroad. I do not tell the players what to do, but they respect me enough to know that everyone will shine. No one will be left out.

At least 2 or 3 adventures per level, try; knowing you'll not run all of them anyway and that others will arise in the meantime due to in-game developments.

This approach works better with mile stones. I prefer a faster pace with exp until level 5 or 6. Then exp slows down by itself and since I enforce the 5-6 encounters per day I have random encounters table set. A random encounter never gives any experience. It is also one of the reasons that my players try to do as much as possible between short and long rests. No treasure, no gain and only pain. No 5mwd for them.

Sound advice except for the bolded part; tailoring supposedly-randomly-found magic items to the specific characters quickly ends up looking fake and contrived. They get what they get, let them deal with it.

Useful magic: Potion, scrolls, amunitions maybe a common magical weapon like a dagger.
A magic item that could alter a player's decision. There were no heavy weapon wielder in one of my group. They found a vicious two handed sword in a treasure. No use for anyone. But the paladin did not have his fighting style yet. Guess what? He took it. We went from a protector planned paladin to an avenger one.

An other one I once gave was a talking head inside of a glass bubble. The head could be used as an arcane focus (orb) that doubled as a wand of magic missile. The head was constantly talking limiting the stealth a character could make but it was giving +2 bonus to all knowledge check (Arcana, History and Religion). That head stayed with the character until the end of the campaign.

 

[Lanefan]

Some would. Other won't. You see, I live in a French environment. Most of my players do not speak english nor can they read it.

A mighty advantage!

I do it the other way around. I manipulate the events so the players feels they are the ones pulling the strings but I manage for them to go where I want. It is a mix between the railroad and the sandbox. When I do pure sandbox, it is usualy full improvisation. Otherwise, the players are aware that we are trying to build ourselves a story. The prep and the time for it are not infinite nor are they cheap. If they are not ready to accept a certain amount of railroading then they should try to find an other DM and leave their place to a newer player that will be more than happy to have a bit of railroad.

I see any campaign as open-ended in terms of real-world time, provided players still want to play in it and I still have ideas to run in it.

This approach works better with mile stones. I prefer a faster pace with exp until level 5 or 6.

I'm the opposite: I love low-level play!

Then exp slows down by itself and since I enforce the 5-6 encounters per day I have random encounters table set. A random encounter never gives any experience.

Difference in philosophy, I guess: to me an encounter is worth the same xp regardless of context, so defeating four wandering Orcs in the forest gets you the same xp as defesting 4 Orc guards the adventure insists you get past.

An other one I once gave was a talking head inside of a glass bubble. The head could be used as an arcane focus (orb) that doubled as a wand of magic missile. The head was constantly talking limiting the stealth a character could make but it was giving +2 bonus to all knowledge check (Arcana, History and Religion). That head stayed with the character until the end of the campaign.

A talking head that shoots magic missiles? Cool!

 

[Eltab]

• Dark Sun
• Psionics
• ...(these two seem to be related, hmmm)
• ...
• Other - a Power of Faerun-inspired treatment of writing campaign arcs for characters that want to make something of themselves in the world: Merchant Prince, Baron/Duke, Archbishop, frontier lawman, pioneer, Thieve's Guildmaster, politician, others

 

[Elfcrusher]

I just learned that Trudvang is coming to 5e via Kickstarter. Guess I'm all set for settings.

 

[Helldritch]

1) A mighty advantage!

2) I see any campaign as open-ended in terms of real-world time, provided players still want to play in it and I still have ideas to run in it.

3) I'm the opposite: I love low-level play!

4) Difference in philosophy, I guess: to me an encounter is worth the same xp regardless of context, so defeating four wandering Orcs in the forest gets you the same xp as defesting 4 Orc guards the adventure insists you get past.

5) A talking head that shoots magic missiles? Cool!

1) Yep quite an advantage for me. Quite a lot of work too; as I have translated everything in the PHB, XGtE (that is concerning the players), and a bit of the SCAG, Wildemount, Ravnica and a few others. A lot of translations. And books in French are prohibitive. I also put my three PHB (in english) available at the table for my players. (My fourth copy is safely on the shelf.)

2) About the same for me.

3) Low level play is fun. So is high level. My campaigns usually aims for the 15th level as an ending goal. If the campaign is really liked by the players, I usually have something to push it to 20th level. (I hope to see an expansion to 30th someday, but I doubt it will ever happen.)

4) I do this because some power gamer in earlier editions were using random encounter tables to get more treasure and experience out of the ordeal. I have tables for 0-1 encounters already made, 2-4 encounters already made and 5+ encounters already made. The difficulty is reverse in difficulty. I use 2d10 and it goes from Deadly to Hard, Hard to medium and From medium to easy. So resting early (as in the thread of the hex shenanigan) is not something I will often see as a deadly encounter giving no treasure and no experience is far from tempting. All my players are made aware of this fact before play and before even making a character to join one of the groups.

5) Thank you. Sometimes, I fancy that somehow, Jim Buttler and his Dresed Files stole my idea (which is impossible). I really like these books. In fact a player thought I had taken the idea from him. I read one of his books that I borrowed from him, and finally bought the whole serie for myself. Very good books.

 

[Tonguez]

Birthright with ability to use Regency without Bloodlines ie a Domain System that can be used in any setting
Ravenloft
Mahasarpa as a full Setting

 

[SkidAce]

Birthright with ability to use Regency without Bloodlines ie a Domain System that can be used in any setting

Indeed.

I found a decent 5e conversion somewhere on the net. Still had regency though.

We have used it for a few mini campaigns, and termed the "regency" their leadership ability.

 

[Winterthorn]

Mystara! This setting, of which there is a wealth of old supporting material such as those inspiring gazetteers, is crying for a revisit!

New settings: Terry Brooks' Shannara? C.S.Lewis' Narnia? David Eddings' world of The Belgariad/Mallorean? And I am sure there are other more recent fantasy novel series begging an RPG treatment! Say, Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time?

Other optional rules: WotC promised modularity, and I am still waiting... probably for nought. So I want to see options that expand on the game, options that add refinement, sophistication, and further complexity. Basically new optional rules that will feed the clever homebrewers and houserulers amongst us. (We monster managers need food too!)

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

WotC still wants modularity, but the best way to test them it's with computer simulations. I wouldn't be too surprised if a videogame for tablets or internet navigators is set in Birthright as a stronghold and kingdom management, mixting strategy and economy, and also something about training collectable monster pets summoned for battle arenas.

And Birthright would be perfect for a young adult novel with some piece of supernatural romance.

My opinion is after D&D the planes by WotC in a far future is to publish the ultimate TTRPG about superheroes, because a great portion of the fandom would like to roleplay their own homebred comic charaters. And I would bet that also a new edition of "Dark*Matter" about hunting aliens and investigating Lovecraftian cults.

WotC has got some secret projects, someones linked to videogames. I know I am speculating, but what would you do if you were a WotC CEO?

 

[ChaosOS]

So probably most of us here know this, but Eberron was the winner of a Setting Design contest ages ago, IIRC back when Dragon was a print Magazine.

But they actually retained the option to the top THREE results.

One of which (again IIRC) was the work of Rich Burlew creator of OotS.

So, I'd really like both of those settings to finally see the light of day as published products.

Not sure if you're aware, but Rich has publicly commented that he sees zero point in publishing his submission. Not only was it only a 100 page draft as opposed to a full setting, but according to him all the good bits were scavenged over the course of the 3.5 product line. It's possible the other setting wasn't touched, but I suspect it befell a similar fate.

 

[The Green Hermit]

I want more Forgotten Realms, but away from the Sword Coast. And epic level campaigns.

 

[TiwazTyrsfist]

Not sure if you're aware, but Rich has publicly commented that he sees zero point in publishing his submission. Not only was it only a 100 page draft as opposed to a full setting, but according to him all the good bits were scavenged over the course of the 3.5 product line. It's possible the other setting wasn't touched, but I suspect it befell a similar fate.

I was sort of vaguely aware, but I still think that a fully polished version would be a thing worth having. Even if all the bits were pillaged and had the serial numbers filed off, putting them all back together in the original package seems like it would be interesting.

To me, at least, far more interesting than a return to the same 4 square miles of Faerun.

[Note: Only dumping on doing the same area of Faerun over and over. I would LOVE to see all the other bits of Aber-Toril, including which ever one is the moon/sister planet? I forget is that Aber or Toril? Anyway, the point is NOT Sword Coast, NOT Neverwinter, etc.]

 

[Voadam]

I would be absolutely down with most things on that list, old settings, MtG settings, new settings, or new rules.

I went with MtG settings because they have cool settings and creatures and magic and flavor that would be great to leverage to add to D&D.

I also went with Psionics because it is always a different system each edition, it is an unfilled niche right now for normal D&D, Dark Sun, and Eberron, and I think a decent job could be done by WotC.

Lastly I went with new optional rules but this is for the incarnum side of things and not for naval or kingdom building or mass warfare. I've played a merchant prince with a fleet and it worked out fantastically narratively but all the rules I've seen for that kind of stuff have generally taken me out of the character and not added well to the game. I love having multiple magic systems in the game (arcane magic of different stripes, divine magics of different stripes, warlock pact magic, Truename, vestige pact magic, psionics, etc.) 3.5 Unearthed Arcana style alt classes could be really cool for redoing the druid and ranger in particular, and I would love a warlord class and other options.

 

[Stormonu]

Dark Sun - a good place to reintroduce psionics and great non-Medieval take on the world
SpellJammer - could be combined with Planescape, but I love traveling adventures to exotic locales, outer space, planes or otherwise.
Birthright - a way to reintroduce rules for strongholds and empire building. Just for God's sake, change the names of things to that which doesn't sheer your brain in half trying to pronounce them.

 

[LordEntrails]

Clothes. Particularly cloaks. I want a full book dedicated to mundane clothes. That way when my players ask to buy a cloak I know exactly what cloaks are available, their cost, and weight.

 

[Elfcrusher]

Clothes. Particularly cloaks. I want a full book dedicated to mundane clothes. That way when my players ask to buy a cloak I know exactly what cloaks are available, their cost, and weight.

I need a book...or two...with excruciating detail on how to deal with player-contracted lycanthropy.

 

[Lanefan]

I need a book...or two...with excruciating detail on how to deal with player-contracted lycanthropy.

And after that they can publish one on how to deal with lycanthropic characters, too.

 

[The Green Hermit]

Clothes. Particularly cloaks. I want a full book dedicated to mundane clothes. That way when my players ask to buy a cloak I know exactly what cloaks are available, their cost, and weight.

Actually, I think that at least a pamphlet for this would be very useful -- especially if your game includes a lot of subterfuge/role play.

 

[CodeFlayer]

Curious - what sort of specific things did you have in mind here, as prep can take many forms:

Short-range prep - i.e. coming up with adventures and-or how to tweak the adventure you're about to run?
Immediate prep - i.e. getting tonight's session together?
...

These, with particular emphasis on combat encounter design. I would go to well regarded encounter designers and ask them to write up what isn't in the books - the tweaks, the foreshadowing, the problem spots for this or that monster type. I would draw in 90%+ of the table, stats, and rules needed to generate and run these so I don't have to swap out books so often(but I am still handling books).

So part I, advanced systems and rules compilation (speed!), and part II, articles from specific designers on what inspire them. It would black and white/minimal art. It would have easy to read page numbers !

Another design goal for this hypothetical book, it would be meant to benefit in helping combat light story lines by expediting the whole process. The benefit for WotC is that the easier to design encounters are (with confidence), the more encounters that will be designed - and run.