D&D General Why Enworld should liberate D&D from Hasbro

[Zardnaar]

It's pretty amazing that 5e was the best selling edition, let alone RPG, when it only has four years of good books. And in that era theme is still Tome of Foes and the Waterdeep modules.

Tome of Foes was ok.

Best 5E books are always going t9 be subjective. Xanathars, Strahd, Xanathars, Tomb of Annihilation are all generally highly regarded.

5E books are all pretty as well. Huge influx of new players dont have anything to compare them to.

Its mostly the big WotC adventures are kinda junk. Anthology book are generally good.

Post Tasgas its stuff like Strixhaven, Witchlight is mixed, Fizbans good but niche etc.

Good books are Golden Vault, Infinite Staircase and Mordenkainens. Fizbans as well. No as good as the "Golden Era" ones imho.

Most of the books are really mediocre vs outright crap tbf.

Ironically ENworld convinced me not to buy most of the later books. They're dust collectors on the FLGS shelves though. They had 20+ copies if Strixhaven even at $20 few moved.

Zard you hater (I own around 40 hardcover 5E).

 

[The Firebird]

This particular rift in the D&D community goes back to the Diversity and Dungeons and Dragons announcement in June of 2020, where WotC announced they were going to change D&D to be more inclusive and announced the optional rules for Tasha’s. A small but loud group of grumblers have dedicated over 5 years(!) to threadcrapping any discussion about any new D&D product since then.

There were, of course, discussions about diversity in D&D, problematic aspects of the game, the quality of 5e books/mechanics, and other similar topics before then, but that announcement is when this problem really kicked off.

It is an unhappy accident that the laudable changes Wizards made here occurred about the same time as the Tasha's release. It's hard for people to separate criticism of those good changes from criticism of the direction of the game.

 

[Morrus]

But haven't you heard? Popularity is not the same as good, even if the people buying it apparently think it's good along with something, something Stranger Things and CR (ignoring that D&D has had representation here and there on all sorts of shows for decades). To a certain extent is true that "good" is in the eyes of the beholder but a lot of people seem to think everyone else who enjoys and purchases products simply don't understand that they're buying a substandard product.

While your sarcasm is admirable, I do think it is important to note that popularity is, indeed, not the same as good. They are two very different words with very different meanings.

 

[Remathilis]

Most of the books are really mediocre vs outright crap tbf.

While I agree that there are some rather low quality (Spelljammer) and higher quality (Strahd) I find most of the books are just that. I also don't think I've seen an RPG company who isn't roughly on par with that. Nor do I feel the quality overall had dropped with editions.

 

[Zardnaar]

It is an unhappy accident that the laudable changes Wizards made here occurred about the same time as the Tasha's release. It's hard for people to separate criticism of those good changes from criticism of the direction of the game.

Tashas just follows the usual late edition experimental phase. 2E and 3E did it as well probably 4E.

Also around where I dont buy a lot of that stuff. Eg 3E the environmental books. Races of, tome of magic, book of 9 swords, weapons of legacy stayed on the shelf.

 

[Remathilis]

It is an unhappy accident that the laudable changes Wizards made here occurred about the same time as the Tasha's release. It's hard for people to separate criticism of those good changes from criticism of the direction of the game.

The Customize Your Lineage rules were a direct response to the race controversy, and. Madame Luna's Tarokka Deck of Souls referring to a halfling Vistani was part of the reaction to Curse of Strahd. Tasha was partially used as the first opportunity to put some of the changes they referenced in that blog post.

 

[overgeeked]

To the complaint that D&D is marketed to kids, yes and no.

Clearly they're marketing it to younger people in some respects, but those same younger people have zero nostalgia for Spelljammer, Planescape, Dark Sun, etc. They have zero nostalgia for Warduke and Venger. They have zero nostalgia for 2E and yet that's the most common reference point for 5E's design. 5E has been far more nostalgia bait than focused on kids.

If it were focused on kids, you'd see nothing but actual anime and manga art throughout. The races, classes, subclasses, mechanics, etc would all be focused on enabling players to replicate their favorite anime and manga. Isekai would play a major role. But that's not what we see in the books.

 

[AlViking]

While your sarcasm is admirable, I do think it is important to note that popularity is, indeed, not the same as good. They are two very different words with very different meanings.

If the products produced were as poor a quality as people claim, I don't think they would have sold well. But outside of obvious grammar, layout, physical quality there are only so many ways to measure quality. I'm not saying they're any better than anyone else's product. Just that they aren't a steaming pile of kaka.

 

[Zardnaar]

To the complaint that D&D is marketed to kids, yes and no.

Clearly they're marketing it to younger people in some respects, but those same younger people have zero nostalgia for Spelljammer, Planescape, Dark Sun, etc. They have zero nostalgia for Warduke and Venger. They have zero nostalgia for 2E and yet that's the most common reference point for 5E's design. 5E has been far more nostalgia bait than focused on kids.

If it were focused on kids, you'd see nothing but actual anime and manga art throughout. The races, classes, subclasses, mechanics, etc would all be focused on enabling players to replicate their favorite anime and manga. Isekai would play a major role. But that's not what we see in the books.

The newer 5.5 art style is.... a choice. Its also blander in content.

With the exit of Crawford and Perkins and BG3 exploding in popularity see what happens.

The biggest age group was 18-25 iirc. They're 5-10 years older now.

 

[The Firebird]

The Customize Your Lineage rules were a direct response to the race controversy, and. Madame Luna's Tarokka Deck of Souls referring to a halfling Vistani was part of the reaction to Curse of Strahd. Tasha was partially used as the first opportunity to put some of the changes they referenced in that blog post.

Right. So the long needed adoption of many of these changes ended up being associated with poor balance decisions like the Twilight Cleric. If someone didn't want to use Tasha's, was it because they were a jerk or because that's a lot of temp HP?