D&D 5E Why such little content (books) for Dnd 5e?

[CM]

Ok, I was serious BTW

But if I put on my jerk hat...I personally think this strategy is frickin stupid--we at a minimum need:

Planar Guide for travelling the planes and gear to go with it (and yes someone who played AdnD 1e I have a right to request this so lick my b#lls)
1 solid, detailed Campaign setting (FR, Greyhawk who cares but we need at least 1)
Fiend Folio (or more monster books in general, DnD needs way more monsters, wth!!!)

1. What's to stop you from using the 1e, 2e, 3e, or 4e plane information wholesale in 5e? It's 90% fluff and little or no conversion is necessary.
2. They're working on that.
3. There's some suggestion they're working on that too.

 

[The Grassy Gnoll]

Adventure modules are useful (I'd personally like to see smaller scale ones as in days of yore rather than just massive epic-scale level 1 to 20 APs). Setting books are useful (but I retain my AD&D FR grey box for that, so it's no biggie for me), but not essential.

More monsters, sure. But not essential - there's tons in the MM, way more than I'm likely to use all of - and fitting one in I've not used yet could be an adventure seed in itself. Lore books are useful but essentially unessential (my L&L has never really been used in play).

All you really need are the rules, some monsters, and some dice. Because...

Role-playing game, noun: a game for 2 or more players consisting of a ruleset that allows the players to use their imagination and make sh*t up.

 

[evilbob]

Man, no need to jump all over the OP for his opinion. It's a pretty valid one, honestly.

More releases = more publicity, more talk, more excitement, more anticipation, more money for them, more name recognition for the brand. There aren't much of anything being put out for 5.0 (TRPG), books or otherwise, and that does seem a little weird. It also means there is less to look forward to and less to think about.

I agree that tons and tons of add-ons can ruin the game - certainly it ruined 4.0 and after a long while 3.5. But going from that to the current release schedule would rightfully raise an eyebrow. And no need to jump on anyone who does.

There are definitely some books that they really should put out - and the OP's 2nd post covered a few good examples. Honestly it feels more like they are a group of only 3 or 4 people now, and they are taking a long time to do anything. Personally I'd like a lot more class options for the poor classes who got the short end of the stick - this newest Sorc option is nice but there are others that are lacking. And a FEW more feats - not a lot - would be nice. (But no +1 to X, please!)

Also, "go see what's on the website" is a terrible excuse - but only because D&D has a TERRIBLE website. I'm hoping they eventually catalog and release the extra bits in some sort of more useable form, and with all the surveys it really seems like they will. But their website is awful and if it wasn't for THIS website I'd never see anything they release.

 

[bedir than]

A simple link on dnd.com that collated all the UA and other digital release options. How that doesn't exist yet (or I just can't ever find it?) baffles me. A top menu thing "Errata" that hovers to Race, Class, Backgrounds, Feats/Features, Monsters, Optional Rules would be so handy.

 

[JeffB]

Man, no need to jump all over the OP for his opinion. It's a pretty valid one, honestly.

More releases = more publicity, more talk, more excitement, more anticipation, more money for them, more name recognition for the brand. There aren't much of anything being put out for 5.0 (TRPG), books or otherwise, and that does seem a little weird. It also means there is less to look forward to and less to think about.

I agree that tons and tons of add-ons can ruin the game - certainly it ruined 4.0 and after a long while 3.5. But going from that to the current release schedule would rightfully raise an eyebrow. And no need to jump on anyone who does.

There are definitely some books that they really should put out - and the OP's 2nd post covered a few good examples. Honestly it feels more like they are a group of only 3 or 4 people now, and they are taking a long time to do anything. Personally I'd like a lot more class options for the poor classes who got the short end of the stick - this newest Sorc option is nice but there are others that are lacking. And a FEW more feats - not a lot - would be nice. (But no +1 to X, please!)

Also, "go see what's on the website" is a terrible excuse - but only because D&D has a TERRIBLE website. I'm hoping they eventually catalog and release the extra bits in some sort of more useable form, and with all the surveys it really seems like they will. But their website is awful and if it wasn't for THIS website I'd never see anything they release.

Careful. You are setting yourself up for being put in the "sympathetic to whiners" camp. Prepare to be ridiculed and ignored for not embracing WOTC's Grand Plan for the Brand.

 

[Coredump]

Nathan Stewart's interview, Jeremy Crawford's, not to mention tweets and the likes, are all in the real world. So is WotC's release calendar for D&D.

They told us we are getting one or two APs a year. No speculation here.

Okay, could you please tell me which one of those sources said:
1) DnD is on a respirator, but might as well be stillborn
2) DnD RPG is not profitable by itself
3) The RPG is only kept "barely" alive
4) The RPG is only kept alive to give authenticity to the other products.

Or anything to support your 'paraphrase'..... his statement was that DnD was now more than just an RPG.... it had become a brand. Your paraphrase vastly missed the meaning of his statement.

So, your going from what I said is "speculative drivel" to it is their "business model". Interesting. Like you are trying to have you cake and eat it too.

[/quote] Umm..... except several of the designers have stated multiple times that they intend on slowing down the publishing rate, and they have often repeated that the reasoning was the feedback from players saying they wanted fewer books.

 

[teitan]

Honestly, in the run up to fifth, I got the feeling the idea was TO USE the backlog. Conversion appears to be a breeze, not quite like first to second or basic easy but using the old stuff is not a chore at all. They even included conversion notes for the more complicated material such as the list of gods for the different settings. Grabbing the grey box, the gold box, the FRCS or 4e campaign and players guide one could run a fifth FR campaign with the ease of using them in the original editions. With the players guide for PotA, you even have the third FRCS genasi to update. Dndclassics has all the supplement material you need and most of that second edition era material is pretty rules neutral when you really look at it considering how bare bones first and second were in comparison to third and fourth. So basically, people need to quit whining.

 

[TerraDave]

If [MENTION=7500]Nostromo[/MENTION] is not trolling, then Nostromo needs to know that we have had dozens of these thread, and this brought up in dozens of others.

Either they need to be banned or put into their own "WotC won't let me give them money and hence the world will end" sub-forum.

 

[Hussar]

Careful. You are setting yourself up for being put in the "sympathetic to whiners" camp. Prepare to be ridiculed and ignored for not embracing WOTC's Grand Plan for the Brand.

Well, since he's not being constantly negative in every single post, doesn't cross post in multiple threads to spout off the exact same thing, and doesn't thread crap multiple times to make sure that his bully pulpit message is getting the widest possible audience, I'm thinking not.

See, there's a difference between having a discussion about WOTC's business plan and spending a hundred or more posts spouting nothing but negativity, misquoting and misrepresenting what WOTC people have said and not bothering to actually fact check the points being made.

But, hey, it's all good right? Why bother trying to have a discussion when you can just shout from the rooftops and beat your chest, right? The view from the soapbox is just so superior to any other possible view.

 

[DaveDash]

Honestly, in the run up to fifth, I got the feeling the idea was TO USE the backlog. Conversion appears to be a breeze, not quite like first to second or basic easy but using the old stuff is not a chore at all. They even included conversion notes for the more complicated material such as the list of gods for the different settings. Grabbing the grey box, the gold box, the FRCS or 4e campaign and players guide one could run a fifth FR campaign with the ease of using them in the original editions. With the players guide for PotA, you even have the third FRCS genasi to update. Dndclassics has all the supplement material you need and most of that second edition era material is pretty rules neutral when you really look at it considering how bare bones first and second were in comparison to third and fourth. So basically, people need to quit whining.

Coverting is not that easy.

Low level stuff? Sure. Higher level stuff? Not so much. 5e had a large weight of creatures from the 1-5 CR range, and high level NPCs are non-existant. Takes me about an hour to create a high level spellcaster.

Converting 3rd edition stuff, especially high level, is a chore, because boy they love their monster templates with class levels (and I streamline a lot of that away).

If the back catalog was the intention all along, then they should have had the conversion guides ready to go. At least bump it up the priority order a bit.