WotC Wizard's Future Plans Has 3 Big Problems: Ft. The Professor of Tolarion Community College

[Oofta]

Quality is in the eye of the beholder, so saying quality has declined unless there's obvious things like poor editing is really "They don't happen to be publishing things I want."

 

[Parmandur]

I agree with you that to me quality hasn't declined. The entire 5e publication schedule has been IMO bumpy in terms of quality, as in there are some things that are pretty good but not great, and others that aren't as good but not bad. But there's no trend - it's up and down from product to product rather than an overall upward or downward trend.

But then 5e D&D to me overall has been the "fine" edition of the game. Nothing so bad I need to rant about it, nothing so good I need to rave about it. It's all just ... fine. The closest to something great that I'd rave about is probably Radiant Citadel - and it's one of the more recent offerings.

Even beyond product to product, it's usually a mixed bag, which usually works out for me as a mone for ideas and gaming material.

 

[Parmandur]

Strixhaven was not even that innovative - a cross between Harry Potter and what seemed like Japanese manga series set in high schools.

I mean, it's not something that's been done in D&D before, so that's an innovation. Also, the included campaign outlining how to do a four year College experience with the PCs is quite a departure, and used some interesting and meaty new downtime mechanics.

 

[teitan]

The acrylic stand-ups look very nice, and they are less than $1 apiece vs. the $4-5 per pre-painted mini cost. If I didn't have 30+ years of minis, the acrylics is the way I would have gone. Yes, yes, I know the cardboard tokens are even cheaper, but they feel cheap too. I've got the old fold-ups back from the D&D basic line and the 4E tokens from Monster Vault and I've NEVER used them (mainly because of having tons of minis already). I'd use the acrylics, though.

Also, as a side note I've bought the campaign set of monsters for my wife's game, but she's been reluctant to use them because putting the static-based stickers back is a pain.

Yes but other companies offer the same product for a much cheaper price and in much larger bundles is my point.

 

[teitan]

Quality is in the eye of the beholder, so saying quality has declined unless there's obvious things like poor editing is really "They don't happen to be publishing things I want."

Yeah we don't see peak White Wolf editorial problems like "see page XX" in published products or things like the TDR days where they would refer you to OOP products or incestuous cross referencing across the line requiring a stack of books to unlock one book's use like the late 2e period. It's also been better than the late 3.5 era. Overall I think, to me personally, 5e has been the best the game has been since 1e and that's for 2 reasons.

1: it lacks rules bloat. The slow roll out has prevented the bloat of extra and unnecessary rules. While there are "gaps" in what is available point 2 will address that. It's not a crunchy game, it isn't overwhelming to throw together a campaign or one shot. You don't stare down a pile of books. You can grab the PHB and make a character and not feel left behind. Some people will point to the ranger but the PHB supports a 3 pillars of play system and the ranger was designed to support the exploration tier like the bard with the social tier. A weakness is that the combat tier has an inflated importance in D&D but all the PHB classes are playable as is and the expansion books don't really overshadow them. You can grab just the PHB, the rules expansion bundle, a DMG and Monster manual and you have all the essential materials. Add in Fizban and the upcoming Giant book and your set. All they needed was an undead focused book. That is not a lot of material which plays into point 2.

2: It is easy to house rule and create custom material for without breaking the game. The guidelines are pretty solid except for the CR system and they never worked right anyway. Any gaps can easily be filled with custom subclasses, spells, monsters etc. It's easy to reskin and add new abilities to monsters. Much like 1e or 0e you can bend the system to what you want and it is still solid. It is encouraged. The DM toolkit and its modular rules are great for modifying the feel of the game to more epic or extremely gritty. You don't like the flanking rules? change them and it won't break anything down the line and you aren't creating, unlike those 2 earlier editions, a new subsystem that can confuse people. It's exactly what 2e was trying to be.

 

[Mind of tempest]

Yeah we don't see peak White Wolf editorial problems like "see page XX" in published products or things like the TDR days where they would refer you to OOP products or incestuous cross referencing across the line requiring a stack of books to unlock one book's use like the late 2e period. It's also been better than the late 3.5 era. Overall I think, to me personally, 5e has been the best the game has been since 1e and that's for 2 reasons.

1: it lacks rules bloat. The slow roll out has prevented the bloat of extra and unnecessary rules. While there are "gaps" in what is available point 2 will address that. It's not a crunchy game, it isn't overwhelming to throw together a campaign or one shot. You don't stare down a pile of books. You can grab the PHB and make a character and not feel left behind. Some people will point to the ranger but the PHB supports a 3 pillars of play system and the ranger was designed to support the exploration tier like the bard with the social tier. A weakness is that the combat tier has an inflated importance in D&D but all the PHB classes are playable as is and the expansion books don't really overshadow them. You can grab just the PHB, the rules expansion bundle, a DMG and Monster manual and you have all the essential materials. Add in Fizban and the upcoming Giant book and your set. All they needed was an undead focused book. That is not a lot of material which plays into point 2.

2: It is easy to house rule and create custom material for without breaking the game. The guidelines are pretty solid except for the CR system and they never worked right anyway. Any gaps can easily be filled with custom subclasses, spells, monsters etc. It's easy to reskin and add new abilities to monsters. Much like 1e or 0e you can bend the system to what you want and it is still solid. It is encouraged. The DM toolkit and its modular rules are great for modifying the feel of the game to more epic or extremely gritty. You don't like the flanking rules? change them and it won't break anything down the line and you aren't creating, unlike those 2 earlier editions, a new subsystem that can confuse people. It's exactly what 2e was trying to be.

both those points are fair but not all are skilled in the latter and sometimes new rules are needed, take spelljammer it need far more ship rules for the basic set of things you can do and basic guidance for any of the most common ideas beyond those.

not to say I want a new rule for everything but sometimes you want to do something properly and an expansion is the only way to do it.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

"They don't happen to be publishing things I want."

Which is less likely to be an issue the MORE stuff they publish.

 

[M_Natas]

Which is less likely to be an issue the MORE stuff they publish.

But they seem to publish stuff I don't need as a DM.
Like ... from all the Books that are coming out now, I maybe need the Book of Many Things. The rest? I figured out, I don't need and use Adventures and Adventure anthologies, as a DM and as a player. I homebrew my worlds. What I need are more rules/options and lore, I can steal. I read trough van Richtens Guide, Tashas, Xanatahrs and Spelljammer ...
I stopped reading Rime of the Forstmaiden, Strixhaven after the initial Characteroptions and Setting, Avernus the Library Anthology... because first: They are not fun to just read. Second, I have no intention to run them and they also feel like to much homework if I want to run them.
I'm a homebrewer. I make my campaign and worlds from scratch and WotC is not giving me more tools for that than are in the DMG.
Like, Spelljammer, why are there no planetary creation charts? Why is their no world building advice?
No more sample systems outside of the two in the adventure?
How the f do I run classes in Strixhaven? Why are there no rules for that, that I can use for my own magical school setting?
It seems, that WotC has decided to not support Homebrewing DMs. And I guess the reason why that is, is money.
DMs that Homebrew don't buy adventures. So they don't put support for that in, so that new DMs are disincentivized to create their own adventures and keeping buying the adventures put out by WotC.
That's why spelljammer is bad for DMs who want to make their own Spelljammercampaigns and not just run yhe preprinted adventure. That's why there are not a lot of Rules Expansion that can be used in homebrewed adventures. That's why there is always a lot of player facing options, but except for Monsters and Magic Items rarely any DM facing options.

 

[wicked cool]

The quality of the adventures has gone down since strahd. Phandelver and strahd plus a mix of other starter content is some of their best adventures
Things I would do

1 I’d return to small adventures that tie together like the giant series from the 80’s
2 expand on the content from van richten. I’d make adventures off of them
3 create better npcs. People have a fondness for minsc/boo plus drizzt. Who are the modern npcs . Who are the modern villains. We have strahd and soth. 2 villains from my childhood. Where’s your Thanos WOTC. Where’s your fresh big bad that takes your party on a great ride
4 book tie ins. So critical role can have book tie in etc but your WOTC the big bad and your marketing sucks bleep. You have what I hope is a potentially good movie coming out but where is your tie ins. We going to have npc stats for these characters etc
5 critical role crowdfunds a tv show. Where’s your cartoon?
6 who is the face of d&d. Perkins seems intelligent and a nice guy but he’s not the guy I want leading the pep rally. Most of the critical role cast can take over a presentation for the tv show and show true enthusiasm. Todd kenreck is a good host but honestly his guests can be lacking

 

[MGibster]

I'll disagree with you about the slow release. Slower is good. Too slow(which is what we had) was not so good. The new rate seems to be okay, but the quality of books(Spelljammer had like 10 pages of actual setting in it) has plummeted.

In December, Barnes & Noble had a 50% off sale for all games and hardback books and that included the new Spelljammer. For half off, I was going to take the plunge until I learned it wasn't much of a setting. Very disappointing.