WotC WotC announces D&D Community Advisory Group

[SlyFlourish]

agreed, anyone having the chance to join this and is interested in providing feedback definitely should. There is no guarantee they will do any of the things proposed l, but it definitely is the best way to at least be heard

I'll be straight. I was apprehensive because I don't want to lose my focus on helping GMs run great games and supporting the larger RPG hobby. But I do think the past and future legacy of D&D is important and I think WOTC can do (and has done) a lot to support the larger RPG hobby. They clearly knew where I was coming from before bringing me on board so I saw it as a chance to help them focus on being a good steward of D&D and a good partner in the hobby.

I'm not sure how much you're able to divulge, but does the community group/you bring up pain points/lack of tools for DMs and is WotC receptive to making changes to that end?

We can't get into what's happening on the inside -- what specifically the group brings to them and what the results are. I will say there are lots of views from lots of folks, though.

 

[Scribe]

We can't get into what's happening on the inside -- what specifically the group brings to them and what the results are. I will say there are lots of views from lots of folks, though.

So no 3.5 SRD update I assume?

It's been in the wild for decades, I hope Wizards doesn't just pretend the desire for it in the CC will go away.

 

[tetrasodium]

monsters and domains may be easy (not sure new species are any harder for that matter), but they are still for the DM. By page count this is maybe 40 pages of player stuff and 240 pages of DM stuff.

Whether you like it or/ want that stuff is another matter, much like not every player will like all the player stuff

Are you seriously claiming that new PC races with their own mechanics are not an obvious example of something that is explicitly player content to the point that there is some hypothetical quibble you aren't voicing? Also you fail to acknowledge the distinction between "new monsters" and new monsters which "include some noteworthy mechanical step up individually or as a broad subsystem", in fact by omitting that but from the quote I'd say that you endorse the validity of why the distinction matters while still trying to claim they are some kind of laudable dm support.

Those seemingly mechanics free pages you are trying to claim are dm content could just as easily be dubbed content aimed for readers who don't play and people who just want to look at pretty pictures. The difference is that we can literally point to the pictures and use that as evidence for assigning such a segment of the customer base like with image 3 of 12 here or every single one of these images. That's the trouble with trying to assign an audience/customer target based on the idea that someone could use it rather than because it provides that segment of the audience/customerbase support that they could not easily get from an old book different book or one of the many Ravenloft lore wikis

 

[mamba]

you seriously claiming that new PC races with their own mechanics are not an obvious example of something that is explicitly player content

no, I said they are not much harder to create than a monster. You were complaining about how easy monsters and domains are

you fail to acknowledge the distinction between "new monsters" and new monsters which "include some noteworthy mechanical step up individually or as a broad subsystem"

eh, most monsters do nothing like that, in fact I don’t think I can think of one that does, so I do not really care about that

Those seemingly mechanics free pages you are trying to claim are dm content could just as easily be dubbed content aimed for readers who don't play

fine, don’t care, settings are for DMs, mechanics or not. In fact I am not sure that mechanics improve anything, all they do is become obsolete.

They certainly aren’t for players.

 

[tetrasodium]

no, I said they are not much harder to create than a monster. You were complaining about how easy monsters and domains are

eh, most monsters do nothing like that, in fact I don’t think I can think of one that does, so I do not really care about that

What makes the distinction of mechanical step up individually or as a broad subsystem super relevant is that we are talking about Ravenloft rather than generic kitchen sink forgotten realms or very close to it. We have plenty of generic monsters for generic kitchen sink fr baselines. Calling them something new with a reskin absent something to distinguish them mechanically could just as easily be assigned to players readers or any other group because there is nothing mechanically supporting the gm noteworthy enough to spotlight with the hype.

fine, don’t care, settings are for DMs, mechanics or not. In fact I am not sure that mechanics improve anything, all they do is become obsolete.

They certainly aren’t for players.

Check out the 3.0 Ravenloft book for what is probably an even better example of how adding & changing mechanics can support the gm by mechanically carrying themes and tone than some of the oldschool darksun books that gave rewrites to a bunch of core stuff.heck he are talking about an edition that released not one but two eberron books that were MaGiC iTeMs ArE oPtIoNaL outright or effectively rather than giving some setting specific mechanics changes other than player facing races and (sub)classes to carry the setting

 

[MonsterEnvy]

Too bad this advisory group apparently didn’t tell WotC that a live service model is a terrible idea for D&D (or weren’t listened to if they did).

We already have a live service model from what I understand.

 

[The_Baldman]

Two Enworlders?? Not bad, not bad...

Two? Ya making me feel bad now . . .

 

[Donna Ricci]

for real...

Two? Ya making me feel bad now . . .

 

[darjr]

Two? Ya making me feel bad now . . .

for real...

A frost giant and a Terry Prachet fan!

 

[The_Baldman]

I mean I've only been a member for almost 23 years (longer then that back to the old site). I don't believe I had fully embraced the Baldman lifestyle yet then - maybe still in partial denial