D&D (2024) WotC Fireside Chat: Revised 2024 Player’s Handbook

In this video about the upcoming revised Player’s Handnook, WotC’s Jeremy Crawford and Chris Perkins reveal a few new tidbits.

• The books are near final and almost ready to go to print
• Psionic subclasses such as the Soulknife and Psi Warrior will appear in the core books
• Named spells have art depicting their creators.
• There are new species in the PHB.

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[Raiztt]

My pronouns are in my title, y’all. If you didn’t notice them there, I’d rather you ask than try to guess and use the wrong ones.

I use they/them frequently to refer to anyone, every day of my life in every situation.

 

[Clint_L]

Watching through the interview again, I am quite touched by their enthusiasm and obvious passion for the product. Some points that really struck me:

1. The excitement over having the art in hand, and in particular over seeing the art in context, sometimes with illustrations of classic characters doing their thing (e.g. Self casting acid arrow).

2. That the art was developed in conjunction with the text, rather than as a later addition - so that the art is seen as a part of the rules "art and text started on the journey together"; "the art is speaking directly to the text on the page."

3. All three books will have "new elements that will be revealed in coming months."

4. They once again emphasize compatibility with existing game, even though "every page will be different from the 2014 versions," and longer, with "brand new things." They still consistently refer to the upcoming game as "5th edition."

5. More guidance will be offered in the PHB on common situations like illusions, or breaking objects.

6. Even the Tasha's sub-classes that weren't covered in the UA are being "improved."

7. Prioritizing "fun" and fixing things that are "slowing down play" unnecessarily.

8. The art for different species is intended to give a sense of the typical culture of that species.

9. The design team is working pretty much non-stop. "No time to smell the flowers." Which seems a bit sad. But they love their home games and don't play test rules at home.

10. Big props for GaryCon.

 

[Oofta]

This demands a kind of plotted, structured, and probably linear style of GMing not everyone prefers. Are sandbox or improv GMs supposed to just tell players "avoid mundane martials"? Why can't the game make every character archetype viable for every playstyle?

Because no matter what the rules are in a game as complex as D&D there are always going to be issues. Which is why I suggest discussing it with the group and explaining what they issue is and why. Then come up with a way to fix it. Radical, I know.

Oh, and I don't ever do linear structured campaigns.

 

[Remathilis]

In their defense, in real life I don't think "supernatural" picks out a discrete element of reality, at least as far as ontology goes. Natural vs. supernatural isn't as meaningful as exists vs. doesn't exist.

I.e.: IF magic existed, it WOULD be "natural".

Often when people say "natural" they mean physical/deterministic/scientific.

That's circular logic though. If magic is natural, then a sorcerer is as much a mundane character as a fighter. Or a druid can wild shape into a dragon because they are natural creatures in the world the druid lives in.

 

[Charlaquin]

Ok, fair enough. In that case we have reached an impasse, because you are using an in-universe perspective for these terms, and I'm using one that relates to the people playing the game, and the mechanics. I don't see that gap being bridged.

An in-universe perspective is all that matters when it comes to setting the parameters of martial characters’ capabilities. If you want to say a Barbarian’s rage is “magic” from a real-world perspective… ok, so what? It doesn’t have to be Magic from an in-character perspective, so it shouldn’t be off-limits for a non-magical character. That’s all this argument has ever been about.

 

[Micah Sweet]

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Magic exists in D&D so it's not Supernatural. It's Natural. It's part of the world. How do Wizards use it? Science! They learn it from trial and error and doing various tests and making it work. Which is why Owlbears and other monsters exist because Wizard Experiments went awry!

Magic is totally normal and natural in a D&D Campaign Setting. Nothing supernatural about it!

... unless it -is- supernatural. Kind of a thing I plan to write into Sunset Riders. Magic, the arcane in particular, is -unnatural-. Not because it's supernatural compared to our baseline reality, but because it comes from another reality. From -beyond- the Prime Material Plane.

But on the plane it comes from? That's just how physics works, my dude. Y'know? THAT plane has really weird physics where wiggling your fingers and saying special words makes an explosion... And you're invoking those physics and placing them onto the Prime Material Plane, temporarily, because of reality-bleed between different existences.

Diving and Nature magic, though... those are natural.

If that's just how D&D works, why did 3e and 3.5e and PF all define extraordinary, supernatural, and spell-like? Shouldn't those have all been the same thing, since it's just part of the world? What about all the power sources in 4e? Why were they differentiated?

 

[Oofta]

A Reminder:

John Henry was a Steel Driving Man who died, in Victory, with his hammer in his hand.

He was a normal human being in the folk stories. He was just strong enough, fast enough, and good enough to out-drill a drill machine. And carved a tunnel through a mountain in a single day, big enough for people to walk through.

Magic and Supernatural only exist where we say they do. And if a Giant can ignore the Square Cube law, then by all the gods, John Henry can carve his way through a mountain in a day's work!

So were Pecos Bill and Paul Bunyan. Doesn't mean I want a PC wrasslin' a twister into submission or carving out the great lakes so my ox can have a drink.

 

[Raiztt]

That's circular logic though. If magic is natural, then a sorcerer is as much a mundane character as a fighter. Or a druid can wild shape into a dragon because they are natural creatures in the world the druid lives in.

The conclusion of an argument isn't circular, only the entire argument.
Also, the argument isn't circular.

1.) anything that exists is "natural"
2.) magic exists
C.) magic is natural.

The point is that natural vs. supernatural only has arbitrary distinctions. If I could do magic in real life, WHY would you call that supernatural? The answer to that question is going to yield a better distinction than just saying "supernatural".

 

[Charlaquin]

Some people want heroic, but not super heroic fantasy. I was dead serious when I said leveling should stop at 10.

Some people want adventures where the protagonists do cool stuff, amazing stuff, but not the sort of things that shatter the laws of physics at least as we know them. I imagine most of the OSR falls into this camp.

That’s a perfectly fine thing to want, but you can’t really have PC wizards casting meteor swarm in that kind of game, unless you’re willing to completely throw any semblance of gameplay balance out the window. This whole tangent started from a quote about high level fighters being Achilles and high level wizards being Zeus. That’s just not a teneble situation for a cooperative game. Either wizards need to stop at being Tiresias, or fighters need to be able to become Heracles. Either is a valid choice, but it doesn’t work to have both.

 

[Steampunkette]

If that's just how D&D works, why did 3e and 3.5e and PF all define extraordinary, supernatural, and spell-like? Shouldn't those have all been the same thing, since it's just part of the world? What about all the power sources in 4e? Why were they differentiated?

Because the writers say so!

But. Like. From a "Real World" standpoint, it's not supernatural at all. It's totally normal for characters in that world to wish and have something actually happen rather than wishing just being a thing that gets nothing done.