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Author Topic: So it might be D&D 6e in 2024 after all! (also, Planescape 2023)  (Read 5811 times)

Ruprecht

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Re: So it might be D&D 6e in 2024 after all! (also, Planescape 2023)
« Reply #45 on: August 19, 2022, 08:46:13 AM »
Yeah, this. Younger Boomers and older Gen-X are a dying breed. And the endless edition wars made us splintered and disunited....
Well said. The entire thing, not just the quoted bit above.
Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing. ~Robert E. Howard

VisionStorm

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Re: So it might be D&D 6e in 2024 after all! (also, Planescape 2023)
« Reply #46 on: August 19, 2022, 08:46:38 AM »
- All backgrounds give you a starting feat, these feats are specifically 1st level feats and all feats will now be grouped by power level.

It's been a long time since I looked at the 5e Rules, but weren't feats an optional rule (albeit a very commonly used one)? It sounds like this is canonizing them as non-optional, which would in theory be a pretty big change.

The variant Human allowed you to pick a Feat and core Human fell by the wayside after that. It seems on their march to make things as generic and bland as possible, everyone gets a Feat now.

I don't have an issue with this, TBH. Specially not in 5e, where most feats are viable and there are no feat chains. Most people who hate feats are OSR anyways. And it's very easy to simply declare "All feats in my campaign are ASIs".

My biggest issue with this upcoming edition is that I hate WotC and they're officially homogenizing races even more now in the name of wokeness and the idiotic belief that racial ability score modifiers are "biological essentialism"* and therefore fundamentally racist.

The idea of tying AISs to background is not horrible (at least not in principle, in practice it'll lead to everyone always picking the most optimal background for their class, as S'mon points out), but it smacks of woke ideology and the belief that nurture trumps nature, and it's strictly your background, not your biology, that determines your inclinations. They might as well just give everyone one ASIs of choice and leave it at that. Then make 20 the hard cap, regardless of ASIs if they find biological essentialism so offensive.

*Which they kinda are, but who gives a fuck? Biology doesn't care about your feelings and D&D races are distinct enough to have different inclinations.

Cat the Bounty Smuggler

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Re: So it might be D&D 6e in 2024 after all! (also, Planescape 2023)
« Reply #47 on: August 19, 2022, 08:48:13 AM »
What if One D&D actually means One D&D to WotC where they actively and aggressively shut down sites like dmsgiild or drive thru rpg from printing older material and forcing everyone who wants to play D&D to play the woke dogshit version? They could also all but kill the ogl going forward.

I don’t think they can do much with the OGL since there’s no provision for revoking it except for noncompliance. And the OGL was always more of a legal convenience than a necessity since you can’t copyright actual game mechanics.

VisionStorm

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Re: So it might be D&D 6e in 2024 after all! (also, Planescape 2023)
« Reply #48 on: August 19, 2022, 08:54:05 AM »
What if One D&D actually means One D&D to WotC where they actively and aggressively shut down sites like dmsgiild or drive thru rpg from printing older material and forcing everyone who wants to play D&D to play the woke dogshit version? They could also all but kill the ogl going forward.

So basically, this...

“One D&D to rule them all.
One D&D to find them.
One D&D to bring them all,
and in the Wokeness bind them.”

Yes, I can see this is where "One" D&D is headed. Deep down this is what WotC wants even if they won't come out and admit it.

Ruprecht

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Re: So it might be D&D 6e in 2024 after all! (also, Planescape 2023)
« Reply #49 on: August 19, 2022, 08:58:15 AM »
Even if they do nothing to force other options to go away, time will likely enshrine One D&D as the market leader. Then add two years of updates and 5E compatibility is gone and they can start to censor/republish/update 5E products and hope to recapture sales.
Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing. ~Robert E. Howard

VisionStorm

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Re: So it might be D&D 6e in 2024 after all! (also, Planescape 2023)
« Reply #50 on: August 19, 2022, 08:58:54 AM »
What if One D&D actually means One D&D to WotC where they actively and aggressively shut down sites like dmsgiild or drive thru rpg from printing older material and forcing everyone who wants to play D&D to play the woke dogshit version? They could also all but kill the ogl going forward.

I don’t think they can do much with the OGL since there’s no provision for revoking it except for noncompliance. And the OGL was always more of a legal convenience than a necessity since you can’t copyright actual game mechanics.

Legally they can't shut it all down now. But they can try to steer as many to their current edition's direction as they can, and try to convince everyone that only they have the "official" version of the "One True Game",

ForgottenF

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Re: So it might be D&D 6e in 2024 after all! (also, Planescape 2023)
« Reply #51 on: August 19, 2022, 10:09:29 AM »
Yeah, this. Younger Boomers and older Gen-X are a dying breed. And the endless edition wars made us splintered and disunited, so we're all huddling in our own little corners of the internet. 

Meanwhile the kids are caught in a weird place where they barely know that the 20th century existed, yet everything around them is so soulless and hollow that they feel a hunger for a nostalgia they never had.

And that nostalgia is repackaged for them to consume in a way that makes it completely unrecognizable. It's the gaming equivalent of listening to Harry Styles covers of Led Zeppelin or the Doors.   


As far as I know, it was mostly millennials that deserted D&D for Pathfinder in the 4th edition days, so we probably deserve some of the "credit".

The music analogy is fun, though. What would third edition be, a Led Zeppelin cover done by Godsmack? Maybe LOTFP is a cover done by Darkthrone, and DCC is one done Fank Zappa?

Chris24601

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Re: So it might be D&D 6e in 2024 after all! (also, Planescape 2023)
« Reply #52 on: August 19, 2022, 10:11:28 AM »
What if One D&D actually means One D&D to WotC where they actively and aggressively shut down sites like dmsgiild or drive thru rpg from printing older material and forcing everyone who wants to play D&D to play the woke dogshit version? They could also all but kill the ogl going forward.
The only thing they can do with the OGL is not add future content to their SRDs. Everything that’s presently out is “in the wild” and can’t be brought back under the umbrella of “protected content.”

FingerRod

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Re: So it might be D&D 6e in 2024 after all! (also, Planescape 2023)
« Reply #53 on: August 19, 2022, 10:15:06 AM »
I will go on the record and say that WotC has zero desire to use One D&D like the One Ring. It is funny, and they have certainly earned any and all ridicule, but they will not be using this new release to shut down sites or consolidate past products.

ForgottenF

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Re: So it might be D&D 6e in 2024 after all! (also, Planescape 2023)
« Reply #54 on: August 19, 2022, 10:30:31 AM »
The only people who should be making DND 6e are us in this site.

It's a heavy burden, but one I would gladly undertake.

Mainly I expect I'll be arguing with everyone else here for why we need a Weapon vs. AC matrix at least as an optional rule.

I do wonder how I'd go about writing a 6th edition, if I actually wanted it to be succeed.

Let's be real: a full on retroclone would not go over well with D&D's current market. I think you're on to something though, in that the way to go would be to supe up the DM's guide with tons of optional rules. Outside of the politics and culture around it (which you couldn't fix just in the core rulebooks), 5e's biggest problems seem to be with what you might call "misplaced complexity". Too many class permutations and too much action economy, and not enough world/exploration/dungeoneering rules. It honestly blows my mind that D&D still doesn't have chase rules in the PHB.

I forget who originally made the suggestion, but at this point I think WOTC would be smart to split D&D off into Basic and Advanced lines again. Then they could satisfy both the people who just want to "tell stories" and the people who want the whole immersive sim element, and probably sell twice as many books. Hell, they could probably split the Advanced line off into separate low and high-fantasy lines and sell even more.

I don't really understand why WOTC is so concerned with making D&D a monolith, when every other major company with a successful ruleset (Chaosium, Paizo, Pinnacle, Modiphius etc.) instead focuses on making multiple games with similar rules. If they had multiple game lines, they wouldn't have to keep changing the rules of D&D to sell new products.

Shit WOTC, you already own the rights. Make a designated MTG RPG based on the 5e ruleset, and you'll probably be printing money off of it for a decade....

EDIT: The more I think about it, the more convinced I am that going down the SWADE/GURPS route of making D&D the basis of a generic ruleset for a bunch of licensed settings would be a huge money-maker for them. They have the market profile, and Hasbro has the money to outbid everyone else for licenses. I don't think it would be a good game, and I'm not hoping they do it, but I bet it'd work.
« Last Edit: August 19, 2022, 10:36:13 AM by ForgottenF »

S'mon

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Re: So it might be D&D 6e in 2024 after all! (also, Planescape 2023)
« Reply #55 on: August 19, 2022, 10:53:56 AM »
I will go on the record and say that WotC has zero desire to use One D&D like the One Ring. It is funny, and they have certainly earned any and all ridicule, but they will not be using this new release to shut down sites or consolidate past products.

No, but they will update D&D Beyond's character builder so it only uses 1D&D material rather than 5e, which will be annoying. They may go further with aggressive destructive 'editing' of purchased materials; we already have precedent for this in how they have bowdlerized already purchased online versions of old 5e books.

Ruprecht

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Re: So it might be D&D 6e in 2024 after all! (also, Planescape 2023)
« Reply #56 on: August 19, 2022, 11:08:51 AM »
I don't really understand why WOTC is so concerned with making D&D a monolith, when every other major company with a successful ruleset (Chaosium, Paizo, Pinnacle, Modiphius etc.) instead focuses on making multiple games with similar rules. If they had multiple game lines, they wouldn't have to keep changing the rules of D&D to sell new products.
The problem with that is folks that like one ruleset may not buy the stuff from the other rulesets,  and Wizards doesn't want to leave a dime unclaimed so they can't even consider that option.

From what I understand they have a 'rule' that any product must be available to all classes and everything. If true this was a foolish call. They could easily have said Forgotten Realms uses all but no Gnomes or Warlocks and a subset of the monsters in Eberonn (or something like that, I don't actually know squat about Ebberon) and created campaigns that 'felt' different even though they kept the same core rules.
Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing. ~Robert E. Howard

Jam The MF

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Re: So it might be D&D 6e in 2024 after all! (also, Planescape 2023)
« Reply #57 on: August 19, 2022, 11:41:25 AM »
“One D&D to rule them all.
One D&D to find them.
One D&D to bring them all,
and in the Wokeness bind them.”

Well played, and well said.
Let the Dice, Decide the Outcome.  Accept the Results.

Visitor Q

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Re: So it might be D&D 6e in 2024 after all! (also, Planescape 2023)
« Reply #58 on: August 19, 2022, 11:51:24 AM »
The only people who should be making DND 6e are us in this site.

It's a heavy burden, but one I would gladly undertake.

Mainly I expect I'll be arguing with everyone else here for why we need a Weapon vs. AC matrix at least as an optional rule.


I don't really understand why WOTC is so concerned with making D&D a monolith, when every other major company with a successful ruleset (Chaosium, Paizo, Pinnacle, Modiphius etc.) instead focuses on making multiple games with similar rules. If they had multiple game lines, they wouldn't have to keep changing the rules of D&D to sell new products.


My guess is brand recognition. There are a lot of people for whom D&D is completly synonymous with role play games, even to the extent that it bleeds into completly different table top fantasy gaming. (Play Warhammer and you are bound to get a relative or friend asking "Is that D&D?").

It is difficult to overstate how massive D&D is compared to the next largest TTRPG.

But the thing is that D&D isn't objectively a better product than its competitors. It is a competent game, has a lot of marketing behind it and a powerful first mover advantage. But its greatest asset is the brand recognition of the game, (it's not even particularly recognition of the company itself).

I think the argument/strategy WotC is following is that making multiple lines of games will ultimately dilute the brand and allow competitors to eat into their share.

Also in terms of organisation, creative direction and governance having one brand is much easier to manage. If the tone of one game is super woke then it becomes awkward if another game line hasn't gone full mental.

The problem with that is folks that like one ruleset may not buy the stuff from the other rulesets,  and Wizards doesn't want to leave a dime unclaimed so they can't even consider that option.

From what I understand they have a 'rule' that any product must be available to all classes and everything. If true this was a foolish call. They could easily have said Forgotten Realms uses all but no Gnomes or Warlocks and a subset of the monsters in Eberonn (or something like that, I don't actually know squat about Ebberon) and created campaigns that 'felt' different even though they kept the same core rules.

This is also a very good point.
« Last Edit: August 19, 2022, 11:55:52 AM by Visitor Q »

Lynn

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Re: So it might be D&D 6e in 2024 after all! (also, Planescape 2023)
« Reply #59 on: August 19, 2022, 12:16:04 PM »
What if One D&D actually means One D&D to WotC where they actively and aggressively shut down sites like dmsgiild or drive thru rpg from printing older material and forcing everyone who wants to play D&D to play the woke dogshit version? They could also all but kill the ogl going forward.

Not necessarily. They can make plenty of money through those venues and every sale provides ample opportunity to upsell people to their newest product.
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