If there are any times in which characters should know things that players do not. Do not hesitate to tell players.(you may wait until it looks like there is a misunderstanding to avoid having to info dump on people).
But in general, if player assumptions are wrong they're likely make choices against character beliefs or social norms. They will be unhappy if you let them given you could have straightened things out
Yes for the love of god do this
It causes me anxiety in chris perkins' game when one of the players says "I don't think there's anything I can do, I don't know how this works" and the DM keeps his trap shut
the character has +8 to arcana and can cast 6th level spells maybe throw her a bone
Always remember that your players' characters probably have a pretty solid grasp on how to act in the society they live in, its laws, and its customs, as well as how their own spells work (more so than the players)
override367 on
+9
webguy20I spend too much time on the InternetRegistered Userregular
Yea I'm fine with "I want to do X skill to X thing" but I make sure I understand the why of it in regards to what the player wants out of the roll. We have a guy at the table Im a player in and he'll roll then go "I want to intimidate" or similar. It's not very often he's just so used to it over the decade he's played that it can be hard to break him of it when I take a turn DMing every now and again.
Part of it is our DM allows a crit on skill checks, so it's advantageous to always roll if you can. I'm of two minds. 20 is awesome, but you shouldn't be able to do impossible things.
Case in point. Lets say a gnome wants to intimidate an orc. That's what the player wants to do Deciding how to adjudicate this requires you, as the GM, to know the how. if you use your method, then suddenly you have to figure out how a gnome can intimidate an orc. On the face of it, it's not going to work. But your player already rolled and hey its 19 + 4 so here you are. Thats not agency, thats RNG, and that yanks the player out of your game if they realize it or not, because the player rolled. Their done. Now YOU have to find a way to justify it. You're yanking agency away from the player because you're the one figuring out how they do what they do, and you're making a ton of work for yourself.
Agree to disagree, but RNG is inherent to the d20 system. And honestly I feel like it's more disappointing for the player if they come up with some narrative (like using cool illusions) only to be stymied by a poor roll. And there's got to be a roll because we're playing d20 and that's how actions work. You can use your DM Fiat and house rules to circumvent the need for rolling, but then you're playing a different game where the rules aren't as clear to your players. And this game rewards things YOU like instead of what THEY like because it adheres to your expectations which the PCs probably don't know as well as you do. Regardless I don't take agency away from the player with my method: they still tell me what they want to accomplish and how they want to do it. I just help players out by adding in descriptions for how this happens using the d20 to influence the narrative. My personal technique is to always frame the characters as competent with low rolls signifying poor circumstances rather than poor performance.
And actually at the end of the day I don't really have to know how the Gnome intimidates an Orc, just like I don't need to know how a rogue picks locks or how a wizard casts spells. I do need to know how skill checks work and when to call for them. So if the whole interaction is:
DM: You encounter an orc guard barring your path what do you do?
PC: I intimidate him... 19+4: 23!
DM: You've cowed the orc into submission, he moves out of your path
Then that's a successful, if boring, encounter that demonstrates proficiency in how the d20 system works.
I'm of two minds on it, because I have a player who is not good at coming up with arguments, but his character has 20 charisma and deception expertise
I feel like i'm robbing him of his character's whole deal if I make him rely on only what the player can come up with
"I want to make the guard leave by lying to him" is a completely legitimate what/how statement. There's no need for the player to do more than that.
And I agree with you here (so long as the skill I call for is expected by the player e.g. Deception), so I'm not exactly sure why you make a distinction in your previous argument. If you don't need to know what lie the PC comes up with to fool the guard, then why would you need to know what method of intimidation a gnome uses on an orc? Why are seemingly any PCs capable of lying to guards but some races are restricted from intimidating other races without special circumstances involved? That's inconsistency, and it drives me bonkers when people do that to me. But I'm also a very Rules as Written kind of player and I know that some people are not (which is fine).
Who says the orc isn't scared if the gnome. Look at elephants with mice.
Who says that gnome isn't going to crawl up the orc's nether regions and lay eggs there. Intimidate doesn't mean "bigger than you" it means "it scares you, not necessarily in rational grounds".
+2
Zonugal(He/Him) The Holiday ArmadilloI'm Santa's representative for all the southern states. And Mexico!Registered Userregular
When I think of an intimidating Gnome, I think of Bricktop from Snatch.
You don't need to be big or strong to be intimidating.
In the process of rescuing Ireena from the clutches of the man with a demonic right arm I may have murdered the Burgomeister in what I assume was his study.
My party hassled me a bit but I don't feel like it was wrong to kill a guy who was harboring a kidnapper employee, who was sitting in the next room with the victim. Okay it may cause political instability and who knows what may happen to the poor average citizens of Vallaki but that didn't matter in the moment when a guy was trying to stab my characters friend.
As a party we're not okay with the other candidate for Burgomeister taking over either, I can't recall her name Vochter, Valkner, Watcher? Something like that. So we're considering trying to seize control ourselves and put Ismark in charge, hoping that him being the son of the former Burgomeister of Barovia might lend credibility. Maybe he can pardon us for any murders we committed before he took power.
My character is secretly delighted at this prospect, since whatever her name is has been sheltering the Coffin Maker my character so desperately wants to murder in revenge for his best friends death at the hands of a bunch of vampire spawn in the attic of his shop.
Also on a meta note: our infiltration of the manor and eventual rescue of Ireena was the cleanest I've ever had a sneaking section go as a player in D&D. Two deaths, Izek and the Burgomeister, only one witness, the Burgomeister's son with a room full of dead cats, not the most credible witness. When we accidentally woke Izek I won initiative and got off 5 Sharpshooter crossbow shots into his chest before he even got out of bed, dealing 94(!) damage. I really expected that it would end with a full brawl with the city guard, but we planned pretty well and got away into safety before an alarm was fully raised.
Curse of Strahd late game DMs report (Amber Temple).
As i kind of expected them to, the party gave Exanther all of 30 seconds to talk before banishing him, upturning his room to look for valuables, and killing him as soon as he was back, and then destroying his phylactery.
So far 3 party members took a power from the coffins (there is still one small coffin room and the large one that they haven't been to), one of them failed the chains check, and another used 2 charges of lucky to avoid failing it. They have been bullying Kasimir pretty hard, and they keep knocking out Vilnius every time he wakes up.
So apparently the next Dungeons and dragons module is on the horizon, and I'm kind of annoyed about it for two reasons.
First and foremost: it's another trip down Nostalgia lane. Don't get me wrong I appreciate old content and trips down memory lane as much as the next guy but jesus christ guys, I want to see new content and not just another "hey do you remember this classic adventure?"
Second, I pretty much just started running Undermountain two weeks ago with my local gaming store group and as such I have around two months to try and run a satisfactory campaign through a dungeon that is 23 floors deep and had my players hyped to reach the upper limits of the level cap.
Like jesus christ, last year was pretty much eaten by a year long slog in ToA but this year basically has us doing three? Who thought this was a good idea?
But hey, we're getting rules for Naval combat apparently.
So apparently the next Dungeons and dragons module is on the horizon, and I'm kind of annoyed about it for two reasons.
First and foremost: it's another trip down Nostalgia lane. Don't get me wrong I appreciate old content and trips down memory lane as much as the next guy but jesus christ guys, I want to see new content and not just another "hey do you remember this classic adventure?"
Second, I pretty much just started running Undermountain two weeks ago with my local gaming store group and as such I have around two months to try and run a satisfactory campaign through a dungeon that is 23 floors deep and had my players hyped to reach the upper limits of the level cap.
Like jesus christ, last year was pretty much eaten by a year long slog in ToA but this year basically has us doing three? Who thought this was a good idea?
But hey, we're getting rules for Naval combat apparently.
Folks such as my groups that steal from modules such as this and don't run through full adventure paths pretty much ever.
I'm really hoping there's an adventure or two for me to steal out of saltmarsh, and I will almost guarantee an encounter or two.
Like I think there's a marked difference between say tales from the yawning portal or ghosts of salt marsh, and say dragon heist or mad mage. It's pretty difficult to crib stuff from the more coherent campaign paths like dragon queen/rise of tiamat, whereas the old school anthology books are super easy to steal from. I essentially got tales from the yawning portal to run white plume as part of mt campaign setting. I also have a few others I may run eventually, but like stealing from dragon heist? Other than monsters I'm probably stealing the cassalanters founders day party and that's it.
So apparently the next Dungeons and dragons module is on the horizon, and I'm kind of annoyed about it for two reasons.
First and foremost: it's another trip down Nostalgia lane. Don't get me wrong I appreciate old content and trips down memory lane as much as the next guy but jesus christ guys, I want to see new content and not just another "hey do you remember this classic adventure?"
Second, I pretty much just started running Undermountain two weeks ago with my local gaming store group and as such I have around two months to try and run a satisfactory campaign through a dungeon that is 23 floors deep and had my players hyped to reach the upper limits of the level cap.
Like jesus christ, last year was pretty much eaten by a year long slog in ToA but this year basically has us doing three? Who thought this was a good idea?
But hey, we're getting rules for Naval combat apparently.
Folks such as my groups that steal from modules such as this and don't run through full adventure paths pretty much ever.
I'm really hoping there's an adventure or two for me to steal out of saltmarsh, and I will almost guarantee an encounter or two.
Like I think there's a marked difference between say tales from the yawning portal or ghosts of salt marsh, and say dragon heist or mad mage. It's pretty difficult to crib stuff from the more coherent campaign paths like dragon queen/rise of tiamat, whereas the old school anthology books are super easy to steal from. I essentially got tales from the yawning portal to run white plume as part of mt campaign setting. I also have a few others I may run eventually, but like stealing from dragon heist? Other than monsters I'm probably stealing the cassalanters founders day party and that's it.
Given that salt marsh is based on a series of modules stealing stuff shouldn't be a problem.
For me though, the issue is that either I run a heavily truncated campaign or we skip salt marsh and keep running what we have while praying that the next module after it is released around the time we finish it.
And it's not even like I was dragging my heels on heist either; we skipped entire dungeons both due to in character decisions and because I wanted to get the players onto dungeon because I figured it would be way more fun (so far this is proving true).
So apparently the next Dungeons and dragons module is on the horizon, and I'm kind of annoyed about it for two reasons.
First and foremost: it's another trip down Nostalgia lane. Don't get me wrong I appreciate old content and trips down memory lane as much as the next guy but jesus christ guys, I want to see new content and not just another "hey do you remember this classic adventure?"
Second, I pretty much just started running Undermountain two weeks ago with my local gaming store group and as such I have around two months to try and run a satisfactory campaign through a dungeon that is 23 floors deep and had my players hyped to reach the upper limits of the level cap.
Like jesus christ, last year was pretty much eaten by a year long slog in ToA but this year basically has us doing three? Who thought this was a good idea?
But hey, we're getting rules for Naval combat apparently.
Folks such as my groups that steal from modules such as this and don't run through full adventure paths pretty much ever.
I'm really hoping there's an adventure or two for me to steal out of saltmarsh, and I will almost guarantee an encounter or two.
Like I think there's a marked difference between say tales from the yawning portal or ghosts of salt marsh, and say dragon heist or mad mage. It's pretty difficult to crib stuff from the more coherent campaign paths like dragon queen/rise of tiamat, whereas the old school anthology books are super easy to steal from. I essentially got tales from the yawning portal to run white plume as part of mt campaign setting. I also have a few others I may run eventually, but like stealing from dragon heist? Other than monsters I'm probably stealing the cassalanters founders day party and that's it.
Given that salt marsh is based on a series of modules stealing stuff shouldn't be a problem.
For me though, the issue is that either I run a heavily truncated campaign or we skip salt marsh and keep running what we have while praying that the next module after it is released around the time we finish it.
And it's not even like I was dragging my heels on heist either; we skipped entire dungeons both due to in character decisions and because I wanted to get the players onto dungeon because I figured it would be way more fun (so far this is proving true).
I mean im also not seeing the need to rush.
What's wrong with having a year or two lag on content? I generally write my home game with well over a year lag between what my players are currently in and where I plan to put them for adventures.
So apparently the next Dungeons and dragons module is on the horizon, and I'm kind of annoyed about it for two reasons.
First and foremost: it's another trip down Nostalgia lane. Don't get me wrong I appreciate old content and trips down memory lane as much as the next guy but jesus christ guys, I want to see new content and not just another "hey do you remember this classic adventure?"
Second, I pretty much just started running Undermountain two weeks ago with my local gaming store group and as such I have around two months to try and run a satisfactory campaign through a dungeon that is 23 floors deep and had my players hyped to reach the upper limits of the level cap.
Like jesus christ, last year was pretty much eaten by a year long slog in ToA but this year basically has us doing three? Who thought this was a good idea?
But hey, we're getting rules for Naval combat apparently.
Folks such as my groups that steal from modules such as this and don't run through full adventure paths pretty much ever.
I'm really hoping there's an adventure or two for me to steal out of saltmarsh, and I will almost guarantee an encounter or two.
Like I think there's a marked difference between say tales from the yawning portal or ghosts of salt marsh, and say dragon heist or mad mage. It's pretty difficult to crib stuff from the more coherent campaign paths like dragon queen/rise of tiamat, whereas the old school anthology books are super easy to steal from. I essentially got tales from the yawning portal to run white plume as part of mt campaign setting. I also have a few others I may run eventually, but like stealing from dragon heist? Other than monsters I'm probably stealing the cassalanters founders day party and that's it.
Given that salt marsh is based on a series of modules stealing stuff shouldn't be a problem.
For me though, the issue is that either I run a heavily truncated campaign or we skip salt marsh and keep running what we have while praying that the next module after it is released around the time we finish it.
And it's not even like I was dragging my heels on heist either; we skipped entire dungeons both due to in character decisions and because I wanted to get the players onto dungeon because I figured it would be way more fun (so far this is proving true).
I mean im also not seeing the need to rush.
What's wrong with having a year or two lag on content? I generally write my home game with well over a year lag between what my players are currently in and where I plan to put them for adventures.
The difference is that this is something that the store hosts as opposed to a home game which can be anything from a single session to a 10 year saga.
Also obstensibly people come to the store to play the current module, so needless to say I'm a tad bit irritated with the imbalance of module releases over the last year or so.
So apparently the next Dungeons and dragons module is on the horizon, and I'm kind of annoyed about it for two reasons.
First and foremost: it's another trip down Nostalgia lane. Don't get me wrong I appreciate old content and trips down memory lane as much as the next guy but jesus christ guys, I want to see new content and not just another "hey do you remember this classic adventure?"
Second, I pretty much just started running Undermountain two weeks ago with my local gaming store group and as such I have around two months to try and run a satisfactory campaign through a dungeon that is 23 floors deep and had my players hyped to reach the upper limits of the level cap.
Like jesus christ, last year was pretty much eaten by a year long slog in ToA but this year basically has us doing three? Who thought this was a good idea?
But hey, we're getting rules for Naval combat apparently.
Folks such as my groups that steal from modules such as this and don't run through full adventure paths pretty much ever.
I'm really hoping there's an adventure or two for me to steal out of saltmarsh, and I will almost guarantee an encounter or two.
Like I think there's a marked difference between say tales from the yawning portal or ghosts of salt marsh, and say dragon heist or mad mage. It's pretty difficult to crib stuff from the more coherent campaign paths like dragon queen/rise of tiamat, whereas the old school anthology books are super easy to steal from. I essentially got tales from the yawning portal to run white plume as part of mt campaign setting. I also have a few others I may run eventually, but like stealing from dragon heist? Other than monsters I'm probably stealing the cassalanters founders day party and that's it.
Given that salt marsh is based on a series of modules stealing stuff shouldn't be a problem.
For me though, the issue is that either I run a heavily truncated campaign or we skip salt marsh and keep running what we have while praying that the next module after it is released around the time we finish it.
And it's not even like I was dragging my heels on heist either; we skipped entire dungeons both due to in character decisions and because I wanted to get the players onto dungeon because I figured it would be way more fun (so far this is proving true).
I mean im also not seeing the need to rush.
What's wrong with having a year or two lag on content? I generally write my home game with well over a year lag between what my players are currently in and where I plan to put them for adventures.
The difference is that this is something that the store hosts as opposed to a home game which can be anything from a single session to a 10 year saga.
Also obstensibly people come to the store to play the current module, so needless to say I'm a tad bit irritated with the imbalance of module releases over the last year or so.
Ah, store gaming. Do they demand you stick with current modules? Or can you switch it up. I'm not as well versed on store games or organized play.
So apparently the next Dungeons and dragons module is on the horizon, and I'm kind of annoyed about it for two reasons.
First and foremost: it's another trip down Nostalgia lane. Don't get me wrong I appreciate old content and trips down memory lane as much as the next guy but jesus christ guys, I want to see new content and not just another "hey do you remember this classic adventure?"
Second, I pretty much just started running Undermountain two weeks ago with my local gaming store group and as such I have around two months to try and run a satisfactory campaign through a dungeon that is 23 floors deep and had my players hyped to reach the upper limits of the level cap.
Like jesus christ, last year was pretty much eaten by a year long slog in ToA but this year basically has us doing three? Who thought this was a good idea?
But hey, we're getting rules for Naval combat apparently.
Folks such as my groups that steal from modules such as this and don't run through full adventure paths pretty much ever.
I'm really hoping there's an adventure or two for me to steal out of saltmarsh, and I will almost guarantee an encounter or two.
Like I think there's a marked difference between say tales from the yawning portal or ghosts of salt marsh, and say dragon heist or mad mage. It's pretty difficult to crib stuff from the more coherent campaign paths like dragon queen/rise of tiamat, whereas the old school anthology books are super easy to steal from. I essentially got tales from the yawning portal to run white plume as part of mt campaign setting. I also have a few others I may run eventually, but like stealing from dragon heist? Other than monsters I'm probably stealing the cassalanters founders day party and that's it.
Given that salt marsh is based on a series of modules stealing stuff shouldn't be a problem.
For me though, the issue is that either I run a heavily truncated campaign or we skip salt marsh and keep running what we have while praying that the next module after it is released around the time we finish it.
And it's not even like I was dragging my heels on heist either; we skipped entire dungeons both due to in character decisions and because I wanted to get the players onto dungeon because I figured it would be way more fun (so far this is proving true).
I mean im also not seeing the need to rush.
What's wrong with having a year or two lag on content? I generally write my home game with well over a year lag between what my players are currently in and where I plan to put them for adventures.
The difference is that this is something that the store hosts as opposed to a home game which can be anything from a single session to a 10 year saga.
Also obstensibly people come to the store to play the current module, so needless to say I'm a tad bit irritated with the imbalance of module releases over the last year or so.
Ah, store gaming. Do they demand you stick with current modules? Or can you switch it up. I'm not as well versed on store games or organized play.
That's the rub; I more or less run the D&D program as a volunteer and try to keep things going on a more or less smooth pace to ensure that people are playing current content (both because it's what is being currently advertiesed and because it ensures people aren't repeating stuff they may very well have played in the past) and also GM's don't wind up with burn out (which can be a serious problem; Tomb of annihilation went on for 12 frikkin months and that left the GM somewhat burnt out after about 8).
Honestly? Dragon Heist/Mad Mage is still current content. It will continue to be current even after Saltmarsh is released.
Saltmarsh at least provides examples of uncommon scenarios, like seafaring and underwater exploration. That alone would have been helpful for an earlier part of my own campaign.
So apparently the next Dungeons and dragons module is on the horizon, and I'm kind of annoyed about it for two reasons.
First and foremost: it's another trip down Nostalgia lane. Don't get me wrong I appreciate old content and trips down memory lane as much as the next guy but jesus christ guys, I want to see new content and not just another "hey do you remember this classic adventure?"
Second, I pretty much just started running Undermountain two weeks ago with my local gaming store group and as such I have around two months to try and run a satisfactory campaign through a dungeon that is 23 floors deep and had my players hyped to reach the upper limits of the level cap.
Like jesus christ, last year was pretty much eaten by a year long slog in ToA but this year basically has us doing three? Who thought this was a good idea?
But hey, we're getting rules for Naval combat apparently.
Folks such as my groups that steal from modules such as this and don't run through full adventure paths pretty much ever.
I'm really hoping there's an adventure or two for me to steal out of saltmarsh, and I will almost guarantee an encounter or two.
Like I think there's a marked difference between say tales from the yawning portal or ghosts of salt marsh, and say dragon heist or mad mage. It's pretty difficult to crib stuff from the more coherent campaign paths like dragon queen/rise of tiamat, whereas the old school anthology books are super easy to steal from. I essentially got tales from the yawning portal to run white plume as part of mt campaign setting. I also have a few others I may run eventually, but like stealing from dragon heist? Other than monsters I'm probably stealing the cassalanters founders day party and that's it.
Given that salt marsh is based on a series of modules stealing stuff shouldn't be a problem.
For me though, the issue is that either I run a heavily truncated campaign or we skip salt marsh and keep running what we have while praying that the next module after it is released around the time we finish it.
And it's not even like I was dragging my heels on heist either; we skipped entire dungeons both due to in character decisions and because I wanted to get the players onto dungeon because I figured it would be way more fun (so far this is proving true).
I mean im also not seeing the need to rush.
What's wrong with having a year or two lag on content? I generally write my home game with well over a year lag between what my players are currently in and where I plan to put them for adventures.
The difference is that this is something that the store hosts as opposed to a home game which can be anything from a single session to a 10 year saga.
Also obstensibly people come to the store to play the current module, so needless to say I'm a tad bit irritated with the imbalance of module releases over the last year or so.
Ah, store gaming. Do they demand you stick with current modules? Or can you switch it up. I'm not as well versed on store games or organized play.
That's the rub; I more or less run the D&D program as a volunteer and try to keep things going on a more or less smooth pace to ensure that people are playing current content (both because it's what is being currently advertiesed and because it ensures people aren't repeating stuff they may very well have played in the past) and also GM's don't wind up with burn out (which can be a serious problem; Tomb of annihilation went on for 12 frikkin months and that left the GM somewhat burnt out after about 8).
This doesn't answer the question though... Are you forced, by some rules of in-store gaming or marketing by WotC or whatever, to run the newest modules when they come out?
If not, I don't see that the problem is. You keep on doing what you and your players want to do.
If yes... well... that's what in store gaming is about, right? To show the game to new players and entice them into what's on offer by the company. If your "job" is to show off the latest shiney new thing... well, unfortunately in this case, that's your job.
I also have no idea how in store gaming/organized play works.
So apparently the next Dungeons and dragons module is on the horizon, and I'm kind of annoyed about it for two reasons.
First and foremost: it's another trip down Nostalgia lane. Don't get me wrong I appreciate old content and trips down memory lane as much as the next guy but jesus christ guys, I want to see new content and not just another "hey do you remember this classic adventure?"
Second, I pretty much just started running Undermountain two weeks ago with my local gaming store group and as such I have around two months to try and run a satisfactory campaign through a dungeon that is 23 floors deep and had my players hyped to reach the upper limits of the level cap.
Like jesus christ, last year was pretty much eaten by a year long slog in ToA but this year basically has us doing three? Who thought this was a good idea?
But hey, we're getting rules for Naval combat apparently.
Folks such as my groups that steal from modules such as this and don't run through full adventure paths pretty much ever.
I'm really hoping there's an adventure or two for me to steal out of saltmarsh, and I will almost guarantee an encounter or two.
Like I think there's a marked difference between say tales from the yawning portal or ghosts of salt marsh, and say dragon heist or mad mage. It's pretty difficult to crib stuff from the more coherent campaign paths like dragon queen/rise of tiamat, whereas the old school anthology books are super easy to steal from. I essentially got tales from the yawning portal to run white plume as part of mt campaign setting. I also have a few others I may run eventually, but like stealing from dragon heist? Other than monsters I'm probably stealing the cassalanters founders day party and that's it.
Given that salt marsh is based on a series of modules stealing stuff shouldn't be a problem.
For me though, the issue is that either I run a heavily truncated campaign or we skip salt marsh and keep running what we have while praying that the next module after it is released around the time we finish it.
And it's not even like I was dragging my heels on heist either; we skipped entire dungeons both due to in character decisions and because I wanted to get the players onto dungeon because I figured it would be way more fun (so far this is proving true).
I mean im also not seeing the need to rush.
What's wrong with having a year or two lag on content? I generally write my home game with well over a year lag between what my players are currently in and where I plan to put them for adventures.
The difference is that this is something that the store hosts as opposed to a home game which can be anything from a single session to a 10 year saga.
Also obstensibly people come to the store to play the current module, so needless to say I'm a tad bit irritated with the imbalance of module releases over the last year or so.
Ah, store gaming. Do they demand you stick with current modules? Or can you switch it up. I'm not as well versed on store games or organized play.
That's the rub; I more or less run the D&D program as a volunteer and try to keep things going on a more or less smooth pace to ensure that people are playing current content (both because it's what is being currently advertiesed and because it ensures people aren't repeating stuff they may very well have played in the past) and also GM's don't wind up with burn out (which can be a serious problem; Tomb of annihilation went on for 12 frikkin months and that left the GM somewhat burnt out after about 8).
Are you in the adventurer's league format or is it a super local thing?
I hauled the 3 orphans into Kolyat Towers with the party, since they want to be adventurers! We just walked into the room where some splinter zents were playing cards, convinced them that they didn't see anything and the older human woman at the table told her colleagues to just keep playing cards and don't hear or see anything. Went upstairs and there was a cook who was also a wizard, he tried to fireball the party (which would have been bad for the 3 children that I'm irresponsibly dragging along) so I counterspelled, he got dominated and we had him tie himself up and then murdered him. The tiefling boy was quick to loot the body, the party's druid was concerned that I was teaching these habits to the kids but the girl piped up that they've been living alone on the docks and rifling through dead bodies for items is something they're used to. Natural adventurers!
Later on, after battling a wizard-ghost (in which the boy squiddly landed 3 critical hits with the magic bow I gave him, wtf kid), I had a wild magic surge. On our greater wild magic surge table I landed a 2 (out of 300), "I wish for something I'm concerned about to be solved". This could be many things, it's up to the DM to interpret it
Can I have enough gold to finally encrust all my possessions in diamonds? Is my character's pregnancy finally going to be over? Are the neighbors going to stop being dicks about the frequent zombie beholder attacks on trollskull alley?
The DM said "you asked Nat if she wanted to be an immortal fey servant earlier right?", and I was like "well yeah but..." "perfect!". The girl immediately exploded like a sausage in a microwave. I had to cast calm emotions on the other two to get them to stop freaking out. The druid said "Well, that took longer than I expected" (in how long it would take for one of them to get killed)
Keeping in mind my character is a fey, formerly an evil winter variety, he said that I would have to sacrifice a chicken, crush a diamond, and locate the girl's heart in the incredibly messy room and eat it. I polymorphed a random zent from another room into a chicken and hit him with Blight at 5th level, crushed up a diamond I had, and ate the heart. A globe of magical darkness appeared and when it disappeared, Nat was back, the room was clean, it was as if nothing happened - the only difference being she was effortlessly hovering slightly off the ground and telepathically asking me for orders
"See" I told the party "you guys should have faith in me, she's fine!".*
After some encouragement from the party I agreed to send the three of them to school instead of dragging them into dungeons where errant surges of wild magic might blow them up. I won my deception check against all of their insights.
*A side note, I DID death ward all 3 of them, which didn't help against a DM gaining access to a Wish from a wild magic surge to use against us, AND I bought a preposterously expensive Scroll of Resurrection just in case
Really, though, I'd like a book about the Feywild and the Shadowfell.
This. Also Planescape adventuring in general.
So disappointed Mordenkainen's didn't have this. It should have had a whole chapter on sigil, and another on the feywild (including notable locations and possible types of encounters)
First and foremost: it's another trip down Nostalgia lane. Don't get me wrong I appreciate old content and trips down memory lane as much as the next guy but jesus christ guys, I want to see new content and not just another "hey do you remember this classic adventure?"
The DnD team is like... 5 people and rehashing old adventures is a LOT easier than writing new content. There is a reason that a lot of the art in the new books is reused(i wouldn't be surprised if a lot of the text is reused too). Everything is being done on the cheap.
First and foremost: it's another trip down Nostalgia lane. Don't get me wrong I appreciate old content and trips down memory lane as much as the next guy but jesus christ guys, I want to see new content and not just another "hey do you remember this classic adventure?"
The DnD team is like... 5 people and rehashing old adventures is a LOT easier than writing new content. There is a reason that a lot of the art in the new books is reused(i wouldn't be surprised if a lot of the text is reused too). Everything is being done on the cheap.
There's about 25 folks working on DnD, they work a lot with freelancers for art assets. Perkins considers himself a custodian who is trying to protect the DnD legacy and trying to move DnD forward by being more inclusive. He is at the helm of a small team, but they also release a lot less content per annum than during the days of 4e, he mentioned something like 30 products as compared to 4 now. Keep in mind that they also did Ravnica, which was a fresh setting for dnd, I don't know anyone who has run it, but Loading Ready Run is doing a humorous run through it and Aqc Inc is messing around in it as well. It all sounds pretty elaborate, so maybe that's where a lot of their time was spent on and this new book is just something quick they did on the side.
Perkins did a lovely 2hr interview for Between The Sheets
Keep in mind that they also did Ravnica, which was a fresh setting for dnd
Ravnica isn't a fresh setting. Just because it wasn't typed up for DnD doesn't mean it wasn't typed up. That isn't to say that it didn't require a lot of work. But it wasn't Fresh.
There's about 25 folks working on DnD, they work a lot with freelancers for art assets.
That... isn't really true. There are about 25 people who do work on DnD but not 25 people doing primaray design work for books/adventures. There are like... 5 doing that. The formatting, editing, managing work etc is from all over wotc.
I am just saying don't expect a lot of fresh adventures any time soon. Its super hard to do and the team isn't really big enough to put out a lot of them.
First and foremost: it's another trip down Nostalgia lane. Don't get me wrong I appreciate old content and trips down memory lane as much as the next guy but jesus christ guys, I want to see new content and not just another "hey do you remember this classic adventure?"
The DnD team is like... 5 people and rehashing old adventures is a LOT easier than writing new content. There is a reason that a lot of the art in the new books is reused(i wouldn't be surprised if a lot of the text is reused too). Everything is being done on the cheap.
There's about 25 folks working on DnD, they work a lot with freelancers for art assets. Perkins considers himself a custodian who is trying to protect the DnD legacy and trying to move DnD forward by being more inclusive. He is at the helm of a small team, but they also release a lot less content per annum than during the days of 4e, he mentioned something like 30 products as compared to 4 now. Keep in mind that they also did Ravnica, which was a fresh setting for dnd, I don't know anyone who has run it, but Loading Ready Run is doing a humorous run through it and Aqc Inc is messing around in it as well. It all sounds pretty elaborate, so maybe that's where a lot of their time was spent on and this new book is just something quick they did on the side.
Ravnica is a fresh setting for DnD, but it's been fleshed out as a Magic setting for 15 years across three different MtG blocks and several books. It's on the same difficulty spectrum as updating an old adventure: all the fluff and structure is already written, the only 'new' stuff you have to write are 5e-compatible statblocks/items. Coincidentally, there aren't a whole lot of those, and the ones that exist are frequently pretty re-hashy (The playtest version of the Loxodon race, for example, were straight-up just reskinned hill dwarves with frighten resistance and natural armor instead of poison resistance and bonus HP, right down to having Stonecunning and mason tool proficiency).
Everything about 5e suggests to me that they were planning to put the brand on life support and got blindsided by the rise of podcasts/twitch streaming. They cut the size of the team, cut back the release schedule, simplified the game to the point that they can't write that much content for it even if they wanted to because there isn't enough mechanical depth, loaded it with tons of 'I dunno, make it up yourself, writing rules is hard' caveats, offloaded all their playtesting onto the playerbase, were very clearly just sending first and second drafts to print with minimal review...and then Critical Role et al blew up and they started actually selling a bunch of books, so they tried to pick up the content release schedule to take advantage but got caught with their pants down.
Not enough people on staff to write the volume of content they now want, so it's a lot of 'we updated an old adventure! Pay full price for it, we bet you will!'. Not enough mechanical depth to write interesting player options that don't either re-skin existing options or undermine the simplicity design goal, so it's a lot of 'here's a THIRD class that also basically just hexes stuff for its damage' and 'new warlock option: burn spell slots for 1d8 bonus damage+1d8 more per level of the spell slot! It's not smite it's...eldritch...smite I guess. Eldritch smite! New content!' and 'hey one of these podcast guys homebrewed a whole class and people like it? Thank christ, let's put it on DnDBeyond! It's official-ish now! That counts as new content from us! We count that!' and 'Uh-oh, we condensed all of our circumstantial bonuses into advantage/disadvantage and made them not stack and now all we can do is write stuff that gives people advantage on things, which in turn is pushing us to a critical mass where that content isn't interesting because everyone already has advantage from somewhere else! New idea: Fill the Eberron book with stuff that gives people +1d4 to their rolls INSTEAD of advantage, so it stacks and is interesting again! No that's NOT like just adding those circumstantial bonuses we were so proud to get rid of back in shut up!'. They boxed themselves into life support mode and are struggling to pull the 180 they need to take advantage of their unexpected success.
That all ALSO tracks with all the rumors about how Hasbro manages its brands; supposedly Hasbro wants their brands on the Transformers model, where they make at least X money per year and can be translated into movie franchises and toy lines and so on, and if they DON'T hit that benchmark they mothball the brand until they can capitalize on nostalgia to bring it back and try again. WotC got bought by Hasbro, Magic has always made that X money but DnD couldn't, WotC wanted those two brands to be measured as a single 'WotC' brand so that DnD could ride Magic's coattails and avoid getting mothballed but Hasbro would never let them. Lo and behold, DnD can't make its benchmarks, starts to get mothballed, sees some success and turns it around, and the first thing they do is start blurring the line between the two brands. Seems plausible that the reason is a combination of 'easy content we can churn out with minimal effort from our small team' and 'if we put enough Magic into DnD then when DnD starts to drop off again we can take another run at calling them a single brand so our shit doesn't get downsized again.'
Everything about 5e suggests to me that they were planning to put the brand on life support and got blindsided by the rise of podcasts/twitch streaming. They cut the size of the team, cut back the release schedule, simplified the game to the point that they can't write that much content for it even if they wanted to because there isn't enough mechanical depth
I'm not sure how to even respond to this
D&D is probably going to die because of Hasbro trying to make it a spinoff of magic like they have been with the incredibly hard Ravnica push, but I can do nothing but stare mouth agape at your statement for the reasoning for 5e not having content
It seems to me that D&D is really popular right now and Hasbro's mismanagement of Wizards of the coast is bewildering to me. Just give them money and resources and let them do their thing
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webguy20I spend too much time on the InternetRegistered Userregular
Found this while delving the Internet and it looks fun, and not completely broken at first glance. Kind of a reigned in version of the iron man suit from that homebrew artificer article I posted a few months ago. It could be fun to play the trope of the young person who finds an incredibly powerful artifact and must learn to use it while fighting evil. Bonus points if the DM gives the Armor a voice.
Everything about 5e suggests to me that they were planning to put the brand on life support and got blindsided by the rise of podcasts/twitch streaming. They cut the size of the team, cut back the release schedule, simplified the game to the point that they can't write that much content for it even if they wanted to because there isn't enough mechanical depth
I'm not sure how to even respond to this
D&D is probably going to die because of Hasbro trying to make it a spinoff of magic like they have been with the incredibly hard Ravnica push, but I can do nothing but stare mouth agape at your statement for the reasoning for 5e not having content
It seems to me that D&D is really popular right now and Hasbro's mismanagement of Wizards of the coast is bewildering to me. Just give them money and resources and let them do their thing
A favorable reading is that so many rules are optional, writing new classes that might take advantage of those rules is difficult because to play the class, the rules now become mandatory. Such as a 4e style Warlord and playing with a grid/Movement powers.
The discussion seemed to be about not rehashing old adventures, I'm not sure how new classes and the game's depth even come into play
I mean, I felt like my post made it pretty clear but the throughline is:
DnD is rehashing old content because they have a small team and not enough people -> No they have a big team and just had their focus elsewhere -> No, it's because they have a small team and weren't set up to make a lot of content because they weren't expecting to -> everything about 5e suggests to me that they weren't expecting to make a lot of content for it because they were originally planning to put the brand on life support -> here is a list of some of the things that suggest that to me, one of which is limited mechanical depth.
It's not a wild jump from the topic, you just chose a very specific part of my post to focus on.
Keith Baker, creator of Eberron, released an unofficial Eberron book on DM's Guild recently called Morgrave's Miscellany.
Morgrave Miscellany is divided into four parts. The first contains new subclasses loosely based around the prestige classes from third edition play, and also explains how existing classes fit within Eberron society. Chapter two adds a number of new subraces, including a brand new type of Warforged known as the Dragonforged. Chapter 3 provides DMs with some resources and tools to better craft a story within Eberron's unique brand of "fantasy noir," while Chapter 4 provides some "Zero Level" hooks meant to introduce players into the world of Eberron and develop into a team without the benefit of character classes to guide them.
I certainly don’t think the problem with 5e is that its too simple to make meaningful additions to... and I can point out lots of elegant homebrew (like Matt Mercers gunslinger) that proves that
I think the insistence on not ever retconning anything they’ve already made for fifth edition has made things worse, and I really think after a few years of live play that a number of things could be made both simpler and more fun (for example, bonus action economy with dual wielding, feats being optional despite everyone using them).
I don’t think them intentionally making 5e too simple is the problem though
I don't know what you guys have against what they've done with the classic adventures...
Tomb of Horrors? Against the Giants? Temple of Elemental Evil? Ravenloft? Each of these utter classics expanded, updated to maybe be not terrible and oh so dated anymore, and made into full campaigns?
I certainly don’t think the problem with 5e is that its too simple to make meaningful additions to... and I can point out lots of elegant homebrew (like Matt Mercers gunslinger) that proves that
I think the insistence on not ever retconning anything they’ve already made for fifth edition has made things worse, and I really think after a few years of live play that a number of things could be made both simpler and more fun (for example, bonus action economy with dual wielding, feats being optional despite everyone using them).
I don’t think them intentionally making 5e too simple is the problem though
It is a problem they are having, and I gave several examples of why. I think the Eberron stuff is the most obvious - by cutting all the miscellaneous modifiers, they created a situation where there was only 1 non-stacking 'reward' mechanic. As they wrote more content, this created situations where there was more and more stuff that granted the same reward - say, advantage on skill checks. Once you've made enough ways to get advantage on skill checks, writing new things that give advantage on skill checks becomes less and less interesting. Nobody cares if your new Insert Setting Here book has a feat/spell/option that gives advantage on stealth checks because there are already tons of ways to get advantage on stealth checks if you want it, so nobody needs another one. So if you want to keep writing content focused on stealth, you need different ways of improving a player's stealth besides just giving advantage on the check. But you've stripped out all the easy ways to give bonuses to things, you're supposed to be avoiding flat bonuses (even though they do exist in spots), any flat bonuses you DO write are now much more risky because they all stack with each other and you've got to come up with a way to limit that stacking...the solution they're trying out in Wayfinder's Guide is Intuition Dice, which mostly meet all those design goals and are transparently intended to solve that particular problem...but are basically just an elaborate way of doing the exact sort of additional memorized static modifier that they wrote the advantage/disadvantage system to get rid of in the first place. There's an actual cost in depth and design space associated with the simplification the advantage/disadvantage system offers, and that tradeoff limits how much content they can make within the parameters of the design choices they'd already made. When they realized they needed more content than their prior design choices made available, they started writing systems that undo those previous choices to open the space back up - but in a way that was plausibly deniable rather than an outright 'retcon' of a fundamental design choice.
I mean, you even mention another simpler example yourself - the decision to make feats 'optional' even though everyone was always going to use them was made because they wanted to make the game as simple as possible, and taking away feats was an easy way to remove a source of complexity from the game. And it could arguably have made sense as a tradeoff at the time but now that they're trying to write more content it's creating more problems than it solves - it's hard to justify writing new feats when you're theoretically spending design resources on an 'optional' rule, the unwillingness to write more feats combined with the existence of racial feats (but only for some races) does weird things to the power level divides between races, feats effectively turn into high-level content (further shrinking their playerbase relevance) because integration with the stat increase system (necessary to make them optional) meant that you mostly wanted to max your primary before taking any but the most powerful feats, that same integration with the stat system makes the power level floor on feats very high so there's a lot of room for error on a small team producing under-playtested content, and so on. They made a decision to simplify things, which made sense in the context of a mostly one-and-done game they weren't going to try and expand with a lot of new content, but now that they're trying to make new content for a system that wasn't designed with enough knobs to facilitate it, it's causing problems that they're having to solve in ways that are ultimately increasing the game's complexity, giving up the thing they were imposing those design space limits to get in the first place.
Their goals now do not align with their goals from a couple years ago, and they're stepping on their own toes while trying to about-face as a result. The frequency of 'updated classic' releases relative to new campaigns and player options is likely a manifestation of that root issue.
Mechanically DnD is cery good and also good for the system.
The splat schedule and release schedule is because
1) full on splat books are expensive.
2) splat book sales are low compared to core books
For 4e they sold fine but they also had to have a huge team and the margins on extra products were low
For the record i like the splat low structure.
I just wish that we were getting some nee adventure content instead of rehasehed adventure content. And the reason we are has nothing to do with the system and everything to do with the fact that the team is small and writing is hard
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Yes for the love of god do this
It causes me anxiety in chris perkins' game when one of the players says "I don't think there's anything I can do, I don't know how this works" and the DM keeps his trap shut
the character has +8 to arcana and can cast 6th level spells maybe throw her a bone
Always remember that your players' characters probably have a pretty solid grasp on how to act in the society they live in, its laws, and its customs, as well as how their own spells work (more so than the players)
Part of it is our DM allows a crit on skill checks, so it's advantageous to always roll if you can. I'm of two minds. 20 is awesome, but you shouldn't be able to do impossible things.
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
Agree to disagree, but RNG is inherent to the d20 system. And honestly I feel like it's more disappointing for the player if they come up with some narrative (like using cool illusions) only to be stymied by a poor roll. And there's got to be a roll because we're playing d20 and that's how actions work. You can use your DM Fiat and house rules to circumvent the need for rolling, but then you're playing a different game where the rules aren't as clear to your players. And this game rewards things YOU like instead of what THEY like because it adheres to your expectations which the PCs probably don't know as well as you do. Regardless I don't take agency away from the player with my method: they still tell me what they want to accomplish and how they want to do it. I just help players out by adding in descriptions for how this happens using the d20 to influence the narrative. My personal technique is to always frame the characters as competent with low rolls signifying poor circumstances rather than poor performance.
And actually at the end of the day I don't really have to know how the Gnome intimidates an Orc, just like I don't need to know how a rogue picks locks or how a wizard casts spells. I do need to know how skill checks work and when to call for them. So if the whole interaction is:
DM: You encounter an orc guard barring your path what do you do?
PC: I intimidate him... 19+4: 23!
DM: You've cowed the orc into submission, he moves out of your path
Then that's a successful, if boring, encounter that demonstrates proficiency in how the d20 system works.
And I agree with you here (so long as the skill I call for is expected by the player e.g. Deception), so I'm not exactly sure why you make a distinction in your previous argument. If you don't need to know what lie the PC comes up with to fool the guard, then why would you need to know what method of intimidation a gnome uses on an orc? Why are seemingly any PCs capable of lying to guards but some races are restricted from intimidating other races without special circumstances involved? That's inconsistency, and it drives me bonkers when people do that to me. But I'm also a very Rules as Written kind of player and I know that some people are not (which is fine).
Who says that gnome isn't going to crawl up the orc's nether regions and lay eggs there. Intimidate doesn't mean "bigger than you" it means "it scares you, not necessarily in rational grounds".
You don't need to be big or strong to be intimidating.
You need to be intimidating.
My party hassled me a bit but I don't feel like it was wrong to kill a guy who was harboring a kidnapper employee, who was sitting in the next room with the victim. Okay it may cause political instability and who knows what may happen to the poor average citizens of Vallaki but that didn't matter in the moment when a guy was trying to stab my characters friend.
As a party we're not okay with the other candidate for Burgomeister taking over either, I can't recall her name Vochter, Valkner, Watcher? Something like that. So we're considering trying to seize control ourselves and put Ismark in charge, hoping that him being the son of the former Burgomeister of Barovia might lend credibility. Maybe he can pardon us for any murders we committed before he took power.
My character is secretly delighted at this prospect, since whatever her name is has been sheltering the Coffin Maker my character so desperately wants to murder in revenge for his best friends death at the hands of a bunch of vampire spawn in the attic of his shop.
Also on a meta note: our infiltration of the manor and eventual rescue of Ireena was the cleanest I've ever had a sneaking section go as a player in D&D. Two deaths, Izek and the Burgomeister, only one witness, the Burgomeister's son with a room full of dead cats, not the most credible witness. When we accidentally woke Izek I won initiative and got off 5 Sharpshooter crossbow shots into his chest before he even got out of bed, dealing 94(!) damage. I really expected that it would end with a full brawl with the city guard, but we planned pretty well and got away into safety before an alarm was fully raised.
Just ordered all these yesterday.
Plus I've been making a lot on Heroforge that a friend of mine is gonna print off for me.
So far 3 party members took a power from the coffins (there is still one small coffin room and the large one that they haven't been to), one of them failed the chains check, and another used 2 charges of lucky to avoid failing it. They have been bullying Kasimir pretty hard, and they keep knocking out Vilnius every time he wakes up.
I'm so using the bird on the way back.
I went to garycon with this much money > $$
I spend this much money on minis > $$$$$$$$$$$$^27
First and foremost: it's another trip down Nostalgia lane. Don't get me wrong I appreciate old content and trips down memory lane as much as the next guy but jesus christ guys, I want to see new content and not just another "hey do you remember this classic adventure?"
Second, I pretty much just started running Undermountain two weeks ago with my local gaming store group and as such I have around two months to try and run a satisfactory campaign through a dungeon that is 23 floors deep and had my players hyped to reach the upper limits of the level cap.
Like jesus christ, last year was pretty much eaten by a year long slog in ToA but this year basically has us doing three? Who thought this was a good idea?
But hey, we're getting rules for Naval combat apparently.
Folks such as my groups that steal from modules such as this and don't run through full adventure paths pretty much ever.
I'm really hoping there's an adventure or two for me to steal out of saltmarsh, and I will almost guarantee an encounter or two.
Like I think there's a marked difference between say tales from the yawning portal or ghosts of salt marsh, and say dragon heist or mad mage. It's pretty difficult to crib stuff from the more coherent campaign paths like dragon queen/rise of tiamat, whereas the old school anthology books are super easy to steal from. I essentially got tales from the yawning portal to run white plume as part of mt campaign setting. I also have a few others I may run eventually, but like stealing from dragon heist? Other than monsters I'm probably stealing the cassalanters founders day party and that's it.
Given that salt marsh is based on a series of modules stealing stuff shouldn't be a problem.
For me though, the issue is that either I run a heavily truncated campaign or we skip salt marsh and keep running what we have while praying that the next module after it is released around the time we finish it.
And it's not even like I was dragging my heels on heist either; we skipped entire dungeons both due to in character decisions and because I wanted to get the players onto dungeon because I figured it would be way more fun (so far this is proving true).
I mean im also not seeing the need to rush.
What's wrong with having a year or two lag on content? I generally write my home game with well over a year lag between what my players are currently in and where I plan to put them for adventures.
The difference is that this is something that the store hosts as opposed to a home game which can be anything from a single session to a 10 year saga.
Also obstensibly people come to the store to play the current module, so needless to say I'm a tad bit irritated with the imbalance of module releases over the last year or so.
Ah, store gaming. Do they demand you stick with current modules? Or can you switch it up. I'm not as well versed on store games or organized play.
That's the rub; I more or less run the D&D program as a volunteer and try to keep things going on a more or less smooth pace to ensure that people are playing current content (both because it's what is being currently advertiesed and because it ensures people aren't repeating stuff they may very well have played in the past) and also GM's don't wind up with burn out (which can be a serious problem; Tomb of annihilation went on for 12 frikkin months and that left the GM somewhat burnt out after about 8).
Saltmarsh at least provides examples of uncommon scenarios, like seafaring and underwater exploration. That alone would have been helpful for an earlier part of my own campaign.
This doesn't answer the question though... Are you forced, by some rules of in-store gaming or marketing by WotC or whatever, to run the newest modules when they come out?
If not, I don't see that the problem is. You keep on doing what you and your players want to do.
If yes... well... that's what in store gaming is about, right? To show the game to new players and entice them into what's on offer by the company. If your "job" is to show off the latest shiney new thing... well, unfortunately in this case, that's your job.
I also have no idea how in store gaming/organized play works.
This. Also Planescape adventuring in general.
Are you in the adventurer's league format or is it a super local thing?
I hauled the 3 orphans into Kolyat Towers with the party, since they want to be adventurers! We just walked into the room where some splinter zents were playing cards, convinced them that they didn't see anything and the older human woman at the table told her colleagues to just keep playing cards and don't hear or see anything. Went upstairs and there was a cook who was also a wizard, he tried to fireball the party (which would have been bad for the 3 children that I'm irresponsibly dragging along) so I counterspelled, he got dominated and we had him tie himself up and then murdered him. The tiefling boy was quick to loot the body, the party's druid was concerned that I was teaching these habits to the kids but the girl piped up that they've been living alone on the docks and rifling through dead bodies for items is something they're used to. Natural adventurers!
Later on, after battling a wizard-ghost (in which the boy squiddly landed 3 critical hits with the magic bow I gave him, wtf kid), I had a wild magic surge. On our greater wild magic surge table I landed a 2 (out of 300), "I wish for something I'm concerned about to be solved". This could be many things, it's up to the DM to interpret it
Can I have enough gold to finally encrust all my possessions in diamonds? Is my character's pregnancy finally going to be over? Are the neighbors going to stop being dicks about the frequent zombie beholder attacks on trollskull alley?
The DM said "you asked Nat if she wanted to be an immortal fey servant earlier right?", and I was like "well yeah but..." "perfect!". The girl immediately exploded like a sausage in a microwave. I had to cast calm emotions on the other two to get them to stop freaking out. The druid said "Well, that took longer than I expected" (in how long it would take for one of them to get killed)
Keeping in mind my character is a fey, formerly an evil winter variety, he said that I would have to sacrifice a chicken, crush a diamond, and locate the girl's heart in the incredibly messy room and eat it. I polymorphed a random zent from another room into a chicken and hit him with Blight at 5th level, crushed up a diamond I had, and ate the heart. A globe of magical darkness appeared and when it disappeared, Nat was back, the room was clean, it was as if nothing happened - the only difference being she was effortlessly hovering slightly off the ground and telepathically asking me for orders
"See" I told the party "you guys should have faith in me, she's fine!".*
After some encouragement from the party I agreed to send the three of them to school instead of dragging them into dungeons where errant surges of wild magic might blow them up. I won my deception check against all of their insights.
*A side note, I DID death ward all 3 of them, which didn't help against a DM gaining access to a Wish from a wild magic surge to use against us, AND I bought a preposterously expensive Scroll of Resurrection just in case
So disappointed Mordenkainen's didn't have this. It should have had a whole chapter on sigil, and another on the feywild (including notable locations and possible types of encounters)
The DnD team is like... 5 people and rehashing old adventures is a LOT easier than writing new content. There is a reason that a lot of the art in the new books is reused(i wouldn't be surprised if a lot of the text is reused too). Everything is being done on the cheap.
There's about 25 folks working on DnD, they work a lot with freelancers for art assets. Perkins considers himself a custodian who is trying to protect the DnD legacy and trying to move DnD forward by being more inclusive. He is at the helm of a small team, but they also release a lot less content per annum than during the days of 4e, he mentioned something like 30 products as compared to 4 now. Keep in mind that they also did Ravnica, which was a fresh setting for dnd, I don't know anyone who has run it, but Loading Ready Run is doing a humorous run through it and Aqc Inc is messing around in it as well. It all sounds pretty elaborate, so maybe that's where a lot of their time was spent on and this new book is just something quick they did on the side.
Perkins did a lovely 2hr interview for Between The Sheets
Ravnica isn't a fresh setting. Just because it wasn't typed up for DnD doesn't mean it wasn't typed up. That isn't to say that it didn't require a lot of work. But it wasn't Fresh.
That... isn't really true. There are about 25 people who do work on DnD but not 25 people doing primaray design work for books/adventures. There are like... 5 doing that. The formatting, editing, managing work etc is from all over wotc.
I am just saying don't expect a lot of fresh adventures any time soon. Its super hard to do and the team isn't really big enough to put out a lot of them.
Ravnica is a fresh setting for DnD, but it's been fleshed out as a Magic setting for 15 years across three different MtG blocks and several books. It's on the same difficulty spectrum as updating an old adventure: all the fluff and structure is already written, the only 'new' stuff you have to write are 5e-compatible statblocks/items. Coincidentally, there aren't a whole lot of those, and the ones that exist are frequently pretty re-hashy (The playtest version of the Loxodon race, for example, were straight-up just reskinned hill dwarves with frighten resistance and natural armor instead of poison resistance and bonus HP, right down to having Stonecunning and mason tool proficiency).
Everything about 5e suggests to me that they were planning to put the brand on life support and got blindsided by the rise of podcasts/twitch streaming. They cut the size of the team, cut back the release schedule, simplified the game to the point that they can't write that much content for it even if they wanted to because there isn't enough mechanical depth, loaded it with tons of 'I dunno, make it up yourself, writing rules is hard' caveats, offloaded all their playtesting onto the playerbase, were very clearly just sending first and second drafts to print with minimal review...and then Critical Role et al blew up and they started actually selling a bunch of books, so they tried to pick up the content release schedule to take advantage but got caught with their pants down.
Not enough people on staff to write the volume of content they now want, so it's a lot of 'we updated an old adventure! Pay full price for it, we bet you will!'. Not enough mechanical depth to write interesting player options that don't either re-skin existing options or undermine the simplicity design goal, so it's a lot of 'here's a THIRD class that also basically just hexes stuff for its damage' and 'new warlock option: burn spell slots for 1d8 bonus damage+1d8 more per level of the spell slot! It's not smite it's...eldritch...smite I guess. Eldritch smite! New content!' and 'hey one of these podcast guys homebrewed a whole class and people like it? Thank christ, let's put it on DnDBeyond! It's official-ish now! That counts as new content from us! We count that!' and 'Uh-oh, we condensed all of our circumstantial bonuses into advantage/disadvantage and made them not stack and now all we can do is write stuff that gives people advantage on things, which in turn is pushing us to a critical mass where that content isn't interesting because everyone already has advantage from somewhere else! New idea: Fill the Eberron book with stuff that gives people +1d4 to their rolls INSTEAD of advantage, so it stacks and is interesting again! No that's NOT like just adding those circumstantial bonuses we were so proud to get rid of back in shut up!'. They boxed themselves into life support mode and are struggling to pull the 180 they need to take advantage of their unexpected success.
That all ALSO tracks with all the rumors about how Hasbro manages its brands; supposedly Hasbro wants their brands on the Transformers model, where they make at least X money per year and can be translated into movie franchises and toy lines and so on, and if they DON'T hit that benchmark they mothball the brand until they can capitalize on nostalgia to bring it back and try again. WotC got bought by Hasbro, Magic has always made that X money but DnD couldn't, WotC wanted those two brands to be measured as a single 'WotC' brand so that DnD could ride Magic's coattails and avoid getting mothballed but Hasbro would never let them. Lo and behold, DnD can't make its benchmarks, starts to get mothballed, sees some success and turns it around, and the first thing they do is start blurring the line between the two brands. Seems plausible that the reason is a combination of 'easy content we can churn out with minimal effort from our small team' and 'if we put enough Magic into DnD then when DnD starts to drop off again we can take another run at calling them a single brand so our shit doesn't get downsized again.'
I'm not sure how to even respond to this
D&D is probably going to die because of Hasbro trying to make it a spinoff of magic like they have been with the incredibly hard Ravnica push, but I can do nothing but stare mouth agape at your statement for the reasoning for 5e not having content
It seems to me that D&D is really popular right now and Hasbro's mismanagement of Wizards of the coast is bewildering to me. Just give them money and resources and let them do their thing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/19hkinWRU1-nobGwh-nc5pFpHU8wkSNYo/view
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
A favorable reading is that so many rules are optional, writing new classes that might take advantage of those rules is difficult because to play the class, the rules now become mandatory. Such as a 4e style Warlord and playing with a grid/Movement powers.
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
I mean, I felt like my post made it pretty clear but the throughline is:
DnD is rehashing old content because they have a small team and not enough people -> No they have a big team and just had their focus elsewhere -> No, it's because they have a small team and weren't set up to make a lot of content because they weren't expecting to -> everything about 5e suggests to me that they weren't expecting to make a lot of content for it because they were originally planning to put the brand on life support -> here is a list of some of the things that suggest that to me, one of which is limited mechanical depth.
It's not a wild jump from the topic, you just chose a very specific part of my post to focus on.
I think the insistence on not ever retconning anything they’ve already made for fifth edition has made things worse, and I really think after a few years of live play that a number of things could be made both simpler and more fun (for example, bonus action economy with dual wielding, feats being optional despite everyone using them).
I don’t think them intentionally making 5e too simple is the problem though
Tomb of Horrors? Against the Giants? Temple of Elemental Evil? Ravenloft? Each of these utter classics expanded, updated to maybe be not terrible and oh so dated anymore, and made into full campaigns?
How is that not awesome?
It is a problem they are having, and I gave several examples of why. I think the Eberron stuff is the most obvious - by cutting all the miscellaneous modifiers, they created a situation where there was only 1 non-stacking 'reward' mechanic. As they wrote more content, this created situations where there was more and more stuff that granted the same reward - say, advantage on skill checks. Once you've made enough ways to get advantage on skill checks, writing new things that give advantage on skill checks becomes less and less interesting. Nobody cares if your new Insert Setting Here book has a feat/spell/option that gives advantage on stealth checks because there are already tons of ways to get advantage on stealth checks if you want it, so nobody needs another one. So if you want to keep writing content focused on stealth, you need different ways of improving a player's stealth besides just giving advantage on the check. But you've stripped out all the easy ways to give bonuses to things, you're supposed to be avoiding flat bonuses (even though they do exist in spots), any flat bonuses you DO write are now much more risky because they all stack with each other and you've got to come up with a way to limit that stacking...the solution they're trying out in Wayfinder's Guide is Intuition Dice, which mostly meet all those design goals and are transparently intended to solve that particular problem...but are basically just an elaborate way of doing the exact sort of additional memorized static modifier that they wrote the advantage/disadvantage system to get rid of in the first place. There's an actual cost in depth and design space associated with the simplification the advantage/disadvantage system offers, and that tradeoff limits how much content they can make within the parameters of the design choices they'd already made. When they realized they needed more content than their prior design choices made available, they started writing systems that undo those previous choices to open the space back up - but in a way that was plausibly deniable rather than an outright 'retcon' of a fundamental design choice.
I mean, you even mention another simpler example yourself - the decision to make feats 'optional' even though everyone was always going to use them was made because they wanted to make the game as simple as possible, and taking away feats was an easy way to remove a source of complexity from the game. And it could arguably have made sense as a tradeoff at the time but now that they're trying to write more content it's creating more problems than it solves - it's hard to justify writing new feats when you're theoretically spending design resources on an 'optional' rule, the unwillingness to write more feats combined with the existence of racial feats (but only for some races) does weird things to the power level divides between races, feats effectively turn into high-level content (further shrinking their playerbase relevance) because integration with the stat increase system (necessary to make them optional) meant that you mostly wanted to max your primary before taking any but the most powerful feats, that same integration with the stat system makes the power level floor on feats very high so there's a lot of room for error on a small team producing under-playtested content, and so on. They made a decision to simplify things, which made sense in the context of a mostly one-and-done game they weren't going to try and expand with a lot of new content, but now that they're trying to make new content for a system that wasn't designed with enough knobs to facilitate it, it's causing problems that they're having to solve in ways that are ultimately increasing the game's complexity, giving up the thing they were imposing those design space limits to get in the first place.
Their goals now do not align with their goals from a couple years ago, and they're stepping on their own toes while trying to about-face as a result. The frequency of 'updated classic' releases relative to new campaigns and player options is likely a manifestation of that root issue.
The splat schedule and release schedule is because
1) full on splat books are expensive.
2) splat book sales are low compared to core books
For 4e they sold fine but they also had to have a huge team and the margins on extra products were low
For the record i like the splat low structure.
I just wish that we were getting some nee adventure content instead of rehasehed adventure content. And the reason we are has nothing to do with the system and everything to do with the fact that the team is small and writing is hard