D&D Edition Wars

[Cedric]

Did you guys saw that Dark Sun is probably coming back to D&D?

Not happening. It might be called Dark Sun, but it will have almost zero relation to Dark Sun because the setting itself is inherently Problematic.

Something I still have trouble accepting is how ridiculous libtards treat slavery even in fiction. Libtards have some kind of brainwash sleeper asset programming that is activated by certain words. You can completely ward libtards off by putting up signs that say "SLAVERY" or "******" like warding off a vampire with garlic.

I've played on a kind of role-playing game server for 20 years and slavery has always been a core part of the setting. Until 3 years ago because all the newer players made a fuss about how evil and cringe and awful slavery is.

These people can't distinguish fiction from reality.

[J1M]

Did you guys saw that Dark Sun is probably coming back to D&D?

Not happening. It might be called Dark Sun, but it will have almost zero relation to Dark Sun because the setting itself is inherently Problematic.

Something I still have trouble accepting is how ridiculous libtards treat slavery even in fiction. Libtards have some kind of brainwash sleeper asset programming that is activated by certain words. You can completely ward libtards off by putting up signs that say "SLAVERY" or "******" like warding off a vampire with garlic.

I've played on a kind of role-playing game server for 20 years and slavery has always been a core part of the setting. Until 3 years ago because all the newer players made a fuss about how evil and cringe and awful slavery is.

These people can't distinguish fiction from reality.

They can, but they enjoy bullying nerds more than playing D&D.

[UltraFan123]

I think that not only should newer RPG settings have lots of slavery in it, but preexisting settings that don't have slavery should have slavery injected in it.

I'm all for course-correcting as fast and hard as possible.

[WaterMage]

I think that not only should newer RPG settings have lots of slavery in it, but preexisting settings that don't have slavery should have slavery injected in it.

I'm all for course-correcting as fast and hard as possible.

Not only that. Slavery should be introduced without the "evil whites, everyone else is a victim" BS. For example, if the game is historical, the Arab slave trade and the fact that they did took Europeans as slaves and castrate blacks should be taken into account. Besides slavery, the game should have different stats for different fantasy races and genders, and hot take: in high fantasy, most societies would be either magocracies, feudal monarchy or theocracies. No " egalitarian democracy" bs. Barbarian tribes are an exception for this rule. They should be ruled like patriarchal tribesman with the bigger, stronger and most powerful warrior being their leader.

[Augur]

Newer RPGs should also have the following:

A certain percentage of NPCs and characters you recruit on your adventures should be glowies, ready to stab you in the back or sell you out when the going gets tough, or when you accidentally uncover that your local lord is actually a Dark Lord with good pr. The local Dark Lord should also be subordinate, through blackmail, to some ancient evil organization, bent on uniting the world and fulfilling some sort of bastardized version of "great work". Their source of their power should be a dark god, demanding more and more souls - soul line must go up after all, eventually causing the local dark lords to open flood gates for those hobgoblin and orc refugees. Sometimes, they will occasionally use their carefully created multigenerational victims of enchantment mindfuk magic to stage events where said enchanted-ultra victim orcs attack general population, so to prevent them from actually getting too friendly with each other. They will of course preach unity on the surface, in order to cause maximum confusion and continue the divide and rule tactic. All local taverns will be staffed with professional actors who have thought out how to keep a loud conversation going at all hours, said conversation is carefully designed to mold public opinion of local guillable population. All local heroes and public individuals will be either enslaved or blackmailed into parroting what Dark Lord and his evil masters, want the general public to hear. etc etc.

Will be hard to figure out who the hell the actual good guys are in such a settings though.

[J1M]

"D&D 5e 2024 core ruleset" officially renamed to 5.5e, in other words 6th edition confirmed. This change comes after a significant changing of the guard at Wizards.

https://dndbeyond-support.wizards.com/h ... 4233564564

History lesson: they had intended 5e to just be "D&D" and act as an evergreen version that lasted forever.

I don't have high hopes, but there's at least a chance that D&D will have an edition that works better for video games with 6e.

[WhiteShark]

I don't understand how an 'evergreen' edition was supposed to work in the first place if the rules were going to keep changing. "Yes, we printed new books with new rules, but it's the same edition... it just is, ok?"

[rusty_shackleford]

They weren't going to print any rules, they were just going to change your ebook

[J1M]

I don't understand how an 'evergreen' edition was supposed to work in the first place if the rules were going to keep changing. "Yes, we printed new books with new rules, but it's the same edition... it just is, ok?"

Changing the rules would make it hard to keep the digital tools up to date so they didn't want to change the rules. Basically, trading the steady drip of book money away for a monthly drip of subscription money and cosmetic purchases for their digital tabletop.

Also, they were afraid of a future ruleset being rejected by people and them deciding to transition away from D&D to something else.

[WaterMage]

Also, they were afraid of a future ruleset being rejected by people and them deciding to transition away from D&D to something else.

This happened with 4e. But the average 5e player is not the average 3.5e player from pre 4e times.

[WhiteShark]

They weren't going to print any rules, they were just going to change your ebook

But they did print new rules. 5e 2024 (now 5.5e) changed the rules and came out in print. This is despite 5e being touted as the evergreen edition from the start.

Changing the rules would make it hard to keep the digital tools up to date so they didn't want to change the rules. Basically, trading the steady drip of book money away for a monthly drip of subscription money and cosmetic purchases for their digital tabletop.

Also, they were afraid of a future ruleset being rejected by people and them deciding to transition away from D&D to something else.

That makes sense, but then they went and changed the rules anyway while pretending it wasn't a new edition in order to maintain the 'evergreen' facade. Clearly the goals are incompatible.

[rusty_shackleford]

They weren't going to print any rules, they were just going to change your ebook

But they did print new rules. 5e 2024 (now 5.5e) changed the rules and came out in print. This is despite 5e being touted as the evergreen edition from the start.

Changing the rules would make it hard to keep the digital tools up to date so they didn't want to change the rules. Basically, trading the steady drip of book money away for a monthly drip of subscription money and cosmetic purchases for their digital tabletop.

Also, they were afraid of a future ruleset being rejected by people and them deciding to transition away from D&D to something else.

That makes sense, but then they went and changed the rules anyway while pretending it wasn't a new edition in order to maintain the 'evergreen' facade. Clearly the goals are incompatible.

They were going to shift to making their money off their digital platform, which never materialized afaik

[J1M]

They weren't going to print any rules, they were just going to change your ebook

But they did print new rules. 5e 2024 (now 5.5e) changed the rules and came out in print. This is despite 5e being touted as the evergreen edition from the start.

Changing the rules would make it hard to keep the digital tools up to date so they didn't want to change the rules. Basically, trading the steady drip of book money away for a monthly drip of subscription money and cosmetic purchases for their digital tabletop.

Also, they were afraid of a future ruleset being rejected by people and them deciding to transition away from D&D to something else.

That makes sense, but then they went and changed the rules anyway while pretending it wasn't a new edition in order to maintain the 'evergreen' facade. Clearly the goals are incompatible.

The 2024 reprint was a quick money grab and virtue signalling exercise because book sales stopped. Similar to secret lair releases for Magic the Gathering. The other aspects of it were side effects, not strategy.

[Lhynn]

But they did print new rules. 5e 2024 (now 5.5e) changed the rules and came out in print. This is despite 5e being touted as the evergreen edition from the start.

Nobody cares about 2024, it sold like ****.
2014 is still what everyone is playing, and that isnt likely to change, since its the better game.

[Stack of Turtles]

They weren't going to print any rules, they were just going to change your ebook

But they did print new rules. 5e 2024 (now 5.5e) changed the rules and came out in print. This is despite 5e being touted as the evergreen edition from the start.

Changing the rules would make it hard to keep the digital tools up to date so they didn't want to change the rules. Basically, trading the steady drip of book money away for a monthly drip of subscription money and cosmetic purchases for their digital tabletop.

Also, they were afraid of a future ruleset being rejected by people and them deciding to transition away from D&D to something else.

That makes sense, but then they went and changed the rules anyway while pretending it wasn't a new edition in order to maintain the 'evergreen' facade. Clearly the goals are incompatible.

What did 2024 actually change? I keep hearing from people that it changed nothing, just added a lot of non-rule text about being woke.

[WhiteShark]

What did 2024 actually change? I keep hearing from people that it changed nothing, just added a lot of non-rule text about being woke.

Looks like a lot of minor tweaks: https://rpgbot.net/dnd-2024-5e-transiti ... -handbook/

[Lhynn]

What did 2024 actually change? I keep hearing from people that it changed nothing, just added a lot of non-rule text about being woke.

Looks like a lot of minor tweaks: https://rpgbot.net/dnd-2024-5e-transiti ... -handbook/

They made almost everything worse. So far the one thing Ive heard good things about is weapon mastery.

[J1M]

4e was designed in part to be what people who aren't programmers thought would be easy to implement for a computer.

6e predictions:

1. After the failure of Sigil and the pain they are feeling updating D&D Beyond for the 5.24 rules 6e will be designed to actually be something they can implement on a digital tabletop. Because this time around they will only publish rules they have already implemented digitally.
2. Practically, this means fewer rules about how different types of enchantments stack, less "specific overrules general" exception-based design, and fewer calculations that can only be resolved at the time of execution.
3. I would also wager that they will dip into the indie scene to find some 'downtime' gameplay to give non-GMs a reason to log into the digital tools between sessions. For example, crafting, recovering from ailments, and what is essentially a simple worker-placement mini-game.
4. Monsters and other conflict resolution rules will be simple enough to be performed by a non-human GM.

[WhiteShark]

4e was designed in part to be what people who aren't programmers thought would be easy to implement for a computer.

6e predictions:

• After the failure of Sigil and the pain they are feeling updating D&D Beyond for the 5.24 rules 6e will be designed to actually be something they can implement on a digital tabletop. Because this time around they will only publish rules they have already implemented digitally.
• Practically, this means fewer rules about how different types of enchantments stack, less "specific overrules general" exception-based design, and fewer calculations that can only be resolved at the time of execution.
• I would also wager that they will dip into the indie scene to find some 'downtime' gameplay to give non-GMs a reason to log into the digital tools between sessions. For example, crafting, recovering from ailments, and what is essentially a simple worker-placement mini-game.

I'm surprised you don't predict the removal of reactions and AoOs. Based on what you talked about when trying to digitally implement 4e, that seems the most important thing to axe.

[J1M]

4e was designed in part to be what people who aren't programmers thought would be easy to implement for a computer.

6e predictions:

• After the failure of Sigil and the pain they are feeling updating D&D Beyond for the 5.24 rules 6e will be designed to actually be something they can implement on a digital tabletop. Because this time around they will only publish rules they have already implemented digitally.
• Practically, this means fewer rules about how different types of enchantments stack, less "specific overrules general" exception-based design, and fewer calculations that can only be resolved at the time of execution.
• I would also wager that they will dip into the indie scene to find some 'downtime' gameplay to give non-GMs a reason to log into the digital tools between sessions. For example, crafting, recovering from ailments, and what is essentially a simple worker-placement mini-game.

I'm surprised you don't predict the removal of reactions and AoOs. Based on what you talked about when trying to digitally implement 4e, that seems the most important thing to axe.

The trend in the indie space right now is for these to be automatic and deal flat damage to remove the need to slow down the game for dice rolls. I could see them adopting that because it is popular, but they could also be incentivized to keep it because it would be automated by the tooling and one more thing that makes people want to use the VTT.

Also, I really like those things (just not when they interrupt flow with choices) so perhaps a bit of a blind spot for me.

[Rand]

there's at least a chance that D&D will have an edition that works better for video games with 6e.

Ewww, why?
That's like saying "maybe books will become more like series TV".

[J1M]

there's at least a chance that D&D will have an edition that works better for video games with 6e.

Ewww, why?
That's like saying "maybe books will become more like series TV".

We will always have the editions of D&D we already have. A new edition with a new philosophy doesn't erase that. Also, I like CRPGs more than TTRPGs.

Is your position really that you want more 5e CRPGs?

[Rand]

Is your position really that you want more 5e CRPGs?

My position is that tabletop rules and computer rules serve different needs and trying to serve two masters is bound to make bad rules.

[WaterMage]

I complained about the last interesting D&D setting being Eberron, but I was wrong. I mean, imagine MODERN wotc creating a setting. How ****** would be...

My position is that tabletop rules and computer rules serve differnt needs and trying to serve two masters is bound to make bad rules.

My position is that modern game devs are atrocious bad at designing ruleset, hence if Rogue Trader used a very PF1e esque ruleset, would be much, much better. The game is trash due its ruleset.

[J1M]

Is your position really that you want more 5e CRPGs?

My position is that tabletop rules and computer rules serve differnt needs and trying to serve two masters is bound to make bad rules.

Would you accept that a virtual tabletop serves different needs as well, and that using a ruleset created for a physical tabletop with a VTT also is in the position of trying to serve two masters with the same set of rules? And since we already have several rulesets that focus on physical tabletop, it would be best to have a ruleset that is designed for a VTT given how common it is for people to use a VTT these days?

[Rand]

Would you accept that a virtual tabletop serves different needs as well, and that using a ruleset created for a physical tabletop with a VTT also is in the position of trying to serve two masters with the same set of rules? And since we already have several rulesets that focus on physical tabletop, it would be best to have a ruleset that is designed for a VTT given how common it is for people to use a VTT these days?

Since I don't and won't use a VTT, the answer is an unqualified: "No, I won't accept that".
I don't want my tabletop or computer games to be constrained by something I'll never use.

I want computer games to use systems that leverage computer power to do complex calculations for greater realism and such that is too time-consuming and complex for humans to do.
I want table top games to use systems that encourage the type of games I like, which are not 5th edition D&D.
And I want Critical Role and VTTs to cease to exist.

Of course, you may feel differently and that's fine.
But you asked me what I wanted and would accept.

[Rand]

My position is that modern game devs are atrocious(ly) bad at designing ruleset(s)

I agree.
But a lot of the old ones were also terrible. Except their games died out or have been largely forgotten.
Some live on, and their systems are still an overcomplicated, yet oversimplified mess.

[Stack of Turtles]

Is your position really that you want more 5e CRPGs?

My position is that tabletop rules and computer rules serve differnt needs and trying to serve two masters is bound to make bad rules.

Would you accept that a virtual tabletop serves different needs as well, and that using a ruleset created for a physical tabletop with a VTT also is in the position of trying to serve two masters with the same set of rules? And since we already have several rulesets that focus on physical tabletop, it would be best to have a ruleset that is designed for a VTT given how common it is for people to use a VTT these days?

I think in principle, this isn't true as long as virtual tabletops are trying their best to mimic the experience of a physical tabletop, but easier. Possibly VTTs could evolve into their own separate medium, but right now they are fundamentally inseparable from physical tabletop.

[WaterMage]

I want computer games to use systems that leverage computer power to do complex calculations for greater realism and such that is too time-consuming and complex for humans to do.

I also want it. But lets be real.

We are not getting very detailed complex and mechanics rich RPGs. We are getting atrocious system, same QTE "rotation" based combat, WH40k Rogue Trader tier **** systems, sponge enemies, stat stickie itemization, etc. IF we had CRPGs with more math complexity than "fatal", would be great. But we don't.

Except their games died out or have been largely forgotten.
Some live on, and their systems are still an overcomplicated, yet oversimplified mess.

Disagreed. Pick the "old" games heavily criticized. Like Gothic 3, they are a masterpiece compared to Forspoken, Concord, Concord 2(Highguard), Concord 3(Marathon), 1348 ex voto, ArcaniA, Diablo immortal, etc. Hell, if we pick the most generic diablo clone from 00s, it is a masterpiece compared to Diablo 3/4 and Immortal.

[Rand]

We are not getting very detailed complex and mechanics rich RPGs. We are getting atrocious system, same QTE "rotation" based combat, WH40k Rogue Trader tier **** systems, sponge enemies, stat stickie itemization, etc.

Yeah


But I was being asked what I wanted. I already know what I'm getting is kinda ****; I've played some of The Outer Worlds...