"The principal rules designer for Dungeons & Dragons is hinting that future rules updates will see hit dice used in different ways. Last week, Wizards of the Coast posted a new "Sage Advice" video for Dungeons & Dragons, in which host Todd Kenreck discussed various design elements seen in the recently released "Heroes of Krynn" Unearthed Arcana playtest. Near the end of the video, Crawford and Kenreck discussed the new ways proficiency bonuses have been used in recent rulebooks, starting with the 2020 release Tasha's Cauldron of Everything. Crawford noted that one of the design goals for that book was to find new ways to use existing elements of the game. Near the end of that discussion, Crawford hinted that we'd see other design elements find new uses in the coming months, specifically naming hit dice as an example.
"Referencing how the D&D community has embraced the new uses of proficiency bonuses, Crawford said that players will likely embrace the coming changes even more. 'I think we'll see a similar thing in the months ahead as we start exploring more and more ways to use hit dice and other elements of the game," Crawford said. "We are basically looking at everything on the character sheet and asking if this piece is doing enough. Is there something we're doing in the game that we can actually hand to [those elements]. Then, the whole game gets tighter, easier to teach, easier to learn, more fun to play, easier to balance, etc.' "
Get ready for some serious bullshit. The word "easier" was repeated three times. THREE times. This is an excellent example of what I meant when I wrote last week, "The more a DM can be influenced ... because a DM respects decisions and advice given by a company ..."
The company will go on smashing every part of the game into smaller and smaller broken pieces, making the whole utterly useless. From statements like the above, we can be sure than one day soon, there will be tumbleweeds blowing through the offices of the WOTC, as the world moves on from "official" D&D. Like us, people who started playing D&D in 2015 will learn in 2030 that the game is completely unrecognisable.
I'd guess it directly ties damage to hit die. It's the only thing I could conceive of as "easier" than an already really easy concept.
ReplyDeleteA quick step away from all weapons dealing the same damage, or even god forbid damage by class.
But honestly, honestly, I do not care. Whatever twiddling to the combat has to be done to justify continuing to churn out editions and books, whatever. WHATEVER. I'm just trawling the seabed for the few people with vision enough to create content that improves play and immersion.
If the inevitable 6th edition figures out a way to solve social conflict in RPGs I'll sing their praises forever. Figure out a way to make realm management more than something that occurs in the downtime between dungeons. Put out material that uses REAL WORLD knowledge to inform building a fake one instead of just repeating "whatever is cool for you, bro" ad nauseum.
I'd happily steal anything that ANY edition had to offer if it did something worth stealing.
These links get sent to me and to retain my sanity, I have to comment on them.
ReplyDeleteOf course I could be wrong, but I got a sense from the overall article that we're never going to see a 6th edition. I believe at this point that the company is going to take each piece of the game, rewrite it and release it as a splatbook. And when they've redone every piece of the game this way, they'll go back to the beginning and do it again, until the pumping stops producing water.
I wouldn't expect to ever see anything worth stealing again come out of the WOTC. They're not interested in metrics; they're interested in "cool, bro," because that's what their market research tells them. This approach transformed Magic: The Gathering from a game into a trading card ... they're doing their damndest do to this to D&D also.
Their idea of resource management is all metagame bullshit. No need to track torches, rations, encumbrance, or anything else that interacts with or is part of the shared in-game fiction. Gotta track a bunch of widgets on the character sheet that mean nothing at all.
ReplyDeleteBoring design concepts by people who know how to design a collectible trading card game really well but have no idea how to role play.
They screwed over resource management many many times when it came to mundane material goods.
ReplyDeleteWe're playing an official published campaign in the far frozen north, where supplies are scarce....
Unless you have a druid with create bonfire (unlimited uses), goodberry (10 person days of food per level), and mending. And for travelling all players get a free set of cold weather clothes!
Admittedly I specifically chose my character this way because we were using the official encumbrance rules that don't allow some characters to travel in their default provided gear setup, but my optimized spite character is just an example of this.
As far as new rules using hit dice... *shrug*
There are a lot of rules we don't use, and honestly this would just be more of them.
They really screwed up resting as well, with the best example being their published adventures don't align with the 'standard adventuring day' at all in any campaign I have tried so far because they are just ridiculous (find an hour in the middle of a dungeon to take a breather twice in one day). So now they are looking to find new ways to use those hit dice you would normally spend during a short rest.... because they fucked up. The amount of times we've taken a short rest in the three published adventures I've played in could probably be counted on both hands.
ANYHOW, they will continue their churn. I still think there will be another edition. Because despite the fact they can just churn this one. Inevitably things will fade a bit, and I think they'll get a new project manager or something that will come in and need to leave their mark. What better way to do that than to churn out a new edition. "Here's the new edition solving all the core problems and creating new ones. Drop your bucks here and we can churn out new versions of everything from the last 5.5 editions."
Oddbit, that's an excellent argument I hadn't considered. I can see some corporate stooge pulling a D&D version out of his arse to gild his golden bathroom. Watching the video interview with Jeremy Crawford, there's several points where he drifts straight into business-blather mode, painting "visionary" images of what he and his team are going to do with a big wide-brush made of rainbows, while saying precisely nothing.
ReplyDeleteI'm guessing many of us who've worked in the high-end trendy world of Churn-Megacorp Inc. have sat through hundreds of hours of this sort of speak, which calls for some awfully special linguist skills to spread out hour after hour on the company's south forty ... but it never, ever goes anywhere or means anything. Hits a sour note to hear Dungeons and Dragons jibber-jabbered this way, but where's there's money, the gifted turd polisher will emerge.
Oddbit, I think I'm playing in that same "campaign." I was skeptical about it at first but consider it my outreach to those less fortunate than I who are still stuck playing the Hater's Game.
ReplyDeleteMan, it's brutally bad. This "game" cannot be saved. It's substantially worse than when I escaped 8 years ago. A sinking ship.
Just a quick comment on the comments here: I think “resource management” has become something of a false idol in some (old school D&D) circles.
ReplyDeleteRegarding the actual messaging of the corp: I really can’t find any reason to care. It’s empty hype, and has been for years. I’ve gotten newfound faith in the old, such that I’m. I longer distracted by this nonsense.
Thank goodness. Finally..