Obviously, in this thread, my opinion is in the minority. However, the majority in this thread, or in this forum for that matter do not necessarily represent the majority of D&D players.
I'd be interested in finding out if WoTC conducted a statistically valid survey of the D&D community before deciding to make the changes. If they did, and majority responded that they liked the changes, then so be it.
So 5e does do a considerable amount of surveying regularly, and they talk a big game about player input. That said, modern business intelligence or market research isn't simply statical analysis of directed questions (see other posts from folks who've articulated better than I the notion that in game design of all forms the industry needs to think beyond immediate player community impressions to determine ways to improve games or design features for new games). WotC does not exist in some demi-plane isolated from the TTRPG hobby. They pay attention to trends seen in social media, the trades (Ennies for example), actual play performances, conventions, outreach from retailers etc. It's not hard to figure out how people play D&D and hypothesize ways to grow the game.
To your response I think there's a further question what do you mean "necessary?" Stepping away from the "cultural impact" hypothesis speculation Bell of Lost Souls misrepresented as a factual interpretation of the factors guiding present 5e and future D&D development, let's think in terms of a property trying to maximize sale of game materials. If the goal of the changes was to free up creative space so the multiverse-leaning iteration of D&D can be played with little "baggage" from prior let's call it "insistent lore", I'd say the language change in Drow as well as the role playing guidance were necessary, but also relatively pedestrian changes. The system D&D is try to create a system where folks can play the broadest range possible. Let's put CoS Death House on one side of the spectrum and Wild Beyond the Witchlight on pacifist mode on the other. Given past statements of WotC as wanting to push "what people can do with D&D" (same press/marketing event where they announced the three classic campaigns revisit, I think it was Celelbration 2020?) into modes and styles of play rarely or to this date never seen in D&D, I see them wanting to enable players to want to push past those "limits" to the game I laid down in a spectrum between Death House and Witchlight.
And we're seeing this it in current and future products. There are a lot of debates here and elsewhere in the D&D community about whether a table can really "do horror" with D&D. I think there's still a lot on that front up for debate, but Van Richten's Guide does make a very strong effort at providing tools to DMs to push horror in D&D past the usual gothic tropes into full on gross out to more subtle psychological games, and done so in way where care is central and the players fears aren't exploited harmfully. On the WBtW side of things, you have other debates on this forum and elsewhere in the community about whether Critical Role is "really D&D" or whether the tools D&D at hand enable a table to have an authentic CR like experience. I think we can all say CR is D&D but also realistically a CR experience requires a lot of narrative and storytelling and "doing the voice" side of role playing techniques that aren't in the "basic box" of D&D, at least not in a way that facilitates new players and DMs (honestly the DMG guide to building a campaign world is quite good, but is so often ignored by folks who want to make an Exandria equivalent out of the box). To address this, we have a Critical Role adventure coming our way and I'd be very surprised if there aren't a lot of Mercer sidebars coaching DMs how to use actual "Mercer effects" (so to speak) in their games.
So taking that longer and wider view of what I see as going on with D&D, this errata sheet wasn't shocking at all, I was actually surprised it took them over a year after the ability mods errata to add this lair to Volo's and the PHB description, but that may be more about how WotC paces errata writing than any lack of knowledge or ability to do targetted changes to streamline and align the game with where they see the game going. And when I see "where they see the game going" that does not imply a map where some games are being left behind. Nothing in the errata dictates a change from the way anyone plays the game.
Thank you for this direct and thorough answer to my question!
I assume you're responding to my post? I was simply calling the changes what someone else referred to them as (See post #394)
But that's not the point of my post. What I would like to know, is if WoTC conducted a statistically valid survey of the changes.
To respond to your comment. I believe in nurture over nature. Yes, each person is cable of making their own decisions. However, I think it's unrealistic not to overlook cultural influence, peer pressure, and influence of parents and authority figures. If a child sees his parents and peers looting and pillaging, there is strong possibility (no, not a guarantee) that the child will favor looting and pillaging as an adult.
Do you not think that undermines your position that the changes are not necessary? The changes that removed racial alignment specifically?
Do the changes make sense, yes. Are they necessary, no. As many people have said in this and other threads, the DM can mold their world any way they choose.
Why? There are real world testimonies from players (linked either here or one of the other threads on this topic) who found these changes very necessary and of personal relevance. Do you not think that these voices are material?
No, I don't deny their feelings, and I'm sure they are being genuine.
But making changes based on a statistical minority of players can be risky.
Do the changes make sense, yes. Are they necessary, no. As many people have said in this and other threads, the DM can mold their world any way they choose.
So, in your opinion the changes do make sense, in your opinion nurture wins out over nature, and I have mentioned that there are actual existing players who felt personally impacted by the implications of the what existed before, yet you maintain your position that the changes are not necessary? How do you define ‘necessary’ then? Because your footing does not seem very solid from what I am seeing.
To respond to your comment. I believe in nurture over nature. Yes, each person is cable of making their own decisions. However, I think it's unrealistic not to overlook cultural influence, peer pressure, and influence of parents and authority figures. If a child sees his parents and peers looting and pillaging, there is strong possibility (no, not a guarantee) that the child will favor looting and pillaging as an adult.
This isn't the place for an extended debate on identity formation and individual agency within a social or cultural system; but your realism assertion is specious in reality, moreso in fantasy. It's actually essentialist logic. Now you're free to have essentially "bad" people in your game. All the recent errata does for the Drow and the monsters in Volo's is saying that sure that possibility is there, but it isn't the only way to play it. Like the Mind Flayer errata. In their clarification, they say that Mind Flayers still consume sentient brains and so will likely remain a stock baddie in many games, but the Volo's guidance gives a narrow 'stock' personality for Mind Flayers - which belies its own "deep lore" if you go back to Cordell's Illthiad and Mind Flayer trilogy for 2e, which is an awesome arc, and actually follows some AD&D thoughts on them from Dragon, so so much for stable lore without even getting into Spelljammer. But speaking of Spelljammer, on the Drow lore, the subjugation of an entire elven race under Lloth or even Lloth's subjugation of a portion of that race is one way Drow can be used in your game with a history to mine for DMs who like idea mining from past iterations of adventure ... but it's not the only way.
My Drow are a lot more diasporic and cosmic. What's left of them are tied much more to stars and the darkness (and vibrantly volatile phlogiston) of space. They have some facility in the Underdark, because the deeper you dig, well on a practical level there's the resources Drow and other star farers use to touch the stars, but also in a cosmic functional way, the deeper you dig into the world, the more likely you are to find the same cosmic void at the core of your world as the one that envelopes it (because they're one and the same), so Drow simply have the environmental facility with negotiating life on void's edges (which makes them likely trader partners and pact makers with Abyssal and Far Realm type entities, but also very capable agents for Celestial type forces trying to hold back those voids). So in my game, sure the Queen of the Demonweb pits uses Drow, because she'd be stupid not to, but so don't Dragons of all persuasions, some Fey, etc. The edgelord trappings of Drizzt and Jarlaxle are perfectly fine coaching for Drow in my game, because those characterizations at the end of the day don't really need the Lloth narrative at all (those personalities could emerged through a number of stories). It's easy to put lots of colonial or liminal narratives on Drow, and my game leans toward the latter. And even then I'm always happy to see someone else using Drow differently.
Why? There are real world testimonies from players (linked either here or one of the other threads on this topic) who found these changes very necessary and of personal relevance. Do you not think that these voices are material?
No, I don't deny their feelings, and I'm sure they are being genuine.
But making changes based on a statistical minority of players can be risky.
Why are you assuming that those impacted are a statistical minority? How are these changes risky, in your estimation?
Do the changes make sense, yes. Are they necessary, no. As many people have said in this and other threads, the DM can mold their world any way they choose.
How do you define ‘necessary’ then? Because your footing does not seem very solid from what I am seeing.
In this context, I define necessary changes as those that will materially impact sales. If WoTC didn't make the changes, would their sales have materially suffered? Without having the pre and post financial and operational data to assess and measure the impact, those of us external to the company will never know for sure.
Why? There are real world testimonies from players (linked either here or one of the other threads on this topic) who found these changes very necessary and of personal relevance. Do you not think that these voices are material?
No, I don't deny their feelings, and I'm sure they are being genuine.
But making changes based on a statistical minority of players can be risky.
So going back to my larger point that the game is being designed to enable a multiplicities of play styles. Recent errata do not impede or discourage the play style you're accustomed to playing. But what's being removed are "lore" elements that do discourage players and DMs from playing the way they want because the way some lore and even suggestions are presented to date have been too close or associated with "the rules." So like I said, I"m sure there will be more Death Houses in the futures (Hell, maybe even a Dark Sun though that would be require a masterpiece of critical guidance on how to rehabilitate some of the contemporary problematic tropes of Howard and Burroughs ... but IRL fiction writers have been doing that for a while now so who knows) but there will be a lot of other ways supported as well.
EDIT: seeing your comment about sales which is one form of market growth. I think the more D&D is able to accomodate, the more consistent brand loyalty they'll have. D&D has said they wanted to push "what you can do with D&D" and I think they're doing that with what I see as minor renovations (and really those are reorientations, what used to be "key" aka "essential" lore now is more realistically acknowledged as food for thought). There's growing the market and maintaining the market, and I think D&D is aware of itself as a "gateway" TTRPG, and there's a lot of stuff stuff out there to pull away chunks of "gaming whale" purchases. Yet they are also aware of the problems of product bloat ... the present release style seems to be a more thoughtful approach of "what do players need?" as opposed to "if we just churn out splatbooks they will come" which seemed to be the swansong of 3.5 (as it was with 2e). Keep growing the game, don't go too deep into stuff DMs and Players will likely rewrite anyway (my next hope for 5e errata is calling the Purple Dragon Knight just a Knight ... I mean would the hard core Forgotten Realms players be really upset that their Cormyrean subclass gets a little more generic adaptation?). I just don't see why Inspiring Surge and Bulwark are somehow "essentially" Cormyrian ... probably most head scratching subclass in terms of presentation in the game. I mean even in FR, you don't think the Flaming Fist or even the Zhentarim have Fighters that can be badass leaders / forces to reckon with along these lines?
Why? There are real world testimonies from players (linked either here or one of the other threads on this topic) who found these changes very necessary and of personal relevance. Do you not think that these voices are material?
No, I don't deny their feelings, and I'm sure they are being genuine.
But making changes based on a statistical minority of players can be risky.
Why are you assuming that those impacted are a statistical minority? How are these changes risky, in your estimation?
I don't know if they are or not. That's why I asked if WoTC conducted a statistically valid survey on this change.
I said making changes based on a statistical minority of customers can be risky. I didn't say it definitely was in this case. As I said in my other reply, without the internal financial and operational data, there is no way for us to know for sure.
If your only measure for what is necessary is a significant impact on sales, is it not premature to call these changes unnecessary, as you do not have the data to support your statement?
I said making changes based on a statistical minority of customers can be risky. I didn't say it definitely was in this case. As I said in my other reply, without the internal financial and operational data, there is no way for us to know for sure.
Even with their data, they can't know for sure --- every business is essentially a gamble. And they don't really owe customers their marketing data.
Do the changes make sense, yes. Are they necessary, no. As many people have said in this and other threads, the DM can mold their world any way they choose.
How do you define ‘necessary’ then? Because your footing does not seem very solid from what I am seeing.
In this context, I define necessary changes as those that will materially impact sales. If WoTC didn't make the changes, would their sales have materially suffered? Without having the pre and post financial and operational data to assess and measure the impact, those of us external to the company will never know for sure.
Then why does it matter? You're trying to insinuate that the changes aren't positive/helpful as well as being unnecessary. if we'll never know their impact, then why use them to try and flog other people into silence? It's a nonissue, a nothingburger, and unworthy of discussion.
Do the changes make sense, yes. Are they necessary, no. As many people have said in this and other threads, the DM can mold their world any way they choose.
How do you define ‘necessary’ then? Because your footing does not seem very solid from what I am seeing.
In this context, I define necessary changes as those that will materially impact sales. If WoTC didn't make the changes, would their sales have materially suffered? Without having the pre and post financial and operational data to assess and measure the impact, those of us external to the company will never know for sure.
Then why does it matter? You're trying to insinuate that the changes aren't positive/helpful as well as being unnecessary. if we'll never know their impact, then why use them to try and flog other people into silence? It's a nonissue, a nothingburger, and unworthy of discussion.
Any discussion about a fantasy game is by definition unnecessary, but people who like the game have differing opinion, and a desire to express them. That's what forums like this are for.
I don't believe I was flogging anyone into silence. I think that's an inaccurate representation of my post and intent.
I said making changes based on a statistical minority of customers can be risky. I didn't say it definitely was in this case. As I said in my other reply, without the internal financial and operational data, there is no way for us to know for sure.
Even with their data, they can't know for sure --- every business is essentially a gamble. And they don't really owe customers their marketing data.
But they seem to be doing OK.
I never said that they owe customers that data.
You're right, there are never any guarantees, and companies are risk-adverse, but that's why they spend a lot of time and effort to increase the likelihood of a new initiative being sucessful.
So, I suppose I'm just not sure why you're bothering to play 5E at all if you basically just want to play older editions? It seems like a case where you are carping about something that doesn't even matter to you for the sole purpose of roiling up controversy. You can still play ADnD, or 3.5, or whatever. For some of us, seeing the changes that have come around over the course of playing this game since around 1992 is welcome. The game has, in many ways, improved. Particularly when it comes to the basic lore and allowance for creativity baked into the rules. There are certainly some things from 3.5 that I preferred, but overall this is a much healthier, welcoming, and accepted game than it used to be.
Well, for one thing except for the one who wanted to do 2e, the other players in the group are all new and are of 5e; they asked for 5e. For another, 5e gives me access to DDB's web tools, which I am finding extremely helpful and useful to have; so you know, pro's and cons. I'm so much better off with this tool than I used to be habing to have all my books scattered across the floor taking notes in a binder. It's lovely.
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Thank you for your time and please have a very pleasant day.
Am I understanding that you do not appreciate the lore changes being more generalizable to all D&D games in 5e,
a system that you apparently did not use even when the lore was focused on FR? If this is the case,
I am at a loss for why you have been such a booming voice in this thread given that you were not invested in 5e to begin with.
It's more that I don't appreciate deletions as a means of changing lore versus, say publishing a canon story to explain why from a certain point of 'the present' things are different from how they used to be. It's also that I don't necessarily appreciate the motivations behind changing the lore moreso than that I don't appreciate some of the changes in and of themselves.
I don't count it as not using the system just because I tweak the mechanics to include bits I think were left behind. As far as I'm concerned, I'm tweaking to become more lore friendly.
Well, I just respond to posts that are responded to is all; it's nothing in particular. I like these kind of discussions. I wasn't invested cause I've not been a part of it in while. Now that I'm into it again, I'm re-invested. We'll see how it goes. We're at session 3 tomorrow. Also, it's an interesting time; 2 years to the 50th, and stuff already in the works with a promise of back compatability just as i've been brought back into the game - bit of an exciting time.
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Thank you for your time and please have a very pleasant day.
Am I understanding that you do not appreciate the lore changes being more generalizable to all D&D games in 5e,
a system that you apparently did not use even when the lore was focused on FR? If this is the case,
I am at a loss for why you have been such a booming voice in this thread given that you were not invested in 5e to begin with.
It's more that I don't appreciate deletions as a means of changing lore versus, say publishing a canon story to explain why from a certain point of 'the present' things are different from how they used to be. It's also that I don't necessarily appreciate the motivations behind changing the lore moreso than that I don't appreciate some of the changes in and of themselves.
I don't count it as not using the system just because I tweak the mechanics to include bits I think were left behind. As far as I'm concerned, I'm tweaking to become more lore friendly.
Well, I just respond to posts that are responded to is all; it's nothing in particular. I like these kind of discussions. I wasn't invested cause I've not been a part of it in while. Now that I'm into it again, I'm re-invested. We'll see how it goes. We're at session 3 tomorrow. Also, it's an interesting time; 2 years to the 50th, and stuff already in the works with a promise of back compatability just as i've been brought back into the game - bit of an exciting time.
Back compatibility to 5e. As for lore "deletions," the philosophy behind what's going on re canon or what you call lore, other party's conspiracy theories and valuations aside, is laid out here. The fidelity you seek to see maintained, from a business and game practice standpoint is regarded as a "barrier to entry" sort of like your professed forecasted irritation at potential players not know lore like you do. The design studio's perspective of what they want and seeing the playerbase wanted is almost literally the opposite valence.
Anyone can curate their game any way they want, but lore is proving to be less a fundamental than what the design studio is putting out as fundamentals, so the game goes forward without a consistent canon lore.
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Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
Maybe we should back up a step and ask whether these are changes to begin with.
From the MM:
Alignment
A monster’s alignment provides a clue to its disposition and how it behaves in a roleplaying or combat situation. For example, a chaotic evil monster might be difficult to reason with and might attack characters on sight, whereas a neutral monster might be willing to negotiate. See the Player’s Handbook for descriptions of the different alignments.
The alignment specified in a monster’s stat block is the default. Feel free to depart from it and change a monster’s alignment to suit the needs of your campaign. If you want a good-aligned green dragon or an evil storm giant, there’s nothing stopping you.
Some creatures can have any alignment. In other words, you choose the monster’s alignment. Some monster’s alignment entry indicates a tendency or aversion toward law, chaos, good, or evil. For example, a berserker can be any chaotic alignment (chaotic good, chaotic neutral, or chaotic evil), as befits its wild nature.
Many creatures of low intelligence have no comprehension of law or chaos, good or evil. They don’t make moral or ethical choices, but rather act on instinct. These creatures are unaligned, which means they don’t have an alignment.
I mean, other than a change in editing it's really more of a confirmation of what the rules say anyway.
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Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
Back compatibility to 5e. As for lore "deletions," the philosophy behind what's going on re canon or what you call lore, other party's conspiracy theories and valuations aside, is laid out here. The fidelity you seek to see maintained, from a business and game practice standpoint is regarded as a "barrier to entry" sort of like your professed forecasted irritation at potential players not know lore like you do. The design studio's perspective of what they want and seeing the playerbase wanted is almost literally the opposite valence.
Anyone can curate their game any way they want, but lore is proving to be less a fundamental than what the design studio is putting out as fundamentals, so the game goes forward without a consistent canon lore.
The linked article is quite interesting, actually. It backs up quite further than I'd figured Wizards was going to on matters of canon and echoes the sentiment myself and others have expressed before - "if it isn't in a 5e book, it isn't canon."
Note how Crawford states the company goes out of its way to reduce canon and the impact of canon in order to lessen the burden on DMs, and incidentally on players. Note how Crawford also goes out of his way to state the company's policy on older/alternative D&D sources and state that everything has its own canon, and not all of it needs to be intercompatible. Dark Alliance 3 can have different canon than Strixhaven can have different canon than 4e can have different canon than Ravenloft, and Wizards won't ever tell you which of those is 'right' or tell you that your own version or interpretation is wrong. Part of that is obviously commercial - the customer is always right in matters of taste and such - but it's also the only real way a shared creative universe works without strenuous and expensive Canon Police efforts. "Your version is true for you. My version is true for me. Her version is true for her. His version is true for him. They're all true, even though they contradict each other, because each one is its own thing."
People can cling to the lore of past editions, and that lore is true. For them. It does not have to be true for me, or you, or Lady Gaga, or Frank the Pug. It only has to be true for them. The lore of Tursk is true for my table, it's as canon as Eilistraee is - for us. It doesn't have to be true for anyone else, which is good because I've been playing in it for a couple of years now and I still have only the vaguest clue what's going on - and I'm the goddamn historian. Hueh. I've been catching up on some old Keith Baker blog articles recently, and he's on record as stating that what's canon for him at his personal table, in his personal Eberron campaigns, isn't the same as what's canon in any of the extant Eberron books, 3.5e or 5e, and furthermore he'll flex canon as he needs to in order to make an interesting story for his table. The entire world of Eberron has deliberate, designed-in blanks and unanswered questions, places where "Canon" deliberately does not and never will exist, so that individual DMs can have room to scribble in the blanks and come up with their own cool stories.
"Lore" is what one makes of it and what applies in one's own world. it doesn't need to be universal, and in fact it's actively detrimental if it is. Every table deserves its own lore (with blackjack, and hookers!), and Wizards isn't going to step on that.
Good. We'll chalk that up as ONE good decision that godsforsaken company has ever made.
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Thank you for this direct and thorough answer to my question!
Do the changes make sense, yes. Are they necessary, no. As many people have said in this and other threads, the DM can mold their world any way they choose.
No, I don't deny their feelings, and I'm sure they are being genuine.
But making changes based on a statistical minority of players can be risky.
So, in your opinion the changes do make sense, in your opinion nurture wins out over nature, and I have mentioned that there are actual existing players who felt personally impacted by the implications of the what existed before, yet you maintain your position that the changes are not necessary? How do you define ‘necessary’ then? Because your footing does not seem very solid from what I am seeing.
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This isn't the place for an extended debate on identity formation and individual agency within a social or cultural system; but your realism assertion is specious in reality, moreso in fantasy. It's actually essentialist logic. Now you're free to have essentially "bad" people in your game. All the recent errata does for the Drow and the monsters in Volo's is saying that sure that possibility is there, but it isn't the only way to play it. Like the Mind Flayer errata. In their clarification, they say that Mind Flayers still consume sentient brains and so will likely remain a stock baddie in many games, but the Volo's guidance gives a narrow 'stock' personality for Mind Flayers - which belies its own "deep lore" if you go back to Cordell's Illthiad and Mind Flayer trilogy for 2e, which is an awesome arc, and actually follows some AD&D thoughts on them from Dragon, so so much for stable lore without even getting into Spelljammer. But speaking of Spelljammer, on the Drow lore, the subjugation of an entire elven race under Lloth or even Lloth's subjugation of a portion of that race is one way Drow can be used in your game with a history to mine for DMs who like idea mining from past iterations of adventure ... but it's not the only way.
My Drow are a lot more diasporic and cosmic. What's left of them are tied much more to stars and the darkness (and vibrantly volatile phlogiston) of space. They have some facility in the Underdark, because the deeper you dig, well on a practical level there's the resources Drow and other star farers use to touch the stars, but also in a cosmic functional way, the deeper you dig into the world, the more likely you are to find the same cosmic void at the core of your world as the one that envelopes it (because they're one and the same), so Drow simply have the environmental facility with negotiating life on void's edges (which makes them likely trader partners and pact makers with Abyssal and Far Realm type entities, but also very capable agents for Celestial type forces trying to hold back those voids). So in my game, sure the Queen of the Demonweb pits uses Drow, because she'd be stupid not to, but so don't Dragons of all persuasions, some Fey, etc. The edgelord trappings of Drizzt and Jarlaxle are perfectly fine coaching for Drow in my game, because those characterizations at the end of the day don't really need the Lloth narrative at all (those personalities could emerged through a number of stories). It's easy to put lots of colonial or liminal narratives on Drow, and my game leans toward the latter. And even then I'm always happy to see someone else using Drow differently.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
Why are you assuming that those impacted are a statistical minority? How are these changes risky, in your estimation?
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In this context, I define necessary changes as those that will materially impact sales. If WoTC didn't make the changes, would their sales have materially suffered? Without having the pre and post financial and operational data to assess and measure the impact, those of us external to the company will never know for sure.
So going back to my larger point that the game is being designed to enable a multiplicities of play styles. Recent errata do not impede or discourage the play style you're accustomed to playing. But what's being removed are "lore" elements that do discourage players and DMs from playing the way they want because the way some lore and even suggestions are presented to date have been too close or associated with "the rules." So like I said, I"m sure there will be more Death Houses in the futures (Hell, maybe even a Dark Sun though that would be require a masterpiece of critical guidance on how to rehabilitate some of the contemporary problematic tropes of Howard and Burroughs ... but IRL fiction writers have been doing that for a while now so who knows) but there will be a lot of other ways supported as well.
EDIT: seeing your comment about sales which is one form of market growth. I think the more D&D is able to accomodate, the more consistent brand loyalty they'll have. D&D has said they wanted to push "what you can do with D&D" and I think they're doing that with what I see as minor renovations (and really those are reorientations, what used to be "key" aka "essential" lore now is more realistically acknowledged as food for thought). There's growing the market and maintaining the market, and I think D&D is aware of itself as a "gateway" TTRPG, and there's a lot of stuff stuff out there to pull away chunks of "gaming whale" purchases. Yet they are also aware of the problems of product bloat ... the present release style seems to be a more thoughtful approach of "what do players need?" as opposed to "if we just churn out splatbooks they will come" which seemed to be the swansong of 3.5 (as it was with 2e). Keep growing the game, don't go too deep into stuff DMs and Players will likely rewrite anyway (my next hope for 5e errata is calling the Purple Dragon Knight just a Knight ... I mean would the hard core Forgotten Realms players be really upset that their Cormyrean subclass gets a little more generic adaptation?). I just don't see why Inspiring Surge and Bulwark are somehow "essentially" Cormyrian ... probably most head scratching subclass in terms of presentation in the game. I mean even in FR, you don't think the Flaming Fist or even the Zhentarim have Fighters that can be badass leaders / forces to reckon with along these lines?
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
I don't know if they are or not. That's why I asked if WoTC conducted a statistically valid survey on this change.
I said making changes based on a statistical minority of customers can be risky. I didn't say it definitely was in this case. As I said in my other reply, without the internal financial and operational data, there is no way for us to know for sure.
Grunk999,
If your only measure for what is necessary is a significant impact on sales, is it not premature to call these changes unnecessary, as you do not have the data to support your statement?
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Even with their data, they can't know for sure --- every business is essentially a gamble. And they don't really owe customers their marketing data.
But they seem to be doing OK.
Then why does it matter? You're trying to insinuate that the changes aren't positive/helpful as well as being unnecessary. if we'll never know their impact, then why use them to try and flog other people into silence? It's a nonissue, a nothingburger, and unworthy of discussion.
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Any discussion about a fantasy game is by definition unnecessary, but people who like the game have differing opinion, and a desire to express them. That's what forums like this are for.
I don't believe I was flogging anyone into silence. I think that's an inaccurate representation of my post and intent.
I never said that they owe customers that data.
You're right, there are never any guarantees, and companies are risk-adverse, but that's why they spend a lot of time and effort to increase the likelihood of a new initiative being sucessful.
Actually, never mind, the point I was making was pretty inconsequential and didn't forward the conversation any. My apologies. Carry on.
Canto alla vita
alla sua bellezza
ad ogni sua ferita
ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty
To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me
The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
Well, for one thing except for the one who wanted to do 2e, the other players in the group are all new and are of 5e; they asked for 5e. For another, 5e gives me access to DDB's web tools, which I am finding extremely helpful and useful to have; so you know, pro's and cons. I'm so much better off with this tool than I used to be habing to have all my books scattered across the floor taking notes in a binder. It's lovely.
Thank you for your time and please have a very pleasant day.
It's more that I don't appreciate deletions as a means of changing lore versus, say publishing a canon story to explain why from a certain point of 'the present' things are different from how they used to be. It's also that I don't necessarily appreciate the motivations behind changing the lore moreso than that I don't appreciate some of the changes in and of themselves.
I don't count it as not using the system just because I tweak the mechanics to include bits I think were left behind. As far as I'm concerned, I'm tweaking to become more lore friendly.
Well, I just respond to posts that are responded to is all; it's nothing in particular. I like these kind of discussions. I wasn't invested cause I've not been a part of it in while. Now that I'm into it again, I'm re-invested. We'll see how it goes. We're at session 3 tomorrow. Also, it's an interesting time; 2 years to the 50th, and stuff already in the works with a promise of back compatability just as i've been brought back into the game - bit of an exciting time.
Thank you for your time and please have a very pleasant day.
Back compatibility to 5e. As for lore "deletions," the philosophy behind what's going on re canon or what you call lore, other party's conspiracy theories and valuations aside, is laid out here. The fidelity you seek to see maintained, from a business and game practice standpoint is regarded as a "barrier to entry" sort of like your professed forecasted irritation at potential players not know lore like you do. The design studio's perspective of what they want and seeing the playerbase wanted is almost literally the opposite valence.
Anyone can curate their game any way they want, but lore is proving to be less a fundamental than what the design studio is putting out as fundamentals, so the game goes forward without a consistent canon lore.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
Maybe we should back up a step and ask whether these are changes to begin with.
From the MM:
I mean, other than a change in editing it's really more of a confirmation of what the rules say anyway.
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The linked article is quite interesting, actually. It backs up quite further than I'd figured Wizards was going to on matters of canon and echoes the sentiment myself and others have expressed before - "if it isn't in a 5e book, it isn't canon."
Note how Crawford states the company goes out of its way to reduce canon and the impact of canon in order to lessen the burden on DMs, and incidentally on players. Note how Crawford also goes out of his way to state the company's policy on older/alternative D&D sources and state that everything has its own canon, and not all of it needs to be intercompatible. Dark Alliance 3 can have different canon than Strixhaven can have different canon than 4e can have different canon than Ravenloft, and Wizards won't ever tell you which of those is 'right' or tell you that your own version or interpretation is wrong. Part of that is obviously commercial - the customer is always right in matters of taste and such - but it's also the only real way a shared creative universe works without strenuous and expensive Canon Police efforts. "Your version is true for you. My version is true for me. Her version is true for her. His version is true for him. They're all true, even though they contradict each other, because each one is its own thing."
People can cling to the lore of past editions, and that lore is true. For them. It does not have to be true for me, or you, or Lady Gaga, or Frank the Pug. It only has to be true for them. The lore of Tursk is true for my table, it's as canon as Eilistraee is - for us. It doesn't have to be true for anyone else, which is good because I've been playing in it for a couple of years now and I still have only the vaguest clue what's going on - and I'm the goddamn historian. Hueh. I've been catching up on some old Keith Baker blog articles recently, and he's on record as stating that what's canon for him at his personal table, in his personal Eberron campaigns, isn't the same as what's canon in any of the extant Eberron books, 3.5e or 5e, and furthermore he'll flex canon as he needs to in order to make an interesting story for his table. The entire world of Eberron has deliberate, designed-in blanks and unanswered questions, places where "Canon" deliberately does not and never will exist, so that individual DMs can have room to scribble in the blanks and come up with their own cool stories.
"Lore" is what one makes of it and what applies in one's own world. it doesn't need to be universal, and in fact it's actively detrimental if it is. Every table deserves its own lore (with blackjack, and hookers!), and Wizards isn't going to step on that.
Good. We'll chalk that up as ONE good decision that godsforsaken company has ever made.
Please do not contact or message me.