So I stumbled on that interview the last few days by chance and some really key things leapt out at me.
When asked about Streaming and if it influences game design “The short answer is yes, it does influence us the way every type of D&D play influences us,”
“One of the things that has been on our minds for several years now, as a result of the popularity of streamed games combined actually with the tidal wave of new people coming to D&D, is the need to have bite-size adventure content,”
“We know streamed games, with the exception of maybe Critical Role, tend to be shorter than a lot of [traditional] tabletop games. You know, in the old days and even today, a lot of people’s tabletop games [sessions] might range between three and four hours, although we’re seeing the average length go down—most streamed games are often sometimes as short as two hours, or even 90 minutes.”
“We know that people with busy lives often want D&D in their life, but don’t have time maybe to have ... I remember as a kid, every week my friends and I have like our four plus hour session. A lot of people don’t have that much time to commit, but they still want that taste of D&D with their friends and family each week or several times a month,” Crawford concluded. “And so the more bite-sized we can make things, the easier we can make it"
Now much of this references the recent Adventure content that has been released, so the idea that Rime of the Frost Maiden and Wild beyond the Witchlight are broken into smaller chunks to make it easier to create small isolated sessions.
But I am wondering if this is also now going to feed into the rules in general. Will we see a far more streamlined game, or at least the option to have it? With rule options for a far simpler version of DnD? Or even a modular set of rules that can be picked and chosen from to determine how you want to play the game?
The trend follows trends in other aspects of entertainment in society, so more and more boardgames now are designed to be over in 30-45 minutes, TV shows that would have been 22 episodes a season just 8-9 years ago are now being condensed down to 6-10, everything is becoming about Binging and Fast Consumption.
So how do we think this shift will impact DnD and the forthcoming changes? is there anything in MMM that we think can point to more and more streamlining and simplification to make the game easier and easier to pick up, play for an hour and then put away again?
I'm not a fan of the shorter seasons in series etc, but I'm supportive of it in D&D. We have children who can't get involved in D&D (yet), so we have to wait until they're settled in bed. Realistically, we can't start until 9pm or even later. 3-4 hours sessions just aren't feasible, but any shorter and we have to start chopping up quests into multiple sessions. we can do 1.5hr sessions, but that is to the detriment to the quests.
Personally, I'm not sure how they could do it. Combat length is a problem, but if you reduce the complexity, you'll take away what makes the whole engine attractive in the first place - it's what I prefer to Star Trek Adventures' 2d20 system, for example. They've changed the spellcasting system for monsters...but I'm not convinced that it helps much. Maybe I'm just used to making snap decisions compared to others, but it doesn't help me. You still need to track what you have and haven't done, which is the biggest problem when running monsters.
We're trying different methods. We've been using tokens to cut down on the "so where is the Orc in relation to me? Can I hit him with my sword or will I have to get my bow out?" questions. We're looking at getting minis to help reduce time further. Still, we could do with faster resolutions - I just don't know how to do that without compromising what makes 5e an attractive engine in the first place.
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The trend follows trends in other aspects of entertainment in society, so more and more boardgames now are designed to be over in 30-45 minutes, TV shows that would have been 22 episodes a season just 8-9 years ago are now being condensed down to 6-10, everything is becoming about Binging and Fast Consumption.
I think this might be jumping to conclusions a bit. Big movies certainly haven't gotten shorter, and many of those 6-10 episode shows are due to increased production values and often much longer episodes. 22 episode seasons were a product of the TV weekly schedule rather than the natural progression of a plot and they often included filler/flashback episodes to pad them out.
I'm not really sure how much more they can streamline 5e without removing a bunch of existing character options. I guess they can simplify monsters a little more, but they're already pretty lean. I think he's just talking about pre-written adventure design here.
The trend follows trends in other aspects of entertainment in society, so more and more boardgames now are designed to be over in 30-45 minutes, TV shows that would have been 22 episodes a season just 8-9 years ago are now being condensed down to 6-10, everything is becoming about Binging and Fast Consumption.
I think this might be jumping to conclusions a bit. Big movies certainly haven't gotten shorter, and many of those 6-10 episode shows are due to increased production values and often much longer episodes. 22 episode seasons were a product of the TV weekly schedule rather than the natural progression of a plot and they often included filler/flashback episodes to pad them out.
I'm not really sure how much more they can streamline 5e without removing a bunch of existing character options. I guess they can simplify monsters a little more, but they're already pretty lean. I think he's just talking about pre-written adventure design here.
I kind of agree that you're on the right track with thinking that he is probably refering to pre-written adventure design. Mostly because I think the last two adventure books released seem to be "shorter" than some otherones, not that it cant be fleshed out by the DM mind you, just less of what is written.
Granted at that point I think more people should start trying to wait before things release and hold off on pre-orders more in the future, just to make sure they are happy with what they get.
I'm not really sure how much more they can streamline 5e without removing a bunch of existing character options. I guess they can simplify monsters a little more, but they're already pretty lean.
That depends on how strongly you link the current mechanics and what you consider or feel to be "real" D&D. I've played Dungeon World, which is a Powered by the Apocalypse take on D&D and dungeon crawling, and I think it still captures the feeling of classic D&D, but the mechanics are very different and very streamlined.
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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!
Binge watching being a thing aside, I'm sure one reason for shorter episodes for streamed and/or youtubed D&D is that 4+ hour sessions of watching something on your screen weekly can be off-putting too. I know that I never watch an entire CR episode in one sitting. And even if you do binge watch a series 8 1-hr episodes is still more convenient than 2 4-hr ones. Content creators want people to come back to their content. Shorter, more easily consumed episodes help with that. Content creators also want to keep creating content, so getting more episodes out of something is to their benefit as well. And short episodes are easier to edit than long ones, for the tech people working behind the screens.
But those arguments don't translate directly to us regular gamers setting aside time to get together and throw dice around. The content creator reasons don't apply at all, and while shorter sessions are easier to set up getting together with your friends so you can play for one hour, two on the outset, isn't going to appeal to a lot of players. Combat alone can eat up multiple sessions back-to-back if you only have an hour per, driving out somewhere (we're not going to stay in covid hell forever people, face to face sessions will become if not the norm then at least the aspiration again) and back can take up more time than the session itself, someone being late becomes a bigger deal than it has to be, and so on. Bite sized content content will certainly be welcome to some, since not everybody is even able to set aside more than two hours regularly (if even that), but I doubt it'll become the way most of D&D games will be run.
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I personally would love a more streamlined D&D experience. The less time I have to spend explaining mechanics to new players, the better. Probably one of the first things I would streamline would be ability scores extrapolating out to modifiers. Why have two sets of numbers? Just use modifiers.
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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!
Allowances made for shorter sessions makes the game easier to manage. Everybody knows all the Schedule Hell memes about D&D, the whole "the true CR30 challenge" bit. A lot of that comes from trying to block out four or five solid, uninterrupted hours of everybody's life at the same time. The modern world is increasingly hostile to anyone spending that much time doing anything that isn't their crapass day job. Ask most any parent to donate four uninterrupted hours of a day to your game of pretend elves and you'll get an incredulous stare followed by a dismissive laugh.
Does it suck? Yeah. Do longer sessions have more time to breathe? Of course. Is there something to be said about shorter, more focused sessions that let people enjoy their D&D anyways? Also yeah. If a two-hour session is what you can do, then you have to build your games around that. People don't get to waffle on their combat turns for ten minutes - declare your action in thirty seconds or you Dodge by default. People may have to dispense with long-winded in-character soliloquies, or at least keep them to a reasonable minimum. Dispense with "do you follow the NPC towards the meeting you specifically arranged for?" questions and other DMisms; assume the PCs are doing the obvious thing until a player says otherwise.
There's lots of ways to trim the fat from a D&D session if you need to fit it under a smaller timer. It might not be as cool as a longer session, and it especially sucks in online games that tend to take longer anyways, but it can be done. And for some people, a two-hour game instead of a four to six hour game means they get to play D&D.
As a person with an extremely busy life, I feel shorter adventures is a welcome addition. There are still many long adventures and when I have time for them, those are awesome too. It does not need to be all or nothing; we can have both and use as needed. I am confident that if after we get shorter adventures, there is feedback for longer adventures, WotC will adjust. Their goal is always to get more money, not less. They should be allowed to release content that appeals to multiple groups of people.
The trend follows trends in other aspects of entertainment in society, so more and more boardgames now are designed to be over in 30-45 minutes, TV shows that would have been 22 episodes a season just 8-9 years ago are now being condensed down to 6-10, everything is becoming about Binging and Fast Consumption.
This is also due in part to the prevalence of streaming and binge content consumption. Instead of being able to make single episodes at a time to earn revenue to make more, productions need to commit to a whole season at once then hope that they are able to make the money back. Then if the series succeeds, the system clearly works so they do it again. Companies commit to less, make a ton, and then pay the same for more. It's a bit of a vicious system that is under scrutiny right now within the entertainment industry as a whole.
As to your point about it in Dnd, Does it matter? If WoTC wants to make more modular stuff that calls back to the olden days and make the adventures more universal and settingless then that opens the doors for what less experienced players may think is possible. If it gets more people into the hobby, gets more interesting stuff out, and increases the number of player options then I don't think it matters if they make a single 20-hour campaign in 4 parts or a 4 5-hour campaigns each with 5 parts. As long as they have substance it doesn't matter to me. The example of what NOT to do (for me) would be Strixhaven, where they added a total of 12 boring* player options, 8 magic items, 42 monsters, and a grand total of 2 chapters of the 7 chapter book to the world information and passed it off as a sourcebook. None of that has to do with this noted change in design for shorter adventures.
*Of course this is subjective, but the Owlin was given absolutely no lore aside from 'you look like an Owl.' The background and feats are really just getting spells and a free feat, which is interesting but compared to anything else in the game are by in large the best background in the game but is executed in a way that I find to be uninteresting.
is there anything in MMM that we think can point to more and more streamlining and simplification to make the game easier and easier to pick up, play for an hour and then put away again?
The redesign of monster stat blocks is already moving in this direction. Anything that makes running the game less complicated for DMs is good for time management. The DM spends less time trying to figure out how the monster works.
There are a lot of things in play here, content for sale, time, preference, creation and game rules to mention a few that pop into my mind. In general people will adapt to what they have to work with and their limitation until the act loses it value. So if you like 10 min TV vs 1 hour shows then you will adjust your schedule and life style to continue to enjoy it and when the enjoyment lessens you may stop watching the 10 min shows for another format or switch hobbies altogether.
The other aspect is that creating your own content can take some time, which is often forgotten by the players. In the late 90's I often spent 3-5 hours of creation per RP game hour and maybe 20 min to 1 hour of creation per combat hour. Creating maps, RP and combat situations and stat blocks take time not to mention spending many hours on a topic/idea just to realize that it does not really work well and start over at a specific point.
Having said that I prefer 4+ hour sessions and home made content as they change how the game is produced and played as well as GM's tailor content more to the PC's then in published adventure. But I can say that I also have had a lot fun in some published adventures as well.
I think the adventure time that is enjoyed by the average number of GM's and players will vary based on a lot of factors and the game has to be nimble enough to adjust to changing GM and player wants.
The adventure in the D&D Essential Kit Dragon of Icespire Peak to me represent well the bite-size adventure content he's referencing. Its designed with multiple short missions or adventure sites, that sometimes have just a few encounters, as low as even a single one, with travel in between.
We could see more material designed like this, and more stand-alone short adventure as well in the future.
I honestly think pigeon-holing themselves into one type of content (short form or long form) is the wrong way for WotC to go. They should not even necessarily create segments for their adventures that represent where sessions should end - I am playing ID: RotF with a group of people who refuse to RP and cruise through combat, and they've been working on the current quest for three sessions now, and they're not even in sight of the location they need to reach yet, despite our sessions lasting 2+ hours! For bad maths people, that's over 6 hours just for a third of the travel, and I'm an extremely lenient DM who often waived combat encounters entirely. WotC shouldn't care about session length at all, just adventure lengths.
Then again, since halfway through 2021, WotC has been turning D&D into a hellscape (I like racial equity and their stance on that, but everything else, including implementation of anti-racism and the blatant sexism evolving in the system, the ruining of the mechanics, the blatant content rights theft for older players forcing them to remain up-to-date with bad rules, etc. I have a lot of opinions on this with careful reasons, but just don't ask), so of course they will ruin adventure length as well. Good night!
The trend follows trends in other aspects of entertainment in society, so more and more boardgames now are designed to be over in 30-45 minutes, TV shows that would have been 22 episodes a season just 8-9 years ago are now being condensed down to 6-10, everything is becoming about Binging and Fast Consumption.
This is also due in part to the prevalence of streaming and binge content consumption. Instead of being able to make single episodes at a time to earn revenue to make more, productions need to commit to a whole season at once then hope that they are able to make the money back. Then if the series succeeds, the system clearly works so they do it again. Companies commit to less, make a ton, and then pay the same for more. It's a bit of a vicious system that is under scrutiny right now within the entertainment industry as a whole.
As to your point about it in Dnd, Does it matter? If WoTC wants to make more modular stuff that calls back to the olden days and make the adventures more universal and settingless then that opens the doors for what less experienced players may think is possible. If it gets more people into the hobby, gets more interesting stuff out, and increases the number of player options then I don't think it matters if they make a single 20-hour campaign in 4 parts or a 4 5-hour campaigns each with 5 parts. As long as they have substance it doesn't matter to me. The example of what NOT to do (for me) would be Strixhaven, where they added a total of 12 boring* player options, 8 magic items, 42 monsters, and a grand total of 2 chapters of the 7 chapter book to the world information and passed it off as a sourcebook. None of that has to do with this noted change in design for shorter adventures.
*Of course this is subjective, but the Owlin was given absolutely no lore aside from 'you look like an Owl.' The background and feats are really just getting spells and a free feat, which is interesting but compared to anything else in the game are by in large the best background in the game but is executed in a way that I find to be uninteresting.
Until it becomes so oversimplified, a DM is forced to home-brew everything. Then you have basically three choices. Go with the flow, home-brew, or drop the game.
And what is oversimplified? What that means to you and what that means to anyone else could be wildly different. I personally think that the base systems already in place within the game are as simple as the game would. They literally can not change the fundamentals of how 5e is made without it changing the addition and if they make that change, you can always play with the content released before the changes. My point is, on a fundamental level they can not make the game simpler than it already is without the creation of a new addition.
None of that has to do with the creation of modular adventures, which I will reiterate, as long as the adventures have substance to them I don't care how long they are designed to last.
Seeing as 5E is an evergreen product that appeals to a lot of folks and has been greatly simplified, for them to make sessions last 1 1/2 hours we will be looking at fundamental simplification of the system and rules to support the story writer faction that won control of D&D. I'm waiting with baited breath to see what they can put out and I can't wait for the reviews to come in. I wish I was psychic so I could invest in the company that is going to pathfinder that release.
And what is oversimplified? What that means to you and what that means to anyone else could be wildly different. I personally think that the base systems already in place within the game are as simple as the game would. They literally can not change the fundamentals of how 5e is made without it changing the addition and if they make that change, you can always play with the content released before the changes. My point is, on a fundamental level they can not make the game simpler than it already is without the creation of a new addition.
None of that has to do with the creation of modular adventures, which I will reiterate, as long as the adventures have substance to them I don't care how long they are designed to last.
It depends from person to person, I suppose? I think we are at the most simplified version of DnD I personally can stand. Anything more streamlined or dumbed down is a breaking point for me. Something that's fast approaching with the way magic like attacks instead of spells are appearing. If it continues down that road I'll have to think real hard if this is still the system for me. A pity because I liked the way they were finally getting their act together when it came to other things. But if I wanted to play simplified rpg's I would be playing Monster of the Week or Godbound. I tried that I don't really enjoy it.
Anything more streamlined or dumbed down is a breaking point for me. Something that's fast approaching with the way magic like attacks instead of spells...
No offense, but this seems like a strange hill to die on. Magic like attacks instead of spells is too streamlined or dumbed down? It's pretty much the same thing, aside from Counterspell (not) being applicable.
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I really, just really, don't understand the whole flaming fracas hullaballoo over magical actions instead of spells. A magical action for "this is the critter's basic attack option. If you don't have a better move, use this" is not dumbing down the game, it's allowing monster designers a whole lot more freedom to make good monsters. And frankly Counterspell is such an absolutely godawful toxic game-souringly bad idea anyways that anything which reduces its omniprevalence is a good thing.
It's like...spellcasters are still spellcasters? Good DMs don't bother tracking spell slots or the like anyways. You just turn the spellcaster into a critter stat block, give them a basic attack option that resembles whichever their basic cantrip is, give them their big bazooka AoE blast or their horrifying single-target SupahStab on a Recharge counter like a dragon's breath weapon, maybe give them an alternate spell action or two to drive home their theme, and then turn 'em loose. Outside of combat they can cast whatever spells make sense for them to cast whenever it makes sense for them to do it.
The only - and let me repeat this repeatedly for emphasis: only only only only only only only only only only only only only ONLY ONLY - things in the whole ass entire game that need to use the PC rules are PCs. Spell slots are for PCs. NPCs don't need them, don't get them, and have no use for them. The list of PC spells is for PCs. NPCs can cast whatever the DM blurdy well needs them to cast, and if players are all "the hell spell was that?! How do we learn that spell?!", then congratulations - you have a new adventure seed!
The system is better, not worse, the more people realize that NPCs do not use the same rules as PCs and have never needed to.
https://gizmodo.com/d-ds-lead-rule-designer-explains-why-actual-play-has-in-1847342631
So I stumbled on that interview the last few days by chance and some really key things leapt out at me.
Now much of this references the recent Adventure content that has been released, so the idea that Rime of the Frost Maiden and Wild beyond the Witchlight are broken into smaller chunks to make it easier to create small isolated sessions.
But I am wondering if this is also now going to feed into the rules in general. Will we see a far more streamlined game, or at least the option to have it? With rule options for a far simpler version of DnD? Or even a modular set of rules that can be picked and chosen from to determine how you want to play the game?
The trend follows trends in other aspects of entertainment in society, so more and more boardgames now are designed to be over in 30-45 minutes, TV shows that would have been 22 episodes a season just 8-9 years ago are now being condensed down to 6-10, everything is becoming about Binging and Fast Consumption.
So how do we think this shift will impact DnD and the forthcoming changes? is there anything in MMM that we think can point to more and more streamlining and simplification to make the game easier and easier to pick up, play for an hour and then put away again?
I'm not a fan of the shorter seasons in series etc, but I'm supportive of it in D&D. We have children who can't get involved in D&D (yet), so we have to wait until they're settled in bed. Realistically, we can't start until 9pm or even later. 3-4 hours sessions just aren't feasible, but any shorter and we have to start chopping up quests into multiple sessions. we can do 1.5hr sessions, but that is to the detriment to the quests.
Personally, I'm not sure how they could do it. Combat length is a problem, but if you reduce the complexity, you'll take away what makes the whole engine attractive in the first place - it's what I prefer to Star Trek Adventures' 2d20 system, for example. They've changed the spellcasting system for monsters...but I'm not convinced that it helps much. Maybe I'm just used to making snap decisions compared to others, but it doesn't help me. You still need to track what you have and haven't done, which is the biggest problem when running monsters.
We're trying different methods. We've been using tokens to cut down on the "so where is the Orc in relation to me? Can I hit him with my sword or will I have to get my bow out?" questions. We're looking at getting minis to help reduce time further. Still, we could do with faster resolutions - I just don't know how to do that without compromising what makes 5e an attractive engine in the first place.
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I think this might be jumping to conclusions a bit. Big movies certainly haven't gotten shorter, and many of those 6-10 episode shows are due to increased production values and often much longer episodes. 22 episode seasons were a product of the TV weekly schedule rather than the natural progression of a plot and they often included filler/flashback episodes to pad them out.
I'm not really sure how much more they can streamline 5e without removing a bunch of existing character options. I guess they can simplify monsters a little more, but they're already pretty lean. I think he's just talking about pre-written adventure design here.
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I kind of agree that you're on the right track with thinking that he is probably refering to pre-written adventure design. Mostly because I think the last two adventure books released seem to be "shorter" than some otherones, not that it cant be fleshed out by the DM mind you, just less of what is written.
Granted at that point I think more people should start trying to wait before things release and hold off on pre-orders more in the future, just to make sure they are happy with what they get.
That depends on how strongly you link the current mechanics and what you consider or feel to be "real" D&D. I've played Dungeon World, which is a Powered by the Apocalypse take on D&D and dungeon crawling, and I think it still captures the feeling of classic D&D, but the mechanics are very different and very streamlined.
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!
Binge watching being a thing aside, I'm sure one reason for shorter episodes for streamed and/or youtubed D&D is that 4+ hour sessions of watching something on your screen weekly can be off-putting too. I know that I never watch an entire CR episode in one sitting. And even if you do binge watch a series 8 1-hr episodes is still more convenient than 2 4-hr ones. Content creators want people to come back to their content. Shorter, more easily consumed episodes help with that. Content creators also want to keep creating content, so getting more episodes out of something is to their benefit as well. And short episodes are easier to edit than long ones, for the tech people working behind the screens.
But those arguments don't translate directly to us regular gamers setting aside time to get together and throw dice around. The content creator reasons don't apply at all, and while shorter sessions are easier to set up getting together with your friends so you can play for one hour, two on the outset, isn't going to appeal to a lot of players. Combat alone can eat up multiple sessions back-to-back if you only have an hour per, driving out somewhere (we're not going to stay in covid hell forever people, face to face sessions will become if not the norm then at least the aspiration again) and back can take up more time than the session itself, someone being late becomes a bigger deal than it has to be, and so on. Bite sized content content will certainly be welcome to some, since not everybody is even able to set aside more than two hours regularly (if even that), but I doubt it'll become the way most of D&D games will be run.
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I personally would love a more streamlined D&D experience. The less time I have to spend explaining mechanics to new players, the better. Probably one of the first things I would streamline would be ability scores extrapolating out to modifiers. Why have two sets of numbers? Just use modifiers.
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!
Allowances made for shorter sessions makes the game easier to manage. Everybody knows all the Schedule Hell memes about D&D, the whole "the true CR30 challenge" bit. A lot of that comes from trying to block out four or five solid, uninterrupted hours of everybody's life at the same time. The modern world is increasingly hostile to anyone spending that much time doing anything that isn't their crapass day job. Ask most any parent to donate four uninterrupted hours of a day to your game of pretend elves and you'll get an incredulous stare followed by a dismissive laugh.
Does it suck? Yeah. Do longer sessions have more time to breathe? Of course. Is there something to be said about shorter, more focused sessions that let people enjoy their D&D anyways? Also yeah. If a two-hour session is what you can do, then you have to build your games around that. People don't get to waffle on their combat turns for ten minutes - declare your action in thirty seconds or you Dodge by default. People may have to dispense with long-winded in-character soliloquies, or at least keep them to a reasonable minimum. Dispense with "do you follow the NPC towards the meeting you specifically arranged for?" questions and other DMisms; assume the PCs are doing the obvious thing until a player says otherwise.
There's lots of ways to trim the fat from a D&D session if you need to fit it under a smaller timer. It might not be as cool as a longer session, and it especially sucks in online games that tend to take longer anyways, but it can be done. And for some people, a two-hour game instead of a four to six hour game means they get to play D&D.
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As a person with an extremely busy life, I feel shorter adventures is a welcome addition. There are still many long adventures and when I have time for them, those are awesome too. It does not need to be all or nothing; we can have both and use as needed. I am confident that if after we get shorter adventures, there is feedback for longer adventures, WotC will adjust. Their goal is always to get more money, not less. They should be allowed to release content that appeals to multiple groups of people.
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This is also due in part to the prevalence of streaming and binge content consumption. Instead of being able to make single episodes at a time to earn revenue to make more, productions need to commit to a whole season at once then hope that they are able to make the money back. Then if the series succeeds, the system clearly works so they do it again. Companies commit to less, make a ton, and then pay the same for more. It's a bit of a vicious system that is under scrutiny right now within the entertainment industry as a whole.
As to your point about it in Dnd, Does it matter? If WoTC wants to make more modular stuff that calls back to the olden days and make the adventures more universal and settingless then that opens the doors for what less experienced players may think is possible. If it gets more people into the hobby, gets more interesting stuff out, and increases the number of player options then I don't think it matters if they make a single 20-hour campaign in 4 parts or a 4 5-hour campaigns each with 5 parts. As long as they have substance it doesn't matter to me. The example of what NOT to do (for me) would be Strixhaven, where they added a total of 12 boring* player options, 8 magic items, 42 monsters, and a grand total of 2 chapters of the 7 chapter book to the world information and passed it off as a sourcebook. None of that has to do with this noted change in design for shorter adventures.
*Of course this is subjective, but the Owlin was given absolutely no lore aside from 'you look like an Owl.' The background and feats are really just getting spells and a free feat, which is interesting but compared to anything else in the game are by in large the best background in the game but is executed in a way that I find to be uninteresting.
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The redesign of monster stat blocks is already moving in this direction. Anything that makes running the game less complicated for DMs is good for time management. The DM spends less time trying to figure out how the monster works.
There are a lot of things in play here, content for sale, time, preference, creation and game rules to mention a few that pop into my mind. In general people will adapt to what they have to work with and their limitation until the act loses it value. So if you like 10 min TV vs 1 hour shows then you will adjust your schedule and life style to continue to enjoy it and when the enjoyment lessens you may stop watching the 10 min shows for another format or switch hobbies altogether.
The other aspect is that creating your own content can take some time, which is often forgotten by the players. In the late 90's I often spent 3-5 hours of creation per RP game hour and maybe 20 min to 1 hour of creation per combat hour. Creating maps, RP and combat situations and stat blocks take time not to mention spending many hours on a topic/idea just to realize that it does not really work well and start over at a specific point.
Having said that I prefer 4+ hour sessions and home made content as they change how the game is produced and played as well as GM's tailor content more to the PC's then in published adventure. But I can say that I also have had a lot fun in some published adventures as well.
I think the adventure time that is enjoyed by the average number of GM's and players will vary based on a lot of factors and the game has to be nimble enough to adjust to changing GM and player wants.
The adventure in the D&D Essential Kit Dragon of Icespire Peak to me represent well the bite-size adventure content he's referencing. Its designed with multiple short missions or adventure sites, that sometimes have just a few encounters, as low as even a single one, with travel in between.
We could see more material designed like this, and more stand-alone short adventure as well in the future.
I honestly think pigeon-holing themselves into one type of content (short form or long form) is the wrong way for WotC to go. They should not even necessarily create segments for their adventures that represent where sessions should end - I am playing ID: RotF with a group of people who refuse to RP and cruise through combat, and they've been working on the current quest for three sessions now, and they're not even in sight of the location they need to reach yet, despite our sessions lasting 2+ hours! For bad maths people, that's over 6 hours just for a third of the travel, and I'm an extremely lenient DM who often waived combat encounters entirely. WotC shouldn't care about session length at all, just adventure lengths.
Then again, since halfway through 2021, WotC has been turning D&D into a hellscape (I like racial equity and their stance on that, but everything else, including implementation of anti-racism and the blatant sexism evolving in the system, the ruining of the mechanics, the blatant content rights theft for older players forcing them to remain up-to-date with bad rules, etc. I have a lot of opinions on this with careful reasons, but just don't ask), so of course they will ruin adventure length as well. Good night!
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Until it becomes so oversimplified, a DM is forced to home-brew everything. Then you have basically three choices. Go with the flow, home-brew, or drop the game.
And what is oversimplified? What that means to you and what that means to anyone else could be wildly different. I personally think that the base systems already in place within the game are as simple as the game would. They literally can not change the fundamentals of how 5e is made without it changing the addition and if they make that change, you can always play with the content released before the changes. My point is, on a fundamental level they can not make the game simpler than it already is without the creation of a new addition.
None of that has to do with the creation of modular adventures, which I will reiterate, as long as the adventures have substance to them I don't care how long they are designed to last.
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Seeing as 5E is an evergreen product that appeals to a lot of folks and has been greatly simplified, for them to make sessions last 1 1/2 hours we will be looking at fundamental simplification of the system and rules to support the story writer faction that won control of D&D. I'm waiting with baited breath to see what they can put out and I can't wait for the reviews to come in. I wish I was psychic so I could invest in the company that is going to pathfinder that release.
It depends from person to person, I suppose? I think we are at the most simplified version of DnD I personally can stand. Anything more streamlined or dumbed down is a breaking point for me. Something that's fast approaching with the way magic like attacks instead of spells are appearing. If it continues down that road I'll have to think real hard if this is still the system for me. A pity because I liked the way they were finally getting their act together when it came to other things. But if I wanted to play simplified rpg's I would be playing Monster of the Week or Godbound. I tried that I don't really enjoy it.
No offense, but this seems like a strange hill to die on. Magic like attacks instead of spells is too streamlined or dumbed down? It's pretty much the same thing, aside from Counterspell (not) being applicable.
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I really, just really, don't understand the whole flaming fracas hullaballoo over magical actions instead of spells. A magical action for "this is the critter's basic attack option. If you don't have a better move, use this" is not dumbing down the game, it's allowing monster designers a whole lot more freedom to make good monsters. And frankly Counterspell is such an absolutely godawful toxic game-souringly bad idea anyways that anything which reduces its omniprevalence is a good thing.
It's like...spellcasters are still spellcasters? Good DMs don't bother tracking spell slots or the like anyways. You just turn the spellcaster into a critter stat block, give them a basic attack option that resembles whichever their basic cantrip is, give them their big bazooka AoE blast or their horrifying single-target SupahStab on a Recharge counter like a dragon's breath weapon, maybe give them an alternate spell action or two to drive home their theme, and then turn 'em loose. Outside of combat they can cast whatever spells make sense for them to cast whenever it makes sense for them to do it.
The only - and let me repeat this repeatedly for emphasis: only only only only only only only only only only only only only ONLY ONLY - things in the whole ass entire game that need to use the PC rules are PCs. Spell slots are for PCs. NPCs don't need them, don't get them, and have no use for them. The list of PC spells is for PCs. NPCs can cast whatever the DM blurdy well needs them to cast, and if players are all "the hell spell was that?! How do we learn that spell?!", then congratulations - you have a new adventure seed!
The system is better, not worse, the more people realize that NPCs do not use the same rules as PCs and have never needed to.
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