TheRPGSite

The profit reports don't lie, the new OneDnD edition isn't just DOA, it may have done worse than doing nothing at all.
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Worse than nothing at all?

So they didn't even recover the money they invested into the creation and marketing of the new edition, that nobody asked for?

The problem for D&D is Hasbro doesn't know how to use D&D. 

The only reason they made money in the last couple of years is due to Larian Studios who went out of their way to get the D&D license.  Larian was rejected on their first bid, it took an exec (Mearls) playing Divinity Original Sins 2 who called them back and gave them the D&D License.  And then Hasbro pissed away Larian studio and they won't work with Hasbro again.  Hasbro brought in the Tranny that was hired to shut down Bioware and direct Veilguard to write the next D&D video game.

4E was the woke edition of D&D and it failed hard.  5E was the mostly normal edition of D&D for mechanics and game play but there was a profound lack of lore (leftards fighting to kill it) and then the 2020 race riots was used to fire Mearls and put out a blanket racist charge on anyone who worked for D&D from 4E and earlier.

Now 5.5E is again back to 100% mechanics and shit lore.  The mechanics sucks.  Why would you write for D&D now when they'll call you a racist and Hasbro can't control D&D and let it get in the hands of literal race marxists.

I'm hoping with crowd funding and other games being viable that we see the steep decline of D&D in Hasbro's hands.  There is still interest in the game and it can be saved from Star Wars and Marvel's fates.  But five to ten more years in race marxists hands, Hasbro will have a worthless product no one will play the game as a new player.

D&D has so many problems at the moment it looks to be impossible to fix, but the big one I see is that they've wound up courting an impossible to please userbase. I have no idea what a perfect version of D&D looks like, but no matter what they do, some grognard on the internet will be upset with it.

The other thing I've noticed is that it looks like WotC has no clue how to manage technical debt. When it comes to WotC products, anyway, I view myself as more a Magic player than a D&D player--I only ever dabbled in D&D and never stuck with any version of D&D, but I still play a fair amount of MTG to this day. My recent experience with Magic isn't particularly confidence inspiring.

But the real cause is probably macroeconomics. This is probably a case of, "woke leftist organization is shocked by the effects of inflation." The Bureau of Labor said that the inflation rate during 2022 was 8% and Wotc, being good Woke NPCs did their projections based on those figures. The rest of us knew better.

Well, as it turns out the inflation rate was closer to 18%--yes, the inflation rate was old enough to vote--and now that Trump is in office the BoL is willing to un-cook the numbers. Alas, that means that WotC spent two years thinking the inflation rate was between 5% and 10% off of where it actually was, which means their customer disposable income wasn't cut by 15%, but by 50%. And of course, by now it's way too late to adapt.

This exact mistake of trusting the Bureau of Labor's official statistics has probably doomed many big businesses because they are about to go multiple quarters missing projections by huge amounts. I find a certain amount of irony that many of these corporations were democrat donors, and because they believed the lies of the politicians they put in power, they are about to lose many times more money to macroeconomics than they ever donated to politics.

"Get woke, Go broke" was a prophecy, not an observation.

Hopefully, 5.5E will prove to be a huge jumping off point; just as 4E was.

There are so many other options for gaming.  There are numerous opportunities to keep playing an authentic D&D lore RPG.  There are many alternatives to that, too. 

WOTC owns the name, but not the experience. 

:D
/slaps on the hi-fi
/starts dancing, shaking up a brewski
/cracks open brewski to spray the adoring crowd

Quote from: honeydipperdavid on February 28, 2025, 10:03:30 PM4E was the woke edition of D&D and it failed hard. 

How was 4e woke?

I didn't care for 4e because of how it played with my group, but our complaint wasn't that it was "woke" in any way.

Quote from: Man at Arms on February 28, 2025, 11:23:25 PMan authentic D&D lore RPG

Some want to play a game and don't care about the lore. That's perfectly fine.

Quote from: Fheredin on February 28, 2025, 10:30:23 PMThis exact mistake of trusting the Bureau of Labor's official statistics has probably doomed many big businesses because they are about to go multiple quarters missing projections by huge amounts. I find a certain amount of irony that many of these corporations were democrat donors, and because they believed the lies of the politicians they put in power, they are about to lose many times more money to macroeconomics than they ever donated to politics.

Retail sales fell by nearly a full percent in January, which seems to have everyone's attention at the moment, obviously showing that discretionary spending is way down. I myself have really switched up my spending habits recently, focusing on necessities and quality over more trivial things. I ripped two pairs of cheap (name-brand, even!) jeans in the same spot and found myself remembering eating moldy pinto beans during the pandemic before admitting to myself that I needed to prioritize clothing and food storage before more 'fun and games'. During the pandemic it was easy to blind-purchase random gaming PDFs and fund obscure Kickstarters, especially since items like clothing didn't even really matter when you didn't interact with real people for literal days or weeks, but various factors have me considering my budget far more closely now, even/especially with stable work now and finding meaning in living more normally and connecting to those around me in the community. How you look and how you eat matters for survival a lot more than keeping oneself entertained, though it is obviously a large part of a fulfilling life higher up Maslow's pyramid.

All this to say-- 5E was riding a nice wave for the last half-decade and various factors all bolstered it in a sort of upward spiral. Hasbro doesn't seem to understand that tabletop gaming is a far different sales model from computer and card games. They didn't realize they were in an economic bubble (and to be fair, many entertainment companies didn't realize this either, with Warner Brothers racking up an enormous amount of debt with video-steaming hype, which the Max app is nowhere near recovering as they also move away from physical releases). People were voted in who only had experience with video game sales, and even those aren't doing as well, especially on the physical side of things. Now that things are winding back down, they've invested all this time and these resources into a new half-version of D&D that no paying customer has any real incentive to buy into, diluting down and dividing up the remaining customer fan-base. Imagine new players joining right now, showing up to their first Tuesday night AL session, having everyone they meet argue over which Player's Handbook or website they should even use to get started.

https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/14/economy/us-retail-spending-january/index.html

https://gamerant.com/video-game-hardware-console-sales-drop/

Quote from: HappyDaze on February 28, 2025, 11:56:39 PM

Quote from: honeydipperdavid on February 28, 2025, 10:03:30 PM4E was the woke edition of D&D and it failed hard.

How was 4e woke?

Woke may not be the right word for it, but it is the first edition they had plans to have the $$$ digital integration like Beyond is now. And they did have internal drama (homicide/suicide) with the lead developer who had ties to Microsoft and such. It was certainly the beginning of a terrible legacy which 5E partially escaped out of necessity to scale back and focus on the customer for a second. The end of 5E feels very familiar to the handling of 4E.

https://www.enworld.org/threads/the-failure-of-gleemax.227608/

I can't help but laugh a little.  Ever since Tasha's, D&D has been taking a nose dive and there had been plenty of feedback as to why.  "The customer is wrong about what they want" is the dumbest thing stance a company can take.

Inflation in 2022 was actually 24%, not 18%, so Wizards were even farther off the mark.

Quote from: Cathode Ray on March 01, 2025, 06:04:43 AMInflation in 2022 was actually 24%, not 18%, so Wizards were even farther off the mark.

It was a lot worse than that. One stroll through a grocery store would tell you that. A tub of butter that had been $3.99 for quite a while-can now be yours for only $9.99. A $3.50 bag of chips suddenly $7.00. You don't need to be a math wizard to see these increases left 24% in the dust.

Quote from: honeydipperdavid on February 28, 2025, 10:03:30 PM4E was the woke edition of D&D and it failed hard. 

Woke didn't exist back then as this was before the more diverse rebranding from "politically correct".   No one for the most part complained about it being that either that I can recall (and I was quite active on all the usual big forums from enworld to rpg.net to WOTC's own back then).   The complaints were about the shitty wannabe fusion of a boardgame and WOW game design and boring samey hit point sponge gameplay when it came out.   I say that as someone who played the hell out of 3.x as it was my head first deep into the pool gateway into D&D and as someone who also enjoyed the Star Wars Saga Edition half way step that was the testing ground for what eventually mutated into the 4e abomination.

Watched the vidya and prof DM's. And I'm happy that it's crashing....at this point the blue hairs can say they've destroyed another fandom and add another notch to their belt.

Quote from: BadApple on March 01, 2025, 02:35:53 AMI can't help but laugh a little.  Ever since Tasha's, D&D has been taking a nose dive and there had been plenty of feedback as to why.  "The customer is wrong about what they want" is the dumbest thing stance a company can take.

There is a kernel of truth in there.

Decades of design experience have shown that actually yes, what players say they want is not always what they really want.

But "The customer is wrong about what they want" is marketing twisting that to suit their own ends.

Quote from: HappyDaze on February 28, 2025, 11:56:39 PM

Quote from: honeydipperdavid on February 28, 2025, 10:03:30 PM4E was the woke edition of D&D and it failed hard.

How was 4e woke?

I didn't care for 4e because of how it played with my group, but our complaint wasn't that it was "woke" in any way.

 I own the majority of what WotC produced for 4E, and I didn't pick up on much, if any, 'wokeness' or overt progressivism--not even on the level of the infamous 5E Basic set/PHB paragraph about PC sexual identities.

 Now, 4E did make a major step forward in D&D's progress towards infernalism by promoting Asmodeus to godhood, with the implications that the god he killed bore a suspicious resemblance to the real God ... :)

Quote from: HappyDaze on February 28, 2025, 11:56:39 PM

Quote from: honeydipperdavid on February 28, 2025, 10:03:30 PM4E was the woke edition of D&D and it failed hard.

How was 4e woke?

I didn't care for 4e because of how it played with my group, but our complaint wasn't that it was "woke" in any way.

It weasnt. But it developed a really nasty fanbase that had all the bad habits of the woke without actually being. Well into 5e the 4e fans were pretty wretched. I remember when during the 5e playtest they kept trying to sabotage it.

Whether you want to characterize 4E as "woke" (aka Leftism the reader dislikes) or merely "progressive" (aka Leftism the reader likes) it had all of the same underlying political motives, it's really just about how overt its been.

"Progressive" Design
- Removing / de-emphasizing alignment
- Removing ability score penalties
- Deliberate anti-White, anti-Male discrimination emphasized in artwork & NPC/adventure design
- Push towards "Costume Play" mentality where being an Orc, a Drow, a Tiefling doesn't represent a realized non-Human mind with completely different drives, motivations, ethos -- They're identical to humans except with a different +bonus and racial power.

Quote from: Zelen on March 02, 2025, 10:52:59 AMWhether you want to characterize 4E as "woke" (aka Leftism the reader dislikes) or merely "progressive" (aka Leftism the reader likes) it had all of the same underlying political motives, it's really just about how overt its been.

"Progressive" Design
- Removing / de-emphasizing alignment
- Removing ability score penalties
- Deliberate anti-White, anti-Male discrimination emphasized in artwork & NPC/adventure design
- Push towards "Costume Play" mentality where being an Orc, a Drow, a Tiefling doesn't represent a realized non-Human mind with completely different drives, motivations, ethos -- They're identical to humans except with a different +bonus and racial power.

  Distinguo: I dislike them both; I simply use 'progressive' as an alternative because otherwise, people start screaming about 'woke' not meaning anything. :) That said, I have no reason to quibble with the idea that many of the cultural ideas present in 5E were at least latent in 4E. I only asserted that they aren't as overt or obvious to me.

Quote from: Fheredin on February 28, 2025, 10:30:23 PMD&D has so many problems at the moment it looks to be impossible to fix, but the big one I see is that they've wound up courting an impossible to please userbase. I have no idea what a perfect version of D&D looks like, but no matter what they do, some grognard on the internet will be upset with it.

I'm not sure if this is an issue.  It's an issue if your goal is to appeal to absolutely every D&D fan of every D&D era, across increasingly divided political aisles.  But 5.0 made overtures to OSR people, legit old school people, 3.X people, and, to some degree, 4ed people (Mearls recently laments not being able to pitch to them harder).  That might be lightning in a bottle, but: 
a) You don't need to be nearly as successful as 5.0 was to be seriously influential, and even less so to be successful.
b) Simply focusing on one or two groups of D&D players could get others to join up- most players are reasonably fluid and have tried games outside their preferred design motif.
c) 5.0 expanded what a TTRPG player is to such a large degree that "being the lead TTRPG" is a larger advantage than it was before- there's plenty of people who would be glad to support and play a mediocre game as long as everyone else was playing it

If you made a game that was "AD&D reborn" and stuck with that, it could become the biggest thing ever, especially if you actually had the rights to D&D.  But the same could be said of 3.X, and soon, 5.0.  Mark my words, there will be a lot of interest in 5.0 reborn, because at this point the statement "most TTRPG players got their start with D&D 5.0" is either true, or very close to true.

Quote from: Armchair Gamer on March 02, 2025, 12:09:14 PMDistinguo: I dislike them both; I simply use 'progressive' as an alternative because otherwise, people start screaming about 'woke' not meaning anything. :) That said, I have no reason to quibble with the idea that many of the cultural ideas present in 5E were at least latent in 4E. I only asserted that they aren't as overt or obvious to me.

I'd argue that there's been a progressive push in every version.  Just off the top of my head: 
AD&D 1e renames Fighting-man to "Fighter" and begins using "he or she" construction.  AD&D 1e removes the penalty for female human strength (I can't find the rules that had this, so it may have been houserules at the time, but Gary actually puts lessening the penalties female characters face in his forward or something- it's a selling point in the book)
AD&D 2e gets rid of minimum and maximum ranges for sex/race combinations- human females can now have a strength of 18/00, versus more realistic values in 1e.  It also makes an apology preface about using masculine pronouns throughout, even defending this as being proper English (which it is, but they felt bad about it)
D&D 3e alternates between "he" and "she" in any context of describing classes- each class is written with the pronouns that match the art that they commissioned (paladins have a black human female as their iconic character, so everything is written "she" and "her").  Human males become scarce, and white ones even scarcer, in the art.  Elves cease being portrayed as clearly European and become angular and alien, a design motif that continues to a degree into 4e.

So while 4e continues this trend, I really do think it's a trend of appeasement that has led us to the current situation.  And I will also say that stuff within the last decade or so really has broken new ground, as many pieces of the game with a lot of relevance- first racial stat penalties, then racial stat bonuses, then the entire concept of race- have been wiped away by the latest rules (this was incremental starting with 5.0 though).  These changes have had very negative effects on both the ability for the game to speak to you imaginatively and for how things have actually worked out in the game mechanically; the game is mechanically inferior with backgrounds providing stat bonuses than it was before.  If the game got marginally worse when human females could exceed 18/49 (or whatever), it's taken a huge dive in more recent years.  Renaming of phylacteries, removing all references to gypsies, and turning all the races into "cosplay humans" are all bad, but they are part of a big trend.

We'll see if anyone actually stands against this trend ever.  It's getting harder and harder to find a new game that even offers different races any more.

Quote from: Venka on March 02, 2025, 12:26:55 PMAD&D 1e removes the penalty for female human strength

It doesn't. Strength Table I on p. 9 of the PHB states that 18/50 is the "Maximum strength possible for a female human or male gnome character."

Quote from: Zelen on March 02, 2025, 10:52:59 AM- Deliberate anti-White, anti-Male discrimination emphasized in artwork & NPC/adventure design

The tale of Regdar says this happened in 3e times; it was not introduced in 4e.

Quote from: Zelen on March 02, 2025, 10:52:59 AM- Push towards "Costume Play" mentality where being an Orc, a Drow, a Tiefling doesn't represent a realized non-Human mind with completely different drives, motivations, ethos -- They're identical to humans except with a different +bonus and racial power.

This has existed since the beginning of RPGs. What about 4e makes you think it started there?

Quote from: Venka on March 02, 2025, 12:26:55 PMI'd argue that there's been a progressive push in every version.  Just off the top of my head: 
AD&D 1e renames Fighting-man to "Fighter" and begins using "he or she" construction.  AD&D 1e removes the penalty for female human strength (I can't find the rules that had this, so it may have been houserules at the time, but Gary actually puts lessening the penalties female characters face in his forward or something- it's a selling point in the book)

  Perhaps reacting to Len Lakofka's ill-conceived "Women in D&D" rules in The Dragon #3: "Only as fighters are women clearly behind men in all cases ... Strength 18 [sic] sided die and 1 six sided die." Since the article goes on to say "Any woman scoring 13 or 14 in strength may add one to her constitution score," I suspect it's supposed to say "1 8-sided die"--and maybe does; the DRAGON Archive I'm using has numerous scanning errors.

Quote from: Omega on March 01, 2025, 12:59:09 PM

Quote from: BadApple on March 01, 2025, 02:35:53 AMI can't help but laugh a little.  Ever since Tasha's, D&D has been taking a nose dive and there had been plenty of feedback as to why.  "The customer is wrong about what they want" is the dumbest thing stance a company can take.

There is a kernel of truth in there.

Decades of design experience have shown that actually yes, what players say they want is not always what they really want.

But "The customer is wrong about what they want" is marketing twisting that to suit their own ends.

There's a big difference between ordering a steak while really wanting prime rib and not knowing it and ordering a steak and getting served boiled chicken liver.

Quote from: Zelen on March 02, 2025, 10:52:59 AMWhether you want to characterize 4E as "woke" (aka Leftism the reader dislikes) or merely "progressive" (aka Leftism the reader likes) it had all of the same underlying political motives, it's really just about how overt its been.

"Progressive" Design

- Removing / de-emphasizing alignment
They still had Lawful Good, Good (NG/CG), Unaligned (N), Evil (LE/NE), and Chaotic Evil.

It's the Basic D&D Law vs. Chaos model only with moral weight assigned to Law (Good) and Chaos (Evil) and a couple of intermediate steps that map to the two axis system... making it a useful hybrid of AD&D and B/X.

Let's also keep pretending that virtually every other RPG outside of Palladium didn't throw alignment out as one of their first things.

- Removing ability score penalties
Like flipping to ascending AC, just having adding to a base number is an easier mechanical expression. Its not like it changed anything from the 3e days in terms of race/class preferences... a half-orc only being able to have a 18 Int (at great cost in point buy... to not gimp yourself a 16 was the defacto cap) while a High Elf could start with a 20 meant there were far more elf wizards than half-orc ones, just like the top end for a 3e half-orc was 16 while the elf was 18 and had the same outcome.

- Deliberate anti-White, anti-Male discrimination emphasized in artwork & NPC/adventure design
As was stated by others, that started with 3e... the devs then were already objecting to being forced to add white male Redgar as one of their iconic characters in the 3e PHB. This isn't a 4E issue, this is a WotC since forever issue.

- Push towards "Costume Play" mentality where being an Orc, a Drow, a Tiefling doesn't represent a realized non-Human mind with completely different drives, motivations, ethos -- They're identical to humans except with a different +bonus and racial power.
To be fair to the tiefling, they're humans warped by an infernal pact. Why wouldn't they think and act like humans?

Orcs never had a PC write-up outside of the Monster Manual appendix.

The Drow entries in the Forgotten Realms Player's Guide and Essentials Heroes of the Forgotten Kingdom (the only two places they got write-ups) did emphasize their differences from humans; the harshness and decadence of their native culture and how those taking up the role of a hero are still cold, arrogant, paranoid, distrusted and feared. Beyond that, they're fundamentally ELVES; demi-humans.

4E also went into detail on the dragonborn and how being hatched creates different family dynamics, a warrior culture focused on duty and rituals related to their egg shells.

Basically, I think you've got some confirmation bias going on.

Even if it was so successful that 5.5 became the world's number one economic force and the true faith of every nation it would still be crap.  Even so, it's nice when the financials reflect the reality.

Quote from: Chris24601 on March 02, 2025, 05:38:05 PM...

Basically, I think you've got some confirmation bias going on.

Not at all. I was making a quick comment, not writing an extensive essay.

I could've easily gone into more detail and sliced the salami, but it's not worth it because the core point is kind of blindingly obvious. The things people complain about today with 5E/5.5E/6E, whatever you want to call it are simply continuations of trends in 4E (& 3E). I'm not even saying that to be derogatory towards 3E or 4E -- A lot of change made in those editions are (IMO) better game design.

But I'm not just evaluating the game design changes, I'm evaluating the motivations -- Why you make a change does matter, it's a vector showing core game principles. The rot has taken awhile for a lot of people to recognize, but it's been there for awhile and will remain as as long as D&D's in the clutches of the WOTC / inbred Leftist crowd.

Quote from: Zelen on March 02, 2025, 10:01:42 PM

Quote from: Chris24601 on March 02, 2025, 05:38:05 PM...

Basically, I think you've got some confirmation bias going on.

Not at all. I was making a quick comment, not writing an extensive essay.

I could've easily gone into more detail and sliced the salami, but it's not worth it because the core point is kind of blindingly obvious. The things people complain about today with 5E/5.5E/6E, whatever you want to call it are simply continuations of trends in 4E (& 3E). I'm not even saying that to be derogatory towards 3E or 4E -- A lot of change made in those editions are (IMO) better game design.

But I'm not just evaluating the game design changes, I'm evaluating the motivations -- Why you make a change does matter, it's a vector showing core game principles. The rot has taken awhile for a lot of people to recognize, but it's been there for awhile and will remain as as long as D&D's in the clutches of the WOTC / inbred Leftist crowd.

Greetings!

I agree, Zelen.

I don't see some kind of contradiction with saying that 3E, 4E, and 5E all demonstrated some solid game design, improvements, and worthy aspects--while *also* increasingly embracing Woke BS. The evidence is all there, straight from the mouths of various artists, game designers, and writers, every step of the way. Something that I think many people forget, is that also all along the way, we are talking about several dozen or more people involved in the entire staff. Some of course, are talented and have genuine skills. Many others, again, increasingly, much less so. This isn't rocket science, and yet many insist on seeing the internal "Work Culture" of an enormous company over the span of 25 years in absolute, binary terms. I also think that some designers that used to be celebrated and applauded broadly with high talent--such as Monte Cook--have actually *declined* in skill. In tandem with such skill erosion, it can be seen that the Woke ideology spreads and becomes even more entrenched, resulting in a growing insanity and constant outbursts of Woke BS and stupidity. This degeneracy is also seen increasingly in whatever works that they do manage to produce. It can be seen through Twitter, interviews, and so on, that many of these people that may have started out as game designers, artists, etc, 15, 20 and more years ago--have also steadily moved away from any serious professional work embracing the identity of a professional designer, artist, writer--and increasingly take up the identity of being a Woke activist. The Woke activism seeps into every aspect of consciousness, their every relationship, and every corner of their daily lives.

That's what the "Woke Mind Virus" does to people. It changes ostensibly normal people into twisted, maniacal, zombies and POD people. Que vision of "Invasion of the Bodysnatchers", 1979, starring Donald Sutherland.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: Horace on March 02, 2025, 01:30:14 PM

Quote from: Venka on March 02, 2025, 12:26:55 PMAD&D 1e removes the penalty for female human strength

It doesn't. Strength Table I on p. 9 of the PHB states that 18/50 is the "Maximum strength possible for a female human or male gnome character."

That's a limit, not a penalty- that stuck around through AD&D 1e and was removed in AD&D 2e (which I stated on the next sentence, but I guess you wanted to "actually" me even though I was correct). 


Here's the line from the AD&D 1e PHB: 

QuoteYou will find no pretentious dictums herein, no baseless limits arbitrarily placed on female strength or male charisma, no ponderous combat systems for greater "realism", there isn't a hint of a spell point system whose record keeping would warm the heart of a monomaniacal statistics lover, or anything else of the sort.

There's multiple places of commentary which make it clear that the PHB is essentially a work of gathering information into one place and also sort of like patch notes.

Anyway, one of those things that it brings up is "no baseless limits arbitrarily placed on female strength"- obviously, the limit in the book (18/50) is not considered baseless nor arbitrary.

Quote from: Armchair Gamer on March 02, 2025, 01:55:30 PMPerhaps reacting to Len Lakofka's ill-conceived "Women in D&D" rules in The Dragon #3: "Only as fighters are women clearly behind men in all cases ... Strength 18 [sic] sided die and 1 six sided die." Since the article goes on to say "Any woman scoring 13 or 14 in strength may add one to her constitution score," I suspect it's supposed to say "1 8-sided die"--and maybe does; the DRAGON Archive I'm using has numerous scanning errors.

Now this absolutely could be something that Gygax was referring to when he called it out.  Bonus: I'd never seen this before, so you have 1000% made my night. 

QuoteI suspect it's supposed to say "1 8-sided die"

That is exactly what it says.  Each die is specified first in quantity and then in type.  Look at how the other scores are written.
"Wisdom, Intelligence, Dexterity and Constitution all use 3 6 sided dice."
"Instead of Charisma BEAUTY is rated on 2 20 sided dice numbered 1-
10 (so the range is 2-20, not 2-40."

So this woman section has human females with a triangular distribution strength, ranging from 2 to 14, with an average of 8.  I don't know how fair it is to call this official, given that it's a set of rules in Dragon magazine, and there could well be something else that had some other way of assigning strength scores to female humans, but suffice it to say, AD&D 1e's limit of 18/50 is very generous compared to this.

Bonus funny stuff: the level-based titles in here are great.  The magic-user table is totally on par with the one for men, but the thief titles, oh man.  Check this out:
Level 1: Wench
Level 2: Hag
Level 3: Jade
Level 4: Succubus
Level 5: Adventuress
Level 6: Soothsayer
Level 7: Gypsy
Level 8: Sibyl

This is quite the ride for our thiefess, title-wise!

The article is nowhere near done with its gifts, featuring this image (Dragon Magazine 3, page 7, for when this image host inevitably disappears):
(https://files.catbox.moe/l9l4bx.jpg)

Ok anyway, on to the rest of the thread!

Quote from: Chris24601 on March 02, 2025, 05:38:05 PM- Removing ability score penalties
Like flipping to ascending AC, just having adding to a base number is an easier mechanical expression.

No, a penalty is a much bigger deal.  First, the game is generally balanced around numbers that aren't penalized or given a bonus, so being given a penalty often hurts you more than being given a bonus.  Second, if a human can start with a Dex of 18, and Elf 20, and a Dwarf 16, that's a very large difference between dwarf and elf.  Penalties do a lot more to shut you out of a class than a bonus does to shut out everyone without that bonus.  Penalties also really suck for point buy, because you normally can't buy very high, and buying as high as you can has much more cost.  In games where you have a -2 penalty to intelligence, being a wizard is going to be mechanically punishing, and that's such a significant thing that if you make that choice, it's in some way because of that penalty in most cases.

Walking away from penalties is a very large step, mechanically.  It was probably done for mechanical reasons initially, but by the time they were removing it from orcs (not normally a player race in 5e) it was being done politically.  Making elves not have a Con penalty and such was almost assuredly done just to make it easier to roll or point buy characters in 5e, especially given the way that 5e "ability score increases" work.

I think part of it is timing.  WotC is trying to move D&D to a live service subscription model with microtransactions at the same time that many consumers are soundly rejecting that model.  A lot of people are just fed up with this sort of thing. 

Short of rampant cheating, who ever rolled 18/00 for character generation, anyways?  The only realistic way for most players to get that would be to beeline for a belt of giant strength, which I think would get anyone to 18/00 regardless of sex or race anyways.  It's basically a complete non-issue, as the odds of a given character rolling an 18 to begin with, much less over 50 on a subsequent percentile die, are slim at best.

Quote from: Valatar on March 03, 2025, 12:15:49 AMShort of rampant cheating, who ever rolled 18/00 for character generation, anyways?

Hold on, why jump all the way to 18/00?  The values in AD&D 1e for 18 and 18 / exceptional strength are (just hit and damage here):
18: +1 to hit, +2 to damage
18/01 to 18/50: +1 to hit, +3 to damage (this is the maximum for a female human or gnome male)
18/51 to 18/75: +2 to hit, +3 to damage
18/76 to 18/90: +2 to hit, +4 to damage
18/91 to 18/99: +2 to hit, +5 to damage
18/00: +3 to hit, +6 to damage

If you use method I, over 9% of characters have an 18 to put where they want.  That means that around 0.1% of characters who choose to put it into strength (a great use for an 18) will have that 18/00, but a full 4.5%+ will have something higher than the human female maximum strength. 

So while it's not a super rare thing to come up, rolling 18/51 or higher is something that most tables will expect to see over a few games- and if your character gets it, you probably want to play a man, not a woman, because of the max (in many cases of course, a DM would simply waive that limit, but the limit is at least present to be waived).

But wait, we aren't done with easier ways to get an 18/51 through 18/99- you can also, of course...
drumroll....
Roll a 17, then make a half orc, who has a +1 and gets percentile rolls.  It's true, he can't be 18/00 (his limit is 18/99), but that's still really strong!  The odds of seeing at least one 17 on those six 4d6-drop-lowest rolls are a bit over 30%.  So most tables using Method I have a good chance of having at least one character that can be into percentile strength.

Quote from: Valatar on March 03, 2025, 12:15:49 AMShort of rampant cheating, who ever rolled 18/00 for character generation, anyways?  The only realistic way for most players to get that would be to beeline for a belt of giant strength, which I think would get anyone to 18/00 regardless of sex or race anyways.  It's basically a complete non-issue, as the odds of a given character rolling an 18 to begin with, much less over 50 on a subsequent percentile die, are slim at best.

I saw it happen twice, in front of the entire table.  However, that's because of the sheer volume of characters we were producing at the time in my "Killer GM" phase. 

It wasn't uncommon for us to go through 5 or 6 parties in one weekend of almost non-stop gaming (2-4 hours sleep a night, plus meals, everything else was game time).  That's often 6 or 7 players, too, using 4d6 drop lowest, arrange to suit.  I don't recall the 18/00 fighters lasting much longer than any of the others, especially since neither have them had a particularly high Con.  I do remember the players working extra hard to keep them alive. :)

There's a reason AL doesn't let you roll for stats.

Quote from: Man at Arms on February 28, 2025, 09:08:11 PMWorse than nothing at all?

So they didn't even recover the money they invested into the creation and marketing of the new edition, that nobody asked for?

I don't know that for sure, it's possible they're into profit, but if so it appears to be far less than they were doing before. Considering the costs of making the new edition, they might have been better off just making some alternate covers or something like that for 2014 edition.

Quote from: HappyDaze on February 28, 2025, 11:56:39 PM

Quote from: honeydipperdavid on February 28, 2025, 10:03:30 PM4E was the woke edition of D&D and it failed hard.

How was 4e woke?

I didn't care for 4e because of how it played with my group, but our complaint wasn't that it was "woke" in any way.

Yeah, I don't think 4e was particularly woke. It was just horrible design for what was supposed to be a core mainstream product, that alienated two-thirds of its potential player base.

Quote from: yosemitemike on March 03, 2025, 12:05:14 AMI think part of it is timing.  WotC is trying to move D&D to a live service subscription model with microtransactions at the same time that many consumers are soundly rejecting that model.  A lot of people are just fed up with this sort of thing. 

Never mind the fact that their intended subscription service (the VTT) is not up and running, and is now closing on a year overdue.

Quote from: RPGPundit on March 05, 2025, 10:22:40 AM

Quote from: yosemitemike on March 03, 2025, 12:05:14 AMI think part of it is timing.  WotC is trying to move D&D to a live service subscription model with microtransactions at the same time that many consumers are soundly rejecting that model.  A lot of people are just fed up with this sort of thing. 

Never mind the fact that their intended subscription service (the VTT) is not up and running, and is now closing on a year overdue.

Is this just a character builder for now then?   I saw mentions on my youtube feed that it was open to the public but haven't tried it myself.

https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/1919-what-is-sigil-d-ds-new-immersive-3d-vtt#how-do-i-start-using-sigil

Quote from: RPGPundit on March 05, 2025, 10:22:40 AM

Quote from: yosemitemike on March 03, 2025, 12:05:14 AMI think part of it is timing.  WotC is trying to move D&D to a live service subscription model with microtransactions at the same time that many consumers are soundly rejecting that model.  A lot of people are just fed up with this sort of thing. 

Never mind the fact that their intended subscription service (the VTT) is not up and running, and is now closing on a year overdue.

So, basically exactly what happened with the 4E digital tools.

Color me surprised.

What's today's equivalent to Silverlight c. 2010? Whatever it is THAT will be what they make whatever vestigal bits run on... because past performance by WotC IS indicative of future results.

Crawford is probably excited to finally be in charge, but puzzled as to why they aren't making more money. 

Quote from: RPGPundit on March 05, 2025, 10:18:45 AMConsidering the costs of making the new edition, they might have been better off just making some alternate covers or something like that for 2014 edition.

IMO, this is what they should have done. If they wanted to commission new interior art and do a new layout, that would have been fine too. They would have sold a lot of books, and the player-base wouldn't be divided like it is now.

All 5.5E really did was create a need for a 6th Edition to clean the slate.

Quote from: Horace on March 05, 2025, 06:57:57 PM

Quote from: RPGPundit on March 05, 2025, 10:18:45 AMConsidering the costs of making the new edition, they might have been better off just making some alternate covers or something like that for 2014 edition.

IMO, this is what they should have done. If they wanted to commission new interior art and do a new layout, that would have been fine too. They would have sold a lot of books, and the player-base wouldn't be divided like it is now.

All 5.5E really did was create a need for a 6th Edition to clean the slate.

We'll see in two years that this was the goal all the time.

Quote from: JasperAK on March 05, 2025, 07:34:19 PM

Quote from: Horace on March 05, 2025, 06:57:57 PM

Quote from: RPGPundit on March 05, 2025, 10:18:45 AMConsidering the costs of making the new edition, they might have been better off just making some alternate covers or something like that for 2014 edition.

IMO, this is what they should have done. If they wanted to commission new interior art and do a new layout, that would have been fine too. They would have sold a lot of books, and the player-base wouldn't be divided like it is now.

All 5.5E really did was create a need for a 6th Edition to clean the slate.

We'll see in two years that this was the goal all the time.

An unfortunate reality is that sometimes a flawed product makes more money. From what I understand, New Coke was a failure on its own, but it ended up giving Coke more marketing and more market share once they reverted to Coke Classic.

The reality of the tabletop RPG market is that putting out a great product that people like for many years means that there are no sales. DM-only products like adventures have much smaller profit margins, and more settings just fractures the marketplace further. The only model that has worked for RPG companies is the edition treadmill.


In general on this thread, I don't really know RPG marketing and I don't have strong opinions on what will work. I'm not an industry insider and I know that my personal tastes aren't the most popular out there - I like a lot of niche RPGs. From what I do know, I don't think that much of WotC - but I'm also really skeptical about a lot of the marketing ideas here, like just putting out books with alternate covers. Of people out there, I'd be more inclined to listen to people who have run multi-million-dollar Kickstarter campaigns or other major mainstream efforts.

The edition treadmill and the network effect have been dominant reality in the RPG market for decades. I'm not saying there can't be a better way to work, but I'd be skeptical until the results were shown.

I get the feeling 5E24 got caught between two stools--"Don't kill the goose laying the golden eggs" and "give us something fresh and new we can sell for the 50th Anniversary."

Quote from: Armchair Gamer on March 05, 2025, 08:17:23 PMI get the feeling 5E24 got caught between two stools--"Don't kill the goose laying the golden eggs" and "give us something fresh and new we can sell for the 50th Anniversary."

Yup. It's the classic edition problem.

I remember how 4th edition HERO System was very successful in 1989, but HERO Games was then stuck - and their eventually attempts at new editions did badly. (I have a minor credit in 5th edition, but I still prefer 4th.)

Quote from: jhkim on March 05, 2025, 08:27:32 PM

Quote from: Armchair Gamer on March 05, 2025, 08:17:23 PMI get the feeling 5E24 got caught between two stools--"Don't kill the goose laying the golden eggs" and "give us something fresh and new we can sell for the 50th Anniversary."

Yup. It's the classic edition problem.

I remember how 4th edition HERO System was very successful in 1989, but HERO Games was then stuck - and their eventually attempts at new editions did badly. (I have a minor credit in 5th edition, but I still prefer 4th.)

   I don't know if I'd say 5th Edition "did badly" when it revived a system that everyone had written off as dead and kept it going with strong support for several years, and in the midst of the d20 boom at that.

   6th Edition definitely fell short of expectations.

Quote from: JasperAK on March 05, 2025, 07:34:19 PM

Quote from: Horace on March 05, 2025, 06:57:57 PMAll 5.5E really did was create a need for a 6th Edition to clean the slate.

We'll see in two years that this was the goal all the time.

You may be right. But WotC has burned up so much good will lately, I'm not sure a new edition will work out for them.

Quote from: Horace on March 05, 2025, 09:17:52 PM

Quote from: JasperAK on March 05, 2025, 07:34:19 PM

Quote from: Horace on March 05, 2025, 06:57:57 PMAll 5.5E really did was create a need for a 6th Edition to clean the slate.

We'll see in two years that this was the goal all the time.

You may be right. But WotC has burned up so much good will lately, I'm not sure a new edition will work out for them.

If there is an actual 6th edition I expect it to be via a licensed third-party.

Quote from: Horace on March 05, 2025, 09:17:52 PM

Quote from: JasperAK on March 05, 2025, 07:34:19 PM

Quote from: Horace on March 05, 2025, 06:57:57 PMAll 5.5E really did was create a need for a 6th Edition to clean the slate.

We'll see in two years that this was the goal all the time.

You may be right. But WotC has burned up so much good will lately, I'm not sure a new edition will work out for them.

Heh. Yeah, lets send Pinkerton after people who opened their mail and retroactively assume control of everything using the OGL license! How could this backfire as we plan for Beyond, 6E, and the future? Let's also randomly edit books we've already released, use AI art secretly, and so much more!

5E's gravity was their own worst enemy here. The future of D&D may well be "5e compatible" and "OSR compatible" and their new 2024E or 5.5E may not be able to escape those black holes of marketing and customer acceptance.

WOTC will never beat 2014 5E D&D.  That shadow will forever loom large, over them.

Quote from: D-ko on March 12, 2025, 06:23:39 PM

Quote from: Horace on March 05, 2025, 09:17:52 PM

Quote from: JasperAK on March 05, 2025, 07:34:19 PM

Quote from: Horace on March 05, 2025, 06:57:57 PMAll 5.5E really did was create a need for a 6th Edition to clean the slate.

We'll see in two years that this was the goal all the time.

You may be right. But WotC has burned up so much good will lately, I'm not sure a new edition will work out for them.

Heh. Yeah, lets send Pinkerton after people who opened their mail and retroactively assume control of everything using the OGL license! How could this backfire as we plan for Beyond, 6E, and the future? Let's also randomly edit books we've already released, use AI art secretly, and so much more!

Just say no, to the Pinkertons.  They are not the police.  They don't come rolling in with search warrants and police dogs. 

Quote from: Man at Arms on March 13, 2025, 05:22:57 AMWOTC will never beat 2014 5E D&D.  That shadow will forever loom large, over them.

Well, they certainly won't beat it if they don't hire actual game designers. But I could see someone someday beating it, whether that's WotC or some company they license D&D to.

Quote from: yosemitemike on March 03, 2025, 12:05:14 AMI think part of it is timing.  WotC is trying to move D&D to a live service subscription model with microtransactions at the same time that many consumers are soundly rejecting that model.  A lot of people are just fed up with this sort of thing. 

Alot of venues are sometimes as much as a decade out of touch with their customer base.

Others were never in touch with their customer base.

I just watched a Tolarian Community College on the prices for the upcoming Final Fantasy Universes Beyond set. Yes, I do think this is relevant to the 2024 PHB because the supermajority of WotC's revenue comes from Magic: The Gathering, so you can't properly understand WotC's or Hasbro's headspace about how they view WotC as a business without looking at MTG.

It's not good. Booster boxes MSRP for over $200, collector booster boxes MSRP for $450. The premium EDH decks are MSRPing for $150. For those of you who don't or haven't played MTG, these prices are roughly double what they were before COVID. These are the numbers you would expect from a company which is desperate for cash and is willing to strip mine their consumer-base to make a quarterly. And while that doesn't appear to exactly be true of WotC itself, that attitude makes perfect sense for larger Hasbro.

If that's the case for Magic--the goose which lays the golden eggs--then the 2024 PHB was likely a simple cash grab. Chances are large stretches of the book were AI generated and WotC may have limited intention to give it long term support.

Quote from: Fheredin on March 15, 2025, 08:17:23 AMChances are large stretches of the book were AI generated and WotC may have limited intention to give it long term support.

Do you have any evidence to support this claim?

Quote from: HappyDaze on March 15, 2025, 09:11:44 AM

Quote from: Fheredin on March 15, 2025, 08:17:23 AMChances are large stretches of the book were AI generated and WotC may have limited intention to give it long term support.

Do you have any evidence to support this claim?

Anyone can generate the evidence in no time flat.   :)    AI would have to be purposefully and consistently mistrained like the diverse and female Catholic pope and founding father generating google AI gemini in order to have to come up with the 2024 art at least.

Quote from: RNGm on March 15, 2025, 02:36:47 PM

Quote from: HappyDaze on March 15, 2025, 09:11:44 AM

Quote from: Fheredin on March 15, 2025, 08:17:23 AMChances are large stretches of the book were AI generated and WotC may have limited intention to give it long term support.

Do you have any evidence to support this claim?

Anyone can generate the evidence in no time flat.   :)    AI would have to be purposefully and consistently mistrained like the diverse and female Catholic pope and founding father generating google AI gemini in order to have to come up with the 2024 art at least.

So that's a "no" then?

Quote from: HappyDaze on March 15, 2025, 03:04:10 PM

Quote from: RNGm on March 15, 2025, 02:36:47 PM

Quote from: HappyDaze on March 15, 2025, 09:11:44 AM

Quote from: Fheredin on March 15, 2025, 08:17:23 AMChances are large stretches of the book were AI generated and WotC may have limited intention to give it long term support.

Do you have any evidence to support this claim?

Anyone can generate the evidence in no time flat.   :)    AI would have to be purposefully and consistently mistrained like the diverse and female Catholic pope and founding father generating google AI gemini in order to have to come up with the 2024 art at least.

So that's a "no" then?

It was a joke.  I made no claim... wrong person.

Quote from: RPGPundit on March 15, 2025, 03:57:27 AM

Quote from: Man at Arms on March 13, 2025, 05:22:57 AMWOTC will never beat 2014 5E D&D.  That shadow will forever loom large, over them.

Well, they certainly won't beat it if they don't hire actual game designers. But I could see someone someday beating it, whether that's WotC or some company they license D&D to.

Pundit, I was really saying that WOTC specifically, can't and won't beat it.  The don't have the personnel to do it.  Their pride won't allow them to admit their mistakes, and hire real game designers.

A good design team and good market timing, might beat 2014 5E; but it's not a given.  What a money maker, it was.

Quote from: Omega on March 15, 2025, 05:49:01 AM

Quote from: yosemitemike on March 03, 2025, 12:05:14 AMI think part of it is timing.  WotC is trying to move D&D to a live service subscription model with microtransactions at the same time that many consumers are soundly rejecting that model.  A lot of people are just fed up with this sort of thing. 

Alot of venues are sometimes as much as a decade out of touch with their customer base.

Others were never in touch with their customer base.

This is why I don't travel 1 hour to my nearest game store anymore.  They don't want my business.  I used to buy dice just to patronize them, when they didn't have a single thing I wanted.  But they made it apparent that they don't want business from people who think differently than they do.

Quote from: RPGPundit on March 15, 2025, 03:57:27 AM...
Well, they certainly won't beat it if they don't hire actual game designers. But I could see someone someday beating it, whether that's WotC or some company they license D&D to.

Not only will somebody someday beat it, but the bar is not as high as people think.

Quote from: HappyDaze on March 15, 2025, 09:11:44 AM

Quote from: Fheredin on March 15, 2025, 08:17:23 AMChances are large stretches of the book were AI generated and WotC may have limited intention to give it long term support.

Do you have any evidence to support this claim?

The Golaith's Powerful Build feature does not work properly RAW. It gives you advantage on saving throws to end being Grappled, but you don't end Grappled with a saving throw. You end it with an Athletics check.

This is an example of a mistake which a human could have made, but the idea that a human WotC employee actually tasked with writing rules would have not cross-checked how Grappling works is a bit ridiculous.

However, an LLM is a probability sieve where it interpolates the next most probable word. Being grappled is a condition, and the most likely next word to be associated with a condition is a saving throw. This is a mistake a human could make, but probably wouldn't...but it is also a mistake an LLM would make most of the time. This is an example where there is a significant difference between a human comprehending the words and the LLM computing the next token with a probability calculation.

It's my educated guess that some sections of the 2024 PHB were written by LLMs and then proofread by humans, and because proofreading doesn't have great odds to catch flaws like this, some of the mistakes the LLM made escaped all the way to production.

Quote from: Fheredin on March 16, 2025, 09:09:34 AMThe Golaith's Powerful Build feature does not work properly RAW. It gives you advantage on saving throws to end being Grappled, but you don't end Grappled with a saving throw. You end it with an Athletics check.

This is an example of a mistake which a human could have made, but the idea that a human WotC employee actually tasked with writing rules would have not cross-checked how Grappling works is a bit ridiculous.

FWIW, that type of mistake is pretty common in games.  It could be a simple human mistake as you mentioned or, even equally likely, could be the result of a change that wasn't fully carried over to all references to the test during development.   At one time, they may have been testing escaping a grapple with a strength save and decided not to ultimately but forgot to change it in the goliath rules where it was mentioned.

Quote from: Fheredin on March 16, 2025, 09:09:34 AM

Quote from: HappyDaze on March 15, 2025, 09:11:44 AM

Quote from: Fheredin on March 15, 2025, 08:17:23 AMChances are large stretches of the book were AI generated and WotC may have limited intention to give it long term support.

Do you have any evidence to support this claim?

The Golaith's Powerful Build feature does not work properly RAW. It gives you advantage on saving throws to end being Grappled, but you don't end Grappled with a saving throw. You end it with an Athletics check.

This is an example of a mistake which a human could have made, but the idea that a human WotC employee actually tasked with writing rules would have not cross-checked how Grappling works is a bit ridiculous.

That's where you're absolutely wrong. The human beings currently employed by WotC are MONUMENTALLY incompetent.

How bad? We know this from the Book of Many Things: Mackenzie de Armas has no idea how to write RPG rules, and lacks the mental capacity to ever learn, so she took full credit for the product but it was actually almost entirely written (except for Armas' Lesbian Fanfiction) by Jason Tondro.
And TONDRO SUCKED TOO.

He's one of the last people left at WotC who has any knowledge of game design, and under the circumstances of a more normal hobby he should probably be completely incapable of finding any job above that of mailroom boy.

The biggest proof that this edition WASN'T written by AI is that if it was true the game would probably be a lot better.

Quote from: Fheredin on March 16, 2025, 09:09:34 AM

Quote from: HappyDaze on March 15, 2025, 09:11:44 AM

Quote from: Fheredin on March 15, 2025, 08:17:23 AMChances are large stretches of the book were AI generated and WotC may have limited intention to give it long term support.

Do you have any evidence to support this claim?

The Golaith's Powerful Build feature does not work properly RAW. It gives you advantage on saving throws to end being Grappled, but you don't end Grappled with a saving throw. You end it with an Athletics check.

This is an example of a mistake which a human could have made, but the idea that a human WotC employee actually tasked with writing rules would have not cross-checked how Grappling works is a bit ridiculous.

However, an LLM is a probability sieve where it interpolates the next most probable word. Being grappled is a condition, and the most likely next word to be associated with a condition is a saving throw. This is a mistake a human could make, but probably wouldn't...but it is also a mistake an LLM would make most of the time. This is an example where there is a significant difference between a human comprehending the words and the LLM computing the next token with a probability calculation.

It's my educated guess that some sections of the 2024 PHB were written by LLMs and then proofread by humans, and because proofreading doesn't have great odds to catch flaws like this, some of the mistakes the LLM made escaped all the way to production.

IOW, you're pulling a guess out of your ass.

It's also hilarious to me that you say a human writer would be unlikely to make this kind of mistake and also unlikely that a human proofreader would be unlikely to catch it. Why would you think this? As someone that does proofreading, I can tell you I see writers make mistakes like this all the time, and I catch them all the time.

Quote from: HappyDaze on March 16, 2025, 01:00:48 PM

Quote from: Fheredin on March 16, 2025, 09:09:34 AM

Quote from: HappyDaze on March 15, 2025, 09:11:44 AM

Quote from: Fheredin on March 15, 2025, 08:17:23 AMChances are large stretches of the book were AI generated and WotC may have limited intention to give it long term support.

Do you have any evidence to support this claim?

The Golaith's Powerful Build feature does not work properly RAW. It gives you advantage on saving throws to end being Grappled, but you don't end Grappled with a saving throw. You end it with an Athletics check.

This is an example of a mistake which a human could have made, but the idea that a human WotC employee actually tasked with writing rules would have not cross-checked how Grappling works is a bit ridiculous.

However, an LLM is a probability sieve where it interpolates the next most probable word. Being grappled is a condition, and the most likely next word to be associated with a condition is a saving throw. This is a mistake a human could make, but probably wouldn't...but it is also a mistake an LLM would make most of the time. This is an example where there is a significant difference between a human comprehending the words and the LLM computing the next token with a probability calculation.

It's my educated guess that some sections of the 2024 PHB were written by LLMs and then proofread by humans, and because proofreading doesn't have great odds to catch flaws like this, some of the mistakes the LLM made escaped all the way to production.

IOW, you're pulling a guess out of your ass.

It's also hilarious to me that you say a human writer would be unlikely to make this kind of mistake and also unlikely that a human proofreader would be unlikely to catch it. Why would you think this? As someone that does proofreading, I can tell you I see writers make mistakes like this all the time, and I catch them all the time.

So, basically, his guess comes from the same place that every comment you make on this website comes from.  Not exactly the own you think it is...

Quote from: RPGPundit on March 16, 2025, 12:07:39 PMBook of Many Things

Well, I'm glad to say that I'm now so oblivious to what WotC is doing that I had no idea what this was. Apparently they've released a number of books since I stopped paying attention (and I used to buy every new release in the early days of 5E!). Now I wouldn't touch a WotC book with a ten-foot pole.

QuoteThe biggest proof that this edition WASN'T written by AI is that if it was true the game would probably be a lot better.

This was my thought as well. AI can do incredible things. WotC, not so much.

You know, it is possible for a gross incompetent using poor AI to rapidly produce something worse than either could working alone.  Just saying.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell on March 16, 2025, 02:33:18 PMYou know, it is possible for a gross incompetent using poor AI to rapidly produce something worse than either could working alone.  Just saying.

True. We're in the "dawizard" phase of AI: an amazing cost-saving tool for those who know how to use it properly, a tool of mass destruction and embarrassment for those who don't.

As we all know what you're responding to, I'll rearrange things thusly. I do have experience on this forum dogpiling thing.

Quote from: RNGm on March 16, 2025, 10:36:46 AMFWIW, that type of mistake is pretty common in games.  It could be a simple human mistake as you mentioned or, even equally likely, could be the result of a change that wasn't fully carried over to all references to the test during development.  At one time, they may have been testing escaping a grapple with a strength save and decided not to ultimately but forgot to change it in the goliath rules where it was mentioned.

Quote from: RPGPundit on March 16, 2025, 12:07:39 PMThat's where you're absolutely wrong. The human beings currently employed by WotC are MONUMENTALLY incompetent.

How bad? We know this from the Book of Many Things: Mackenzie de Armas has no idea how to write RPG rules, and lacks the mental capacity to ever learn, so she took full credit for the product but it was actually almost entirely written (except for Armas' Lesbian Fanfiction) by Jason Tondro.
And TONDRO SUCKED TOO.

He's one of the last people left at WotC who has any knowledge of game design, and under the circumstances of a more normal hobby he should probably be completely incapable of finding any job above that of mailroom boy.

The biggest proof that this edition WASN'T written by AI is that if it was true the game would probably be a lot better.

Quote from: HappyDaze on March 16, 2025, 01:00:48 PMIOW, you're pulling a guess out of your ass.

It's also hilarious to me that you say a human writer would be unlikely to make this kind of mistake and also unlikely that a human proofreader would be unlikely to catch it. Why would you think this? As someone that does proofreading, I can tell you I see writers make mistakes like this all the time, and I catch them all the time.

What all three of you miss is the anatomy of the workflow logic that led to the mistake. For a really complex exception-based rules system like D&D, a human writer will probably have a second screen with the developer equivalent of the SRD open, so if you write an ability, you will Ctrl + F to the rules in question. If you don't do this, you are literally going to be making mistakes all the bloody time, regardless of how familiar with the system you are. This means that the more odd the rules the SRD is going to use, the less likely a human author is going to make a mistake. It also means that paradoxically, the less familiar with the system the author is, the less likely they are to make a mistake because they will lack the confidence to just write the rules and will instead double-check before writing.

It's when you start dealing with more mundane rules or rules writers who are more confident with the system that you really need to watch for mistakes, because these are the situations people won't double-check a mistake in.

Now the interesting part is that most LLMs do not necessarily double-check their work the way a human would. It's also worth noting that the 2024 D&D PHB was probably written in 2023, which was well before self-prompting and thinking models like o1 Strawberry (which effectively released the same time the PHB did, although I think it's doubtful a thinking model would have avoided this mistake.) It's also worth noting that this was around the time of WotC's first layoff, but not the more recent ones. If you seriously think that AI would be better than human, I think that's because you're either poo pooing WotC in general or not accurately assessing what they actually had to work with when they were actually writing the book.

Proofreading (and playtesting, which I don't think anyone actually thinks WotC did at any real scale) is almost certainly going to favor putting a fine detailed eye over abilities which threaten game balance, which means that it will pay a lot more attention to casters than to melee. This is the kind of mistake which will escape general proofreading, and clearly missed internal playtesting, purely because of where these people will spend the majority of their time when reading the book.

The last thing to note is that, like I said in my first post on this, this is exactly the kind of mistake you would expect an LLM to make. It sees condition, it writes advantage on saving throw because these are all words it is expecting to string together.

Quote from: Fheredin on March 15, 2025, 08:17:23 AMIf that's the case for Magic--the goose which lays the golden eggs--then the 2024 PHB was likely a simple cash grab. Chances are large stretches of the book were AI generated and WotC may have limited intention to give it long term support.

I doubt fake 5e will last even 5 years before wotc comes out with BETTER! fake 5e 3.8! You'll create characters using real cookie cutters and instead of dice you will just play rick paper scissors because "modern" players cant understand complex things like 1+1. And all this is TOTALLY backwards compatible!

Quote from: Steven Mitchell on March 16, 2025, 02:33:18 PMYou know, it is possible for a gross incompetent using poor AI to rapidly produce something worse than either could working alone.  Just saying.

Seen this a LOT outside of the game-design space, in places where lives are on the line daily. And people with paper-credentials with very little experience using AI, don't *really* know their fundamentals in practice, spitting out dogshit that can actually cause things to fail and hurt people.

AI will replace those people, even in the game-space, as it raises the median bar. People that know how to interact with it, that have good fundamentals in their craft (whatever that is), will only get better with experience using AI. All bets are off if/when AGI drops.

Quote from: tenbones on March 16, 2025, 11:42:35 PM

Quote from: Steven Mitchell on March 16, 2025, 02:33:18 PMYou know, it is possible for a gross incompetent using poor AI to rapidly produce something worse than either could working alone.  Just saying.

Seen this a LOT outside of the game-design space, in places where lives are on the line daily. And people with paper-credentials with very little experience using AI, don't *really* know their fundamentals in practice, spitting out dogshit that can actually cause things to fail and hurt people.

AI will replace those people, even in the game-space, as it raises the median bar. People that know how to interact with it, that have good fundamentals in their craft (whatever that is), will only get better with experience using AI. All bets are off if/when AGI drops.

Hasbro is not an PC gaming powerhouse development studio. They are now swimming in the waters of sharks far more experienced than them, trying to compete on the false assumptions that TTRPG players and digital gamers are interchangeable. They are in for a rude awakening.

Hasbro should have resurrected "Space Crusade" when they had the chance.

Quote from: Omega on March 16, 2025, 11:04:55 PM

Quote from: Fheredin on March 15, 2025, 08:17:23 AMIf that's the case for Magic--the goose which lays the golden eggs--then the 2024 PHB was likely a simple cash grab. Chances are large stretches of the book were AI generated and WotC may have limited intention to give it long term support.

I doubt fake 5e will last even 5 years before wotc comes out with BETTER! fake 5e 3.8! You'll create characters using real cookie cutters and instead of dice you will just play rick paper scissors because "modern" players cant understand complex things like 1+1. And all this is TOTALLY backwards compatible!

Well, the funny thing is that with 4e Hasbro made the mistake of continuing over and over again the throw good money after bad, trying to somehow turn the tide, and the whole thing was just a constant disaster and utter failure.

One might think that WotC ought to learn from that experience, and seeing that 2024-ed is catastrophically failing, cancel it as quickly as possible... except that no one who was around in 2012 is still at WotC today. So it's entirely possible that they'll just repeat history.

4E wasn't woke in the slightest, but it was a big departure from previous editions. You could legitimately say it was an MMO-ification of D&D, and it did a good job of that.

Which wasn't to everyone's tastes. I really enjoyed playing it but it was definitely a different experience to previous editions.

Hasbro is in a similar position as Apple was right before they bought NEXT and put them in charge of the new edition. Gave them a clean slate, solid system, and Steve Jobs return to Apple. I'm not sure there is any company in the RPG industry that makes the comparison comparable so Hasbro may be Shit Out of Luck. Or perhaps Mearls and Pundit will be contacted, who knows.

Quote from: Kiero on March 18, 2025, 01:23:44 PM4E wasn't woke in the slightest, but it was a big departure from previous editions. You could legitimately say it was an MMO-ification of D&D, and it did a good job of that.

Which is why I hated it. If I want to play a MMO. I'll go play a MMO. D&D was about sitting around the table, slinging dice with friends, and creating epic adventures and memories.

Now? With D&D Beyond, if you don't PAY for it you're limited. If you delete your account, you have NOTHING. GONE. No rule books. No characters. No accessories.

The future of D&D is the pay to play model, courtesy of Microsoft.

What fucking bullshit.

It's bad enough that go to the pay wall model, and then gaslight the fuck out of everyone that the creators of D&D were misogynists, bigots, and racists.

Regular D&D is batshit crazy and has nothing to do with it roots.

I want nothing to do with those rainbow-haired, DEI brainwashed, latte sucking, douche nozzles.

The heart and soul of D&D left years ago and it's in the OSR, and I'll be damned if it isn't.

Shadowdark, OSE, OSRIC, Labyrinth Lord, Swords and Wizardry, and DCC are just a few who have picked up the torch and ran with it.

Fuck 'em. WoTC is getting exactly what it deserves.

4e wasn't MMOish, it was turn-based strategyish ala Fire Emblem or X-COM.  And as a fan of the genre, I do quite like 4e's gameplay.  People've said, and I concur, that WotC would've been wiser to release 4e as a separate game, call it D&D Tactics or whatever, to allow it to stand on its own instead of rocking the D&D boat with such a radically different system after 3.5.  In my opinion that was its main failing, the whiplash that the customer base felt from the complete redesign.  Something closer to 3.5 like 5e wouldn't have been rejected.

Quote from: blackstone on March 18, 2025, 01:54:40 PM

Quote from: Kiero on March 18, 2025, 01:23:44 PM4E wasn't woke in the slightest, but it was a big departure from previous editions. You could legitimately say it was an MMO-ification of D&D, and it did a good job of that.

Which is why I hated it. If I want to play a MMO. I'll go play a MMO. D&D was about sitting around the table, slinging dice with friends, and creating epic adventures and memories.

Now? With D&D Beyond, if you don't PAY for it you're limited. If you delete your account, you have NOTHING. GONE. No rule books. No characters. No accessories.

The future of D&D is the pay to play model, courtesy of Microsoft.

What fucking bullshit.

It's bad enough that go to the pay wall model, and then gaslight the fuck out of everyone that the creators of D&D were misogynists, bigots, and racists.

Regular D&D is batshit crazy and has nothing to do with it roots.

I want nothing to do with those rainbow-haired, DEI brainwashed, latte sucking, douche nozzles.

The heart and soul of D&D left years ago and it's in the OSR, and I'll be damned if it isn't.

Shadowdark, OSE, OSRIC, Labyrinth Lord, Swords and Wizardry, and DCC are just a few who have picked up the torch and ran with it.

Fuck 'em. WoTC is getting exactly what it deserves.

Greetings!

PREACH ON, BROTHER!

Blackstone, absolutely right! And awesome, too. My exact thoughts as well!

WOTC has become such a hate-filled, blue-haired, Woke Commie mess, that I don't care if they choke and die in the gutter somewhere. As you said, the OSR has taken the D&D legacy and has been running with it. Entirely in the opposite direction from WOTC. That suits me just fine. I have AD&D. 3E, original 5E, Dragonslayer, and my favourite, SHADOWDARK. In addition to the many things and sub-systems that I have created of my own for ShadowDark, I am quite happy, and very busy. I don't need WOTC for anything.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: RPGPundit on March 18, 2025, 01:09:28 PMOne might think that WotC ought to learn from that experience, and seeing that 2024-ed is catastrophically failing, cancel it as quickly as possible... except that no one who was around in 2012 is still at WotC today. So it's entirely possible that they'll just repeat history.

I suspect that they were trying to course correct from the backlash they got from releasing 3.5 too soon.

That and near the end Hasbro had wotc on a tight budget leash. I wonder if they did not do a 5e sooner because they lacked the funds. wotc kept screwing up the projects Hasbro handed them and someone got fed up.

Too bad Hasbro did not step in when wotc started their antics again once 5e became successful. With wotc as ever. Failure is the only option. If it ant broke then by god they will break it somehow some way.

I also wonder if they kept 4e going out of spite for Paizi's success.

Quote from: Valatar on March 18, 2025, 02:50:21 PM4e wasn't MMOish, it was turn-based strategyish ala Fire Emblem or X-COM.  And as a fan of the genre, I do quite like 4e's gameplay.  People've said, and I concur, that WotC would've been wiser to release 4e as a separate game, call it D&D Tactics or whatever, to allow it to stand on its own instead of rocking the D&D boat with such a radically different system after 3.5.  In my opinion that was its main failing, the whiplash that the customer base felt from the complete redesign.  Something closer to 3.5 like 5e wouldn't have been rejected.

It was certainly influenced by tactics games and they wanted it to be closer to a miniatures-based tactics game, but Mike Mearls recently said openly that there was MMO influence. (Questing Beast interview)
The way that the classes were deliberately segmented into the combat roles of tank, DPS, debuff, and healer makes this sort of obvious. I'm not necessarily opposed to that, and MMOs took a lot of their design from D&D to begin with, but it's there.

Quote from: Spobo on March 19, 2025, 12:33:23 PM

Quote from: Valatar on March 18, 2025, 02:50:21 PM4e wasn't MMOish, it was turn-based strategyish ala Fire Emblem or X-COM.  And as a fan of the genre, I do quite like 4e's gameplay.  People've said, and I concur, that WotC would've been wiser to release 4e as a separate game, call it D&D Tactics or whatever, to allow it to stand on its own instead of rocking the D&D boat with such a radically different system after 3.5.  In my opinion that was its main failing, the whiplash that the customer base felt from the complete redesign.  Something closer to 3.5 like 5e wouldn't have been rejected.

It was certainly influenced by tactics games and they wanted it to be closer to a miniatures-based tactics game, but Mike Mearls recently said openly that there was MMO influence. (Questing Beast interview)
The way that the classes were deliberately segmented into the combat roles of tank, DPS, debuff, and healer makes this sort of obvious. I'm not necessarily opposed to that, and MMOs took a lot of their design from D&D to begin with, but it's there.

Yes, aesthetically it was heavily influenced by WoW. In terms of game design, it was Forge "Gamist" game, which meant that most gamers would find it boring right from the get-go.

Quote from: Spobo on March 19, 2025, 12:33:23 PMIt was certainly influenced by tactics games and they wanted it to be closer to a miniatures-based tactics game, but Mike Mearls recently said openly that there was MMO influence. (Questing Beast interview)
The way that the classes were deliberately segmented into the combat roles of tank, DPS, debuff, and healer makes this sort of obvious. I'm not necessarily opposed to that, and MMOs took a lot of their design from D&D to begin with, but it's there.

It goes deeper than that; there's a type of magical item economy that uses a special currency as a medium of exchange (I don't remember the details, some type of dust?), along with the general progression of loot being very similar, and of course there was the general factor of an endless and synced progression of to-hit bonuses and target numbers, which had never shared such a mated relationship in any version of D&D before or since.

It's mostly interesting to have the confirmation because it was a contentious forum topic, with 4e apologists doing the "nuh uh you made it up" defense when this accusation was levied against it, despite perfectly reasonable points that really showed such a thing.  And now we have an insider straight up claiming that it was, and for the obvious reason- WoW had hit 12 million players at the peak of Lich King (a number based on an unusual counting of Chinese players, but it was still a large number), and it had already chewed into D&D games pretty hard (video games tend to, of course, but it was quite noticeable and it was a rare table that didn't have at least one guy with a raid night to add to the landmines to schedule around).

So basically, if you were defending 4e on this topic many years ago, you were wrong, full stop.  And if you were saying 4e had taken a lot of MMO bits (usually as a method to attack it), you were correct.  An interesting development, but not of particular importance.

The reality is that D&D is doomed to be a soulless wandering zombie as long as it remains in the hands of a large corporation. When those in control do not love or understand tabletop rpgs the results will always be the same.

Quote from: Venka on March 20, 2025, 04:24:10 PM

Quote from: Spobo on March 19, 2025, 12:33:23 PMIt was certainly influenced by tactics games and they wanted it to be closer to a miniatures-based tactics game, but Mike Mearls recently said openly that there was MMO influence. (Questing Beast interview)
The way that the classes were deliberately segmented into the combat roles of tank, DPS, debuff, and healer makes this sort of obvious. I'm not necessarily opposed to that, and MMOs took a lot of their design from D&D to begin with, but it's there.

It goes deeper than that; there's a type of magical item economy that uses a special currency as a medium of exchange (I don't remember the details, some type of dust?), along with the general progression of loot being very similar, and of course there was the general factor of an endless and synced progression of to-hit bonuses and target numbers, which had never shared such a mated relationship in any version of D&D before or since.

It's mostly interesting to have the confirmation because it was a contentious forum topic, with 4e apologists doing the "nuh uh you made it up" defense when this accusation was levied against it, despite perfectly reasonable points that really showed such a thing.  And now we have an insider straight up claiming that it was, and for the obvious reason- WoW had hit 12 million players at the peak of Lich King (a number based on an unusual counting of Chinese players, but it was still a large number), and it had already chewed into D&D games pretty hard (video games tend to, of course, but it was quite noticeable and it was a rare table that didn't have at least one guy with a raid night to add to the landmines to schedule around).

So basically, if you were defending 4e on this topic many years ago, you were wrong, full stop.  And if you were saying 4e had taken a lot of MMO bits (usually as a method to attack it), you were correct.  An interesting development, but not of particular importance.

Yeah I think it's called "residuum" lol

You're absolutely right and I remember those days. Back when "grognard" was a proxy for what they would call "chud" now, and if you said anything critical about 4e it put you in that camp.

Quote from: Spobo on March 22, 2025, 10:16:38 AM

Quote from: Venka on March 20, 2025, 04:24:10 PM

Quote from: Spobo on March 19, 2025, 12:33:23 PMIt was certainly influenced by tactics games and they wanted it to be closer to a miniatures-based tactics game, but Mike Mearls recently said openly that there was MMO influence. (Questing Beast interview)
The way that the classes were deliberately segmented into the combat roles of tank, DPS, debuff, and healer makes this sort of obvious. I'm not necessarily opposed to that, and MMOs took a lot of their design from D&D to begin with, but it's there.

It goes deeper than that; there's a type of magical item economy that uses a special currency as a medium of exchange (I don't remember the details, some type of dust?), along with the general progression of loot being very similar, and of course there was the general factor of an endless and synced progression of to-hit bonuses and target numbers, which had never shared such a mated relationship in any version of D&D before or since.

It's mostly interesting to have the confirmation because it was a contentious forum topic, with 4e apologists doing the "nuh uh you made it up" defense when this accusation was levied against it, despite perfectly reasonable points that really showed such a thing.  And now we have an insider straight up claiming that it was, and for the obvious reason- WoW had hit 12 million players at the peak of Lich King (a number based on an unusual counting of Chinese players, but it was still a large number), and it had already chewed into D&D games pretty hard (video games tend to, of course, but it was quite noticeable and it was a rare table that didn't have at least one guy with a raid night to add to the landmines to schedule around).

So basically, if you were defending 4e on this topic many years ago, you were wrong, full stop.  And if you were saying 4e had taken a lot of MMO bits (usually as a method to attack it), you were correct.  An interesting development, but not of particular importance.

Yeah I think it's called "residuum" lol

You're absolutely right and I remember those days. Back when "grognard" was a proxy for what they would call "chud" now, and if you said anything critical about 4e it put you in that camp.

Residuum was a ritual spell component (and rituals could be used to create magic items, but that was only one use).

You might be thinking of Astral Diamonds, but those were less a "special currency" and more just a step up the copper > silver > gold > platinum scale due to the ridiculous cost of epic-tier magic items in 4E.

Basically 1 astral diamond = 100 platinum = 10,000 gold (200 pounds of gold).

Epic-level magic items often cost hundreds of thousands to millions of gold and so they added a currency epic-tier adventurers could actually carry on their person instead of lugging literal tons of gold around to make their purchases with as they ventured about the dominions of the gods in the late game.

Basically, heroic tier (level 1-10) you were adventuring in the prime material plane and using silver and gold. Paragon tier (11-20) you were adventuring in the feywild, shadowfell, and/or elemental chaos and gems and platinum were your currencies of choice. Epic-tier (21-30) you were mostly adventuring in the divine realms or sojourning into the Abyss and you made trade using astral diamonds.

Which is rather video-gamey, just not quite in the way your thinking (if they were being full video gamey they'd just keep all the transactions in gold and ignore the encumberance of the literal tons of gold in your pockets... at least they bothered with an alternative medium of exchange that could be realistically carried).

Quote from: HappyDaze on March 02, 2025, 01:51:29 PM

Quote from: Zelen on March 02, 2025, 10:52:59 AM- Deliberate anti-White, anti-Male discrimination emphasized in artwork & NPC/adventure design

The tale of Regdar says this happened in 3e times; it was not introduced in 4e.

Quote from: Zelen on March 02, 2025, 10:52:59 AM- Push towards "Costume Play" mentality where being an Orc, a Drow, a Tiefling doesn't represent a realized non-Human mind with completely different drives, motivations, ethos -- They're identical to humans except with a different +bonus and racial power.

This has existed since the beginning of RPGs. What about 4e makes you think it started there?

That has honestly always bothered me. I read a few comments that talked about that on a forum around 2010 with some leftist virtue signaller going: "Yeah well as a white male who is not insecure, I think what happened to Reghdar is hilarious, because trying to appeal to white men is racist". Meanwhile, this "political correct" loser didn't realize that what the marketing team was trying to do back then is no different than what he does: Trying to appeal to "colored people". The difference is that marketing does so to make money, while he does it to stroke his own ego. They actually think that anything that is nice to white people is racist and exclusive, yet anything that is nice to other races is fine and inclusive.

Imagine if artists did the opposite: That they were told to make the characters more diverse, and then kept having a black female paladin (which, while using their own words against them, is cultural appropriation of the classic european looking knight) being killed in gruesome manners all the time, just because of contempt for that decision. These same people would scream "RACIST!" off the top of their lungs if that happened. But Reghdar being killed in art all the time because he's white and a man is somehow "funny" and perfectly fine to them.

They had already been brainwashed at that point to believe that people of a certain race (and gender combination) were evil by proxy, and were some kind of "oppressor race" (who needed to attone for their "sins" by blindly following leftist dogma like they do), all while taunting just how "good and anti-racist" they were, like good little cultists.

It's honestly sickening.

Quote from: Horace on March 16, 2025, 01:42:50 PM

Quote from: RPGPundit on March 16, 2025, 12:07:39 PMBook of Many Things

Well, I'm glad to say that I'm now so oblivious to what WotC is doing that I had no idea what this was. Apparently they've released a number of books since I stopped paying attention (and I used to buy every new release in the early days of 5E!). Now I wouldn't touch a WotC book with a ten-foot pole.

QuoteThe biggest proof that this edition WASN'T written by AI is that if it was true the game would probably be a lot better.

This was my thought as well. AI can do incredible things. WotC, not so much.

Yup, same. I had to look it up. Best part, the last book I bought was that dragon themed one, because they FINALLY added gem dragons after 5 years of people asking them about it all the time.

Me, I actually wrote whatever was wrong with 5E into my dragon themed homebrew book as well, and sold it to about 700 people. I can use that book myself whenever I want to , so after 5E I don't need anything else (I also have Pathfinder 1E content, which was great as this was largely before they went super woke). For those interested, here is my old kickstarter I used to sell it, complete with introduction. I still have a few spare ones lying around in case anyone is interested :)

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/nielsdejong/legacy-of-the-dragon-a-dragon-themed-supplement-for-5e/description

Here is a preview of my Half Dragon player race, of which I am particulairly proud :)

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1d-XqrHLMfd7MCoNFn7KMK5T5iPPtsIrs/view