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    Next Edition of Dungeons & Dragons Announced

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    ALLTheDinos

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    Edited By ALLTheDinos

    In case you missed it, Wizards of the Coast announced a new edition of Dungeons & Dragons today, with a preliminary release date of 2024. As with 5th Edition, they've started a playtesting process, which you can find out more about in that link. I participated in the previous playtest and was pretty confused by the early form of 5e (which attempted to go by the name "D&D Next"). This one seems a lot more like an expansion than a reinvention of previous editions, as they've done with 3e, 4e, and 5e. I've been extremely satisfied with 5e (to the point where it's now my favorite edition of the game), so I'm not exactly in any hurry to purchase a bunch of new books. However, the long lead time and integration into existing game architecture is pretty promising.

    Scrolling through the 21-page document they provided as the first part of the playtest, it really does look like any of the Unearthed Arcana online supplements WotC has steadily unveiled over the last 8 years. The biggest changes appear to be the return of feats as a key part of character creation (and giving them levels), moving the ability score bonuses from a racial to a background perk, restructuring magic into sources (like in 4e) rather than class-specific lists, and formally incorporating a lot of rules present in nearly every game actually played. Of course the playtest materials are limited to level 1 impacts, and even then just to races and backgrounds. You can't use this material to start a campaign, but you could certainly use it as the framework if you wanted to homebrew a system.

    Overall, it seems like an interesting though not unexpected development. I had wondered if they'd attempt to incorporate a lot more elements of smaller TTRPGs, but with D&D still accounting for more than half of all Roll20 games, why fix what isn't broken? Interested to see what others think about this announcement, and if anyone else is checking out the playtest at this time.

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    ZombiePie

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    To be honest, I will need to see this in action before I render any further judgement. My guess is that whatever Wizards tries to sell as 6th Edition is more like a 5.5E because 5th Edition has made them a shit ton of money and many people who joined the D&D community through 5E have never experienced an edition upgrade to a tabletop game.

    Also, the ghost of 4E looms large over the current dev team and as a result, I think they are bound to make incremental refinements to 5E rather than do something risky.

    All that said, "yes" to Planescape.

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    tartyron

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    #2  Edited By tartyron

    Planescape coming back!!! Woohoo!!!

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    nophilip

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    I think all the changes in the playtest document released today are at worst neutral, with many being very promising. They appear to be looking to Pathfinder 2e for inspiration in some areas - level based feats and giving every background its own feat are really good steps to making the feat system not suck complete ass (like it does currently).

    I currently DM a 5e campaign and am a bit of a 5th edition apologist. It definitely has flaws but I think most just make life harder for the DM, which I can live with. It's still a very welcoming system for players, and I'm very comfortable making the tweaks I need to make on the fly to keep the game fun for my group.

    All that said, I'm excited for the future and to see what changes come down the road. Also kudos to them for bringing back Planescape, which might be the only good D&D setting that's been officially released.

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    BladeOfCreation

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    I think it's worth noting that WotC is pretty specifically not referring to this a new edition of the game, and they've already gotten ahead of anyone worrying about buying new edition books by saying that all of 5E will be compatible with this new system. The digital tools they plan on releasing look incredible.

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    Retris

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    @bladeofcreation: That's what they did with 5th edition too. Still ended up being a new edition.

    I'm already freaking tired of the bickering from Pathfinder fans about how this is copying Pathfinder... and the evidence is stuff that Pathfinder took from earlier D&D editions. As someone who doesn't really like D&D (except for the 4th edition, that still has cool stuff to mine for other games) I still don't understand the anti-D&D sentiment either. Sure, a lot of D&D fans are asshats, but there is an immense amount of D&D fans and the asshats are in the minority.

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    BisonHero

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    @retris: In my anecdotal experience, Pathfinder players are more likely to think of themselves as PC master race kinda players that think they’re playing the game for *serious players*, while thinking of people playing 5e as basically filthy casuals.

    I’m aware I’m painting with a very broad brush here, but that’s been my personal experience interacting with a handful of different groups.

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    BladeOfCreation

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    @bisonhero: @retris: My group plays Pathfinder 1E (it's what we started with years ago, before 2E), but everyone in our group has also played 5E. Several of them play more 5E than PF. I personally didn't care for 5E when I played it, but that's because I have a decade of familiarity with PF systems. I do like the Forgotten Realms as a setting, though. I picked up that special art cover edition of Rime of the Frostmaiden.

    I just want people to have more ways to play more games!

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    noobsauce

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    I'm fairly new to DnD but this seems like a cool thing.

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    myke_tuna

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    I really just wanted Dark Sun to come back at some point, but these all seem cool. I'm curious how the changes will work.

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