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Anyone else interested in the newest changes taking place?

From one site I saw, you choose your Class before your Species (Race as a term is gone). And the background system is going to be greatly expanded and revamped. A few of the tradition "main" classes and a bunch of subclasses for each.


From Wargamer.com here is some interesting bits. Not sure how I feel about Half-Elves though, to be honest.


I am curious to what everyone's thoughts are. I am intrigued, and a bit worried to be honest. But, will I buy it? The two core books (Players and DMs), definitely.

I just don't trust Hasbro's overall monetization plan. I expect that things they are leaving out, theoretically for ethical reasons, will be available to offer "traditional" options for an upcharge. But they'll try to capitalize on the controversy.

5th Ed was already supposed to be an answer to the complexities of 3/3.5/Pathfinder and they were theoretically not going to have rules/options creep but it did a lot. This time they're just going to try the same thing with likely a subscription model where you can't play with just a rulebook, pencil, dice, and imagination.

Yeah, we probably won't transition to it.

Might try dagger heart when it comes out to see hwo that is

Well, Hasbro have stated quite openly that they want to increase profits by 50% in the short term and that D&D is "under monetized" to use their own words.

So I think it's safe to say that One D&D will herald a more exploitative business model that is more expensive for the customer. As customers, we'll have to decide where we stand and whether it's good value for us, just like with modern "live service" computer games, loot boxes, season passes, etc..

As a gamer, what do I think of One D&D so far? I'm underwhelmed tbh. Wizards have said it will essentially be a tweaked version of 5e, compatible with the previous version, and that's similar to the revisions we've seen in Tasha's Cauldron of Everything.

So far I haven't seen the justification for this new edition. Sure, they've said they're removing problematic content like "races", the discrimatory "half-elves" and "half-orcs" but this political correctness looks like virtue signalling to me. On it's own, it's not justification for a new version. It's moralistic slight of hand. The only practical justification I've seen so far is simply that they want to make D&D more profitable.

That involves discontinuing usage of the Open Gaming Licence ver 1.0 for D&D and designing it so it relies on their proprietary VTT.

I expect we'll see more aura abilities in One D&D, for example. Radial effects that emanate from a character, overlap with other auras and are hard to track without a VTT. Since Roll20 and other third parties won't be able to use One D&D (my assumption, not officially announced afaik), gamers will be forced onto Wizards' VTT.

TL;DR? So far the only reason to buy One D&D is so I'm not exposed to upsetting concepts like race and prejudice... but I'm a grown-up, I live in the real world. I can handle those things!

Nem, I agree with your points. What I am hoping is that this version pulls together in one place the major updates through 5e and Tasha's. One is supposed to b e fully compatible with 5e, so I don't think there will be a ton of big changes.

Except no Orcs and no 1/2 Elves. Oh, and Warlocks are supposed to get a bit of a change as well to put them more in line with the other spellcasters, no short rest recharge time. They will need a longer rest to regain their magic.

It will be interesting to see how that change for Warlocks go. The trade-off they had for getting their spells back after a short rest was they had far fewer spells than other casters. If they now bump it back up to make it equal, and they also need a long rest to get them back, they lose much of their flavor.

I think every system has some level of creep if they put out splat books. Publishers need to put out books to make money. There are newer methods, VTTs for example, but in the end...

I have been playing D&D since it was Chainmail, so I have seen a few editions. Some I liked more than others. There are aspects to 5e that I enjoy. Stranger and I still play AD&D, he doesn't want to learn a new edition. But One feels like a money grab, especially after Wizards "give all the money to us" adjustment of their license. I know it was walked back, but the idea that D&D is under capitalized, while it might be true, is not an idea I will support.

I get to vote with my money. I vote for less BS, namby, pamby, politic-ing junk. I agree with Nem, I am adult and can choose what to have in my games or not, Half-EVERYTHING, if I want.

Mostly though after a few years of doing this, I find that the mechanics have to be interesting to merit application at the table. If they get in the way, then I am not going to put forth the energy, money, and whatever it might take.

Call me an old **** but I get to choose.

[[ Call me an old **** but I get to choose. ]]

You don't have to be old to 'choose' what you want from a game! That is one of the reasons that there are so =very- many games out there <weg>

Find the ones you like and enjoy the heck out of them!! That is what it is all about!!

Aye. Summing up my opinion, I think One D&D's future will hinge on whether its monetization interferes with its game design.

As soon as you change a mechanic to better suit your VTT, you're probably doomed.


Mina and you make a really interesting point about warlock and classes balanced around the short rest. I've played quite a few 1st level beginner games in D&D 5e and found those classes balanced around short rest are really flawed. 5e adventures just don't seem to incorporate short rests. The chapters/sections tend to be short, self-contained encounters, suited to getting in and out fast and then having a long rest. (Lost Mines of Phandelver is a great example of this.)

So warlocks end up recharging after a long rest, making them extremely limited compared to classes balanced around a long rest.

Yes, Nem, agree. That is why Nep and I instituted a house rule in our games that short rests are 10 mins long, rather than the 1 hour suggested in the PHB. Much more playable mid-dungeon.

Nice. It's like short rest as a tea break rather than a lunch break.

In fact, I checked the Cambridge Dictionary and it says "Tea Break. A short rest from working."

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/tea-break

So it's official, a tea break is a short rest! (In the UK, a tea break is 10-15 minutes long.)

LOL, I am so adopting this!

Love that info, thanks Nem!

Diving Deeper into info about this new product from Wizards. It sounds like everyone is considering this basically edition 5.5

You will get one Feat at first level to help highlight your background.

Sounds like political correctness drifting into the game.

Zeim it does, but I like the idea of a Feat at first to tie into background. And the chance to change the size of certain races (tiefling etc.) from medium to small, or vice versa. I am also intrigued by the Goliath race and what goes with that

I also like the fact that so much from other books will be pulled together in the Player's manual. After a few moves over the years I have lost my 5th edition books, so having all the info in one place will be cheaper for me than replacing the set.

I suppose I am mostly a traditionalist. Forex, the idea of a huge, brutish Elf with terrible Dexterity, low Intelligence, and low Charisma, but great strength just seems like too much of a stretch. Just create an Orc or human Barbarian and be done. You lose the flavor of the race by making everyone the same. The idea you can have anti-archetypes (to me) is pointless. But then I am not a player who is in the game to role play angst and such.

I have no trouble with the Feat based on background, but letting every race pick and choose which stats they get bumps to dilutes the racial stereotypes (and, BTW, was the main benefit of choosing a human pc). While some may think racial stereotyping is bad, I don't. D&D is not intended to be a melting pot where every race ends up with the same cross-section of stats.

Half-orcs are strong, Elves are graceful and smart, Dwarves have great constitution, Halflings are small, etc. Tradition. A 6'5" Halfling? No thank you.

Zeim I doubt all races will have the ability to swap sizes, but some, yes. I can also see an elven warrior who is graceful and strong, a dwarf who is shrewd, etc. I do see your point though.

Personally, if I was GMing with a point-buy system, I would have a few stats for the race that require at least a 14 in them or you don't qualify for that race. Considering you pick your race, in this new iteration, after deciding class etc, that seems fair.

Like I said I will buy it simply because I want all the base rules plus expansion rules, like Tasha's all in one place. That way I can either stop borrowing books from friends and family and have my own again Hmmm now that I think about it, I wonder if there is a conversion somewhere to do a Dresden game using the D&D rules? I will have to look into that!

Seems like genericizing and filing off the interesting fiddly bits.

Well if it is allowing for adjustments, I think other game systems do it better. Savage Worlds for example.

But like Zeim, I prefer certain flavors with my DnD. Not that I can't create them in another system. But sometimes I just want that 10th level dwarf fighter with enough hp that he can walk up to a Symbol of Death and turn his head sideways and say "I don't know what it is." Walk back up the stairs and say to the wizard "there is some sort of magical symbol down there." Wizard walks down and doesn't walk back up. Totally happened in a game, and totally hilarious!

Pande, my favorite moment in a D&D game... I was miffed (okay I was more than miffed) that the other players were ignoring some decent ideas and lost in their bickering. We had come to a room with blood on the floor and music instruments on pedestles. *I* knew not to play the instruments, so of course I did. I was the only player to make the saving throw vs paralysis. I failed my notice roll. Played another instrument. Made my saving throw (no one else did) and failed a notice roll. On to the next instrument. Ditto results. By the time I made a successful notice check, one character was dead, one nearly dead, and the others in hardly any better condition. Made my little dark heart happy.

The GM was laughing SO hard, he was kind of fed up with the player party at that point.

Lol nice!