D&D Next's Advantage/Disadvantage

[ishy]

Since they hand out A/D like candy and since further books down the line must introduce power-creep or they won't sell, we can surely expect some kind of DOUBLE or TRIPLE ADVANTAGE in a couple of years.

And since they'll need to build boss monsters that can somehow survive for 3 or 4 rounds against the onslaught of a party rolling several d20 for each hit or save or lose spell, they'll introduce a number of successes mechanic for hitting the toughest monsters. So once we get to killing Lolth or Asmodeus, their AC will be listed like 15 (2). They'll just assume you'll be using several kinds of advantage, but will require you to confirm the hit.

Advantage will lead to dicepools in D&D. Remember, you read this here first!

As I understand it, and correct me if I'm wrong, the rule is that you either have advantage, or you don't. There is no rolling 4d20 and picking the best.

You might want to re-read what you quoted. Specifically this:

we can surely expect some kind of DOUBLE or TRIPLE ADVANTAGE in a couple of years.

[nockermensch]

You might want to re-read what you quoted. Specifically this:

we can surely expect some kind of DOUBLE or TRIPLE ADVANTAGE in a couple of years.

When I wrote that, I still had the silly hope that WotC would expand the edition by creating rules that worked with the existing mechanics. But right now, I think they're basically done with rule writing and will expend the rest of this edition by building on nostalgia feelings. Expect to see just rehashes of famous old modules with hand-wavium where the rules were supposed to be.

D&D Next was confirmed for the Troy McClure edition sometime ago.

[Rawbeard]

On a related not, did they already abandon 5e, or are they still making books? recently I noticed they shut down their forums, which I found amusing.

[Aharon]

They recently published the sword coast adventurer's guide.

[Username17]

On a related not, did they already abandon 5e, or are they still making books? recently I noticed they shut down their forums, which I found amusing.

Both of these things. 5e is abandonware in the sense that there is no design work being put into it and the staff has almost all been fired. The D&D department is not actually making things and the "Wizard's Team" is just an IP management firm. The Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide is made by Green Ronin, and WotC just puts an "official" stamp on it.

So books are still being made, but WotC isn't doing it and gives zero fucks what happens.

-Username17

[Hiram McDaniels]

You might want to re-read what you quoted. Specifically this:

we can surely expect some kind of DOUBLE or TRIPLE ADVANTAGE in a couple of years.

When I wrote that, I still had the silly hope that WotC would expand the edition by creating rules that worked with the existing mechanics. But right now, I think they're basically done with rule writing and will expend the rest of this edition by building on nostalgia feelings. Expect to see just rehashes of famous old modules with hand-wavium where the rules were supposed to be.

D&D Next was confirmed for the Troy McClure edition sometime ago.

That sounds likely.

From wotc's perspective though, why wouldn't you slash overhead, outsource adventures and splats, and collect checks from movie and videogame licensing? I'm sure that Green Ronin who produced the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide paid something for the privilege of publishing a splat that everyone is going to reflexively buy (I did afterall).

[Username17]

From wotc's perspective though, why wouldn't you slash overhead, outsource adventures and splats, and collect checks from movie and videogame licensing? I'm sure that Green Ronin who produced the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide paid something for the privilege of publishing a splat that everyone is going to reflexively buy (I did afterall).

If Green Ronin can make money paying for writers, artists, printing and a licensing fee to make an official 5e D&D book, then WotC could make more money paying all those costs except not the licensing fee to make the same book. In fact, they could make exactly as much money as they are currently making on licensing fees plus however much Green Ronin is making as final profit plus they'd save a bit of change by not having to hire people on both ends to negotiate the licensing deal in the first place. The total take home profit for WotC is definitionally less doing it this way than it is making things in-house.

There are only a couple reasons why this would make sense. The first is if WotC doesn't have confidence that Emo Manchildren of the Swordcoast or whatever is going to make money at all. If they think there's a substantial chance that any particular book is going to bomb, thena risk adverse company might choose to take some licensing fees up front and let other companies take that risk.

The second is if the D&D department lacks capitalization. If they simply cannot afford the up-front costs to hire writers and artists and printers and shit to get books out the door, they could let other companies make the books and put up the capital to et those things started and accept that whatever licensing fees they are getting is infinity times more than the zero dollars they'd be getting by not being able to make any products at all.

The third is if the other companies have less constraints about paying wages to content producers and can actually pay less money for writers than WotC can. If Green Ronin has the market flexibility to screw their freelancers harder than WotC could, the two companies together could split a bigger profit pie.

And the fourth is if there's a giant grift going on, where Mike Mearls is putting the costs of production in a place where WotC's management can't see the books.

The truth is probably a little of all of those. Hasbro was seriously burned by the spectacular failure of 4th edition D&D, so it's well possible that WotC simply isn't given much of an operating budget to make D&D things. And similarly, Hasbro big brass probably is acutely aware that D&D products can have sales that are catastrophically terribad and could well be overestimating that chance. Hasbro is a real company that has shareholder meetings and shit and has to follow federal labor law, while Green Ronin is a fly by night imprint run by Chris Pramas. And of course the last part is given credence by the fact that literally all of the 5e supplements have been made under contracts awarded to people who have already been laid off from WotC in ages past. So in a very real way, every single contracted book for 5e thus far has acted to funnel money to people who used to work for the company but currentyly no longer do in any direct official capacity.

-Username17

[ishy]

From wotc's perspective though, why wouldn't you slash overhead, outsource adventures and splats, and collect checks from movie and videogame licensing? I'm sure that Green Ronin who produced the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide paid something for the privilege of publishing a splat that everyone is going to reflexively buy (I did afterall).

I think there might be something useful here: http://www.enworld.org/forum/content.ph ... orlds-More But I can't bother to read it because of this:

You can't imagine Blizzard releasing six expansions a year. They don't ... they want to release a mammoth, not a bunch of mice.

Blizzard actually does frequently release new content, multiple times a year, but facts are irrelevant.

[Grek]

Really? My initial assumption was that the WotC D&D department lacks enough talent to do the writing in house and cannot get any known talent to sign on at a reasonable rate because Hasbro's Christmas Layoff policy makes it impossible for Mearls to make any promises of job security with a straight face. If the WotC brand is toxic among writers, then that can drive production costs up enough to make it stop making sense to even try doing things in house.

[Username17]

I think there might be something useful here: http://www.enworld.org/forum/content.ph ... orlds-More

As you pointed out, his characterization of how Blizzard operates is crazy talk. But basically he's polishing a turd. WotC has scaled back so tremendously that it's essentially indistinguishable from them having no operation at all, and he's trying to convince people that it's deliberate and positive. Claiming that the slow release schedule is because people didn't really want to buy and read books anyway is such a lame excuse that it's hard for me to take that seriously even as an attempt at an excuse I'm supposed to believe.

What's interesting to me is that Chris Perkins says that he doesn't want anything being made for D&D that isn't "story first" combined with his admission that he is literally the entire story team. Everyone else has been fired, so he's pretty much the only hand on deck according to him.

The other interesting thing to me is that he claims that he's gotten WotC to sign off on turning over much of their budget to "consulting." Which means that basically he has gotten the company to spend real money onletting him hang out with cool people. He namechecks the Adventure Time guy as a person that he paid to hang out with him and play D&D for a week using corporate funds.

Combined with other evidence like having nominally full time employees write personal kickstarter RPG projects on company time, and it seems that the only purpose left in the D&D division is embezzlement.

-Username17

[Kaelik]

Seriously, I thought paying people who were fired as contractors was bad, but paying people real money to play D&D with the staff is basically just about the maximum level of embezzlement before you can reach without literally just transferring large amounts of money from the business accounts to your personal accounts.

[Rawbeard]

this is funny, because it's sad.

[JonSetanta]

Kaelik, read earlier in this thread for proof of why A/D works.


Otherwise, firsthand, I play 5e every wednesday at my local game store. There are upwards of 30 players with at least 4 DMs at the same time. A third of the gamers are female, if anyone cares.
It's fun... other than facing the "boss fight" that is woefully out of our CR range at the end of every mission, and the lack of magic items, all provided by published materials.

And the fact that many PHBs are literally falling apart at the binding. There goes $50 USD.

[Kaelik]

Kaelik, read earlier in this thread for proof of why A/D works.

Look, earlier in the thread, Frank points out that a reroll is a good way of adding +3 to a roll without pushing off the RNG. But this was common knowledge in 2005 when WotC put it in their books.

The advantage/disadvantage mechanic isn't giving a reroll, it is condensing all possible conditional effects into a single reroll and take highest, reroll and take lowest, or don't reroll. And that is a terrible garbage system. And that's the entire point of Frank talking about how adding a reroll doesn't do anything about the Third +3 you want to add.

The thing where you are blind, have a broken arm, under the effect of a debuff, and he just insulted your mother, but because he is standing on grease, all that cancels out, that is the Advantage Disadvantage system. The thing where a Rogue attacks a guy who is Stunned, Blind, and on a Grease effect, while at the same time he also has a buff from the Bard, and that attack is literally exactly the same as if the Bard buff applied and the enemy wasn't stunned, blind, and wasn't on a Grease effect, that is the advantage/disadvantage system.

A reroll is a fine thing, but that was a thing more than 10 years ago. The advantage/disadvantage system can't be "man a reroll would be nice" it has to be the way multiple conditional buffs don't stack, and multiple conditional inhibitors don't stack, and that one single conditional buff or inhibit cancels out 30 of the other.

And that system is hot fucking garbage.

[JonSetanta]

I must have misinterpreted Frank's diatribe in a glaze of optimism.

Still, my earlier question about "rerollingn a success/fail" is important because for an RPG I wrote last year I wanted an "action point" system that was not A/D.
Something to balance casters and noncasters.
Noncasters get more action point rerolls.

[CapnTthePirateG]

I think what's interesting about that interview is Chris Perkins ceding that D&D can't hold attention for a year.

And that's bullshit. Look at Star Wars. It's been hyped for a year before release and people still want to see it. People are still waiting on the Winds of Winter. Hell, people followed the end of Wheel of Time and that was a huge-ass 14 book slog that took another author to complete!

The thing is not that there are too many distractions, it's that D&D has been releasing shit products. Fuck, even in the EnWorld thread people are mocking 5e and that place is the land of the WotC shills.