Release Schedule: Your thoughts?

[woweedd]

So, one of the more common complaints i've heard about 5E is the release schedule. It's been noticeably slower than its predecessors. What are your opinions on it? Personally, i'm fine with it, if only to give more time for playtesting: I mean, if every 3rd edition sourcebook had had a year's worth of proofreading and playtesting put into it, I doubt we would have gotten stuff like The Truenamer. I also think this be a consequence of Hasbro corporate. Apparently, Hasbro is hoping 5E will be the final edition, one that they won't ever have to replace. Seems stupid to me, but I wouldn't be surprised if the assumption that 5E will have a longer overall lifespan then 3.5 and 4E is the reason they've slowed down.

[follacchioso]

Do you think the 5e edition will be the last one?

To be fair, it doesn't seem to make a lot of sense in terms of business - at the end of the day, people can only buy the PHB once. Although maybe Hasbro has a different strategy.

I agree with you on the fact that a slow release schedule is better. To be fair, I already think there are too many supplements out there. Every now and then one supplement introduces a new killer feature (e.g. Hexblade), and over time this makes the game unbalanced.

[JoeJ]

To be fair, it doesn't seem to make a lot of sense in terms of business - at the end of the day, people can only buy the PHB once.

I'm about to buy my second PHB. The first one is wearing out.

[KorvinStarmast]

To be fair, I already think there are too many supplements out there. Every now and then one supplement introduces a new killer feature (e.g. Hexblade), and over time this makes the game unbalanced. Yeah, bloat is starting to become an issue, as it has with all previous editions.

[MrStabby]

I think it's fine.

I am also going to go out on a limb and say that I like a little power creep. You play a few games and people round here tend to bring the best of what's available. You find yourself playing a mechanical rehash or someone elses character or something that is worse than they brought. I don't want to bring another wizard with shield, mage armour, find familiar, hold person, fireball, hypnotic pattern, banishment and polymorph. Having a trend that increases the liklihood of being able to play something new whilst being something that is not inferior - neither mechanically nor flavourfully to previous characters your table has seen is a pretty good thing.

I like the slow pace and I totally agree that getting everything right is better than rushing stuff but a 5%-10% increase in speed would also suit me.

[GlenSmash!]

Bloat scared me off previous editions. I used to go look at what character I would make for my first D&D character and get intimidated and not play.

5e has been riding the fine line with enough options to keep enough old players interested and not so much that it starts to keep new players away and hurt PHB sales (which is still selling very well on Amazon).

[Kurt Kurageous]

I'm about to buy my second PHB. The first one is wearing out.

Consider getting it spiral bound. A copy shop can handle this. The binding on wizards stuff in 5e has sucked bigly.

Spiral can be back folded, taking less surface at table, too.

And who said you can't buy books more than once. That's what they do to you on D&D Beyond!

And bloat = why I never played 3 anything. I'm a DM. How much $ do you want me to drop? And keep dropping to stay up to date? Nah, pass.

As previously noted, the more splat, the better chance for broken things to get into a pretty well balanced game.

[Dork_Forge]

I think the release schedule is too tuned on adventures personally, two a year is more than people can actually keep up with and at this point there's a pretty sizeable backlog to choose from.

Other than that we are overdue an actual player supplement, not pseudo official ones likes GGtR but full ones like Xanathar's (though that wasn't exactly all new content). I don't see 5e starting to suffer from bloat like some say, we haven't gotten enough content to suffer from anything but one particular kind: race bloat. There's such an overwhelming amount of race and subraces (some of them mediocrely done) that I can't think many people really asking for, meanwhile we've had one books worth of new subclass options and one new class.

Playtesting is one thing, this is them focusing on other things (imo the wrong things).

[carrdrivesyou]

From a business standpoint: This is a solid marketing decision that keep the consumer base interested in what gets published, and gives time for forum nerds to come up with ways to break things, and so the publisher learns from the consumer at a solid pace, without having too much errata. This is supplemented with UA releases, that allow fewer mistakes to be made, ending in a smoother, finer product.

From a gamer standpoint: The speed of delivery is enough to build hype for a new book, be it a module or player expansion book (i.e. Xanathar's). This is balanced by UA releases on a steady stream to keep us chomping at the bit, and also testing to see what we like as a whole. Example: The Artificer and Mystic classes were both rather popular, but the former won out in terms of popularity, and only went through 2 editions before publication compared to the Mystic's 3, and prompt dissection.

Think of the speed of play and review. Most groups gather once a week, play for four hours; most of those characters will be somewhere between 1st and 14th level. So in a given month, a group of 4-6 consumers using ONE UA class will have about 16 hours of review, half of which is just dice rolls. So they have to work off of rather small amounts of feedback over an extended period of time.

TL;DR: Overall, this is a smart decision by the owners. It keeps them able to continue to produce HIGH quality content, with as much user review and beta testing as is deemed efficient. The players give feedback as best they can, which drives WotC to push for one book or the other. Likely, they have several ideas going on simultaneously, and are just filling those backlogged books with themed items for release after proper review.

[SpawnOfMorbo]

Do you think the 5e edition will be the last one?

To be fair, it doesn't seem to make a lot of sense in terms of business - at the end of the day, people can only buy the PHB once. Although maybe Hasbro has a different strategy.

I agree with you on the fact that a slow release schedule is better. To be fair, I already think there are too many supplements out there. Every now and then one supplement introduces a new killer feature (e.g. Hexblade), and over time this makes the game unbalanced.

PHB II or 5e Advanced would sell like hotcakes at this point. Especially if they throw in the UA that gices classes a lot of versatility in builds.

[Lupine]

PHB II or 5e Advanced would sell like hotcakes at this point. Especially if they throw in the UA that gices classes a lot of versatility in builds.

I'd be down for that. The think I want most of all is for them to stop with the setting books. As a DM, I make my own settings, and even if I didn't I wouldn't want to be pinned to how the setting books describe their setting. As I player, I would rather explore the world through how the DM wants to explain it, rather than read about it.

You can have fun just exploring dungeons, with no lore. However, a world that is all lore will just feel like an interactive textbook.

In short, I think the setting books just slow down book releases, and take the focus from actual, meaningful content: rules, monster stats, and player options.

[Sigreid]

I like it. For me, it strikes a nice balance between getting me new content and options at a reasonable pace; and not treating me like a money pinata.