Revisiting 6e forecast in this age of 5.5e

Looking back at thoughts and speculations four years ago on what would be in '6e' in this the age of 5.5e and one of the first lines held true - 5e indeed had road ahead of it. There was no official fork but the work is being done to let 5e and 5.5e run at the same table.

We've seen a notch up in power for the 5.5e stuff - I'm going to take a stab and say it'll be worth maybe a half level to a level. You will be able to use a rule of thumb like for Pathfinder vs 3.5e and say that a 5.5e party could take on a 5e challenge that is on paper a level above them. Game structure wise so far it is the same thing as 5e, no significant mechanical changes like addition of social encounters or the like.

Beyond that the only thing I have seen as a change is that more folk are turning up to our open table games with characters on D&D Beyond on their phones. Which is a thing, because the network sucks and we have no wifi at either of our locations we use but we have figured out the workaround is load everything outside then come in and it will run on your phone throughout.

Appetite for digital games is not coming across on our forum - admitedly we are dedicated to running in-person games but we do not even see people coming in *asking* after digital sessions which I find telling. Most of the DMs are running a pretty analogue operation - they might have a laptop or tablet with digital books on it or D&D Beyond but I am not seeing anything like virtual tabletops or any of that. I will be intrigued to see how/if that evolves as new fancy tools come available.

This time last year myself and my old gaming table were talking about what might be in the new DMG - optional rules tied to settings was our big speculative guess if the pitch was to experienced DMs or better tools to teach new DMs was another if the direction was that way.

From what I have read the view seems to be that the new DMG has a better go than the 5e DMG at teaching cold-start DMs how to do the job. I still think a few more starter packs could be a money-tree for WotC if they wanted - tutorial adventurers for different types of things would be snatched from the shelves by new DMs. Even 'add on' guides for say the lowest level games of an anthology - the first heist of Golden Vault having a seperate 'how to' guide for beginning DMs on sale for $10 on Roll20 seems like it would be welcomed.

One thing that is apparent is that behemoth has shrugged off the pretenders to the throne - all the many post-OGL D&D killers have failed to slay it, even where they may have found some modicum of success. Critical Role is having a go pushing their own systems and maybe they will jump off D&D to something else but the window for that to have an impact has passed in my opinion. The 5.5e launch is 2/3 of the way done and it looks like the switch over is happening. They played it safe and they've consolidated what they hold.

All bets are off if Elon snaffles up Hasbro and feeds it to his AI games-corp but short of that happening, as today, so tomorrow.

Shiny TTRPG links #201

At this tail end of black-friday-sales, we link some OSR staples. For more, see the previous list found here or you can check the RPG Blog Carnival or on Third Kingdom Games news roundup. Originally inspired by weaver.skepti.ch End of Week links.

The BLOGGIES 2024: Call for Nominations!

We have a discount code for Lulu - 30% off with HOLIDAY30

Semper Initiativus Unum recommends OSR Products on Lulu

New School Revolution has more Lulu Recommendations

dieheart also has Lulu Recommendations

Yore gives us Gaming books on Lulu.com that I enjoy

Old Skulling recommends RPG Books on Lulu

Attronarch's Athenaeum points to DrivethruRPG for Black Friday 2024: Select OSR Publications

Le Chaudron Chromatique gives us A Feast For A Sphinx rewrite + print edition!

Nickoten on Bluesky highlighting why Jennell Jacquays made the dungeon a master environment of storytelling

The Nothic's Eye gives us Six Dungeon Gods

dungeon doll gives us Dungeon Gods