Even beyond product to product, it's usually a mixed bag, which usually works out for me as a mone for ideas and gaming material.I agree with you that to me quality hasn't declined. The entire 5e publication schedule has been IMO bumpy in terms of quality, as in there are some things that are pretty good but not great, and others that aren't as good but not bad. But there's no trend - it's up and down from product to product rather than an overall upward or downward trend.
But then 5e D&D to me overall has been the "fine" edition of the game. Nothing so bad I need to rant about it, nothing so good I need to rave about it. It's all just ... fine. The closest to something great that I'd rave about is probably Radiant Citadel - and it's one of the more recent offerings.
I mean, it's not something that's been done in D&D before, so that's an innovation. Also, the included campaign outlining how to do a four year College experience with the PCs is quite a departure, and used some interesting and meaty new downtime mechanics.Strixhaven was not even that innovative - a cross between Harry Potter and what seemed like Japanese manga series set in high schools.
Yes but other companies offer the same product for a much cheaper price and in much larger bundles is my point.The acrylic stand-ups look very nice, and they are less than $1 apiece vs. the $4-5 per pre-painted mini cost. If I didn't have 30+ years of minis, the acrylics is the way I would have gone. Yes, yes, I know the cardboard tokens are even cheaper, but they feel cheap too. I've got the old fold-ups back from the D&D basic line and the 4E tokens from Monster Vault and I've NEVER used them (mainly because of having tons of minis already). I'd use the acrylics, though.
Also, as a side note I've bought the campaign set of monsters for my wife's game, but she's been reluctant to use them because putting the static-based stickers back is a pain.
Yeah we don't see peak White Wolf editorial problems like "see page XX" in published products or things like the TDR days where they would refer you to OOP products or incestuous cross referencing across the line requiring a stack of books to unlock one book's use like the late 2e period. It's also been better than the late 3.5 era. Overall I think, to me personally, 5e has been the best the game has been since 1e and that's for 2 reasons.Quality is in the eye of the beholder, so saying quality has declined unless there's obvious things like poor editing is really "They don't happen to be publishing things I want."
both those points are fair but not all are skilled in the latter and sometimes new rules are needed, take spelljammer it need far more ship rules for the basic set of things you can do and basic guidance for any of the most common ideas beyond those.Yeah we don't see peak White Wolf editorial problems like "see page XX" in published products or things like the TDR days where they would refer you to OOP products or incestuous cross referencing across the line requiring a stack of books to unlock one book's use like the late 2e period. It's also been better than the late 3.5 era. Overall I think, to me personally, 5e has been the best the game has been since 1e and that's for 2 reasons.
1: it lacks rules bloat. The slow roll out has prevented the bloat of extra and unnecessary rules. While there are "gaps" in what is available point 2 will address that. It's not a crunchy game, it isn't overwhelming to throw together a campaign or one shot. You don't stare down a pile of books. You can grab the PHB and make a character and not feel left behind. Some people will point to the ranger but the PHB supports a 3 pillars of play system and the ranger was designed to support the exploration tier like the bard with the social tier. A weakness is that the combat tier has an inflated importance in D&D but all the PHB classes are playable as is and the expansion books don't really overshadow them. You can grab just the PHB, the rules expansion bundle, a DMG and Monster manual and you have all the essential materials. Add in Fizban and the upcoming Giant book and your set. All they needed was an undead focused book. That is not a lot of material which plays into point 2.
2: It is easy to house rule and create custom material for without breaking the game. The guidelines are pretty solid except for the CR system and they never worked right anyway. Any gaps can easily be filled with custom subclasses, spells, monsters etc. It's easy to reskin and add new abilities to monsters. Much like 1e or 0e you can bend the system to what you want and it is still solid. It is encouraged. The DM toolkit and its modular rules are great for modifying the feel of the game to more epic or extremely gritty. You don't like the flanking rules? change them and it won't break anything down the line and you aren't creating, unlike those 2 earlier editions, a new subsystem that can confuse people. It's exactly what 2e was trying to be.
Which is less likely to be an issue the MORE stuff they publish."They don't happen to be publishing things I want."
But they seem to publish stuff I don't need as a DM.Which is less likely to be an issue the MORE stuff they publish.
In December, Barnes & Noble had a 50% off sale for all games and hardback books and that included the new Spelljammer. For half off, I was going to take the plunge until I learned it wasn't much of a setting. Very disappointing.I'll disagree with you about the slow release. Slower is good. Too slow(which is what we had) was not so good. The new rate seems to be okay, but the quality of books(Spelljammer had like 10 pages of actual setting in it) has plummeted.