Since the 70s DMs were encouraged to create their own content. TSR started publishing modules (starting w G1) because they realized some of the Judges Guild products for D&D were selling well. Until then it hadn't occured to them that players would want to buy ready-made adventures.
@@rogerwilco2 yea I don't really think 5e is bloated. They have only added one class and a dozen or so subclasses. That's over 10 years! Compare that to 4e or Pathfinder and how much stuff they've added. Spells are difficult to choose for new players for sure, but I think it was already that way.
I feel I need to add an important caveat to the "if you want to play a nature guy, here's the druid". the problem is, what if you do want to play a nature guy conceptually, but the mechanics of druid don't appeal to you? That's where subclasses come in. Maybe you want to play a nature guy, but holier. Or angrier. Or fightier. Or smitier.
There was a section of the video that I cut out for flow's sake that got into this. In my mind, you have to have a really compelling and well-established core chassis, and the sub-classes should accent that chassis. The problem with subclasses as they exist within D&D, is that they vary wildly with how much of the heavy lifting they're actually doing in that department, and some base classes totally miss the mark of the fantasy (2024 Ranger is a great example, imo.) Where the conversation landed is that, multi-classing is really where you 'could' lean into this aspect of a character customization (ex. being a cleric that dips into druid for a more nature-y holy person,) instead of the subclasses themselves.
I really like what your saying near the end about expansions/core rules/settings. I feel like you could almost separate classes from the core rules. Core rules would be : how to perform an ability test, how a fight is carried out, how do you determine if a strike hits, how do you cast a spell. And then classes could be setting dependent but using the core rules.
@@RomusSixgriffe I had this thought as well. Like a source of "everyone can do this stuff" and a source of "YOU can do this stuff" It does depend on how broad of a system it is though. My approach is a bit daunting but a rules light system might not have enough substance for the separation of the two things.
I still cringe when i hear people say lineages. I love how everyone is just changing terminology thats been used from 1st edition. Crazy world we live in.
@@OverboardDM in some situations it makes sense as it's own term. But as a catchall to replace existing terms it makes it hard to parse the meaning after a while.
Good show! I think anytime you have a core rules set and introduce settings with specific rules/classes it'll start to feel bloated. I also agree, no adventure should introduce new rules/classes. I agree with setting guides. One of the issues is also that D&D/Pathfinder expect 20 levels of play which is literally years, so they introduce new stuff to try and catch them. Also the end is very correct, in order to keep people buying D&D books. They have to keep putting them out there. They're selling a brand as much as books. Other publishers have multiple IP's which helps them limit system bloat, but still help produce the money. My two cents!
I completely agree with John - the bloat is at its worst when it comes to classes. Fix that and you fix a whole lot. FIGHTER subclasses: Barbarian, Ranger, Monk, Warrior. MAGE subclasses: Wizard, Sorcerer, Warlock, Necromancer PRIEST subclasses: Cleric, Druid, Paladin. ROGUE subclasses: Thief, Assassin, Bard, Pirate. And then give them a menu of traits and abilities that they can build their subclass from with limited to points to spend per level. Similar to how DC20 customizes all of its stuff.
bloated! hahaha, sweet summer child, the 3.5 days were a good time, you felt like a wizard pouring over books of dark secrets when you discovered YET one more official splat book, containing yet 10 more prestige classes, and dosens of items and spells. MASTERY was hard earned, and was not kind to new players. 5e, by contrast is a fledgling, with most of the books being half empty. it is a very good game, and i will not return to the old tomes of 3.5, it has won my heart. but it being considered bloated is silly
One does not preclude the other, friend. I, too, started with 3.5e, and I felt much the same as you. The difference between 5e supplements and 3.5e content, is that the purpose of 5e content (like you said, half-empty) is to just give you more things to buy, and it comes at cost to the core of the game. In 3.5e days, there was more thoughtful expansion of the core game. We also lived in a time with less prolific online use, so the "control" over what we purchased, and how our games were played, had less outside influence. We happily stumbled upon new books in our local comic shop, instead of being constantly shoveled into our awareness by external media.
@@WrelPlays I started playing in the days of 2e. Compared to 2e and 3.x, 5e is not especially bloated. 2e started the 'You need this' splat treadmill. The bloat in 2e and 3.x had poor quality control. In contrast, 5e material, as well as being much less in quantity, has a consistent level of quality.
@@WrelPlays 3.5 wasn't as bloated as 5e is becoming is a hell of a take. As someone who started in 1st edition, it's the total opposite of my 30+ years of my experience with D&D. 3.5 was the MOST bloated of all the editions of D&D that was ever made. Literal book churn just to sell product.
@@jamiehuebsch I was doing some more looking into this, and you might be right. There are loads of 3.5e books that I had never even heard of before, and certainly never saw at my comic store growing up. The ones I do recognize on this list, I remember pretty fondly. But I wonder how much of that is actually due to their substance, and how much of it is my nostalgia and youth at the time. Here's a full list, for everyone's awareness: www.reddit.com/r/DnD/comments/3d2ptm/complete_list_of_dnd_35_source_books/
I agree completely with your suggested approach to the expansions. I think separating the settings out would make for a much more defined and stable game health wise. I look back to when I was neck deep in consuming 5e content and how I was excited to see what new class options, and feats, and monsters, and spells were coming in the next expansion, just to feel like it fell just a tiny bit short in most of those categories. I would have much rather had them reduce the amount of different directions they took for each book for a more specialized approach of say: a player's advanced class guide with a large collection of class options and new mechanics. A spell book with all the spells you could want. A setting specific monster and environment book. Sure you could have small overlaps, like maybe the setting book about dragons has dragon specific spells, or a dragon slayer/rider class option. But overall they are mostly specialized. Sure you would have books that dont perform as well commercially, but you have to factor in that if you are delivering a higher quality, more healthy product overall because of the inclusion of those low performers, it is worth it. I may be on the outside of common opinion on this one though because my main problem with 5e is that it is inflicted with a terminal case of generalization-itus.
With regards to "more specialized books," that's the way 3.5e approached many of its supplements, and I think the game was better for it overall. There was way less "I need to hit all these different beats to appeal to all these different kinds of audiences" going on at the time.
Yeah. 5e is in this weird place where it is trying to just be this gateway that gets you to the table. On top of that they are trying not to just rework and rewrite all the old D&D stuff with a 5 next to it. With it being so easy to homebrew stuff, and with the conversion from prior editions pretty well figured out, you would think settings books that just focus on the world would be "easy" and successful as they would be a doorway to bring in new players as they hit on different themes, and interests, while keeping things fresh for existing players. It's odd to me they don't put out more adventure/setting content and then drop in a big mechanics book every couple years to stir up the pot.
I trim the bloat buy Removeing as much 3/3.5 infuance like feast and made made the death saves into 1 con save, also useing roll under stat for skills I do this because 5e without the mandatory (optional rules) can be very similar to AD&D 2nd edition with better rules language
Bloat is really hard to quantify because all it is, is content that is uninteresting/unnecessary for the person reading it. You can argue that is oversimplifying it, but I have known incredibly mechanically deep and broad games and content that is embraced by many because they found it interesting and important, while other games with much less depth felt bloated and unneeded.
I don't really mind the bloat in itself I like having choices. What I do mind though is the power creep and that almost no choices are permanent, you can change them when you level up etc. It becomes more and more like a computer game and it wouldn't surprise me if you in the next edition/revision will be able to totally respec you character. I like choices to have consequenses if I choose to be able to do this then I will not be able to do this etc, and I can try other options with another character in the future.
I'm of the same mind. Not a huge fan of being able to replace your skills, spells, and so on with new ones -- unless it made sense to the story. An Oathbreaker losing its connection to the divine makes sense. A Wizard, under Vancian Magic rules, needing to memorize new spells every day -- makes sense. A Fighter forgetting how to use the weapon mastery of one weapon, and swapping it out for a new one at the end of a long rest, totally doesn't make sense.
D&D is bloated. I agree with a lot said, but i feel that it's bloated because its homebrew-community pieced together roots. The original game itself did have different settings and was going the way of different classes/ monsters for each setting (dragonlance and dark sun are VERY different, and different from forgotten realms), but in how supplements are pushed and assembled, the core gets far far far FAR more than the worlds do. (What races and classes are in dragonlance's book compared to mordenkeinen's which is a monster manual supplement?). The community patching the gameade it a better experience in 1e, a confusing mess in 2e which tried to inculde every rule variant, and then since then has been trying to fix that mess and create something codified since. Unfortunately there's the problem that codifyibg the experience has meant flattening out any quirks of the game so that all classes/races/settings have a very samey feel, rather than a "plug and play" feel which also leads to too much unification of the experience, and the bloat is more pronounced early on. (Also why there's so many false choices. Too many things behave exactly the same so whatever differences there are are more pronounced/obvious. I.e. all warlocks should be hexblades because tome doesn't give enough slots to be a casrer and talisman/chain have laughably little support. Berserker barb is the obvious pick because its the class that plays well with existing mexhanics and rules. Does anyone even play an investigator/mastermind? Shouldn't they be in ANOTHER game focused on solving mysteries rather than a game focused on combat with minis? Why do we never get a brawler type? Because the rules about fist fighting, which any class can do, are relegated to a paragraph on improv weapons, most of which is reiterated in its one feat). I don't think daggerheart os a good comparison though because DH is such an incredibly poor and undercooked game. Rather, Chaosium's Basic Roleplaying system is better to compare as it is of similar age, its use in a variety of settings (which as opposed to d&d have held up as distinct entities) and its classless system versus classes in D&D. Furthermore, the two systems help to show what IS good and strong about D&D. Also the monsters.... There's so many and yet nowhere nearly enough. It's not that there's too many to world build, it's that they never give you the tools to build your own monsters or the guidelines on what to tweak. There's about 20 oozes but they're all fairly middling some are bigger, some are smaller, the oblex is most unique but there's little info on making more variety with them A mephit is a mephit is a mephit. They're boring. What IS cool are the kobolds, and especially the variants. We need more monster variations like the kobolds and the gnolls and less of the mephits. We need guidelines on making our own mephit skins though as well as how to make things as of yet undreamt.
8:55 D&D lacks a core identity and so you necessarily have bloat as you try to create content to achieve varied identities that D&D never delivered. The nice thing about this is that its lack of substance creates a starting point that you can go many directions from.
2024 has a lot of power bloat because they are intentionally “paying” players to make the switch with promises of more power. When the new system isn’t any better than the old system you have to do something to convince people to spend their money on new books.
All the versions of D&D have been bloated, especially for a company that wants to make money! Both versions Pathfinder, Starfinder, Battlelords of the 23rd Century. most Palladium Games and Shadow of the Demon Lord all are games with bloat! Most games can be run with just the basic book(s)!
I saw that you edited the comment from a lower number previously, which makes me think you have a specific system in mind. Which system do you think sets a good example with its page count?
I also play larger systems too. Pathfinder (both 1st and 2nd editons), which you touched on in the video, and I can 100% confirm is a bloated mess, but also really fun 😁 I also play Old School Essentials, which is based on Basic D&D from the 80s, which sits somewhere in between the minimalist systems and the big modern systems like Pathfinder or 5e
I looks like my first comment might have been auto deleted? Basically, you are right, I did have a specific minimalist system in mind. I play Cairn RPG on a regular basis, and the first edition of that game clocks in at 22 pages. My players and I have a really great time with it, and the very small rule set makes it so easy to make up or convert monsters, magic items etc... It's possible to have a working game in a really tiny page count
Since the 70s DMs were encouraged to create their own content. TSR started publishing modules (starting w G1) because they realized some of the Judges Guild products for D&D were selling well. Until then it hadn't occured to them that players would want to buy ready-made adventures.
You never played 3/3.5 Edition ???
You can call that version bloated, not so much 5e.
5e has too little content.
@@rogerwilco2 yea I don't really think 5e is bloated. They have only added one class and a dozen or so subclasses. That's over 10 years! Compare that to 4e or Pathfinder and how much stuff they've added.
Spells are difficult to choose for new players for sure, but I think it was already that way.
I feel I need to add an important caveat to the "if you want to play a nature guy, here's the druid". the problem is, what if you do want to play a nature guy conceptually, but the mechanics of druid don't appeal to you? That's where subclasses come in. Maybe you want to play a nature guy, but holier. Or angrier. Or fightier. Or smitier.
There was a section of the video that I cut out for flow's sake that got into this. In my mind, you have to have a really compelling and well-established core chassis, and the sub-classes should accent that chassis. The problem with subclasses as they exist within D&D, is that they vary wildly with how much of the heavy lifting they're actually doing in that department, and some base classes totally miss the mark of the fantasy (2024 Ranger is a great example, imo.) Where the conversation landed is that, multi-classing is really where you 'could' lean into this aspect of a character customization (ex. being a cleric that dips into druid for a more nature-y holy person,) instead of the subclasses themselves.
Have you considered dropping the restrictive class-based wargaming system that is D&D for a skill-based roleplaying system?
@@Dahdann why would I? I enjoy restrictive class based war gaming systems very much
I really like what your saying near the end about expansions/core rules/settings. I feel like you could almost separate classes from the core rules. Core rules would be : how to perform an ability test, how a fight is carried out, how do you determine if a strike hits, how do you cast a spell. And then classes could be setting dependent but using the core rules.
@@RomusSixgriffe I had this thought as well. Like a source of "everyone can do this stuff" and a source of "YOU can do this stuff"
It does depend on how broad of a system it is though. My approach is a bit daunting but a rules light system might not have enough substance for the separation of the two things.
I see you on your grind Wrel; hopefully the vids catch on my man. Curious question, do any that you've made deal with worldbuilding?
@@Sneekypeaky Wrel has talked and written on World building in the past. 😊
I've been thinking about this myself. It's hard to write a low bloat system.
I still cringe when i hear people say lineages. I love how everyone is just changing terminology thats been used from 1st edition. Crazy world we live in.
@@OverboardDM in some situations it makes sense as it's own term. But as a catchall to replace existing terms it makes it hard to parse the meaning after a while.
Good show! I think anytime you have a core rules set and introduce settings with specific rules/classes it'll start to feel bloated. I also agree, no adventure should introduce new rules/classes. I agree with setting guides. One of the issues is also that D&D/Pathfinder expect 20 levels of play which is literally years, so they introduce new stuff to try and catch them.
Also the end is very correct, in order to keep people buying D&D books. They have to keep putting them out there. They're selling a brand as much as books. Other publishers have multiple IP's which helps them limit system bloat, but still help produce the money.
My two cents!
I completely agree with John - the bloat is at its worst when it comes to classes. Fix that and you fix a whole lot.
FIGHTER subclasses: Barbarian, Ranger, Monk, Warrior.
MAGE subclasses: Wizard, Sorcerer, Warlock, Necromancer
PRIEST subclasses: Cleric, Druid, Paladin.
ROGUE subclasses: Thief, Assassin, Bard, Pirate.
And then give them a menu of traits and abilities that they can build their subclass from with limited to points to spend per level. Similar to how DC20 customizes all of its stuff.
Bloated? There have been two supplements in 10 years. Compare to pathfinder. Unless you are buying all the settings, all you need are the core books.
bloated! hahaha, sweet summer child, the 3.5 days were a good time, you felt like a wizard pouring over books of dark secrets when you discovered YET one more official splat book, containing yet 10 more prestige classes, and dosens of items and spells. MASTERY was hard earned, and was not kind to new players. 5e, by contrast is a fledgling, with most of the books being half empty. it is a very good game, and i will not return to the old tomes of 3.5, it has won my heart. but it being considered bloated is silly
One does not preclude the other, friend. I, too, started with 3.5e, and I felt much the same as you. The difference between 5e supplements and 3.5e content, is that the purpose of 5e content (like you said, half-empty) is to just give you more things to buy, and it comes at cost to the core of the game. In 3.5e days, there was more thoughtful expansion of the core game.
We also lived in a time with less prolific online use, so the "control" over what we purchased, and how our games were played, had less outside influence. We happily stumbled upon new books in our local comic shop, instead of being constantly shoveled into our awareness by external media.
@@WrelPlays I started playing in the days of 2e. Compared to 2e and 3.x, 5e is not especially bloated. 2e started the 'You need this' splat treadmill. The bloat in 2e and 3.x had poor quality control. In contrast, 5e material, as well as being much less in quantity, has a consistent level of quality.
@@WrelPlays 3.5 wasn't as bloated as 5e is becoming is a hell of a take. As someone who started in 1st edition, it's the total opposite of my 30+ years of my experience with D&D. 3.5 was the MOST bloated of all the editions of D&D that was ever made. Literal book churn just to sell product.
@@jamiehuebsch I was doing some more looking into this, and you might be right. There are loads of 3.5e books that I had never even heard of before, and certainly never saw at my comic store growing up. The ones I do recognize on this list, I remember pretty fondly. But I wonder how much of that is actually due to their substance, and how much of it is my nostalgia and youth at the time. Here's a full list, for everyone's awareness: www.reddit.com/r/DnD/comments/3d2ptm/complete_list_of_dnd_35_source_books/
I agree completely with your suggested approach to the expansions. I think separating the settings out would make for a much more defined and stable game health wise. I look back to when I was neck deep in consuming 5e content and how I was excited to see what new class options, and feats, and monsters, and spells were coming in the next expansion, just to feel like it fell just a tiny bit short in most of those categories. I would have much rather had them reduce the amount of different directions they took for each book for a more specialized approach of say: a player's advanced class guide with a large collection of class options and new mechanics. A spell book with all the spells you could want. A setting specific monster and environment book.
Sure you could have small overlaps, like maybe the setting book about dragons has dragon specific spells, or a dragon slayer/rider class option. But overall they are mostly specialized. Sure you would have books that dont perform as well commercially, but you have to factor in that if you are delivering a higher quality, more healthy product overall because of the inclusion of those low performers, it is worth it.
I may be on the outside of common opinion on this one though because my main problem with 5e is that it is inflicted with a terminal case of generalization-itus.
With regards to "more specialized books," that's the way 3.5e approached many of its supplements, and I think the game was better for it overall. There was way less "I need to hit all these different beats to appeal to all these different kinds of audiences" going on at the time.
Yeah. 5e is in this weird place where it is trying to just be this gateway that gets you to the table. On top of that they are trying not to just rework and rewrite all the old D&D stuff with a 5 next to it. With it being so easy to homebrew stuff, and with the conversion from prior editions pretty well figured out, you would think settings books that just focus on the world would be "easy" and successful as they would be a doorway to bring in new players as they hit on different themes, and interests, while keeping things fresh for existing players.
It's odd to me they don't put out more adventure/setting content and then drop in a big mechanics book every couple years to stir up the pot.
I trim the bloat buy Removeing as much 3/3.5 infuance like feast and made made the death saves into 1 con save, also useing roll under stat for skills
I do this because 5e without the mandatory (optional rules) can be very similar to AD&D 2nd edition with better rules language
Bloat is really hard to quantify because all it is, is content that is uninteresting/unnecessary for the person reading it. You can argue that is oversimplifying it, but I have known incredibly mechanically deep and broad games and content that is embraced by many because they found it interesting and important, while other games with much less depth felt bloated and unneeded.
I don't really mind the bloat in itself I like having choices. What I do mind though is the power creep and that almost no choices are permanent, you can change them when you level up etc. It becomes more and more like a computer game and it wouldn't surprise me if you in the next edition/revision will be able to totally respec you character. I like choices to have consequenses if I choose to be able to do this then I will not be able to do this etc, and I can try other options with another character in the future.
I'm of the same mind. Not a huge fan of being able to replace your skills, spells, and so on with new ones -- unless it made sense to the story. An Oathbreaker losing its connection to the divine makes sense. A Wizard, under Vancian Magic rules, needing to memorize new spells every day -- makes sense. A Fighter forgetting how to use the weapon mastery of one weapon, and swapping it out for a new one at the end of a long rest, totally doesn't make sense.
6:11 complete games don't develop bloat but they are also not particularly profitable
D&D is bloated. I agree with a lot said, but i feel that it's bloated because its homebrew-community pieced together roots. The original game itself did have different settings and was going the way of different classes/ monsters for each setting (dragonlance and dark sun are VERY different, and different from forgotten realms), but in how supplements are pushed and assembled, the core gets far far far FAR more than the worlds do. (What races and classes are in dragonlance's book compared to mordenkeinen's which is a monster manual supplement?).
The community patching the gameade it a better experience in 1e, a confusing mess in 2e which tried to inculde every rule variant, and then since then has been trying to fix that mess and create something codified since.
Unfortunately there's the problem that codifyibg the experience has meant flattening out any quirks of the game so that all classes/races/settings have a very samey feel, rather than a "plug and play" feel which also leads to too much unification of the experience, and the bloat is more pronounced early on. (Also why there's so many false choices. Too many things behave exactly the same so whatever differences there are are more pronounced/obvious. I.e. all warlocks should be hexblades because tome doesn't give enough slots to be a casrer and talisman/chain have laughably little support. Berserker barb is the obvious pick because its the class that plays well with existing mexhanics and rules. Does anyone even play an investigator/mastermind? Shouldn't they be in ANOTHER game focused on solving mysteries rather than a game focused on combat with minis? Why do we never get a brawler type? Because the rules about fist fighting, which any class can do, are relegated to a paragraph on improv weapons, most of which is reiterated in its one feat).
I don't think daggerheart os a good comparison though because DH is such an incredibly poor and undercooked game.
Rather, Chaosium's Basic Roleplaying system is better to compare as it is of similar age, its use in a variety of settings (which as opposed to d&d have held up as distinct entities) and its classless system versus classes in D&D.
Furthermore, the two systems help to show what IS good and strong about D&D.
Also the monsters.... There's so many and yet nowhere nearly enough.
It's not that there's too many to world build, it's that they never give you the tools to build your own monsters or the guidelines on what to tweak.
There's about 20 oozes but they're all fairly middling some are bigger, some are smaller, the oblex is most unique but there's little info on making more variety with them
A mephit is a mephit is a mephit. They're boring.
What IS cool are the kobolds, and especially the variants.
We need more monster variations like the kobolds and the gnolls and less of the mephits. We need guidelines on making our own mephit skins though as well as how to make things as of yet undreamt.
8:55 D&D lacks a core identity and so you necessarily have bloat as you try to create content to achieve varied identities that D&D never delivered. The nice thing about this is that its lack of substance creates a starting point that you can go many directions from.
2024 has a lot of power bloat because they are intentionally “paying” players to make the switch with promises of more power.
When the new system isn’t any better than the old system you have to do something to convince people to spend their money on new books.
Still untitled. 😂
I'm leaning more and more into keeping it that way
@@dragonmindttrpgs "The Untitled TTRPG Podcast" has a nice ring to it.
@@WrelPlays yes I actually like it.
Yes. I actually like it.
All the versions of D&D have been bloated, especially for a company that wants to make money! Both versions Pathfinder, Starfinder, Battlelords of the 23rd Century. most Palladium Games and Shadow of the Demon Lord all are games with bloat!
Most games can be run with just the basic book(s)!
When is a system too bloated? When it has over 30 pages
I saw that you edited the comment from a lower number previously, which makes me think you have a specific system in mind. Which system do you think sets a good example with its page count?
I also play larger systems too. Pathfinder (both 1st and 2nd editons), which you touched on in the video, and I can 100% confirm is a bloated mess, but also really fun 😁
I also play Old School Essentials, which is based on Basic D&D from the 80s, which sits somewhere in between the minimalist systems and the big modern systems like Pathfinder or 5e
I looks like my first comment might have been auto deleted?
Basically, you are right, I did have a specific minimalist system in mind. I play Cairn RPG on a regular basis, and the first edition of that game clocks in at 22 pages. My players and I have a really great time with it, and the very small rule set makes it so easy to make up or convert monsters, magic items etc...
It's possible to have a working game in a really tiny page count
@@Naren25 Ah, nice. Didn't realize Cairne was so few pages! Been wanting to take a look at Cairn and Knave for a bit now.
@@WrelPlays Knave is excellent, I advise giving it a read even if you just want to steal ideas for your D&D game!