Nov 10, 2017 by [ "James R. Miller" ]
Categories: rpgs Tags: 5e chris-lindsay chris-perkins dnd gamehole-con mike-mearls

State of the DND game: Gamehole Con

Nerds on Earth recorded the Gamehole Con 2017 panel featuring Mike Mearls, Chris Perkins, and Chris Lindsay, discussing the State of the Game. Click the above link to download the mp3 recording of the panel. It’s a little over 40MB.

They talk about psionics a bunch and frankly, I’m not that well versed in the history of psionics in the editions, so I’m not going to write too much about it below. If you want the scoop on psionics, you’ll need to listen to the whole thing.

The text below were just my quick notes while listening to it in the background. There may be mistakes and all text below is of course paraphrased.

I use XGTE as an abbreviation for Xanathar’s Guide to Everything and ToA as an abbreviation for Tomb of Annihilation.

Mike Mearls

We understand the game much better three years later than before.
We’ve taken everything we’ve learned in the past three years and put it into XGTE.
Calls it a turning point in their understanding of the game.
Implied that 5e will still be around in another 3 years.
Mystic and Artificer too bulky and not ready at the same balance as the included sub classes. Both need more play testing.
Revised ranger is NOT in this book because they didn’t want people to have to buy in order to get what is more of an errata / fix of the ranger. You’ve already paid for your PHB, you don’t need to rebuy it.
Not announcing new products yet; but, hints that all the 2018 products are being worked on and at different phases.
Thinking about entire year’s product experiences. Planning 2019 now, to figure out how to bring more people into this great hobby.
Mentions Dark Sun and psionics being prominent. Why is it that every humanoid has those abilities here? Wants to figure out why it exists cosmically.
Thinks of DND as a multiverse.
Asked about Eberron, and he obfuscates. Starts talking about older product lines and how settings fit into DND as a product. Calls Forgotten Realms the “base” DND. Puts emphasis on “genre” and with different settings. Wants to do Eberron right and said, “when it comes out…”. Maybe he let it drop that its coming?
Thinks that the new arcane archer is one of the best new things in XGTE.
Talks about when it’s time for a new edition and some ideas about when that may be appropriate. Was pretty clear that not in 3 years. Hopes for 10 years is what he said.
Someone asked about fixing the indexes in the PHB; Mearls said he didn’t want to force the existing PHB owners to feel like they had to to buy a new printing. They want you to be good with a first printing or a seventh printing. Wow. The person asking the question really hates the index.

Chris Perkins

500k playtesters and a more refined playtest process.
XGTE has been stress tested and we’re not afraid we’re putting out something that will ruin a game experience.
Rules / crunchy products have to be very carefully curated to not mess up the game. Adventures less carefully.
ToA was intentionally written to allow outside folks to flesh out the land of Chult.
Says if you’re a DND that can build a campaign around psionics, go for it!
On settings: wants to give something complete that a DM can pick up and use right away with as little preparation as possible.

Chris Lindsay

Playtested many more subclasses than actually made it into XGTE.
Joked that there’s a bribery process to become an adventure playtester.
Not looking for new playtesters for closed playtests. When he does, he posts on the website and usually has enough in a day or two.
DMGuild Guild Adepts are the newest thing on DMGuild. 10 Adepts working together collaboratively to build products that are essentially DLC for the products we’re making. Implied that this is going really well.
They’re using Slack with the Guild Adepts to collaborate.
Wants to converge Adventurer’s League with home game? (Didn’t make much sense to me?)