DND 5th Edition

With the release of Strixhaven meaning we will be adding the content from the book to the website, it's had me thinking about the way this website presents content from non-standard settings (partially due to the concerns for balance with some of said content within the book)

the current form of the website doesn't do too much really, aside from seperating some stuff on the frontpage, such as 'setting specific races', however with the fact that many people use this website to learn more about the game, I feel the website should take better effort to distinguish between core and non-standard content. Especially since, with the release of Strixhaven, the dev's are basically announcing their intent to have different settings have different amounts of player balance. (Strixhaven backgrounds give a free feat. And for older examples, the Ravnica backgrounds added extra spells to your class spell list)

[Content] is part of the [setting] setting, and may not be designed for play outside of its original setting. Check with your DM whether it is good to use if you are going to be using it in play

or something along those lines, just to denote that the content is not usually part of the 'base game'. I mean, I feel like we have a sorta responsibility to try to make the game easier on others, especially others who are getting into the game, since we do run a website like this, and making stuff clear that its not part of the normal should be something we should do.

Yeah the sources exist, but if you're a new player, something saying 'Source: Unearthed Arcana 1', 'Source: Xanathar's Guide to Everything' or 'Source: Strixhaven: Curriculum of Chaos' is kinda meaningless, if they even do read them

(oh, and side note, maybe alongside a distinguishing note for setting specific stuff, probably one for Unearthed arcana and homebrew content aswell since we host some of that too)
[Content] is play-test content, and as such may not be at the standard of quality of published content. Check with your DM whether it is good to use if you are going to be using it in play

[Content] is homebrew content released by writers who work with 5e, and is not official gameplay content and as such may not be at the same standard of quality as published content. Check with your DM whether it is good to use if you are going to be using it in play

Or even double ones, such as

[Content] is play-test content, and as such may not be at the standard of quality of published content. [Content] is part of the [setting] setting, and may not be designed for play outside of its original setting. Check with your DM whether it is good to use if you are going to be using it in play

or

[Content] is homebrew content released by writers who work with 5e, and is not official gameplay content and as such may not be at the same standard of quality as published content. Additionally, [Content] is part of the [setting] setting, and may not be designed for play outside of its original setting. Check with your DM whether it is good to use if you are going to be using it in play

i'm split between agreeing to changing all setting-specific, UA, and homebrew pages to include this and wanting to just have a key/legend/something on the main page clarifying what the terms mean with disclaimers like what you presented.

the main issue i'm trying to figure out is how much we'd need to change. adding disclaimers to UA and Homebrew races, classes/subclasses, feats, and spells makes sense to me and wouldn't take terribly long (make a template like you have and just copy paste it to the top of each page). in the same way, adding clarification to setting-specific races, subraces, backgrounds, feats, spells, etc makes sense, but are there any more setting-specific subclasses? it seems like the "update" books like xanathar's and tasha's serve to import things like the artificer, the circle of spores, the college of eloquence, etc into standard play, so should we clarify on those pages as well? and as monsters of the multiverse comes closer to its release, promising updates to 30+ races, is it worth it to make this change now?

finally, there's the items. if we're adding clarification to the other pages, we should probably make it universal across the page, but there's a lot of items that come from setting/adventure books, and adding that clarification to every item seems a bit unnecessary given it'll probably be DMs using those pages the most.

i think that an alternative may be to include a disclaimer on the front page or in a "reference" page near heroic chronicle like "This wiki hosts DND 5e content that is setting-specific, play-test content, or unofficial 'homebrew' content. Some content found on this page may not be suitable for play at your table. Check with your DM to see if what you find here is a good fit for your table if you are going to be using it in play." or something of a similar nature

it's definitely an important question to ask, but i'm planning on waiting until MotM comes out before I make any sweeping changes to pages

I think, with spores or artificers, pre-tasha's they wouldve falled into the category of having the disclaimers, but I think making it into one of the big, setting agnostic content books announces that they are designed to work across multiple settings, in most play.

Yeah, with monsters of the Multiverse, maybe we could delay adding such changed to races, but I think everything else should be alright to add such a thing in, since MotM wont be affecting feats or subclasses or etc

I actually really like that idea of a front page disclaimer. Maybe have the disclaimer note what sources fall into what, so that when people jump through the pages, they can just see a source and immedietly go 'ah, Mythic Oddessy's of Theros', thats usually setting specific

So yeah, a simple front page disclaimer, a brief explanation to what sources fall into where and what they are, and that could be enough I think, and it much less work, with a little table like

That is all a good idea, but I think that may end up creating a little more confusion or work than intended. Because a lot of content is technically setting-specific (monsters, items, etc), it may seem like a lot of the setting-specific options are not "available," even if a good percentage of them is relatively balanced.

I'm more against even having homebrew on the site, since it's definitely not WotC and may get new players confused if they are just skimming the page or arrive at a specific page from a Google search. It will also eventually balloon to a lot of bloat and upkeep and risk turning this site to dandwiki. In fact, I don't even know if "content written by writers adjacent to WotC" (such as Keith Baker) should really be hosted on the site.

Ultimately, a homepage disclaimer is fine. We can add specific disclaimers to setting-specific sources that are noticeably non-standard (Eberron, Ravnica or Strixhaven) not as a site-wide overhaul, but whenever an editor gets to them.

I don't particularly object to any of this, but are we trying to address a problem that doesn't really exist? I know new people to the site probably don't post here or send messages to any of the mods, but I guess I have a hard time seeing this as being a pressing issue.

I know the discussion has been had many times about what Homebrew content this site should host, and whether we leave the UA content available after it's been published. I think we've settled on a pretty good middle ground with the HB stuff; we host some of the more popular stuff and don't try and add everything anyone ever writes. UA I see no harm in leaving it on the page. An explanation is present in the Archived UA section of what UA is, but we could try adding it somewhere higher up so it's more visible. For homebrew we can add an explanation on the main page, and each class' page has a short explanation of what HB is before it lists the HB subclasses.

Really the only setting-specific stuff are the races and backgrounds at the moment. And I really don't see WotC publishing any more setting-specific subclasses to be honest. There could be some feats, like the dragonmarks, but other than that I just don't see them doing that very often. And my guess would be if they do make any setting-specific subclasses, they'll end up publishing them as core content whenever they do another compendium like Xanathar's or Tasha's.

I don't know, it is something to think about, this is just my first thoughts on seeing this.

qorinthian, I don't think we run the risk of overflowing with homebrew content just because we host 3-4 popular/WOTC-adjacent homebrews on the page. The only homebrew on here is Critical Role, Legends of Runeterra (which I believe was partnered content between DNDBeyond and Riot Games that got shot down by WOTC at the last minute), and some subclasses made by Mike Mearls and Keith Baker (I personally don't care too much about hosting Mike Mearls' content as it seems to be whatever he was brainstorming during streams and posting to Twitter, but considering there's only 3 subclasses of his on the main page, it's not a primary concern to me). Homebrew has always been relegated to its own corners of the site in terms of classes, subclasses, spells, and items, so someone would either have to be looking for it or go through a lot of hoops informing them that "this isn't official content".

All of that said, I'm in favor of a generic homepage disclaimer like what NCat and I were discussing (maybe replacing "Please keep official content to the top section, and homebrew to the very bottom section"? It's always seemed to be less for people using the site and more for moderators), but making sweeping changes to anything from books aside from the PHB, Xanathar's, and Tasha's seems a bit unnecessary.

To go back to NCat's original point (which I assume was prompted by Strixhaven's new backgrounds granting a lot more benefits than any other background), it's not unreasonable to assume that players and DMs will be able to realize by its description that it isn't universally applicable, just like any other setting-specific background isn't applicable to every campaign.

Besides, as Fredbob was pointing out, WOTC doesn't seem keen on publishing setting-specific player features (with some exceptions for Eberron primarily) without eventually making it universal through another "__'s __ of Everything". I believe that aside from adding a disclaimer to the frontpage, our separation races and backgrounds on the front page into "Common, etc" and "Setting Specific" is sufficient considering we're just here to make everything easily accessible to as many people as possible.

tl;dr: we can change the tagline on the front page to be a disclaimer about us hosting setting-specific and homebrew content and encourage players to talk with their DMs, but otherwise we're probably fine.

I added cottonyenoh's blurb above to the main page. I also hid the previous message to everyone but members. I didn't want to remove it just yet.

@cottoneyenoh

Regarding the homebrew hosting - the homebrew itself is just getting unwieldy. I'd allow anything officially partnered by WotC as a whole (as a company), such as the Bloodhunter that officially sits on the DnDBeyond page, but I don't think Twitter content from Mike Mearls or DMsGuild content or Keith Baker should make the cut.

I wouldn't say it's getting unwieldy, relatively speaking it's an incredibly small portion of the site, not even 50 individual pages.

I think it could be discussed whether some of it is appropriate, like I didn't realize the Mike Mearls content was basically just him spitballing on Twitter lol. But I think we've been pretty selective about what content gets added from a homebrew perspective.

I also think we should probably examine how the homebrew subclasses are presented on the class pages, but that's pretty minor.