Self-Destruction as Marketing

This happened to me in D&D 3.5E: players came in, bragged about broken builds, and wanted to play them in my game.

I said no. I knew the build. I knew the site he got it from. What is the point of this exercise? For you to come in, find something online, and use it to wreck my game so you can get a few laughs? To ruin the game for everyone else who makes time every week to come to the game?

I said no.

Not in my game.

We are entering "late phase 5E," and what I see coming out of D&D Beyond are horribly broken player options. This is, again, the corporate gaming playbook. At the end of an edition's lifecycle, they purposefully make more and more outrageous and broken builds just to keep player attention and make the game "fun again," and it ends up wrecking the game to the point where people are screaming for a new edition. In a game with declining interest, the only way they can attract interest is through shipping broken mechanics and options to generate buzz and excitement.

Everyone "still hot on 5E" is having the edition slowly ruined for them, and they don't even know it.

Players will seek out groups to try the "next broken thing" and laugh as the abuse is enabled from up top, and another table's game is ruined by stupid ideas coming from corporate.

I saw this same thing at the end of every edition: the company hits the self-destruct button and wrecks the game with OP, power-gaming, and completely broken player options.

If you are a 5E purist and can play with a limited set of books, fine, you will probably never see this happening at your table. The players are there for the stories and heroism, and that's great. If you limit your options to the classic choices or play a 5E version that cares about balance and game integrity, wonderful. The small fish in the industry, like EN World and Kobold Press, don't have much of an incentive to ruin their games with powergaming options, since they can't create a new edition out of thin air.

If a player is on D&D Beyond and has access to broken expansion material, and is all excited to play, that is a red flag to me. I know the type. The power gamer is too interested in wrecking games and looking cool, rather than in everyone else's enjoyment at my table.

No.

Not in my game.