D&D 5E Rant About Patience

So you're eager for dungeon and dragon magazine. You're eager for dungeonscape. You're eager for the ogl. Yeah, I get it. You're upset and you think wizards of the coast has failed because they haven't delivered these things yet. Take my advice.

Just. Wait.

It's been 2 months since the first real 5e product hit the shelves. Convention season hit hard in August. Ask any writer, developer, artist, editor, any professional person in the industry, and they will tell you that they have lives and can only work so fast.

Oh yes, I remember when 3e was released. One book a month, an unprecedented licensing unveiled, moves so bold it changed the industry.

WotC gave you the 5e rules for free. Trapdoor Technologies and WotC are working as hard and fast as possible to give you what you want. They have promised you news on the ogl and the mags in the future. You have a promise. It's going to happen.

I get it. Waiting sucks. Some people got their Monster Manual in August and I'm here waiting for the end of the month. I want it all too, but disguising my impatience as the failure of WotC to deliver the goods doesn't help. It would just make me look like an entitled and spoiled child.

Seriously, haters gonna hate is the lesson today.

Okay.

Not getting products out fast enough for the customers is a legitimate complaint. Companies have failed because of this. I'm purposely not playing 5e because I don't feel there is enough out to really run the game. When they finally do I won't just jump to their game. When the current campaign is done we will evaluate things and go from there. It could cause them to lose customers. People don't always have the time to wait on their schedule to start gaming.

Haters are a different thing and frankly just need to be ignored. They are just pointless noise.

Crothian said:

Not getting products out fast enough for the customers is a legitimate complaint. Companies have failed because of this. I'm purposely not playing 5e because I don't feel there is enough out to really run the game. When they finally do I won't just jump to their game. When the current campaign is done we will evaluate things and go from there. It could cause them to lose customers. People don't always have the time to wait on their schedule to start gaming.

Haters are a different thing and frankly just need to be ignored. They are just pointless noise.

Click to expand...

I think as far as the current release schedule, we have different sensibilities as to what is slow and what isn't. Not a problem.

I'm a fan of the OGL and think WotC missed an opportunity to strengthen 5E by using the OGL during development. There are a lot of great things out there that could have been part of 5E during playtest and right from the release that are not a part of it.

On a personal note, as an ePublisher with plans to go on creating stuff for games (and while I have used Basic 5E and run the Starter Set to ensure I had an understanding of what was on offer), I can only spend so much time and money on a system for which I cannot create stuff utilizing the OGL.

So, sure, I can wait. In the meantime, though, I am not buying further materials for a system that isn't released under the OGL and has no firm plans to eventually allow OGL support. It just isn't practical for me. The waiting costs me nothing. I doubt I am the only one who would like to support 5E/WotC with OGL offerings. Whether this makes any difference to them, makes any difference to their bottom line, or makes any difference to their long term level of success remains to be seen.

At some point, though, I won't be waiting and will just have moved on. I'd imagine that will be true for more than a few people.

Hiya.

I'm with Talath on this. I think the problem isn't that WotC is "dropping the ball", so much as it is the current (last 15'ish years) development of the "gotta have it NOW" generation.

I have worked with some young (less than 30 years old) folks...and having any (and I mean any) semblance of patience is frequently lacking in them. I like to challenge them sometimes; I bet them they can't just sit there for 5 minutes. No reading, no cell phone checking, no surfing the net...nothing. Just sit there in the lobby and watch people go by (I work in a major hotel here). So far, nobody has been able to do it. Not a single one of them...most of them refuse to even try because just the *thought* of having to wait makes them uncomfortable.

Anyway, I think this is the same situation. We have folks who grew up in the "always on, always available, always instant" generation. When the world doesn't conform to what they learned as "normal" growing up, it's a bit...lets say disconcerting...and they react negatively. So, when they have to wait for the MM to come out, then wait again for the DMG, then wait again for the GM Screen, etc, they get agitated because they aren't used to it. They never really learned patience because they never really had to. Then again, they could just be people without much patience to begin with...and that crosses all age, upbringing, etc, barriers.

Me? I could easily wait another year for the MM to come out, then another year after that for the DMG. Wouldn't bother me at all...it'd only be two years...and that is a rather short amount of time in the big picture.

One more thing; I think 3.x really messed up with how the game is perceived. When it first came out I predicted this; I predicted that the way WotC was modeling their product line, it was going to create role-players that didn't actually "get" the game. I basically said it was teaching the next generation to buy products to add/fix stuff in the game...as opposed to what all us old farts learned (which was to add/fix stuff ourselves for our own games). So now we have the situation we have; people so used to having product at their finger tips for every little thing, and now when they don't have it they don't know what to do, leading to frustration, and they blame WotC for that frustration. Add that to the "always on/instant gratification" generation and you have the beginning of a perfect storm.

^_^

Paul L. Ming

People excited about 5e is a bad thing. Gotcha.

It would be much worse for WotC if people didn't care.

Talath said:

I think as far as the current release schedule, we have different sensibilities as to what is slow and what isn't. Not a problem.

Click to expand...

It's not a problem for me I have other games to play. That makes it a problem for WotC since they want me and other groups playing their game.

Waiting IS hard!

That's why I'm distracting myself by playing one of the other thousand billion gazillion roleplaying games that humankind has developed over the last few decades. Some of these are even available on-line for free!

When the MM and DMG finally arrive it will be like Christmas morning. Don't rush until the goodies are here.

Of all the Ministry-of-Truthesque oxymorons that permeate western civilization, the elevation of impatience to a virtue is possibly the one that most contributes to its ultimate collapse.

More D&D stuff will come. In the meatime, there's plenty of diversions out there to chuck into one's personal Foreverhole. Go play Hearthstone or Destiny or something.