Mearls On D&D's Design Premises/Goals

Parmandur · Sep 22, 2018

Elfcrusher said:
Don't forget Cubicle 7!

Or Goodman Games. Honestly, not sure where the idea that WotC has a bad relationship with 3PP, or that 3PP aren't doing work for 5E, comes from.

ad_hoc · Sep 22, 2018

After 4e there were musings that D&D might be dead.

On the lead up to the release of 5e people were hoping it would be able to compete with Pathfinder.

Now that it is highly successful people are upset that it isn't 3e or 4e.

I wonder, if 5e crashed and burned, would these people still be upset? Would they happily go to Pathfinder (or another game) and be happy that the game they don't like failed?

DM Howard · Sep 22, 2018

Jester David said:
And?
The fact that 90% of carbon is boring coal doesn't make diamonds any less shiny. (Don't forget Sturgeon's law: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturgeon's_law )

There is some AMAZING stuff on the DMsGuild. And stuff that is just outright better than the weaker/ low quality options found in official books. I'm super happy with a lot of my purchases. And finding names that I trust helps.

Then why did you say:

?
That sure implies like there's competition for you.

Wha....?!

Okay, right now there are several big name 3rd Party Publishers doing stuff for 5e. Green Ronin, Kobold Press, Frog God Games. And many newcomers as well, like Nord Games or MCDM Productions or Sasquatch Games. Plus, if the bridges were "burned" why did so many other RPG studios step up to write and produce the first few storyline adventures for 5e?

There's NO shortage of amazing 3PP support for 5e, and the 3PP seem to have a great relationship with WotC. Heck, I've heard the owners of Green Ronin and Kobold Press on the official D&D podcast where they've been given an opportunity to pimp forthcoming kickstarters.

I'm not sure how the PDF treatment of Eberron factors in... They chose to release that as a PDF likely because releasing it as a physical book wouldn't have been viable for them, and likely not sold enough copies to justify the product. The Eberron book is really just a larger version of the Tortle Package or other digital exclusives, like The Lost Kenku or One Grung Above: a fun digital exclusive that is a bonus for hardcore fans.

WotC supports stores the only way they can: releasing the books early so excited fans have to turn to stores. And retailer incentive collector covers. What else can they do?

Focusing on AL doesn't really help stores. Only a tiny minority of gamers play AL. And not every game store has the space to run AL. And there's no guarantee people playing AL in a store will support the store in any way. In my time running and playing Organised Play, I saw a whole lot of people show up and not buy a thing from the store. Even if they walked in with a Tupperware tote of books. The most the bought was a Coke.
Honestly, "do what you want" sounds amazing for this former Living Greyhawk/ Pathfinder Society GM, where you couldn't deviate at all from the adventures and had to run things as close as possible. The freedom to get creative sounds great and much more like actually playing D&D.

I don't find it to be a competition because I will always choose to buy thing from my FLGS, that's all.

I think you underestimate the amount of people that play AL. I'm not saying it is a majority, but I think there are a lot of people whose only experience with D&D is with AL.

I am also not saying there aren't 3PP working on 5E products, but they are not as many, as ubiquitous, or as accessible to normal D&D players as in the 3E days.

I think we will just have to agree to disagree.

DM Howard · Sep 22, 2018

ad_hoc said:
After 4e there were musings that D&D might be dead.

On the lead up to the release of 5e people were hoping it would be able to compete with Pathfinder.

Now that it is highly successful people are upset that it isn't 3e or 4e.

I wonder, if 5e crashed and burned, would these people still be upset? Would they happily go to Pathfinder (or another game) and be happy that the game they don't like failed?

What people? Those of us that want more options love 5E, we just want more of it.

Charlaquin · Sep 22, 2018

Elfcrusher said:
For the record, I also get my buttons pushed by tons of options and character complexity. I think all of us who are somewhere on the "spectrum" get a high from it. It's fun to just make characters. However, I find I tend to make more characters for the option-rich games, but I actually play the option-light games.

Well, yeah, kinda hard to play option heavy games when there isn’t support for them. I played a lot more option heavy games than option light ones when 3e and 4e were the actively supported editions.

Granted, Pathfinder is an option currently, but Pathfinder has that written-to-make-the-GM’s-Role-as-minimal-as-possible issue that I agree with Mearls was a serious problem with 3e and 4e. Maybe PF2 will fix that, but I doubt it.

It’s just very frustrating that right now the only options with any mainstream recognition are DM-empowering and options-light, or DM-disempowering with lots of options. Those of us who like the DM-empowerment of 5e and the player-side crunch of Pathfinder have to either suck it up and compromise one way or the other, or desperately hope we can find a group for our 3rd party game of choice. Like, I’m sure in a few years when the Angry GM has published his RPG, that’ll be right up my alley, considering I agree with most of what he says. But unless his game becomes the most miraculous success story in Indy RPG history, I doubt I’ll be able to get a group together for it.

Jester David · Sep 22, 2018

DM Howard said:
I am also not saying there aren't 3PP working on 5E products, but they are not as many, as ubiquitous, or as accessible to normal D&D players as in the 3E days.

...
The 3rd Party Tal'Dorei Campaign Guide is outselling Pathfinder. Heck, it might be outselling some official WotC adventures. And MCDM’s Strongholds & Followers made $2 million on Kickstarter alone, becoming the best selling RPG Kickstarter.
3rd Party Publishers are doing just fine. Heck, given the larger audiences and more content gaps, they’re probably doing better than in 3e.

But whatever you need to tell yourself.

Parmandur · Sep 22, 2018

DM Howard said:
I don't find it to be a competition because I will always choose to buy thing from my FLGS, that's all.

I think you underestimate the amount of people that play AL. I'm not saying it is a majority, but I think there are a lot of people whose only experience with D&D is with AL.

I am also not saying there aren't 3PP working on 5E products, but they are not as many, as ubiquitous, or as accessible to normal D&D players as in the 3E days.

I think we will just have to agree to disagree.

Last I recall seeing any info, there are one or two hundred thousand players in AL, as opposed to ~15 million players in North America. AL is a fringe case, though WotC is constantly working to make it more of a thing.

3E had glut, and a lot of vanity publishing. Now, the vanity publishing portion is on DMs Guild or Reddit: such is change.

DM Howard · Sep 22, 2018

Jester David said:
But whatever you need to tell yourself.

Wow, so much for this being a discussion forum. Chill out.

DM Howard · Sep 22, 2018

Parmandur said:
Last I recall seeing any info, there are one or two hundred thousand players in AL, as opposed to ~15 million players in North America. AL is a fringe case, though WotC is constantly working to make it more of a thing.

3E had glut, and a lot of vanity publishing. Now, the vanity publishing portion is on DMs Guild or Reddit: such is change.

Huh, maybe that's true it would be interesting to see some more recent numbers.

Oh, totally, there was just as much junk in 3E's publishing glut as there is on the Sms Guild. No argument there!

Guest 6801328 · Sep 22, 2018

Charlaquin said:
Well, yeah, kinda hard to play option heavy games when there isn’t support for them.

This confused me. Why is it hard to play games without "support"? What does support even mean? More stuff to buy?

Lots of people play lots of RPGs without ever buying new stuff. Heck, look at all the people who still play their own variant of 2e or whatever.

Anyway, what I meant is that I enjoy making characters for option-heavy games with thick rulebooks, but when my friends and are deciding what game to play we tend to choose the lightweight, elegant ones: 5e, The One Ring, Dungeon World, etc.

Mearls On D&D's Design Premises/Goals

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