4.33 Years in: What Now for 5E? (and have we reached "Peak Edition?")

Well, I can say having jumped from 2E and a slight stint with 3E right to 5E over 10 years later, I would think 5E should be good for another five years or so. I have read through the core books only and while I see a lot of nice changes, I see some things that I over simplified or to me, anyway, just don't make sense. I think WotC is taking notes, and we'll see something new eventually that keeps the best from 5E with the changes some of us would like to see (for me, the Elf/Darkvision thread LOL).

robus said:

What is driving these cost increases? The only thing I can think is paper? is that actually becoming resource constrained?

Edit: my google-fu must be off because I couldn’t find any dire articles on the near future of printing...?

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The drop in demand due to digital led to paper mills closing which led to price increases leading to more drop in demand.

And now we’ve reached the point where paper mills are better off making packaging than paper, causing paper costs to increase further and more consumers to choose digital.

Kodak, Deluxe, Technicolor and Fuji saw 35mm in a similar death spiral back in 2010-2012.

Of course at some point it will stabilize, but what percentage of consumers will be willing to pay even $35 for a physical book they can get for $25 digital along with a whole host of convenience tools, much less $40 or $60 or $90.

That’s why I’m so interested in how Beyond sales compare to Amazon.

And I say all this as a GenXer who owns every 5e book physically. But it’s defiantly a luxury.

I'm not sure you can draw the parallel to film though. Film died because digital cameras became ubiquitous. And MUCH higher quality and easier to use. To the point where it's virtually impossible to distinguish a digital picture from a film one. The human eye just isn't good enough.

But paper still has HUGE uses. While the push towards paperless offices has been ongoing for a decade or more, it hasn't put much of a dent in how much paper corporations generate. Never minding areas like education. Honestly, print books aren't really the biggest use of paper anyway. I can't see how paper will become that much more expensive.

Granted, I haven't bought a paper book in years, but, I can't see paper prices going that much higher in the near future. E-books and E-Readers are hardly reaching the ubiquity that digital cameras have. And, most people don't seem too interested in reading on their phones.

Regarding death of paper. Well, yes, more of our reading will be done on electronic devices and books will be more luxury devices. But there is a demand for luxury items. Popular blogs and podcasts have reprinted content you can get for free as books and have been successful with that. Many of these tend to be premium binding and quality paper and ink. Many people like to have nice books. Both the tactile enjoyment of reading a physical book and also as decoration for their homes.

I know that I have greatly decreased my physical book collection as my Amazon Kindle collection has replaced books for most one-off and reference reading. But I keep beautiful and interesting books on my self.

D&D 5e books are in the beautiful and interesting category. Even though I own them in D&D Beyond, I still like to have the actual books on my shelf and I enjoy browsing and reading them. I use digital during play for convenience but I use paper when reading by the fire for self enjoyment.

POD also continues to increase in popularity and in quality. Making small runs that cater to the long tail of niche interests more economical.

I think we will continue to see print books for the same reason we have publishers offering premium cover editions -- a good number of people are willing to pay the higher prices for the luxury of a printed book. TTRPGs are a niche hobby with passionate fans. We'll pay for the nice books even if pulp fiction is no longer available in paper.

clearstream said:

It's a different set of designers, isn't it?

It laid mechanical groundwork for 4th... but I didn't hear anything about it being a scrapped attempt at fourth. Can you reference anything to support that?

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Can't remember were I read it. Chances are it was in the defunct WotC forums, but I'm not even sure it was there. I swear I'm only repeating what I heard, I'm not making stuff up on purpose.

robus said:

What is driving these cost increases? The only thing I can think is paper? is that actually becoming resource constrained?

Edit: my google-fu must be off because I couldn’t find any dire articles on the near future of printing...?

Click to expand...

Your google-fu is fine, I think maybe OB1 is working with some out of date info. Quite a few years back E-books boomed and physical books were in decline, shortly there after E-books crashed very hard and physical books have been increasing for at least 5 years IIRC. Paper prices are going up though, largely because of increased demand for paper products.

Al2O3 said:

If D&D Beyond kill the sale of print books and WotC buys the company behind D&D Beyond, then I can imagine print books being removed.

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D&D Beyond is produced by Curse. Curse is owned by Twitch. Twitch is owned by Amazon.

Hasbro is not buying Amazon.

Interestingly, Amazon sells a lot of D&D books.

Basically, D&D is on a path to one company have monopoly power over the distribution of their product. It's probably not alone in this.

Books are not going away in our lifetimes. A lot of books are still sold, just through fewer retailers. And the tactile pleasure of a book is something that can't be replicated in any other medium. (Unlike, say, a film--which gives you more or less the same experience on VHS, DVD, or streaming on Netflix.) However, none of that is a guarantee that D&D will continue to print and publish books.

As to the original question...I think there will be a 6E for the 50th anniversary, backward compatible with 5E. It'll be a 1E to 2E or 3E to 3.5E evolution. But. I hope I'm wrong and that 5E lasts a few more years beyond that.

Final thought: a successful movie won't have significant impact on sales of the game. Marvel comics enjoyed a slight bump as the movie's grew in popularity, but are currently in a downward turn. The comics are basically raw material for the MCU to mine (and they do a great job of it). Hopefully, a D&D cinematic universe can be just as savvy and successful. But TTRPGs will always be a niche hobby.

happyhermit said:

Your google-fu is fine, I think maybe OB1 is working with some out of date info. Quite a few years back E-books boomed and physical books were in decline, shortly there after E-books crashed very hard and physical books have been increasing for at least 5 years IIRC. Paper prices are going up though, largely because of increased demand for paper products.

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I'm not sure if that's accurate.

There are many authors who make a living off ebooks. Some of them are literally rich. However, they are a distinctly different group than the bestselling authors who get rich off physical books. It's two different markets, two different audiences, and (in some cases) two different creators.

Print prices have gone up markedly over the last decade. I'm not certain of all the reasons why, but one of the reasons is transportation costs. Paper is heavy, and gas is expensive. You literally pay for that when you buy a book.

THEMNGMNT said:

As to the original question...I think there will be a 6E for the 50th anniversary, backward compatible with 5E. It'll be a 1E to 2E or 3E to 3.5E evolution. But. I hope I'm wrong and that 5E lasts a few more years beyond that.

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I wonder how bad it would be if they marketed it like it wasn't a big deal.

Design it with the "engine" the same. Just change some things like classes and spells.

If it was perfectly backwards compatible, I think I would be okay with it. By perfect I mean that people with different PHBs could seamlessly play with each other.

THEMNGMNT said:

I'm not sure if that's accurate.

There are many authors who make a living off ebooks. Some of them are literally rich. However, they are a distinctly different group than the bestselling authors who get rich off physical books. It's two different markets, two different audiences, and (in some cases) two different creators.

Print prices have gone up markedly over the last decade. I'm not certain of all the reasons why, but one of the reasons is transportation costs. Paper is heavy, and gas is expensive. You literally pay for that when you buy a book.

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Not sure what you think was inaccurate. Don't get me wrong, Ebooks are a massive market but they had a boom some years ago and have seen large to moderate declines since then (although the numbers are harder to pin down due to more "indie" publishing). A lot of people have made a fortune on audiobooks, and I spend more money on them than any other format. My point was not that Ebooks aren't popular, it was that Physical books aren't in anything resembling a death spiral. Print books have been increasing for quite a few years now. Saying that D&D does well on Amazon because people are buying less print books just doesn't match the data.