D&D 5E Mike Mearls states on Twitter hardcover adventures now annual releases

robus · Oct 12, 2017

I know I'm still wet behind the ears but from brushing up on the history of D&D as a brand/product it is apparent that it's gone through periods of bad management/product design, 4e being the most recent instance. I'm not saying that the edition was bad (I've no idea) - but it seems clear that the return on investment was poor, and the fact that Pathfinder stole the pole position during 4e was another indicator that the product had gone off the rails.

I think Hasbro/Wotc management gave the D&D team a severe bollocking and, after a reorg, told them to right the ship and demonstrate that the new management team could release product that made good profits (and do it for a period of time).

Now that they have demonstrated competency in creating D&D products that make money (and grow the brand, D&D is now back on top), there might be more leniency toward diversifying the product lineup. But I'm sure the management team is very leery of anything that might remind Hasbro of the bad old days

Just my 2c.

Parmandur · Oct 13, 2017

robus said:
Have you checked out the Art of M:tG books? They're quite inspirational as setting books. Of course they're missing maps which is a key part of a setting but as works of art - they're great.

I have! I think that, long term, that is what we will see for D&D's various world's, though probably with maps: rules neutral coffee table books that can be used as a DAM resource, but not crunchy.

robus · Oct 13, 2017

Parmandur said:
I have! I think that, long term, that is what we will see for D&D's various world's, though probably with maps: rules neutral coffee table books that can be used as a DAM resource, but not crunchy.

That would be cool, but some settings do need extra crunch don’t they? Psionics in Dark Sun?

Parmandur · Oct 13, 2017

robus said:
That would be cool, but some settings do need extra crunch don’t they? Psionics in Dark Sun?

Well, I do expect that we will see a rulebook with Artificers, Mystics and whatnot: but I don't expect that to be setting material anymore than Volo's.

Jester David · Oct 13, 2017

Enevhar Aldarion said:
So yeah, I have the feeling that for all the ranting done on message boards like this, the majority of gamers willing to spend money on WotC products, especially newer ones, either do not know about, or do not care about, non-Realms settings.

Mike "Sly Flourish" Shea did a survey of DMs:
http://slyflourish.com/2016_dm_survey_results.html

Of the 6601 respondents, 3611 used a homebrew world and 2507 used the Realms. And only 330 used another D&D world. Repeating, 5% of DMs who responded actually use another D&D setting.

Regardless, 55% of the fanbase doesn't use a published setting. So right off the bat a campaign setting book is going to be a hard sell.

Yes, if WotC publishes an adventure set in another world, then people might play there. And people who play in the Realms might only be playing there because it's the default setting. But that's a maybe. That's a theoretical audience.
Assuming those 330 people are evenly split among the top 5 D&D settings of the past, even if 90% of the people playing in the Realms are only doing so because that's the default and will be willing to switch, that's STILL going to be a smaller audience than the Realms.

Parmandur · Oct 13, 2017

Jester David said:
Mike "Sly Flourish" Shea did a survey of DMs:
http://slyflourish.com/2016_dm_survey_results.html

Of the 6601 respondents, 3611 used a homebrew world and 2507 used the Realms. And only 330 used another D&D world. Repeating, 5% of DMs who responded actually use another D&D setting.

Regardless, 55% of the fanbase doesn't use a published setting. So right off the bat a campaign setting book is going to be a hard sell.

Yes, if WotC publishes an adventure set in another world, then people might play there. And people who play in the Realms might only be playing there because it's the default setting. But that's a maybe. That's a theoretical audience.
Assuming those 330 people are evenly split among the top 5 D&D settings of the past, even if 90% of the people playing in the Realms are only doing so because that's the default and will be willing to switch, that's STILL going to be a smaller audience than the Realms.

It's not a necessarily representative sample...but it does match with what WotC has said from their market research.

Thing about the current strategy, is that enough of the homebrewers will happily plop the jungle from ToA somewhere in their world, change the details, and move on. Enough to combine with the straight FR fans to sell books: Homebrew is the core setting, with FR as an example of standard issue D&D assumptions to crib from.

Jester David · Oct 13, 2017

Parmandur said:
It's not a necessarily representative sample...but it does match with what WotC has said from their market research.

Thing about the current strategy, is that enough of the homebrewers will happily plop the jungle from ToA somewhere in their world, change the details, and move on. Enough to combine with the straight FR fans to sell books: Homebrew is the core setting, with FR as an example of standard issue D&D assumptions to crib from.

It's probably the most representative you're going to get outside of WotC.

Shea posted it all over Twitter and Reddit and Facebook. It was retweetedand shared by a few big names, including Matt Mercer, which brought waves of new people (especially young gamers) into the mix.
And with over 6000 respondents, it's probably one of the larger surveys you could manage of the community. Most ENworld polls are lucky to get a couple hundred.

He's talked about reading a data a few times and looking at the summaries after each of the traffic spikes, and how the demographics never really shifted and remained surprisingly consistent throughout.
I'm not betting the kid's college fund on its accuracy, but I feel comfortable using it's data.

Parmandur · Oct 13, 2017

Jester David said:
It's probably the most representative you're going to get outside of WotC.

Shea posted it all over Twitter and Reddit and Facebook. It was retweetedand shared by a few big names, including Matt Mercer, which brought waves of new people (especially young gamers) into the mix.
And with over 6000 respondents, it's probably one of the larger surveys you could manage of the community. Most ENworld polls are lucky to get a couple hundred.

He's talked about reading a data a few times and looking at the summaries after each of the traffic spikes, and how the demographics never really shifted and remained surprisingly consistent throughout.
I'm not betting the kid's college fund on its accuracy, but I feel comfortable using it's data.

Oh, no, I understand: pointing out that the findings do actually match what we know of the official market research, which is interesting and suggestive of accuracy.

It certainly explains the strategy from WotC, even though we know everybody who works there does actually love other settings.