D&D 5E Does 5E avoid the overloads of previous editions?

[ForeverSlayer]

The ones that want it to go in another direction are gone, and they are not coming back. They're with Pathfinder, for better or for worse. WotC will not win them back, ever, and I don't think it's wise to devote energy to a futile strategy in winning them back.

I'm not talking about those fans. I'm a huge Pathfinder player, DM, and fan and I'm still a fan of D&D. I don't think most fans are interested in this big multimedia goal.

 

[Mistwell]

I'm not talking about those fans. I'm a huge Pathfinder player, DM, and fan and I'm still a fan of D&D. I don't think most fans are interested in this big multimedia goal.

The brand can be far larger than the game, and the fans of that larger brand are not necessarily the fans of the game, or even intended to be so. It doesn't matter if a guy who likes the D&D RPG doesn't care about a D&D video game or a D&D television show or a D&D movie or D&D play doh sets. As long as there is a decent market for those other things, outside of current D&D RPG fans, then it's good for the brand.

Not everything WOTC does must serve the D&D RPG fans, for it to be a good idea for WOTC.

The point of this whole thing, as it relates to the RPG, is that if the entire D&D brand does well, then WOTC doesn't feel the pressure to constantly published the next big RPG thing. They don't feel the pressure for endless splatbooks or a revised version of the game. Because if the bulk of the money comes from the larger multimedia brand, they are not as sensitive to fluctuations in the RPG sales themselves.

Bottom line, the number of people who recognize the D&D brand name, and the number of people who have fond memories of it but have no intention of playing a tabletop RPG these days, is tremendously large compared to the total number of RPG players (of any game) today. And WOTC rightfully wants to go after that market for geek/nerd things and nostalgia and video game players and movie and television entertainment consumers and collectors and children of geeks/nerds and all the other things that can connect to a brand.

It's the same reason Disney makes more money from license sales of Marvel and Star Wars than from the comics and movies. Same for DC with their superheroes. Same for Dr. Who now. And Harry Potter. Big nerd-related things end up making more money in brand licensing, then they do for they thing that gets them known to begin with. And while D&D isn't on the level of those things yet - it could be. If it even gets 1/100th of the recognition of any one of those things, it would be a huge win. And there is no good evidence they cannot get that kind of recognition - they have lots of internal market testing that says they can.

 

[Mistwell]

Just because something works, doesn't mean it's good when it comes to games.

What are you referring to?

 

[Halivar]

The point of this whole thing, as it relates to the RPG, is that if the entire D&D brand does well, then WOTC doesn't feel the pressure to constantly published the next big RPG thing.

This is the money quote. Vast multimedia drive decouples D&D's revenue stream from the edition treadmill. Fewer plats, more ancillary products.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I think the problem is WoTc wants to go in one direction while it's fans want to go in another. I think most D&D fans just want a good TTRPG while Wizards wants to take it well beyond that. I guess this is what happens when you have a company that wants to make as much money as possible and fans who just want a good game.

I dunno, man. A good TTRPG is the first thing I want out of D&D, but if I could have that AND an awesome movie franchise AND a cool cartoon series AND play through The Temple of Elemental Evil in a good videogame, that would be pretty frickin' choice.

D&D has had a problem where most of those additional media elements have sucked pretty hard. To me, that's a solvable problem. Admittedly, they are also in a position to let Hasbro dinguses make crap with the D&D brand (as opposed to outside dinguses like Atari), but it's not a bad strategy. Even a stridently low-tier, mediocre game like DDO can reap HUGE financial benefits. And if that means a healthier TTRPG, I'm into it.

And if it means a weaker TTRPG, well, in the next 10-20 years we'll be talking about how Paizo is more interested in making lousy dingus-driven Pathfinder movies.

The TTRPG market ain't colossal. Anybody who makes a TTRPG who wants to grow their company is going to look beyond the TTRPG. The most TTRPG fans can really hope for is that the hobby grows and good games get played a lot. That ain't gonna happen just by making more TTRPGs.

 

[pickin_grinnin]

Yeah. That 3e thing they pushed out the door was a total failure. D20 Modern? Not worth the paper. DnD Minis was a complete flop. And don't get me started on that Magic and Pokemon debacle.

WotC have an inconsistent track record overall and made a very major mistake with the last release of D&D. That's more than enough reason to be wary.

 

[pickin_grinnin]

So one edition you don't like and you have lost all faith that they can produce a good product. Really?

No. I have lost all faith that they WILL produce a good product. They are capable of doing so. Whether they will or not is less of a sure thing than it was in the past, though.

WotC has gone through a lot of changes over the years, including being purchased by Hasbro. What they did in their earlier, smaller years as a company doesn't necessarily relate to how they will make decisions now. The decisions they have made about their card games is irrelevant - that's a whole other industry in and of itself.

The fact is that they made a big blunder with 4e. It wasn't a bad game in and of itself, and if it had been released as a whole new game there wouldn't have been so much controversy. As the next version of D&D, though, it alienated a large portion of the established customer base. Some of the changes they made were done in an effort to make the game more appealing to video gamers, on the mistaken assumption that they could draw in a lot of people from that demographic. That shows some very short-term, dangerously flawed thinking.

Marvel and DC use the same flawed logic when they reboot their universes to make them more "accesssible" to non-comic readers. What happens is that the big media push brings in a few non-customers, most of whom are interested for a short time and then wander off. Then you're left with your regular core base of customers, many of whom you have alienated. That's what happened with 4e, too.

If WotC had been smart about how they did 4e, Pathfinder would never be the big thing it is today. They handed away a significant part of their long-term customer base, for no reason. That points to some seriously bad understanding of the business and their customers.

Going into 5e, we have the WotC people who completely missed the mark on a major release of the main product in their biggest brand, coupled with influences from Hasbro, a company that has no real history with this type of game. They may pull it off and put out a version of D&D that make people forgive them for 4e, or it all may turn into a train wreck. Given their history with D&D in the fairly recent past when they last tried a really big, complete overhaul, there is reason to be cautious.

Trying to extend the D&D brand into other media and products is a smart thing, but I think it will ultimately fail. D&D is a very derivative work - primarily Tolkien with a mishmash of other fantasy worlds thrown in. When your average person looks at a D&D world, characters, monsters, etc., it all looks very cliche. There is nothing that inherently sets it apart from any other high fantasy setting. Non-roleplayers don't care if their games or cartoons or action figures have the D&D brand or not. Without any real uniqueness, it becomes hard to leverage into a multimedia/cross-product success. That's why it has never worked in the past, despite a lot of effort, and why it probably won't work now, even with Hasbro's marketing power.

 

[pickin_grinnin]

The brand can be far larger than the game, and the fans of that larger brand are not necessarily the fans of the game, or even intended to be so.

That's very true. The brand has to have something to appeal to the masses, though, and D&D doesn't. As with almost all high fantasy, it's very derivative of Tolkien and other fictional worlds that are now considered cliche. To the non-rpg-gamer, it doesn't look any different than any other product or brand that revolves around high fantasy, because high fantasy is inherently a pretty restrictive genre.

 

[ForeverSlayer]

That's very true. The brand has to have something to appeal to the masses, though, and D&D doesn't. As with almost all high fantasy, it's very derivative of Tolkien and other fictional worlds that are now considered cliche. To the non-rpg-gamer, it doesn't look any different than any other product or brand that revolves around high fantasy, because high fantasy is inherently a pretty restrictive genre.

Exactly!

What would D&D bring to the media that Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, and Percy Jackson hasn't already?

 

[Mistwell]

That's very true. The brand has to have something to appeal to the masses, though, and D&D doesn't. As with almost all high fantasy, it's very derivative of Tolkien and other fictional worlds that are now considered cliche. To the non-rpg-gamer, it doesn't look any different than any other product or brand that revolves around high fantasy, because high fantasy is inherently a pretty restrictive genre.

I disagree. And the fact it's popped up in everything from Big Bang Theory to Community to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon to the best watched web shows, all just in the past six months, tells me you're wrong. It has substantially more brand recognition than "generic high fantasy".