D&D 5E Does WotC suck at selling games?

[Astrosicebear]

Additionally... if DM conversion is too high, where are the players... which means your player base is also the DMs.

Anyone who has ever DM'd for a group of DMs knows the feeling.

 

[Mistwell]

The Angry DM thinks so. What do you think?

http://www.angrydm.com/2014/09/dear-wotc-why-do-you-suck-at-selling-games/

From the title I was all prepared to passionately disagree with him.

But then I read his article and...he's right. He's right across the board. I might not have put things that way, but at heart he's making a lot of good points. And if I were Mike Mearls, I'd read that article, and then consider some products that would meet those needs for new DMs.

I am about to hand the D&D Starter Set to the daughter of a friend of ours. I think she is up for D&D, and I think she will like it and will find a group of players to convince. The problem I foresee though is there is nothing really guiding her how to be a DM. And I don't really have the time to teach her. But the Stater Set - it doesn't really do a very good job at this. It's a concern. I wish there was a free PDF I could point her to, to teach her how to be a DM.

 

[halfling rogue]

From the title I was all prepared to passionately disagree with him.

But then I read his article and...he's right. He's right across the board. I might not have put things that way, but at heart he's making a lot of good points. And if I were Mike Mearls, I'd read that article, and then consider some products that would meet those needs for new DMs.

I am about to hand the D&D Starter Set to the daughter of a friend of ours. I think she is up for D&D, and I think she will like it and will find a group of players to convince. The problem I foresee though is there is nothing really guiding her how to be a DM. And I don't really have the time to teach her. But the Stater Set - it doesn't really do a very good job at this. It's a concern. I wish there was a free PDF I could point her to, to teach her how to be a DM.

Didn't Mearls say that they were going to be doing some "How To" videos in the future? I vaguely recall someone asking him why the Starter Set didn't come with more direction for new players and for some reason I remember him talking about the How To video thing

 

[Astrosicebear]

I wish there was a free PDF I could point her to, to teach her how to be a DM.

Kid's these days have it too easy... why in my day the 1st Edition DMG was akin to a calculus book that mated with a statistics and probability manual with a healthy helping of Advanced Economics and it read like molasses through a tube in winter.

In all seriousness, a free supplement is the way to go. But please, nothing like DMing for Dummies.

 

[keterys]

Games like the Neverwinter computer game, the Ravenloft board game, and even Inn Fighting card game are ways to introduce people to D&D. The truly dedicated, the number crunchers, the folks who ilke reading 500-page tomes are the ones who survive on into the tabletop hobby.

D&D tabletop, as designed, is niche. It can't be anything else. It's not approachable, it's not sexy, it's not good for someone random to pick up and run for others, and even the "run for others" requirement already sinks half of the proposition. Tabletop RPGs are just a hard sell, so they require that "older cousin".

Any version of D&D that actually was approachable, that could be picked up and easily played by a group of newbies without the three tomes, hundreds of pages of rules and charts? People would complain about that, say it wasn't D&D.

They could certainly do a better job on the starter and Basic front though, yessiree.

 

[Crothian]

Anyone who has ever DM'd for a group of DMs knows the feeling.

Those are some of the best games I have ever ran.

 

[drjones]

I admit I only skimmed about 20% of this giant wall o' text but it seemed typical for a game blog: high on personal option taken as fact and low on concrete useful information. Along the lines of 'I would be a better coach of the Packers because I would tell them to win games more' but with a ton more words.

 

[jrowland]

Ultimately, I think WotC is well aware of this. Its not new: Make More DMs, and the players will come. To their credit, they have intro games, as [MENTION=43019]keterys[/MENTION] mentioned (along with Lords of Waterdeep et. al.) These products create players with a lexicon of terminology that is truly needed as a baseline. Some even have the "funny" dice.

I think "Chose Your Own Adventure" type products would be great, but I don't think its the panacea the Angry DM leads us to believe, nor is a "DM tutorial". Do they help? Absolutely. I learned to DM with the Mentzer Red Box at 12 and my little brother as my sole player at 10. We did this for nearly a year before he invited one of his friends over.

One thing I had that kids today don't have: Anonymity to fail. My brother and his friend (and soon my friends as we grew into the game) didn't know any better. We didn't have examples of great play, great PC builds, epic stories. There was no podcast of Chris Perkins leading A-List (D-list?) geeks through dungeon crawls. I would have given up had I seen those and beat myself up thinking I was doing it all wrong.

5E goes out of its way to put the rules in the back-burner, and that is a good thing. What we need are examples of DMs winging it, do it "wrong" so-to-speak, and yet players having fun and epic moments being had.

One last Point: I think WotC could do a lot more to encourage DMing at encounters/expeditions, etc in gaming stores. Almost on the right track towards the end of the playtest: Great Adventures with DM screen that the DM DIDN'T have to pay for would be a nice touch. Loss Leader? sure. Encounters DMs are on the front lines for bringing noobs in. Make it rewarding with "cool stuff you get to keep" and more people will step up. In addition, special "DMing 101" sessions with swag would go a long way as well.

 

[Jer]

Additionally... if DM conversion is too high, where are the players... which means your player base is also the DMs.

Anyone who has ever DM'd for a group of DMs knows the feeling.

I'm ... not sure what this means?

Having all of your players who are also DMs has been liberating for me in the past, because they tend to love to do worldbuilding. Their characters are so full of hooks that I never have to worry about designing adventures or factions or anything else. I just read the meticulous bios that they write up for their characters and I have instant plot hooks. Plus it's fun to take their plot hooks and riff off them into consequences they never dreamed of when they wrote them up...

 

[GameDoc]

I think an free pdf that is Dungeon Master 101 is a good idea, as is a tutorial adventure with side adds that helps both new players and DMs learn the basics.

I am GMing my group for Star Wars: EotE and the starter set adventure was just that. It gave a series of encounters, staring with a basic scene with close quarters skill and attack rolls, and in between scenes added another key rule. By the end you've had an experience with all the basics. We are all experienced gamers, but given how different the dice pool mechanic is from anything else we'd played before, it was very helpful to start a new system like this.

I imagine it would be the same way for a group of 12-13 year olds who got their hands on a D&D stater set with no prior exposure to tabletop roleplaying. Even if a parent or older friend or relative wanted to act as DM for them, that person would have a hard time if they had no prior exposure to tabletop RPGs themselves.