D&D 5E Wanting more content doesn't always equate to wanting tons of splat options so please stop.

[Hussar]

I don't remotely believe that too many supplements hurt sales.
I do believe that poor quality supplements and/or supplements that don't consider poor interactions add a non-zero negative weight on the gaming community perception of a system.
Time is the real enemy.
It is easy to look at the increasing stack of supplements and blame that for the concurrent decline caused by age.

What age? All three previous WotC editions died after 2 or 3 years. 5 years if we're being generous.

That's not much time between reboots.

 

[hawkeyefan]

My God! I want paper money that's green and you can buy things with. The horror! I'm so hard to please! What I am asking for isn't even remotely hard to do, and I am in fact easy to please.

For the last several posts you have repeatedly portrayed my position disingenuously and I'm done.

I'm not trying to portray you disingenuously. I'm trying to understand your stance and then how that relates to the general consumer that WotC is aiming for.

They've primarily been doing print only books, so that part isn't really a problem. But I don't think that they're going to put out non-Realms stuff in anything that's a general type release like you are describing. Asking or expecting them to do so is where I think your stance is harder to please.

For example...I'd personally like to see a new setting. I'm not sure what, but something different. Something not like the mostly standard fantasy of Oerth, Toril, Krynn, or Ebberon. Something that was as different from those as Dark Sun and Planescape were. However, I don't expect to see a new setting, at least not anytime soon. Is that desire on my part one that is easy to please? The answer seems simple....it's just one book, they could create a new setting. They've done it before. But it's way too risky at this point.

I look at your desire for a PHB2 (for lack of a better term) as along those lines.

We'll see how Volo's Guide goes, and how strongly tied to the Realms it is...I have a feeling they're going to gauge the success of this book and use it to determine how they present material going forward. Maybe the major mechanical expansion will be exactly what you want. My bet at this point is that it would be combined with either Realms Lore or some sort of other content aimed at another area of the game.

 

[Shasarak]

What age? All three previous WotC editions died after 2 or 3 years. 5 years if we're being generous.

That's not much time between reboots.

Previous 3? Did Mearls release 6e already?

I did not see that coming.

 

[Shasarak]

I'm not trying to portray you disingenuously. I'm trying to understand your stance and then how that relates to the general consumer that WotC is aiming for.

I can not remember the numbers but I am sure that I remember seeing a poll showing the largest segment of the market runs home brew settings followed by Forgotten Realms and then everything else so technically a general release product would target a larger audience.

So I guess the real question is: Are homebrewers more likely to buy a Forgotten Realms product, or are FRers more likely to buy a General Product. Obviously WotC is banking on the former rather then the later.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I can not remember the numbers but I am sure that I remember seeing a poll showing the largest segment of the market runs home brew settings followed by Forgotten Realms and then everything else so technically a general release product would target a larger audience.

So I guess the real question is: Are homebrewers more likely to buy a Forgotten Realms product, or are FRers more likely to buy a General Product. Obviously WotC is banking on the former rather then the later.

Yeah, there was a poll that said that. I wasn't really surprised by the results. But I also think there is some skew to it because there are lots of people who homebrew a version of the Realms, and so on. I'd also like to see who was polled and when....lots of new players these days , and the 5E approach may cause the Realms figure to jump a good bit.

But taken at face value, there are certainly many folks that homebrew to one extent or another. What you say is definitely a factor. I don't know if it's as clean a distinction as you make...homebrewers or Realms fans...but that is the kind of reasoning that I think goes into their approach.

They want to reach as large an audience as possible...so I think they went with a default setting to give new players something to lean on, they made the default their most known setting to get those who enjoy the Realms and those who are at least familiar with them from PC games and novels, and that setting just so happens to be the most generic fantasy setting they have, which makes homebrewing material for it easy.

 

[delericho]

FR is default 5e like GH was default 3e. Pretty much not in anything but name. The general release products had between very little and no references to GH in them in 3e. Now, I've looked at the recent Volo excerpts, and if the rest of that book is like those excerpts, then the only thing FR about it is the name Volo. That would still be general release in my eyes.

I take a simpler view: both SCAG and VGtM are setting specific because the publisher says they're setting specific. Both by referencing FR places and characters right there in the title ("Sword Coast", "Volo") and because the product descriptions of both reference either the Forgotten Realms or Faerun directly.

And that's fine - I don't have a problem with them doing setting-specific material (indeed, I'm still hoping for Eberron and Dark Sun material at some point). But that's my definition.

 

[delericho]

I can not remember the numbers but I am sure that I remember seeing a poll showing the largest segment of the market runs home brew settings followed by Forgotten Realms and then everything else so technically a general release product would target a larger audience.

Apparently it's 55% homebrew, 35% FR, 5% Greyhawk, and then anything else on 1-2% if it's lucky.

However, it's worth noting that a lot of homebrewers (around 50%) are quite comfortable stealing stuff from specific settings. And FR, being more generic than, say, Eberron or Dark Sun, is probably easier to steal stuff from.

That does suggest, however, that they might be better served making non-setting books the norm - a book that sells only to homebrewers theoretically sells to 55% of the market, while an FR-specific book potentially sells to 52.5% (the 35% of FR + half the 55% homebrewers). Which in turn suggests that their purpose with a book like VGtM isn't just about selling as many copies as possible - increasing the value of the FR brand/IP is probably also a factor.

 

[dave2008]

I take a simpler view: both SCAG and VGtM are setting specific because the publisher says they're setting specific. Both by referencing FR places and characters right there in the title ("Sword Coast", "Volo") and because the product descriptions of both reference either the Forgotten Realms or Faerun directly.

And that's fine - I don't have a problem with them doing setting-specific material (indeed, I'm still hoping for Eberron and Dark Sun material at some point). But that's my definition.

However, Volo's does reference GreyHawk material as well. So what does that make it?

 

[Maxperson]

Apparently it's 55% homebrew, 35% FR, 5% Greyhawk, and then anything else on 1-2% if it's lucky.

However, it's worth noting that a lot of homebrewers (around 50%) are quite comfortable stealing stuff from specific settings. And FR, being more generic than, say, Eberron or Dark Sun, is probably easier to steal stuff from.

That does suggest, however, that they might be better served making non-setting books the norm - a book that sells only to homebrewers theoretically sells to 55% of the market, while an FR-specific book potentially sells to 52.5% (the 35% of FR + half the 55% homebrewers). Which in turn suggests that their purpose with a book like VGtM isn't just about selling as many copies as possible - increasing the value of the FR brand/IP is probably also a factor.

Your math is off, but we don't know by how much. That 35% of FR people also has a percentage that will buy general content books. That will raise the 55% even higher.

 

[delericho]

However, Volo's does reference GreyHawk material as well. So what does that make it?

Not on the cover or the product description.

Your math is off, but we don't know by how much. That 35% of FR people also has a percentage that will buy general content books. That will raise the 55% even higher.

I'm going to nitpick your nitpick by pointing out that I said "a book that sells only to homebrewers theoretically sells to 55%" - I didn't actually claim that a 'general' book would only sell to homebrewers.