D&D 5E The Audience - Do you feel like you're the target audience?

[TwoSix]

I was the core audience from about 2004 to 2010. Almost nothing but sweet, sweet crunch and a bunch of innovative subsystems. Late 3.5, SW:Saga Edition, and early 4E was when WotC was releasing just a ton of stuff I wanted to buy.

I have more than enough setting info to last a lifetime, and published adventures have proven anathematic to my playstyle. If it wasn't for the robust third-party pipeline of 5e crunch, I would be completely separated from 5e.

 

[MGibster]

This extends to non-D&D, for me. Deadlands: Lost Colony comes with a plot-point campaign ready to go in the rulebook, which lowers the level of effort I have to put in to get off the ground.

I've got to agree with you. The plot point campaigns for Deadlands have been a pretty good combination of adventures, setting, and hooks. I've run a few of them and we've always had a blast.

 

[Umbran]

Real Talk: I should not be the "target audience". I'm an entrenched gamer in their late 40s. It's my take that about half of all material should be aimed at either onramping people to take on gaming, or geared to help people start GMing. I dont have much need for published adventures,

The thing we have to realize is that "newbie" isn't the only driver of adventures. Another is TIME.

I'm an older, entrenched gamer too. In a technical sense, I don't need published adventures. I can, and do, at need, make up my own content. But my players and I are busy people. Having a moderate-length campaign in a cool and interesting setting wrapped up in a bow is of great use to me, as well as to new GMs.

So, Wild Beyond the Witchlight has been a win for my group. I have Spelljammer waiting in the wings.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

The thing we have to realize is that "newbie" isn't the only driver of adventures. Another is TIME.

Another is ideas. There is no escaping the fact that other people can think of things I cannot. I don't want the game to grow stale due to samyness and predictability. So I want other people's ideas. The more outré the better.

Which is why I would rather have a Radiant Citadel than a Lost Mines. Lost Mines I could easily create myself. But, with writers with very different backgrounds to me, Radiant Citadel has things I could never think of.

 

[Ancalagon]

You know what I really miss? The module.

Most of the adventures sold by WotC are not adventures. They are campaigns. "Let's go in these goblin cave rescue our friend" you do at level 2, that's an adventure. "we need the trident of awesomeness, this pirate has it, let's infiltrate his ship and steal it!" That's an adventure. Starting at level 1-2 helping people deal with unatural weather and ending at level 10ish fighting the goddess of frost? That's a campaign.

I used to run a lot of modules - stand alone adventures, sometimes came in a series, sometimes not - that I would insert in a campaign.

 

[Umbran]

Another is ideas. There is no escaping the fact that other people can think of things I cannot. I don't want the game to grow stale due to samyness and predictability. So I want other people's ideas. The more outré the better.

I thoroughly agree.

Best examples for that I have aren't D&D - they are Shadowrun, whose adventures back in the day had twists and turns I just wouldn't have thought of. But I certainly wouldn't have come up with all the stuff in Wild Beyond the Witchlight, either.

You know what I really miss? The module.
Most of the adventures sold by WotC are not adventures. They are campaigns.

I get you. I go to DMs Guild for that kind of stuff these days. I'm okay with WotC concentrating on larger pieces, when they provide a space for other creators to provide smaller works.

 

[Retreater]

I'm not the target audience because I'm not a player.
5e is very much a player-centric game. The rules for DMs are willy-nilly and don't help me at all.

 

[J-H]

From a monetization standpoint, no and yes.

No: The last book I bought was Tasha's, and I'm not likely to buy any of the new books based on the design direction and quality failures I perceive. I have bought none of the adventure books, as according to the reviews they usually tend to be railroady and disjointed. I homebrew my own campaigns, and enjoy creating monsters. The only thing I'm likely to buy is a module book to run things with less prep, and the only one that sounds sufficiently fun is Ghosts of Saltmarsh. As others have said, the DM's Guild has lots of options for modules.
I have two monster manuals, and that's about enough. Also, the WOTC monster manual is poorly organized; enemies should be grouped by category instead of by alphabet. If they're fighting a pack of 3 different types of spiders, why do I have to look up Spider, Insect Swarm, Phase Spider, and Giant Wolf Spider on four different pages in the book?
I own the big 3 for player options on DND Beyond, and am hoping that the 2024 release doesn't mess up the owned content by overwriting it with stuff I won't/can't use.

Yes: I've sold a bit over $1k in stuff on the DM's Guild, with Castle Dracula (Castlevania) being over 125 copies. I've made more money on 5e than I've spent on it, as long as you count my time as free! WOTC's cut is 20%, so they've made over $200 in profit on me. If their profit margin on a book that goes to the distributor at $20-$25 is 40% ($8-$10), then they've done the equivalent of selling me 25 hardbacks. That's pretty good!
Also, I watched the D&D movie in a theater, and then again on streaming rental with my wife.

For me, 5e is a great edition compared to 3.5 and 2e (no experience with 4e) and easy to work with / write for despite some flaws. I'm sure there are other great systems, but there's a powerful network effect with players. ACKS2 is appealing, but I look at it and go "Who would I run it for? Who would run it for me?" Additionally, I don't really want to have to learn a new system and lose easy use of what I've inadvertently memorized, and teach my players new rules, plus I like the use of the deep lore (time traveling illithids from the future to the past, etc.) that sits in the background for those of us who care.

 

[billd91]

There's been only one time period where I felt that I wasn't part of the target audience for D&D products. I'm not interested in everything (I'm not, for example, particularly interested in the Magic settings or Spelljammer), but I'm interested in enough - including products like Radiant Citadel, Wild Beyond the Witchlight, and Planescape (and a Greyhawk book if one ever comes out).

 

[Professor Murder]

The thing we have to realize is that "newbie" isn't the only driver of adventures. Another is TIME.

I'm an older, entrenched gamer too. In a technical sense, I don't need published adventures. I can, and do, at need, make up my own content. But my players and I are busy people. Having a moderate-length campaign in a cool and interesting setting wrapped up in a bow is of great use to me, as well as to new GMs.

So, Wild Beyond the Witchlight has been a win for my group. I have Spelljammer waiting in the wings.

I am also an unrepentant gaming cannibal and just buy such products to swipe ideas.