D&D General 50th Anniversary- Are You Not Entertained?

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

The new DMG is supposed to have a setting, but I imagine it will be something smaller and basic. Nentir Vale is the perfect one to include.

Thunder Rift would also be the right size for a detailed look, but it obviously has a lot less nostalgia glow about it than Nentir Vale does.

Still, the World of Greyhawk seems to be the way to bet right now, based on hints here and there by WotC freelancers.

 

[Oofta]

... But, looking at their WoTC marketing team and how abysmally bad they are are marketing to general public, they should probably fire whole marketing department. I don't know how it's over the pond, but there isn't much of marketing to consumers here in EU.

I'm sure that can't be right. After all, we're told repeatedly on other threads that the main reason D&D in general and 5E in particular sells so well is because of all the advertising.

Unless of course that's not the reason.

 

[Burnside]

It's February: they don't usually do much of anything at this time of year.

This is the first year since 2014 without a Q1 book release.

 

[CleverNickName]

No, but if you want to be competitive, you need to fork out some serious cash.

I think we're saying the same thing. If you don't want to be competitive--if you aren't in a league, and all you want to do is casually play Magic with your friends every Monday over some beer and pretzels--you don't need to keep buying cards beyond your initial investment. The same is true for D&D.

 

[GrimCo]

Yes. And D&D doesn't have that competitive component. For D&D, if you play with regular group, with one set of core rulebooks, you are all covered. For MtG, everybody needs a deck. And since your deck building combos are restricted with cards you have, if you wan't more options, you need to fork out for extra cards. Let's be honest, as far as gaming hobbies go, ttrpgs are dirt cheap. Even if you buy every splat book and adventure, you usually only buy one copy per gaming group. It's hard to make TTRPGs profitable on the same scale as TCGs.

 

[Zaukrie]

It's six weeks into the year, and we have zero release dates. That's not good, for any company. Let alone one"celebrating" their golden anniversary.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

After all, we're told repeatedly on other threads that the main reason D&D in general and 5E in particular sells so well is because of all the advertising.

Are those threads on ENWorld? I've literally never seen this suggested, unless you're stretching "advertising" to mean "appearances on Stranger Things, actual play podcasts, etc." -- which aren't paid advertisements.

 

[Oofta]

Are those threads on ENWorld? I've literally never seen this suggested, unless you're stretching "advertising" to mean "appearances on Stranger Things, actual play podcasts, etc." -- which aren't paid advertisements.

Then we've been reading different posts.

In any case even the other things (Stranger Things and Critical Role specifically) certainly haven't hurt, but they also didn't change much in the overall trajectory of sales based on the data we have.

 

[MerricB]

Winter Fantasy is this weekend. Let's see if anything is announced there.

Cheers,
Merric

 

[Demetrios1453]

This is the first year since 2014 without a Q1 book release.

I mean, The Book of Many Things ended up technically being a Q1 release.

Anyway, I'm thinking that the Infinite Staircase book will sneak in at the end of Q1. Then Vecna in Q2, and then the main rulebook releases later