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

[Shardstone]

Honestly, I would have no problem with micro content from WotC. Individual classes and subclasses, spells, magic items, monster packs -- these things are the easiest way to monetize the game. I think keeping everything to hardback books is a death sentence for D&D, not because they'll stop selling, but because it just won't bring in the numbers investors want to see. Likewise, most people who buy the books are DMs. If they want to monetize players, they have to sell player content, or sell content to DMs that they think the players under those DMs want.

However, a lot of DMs don't really like adding in new content to their games. On this forum alone are there countless DMs who really don't want to use new materials outside the PHB, or outside of a PHB + 1 context. THis is because the 3E era seems to have forever scarred an entire generation of players and those scars have been inherited by the next generation of players. Now people are afraid of homebrew and third party because it isn't official, or because they think the game is fragile and easy to break.

It won't be until the playerbase of D&D takes on the same attitudes as the playerbase of the OSR, NuSR, and other hack-friendly games that WotC will be able to really monetize D&D to its fullest. And they do a really, really bad job of trying to change the current culture to a culture that would be more profitable.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

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

Unless they planned on production issues, the fact that they did not plan for a Q1 release is noteworthy.

Anyway, I'm thinking that the Infinite Staircase book will sneak in at the end of Q1.

Don't we usually know when a book is going to be on sale in the next six weeks, via Amazon or other outlets?

 

[Burnside]

Q1 ends at the end of March. If they were going to “sneak in” a book publication before then, we would definitely know that by now.

However, the digital-only Descent into Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth might make Q1. Of course, the only reason we know that is because a DM mentioned he’s running it at a con; no communication from WotC about it.

 

[MoonSong]

As far as the slate of products, I would say I am interested. Entertained...that I can only judge by the products themselves when they come out.

Does it feel like a proper celebration of the 50th anniversary? Sure? A revised edition of the core rule books, the return of Vecna, return to Tsojcanth, another older adventures anthology, and a making of OD&D book that includes the original core rules all sound good and appropriate. If you look at 2014, the 40th anniversary, they released:

• Dungeon Master's Guide - Dec 2014
• The Rise of Tiamat - Nov 2014
• Monster Manual - Sep 2014
• Player's Handbook - Aug 2014
• Hoard of Dragon Queen - Aug 2014
• D&D Starter Set - July 2014

Go back ten years further and the 30th anniversary year had a slew of products, but none that felt particularly celebratory. Nor, other than Eberron's release, particularly noteworthy in the long history of D&D products.

Remember that for the 40th anniversary, they also started reprinting older editions in the years prior that ended up feeling like the build up to an important anniversary culminating in a new edition. That was and felt like a milestone. It was festive. Right now, we are more on the cusp of the fanbase splintering among feel-bad news like the New-OGL fiasco, the AI art stuff, and the Christmas layoffs.

I personally feel like grieving, because 5e is good, but most of its value was on it being an edition everybody could easily agree on. And we are about to lose that with not-5.5, which is at the same time more of the same while missing a lot of stuff for no reason. Without anything to make it a must-play, I see no point to it, and I see little point to remain in 5e either. I kind of want to, but if it isn't the compromise edition anymore, it gives me little than I couldn't get by going back to 3.x or 2e with sorcerer.

Current year doesn't feel very milestoney to me.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Remember that for the 40th anniversary, they also started reprinting older editions in the years prior that ended up feeling like the build up to an important anniversary culminating in a new edition. That was and felt like a milestone. It was festive. Right now, we are more on the cusp of the fanbase splintering among feel-bad news like the New-OGL fiasco, the AI art stuff, and the Christmas layoffs.

I personally feel like grieving, because 5e is good, but most of its value was on it being an edition everybody could easily agree on. And we are about to lose that with not-5.5, which is at the same time more of the same while missing a lot of stuff for no reason. Without anything to make it a must-play, I see no point to it, and I see little point to remain in 5e either. I kind of want to, but if it isn't the compromise edition anymore, it gives me little than I couldn't get by going back to 3.x or 2e with sorcerer.

Current year doesn't feel very milestoney to me.

Yeah, I continue to miss anything about the new semi-reprints that would entice someone to get them if they have the current books. They're just not different enough to be worth the money IMO.

 

[payn]

Remember that for the 40th anniversary, they also started reprinting older editions in the years prior that ended up feeling like the build up to an important anniversary culminating in a new edition. That was and felt like a milestone. It was festive. Right now, we are more on the cusp of the fanbase splintering among feel-bad news like the New-OGL fiasco, the AI art stuff, and the Christmas layoffs.

I personally feel like grieving, because 5e is good, but most of its value was on it being an edition everybody could easily agree on. And we are about to lose that with not-5.5, which is at the same time more of the same while missing a lot of stuff for no reason. Without anything to make it a must-play, I see no point to it, and I see little point to remain in 5e either. I kind of want to, but if it isn't the compromise edition anymore, it gives me little than I couldn't get by going back to 3.x or 2e with sorcerer.

Current year doesn't feel very milestoney to me.

I don't understand how it worked then, but doesnt now...

 

[Mannahnin]

The real eyebrow-raiser for me is that the actual 50th anniversary has already gone by with little to no mention of it anywhere, as D&D was first released - I believe - in the last week of January, 1974.

Yes, that's the date most people have settled on, based on Jon Peterson research determining that Gary had advertised play sessions on Sundays and the game for sale in January '74. A couple of years ago, though, he turned up a postcard from Gary to Dave dated Feb 7th saying that they were expecting the third book back from the printer shortly, and that he should be able to mail Dave copies of the boxed set the following week. So the "actual" release date, depending on how you define that, should be just about to pass. The first actual boxed copies for commercial sale were probably being assembled fifty years ago this week.

Honestly, I would have no problem with micro content from WotC. Individual classes and subclasses, spells, magic items, monster packs -- these things are the easiest way to monetize the game. I think keeping everything to hardback books is a death sentence for D&D, not because they'll stop selling, but because it just won't bring in the numbers investors want to see. Likewise, most people who buy the books are DMs. If they want to monetize players, they have to sell player content, or sell content to DMs that they think the players under those DMs want.

However, a lot of DMs don't really like adding in new content to their games. On this forum alone are there countless DMs who really don't want to use new materials outside the PHB, or outside of a PHB + 1 context. THis is because the 3E era seems to have forever scarred an entire generation of players and those scars have been inherited by the next generation of players. Now people are afraid of homebrew and third party because it isn't official, or because they think the game is fragile and easy to break.

It won't be until the playerbase of D&D takes on the same attitudes as the playerbase of the OSR, NuSR, and other hack-friendly games that WotC will be able to really monetize D&D to its fullest. And they do a really, really bad job of trying to change the current culture to a culture that would be more profitable.

I think once they get the online version rolling, microtransactions for optional skins/cosmetics and such will probably be a great source of revenue. It doesn't have to be mechanical content.

 

[MoonSong]

Last year was Magic: The Gathering's 30th anniversary, and they made an AMAZING product. They reprinted the original cards, with a special backing, and put them into modern sized boosters. Everyone was really excited to potentially get to draft old MTG classics, or collect nice staples for their commander decks.

Then they said that these cards would be sold in very limited quantities, at $250/pack. Just sucked all the wind right out of everyone's sails and took what was potentially the best release of the year and made it something that people still joke about.

It is very hard to meaningfully piss-off the MTG fanbase taking into account it is a captive and addicted audience which might protest a lot, but still ends up buying stuff by the pallet. WotC really manage to break something in them.

Source: Hello I'm Moonsong and I'm an addict.

 

[Burnside]

I think it's very premature to declare now, on February 9, that the entire 50th Anniversary year was botched.

I do think it's fair to say that we've started off the year with whatever the opposite of a bang is.

 

[Remathilis]

I think of some of the other major anniversaries I've been privy to recently, and I find it similar. The X-Men just turned 60 last year and there were no major anniversary projects: X-Men 97 was delayed and Deadpool 3 always in the cards for this year. Likewise, Doctor Who gave us three specials with the Doctor/Companion from over a decade ago (though not being in the UK, I probably missed more of the celebration).

As far as anniversaries go, this is par for course.