Hawk Diesel
Adventurer
I'm willing to bet that most D&D players around the world will either have no idea or only have a vague notion that 3pp content even exists.
There is a natural tendency for "super-fans" (such as those frequenting these boards, people going to conventions, etc.) to think that the rest of the hobby is just like them.
In my experience, most D&D players are casual players. They get together, play the game, have fun, laugh and drink and when finished go home. They don't sweat the rules, worry about character-balance, optimizations or any of the zillion things that we think are so important. What is so great about 5e that you don't need to do any of that and still have fun.
This, I believe, lies at the heart of the apparent success of 5e and which also explains (a) WotC's release schedule/strategy and (b) why third-party publishers are perhaps not getting much reflected glory: they cater to us, the super-fans and not to the vast multitudes that make up the majority of the market.
This comment hit me hard. I never thought about it, but yea. Most other players I know do not spend even a fraction of the time that I do reading rules, crafting homebrew content, tweaking official material to adjust game balance, or scouring message boards and DMSGuild for new ideas and content. I never really considered myself a super fan, but it does explain some things.
Sorry for the aside from the discussion.
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