D&D 5E From what you've seen so far, do you think D&D Next will be a success or a failure?

[Halivar]

There was a lot of excitement about 4e when it first came out, and then it fell flat on it's face not long afterwards.

There are significant differences in the detractors, though. There were vast swaths of rules that 4E-non-adopters hated. They could post a comprehensive bullet list detailing the things they felt were wrong with the system. This time around reactions range from "meh" to nit-picking individual options. Furthermore there is not a broad base of detraction. EnWorld ain't exactly a hot-bed of WotC fan-boyism, and yet poll after poll seems to indicate that players generally like the direction of the new edition, even if most players are skeptical of WotC.

No, this is different than 4E, I think.

 

[Mistwell]

Some really interesting revelations from this thread.

One of those revelations is that WOTC does not consider "RPG Books Sold" to be the measure of success of failure for D&D Next. It sounds like they really would not care at all if Pathfinder sells more books on a monthly basis than D&D Next, as book sales are only one relatively small slice of the overall D&D pie they are looking at for success and failure.

A second interesting note is that WOTC does not consider the ICv2 numbers to be useful, as the number of sales channels they don't measure is so high as to make the number they do report not very accurate anymore.

Third, they think the book sales chart is basically controlled by splatbook sales. If you put out splatbooks, you rank high on the book sales chart, and if you don't then you don't. This has caused the sales charts to fluctuate wildly in ways they never did before.

Finally, I think this means that WOTC really doesn't plan to sell a lot of splatbooks, and they may well be looking at D&D Next as an evergreen edition rather than just the next game in the edition treadmill. If book sales just isn't as important to the overall D&D picture for them as it used to be, and the entire brand sales is what's really important for what they consider success or failure, then I can see them being fine focusing on just selling the core books and some adventures and settings at a relatively slow but steady pace for many many years. Sort of like Marvel Comics looks at their book sales as just one tiny slice of the overall Marvel brand picture, and slow but steady sales of a particular Marvel title is fine despite the massive sales those same books used to sell a decade or so ago.

 

[Doc_Klueless]

I think, rightly or wrongly, (it's been awhile since I dusted of my MBA) that a successful launch of the D&D TTRPG will or, at least, could lead to a successful anchor for other avenues of revenue generating. In that respect, I think 5e will be a success. As such, that success will lead to a continued support for the D&D brand and, thus, the D&D TTRPG. Possibly circular thinking, but that doesn't make it wrong when it comes to prying money from consumers' mitts.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

I did a bit of thinking on how I would define "successful" for the edition, since it is pretty important for this thread.

If, after 3 years of release, 5e has at least slightly more players than any other edition of D&D (counting Pathfinder and retro-clones), I would say it is a definite success.

If, after 3 years of release, it has more players than Pathfinder and 3.x put together, I would say it is a smashing success.

I'm not sure where it will end up, but my gut is telling me on the high end of success, maybe a smashing success but not necessarily.