D&D 5E [Merged] D&D Next/5E Release Schedule Threads

[Reaper Steve]

Tyranny of Dragons Announced.

And an ICv2 interview with Liz Schuh.

And an article from Kobold Press about the adventures.

Thaumaturge.

In the article linked at the beginning of the ICv2 interview, it states that the products will be available two weeks early at WPN stores.
That's 3 July for the Starter and 8 Aug for the PHB.
So... The PHB will be available before GenCon if that's correct.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Well, if economics is your concern, but you still want to buy SOME D&D product, I'd take a look at the value proposition offered by the intro set:

$20 for levels 1-5, with an adventure and character creation rules.

At one level per month, this will get you almost a half-years' worth of D&D goodness for you and 5 other people, for $20. If things turn around for you in the next 6 months, you can grab other stuff, and if not, you can even probably expand on that intro set easily enough (any adventures for levels 1-5 will basically be compatible with it).

The books are pricey. They're luxury items. They're priced like it. I'm not in a position where I'm looking at buying all of them by the end of the year, probably (for me, it's a contracted position that's ending in a few months, so I don't know where I'll be financially once summer's over yet). I still plan on playing the new game, and I imagine I'll get all this eventually, but the starter set seems like a nice value proposition to me, and at $20, it's no more pricey than a movie night.

 

[RevTurkey]

Wooooooooooo!

those covers look great! Love the Monster Manual art.

the design is a nice fresh change too...reminds me of the Dragon Age colours etc.

as to the cost? A bit steep for some coloured bound paper but just think of the years of fun to be had once you've managed to get them. I will save a fortune if I like this edition just from stopping looking around and around and around for new systems because I got bored of 4th and never liked 3rd edition all that much.

I'm excited. Going to pre-order the whole shebang as soon as I can in the UK.

I love D&D and roleplaying and it is terrific to see it still creating headlines.

Can't wait to crack open that Starter set in a few weeks and get playing

 

[Snapdragyn]

Can't wait to crack open that Starter set in a few weeks and get playing

Me too! And within minutes of emailing my 'nerd herd' about the release and my plan to buy the starter set, one of my best friends emailed me back 'I'd wait' & asked for my street address.



Can I just say I have the BEST friends? I might even have to let him play in a session. (I KID!)

 

[kettite]

The pictures are up at Amazon now, and most offer a larger picture though resolution remains somewhat weak. A noticeable exception is the cover of Hoard of the Dragon Queen, which you can blow up to a nice size and enjoy. I think it might be William O'Connor's work, but could be wrong. In any event, I absolutely love the white dragon freezing the attacking warrior.

 

[KirayaTiDrekan]

Really? I remember them being staggered.

1E MM - December 1977
1E PHB - June 1978
1E DMG - August 1979

1E PHB (Revised Cover) - October 1983
1E DMG (Revised Cover) - October 1983
1E MM (Revised Cover) - October 1983

2E PHB - February 1989
2E DMG - May 1989
2E MM - June 1993 (compilation of previous Monstrous Compendium loose leaf format collections)

2E PHB (Revised) - April 1995
2E DMG (Revised) - April 1995
2E MM (reissue with cover style aligned with the new black books) - April 1995

3.0 PHB - August 2000
3.0 DMG - September 2000
3.0 MM - October 2000

3.5 PHB - July 2003
3.5 DMG - July 2003
3.5 MM - Jul 2003

4E PHB - June 2008
4E DMG - June 2008
4E MM - June 2008

4E Essentials Rules Compendium - September 2010
4E Essentials Heroes of the Fallen Lands - September 2010
4E Essentials Dungeon Master's Kit - October 2010
4E Essentials Heroes of the Forgotten Kingdoms - November 2010
4E Essentials Monster Vault - November 2010

Source: Echohawk's D&D Collector's Guides

 

[Lord_Blacksteel]

Not everyone can afford to play golf at $50 a game, or indeed at all. You and I are fortunate to be able to drop ten bucks and not think too much about it; but many people are on very, very tight budgets, especially in this economy, and $10 really matters.


No, it is inflation. That's exactly what inflation is: The baseline price of stuff going up over time. Unless artists, printers, and marketers have become less efficient for some reason?

Now my understanding is the cost of paper has gone up significantly faster than inflation, so that might explain some of the higher price. And no doubt there are other factors at work too. But holding all else equal, given the same amount of work and resources to produce it, the price of a PHB in real dollars ought to remain constant.

Beyond normal inflation paper shot up quite a bit a few years back but then printing in China became a thing and offset price increases somewhat too. The Pathfinder hard and softcovers are printed in China as are Games Workshop's newer-style hardcover codexes. WOTC's 4E books all say "Printed in the USA" which could account for at least some of the difference.

That said, costs are not always a huge factor in how things are priced, especially luxury type products like this. If WOTC/Hasbro has determined that they are happy with the numbers at $50, that's where they will go.

 

[Jeff Carlsen]

That said, costs are not always a huge factor in how things are priced, especially luxury type products like this. If WOTC/Hasbro has determined that they are happy with the numbers at $50, that's where they will go.

This is important. Also, they aren't just pricing these products for today. They're setting the baseline by which they will sell these and future hardcovers for the next several years. A higher price may be meant to offset a reduction in the number of hardcovers released.

Many RPGs are selling their hardcovers at $50 to $60 these days. Paizo isn't, yet, but they've established many times that their profitability primarily hinges on adventure path subscriptions. Also, the Inner Sea World Guide is already $50. I wouldn't expect the current prices to hold for much longer.

 

[Patrick McGill]

I wouldn't expect the current prices to hold for much longer.

Especially now that WotC is going with 50, Paizo can do so without (too much) flak.

 

[sunshadow21]

I see several challenges with the $50 price tag.

First, not everyone can or will buy the books online, and the LGS will have a very hard time matching the discounts that sites like Amazon can get away with. This means that the full price does still matter, and $50 is a lot to expect a random purchaser to put down on the spot as an impulse buy. The same is true for those that might only the play the game occasionally or are still on the fence about the game. For both groups, buying the books based on just the cover art might be a bit much even at a much lower price point.

Second, it really sets the quality bar pretty high right out of the gate, making the potential extreme disappointment, and the related negative reviews, higher. Economics aside, even those that are willing to accept the price without question are still going to be expecting a far better product than any other earlier edition had, largely because of the large increase in price.

Neither of these are really going to be issues at first, but it seems to be that WotC is banking very heavily on very positive initial reviews on both quality and content, and in order to get those, both quality and content are going to have to be well above what we got from them during 4E, and for that matter, most of 3E as well. The PHB and MM probably won't have much problem, at least on the content side; the DMG is going to be the harder sell, even with the magic items being there instead of the PHB. Regardless, it will be interesting to see how well it goes beyond the initial release, and the full $50 price tag will play a role. By itself, it's not much of a problem, but the second that any other weakness shows itself, that high of a price tag will amplify it.