Rage of Demons: "D&D On Hard Mode"

Out of the Abyss will be available in preferred stores in just two days (and elsewhere 11 days later). In the meantime, the promotion is still coming thick and fast, this time with a Chris Perkins interview over at Polygon. The interview covers a range of general D&D topics which you've probably seen dozens of times before, but there is some new material on Out of the Abyss. "The idea with Rage of Demons was to paint the Underdark as D&D on hard mode".

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The whimsical Alice in Wonderland style is divisive; Perkins describes it as "the Underdark becomes the Wonderland of D&D; this crazy weird place that you have to fall down a hole to enter, and it’s full of crazy deranged characters. The more you hang around them, the more you begin to understand them, and the more you realize you’re going crazy yourself."

The interview also describes some details of the adventure. The PCs start off as prisoners of the drow.

The article also describes the sentient gelatinous cube, Glabbaagool. The demon lord Juiblex's presence causes lots of oozes to gain sentience. Other NPCs include Yuk Yuk and Spiderbait, a goblin tag team. "These guys are your bungee-jumpers, hang-gliders, stuff like that. We encounter them in Out of the Abyss where they help you navigate this gigantic cavern complex full of spiderwebs."

And then there's Xazak, the beholder with ten disintegration eyestalks and an Igor-like servant called Mr. Peebles. And Zelix, a mindflayer who runs an insane asylum because insane brains are more tasty than sane ones.

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Read the whole thing here.

 

[delericho]

So, Mr. Perkins doesn't actually say that each of the 5E books has sold in excess of 100,000. He does say, however, that the sales are "staggering" and have surpassed all previous editions "by every metric."

Indeed. The edition is clearly selling exceptionally well. But I'd be a little surprised if "Rise of Tiamat", in particular, had sold 100k units - due to the triple-whammy of not being a core rulebook, being the second part of a two-parter, and being the follow-up to the not-so-good "Hoard of the Dragon Queen".

Conversely, I wouldn't be at all surprised to learn that the core rulebooks had now sold more than a million units between them.

 

[mflayermonk]

The interview was an interesting read, especially the bit about not wanting to do products that sell "only 100,000 copies" - as I understand it, that's more than even the best-selling supplements of 3e (and presumably 4e) times. So that's ambitious.

Here's some of the numbers in Designers and Dragons the 80s by Shannon Applecline:

"The scattered information we have on print runs holds up the idea of role-
playing hitting its zenith in the ’80s. After starting out with a paid circulation
of 20,155 copies in October 1980, Dragon magazine’s paid circulation topped
out in September 1984 at 118,021 copies, according to TSR’s yearly publisher’s
statement. This would be about double its paid circulation in the ’90s and perhaps
close to triple its circulation when the magazine’s run ended in September 2007.
Meanwhile, reports suggest that D&D adventures were selling between 50,000
and 150,000 units — before dropping to 20,000 in the ’90s and rising up to just
60,000 in the d20 era.
"

 

[Agamon]

Here's some of the numbers in Designers and Dragons the 80s by Shannon Applecline:

"The scattered information we have on print runs holds up the idea of role-
playing hitting its zenith in the ’80s. After starting out with a paid circulation
of 20,155 copies in October 1980, Dragon magazine’s paid circulation topped
out in September 1984 at 118,021 copies, according to TSR’s yearly publisher’s
statement. This would be about double its paid circulation in the ’90s and perhaps
close to triple its circulation when the magazine’s run ended in September 2007.
Meanwhile, reports suggest that D&D adventures were selling between 50,000
and 150,000 units — before dropping to 20,000 in the ’90s and rising up to just
60,000 in the d20 era.
"

Though, really, magazine subs aren't the best metric to use. I'm willing to bet most dead tree magazines have had their sales tail off between the 80's and late 00's.

 

[Fralex]

Oh man, I forgot how excited I was about the Wonderdark adventure. I've never bought an adventure book before, but if this one turns out to live up to the hype, I might actually buy it. It sounds delightful.

 

[Hussar]

There's an interesting implication for Perkin's numbers quote. If the target for any given book is over 100k sold, then we're really not going to see much of an increase in the pace of new books being available. There's only so much demand for books, and, if you start banging out splats, that's just going to cut into that demand.

 

[Fildrigar]

Though Mr Peebles is a terrible name.

I disagree. LONG LIVE MR. PEEBLES!

 

[JeffB]

Im really glad to see this edition successful. I think overall it has been Wizards best effort, rule-wise, but I hope to god they get a OGL released...I don't believe it going to happen, but their "stories" so far, have left me completely the opposite of "energized". Marvel, they are not.

 

[Agamon]

If RoD is D&D on hard mode, does that make Paizo's Dungeon mag APs, "D&D on Nightmare mode"?

 

[God]

That picture of Demogorgon makes me wish all the words that come after it didn't make me so sad.

 

[MerricB]

So if I read things correctly there's no direct way to go from the end of the Starter Set (lvl 5) to this adventure.

Just replace "hears about their exploits in the Underdark" with "hears about their exploits in Phandalin" and you're all good to go.

Out of the Abyss seems to be structured so you can go immediately from the Starter Set to this adventure. Out of the Abyss begins with the PCs as prisoners of the drow. They then escape and make their way to the surface. EDIT: Looks like that covers the first six levels.

EDIT: Bruenor (in theory) summons them at level 7. I wouldn't have much trouble in doing a little rearrangement of items to fix that. More when I see the adventure.

Cheers!