D&D 5E State of D&D

[aramis erak]

No votes here, just experiences. But I am curious about specifics here. We started with the early to mid playtest. How often do you guys play, how long have you guys been playing, and what level are your PCs now?

My home campaign: Started in August 2014, went on a 3 month hiatus in Feb-Apr 2015, and meeds for 4-6 hours per week, 4/5 weeks. Players who started and have missed no sessions are now 7th, pushing 8th level.

My D&D AL table - most of the players started their current characters in January to march 2015, playing a 3 hour session most weeks (about 48/52), pushing for 6th level. Most will make 6th within 2 sessions.

 

[aramis erak]

Everyone but Wizards thinks PDFs are a good deal? I'm trying to think of a game I own besides Paizo that has PDFs of its books available (either in addition or instead of). I think Shadowrun is the only one. 13th Age doesn't. Numenara/Cypher doesnt. Fantasy Flight's Star Wars certainly doesn't. Very few games I own seem to think PDFs are worth screwing over all the money they put into developing the dead tree versions.

13th age: PDF is $24.95 from Pelgrane's webstore.
Numenara: PDF is $19.95 from Monte Cook's webstore

FFG has noted that they wanted to do PDF, but LFL won't let them do them for SW. They do release them for all their other RPG lines: 40K (DH, RT, DW, BC, OW), End of the World, and several older games are all in PDF. WHFRP3E was also in PDF starting about 3 months after initial release of the box.

Traveller (Mongoose and FFE): PDF and Hardcover for both current editions of Traveller; Mongoose's supplements made available usually in trade (B5), hardcover (A4), and PDF.

Catalyst: Almost everything is available in both print and PDF from point of release. Including their smaller games, like Cosmic Patrol, and their big games (Battletech/Mechwarrior and Shadowrun).

Kenzer & Co: A&8 and Hackmaster 5th are available in PDF and hardcover.

Margaret Weiss Productions: Hardcover and PDF for corebooks, Softcover and PDF for supplements and adventure ominuses; individual adventures PDF only.

SJG: Most of their books now are PDF; only some see actual dead tree. Note that they support 2 RPG lines at present: GURPS and In Nomine.

The one that doesn't do a full core is C&C... their PDF core isn't the full rules. But is it major? not really. Others in that tier:
LotFP: PDF available


I submit that you may not know what you're talking about, and obviously didn't take the time (60 seconds) to websearch for them, because they ARE available. Of the major games out, ONLY D&D and FFG star Wars haven't released PDF.

 

[KahlessNestor]

No need to be rude. I already admitted I was wrong and working from the sense I got from playing a lot of FFSW and 5e.

 

[seebs]

At which point, I think we're back to "there is no evidence that making PDFs available would be a bad idea, or expensive, and Wizards not doing so is frankly sort of mysterious."

 

[Mistwell]

At which point, I think we're back to "there is no evidence that making PDFs available would be a bad idea, or expensive, and Wizards not doing so is frankly sort of mysterious."

They said why. They said their retailers asked them not to. They have a closer relationship with their retailers (because of MtG) than anyone else. So they respected the wishes of their retailers...regardless of whether or not their retailers were right or wrong in thinking that the PDFs would harm their business - as long as enough retailers had the perception that PDFs compete with their business (even if the perception is wrong), that's enough for WOTC to want to do what the retailers prefer. That's the explanation. It's not mysterious. It's rather banal really. It's just that a lot of fans, firmly believing PDFs don't harm retailer business (which may well be true, but it's irrelevant to the perception issue), are so frustrated with this explanation that they assume that can't be the real reason. But it is. Sometimes the real answer is simply frustrating.

 

[seebs]

They said why. They said their retailers asked them not to. They have a closer relationship with their retailers (because of MtG) than anyone else. So they respected the wishes of their retailers...regardless of whether or not their retailers were right nor wrong in thinking that the PDFs would harm their business. That's the explanation. It's not mysterious.

Ahh, that would indeed explain it. I guess I'd never seen that.

It does surprise me, though, because it seems to have been very thoroughly established that PDFs help retailers, and it would seem to me that Wizards has enough leverage to nudge people to actually look at the facts rather than just saying "yes, whatever you want, of course you know best" to people who are obviously wrong.

This is a case where doing what the retailers apparently told them to do hurts Wizards, hurts the customers, and hurts the retailers. So I still think there's something of a mystery here. Most of the other companies in the business have figured out how to convince retailers to accept the importance of a modern customer-friendly business model, and I've never heard of a modern retailer refusing to carry all the games that also have PDFs available, so obviously it's not really a deal-breaker to retailers.

So... Yeah, still not convinced. They've given us a reason, but it's a reason that's stupid enough to be hard to reconcile with their obvious ability to run a company that makes money.

 

[Mistwell]

Ahh, that would indeed explain it. I guess I'd never seen that.

It does surprise me, though, because it seems to have been very thoroughly established that PDFs help retailers, and it would seem to me that Wizards has enough leverage to nudge people to actually look at the facts rather than just saying "yes, whatever you want, of course you know best" to people who are obviously wrong.

This is a case where doing what the retailers apparently told them to do hurts Wizards, hurts the customers, and hurts the retailers. So I still think there's something of a mystery here. Most of the other companies in the business have figured out how to convince retailers to accept the importance of a modern customer-friendly business model, and I've never heard of a modern retailer refusing to carry all the games that also have PDFs available, so obviously it's not really a deal-breaker to retailers.

So... Yeah, still not convinced. They've given us a reason, but it's a reason that's stupid enough to be hard to reconcile with their obvious ability to run a company that makes money.

It doesn't really hurt though. D&D is a rounding error relative to the MtG side of their business. If a couple retailers were pissed off by D&D PDFs (and it does not matter if those retailers are wrong - their perception is their perception), that is more important than slightly increasing the D&D business at those retailers. MtG sells THAT much more than D&D. They're not going to spend the time to try and "convince" retailers that they are wrong about a minor product line - in fact experience in sales shows that's more likely to piss existing customers off more. It's all really not that important an issue, relative to the MtG sales. This really is the explanation. And it doesn't matter if the retailer's logic is wrong. I understand that's frustrating, but there is no mystery there. Business isn't perfect, misconceptions drive a lot of things, and it's just a fact of life that stuff like this routinely happens in distribution sales. It's hard enough to keep the major product line sales on target - some errors in the minor products just are not that important in the grand scheme of things.

 

[darjr]

I don't know if its true anymore but at one point stores had to carry D&D if they wanted to be a certain kind of magic store. I think enough retailers had issue that the PDF thing kinda became a thrown bone and it's just stayed that way. I'm sure WotC would like to sell PDFs of the 5e core. I think they sell plenty of PDF anyway. They don't seem to have a problem resorting to PDF distribution or pod printing of 5e stuff if it isn't in the stores.

I would love to have the core books in PDF. Or even a pod softcover copy.

 

[variant]

They said why. They said their retailers asked them not to. They have a closer relationship with their retailers (because of MtG) than anyone else. So they respected the wishes of their retailers...regardless of whether or not their retailers were right or wrong in thinking that the PDFs would harm their business - as long as enough retailers had the perception that PDFs compete with their business (even if the perception is wrong), that's enough for WOTC to want to do what the retailers prefer. That's the explanation. It's not mysterious. It's rather banal really. It's just that a lot of fans, firmly believing PDFs don't harm retailer business (which may well be true, but it's irrelevant to the perception issue), are so frustrated with this explanation that they assume that can't be the real reason. But it is. Sometimes the real answer is simply frustrating.

They could have included a sealed digital code in each book that would allow the purchaser to download a PDF version of it.

 

[KahlessNestor]

I think we should remember that WOTC has provided all players a FREE PDF of the basic rules. They've basically given the core of the rules away for free. I think that's kind of a compromise between stores and fans.