WotC's Nathan Stewart: "Story, Story, Story"; and IS D&D a Tabletop Game?

Forbes spoke to WotC's Brand Director & Executive Producer for Dungeons & Dragons, who talked about the 5th Edition launch and his vision for D&D's future. The interview is fairly interesting - it confirms or repeats some information we already know, and also delves a little into the topic of D&D as a wider brand, rather than as a tabletop roleplaying game.

In the interview, he reiterates previous statements that this is the biggest D&D launch ever, in terms of both money and units sold.

[lq]We are story, story, story. The story drives everything.[/lq]

He repeats WoTC's emphasis on storylines, confirming the 1-2 stories per year philosphy. "We are story, story, story. The story drives everything. The need for new rules, the new races, new classes is just based on what’s going to really make this adventure, this story, this kind kind of theme happen." He goes on to say that "We’re not interested in putting out more books for books’ sake... there’s zero plans for a Player’s Handbook 2 any time on the horizon."

As for settings, he confirms that "we’re going to stay in the Forgotten Realms for the foreseeable future." That'll disappoint some folks, I'm sure, but it is their biggest setting, commercially.

Stewart is not "a hundred percent comfortable" with the status of digital tools because he felt like "we took a great step backwards."

[lq]Dungeons and Dragons stopped being a tabletop game years or decades ago. [/lq]

His thoughts on D&D's identity are interesting, too. He mentions that "Dungeons and Dragons stopped being a tabletop game years or decades ago". I'm not sure what that means. His view for the future of the brand includes video games, movies, action figures, and more: "This is no secret for anyone here, but the big thing I want to see is just a triple-A RPG video game. I want to see Baldur’s Gate 3, I want to see a huge open-world RPG. I would love movies about Dungeons and Dragons, or better yet, serialized entertainment where we’re doing seasons of D&D stories and things like Forgotten Realms action figures… of course I’d love that, I’m the biggest geek there is. But at the end of the day, the game’s what we’re missing in the portfolio."

You can read the full interview here.

 

[DongMaster]

If D&D 5E is a stillbirth, what are all of the other RPGs?

Sperms in a condom?

 

[Random Catchphrase]

D&D should never, ever become synonymous with Forgotten Realms. There should be a concerted effort to ensure FR is seen as only one implementation of D&D and not as the primary vehicle.

If you read through whole interview, they are planning to do settings in massive chunks one at a time, so i think it is FR only for couple of years going forward, then it would be replaced with another setting for couple of years and so on.

 

[SilverfireSage]

I don't understand why this is making everyone cheer. They basically said that we aren't getting anything to use in MY stories. Just stuff I have to steal from theirs. I don't want their stories. I want tools for making my own.

It's great that they want to give us video games but it doesn't do anything for my home game.

How do you make a sustainable business model off of that? How do you know what stuff to make for people? They could make campaign settings, but if you already make your own that's useless. Not to mention they already have all of the campaign settings online in PDF format. Then what about a whole book about Magic Items and Traps, a DMG2? Well there are already tools to make your own traps and such, and where do you draw the line with making books like that? They're essentially infinite. I just don't see how such a model would work, especially with a player attitude of "I create all my own stuff anyway."

 

[innerdude]

Video games are great, but as Paizo and GoblinWorks is finding out, incredibly expensive and people's standards now are incredibly high. 5E needs to be a standing success for a while before they can reasonably start investing in video games.

The budget for a single AAA-list video game title today is equal to the entire yearly revenue of the D&D pen-and-paper RPG line circa 2006 (going by Ryan Dancey's $30 million annual revenue estimate for the line).

It's still surprising to me just how small the overall RPG revenue stream is. If $30 million was an "average" year for the D&D RPG product line in 2006, that's.....well, even adjusted for a decade of inflation, it's tiny.

My last job was working for a start up software company that had existed for seven or eight years. These guys were small fry, barely even players in their space.......and that company by itself, a single, small, startup software company in Provo, Utah earned more revenue in 2014 than the entire global D&D RPG line did in 2006.

I think I once guesstimated that the entire global, annual revenue stream for RPGs was probably around $100 million. And that's for EVERYONE...... WotC, Paizo, Fantasy Flight, Steve Jackson Games, Green Ronin, Pinnacle Games......that would also include the European markets with Cubicle 7, the "boutique" systems from Germany (Harnmaster, etc.). Everybody. And now I'm starting to think that number might be overly optimistic.

Sure, all of these game companies have properties and revenue streams other than RPGs. It wouldn't surprise in me in the least to hear that Paizo's Pathfinder Adventure Card Game is on target to be a larger share of company revenue than the RPG. Same with Munchkin, for example, for Steve Jackson games (I'd bet a year's salary---with a high level of confidence---that Munchkin nets Steve Jackson games more annual revenue than GURPS).

This is the #1 question the RPG industry needs to figure out----how do we get more people to play our games?

 

[Trickster Spirit]

And that's what I crave. The last FRCS is a decade ingame time out of date. That itself wouldn't be that much of an issue if the world didn't just go through a cataclysm supposed to give it a total overhaul. Nobody has a real picture about the state of things. I want to know how the slate looks right now.

The cynic in me says that's why the APs are set in the Forgotten Reams - if they're not going to put out a campaign setting book any time soon, then that'll drive the fans to buy the APs, as that's going to be the only source of new Realmslore in the immediate future.

That's of course assuming they've even fleshed out what the Realms even looks like now. Sure, they planned out the Sundering with Salvatore and the other novelists, but who's to say it wasn't as simple as "Ok, all the popular dead gods are back, all of the unpopular 4E changes are rolled back, and future novels can do whatever sells well?" It might make more sense in their eyes to only work out the details when they're setting something like an AP in a certain area, there's no guarantee Wizards even has a solid idea of what regions outside of Phandelver / Neverwinter / Red Larch.

Any other edition has provided a lot of books that were not focused on a specific storyline.

Eh, I wasn't around for the 1E days but it seemed to do just fine having only put out ~9 rules expansions in 12 years.

Of course 1E did have a lot of smaller adventures as well - if we look at the APs as equivalent to the big compendiums like Against the Giants / Scourge of the Slavelords, there's a definite niche for one-shots alongside them. Personally, my preferred solution would to bring back Dragon and Dungeon as e-zines. That would provide pretty much all the content 5E ever needs.

There was a general consensus this game needs a PotA?

No, but there perhaps is one for more D&D stories. Wizards is trying to put out adventure paths that'll make the same lists as "Temple of Elemental Evil" and "Queen of the Spiders" in a few decades. Tyranny of Dragons... probably isn't going to make any of those lists, but Princes of the Apocalypse or an as-yet-untitled "King Lear with Giants" later this year might.

 

[Zaukrie]

Then they need much better stories, not the same stories over and over. Give us some great stories, and some in short story form please.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

Then they need much better stories, not the same stories over and over. Give us some great stories, and some in short story form please.

Well the last story was not a redone story so maybe you are complaining about nothing there.

 

[AverageCitizen]

I don't think RPGs need "support" beyond the core books to be successful. Many good RPGs have published their first run, then closed up shop. I don't think that is a failure. Second, I don't think APs count as support. I don't really like them. But if they do player companions I might get those, and if the digital tools collate all the AP content then of course I'll use it. I don't mind if the player content comes out in tandem with APs, but I really feel like we could use another DMG or an Unearthed Arcana book at some point. The hacking tools in the DMG seem pressed for space and a little timid.

 

[Mirtek]

Well the last story was not a redone story so maybe you are complaining about nothing there.

I can only agree partly. While she had a new plot, it was Tiamat all over again. Why did they had to chose the very same villian they already used in the first AP in 4e?

 

[Kramodlog]

That is exactly what they're saying. What I'm saying is that most players, if they buy supplements at all, buy them because they exist and are interesting to them - but the lack of said supplements doesn't negatively impact their experience in the slightest.

It's unfortunate for those players for whom that is a dealbreaker, of course - but it's not going to kill the edition, and there are other games out there that do have higher levels of support.

I disagree with that part.