D&D 5E I just don't see why they even bothered with the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide.

BryonD said:

Combining these responses because I think you miss a key point in both: player base.
If other people start gravitating to other games that WILL have an effect on you.
Just ask the people who still love 2E, or 4E.

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If I'm not buying more books and happy with the content I have it doesn't matter if the edition is ongoing or cancelled.

It only has an impact when looking for new players or a new group. And that's aided by a non-fractured audience and a long-term edition that more people are familiar with.

BryonD said:

I think you are falling for their spin.
If they were making the margins that they wanted on books, then they would be making more books.
They want to maintain the brand at a minimal investment.

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I was calling for fewer releases and less crunch for years. I was exceedingly happy with the post-Essentials D&D offerings, with a couple books each year that were more than 50% flavour.
That's not falling for their spin, it's agreeing with their approach.

BryonD said:

Yes, people are still playing Basic. So why did WotC publish 5E rather than the vastly cheaper option of trumpting the republishing of Basic as the flagship D&D line?
Boredom is obviously an issue. But the constant demand of keeping up with the competition is also there. The competition can be a new game which could appear next month, but it is also just anything else. Whatever tomorrow's equivalent of an MMO is, it will be a competition for the time and dollars when it comes around. There is a lot of room between "bored" and "this is so fresh and exciting that it remains my first choice for how I spend my time".

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Boredom and competition is a serious issue. And if you need to invest a heavy amount of time keeping up with new content and releases, reading books, and building characters the game becomes less appealing. That's time that could be spent on the MMO or a movie or family.
D&D will always have a hard time competing as it's a group activity that requires buy in from multiple participants.

If a great new RPG comes out, it does NOT matter what new splatbook the game has, because the D&D is still D&D. I'm doing non-D&D mini-campaigns right now because my table wants a d20 break. New splatbooks wouldn't help (especially since we're coming off Pathfinder) and wouldn't keep us in that game. The solution to boredom isn't more content that's the same stuff but slightly different. But it's nice to know you can get back into D&D after a break easily, and without having to catch-up on a dozen books or learn a new edition. The freedom to take a D&D break is essential.

Some people get bored exceedingly quickly. The people who play weekly will burn through the game much faster than the people who play once a month. Everyone shouldn't be required to keep pace with the people bored the most easily.

Shasarak said:

Personally I do not buy the idea that limited expansions would increase the life span of the edition because every source that I have seen indicates that the Core books are by far and away the best sellers and, as Mike himself has stated, years 3 to 5 is where those sales start to drop away.

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Right. So the trick is sustaining the game after that.
Previously, they've attempted splatbooks, but sales of those have dropped off quickly and that's only increasing demand for a new edition. So that hasn't worked long term. It's time to try something different, as doing the same thing again hasn't worked and making another new edition after 5 years won't keep the brand going.

Instead, the current strategy seems to be trying different multimedia ventures that feed into the RPG, ideally leading to increasing sales of the Core books over time. More new players or returning players means more Core books.
But spreading out the brand name also means more money for the brand from other sources, decreasing reliance on the Tabletop game to provide all the money. So when sales of the Core Rulebook drop, the brand sustains itself through other ventures.

Shasarak said:

So if your sales of Core books are dropping away and you have to fund your self with two adventure books a year then they had better be great books.

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Two adventures. An accessory every year or two. Board games. The tabletop miniatures. The miniature game. Maps. The video games. The dice game. The comic. The novels. Plus whatever else they can licence and sell.

Alzrius said:

Which speaks to my original point: if the product was never intended to be put into a brick-and-mortar store to begin with, then it's not Kickstarter's fault. The same way a book that wouldn't exist otherwise isn't in competition with an FLGS, neither is a book that was never going to be sold in one in the first place. What competes with them are alternative retail outlets for the same products. Even leaving aside that Kickstarter isn't a retail outlet, if the products produced there aren't put into the stores to begin with, then they're not competing for the same dollars.







If the goal is to get the book into physical stores, and print run costs aren't accounted for in sizes large enough to make distributors agree to do so, then that is a failure. This means that using that word is not "entirely" inappropriate, unless you're willing to say that such a thing has never, ever happened to any Kickstarter (or other crowd-funded book).



...or maybe we should focus less on semantic quibbles and more on the overall point, which is that KS is not competing with brick-and-mortar stores.

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"In competition," no. But just today I pledged to the Dungeon Crawl Classics Kickstarter. I am not going to subsequently buy the DCC book in my FLGS. It may eventually lead me to buy funky dice, we'll see.

But, and this was what I was talking about, WOTC is all about boosting the local game store, by any means necessary. Because any visit to the FLGS can lead to more Magic card sales, which is their lifeblood, and the local stores are still the primary venue for Magic, and where teenagers are still starting to get into that game.

It is not necessarily "buying into their spin" if they are giving us what we want: that is them reading the market wisely. I have bought more books from WOTC in the past year than I had in 15 previous. Because I can buy them all.

Parmandur said:

"In competition," no. But just today I pledged to the Dungeon Crawl Classics Kickstarter. I am not going to subsequently buy the DCC book in my FLGS. It may eventually lead me to buy funky dice, we'll see.

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I'm honestly confused about what point you're making here. Nothing you've described is indicative of Kickstarter being bad for brick-and-mortar retailers; I'm not sure what DCC Kickstarter you pledged to, but nothing sounds like it's taken your business away from any particular product in the store. If you're not going to buy a DCC book that they already had before, and you're not going to anyway now, then they haven't lost any business. If anything, they might gain some e.g. the dice.

But, and this was what I was talking about, WOTC is all about boosting the local game store, by any means necessary. Because any visit to the FLGS can lead to more Magic card sales, which is their lifeblood, and the local stores are still the primary venue for Magic, and where teenagers are still starting to get into that game.

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Yeah, but I'm still not seeing how Kickstarter takes away from that.

Alzrius said:

I'm honestly confused about what point you're making here. Nothing you've described is indicative of Kickstarter being bad for brick-and-mortar retailers; I'm not sure what DCC Kickstarter you pledged to, but nothing sounds like it's taken your business away from any particular product in the store. If you're not going to buy a DCC book that they already had before, and you're not going to anyway now, then they haven't lost any business. If anything, they might gain some e.g. the dice.

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If I spent $100 on a Kickstarter, that's a $100 of disposable money not going to a game store.
Not just RPGs. I'm expecting the Ghostbusters board game any week now, which will be in stores but I backed on Kickstarter, getting a lot of exclusive perks and add-ons in the process. That's business the store is losing:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cze/ghostbusters-the-board-game/description
The lowest tier is the game. Because that's what you're getting. That's 8000 copies of the game not being sold in stores, for cheaper than you could get in stores, and with exclusive options.

And how many gamers now have Reaper's Bones minis completely bypassing gaming stores in the process?

I don't think Kickstarter is doing much to stores, but it's not helping. Like online stores, Print on Demand, or publisher stores it's one more way of getting products into the hands of gamers unrelated to brick and mortar stores.

Jester Canuck said:

If I spent $100 on a Kickstarter, that's a $100 of disposable money not going to a game store.

Not just RPGs. I'm expecting the Ghostbusters board game any week now, which will be in stores but I backed on Kickstarter, getting a lot of exclusive perks and add-ons in the process. That's business the store is losing:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cze/ghostbusters-the-board-game/description

The lowest tier is the game. Because that's what you're getting. That's 8000 copies of the game not being sold in stores, for cheaper than you could get in stores, and with exclusive options.



And how many gamers now have Reaper's Bones minis completely bypassing gaming stores in the process?



I don't think Kickstarter is doing much to stores, but it's not helping. Like online stores, Print on Demand, or publisher stores it's one more way of getting products into the hands of gamers unrelated to brick and mortar stores.

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That's precisely what I mean; and I am not concerned about it, but WOTC gives FLGS all the books two weeks early, to drive local sales over Amazon. They are not about to go Kickstarter, which was the context.

Parmandur said:

It is not necessarily "buying into their spin" if they are giving us what we want: that is them reading the market wisely. I have bought more books from WOTC in the past year than I had in 15 previous. Because I can buy them all.

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They're not reading the market right, they're own surveys said that people wanted the setting books for they're favourite settings, but they're not bothering to put them out.

While setting books might have some player options or be paired with a player guide that does, they don't really contribute to "bloat" as they're usually important to the setting, with some content meant to appeal to a wide audience.

I tell you what's going to happen if they don't start supporting thier settings, people a significant chunk of the player base is going to get fed up, and move to RPGs that support thier settings.

Maybe it will get to the point where a third party managed to eat WotC's supper like Paizo did in the Pathfinder vs. 4e battle.

And Bloat is no excuse not to grow the novel lines, novels don't produce bloat. The only realms Author still writing that I really like is Erin M.Evans (and maybe Troy Denning, but he's only writing the one book).

Don't get me wrong, I like some of both Greenwood and Salvatore's novels, but to be honesty neither of them is one of my favourite, nor are either of them one of the forgotten realms best authors.

In fact of all the FR novels since the spellplague, the only novels I really liked that Salvatore and Greenwood wrote were the Companions and the Herald (and in the Herald's case there were parts and characters I didn't care for, but I do like Mirt).

Bring back Elaine Cunningham, bring back Tim Pratt, bring the Shadowbane novels, being back Richard Lee Byer, being back Paul S. Kemp, and so many others. Bring some fresh talent too.

gyor said:

They're not reading the market right, they're own surveys said that people wanted the setting books for they're favourite settings, but they're not bothering to put them out.

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Give them time. The results from that survey were only released a month or two ago (and only taken a few months ago). It takes time to put something like that together.

Alzrius said:

If the goal is to get the book into physical stores, and print run costs aren't accounted for in sizes large enough to make distributors agree to do so, then that is a failure.

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Well, if you're just making up fictional scenarios in which you assign your own fictional goals and fictional budgets, then sure. If the goal is to buy a puppy and they don't budget enough to buy a puppy, then sure, that's a failure. It's not particularly relevant to the conversation, though.