D&D 5E A NEW interview with Mike Mearls

JeffB said:

Sorry Morrus, not sure where it was. It was an interview from another site, that much I remember. But someone quoted it here. Talking about how low print subs got before DDI, no plans for print dhe to overall bad state of print magazines, and still unsure of what was going on with the magazines in the future.

Click to expand...

WotC shared info on how low subscriptions got? Man, you've seen something really major! Please try to remember! Do you even remember which site it was or who was interviewed? You say you saw it quoted here on EN World? The only ones I'm aware of recently are the one in the OP here and Mearls' Reddit AMA the other day, but it's neither of those.

Morrus said:

We know there's no news on magazines on account of there being no news on magazines.

No news on magazines isn't the same as no magazines. It means they're just not telling you.

That said, it seems there is done important news on magazines - you say WotC has said publicly that print magazines are definitely out? I did not know this (and it's my job to!) Could you try to remember where you saw this? It's a major, major scoop.

Click to expand...

I think it was in the AMA. Mike said something about how we should expect them to be digital going forward given the state of the print business. At work and can't spend much time on it, but if you don't find it by this evening (Cali time), I'll look it up and send it to you.

AD

Morrus said:

WotC shared info on how low subscriptions got? Man, you've seen something really major! Please try to remember! Do you even remember which site it was or who was interviewed? You say you saw it quoted here on EN World? The only ones I'm aware of recently are the one in the OP here and Mearls' Reddit AMA the other day, but it's neither of those.

Click to expand...

Oh heck. I found it. Here's the quote from the AMA:

"We're exploring options for the magazines right now. Nothing to announce yet, but we know they're an important part of D&D's history.

That said, the magazine business is in rough shape. Subscriptions to them were dropping heavily in their last years in print, and that was six years ago. You can expect anything we do will be delivered digitally."

link: http://www.reddit.com/r/rpg/comments/2l69tp/ama_mike_mearls_codesigner_of_dd_5_head_of_dd_rd/

If you search on the word 'dungeon' you find it pretty quick.

AD

That's the one! Thanks [MENTION=18646]lkj[/MENTION]

Awesome! Thank you!

Morrus said:

Awesome! Thank you!

Click to expand...

No problem. I know Mike went back and answered more questions the next day, so it was probably easy to miss (I'm just assuming it was an answer from his second round). At any rate, might be worth sorting by time and seeing if there's anything else there exciting.

AD

Thanks [MENTION=518]JeffB[/MENTION] and [MENTION=18646]lkj[/MENTION]! It's on the news page now! Great scoop!

Incidentally, if anyone were to find time to go through the AMA and count the number of times Mike Mearls said "no news yet" or variations, there's a hilarious mini comic strip waiting to be made!

TarionzCousin said:

Whew. That's a relief to know.

Click to expand...

Even if they are, they'd have charmed him to say that they weren't...

I'm becoming a broken record by this point, but I'm still concerned that this marketing plan doesn't appear to include a place for DMs to get the monsters (and other things) they need for existing D&D settings without buying mega-adventures. They will put out a player's guide for the adventure paths they create, and then the one or two books with the adventure itself (like Tyranny of Dragons) but the only thing mentioned at all about campaign setting books was the tentative language about maybe probably someday somehow, not now, but possibly then, we might have a Forgotten Realms campaign setting.

As someone who wants to buy official products to populate the worlds and planes with the inhabitants I expect to be there, I'm concerned I'm going to end up having to buy hardcover adventure books I don't want every year just to get the scattered monsters that I do want.

I'll be surprised if the upcoming Elemental Evil Adventurer's book doesn't include genasi. But I'll be surprised it if does include aasimar or (Planescape) tieflings. So there are 3 books I'll need to get my Elemental Planes stuff. Then when they decide to put out a Gith-based adventure path, I'll have to buy 3 books to get my Astral Plane stuff.

And then Dark Sun...no way around a monster manual there. It uses a completely different set of creatures than the rest of D&D. Does it get an exception, or get the shaft?

Tying all the new content to "story" in the sense of "adventure path" just doesn't work for those of us who aren't going to use that story and have to buy hundreds of pages of it to get the content we expect in a D&D edition.