D&D 5E Who really IS the target audience of D&D Next?

[Rechan]

Honestly? WotC says that 5e is for everyone but this is just marketing. Who they are really shooting for are gamers that fall between +/- 1 standard deviation of the mean.
The rest WotC won't bother with as they would have to form 5e to target too small of an audience.

Sure, within one standard deviation. But what is being measured?

 

[Tony Vargas]

Sure, within one standard deviation. But what is being measured?

Maybe the mean is 'noncommital?' The tails are edition warriors?

 

[Crazy Jerome]

Fair enough.

It isn't gonna happen.

I can't offer you proof. But it still won't.

Stop the presses. I agree.

D&D players are made one table at a time. You get them to that table one or two players at a time. There are exceptions, but the vast majority are made this way. To get that, you need enthusiastic and friendly DMs and welcoming existing players. A "better" game system, whatever that is, helps. But it can't do the job of making D&D take off all by itself, and WotC ultimately can't control the necessary factors. All they can do is the best they can, and see what happens.

 

[Ratinyourwalls]

As someone who will play either Pathfinder or 4E I have a hard time believing the target audience are people who play either.

 

[S'mon]

Size of market x Average Spend = Value of Market.

So if there 50 people who spend $20/year that's $1000 market. 5 people who spend $200 also = $1000 market. Both groups are equally valuable to WoTC.

 

[dd.stevenson]

I see a lot of people saying that 5E will target current Paizo customers.

IMO, the one and only thing WotC needs in order to start competing for Pathfinder players is a high quality line of adventure paths. And they don't need a new edition of D&D accomplish that.

However that's not to say that 5E's design won't open up more strategic options for WotC--I suspect that will be one of the goals behind their modular design.

 

[SensoryThought]

As boredgremlin said, I think the aim of the exercise is to pick up old edition players, especially 3.x and Pathfinder. I also suspect their capacity to recapture large chunks of the legacy crowd will be unsuccessful.

That said, as a happy 4e player, I still think there are lessons that can be learned from why PF players are so happy with their game. Flavor in terms of character customization and skills/spells/archetypes etc make people feel invested. The mechanics and roles for 4e are too out in the open for a lot of players - drawing back the curtain with more flavorful descriptions and seeming less mmo like would make the game more engaging.

I am looking forward to 5e (but desperately hoping for online tools at release).

 

[BryonD]

I see a lot of people saying that 5E will target current Paizo customers.

IMO, the one and only thing WotC needs in order to start competing for Pathfinder players is a high quality line of adventure paths. And they don't need a new edition of D&D accomplish that.

There are a lot of people they will never get with 4E regardless of what adventures they produce.

 

[ShinHakkaider]

There are a lot of people they will never get with 4E regardless of what adventures they produce.

Seriously. It's amazing that people dont understand this at this point in the game. If 4E had good APs that would be great for 4E players. But if you're not a fan of 4E then what does it matter how great the AP is?

 

[dd.stevenson]

There are a lot of people they will never get with 4E regardless of what adventures they produce.

Let me note in passing that I never claimed otherwise.