Legends & Lore #3 -
Setting the Pace
March 1, 2011
No original EN World thread found
Talk about a prescient article. In this one, Mearls discusses the release schedule of editions throughout history. The impetus for this article was the cancellation of three products from the 2011 schedule. (These were
Hero Builder's Handbook,
Class Compendium: Heroes of Sword & Spell, and
Mordenkainen's Magnificent Emporium. Material from HBH would eventually show up in Dragon magazine; the Essentials format for the Core 4e classes that were supposed to be in the Class Compendium were eventually released in PDFs, and MME was eventually released in print format in September of 2011.)
OD&D had five supplements in 18 months (Greyhawk; Blackmoor; Eldritch Wizardryl Gods, Demi-Gods & Heroes; and Swords & Spells). AD&D emphasized adventures, with the Core Three and only 10 hardcover expansions in 12 years, as well as two boxed campaign sets and some FR sourcebooks. Much of the new material, particularly player-side new material, showed up in Dragon magazine. AD&D 2nd Ed. cut back on hardcovers, but released a metric craptonne of softcover expansions (Mearls says 5 or 6 a month), as well as many boxed sets. Both 3rd and 4th went back to hardcovers - often player-oriented, with only scattered stand-alone adventures published -- people relied on Dungeon magazine for more adventures.
Looking ahead, Mearls seems to question the wisdom of a heavy release schedule.
Mearls said:
Looking at it from a production viewpoint, more content naturally yields more errors and inconsistencies. Even if Wizards added more designers and editors, the sheer volume of information makes monitoring and coordinating everything a challenge—as you produce more content, the chance for an error increases at an exponential rate, rather than a linear rate. However, you can also argue that while more mistakes might creep in, the total volume of content counteracts that. You might have mistakes, but you have enough stuff in total to make up for them.
He then brings up the question of complexity and the difficulties it brings.
Mearls said:
Complexity stands as perhaps the biggest argument against a rapid release schedule. One of the things R&D must consider is what it’s like for a new player to enter a store and pick up a D&D product. If that new player is greeted by a wall of books and boxes, buying into the game becomes that much more daunting. It’s easy for an experienced player to navigate that maze, to understand that the Player’s Handbook is the key to getting started while Complete Warrior and Martial Power are optional expansions. However, that isn’t clear from their titles or even how they are arranged in the store. Compare that to many board game lines, where the core set is in a bigger, more expensive box and expansions in smaller ones. That might seem like a minor detail to an experienced gamer, but such visual cues are really helpful to beginners. It’s easy to understand that the big box is a starting point and the small box is an expansion.
It really is funny to read these after all this time. Given that I can't find a thread for this article here at EN World, I surmise that for many people it was just seen as face-saving and butt-covering for the cancellation of three anticipated releases. But really, in hindsight, the above paragraph is meaningless in a 4e context. The horses were already out of the barn. 4e shelves were a mess of complexity, with the core books and twentysome hardcover expansions AND the new Essentials line, with its own version of a DMG, own version of a MM, and two PHBs (the former two coming in boxes). Mearls may have been trying to justify the Essentials roll-out, but it sure looks now like he was looking even further ahead.
Finally, Mearls slips in a little bit of design philosophy --
Mearls said:
Finally, even for experienced players too much content can prove troublesome. A small list of spells is on one hand limiting, but on the other it provides a familiar starting point for talking about the game. One of the things I miss from 4th Edition is the ubiquity of certain effects. Fireball and invisibility were not only wizard spells, but they also served as monster special abilities. You could identify and understand them in play much easier than, say, comparing powers from two different classes. A smaller set of mechanics, especially if those mechanics are used for a variety of purposes, can create more cohesion between players and DMs.
Yeah, I think he was definitely thinking about 5e at this point.
How did things end up in 5e?
Well, as is clear now, they are drastically cutting back on the release schedule. Mearls put it somewhere (can't find the source now -- an EN World post, maybe?), "If we've put out enough material to last you six months, why would I try to sell you anything else in that time?" The current plan appears to be two big adventure path/campaign type releases a year, supplemented by a few standalone products and web content. Mearls did indeed put the 5e starting point in a big box, and created the online Basic Rules as a smooth, relatively less complex on-ramp to the rest of the game. One strategy that wasn't really talked about in the article (for obvious reasons) was the release of old material as PDFs on D&D Classics. This allows them to make use of past products without having to create print product with high overhead for what may be a limited audience. Want to play in Eberron? Buy a cheap PDF of the 3e or 3.5 campaign book and use this online supplement for PCs. Want to play in the Realms? Choose your favorite version and convert it fairly easy on the fly.
Another aspect of 5e as far as material goes is there's a lot of space to go to without worrying about unbalancing the game too much. Backgrounds being one, and the chunkier feats being another. The big question is how crazy they will go with subclasses, in whatever form, be that new player expansions, a resurrected Dragon magazine, or Unearthed Arcana-type articles.
