Well to be fair the 1974 D&D crowd sounds like it was mostly college kids and out of work adults who had plenty of time to make up their own stuff. Many modern gamers are very busy adults with kids and careers.
D&D 5E Reasons Why My Interest in 5e is Waning
- Thread starter dmccoy1693
- Start date
Well to be fair the 1974 D&D crowd sounds like it was mostly college kids and out of work adults who had plenty of time to make up their own stuff. Many modern gamers are very busy adults with kids and careers.
Mercurius
Legend
After reading the first two posts in this thread, the OP by [MENTION=51747]dmccoy1693[/MENTION] and the first response by [MENTION=31465]Nebulous[/MENTION], I was reminded of the great Niels Bohr quote: "While the opposite of a fact is a falsehood, the opposite of one profound truth may very well be another profound truth."
I haven't read, and won't read, all 19 pages of this thread, I do want to say that I agree with both of those posts. I'm not at all tired of 5E--hell, I've only just started playing it. But I am disappointed in the support that WotC has offered in the points that dmccoy1693 mentions. I fully agree with him that there should be more one-shot 32-page modules, some setting support, an OGL and online tools...and the waiting part is mainly about the lack of communication about said bits and bobs. Once again WotC seems to be fumbling the ball.
That said, this is a great edition of the game and the above points only hurt because I like it so much. I suggest to dmccoy1693 to hang in there a bit - we're not even a year into the edition. I'm not ready to stick a fork in just quite yet. That said, WotC, get a move on it! Don't muck this one up.
I haven't read, and won't read, all 19 pages of this thread, I do want to say that I agree with both of those posts. I'm not at all tired of 5E--hell, I've only just started playing it. But I am disappointed in the support that WotC has offered in the points that dmccoy1693 mentions. I fully agree with him that there should be more one-shot 32-page modules, some setting support, an OGL and online tools...and the waiting part is mainly about the lack of communication about said bits and bobs. Once again WotC seems to be fumbling the ball.
That said, this is a great edition of the game and the above points only hurt because I like it so much. I suggest to dmccoy1693 to hang in there a bit - we're not even a year into the edition. I'm not ready to stick a fork in just quite yet. That said, WotC, get a move on it! Don't muck this one up.
Queer Venger
Dungeon Master is my Daddy
My enthusiasm has only increased, so much so that I'm buying older 3.5 books to convert to 5e.
Brick and mortar stores get on just fine because of Magic the Gathering and all the other non Wotc products. Also, it's a bit arrogant of them to assume that D&D is what keeps these stores open.
How about they stop with the stupid excuses and hop on board the modern day train?
I think you have missed the point. No one (least of all WotC) is assuming that D&D keeps stores open. Rather, it is stores that keep WotC open.
WotC makes a significant proportion of (the bulk of?) its revenue from M:tG. And M:tG depends upon their being brick-and-mortar stores: these are where play takes place, tournaments are held, new players get introduced to the game, etc, all of which drive sales of cards.
Hence WotC wants to keep brick-and-mortar stores on-side and viable. Hence it doesn't want to adopt sales strategies that will undermine those stores. Selling PDFs of core rulebooks would have the potential to do this.
Evenglare
Adventurer
The problem with this is that even if D&D sales aren't keeping stores open, you imply that D&D sales in these stores CAN be undermined, which means that you believe that D&D does have some large percentage of a store's income. You seem to be saying that if wizards sold PDFs that it would somehow affect stores in a negative way, perhaps loosing the good will towards Wizards which would mean that stores might not want to carry magic cards and host tournaments.
This seems a bit extreme yes? I mean... how much does D&D books REALLY contribute to a store's income? I can't imagine it is a very high percentage. I'd wager that the store does make most of their money off of magic cards and comics. The question is would selling PDFs really affect the bottom line of stores SO much that they would boycott magic nights and tournaments? That's a bit of a hard pill for me to swallow, especially since we have have a direct example of pathfinder both selling their books in stores and online.
Exactly!
Our store continues to heavily support Pathfinder Society even though you can buy the PDF's online. The store also stocks plenty of Pathfinder books because a lot of people actually want both. I have both because I like to reference my books when at home or if I am gaming, and I like to reference my PDF's if I'm out and I have one of my various tablets with me.
I would say that Warhammer sees the most attention in all the stores in my area.
I don't think WotC is worried about boycotts. On this hypothesis, WotC recognise that brick-and-mortar game stores aren't exactly the most lucrative businesses out there, and hence want to increase rather than undermine their viability.
You don't have to posit that D&D books are a large percentage of a store's income to posit that undermining sales of those books in stores would reduce the overall profitability of those stores.
BryonD
Hero
Heh That is an interesting thought.
Though, again, it comes back to how do they plan to really help the stores if they don't put out more material?
You could even argue that selling PDFs of anything out 18 months would support the market for new stuff in stores. (Granted, right now we can't say they are not doing that.)
Last edited:
