D&D 5E Reasons Why My Interest in 5e is Waning

[pickin_grinnin]

I agree. The team really hit it out of the park. But a system does not fire my imagination, settings do. And no setting books have been released for it.

I certainly understand that. I always do my own settings and adventures, so those things don't matter to me as much, but I know they do to a lot of people.

I was glad to see this edition because a lot of the people who will only play Pathfinder in my area will give D&D a chance, mainly due to brand recognition. Since I like the D&D 5.0 mechanics more than those for Pathfinder, that means that I can start moving the groups I DM away from Pathfinder. Most of them are resistant to my favorite systems (like Savage Worlds), but are open to D&D.

 

[TrippyHippy]

I think it is fair to say that I am playing and running D&D5 more than any other version of D&D since the 1st…..but buying less. I do want some electronic copies but apart from Adventurers’ League adventures (free) I haven’t seen any other item that even appeals to me to buy outside of the corebooks (to date, at least).

 

[chriton227]

Yes and that was more than a third of a year ago. Just over four months. Anything since? Like I said, I'm tired of waiting. I just want to know that it is not vaporware.

Four months really doesn't surprise me, especially if they are going through a full RFP process and everything is having to be vetted by Hasbro/WotC Legal at each step. An RFP process for something like a digital tools suite is going to be much more complex than the RFP for a 3rd party developed adventure or sourcebook, there are lot more details to work through (hosting model, revenue model, information security concerns, patch responsibility, whether the code and other digital assets are the property of the developer or WotC, indemnification/code escrow for if the developer goes under, etc.). And I'm sure after things fell through with Morningstar that the RFP will be different from the original and there will be additional scrutiny of both the proposals and the final contracts. The team would be very restricted on what they could say until everything is finalized and signed. The D&D team may be small, but they are still part of a much larger corporate entity. In my career with a major corporation, it hasn't been unusual to see things take 4-8 weeks just for the legal departments on both sides to finally nail things down after we selected the winning proposal. Heck, less than a year ago I was in a situation where it had taken 3 months of back and forth on a contract to bring in a couple IT contractors for a short engagement for specific project I was to be working on, I finally got tired of waiting and did the project without the contract help (it took me longer to do it solo, but saved money overall).

If they got an RFP out to selected vendors shortly after the Morningstar thing fell through, and they found a proposal they liked in the first round of responses, and there are no major holdups in negotiating the contract, I would be hoping to see something announced in the next 4-8 weeks. If they had to do multiple rounds of proposals or if they hit snags in contract negotiation, it could take much longer.

 

[Emirikol]

Op, I hear you. The lack of diversity and lack of module selection leaves me pretty bored with it so far. I've played some games with my kids, but meh. They've played lots of other games and lots of other games have lots of other product out there (and no conversion needed).

D&D had better get their act in gear before people see that there is is currently little more than a few cardboard stand-ups.

It just goes to show that you can have an "ok" game system, and people will not flock to it unless you get to the goods.

Another concern of mine (expressed in other thread) is the Adventurer's league. The point of it is to support game stores with in-store play. The problem with that is that it forgets two important things: the DM and the Players. The inconvenience of having to schedule through a 3rd party, no home play of those events, and the lack of enthusiasm from people towards this OP, is less than encouraging for me to step up with my time to DM. The fact that you can play their current adventures (tiamat, etc. I hope you like dragons..cuz that's the offering), just means you're just adding stacks of boring paperwork to the mix. Who wants MORE paperwork? i get enough of that in real life!

D&D is coming off of a "dream sequence" of 4e. They'd better forget that season, and move forward with some gusto before this ship becomes just another stack of unsold merchandise.

Lastly, they don't have staff. They have overworked staff and outsourced the rest like some kind of evil corporation. It's hard to have FAN creators to this stuff if they're not vested into it. Subcontractors don't give a about brands and hence you've got a very small group of people doing the "love for the hobby" supported by the same old crap glitzy-shiny-FFG-or-GW-like-advertisements..while it withers on the vine.

D&Ds not going to die. It's just getting corporationed-to death.

jh
(feels like D&D is getting "Fantasy-Flight-Gamed" to death)

 

[graves3141]

I feel like a tremendous opportunity is being squandered by WotC. The core 5E rules are great, IMHO the best version of D&D to date but it doesn't look that there will be much support for it other than the mega-adventures like Princes of the Apocalypse (which, I'm only lukewarm about) getting released a couple times a year.

The previous failure of 4E has robbed us of a decent release schedule. Too bad 5E didn't come out in 2008 instead of 4E... I doubt Pathfinder would have been able to take and hold the #1 spot in that case.

5E is wonderful but it could be so much more with just a slightly more robust release schedule. I guess I should just content myself with 5E getting published at all but I can't help seeing how much more it could be with proper support from WotC.

 

[Emirikol]

I think the big "missing" I'm seeing is the fact that there is zero-point-one downloadable creative material. The web-enhancements don't exist. Dungeon and Dragon "magazines" are dead.

They are counting on the "buy everything D&D" crowd to pull this off..well... 'fool me once...'

 

[sunshadow21]

To me, the concern is lack of product and lack of communication.

They don't need a release schedule like previous editions had, but they need something to fill all of the current empty space. As others have said, an OGL and/or bringing back Dungeon/Dragon in some form is really all that it would take. Add in a basic gazzetteer ( it doesn't even have to be a full fledged campaign book) with basic updated maps, basic updated history, and a few notable adventure hooks once a year until they get through all of their worlds, a few stand alone adventures of varying lengths, and a short supplement or two that details the area of their adventure paths, and they would be fine. It doesn't have to be huge, but it does have to be something to keep people talking and interested enough to want to sit down and play. Relying solely on movies or video games is not, to me, a strategy that is going to them very far, and trying to make the brand as generic as possible simply increases the ability for others to make money off of it while limiting WotC's ability to do so.

Communication remains their biggest hurdle, though. It's not the wait that hurts WotC nearly as much as the silence. They don't even have much of a website anymore to help fill the gap. They are getting better with this, but it's still a major problem. Uncertainty of what to expect with the game going forward is a major hurdle, both for retailers and players, especially given their recent history of constantly backtracking during the 4E period.

The rest of the original points are not fatal, yet. They are definitely stupid mistakes on WotC's part that should have been addressed a long time ago, but 5E is still young enough that they haven't yet come back to bite WotC in the rear. There is still at least some time to fix these before they become a major issue, whereas the two above are already rearing their ugly heads.

 

[Icon_Charlie]

Again, I have to say is that I agree with what the OP and Ruin Explorer has commented. There observations and comments are close to my own. Some people have forgotten the licensing scheme that they tried to pull in 4E. That was a pure money grab and it ruined the game overall due causing a loss of their customer base.

Not to mentioned that the Tier 2 companies balked and went on their own way with their own RPG systems.

These things did not need to happen. This my biggest complaint with Hasbro. There business ethics. You can talk to Paizo and least they seemed to listen.

Not so with Hasbro. Everything so far is done in the sterile business practice against their customer base.

I put my money where my mouth is. As an example I am a Gold Subscriber, and a reason why is that we need to keep up sites like this so there are places for us to discuss matters like this.

There are more sensible ways to approach your customer base. Yes I know they are a corporate entity beholden by their investors, but you have to go more on a personal/customer service in this sector of their customer base. But again look what Paizo is doing. There Business model MAKES sense.

Hasbro needs to do a better job in how they handle a "social" game system like D&D. It takes little thought and amount of time to communicate on how things are going with the system.

And you need a "REAL" person with "GOOD" communication skills, not another talking head.

A simple solution that other companies have already implemented. But this is Hasbro we are talking about and I highly doubt this concept will ever enter into their corporate ideology way of thinking.

 

[Tony Vargas]

The previous failure of 4E has robbed us of a decent release schedule.

True, though maybe not in the way you think. 4e was a bid to make D&D into a higher-yielding brand. It took a lot of investment (for an RPG) and needed to generate tremendous returns (apparently, according to one insider, 2-4 times the total revenue of the entire RPG 'industry') to 'succeed' - it didn't.

5e has no such lofty goals. Very few resources are being devoted to it (notice how much is being outsourced), so it doesn't need to move a lot of product to be profitable, so it has a slow release schedule. Given how every other version of D&D eventually choked on the sheer volume of supplements put out for it, that's not a bad thing. We could finally be looking at a full 10 year run, again, this time.

Too bad 5E didn't come out in 2008 ... I doubt Pathfinder would have been able to take and hold the #1 spot in that case.

Pathfinder would have had no meaningful way to differentiate itself from D&D, in that case, yes. 5e is much closer to being an OSR game, too, and 2008 would have been much better timing, on the leading edge of the phenom, instead of jumping on the bandwagon late. Hindsight is 20/20 that way. 5e in 2008, 4e once the OSR come-back has run it's course - both with attractive OGLs - would probably have gone a lot better, and not resulted in a Pathfinder, nor the flood of OSR d20 games (3pp OSR d20 supplements, sure).

5E is wonderful but it could be so much more with just a slightly more robust release schedule. I guess I should just content myself with 5E getting published at all but I can't help seeing how much more it could be with proper support from WotC.

D&D has never handled a lot of supplements too well. Broken combos emerge, the game loses coherence, becomes too complicated, and starts shedding existing players and repelling new ones. Happened with 2e, 3e - probably would have happend with 4e if it's run had been long enough. But, it didn't happen with AD&D or the rules Cyclopedia, because they had slower releases.

Short of re-writing history, it's probably the best they can do.

 

[Sailor Moon]

5e has no such lofty goals. Very few resources are being devoted to it (notice how much is being outsourced), so it doesn't need to move a lot of product to be profitable, so it has a slow release schedule. Given how every other version of D&D eventually choked on the sheer volume of supplements put out for it, that's not a bad thing. We could finally be looking at a full 10 year run, again, this time.

I disagree about the lofty goals but to a certain extent. I think they are looking for D&D to go to a whole new level but not the actual game itself. They believe the brand can take them to new heights but I believe it won't and the game is going to suffer for it.