D&D 5E A Board Game style Release Schedule

[Reynard]

That's the catch. The difference between a 3e, 4e, and 5e Eberron or Forgotten Realms campaign setting is likely 5-20 pages of crunch in a 300-page book. It's an insignificant percentage. With the Eberron article for Unearthed Arcana, you could purchase a 3e or 4e Eberron campaign guide and run a complete campaign without problems.

By their very nature, campaign guides are support for the world and not the game system. Any game support comes at a direct cost to setting material. WotC could release a brand new setting book every 3 months and 5e would see less support.

But adventures are support? I don't see the logic.

 

[Kramodlog]

They weren't as psyched for Tyranny.

What's the alternative? Dismissing the idea a good product could be released and being pessimistic about the release schedule? Meh, pass. I have no problems ripping WotC a new one if they deserve it, but I'm not going to expect a product to fail without reason.

Well, you edited the part that mentioned biases and conflict of interests, so this is going no where fast.

 

[Zardnaar]

DMG came out three months ago to the day, as of today (Dec 9, 2014). We are 3 months from the street release of the core books.

The idea that people are predicting doom, for a game selling this well, because they don't have more (or more announced) three months in from the core book release, is ridiculous. I get it, we live in an impatient era. But even an impatient era has it's extremes, and this is one of them.

But OK, go on gnashing and wailing. I guess it demonstrates deep interest in the game, which is good for the game. I mean, people who don't care, don't demand more this early.

So the PHB came out in August. Having something to actually use with the core books form WoTC (that doesn't suck like HotDQ) would be nice. Spell cards and a DM screen do not really count as content as such.

Maybe having Dungeon for 20+ years helped things out.

 

[billd91]

Paizo struggled for a LOT of that decade. They had repeated financial troubles and were operating hand-to-mouth for half of that period. They didn't expect Pathfinder to be the success it was and were unprepared, so they almost lucked into their fortune. Not the best company to emulate.
Now, I really like Paizo. I like the team there a LOT and I have nothing but respect and good things to say about them. But one of the positive things I used to say was that they were being restrained in terms of content and releases, with three hardcovers a year, few extra classes and the like. They've really started to move against the game and business model that helped them establish themselves.

The value of Paizo as an example isn't lack of struggle. It's their reactions to adversity. They transformed their company and diversified their activities as their original business plan was rendered impossible to execute. A company that never faces adversity probably isn't worth emulating either since they're never tested - you never find out how resilient they are.

 

[Staffan]

That's the catch. The difference between a 3e, 4e, and 5e Eberron or Forgotten Realms campaign setting is likely 5-20 pages of crunch in a 300-page book. It's an insignificant percentage. With the Eberron article for Unearthed Arcana, you could purchase a 3e or 4e Eberron campaign guide and run a complete campaign without problems.

That depends on what version of the campaign guides you're talking about. For example, the 3e FRCS is about 20% crunch (races, feats, prestige classes, domains, spells, monsters, and so on - but not counting NPC stat blocks, which I'd estimate make up at least another 10%). The 2e FRCS, on the other hand, has 20-25 pages of crunch, 16 page of which are Monstrous Compendium sheets and the rest are things like rules for overland travel and wild/dead magic areas - the only part that comes close to being "player crunch" is the list of languages. That makes up about 5-10% of the box's contents, with pretty much nothing being added from NPC descriptions since the mechanical part of those in 2e essentially consist of "human female LG 6th level fighter". In both cases, I counted the included adventures as part of the total page count but not as crunch.

When running a 5e campaign set in pre-Spellplague FR, the 2e box is generally a much better resource than the 3e book. The maps are better too, at least as long as you stick to the Heartlands

 

[Mistwell]

So the PHB came out in August. Having something to actually use with the core books form WoTC (that doesn't suck like HotDQ) would be nice. Spell cards and a DM screen do not really count as content as such.

Maybe having Dungeon for 20+ years helped things out.

You have lots - you just don't like it personally. But that is a matter of personal taste, not objective fact. You have:

The core books (PHB, MM, DMG)
Three official BIG adventures (Phandelver, Hoard of the Dragon Queen, Rise of Tiamat), and a fourth on the way in less than a month (Princes of the Apocalypse).
Four good playtest adventures which are incredibly easy to adapt to current rules (Ghosts of Dragonspear Castle, Legacy of the Crystal Shard, Murder in Baldur's Gate, Scourge of the Sword Coast).
Four adventures from Goodman Games (Glitterdoom, The Fey Sisters' Fate, Pillars of Pelagia, and War-Lock)
Three adventures from Alea Games (The Gift of the Gnarled One, The Cry of a Daughter, The Shadow of Flame)
One adventure from Arcadian Games (An Echo of Days Past)
One adventure from Assassin Games (Wanted)
One adventure from Chubby Monster Games (The Temple of Qultar)
Eight adventures from Dan Hass Endeavors (DG 1-8)
Nineteen adventures from Frog God Games (The Wizards Amulet, Quests of Doom I (12), Quests of Doom II (6))
Two adventures from Genius Loci Games (Assault on the Southern Horn, The Owl Bear's Cave)
One adventure from John Ross Rossomangno (The Blacksmith's Burden)
Four adventures from Legendary Games (The Fiddler's Lament, The Murmuring Fountain, The Haunted Hamlet of Raven's Hill, Road to Destiny)
Three adventures from Mithgarthr Entertainment (The Sylvan Temple, Stonefast, The Mines of Valdhum)
One set of Adventure Shorts from R&D D&D Adventures (Adventure Shorts, volume 1)
Four adventures from Sacrosanct Games (X1 Wrath of the Goblinoids, X2 Payback, SG9 Reclaiming the Caves on the Borderlands, Rise of Heroes)
One adventure from Ten Red Crows Press (A Little Bit of Thievery)
One adventure from WanderLOST Adventures (The Storm Keep)
Two adventures from Fan Adventures (The Town of Bridgepuddle, The Mystery of Malvern Manor)
One adventure from EnWorld Publishing with more to come shortly (The Business of Emotion).
The Book of Spells from Frog God Games
Fifth Edition Foes from Frog God Games
DM's Screen
Spell Cards

So by my count, that is 64 adventures you have to choose from, 2 monster books, the DMG, a book of spells, DM's Screen, and spell cards. All available to you within 3 months of the last core book being published. And that's not counting the existing conversion notes WOTC published for numerous older adventures with the playtest that would be easily converted, and tons of conversion notes from fans for other adventures.

And this is what you're calling "not enough support"? Tell me Zardnaar, did Pathfinder have 64 adventures you have to choose from, 2 monster books, the DMG, PHB, a book of spells, DM's Screen, and spell cards, all within 3 months of their core book being first published? Did 3.0e D&D even have that much third party support in the first three months? What games (any genre, any company) come to mind that had that much support that early, that you can recall?

To me, that is a HUGE amount of support out there for this game. Way more than justifies the complaining in this thread. What, you need an "official" stamp on a cover to count as "support" now?

 

[Manchu]

Third-party materials vary wildly in production values.

As a separate point: It is pretty disingenuous to list all those materials when the subject is WotC releases.

 

[JmanTheDM]

FFG had an interesting post about their LCG format card games. they were finding that retailers were having a very hard time stocking a "mature" game with a monthly release cycle. most retailers would have some or a few packs but not all. This made the process of getting new players to pick up the game and start "from the beginning" very difficult.

As a completonist, I can totally relate. I'd never buy a game that was "mature" and the store was missing the first several expansions and only stocked the latest. I want them all, and in order! But as a store owner, trying to deal with a heavy splat book release cycle, you can only "compete" by stocking the most current goodness. Thus non-hard-core consumers and retailers are at odds with their goals.

I hope WotC has learned or is following something similar. that they are trying to cater to retail stores and new players to have a very stable set of books that can be on the store shelves month after month to not totally overwhelm the new players with (potentially) thousands of pages of new content to purchase to "catch up". Walking into a store and seeing 5-8 books is not nearly as intimidating as walking into a store, seeing a PHB 3 and wondering where #2 and #1 is and if you can even play the game without #1...

The catan analogy is a good and a necessary one, in that context and IMO

cheers,

J.

 

[Mistwell]

Third-party materials vary wildly in production values.

As a separate point: It is pretty disingenuous to list all those materials when the subject is WotC releases.

Yes, they do vary, but some of it is excellent and you have plenty of reviews to filter what's excellent and what is not.
Second, there is nothing disingenuous at all about it. The complaint is lack of "support", that complaint is backed up by a long series of analysis that becomes far less persuasive once you consider the total support from the game rather than just official support. I asked why the stamp of "official" is so meaningful here - since you can get excellent to bad support both officially and unofficially, and I did not receive a response from you. Why does it matter if it is official or not, if the quality doesn't connect to the "officialness" in any appreciable way? It either has sufficient support, or it does not. I am arguing it has more than sufficient support.

 

[Manchu]

@JmanTheDM:

Not sure if it is very comparable. The issue with LCGs comes up because there is a competitive scene; FFG determines what cards can be played. With D&D, any given group can decide "what's in" so far as splat goes. Furthermore, the core books for 3E and 4E (PHB1 and DMG1 in the latter case) were always on store shelves throughout the edition cycles at least IME.

@Mistwell:

Third-party releases are irrelevant to the issue of WotC's approach to 5E, which I think is the topic under discussion ITT. As to the "official seal" -- consumers experience products via brand.