D&D 5E Why is WoTc still pushing AP's when the majority of gamers want something else?

[KahlessNestor]

There is no peer review in private publishing. WotC's team of however many people does not submit its 'findings' to the general RPG community for review before final publishing. Neither does any other publishing team.

There are occasional examples of widespread public playtests (which is the closest analogy to peer review, I guess, although not directly so), but these are not what we're talking about here, and it doesn't particularly resemble the scientific peer review process.

It's not just peer review though. That's just an example of a benefit of gatekeepers. Gatekeepers can be bad, too, I kkow. Like not giving space to new ideas.

But I'm also thinking of reputation. Established outlets of publishing companies establish a certain level of quality. My experience is mostly with novels and such. Most self-published stuff I have read is crap, and I will never get that time back. I have only read one self-published author that was any good (Matt Colville), and I think he could easily be published, he just self-publishes out of principle (he doesn't like gate-keepers).

Now I know it's not absolute. Gatekeepers certainly publish a lot of crap (Dan Brown? Twilight?) And sometimes the standard isn't up to sniff (I have certainly read enough badly edited Star Trek novels with numerous annoying typos), but in those cases I feel justified in being annoyed. With sel-published authors I'm like, "Meh. What did you expect?"

Basically, gatekeepers mean that someone besides the author felt this was worth spending resources on to make a quality product. That is immediately more appealing than some vanity press.

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[CapnZapp]

Somewhere down thread this veered into a slightly different area

It has almost become a meme...

 

[CapnZapp]

Why? Let's be honest, if someone writes, are they not a writer?

Kafka, famously, published almost nothing and most of his work was burned. Yet he was still a writer.
John Kennedy Toole's masterwork was published after he killed himself. Yet he was still a writer.
Don't even get me started on Emily Dickinson ...

Are they not authors?

That's actually a great illustration of the salient point, although probably not the one you think.

I don't know Kafka or any of his relatives. I haven't stumbled across a scarred but still readable original copy (or, in this day, randomly wandered onto his creaky old website).

The way I know of Kafka (his name, his works) is through other people. Their recommendations, as it were. And not just random people. Established publishing house. Literary Critics. (Read stern boring school teachers ;-)

The question you are asking can be answered "yes, he was a writer".

But the more important answer is: "if nobody reads him, does it matter?"

After all, all your examples aren't just of people that 1. are great writers. All of your examples include 2. that are discovered too.

The analogy here is that DMs guild is like Kafka before fame and fortune (yes, I know what I did there). In contrast to when Kafka gets published by EN Publishing or gets hired by WotC.

 

[CapnZapp]

This is such a bad idea if the intent is to quickly assign quality to one side or the other. Anything that implies that the quality of a subjective product is tied to how "official of a business" you are, is bad. There are plenty of "official" products that are garbage (Forest Oracle for example) and plenty of really good things that are from relative unknowns (like the first Judges' Guild and wasn't Eberron a fan creation?)

I think the disconnect here is because you can look at this from two separate viewpoints.

If you're concerned about giving new talent a shot, I understand your arguments.

But if you don't care primarily about new publishing ventures growing, and instead care primarily about having a channel of strong signal to noise ratio for your own consumption, it simply is not that bad of an idea.

In other words, sure WotC produces the odd turkey. That's not an argument for wading through the entirety of something like DM's Guild uncurated, though.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Willie the Duck]

*There is an excellent, in-depth examination of this in a recent book by Chuck Klosterman, But What If We're Wrong. I recommend it because it simplifies a lot of the issues in a fun, easy-to-read way with a lot of pop culture references.

I think what is happening is that the two of you are not agreeing on what the issues are.

I have no horse in this race, but as a piece of constructive criticism, your response to CapnZapp seemed unnecessarily condescending to me.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[CapnZapp]

Thanks and no problem.

I'm all good.

I just want to provide a counterpoint to the "we're all publishers" line, since I feel that when you take a publisher's view that's not necessarily the same as a customer's view.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[TennyZab]

I bought the Out of the Abyss book and am not a fan. It's too open ended and too difficult. I think it would have been better as a source book/ campaign setting on the Underdark. Honestly I'd rather have smaller modules like they made back in the day. Why are there so few books/products is what I want to know. Is it because this generation wants to download everything for free?