D&D Has the Biggest Playerbase, So Why is it the Hardest for 3rd Party to Market Too?

[ClaytonCross]

I don't know, but I can speculate.
--Omitted---
2) Many players are very much playing for the combat wargame. For them *the Rules* matter. I suspect for them third party materials seem largely untested, and not accepted at all tables.
--Omitted---

I would say your number 2 here it actually the biggest reason and not restricted to "war game" or "strategic combat" players. My GM is a story GM and does not allow third party content or Unearthed Arcana because it is untested as you say for quality control and also because he (understandably) doesn't want to read every single homebrew or third party option made and search for loopholes that could be came breaking. In stead he lets other tables sort through unearth arcana and takes it being added to an official book as "Now its actually ready for play" this way he can avoid many hours of reading the content, rules negotiation, and house rulings to make stuff work.

Its quality control to get to the story he wants to get through. Is WoTC 100%? No. But at least its been tested and it reduces his stress levels.

 

[delericho]

WotC estimate that they have 12-15M D&D players in NA. They haven't told us how many PHBs have been sold, but it's probably somewhere between 1 and 2 million by now. The majority of people who play D&D buy nothing for the game.

Further, we know that WotC's target is for each of their supplements to sell in excess of 100k units. Even amongst those who do buy the PHB only a minority then go on to buy anything else.

So you're selling to a small fraction of a small fraction of that player base, and that's before you move beyond WotC's own material.

I'm also inclined to note that I, for one, have become very burnt out on buying lots of material for the game - I have many shelves of third-party material for 3e that is almost entirely worthless, and much of which was never of any use to me. (And, frankly, that's also true of my many other shelves of first-party material for 2nd and 3rd editions.) There are some real gems amongst them, but they're very much the exception. My wallet, my shelves, and my back are all rather thankful that there's no longer the same 'need' to buy deeply.

(Which puts me in an odd position, because I also actively want more material from WotC. But it's not just a case of wanting more - I'm looking for support for some specific settings and subsystems. But I digress.)

 

[Mr. Wilson]

What are those, out of curiosity?

If I had to guess, he's talking about Tome of Beasts (which is fantastic) and the Midgard Heroes Handbook. They are also printing a Tome of Beasts 2 due out around August I believe.

Point of fact on my earlier post, I also purchased the Tal'Dorei campaign setting in PDF form since the Hardcover was sold out.

 

[jasper]

Ok lets see if I can show why 3 PP does not sell well or have a good rep.
1E products I Owned but never used more than twice. Dungeon and Wildness Survival guides.Wilderlands of High Fantasy, Fantasic Wilderlands beyond, City State of Invicible Overlord, Dark Tower, First Fantasy Campaign, Grim tooth Traps (all 3 books), some dragon lance modules and those are still on my shelf.
Things I passed on in the store. Manual of the planes, Spell Jammer, Dark Sun, first d30 with the charts booklet. There were others.

 

[Jester David]

What are those, out of curiosity?

Tome of Beasts is the first. It gets used almost every session at my table.
Heroes Handbook is the big feast of crunch everyone wanted befire we got the appetizer know as Xanathar’s Guide to Everything.

 

[Jester David]

I believe the evidence since 3E, per WotC is that only that fraction that buys adventures buys *any* books at all, basically. The separate product for everyone at the table strategy was a bust, that's why all the books are DM/Player smorgasbords now.

I agree.

I think the “adventures are money losers” argument was clearly shown as false by Paizo and the huge success of the AP line.

I think that idea that adventures don’t sell came out of someone looking at poor adventure sales from 2e and forgetting most were campaign specific. Or someone assuming everyone at the table buys equal numbers of books, when it’s usually one person who spends money on the hobby and three to five others who just play.

Splatbooks might sell better... for a time. But that’s a finite revenue stream. You only need so many options.

 

[Zardnaar]

I agree.

I think the “adventures are money losers” argument was clearly shown as false by Paizo and the huge success of the AP line.

I think that idea that adventures don’t sell came out of someone looking at poor adventure sales from 2e and forgetting most were campaign specific. Or someone assuming everyone at the table buys equal numbers of books, when it’s usually one person who spends money on the hobby and three to five others who just play.

Splatbooks might sell better... for a time. But that’s a finite revenue stream. You only need so many options.

I think you are right about the adventures don't sell thing. Quality ones do and several of them are biggest selling D&D items of all time. Most of them were Gygax ones though.

Adventures are probably diminishing returns though I suspect that once you have a few you don't need more.

 

[ccs]

Quote Originally Posted by ccs View Post

So 1st party = WoTC/TSR
3rd party = everyone else.

Who's the 2nd party?

You are.

So if I published something do you think I'd count as a 3PP in my own game?

 

[pming]

Hiya!

If what WotC said in the recent article about how they have 12-15 million players in NA is true, then they are way more massive then what 3rd party success would lead one too believe. On a lot of forums outside of EnWorld (and sometimes, even on EnWorld), 3rd party material is always treated as a last resort and very rarely pulled from. After all, when you have a playerbase of 12-15 million, those 100-500 backers on Kickstarter suddenly don't seem like so many. Even if each backer represents a full party of 5 eagers players, that's still less than 1% of the D&D market.

Thoughts?

Simply put, "Rulings...not Rules". That's the name of the game. That's what, imnsho, "caused" 5e to be so successful; the OSR was in full swing (still is to some degree) and people were just sick of rules, rules, rules, and more rules. Complete Book of This, Ultimate Guide to That, Billy-Joe Bobs Wondrously Weird Wombats, the books just kept coming and coming. This was..."bloat". Specifically, "Rules Bloat". The "old farts" (re: people like me who still play 1e AD&D), and an increasing amount of new folks brought into RPG'ing by us "old farts". What 5e did was basically say "Nope. Not doing that again. Maybe one or two books, tops, per year. Core rules will be simple and streamlined. Feats, Multiclassing, and many other things will be OPTIONAL. KISS principle will be in effect. Enjoy!".

...and that's why there is simply not a lot of folks wanting, or should I say "needing", a new book of options ever month. The 5e rules outright FORCES a DM to make rulings and interpretations when he/she is DM'ing. This does something that 3.x/PF never did...it builds a DM's confidence in their craft AND gives the Players confidence in the DM's decisions. This is the same sort of mentality that pretty much ALL of the OSR-style games did; put the DM in the role of Final Decision Maker, and not the latest rule book expansion that a player whips out at the table one evening.

IMNSHO, again, I think that the majority of 5e DM's are just enjoying the heck outta creating their OWN stuff for their OWN campaign world (wasn't it like, 25% or so of 5e DM's us FR...and over 50% use their own home-brewed campaign setting?...something like that anyway). Ergo, no demand for a lot of 5e "stuff". Which is a VERY GOOD THING indeed!

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[Dausuul]

Adventures are probably diminishing returns though I suspect that once you have a few you don't need more.

Seems like it would be the opposite. If you don't homebrew your own campaigns, then you'll need a steady stream of adventures or you run out of material. On the other hand, once you've got your PHB, you don't need to keep buying more.

Those of us who like playing with new mechanics do want an ongoing stream of splatbooks as well, but that doesn't require a lot of them. One book like Xanathar's supplies plenty of material to keep the game fresh for a couple of years. And even that is optional - we don't need the new mechanics in the way that a group relying on published adventures needs new adventures. We can keep playing with the stuff in the PHB indefinitely, we just start getting antsy after a while. A group that runs out of adventures, runs out of game.