D&D 5E Am I no longer WoTC's target audience?

[3catcircus]

We just ran through the 2e adventure(s) Four From Cormyr using 5e. Our DM converted on the fly, and the adventure ran exceptionally well. I'd never even heard fo that adventure before and it was a blast. Have you tried using 2e adventures in 5e?

Core mechanics are easy to convert. It's the mechanics providing setting-specific flavor that are the problem. Recall the 3e regional feats? Great idea to provide specific flavor. Now do that for Dark Sun or Greyhawk... I seem to recall a Dragon article that tried to 3e-ize all the old settings.

Now what about the different cosmologies in the different settings vs core? I've handwaved it away by stating to my players that the Great Wheel is the true architecture and the FR or Eberron architectures are how people in those realms perceive it - frame if reference and all that.

What about cleaning up idiosyncracies between different products for the same campaign setting that don't align with each other?

All those things are what takes time - time that older players and DMs usually don't have. No DM wants to think through 4 different references if that don't have to. The 3e FRCS as far as I'm concerned is the gold standard for what a campaign setting book should consist of, if it is given a 5e treatment.

 

[Parmandur]

Doesn'tit seem odd to you that the biggest RPG publisher by an order of magnitude publishes two books a year, while companies with far fewer resources publish 5 or 8?

WotC put out seven major releases last year, and 4-ish seems to be the ongoing plan. It doesn't seem odd, once they have repeatedly explained how the slow roll allows them to make more money and get more people playing.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Because otherwise everything you just is about as valid an assertion as saying they use a magic 8-ball to make decisions.

That would make as much sense as every other theory we've heard....

Am I no longer WoTC's target audience?

Magic 8-ball says: "Don’t count on it."

Seriously (no, not really, it's just an awkward segue) though, I don't no why I hadn't thought of it before, but "no longer" implies that you were, at some point in the past, their target audience. But, just because you bought their stuff before doesn't mean they were gunning for you, you could have just been caught in the blast radius...
...collateral sales, as it were.

 

[Slit518]

I agree with you TC on your OP.

I am not interested in modules, nor am I interested in their cross-over products, like Rick & Morty or Stranger Things.

I like books that add options for players, that add monsters, and add stuff for DM's.

I go one step further, I am not really interested in any of their fictional worlds either.

 

[3catcircus]

There are RPG companies that design and publish many more books per year than WotC, even though they sell far fewer of each book published. And of course previous editions of D&D saw WotC publish many more books a year as well.

Doesn't it seem odd to you that the biggest RPG publisher by an order of magnitude publishes two books a year, while companies with far fewer resources publish 5 or 8?

How many of the small publishers have a possibly-non-engaged board and shareholders driving things?

Small publishers don't have the distractions of huge publishers. Small publishers are in control of their own schedules and can decide how much work that they can take on instead of having it assigned to them by a manager. Small publishers don't have the inefficiency associated with larger publishers. Small publishers don't have the overhead of large publishers. How much time is each WotC employee spending on mandatory HR-dictated training each year?

 

[Haffrung]

How many of the small publishers have a possibly-non-engaged board and shareholders driving things?

That's my point. WotC's publishing tempo is driven by shareholders who expect a higher return on investment than moderately-sized RPG publishers like Paizo do. If the CFO said they needed to cut releases down to one a year, the design team would say aye-aye captain and spin it as though that were the ideal number from a game perspective.

 

[hawkeyefan]

That's my point. WotC's publishing tempo is driven by shareholders who expect a higher return on investment than moderately-sized RPG publishers like Paizo do. If the CFO said they needed to cut releases down to one a year, the design team would say aye-aye captain and spin it as though that were the ideal number from a game perspective.

Well, that's true of just about any company, isn't it?

And while maximizing profits is certainly going to be a factor in their decision making, part of that will also be longevity. From all we've seen, they want to maintain this edition for as long as possible.

So it really depends if they're playing the 5-10 year game, or the 20 year game.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Just thought I'd share some images of recent products that show who the target market is these days (my two year old daughter has expressed that the Owl Bear is her favorite thing):

This is the kind of stuff that I'd expect kids to like and that I think is cool for them to make, but I am definitely leery of giving a kid the actual MM or the like, especially once they can read and actually get how creepy some of the monsters are. Some kids will be just immune - sounds like yours are - but like I said, there are kids who watch terrifying horror movies in single digit ages and are fine - it's just that most aren't.

Ironically though the person I know who would most like that Owlbear is 40... maybe I should get it for him...

How much time is each WotC employee spending on mandatory HR-dictated training each year?

When people say stuff like this, I start thinking "Have you actually worked at a real company, or do you just read about them on the internet?". Because realistically, a lot of mandatory training in large companies is absolutely NOT "HR-directed" (and complaining about "HR-directed" is about 3 feet away from complaining about "namby-pamby politically correct snake person snowflakes!"), and there's really not going to be enough of it to make any kind of measurable dent in your output, unless you're only employed there for like six months or less, and even then it'll be a single-digit percent.

 

[3catcircus]

Well, that's true of just about any company, isn't it?

Public companies, yes. Privately-held companies do what they want.

 

[Parmandur]

This is the kind of stuff that I'd expect kids to like and that I think is cool for them to make, but I am definitely leery of giving a kid the actual MM or the like, especially once they can read and actually get how creepy some of the monsters are. Some kids will be just immune - sounds like yours are - but like I said, there are kids who watch terrifying horror movies in single digit ages and are fine - it's just that most aren't.

Ironically though the person I know who would most like that Owlbear is 40... maybe I should get it for him...



When people say stuff like this, I start thinking "Have you actually worked at a real company, or do you just read about them on the internet?". Because realistically, a lot of mandatory training in large companies is absolutely NOT "HR-directed" (and complaining about "HR-directed" is about 3 feet away from complaining about "namby-pamby politically correct snake person snowflakes!"), and there's really not going to be enough of it to make any kind of measurable dent in your output, unless you're only employed there for like six months or less, and even then it'll be a single-digit percent.

For sure my kids are unusual, but the material is being skewed towards kids and families, very strongly.