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

[Reynard]

Because, it shows that they have the capacity and resources to undertake and sustain major commercial endeavors with professional-level editing.

By your logic, Rocksteady*, makers of the Arkham video games, are not a professional studio because they use the Unreal Engine instead of building an in house one. That distinction makes no sense at all.

*or any number of developers that use Unreal, Crytek, etc...

 

[generic]

By your logic, Rocksteady*, makers of the Arkham video games, are not a professional studio because they use the Unreal Engine instead of building an in house one. That distinction makes no sense at all.

*or any number of developers that use Unreal, Crytek, etc...

As I posted above, I used very poor phrasing. We are in agreement.

 

[Magister Ludorum]

Yeah, how are you going to do that without pissing off some GH fans? Some want it rebooted to the original boxed set. Some people like the Carl Sergeant era. Some like the Adventure Begins/Living Greyhawk Gazzetter era. Some want all the Living Greyhawk changes to become official. Some want the Paizohawk stuff to be official.

I run 5e Greyhawk from the original folio edition. I hate metaplot and "living" style settings.

Greyhawk doesn't need special rules. I weep when I think what they could do to the setting.

 

[Retreater]

My fiancée (a Critical Role fan) and I had a long discussion about CR and how we perceive its influence on the hobby. She is a millennial and relatively new to D&D, while I'm a Gen-Xer who has been around since the TSR days.
My experience with CR fans has been a little mixed. I mean, I like one of them at least enough to get married to her, and other CR fans play in my games. I do find that for most CR fans, there is a little discrepancy between what they expect of the game (based on watching CR and other experiences of the "new D&D") and what I provide as DM.
Not all CR fans in my group are young people (mid-20s or younger). I have several in their 40s or 50s. However, they are almost uniformly "new" players (or people who just came back to the hobby after decades away).
Some of the traits that I have been pointing out as "bad gaming" I have been blaming on Critical Role and watching other D&D streams. As my fiancée just said, maybe I'm just annoyed by "new gamer" mistakes (not working together as a party, stressing story over all other aspects of the game, etc.)
Granted, I did have a player leave my group to join a D&D streaming game, and that's something that wouldn't have happened prior to CR. But maybe these problems are as old as the game itself. And maybe I just notice it more because there are more new players. Which is a good problem to have.

 

[pemerton]

The problem is that the majority of D&D players probably are not going to search for the 4E-era Dark Sun Guide, as great as it was, and will only be aware of a 5E implementation.

I guess that is applicable for 4e players, not so much for those playing 5e.

People playing 5e who want to play Dark Sun can adapt the 4e stuff easily enough.

Are there large numbers of 5e players who are not aware of the earlier editions of Dark Sun, and who nevertheless want to play Dark Sun, but are not doing so because WotC hasn't published any 5e Dark Sun material? To me that seems unlikely. Maybe I'm wrong.

True, but they just re-did Eberron 10 years after its 4E release, which was only 6 years after its 3E release. I'm not saying that won't impact any future release, but WotC's internal considerations as to the viability of the IP is (obviously) far more determinative. I'd expect to see Eberron Vol. 2 well before I saw a guide to Birthright, just as an example.

This is all true. I think it reinforces my point: if WotC publishes 5e Dark Sun material it won't be because they are concerned to reconcile inconsistencies across past versions, or want to show people who are already familiar with Dark Sun how best to implement it in 5e. It will be because they think there is a market of 5e players - most of whom probably have only the most passing familiarity with Dark Sun - who want to buy Dark Sun material and perhaps use it in their games.

 

[TwoSix]

People playing 5e who want to play Dark Sun can adapt the 4e stuff easily enough.

Are there large numbers of 5e players who are not aware of the earlier editions of Dark Sun, and who nevertheless want to play Dark Sun, but are not doing so because WotC hasn't published any 5e Dark Sun material? To me that seems unlikely. Maybe I'm wrong.

This is all true. I think it reinforces my point: if WotC publishes 5e Dark Sun material it won't be because they are concerned to reconcile inconsistencies across past versions, or want to show people who are already familiar with Dark Sun how best to implement it in 5e. It will be because they think there is a market of 5e players - most of whom probably have only the most passing familiarity with Dark Sun - who want to buy Dark Sun material and perhaps use it in their games.

I think that the presence or absence of recent conversions is pretty much a trivial concern for WotC's future plans; if they think that Dark Sun is the most likely candidate to attract new players, they'll do that. If they think it's Spelljammer, they'll do that instead.

(Narrator: They didn't do Spelljammer.)

 

[pemerton]

I think that the presence or absence of recent conversions is pretty much a trivial concern for WotC's future plans; if they think that Dark Sun is the most likely candidate to attract new players, they'll do that. If they think it's Spelljammer, they'll do that instead.

Agreed.

But I think the present or absence of recent conversions is relevant to posts from people saying I want conversions. Because if they're already there, that's one more reason why those posts seem out of touch.

EDIT: I had only a passing familiarity with Dark Sun before buying the 4e books. (Since then a friend gave me some of his 2nd ed AD&D material.) I think the setting would need some work before being released for 5e. The pulp tropes run pretty rampant. (At the moment I'm thinking particularly of the African/Haitian city state, but my memory is that there is other stuff do that could benefit from reworking.)

One strength of Eberron is that it is written by a contemporary author expressing (as far as I am familiar with it) pretty mainstream liberal values.

 

[pemerton]

4e was ridiculed (unfairly) for how different it seemed, how it “killed sacred cows”, etc. Complaints that a new player basically couldn’t make.

The fact that some of us olds loved it doesn’t change the fact that more olds didn’t even ever give it a chance because of its marketing and presentation.

There certainly weren't any new players having that reaction. Some of 'em may have started with 3e, and been less old, but the negative "not really D&D" reaction was entirely in the established player base.

I get that old/established player is, or is close to, a necessary condition for having the "killed D&D" reaction. But it's far from sufficient. Which is what seems to be implied by saying that old players didn't like it.

As I said, I don't think that's the right description: it's very over-inclusive, and it seems not to fasten on what is actually salient in causing the affront. (Maybe old players who have no familiarity with any non-D&D RPGs would start to get closer. Even then I'm not sure.)

 

[TwoSix]

Agreed.

But I think the present or absence of recent conversions is relevant to posts from people saying I want conversions. Because if they're already there, that's one more reason why those posts seem out of touch.

Well, that's true. Wanting more material for your favorite setting has validity if you're looking for new material, the 3 different Eberron books for 3E, 4E, and 5E actually did a pretty good job at examining the setting from different angles and highlighting different aspects without actually retconning anything important. But any argument along the lines of "My game is being hindered because WotC won't release nu-Planescape!" is asinine.

Most games are run from campaign worlds built from scratch, even if you're referencing 2E material, 90% of the work is already done for you. It's a silly complaint.

 

[pemerton]

I would buy more WotC books if they published more of them, that's all. It just seems odd that even though D&D is more popular than ever, the license-holders publish far less content to support it than they did 10 or 12 years ago.

I thought that your second point (less content) is widely regarded as part of the reason for the first point (more popular). The causal connection is said to be accessibility, non-intimidating catalogue, and also well play-tested and market researched.