D&D 5E D&D Team Productivity?

[tetrasodium]

To think we could've had 1000s more subclasses by now!

Not to mention all the existing settings that could've been repackaged and released in order to validate fans preferences for those settings.

It's difficult to support other settings because wotc isn't willing to make mechanics changes or strip away FR lore & baselines to make room for other settings . They were only willing to do it for eberron after a dmsguild release stripping away FR to rebuild the races as thy fit the setting justified the creation of the adamantine dmsguild medal here & a second one doing similar for classes was mithral.

 

[Mercurius]

1e had less hardback books, but had a LOT of modules created for it, not to mention the parallel production of BECMI which all contribute towards "D&D output by era". It also had regular content released in Dragon/Dungeon.

I'm willing to wager that 5e is the slowest output speed (excepting maybe 0e, which I know next to nothing about).

Yes, OD&D had by far the slowest output speed, with a big gap to 5E, then 1E and BECMI were roughly similar, as were 3.5 and 4E (at least for the first few years of 4E before the Great Collapse), with 2E having by far the most output.

1E had two phases, really, in terms of output. From 1977-82, it was relatively sparse, with one hardcover per year (none in 1982) and 3-8 modules per year, from 78-82 (none in 77). From 1983-88, there were 1-2 hardcovers per year, and usually a dozen or more modules, with a few box sets sprinkled in. So you're both right: 5E had greater output than early 1E, but less than later 1E. Overally I think 1E had more output, at least thus far.

 

[Maxperson]

The old chestnut seems to be right, though, as the slower release schedule seems to correlate with--if not cause--the huge success of 5E.

We know that the current success rate correlates with the current level of success. We don't know that correlation = causation. Nor do we know if a more moderate release rate would make them more money or less. So we don't know if the old chestnut is right. We only know that it seems to be better than a manic release rate.

 

[Parmandur]

They aren't in-between slow and manic, no. They are producing roughly the same numbers that 1e had.

Incorrect, as shown above they are producing rulebooks at about twice the rate of 1E, already matching the total number of book products from the entire edition (and dwarfing the page count, frankly).

Looking at the modules, actually they have been producing adventure material far more rapidly, though with fewer, much larger books.

Overall, it is a much faster rate of production than 1E. After 12 years of 5E, it will be much, much more material.

 

[Puddles]

Out of curiosity, do people know how many game designers are in the team currently, how many work on each book, and how long they have to write each book?

 

[Parmandur]

The rate of release of hardcover rules books is close to the same in both editions. I'm not looking at page count, but rate of release. If you're going to count stuff that really doesn't push the game as a whole forward, such as settings and adventures, 5e has more settings and bigger adventures. 1e still had a decent number of settings, as well as tons of smaller modules to play.

Rate of release is approximately double (Setting books are equivalent to other rulebooks).

1E at this point in it's lifespan had one setting, Greyhawk, released in a small booklet and then a boxed set.

 

[Mercurius]

We know that the current success rate correlates with the current level of success. We don't know that correlation = causation. Nor do we know if a more moderate release rate would make them more money or less. So we don't know if the old chestnut is right. We only know that it seems to be better than a manic release rate.

Yes, agreed, which is pretty much what I said, or at least meant .

It would be interesting to see WotC try pushing the envelop a bit. 2020 was a bit of an outlier year due to Covid, but still saw the third highest output after 2019 and 2014. Meaning, 2019-20 has seen a jump, with at least five major products. Both years saw four new hardbacks; in 2019, there was also the Essentials Kit, the Tyranny compilation book, and two variant starter sets; in 2020, four hardbacks plus Strahd Revamped, which seems to have taken the place of the Tyranny book.

Maybe that's the basic template going forward: four new hardbacks, one "luxury" product, and then improvising off that with possible other non-core products. On the other hand, we saw three hardbacks per year in 2015-17, four per year in 2018-20, so maybe five per year starting in 2021?

 

[Maxperson]

Incorrect, as shown above they are producing rulebooks at about twice the rate of 1E, already matching the total number of book products from the entire edition (and dwarfing the page count, frankly).

They are not. From 1977 to 1983 TSR put out the PHB, DMG, MM, Deities and Demigods, Fiend Folio and MMII. 6 hardcover rulebooks. From 2014 to 2020, WotC put out the PHB, DMG, MM, Volo's, Tasha's, Mordenkainen's and Xanathar's. One additional book. And Starting in 1984 TSR started producing much more content.

Settings and adventures are NOT rulebooks. At least not the way 5e makes them.

 

[ccs]

I'm just interjecting, I just thought I'd throw in some parameters to compare the rate of products.

I was just counting from Wikipedia, so the 14th is Legends & Lore, so good point: in less than 7 years, 5E has as many published hardcover rulebooks as 1E had in 12. On top of that, by and large the 5E books are larger books.

Ah, Legends & Lore....
That was just a new cover & name slapped onto the 2nd+ printing contents of the Deities & Demigods book. So I never think of it separately from Deities & Demigods. (indeed, the only reason I own a copy is because the name change tricked my brother & he got it for me for Christmas that year. He knew I didn't have a book by that name on the shelf, so....)

 

[DEFCON 1]

Actually I'm not GM'ing anything right now & don't expect I'll run o5e again. If it weren't for covid I'm pretty sure I would have switched systems by now because I was starting to consider options when I came down with covid in feb. Once covid is wrapping up or soon after I expect that I'll jump toa5e or something else depending on how timelines for stuff play out. As to your attempt at dismissal & suggestion of badwrongfun, appeal to popularity is a logical fallacy for a reason

Badwrongfun ain't got nothing to do with it. There's nothing wrong with how you play the game, and I never said otherwise. I just said that how you played the game wasn't as widespread as the way the game is played by all the people for whom all of WotC's books work fine, and thus your description of the truly "narrow" way of playing was misplaced.

But having a very specific way of playing D&D isn't wrong or bad or anything of the sort. It just isn't a target that game designers would be aiming for. Now if that means you have to rework the material for it to be useful to your style while the books can be run as-is by 20 others... we both know which way WotC's going to head.