WotC 2020 Was The Best Year Ever For Dungeons & Dragons

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

We probably have a different definition of "bend over backwards".

I'm assuming @Parmandur's definition is something like "go out of their way to provide something for a part of the fanbase that is steadily becoming less and less important (in terms of profit and the future direction of the hobby)". I can't speak for them, but that's what I got from their post.

I'm not really the target audience for most modules or campaign setting books, but I can also kind of understand why they would redo Ravenloft and related settings rather than come up with brand new stuff. I mean, if you're going to have the gothic horror vibe there's not a lot of reason to not dig up and reanimate a dead setting.

There are only so many variations of D&D campaigns that fit into general genres. If you have an old setting that fits the genre why not use it if you can bring it up to modern standards? That doesn't mean they're doing it for any specific group. Personally I'd kind of like to see more creativity and truly new stuff, but corporate types seem to prefer "proven" ideas.

They could have done Innistrad, though. If they wanted to bring Gothic Horror to 5e, they could have just as easily (or possibly more easily) just whipped out the WotC workers that developed the M:tG Innistrad sets and had them work with the WotC workers in charge of setting books to bring Innistrad officially to 5e. I think it's highly likely that the people they needed to get in order to transport Innistrad to 5e would have been easier than to bring back Ravenloft, especially given the fact that there's already a Planeshift Innistrad document to get them started, and based on the amount of work it must have taken to make the huge changes to Ravenloft that are now official.

That seems like "bending over backwards to please older players" to me.

 

[Northern Phoenix]

I'm not @Northern Phoenix, but I am a younger member of these forums, and so I feel that my experience is worth saying.

In my experience on these forums and those of D&D Beyond, it's both. Certain people are more passive aggressive towards younger generations/styles of play than others, and some are more directly and outright hostile. Both attitudes seem to be more common on this site's forums than those of D&D Beyond, but the more outright and direct hostility seems particularly common here in comparison to D&D Beyond's forums.

However, the passive aggressive type of hostility is by far the most common on both sites. I can count the amount of times I've been told by an older-style player that "D&D is being destroyed by Eberron and Critical Role" using the fingers on both hands, but I can't count the amount of times I've heard people say stuff like, "It's not my cup of tea, let me list all of the reasons I hate it and why I don't think it should be in the hobby, but you do you". There are quite a few outspoken advocates for the newer generation of D&D and their style, which can be seen in this thread and other similar ones, though, which does help.

I think you got pretty close here, the "doomer" nostalgia sentiment can be pretty overpowering sometimes. I cringe every time i read a variant of "D&D is being destroyed by Eberron and Critical Role", or by story-gaming or by whatever else isn't in line with how things "used to be". It shouldn't matter what age someone is, be it 60 or 15, everyone should be able to see that the best is yet to come for DnD! And while that is true for the wider "new" DnD community, i think forums like this could do more to embrace the rising tide in terms of community.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

WotC and DMSGuild paid for a historian to write pieces from scratch for classic tittles being re-released in pdf and in print on demand.

HEY- LANGUAGE!

 

[Disgruntled Hobbit]

If that us what you think is happening, your perspective is off. WorC still bends over backwards to appeal to older players, constantly.

What was the last product designed principally for older players first and not newcomers with old players as an afterthought?

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

What was the last product designed principally for older players first and not newcomers with old players as an afterthought?

Besides Tales from the Yawning Portal and Ghosts of Saltmarsh? Probably the SCAG. Before that, the PHB, DMG, and Monster Manual, which took a huge design shift from what 4e was like to be more like 3e. (I think Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft should qualify, too, as it was designed with both newer and older players in mind, but you've already made up your mind on that.)

 

[darjr]

HEY- LANGUAGE!

Make sure to catch my dance number too!

 

[Parmandur]

What was the last product designed principally for older players first and not newcomers with old players as an afterthought?

Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft.

 

[Benjamin Olson]

If their sales numbers say 2020 was a great year for D&D as a product I won't argue with that, but as a hobby I'm pretty doubtful. In my experience the pandemic killed two of my groups, although it did also expand one since once we went digital we could add a couple people who lived further away. It also at least temporarily disrupted most of my favorite D&D-centric online content. One of the game shops I used to play in went out of business. The meetup.com group through which I used to find groups became moribund. I doubt my experiences are wildly atypical.

Congrats to WotC on having a banner year. If having their lives disrupted encouraged a record number of new people to take the plunge and try the game than cool, that's a nice silver lining as well. But 2020 was also a terrible year for the hobby in other ways and labeling it "the best year ever for D&D" seems a pretty shallow reading to me.

Sorry to be super negative, but this seems like the sort of skewed reading you get of events when you get your news from the "yay everything capitalist!" magazine Forbes. Profit off the game is at a high so the game is at a high. The hobby is in a good place, these days, but that doesn't mean that we should ignore that 2020 was actually pretty terrible to it in many ways, much as the year was terrible to countless other things.

 

[Parmandur]

If their sales numbers say 2020 was a great year for D&D as a product I won't argue with that, but as a hobby I'm pretty doubtful. In my experience the pandemic killed two of my groups, although it did also expand one since once we went digital we could add a couple people who lived further away. It also at least temporarily disrupted most of my favorite D&D-centric online content. One of the game shops I used to play in went out of business. The meetup.com group through which I used to find groups became moribund. I doubt my experiences are wildly atypical.

Congrats to WotC on having a banner year. If having their lives disrupted encouraged a record number of new people to take the plunge and try the game than cool, that's a nice silver lining as well. But 2020 was also a terrible year for the hobby in other ways and labeling it "the best year ever for D&D" seems a pretty shallow reading to me.

Sorry to be super negative, but this seems like the sort of skewed reading you get of events when you get your news from the "yay everything capitalist!" magazine Forbes. Profit off the game is at a high so the game is at a high. The hobby is in a good place, these days, but that doesn't mean that we should ignore that 2020 was actually pretty terrible to it in many ways, much as the year was terrible to countless other things.

In many ways, it was terrible. Not for D&D, though. Yes, because of money, but also a banner year for digital play.

 

[Azzy]

WotC and DMSGuild paid for a historian to write pieces from scratch for classic books being re-released in pdf and in print on demand. That IS catering to older fans of that material. That's something they didn't need to do. That's something that is difficult to prove if it had ANY affect on the bottom line or sales. But no, people need a windmill to rage against.

This is something that I've really enjoyed.