WotC 2020 Was The Best Year Ever For Dungeons & Dragons

[Disgruntled Hobbit]

Right, they had absolutely no idea how many new players were coming to D&D 5e until under 2 years ago. I guess they never heard of Critical Role before then, either, so they had no idea what the Tal'dorei Campaign Guide was and how successful it was, right? It was just a coincidence that they hired Matt Mercer to work on Waterdeep: Dragon Heist with them, not at all connected to how popular his D&D live stream was and how many new players it was bringing to the hobby, right?

WotC has known for years how many new players D&D 5e was gaining (due in no small part to Critical Role), well before Ghosts of Saltmarsh came out.

You mean the campaign guide that was published in 2017? When they would have started work on GHOSTS OF SALTMARSH
They knew CRITICAL ROLE was a hit, but it was still growing and the full effect it was having on the industry was still uncertain
2 years ago they knew. But we're just seeing the books the started planning at that time now
Just like we're not going to see the books the decided to make based on the 2020 surveys until next year

 

[Disgruntled Hobbit]

And I have the opposite experience (in real-life, not online which is just an echo chamber). Personal anecdotes aren't great representations of actual sales.

Your personal anecdote trumps my personal anecdote?

 

[Disgruntled Hobbit]

The marketing did no such thing, particulwhen red to the 4E material. The book goes out of it's way to present each version of the domain as a field of possibility that even includes the originals (all the original material is on sale still, even). They really picked out bits that they had tweaked a bit for marketimgnpurposes, but they did not do what you are claiming.

So you can use the book to update old products? You can run a campaign set in the past using the new material with minimal homebrewing?
It contains stats for the dark lords lots of old monsters so you can update old adventures?

 

[Disgruntled Hobbit]

So....no specifics then?

An Exclusive Look At A Van Richten’s Guide To Ravenloft Domain

We talked with lead designer Wes Schneider about the Ravenloft domain of Dementlieu from the upcoming Dungeons & Dragons release this month.

www.forbes.com

Meet one of D&D's next gruesome settings: 'Ravenloft's Lamordia,' a place of 'stitches and semi-dead flesh'

SYFY WIRE has an exclusive preview of one Domain of Dread from Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft, Lamordia, a snowy land where a diabolical scientist stitches flesh together.

www.syfy.com

D&D's Guide to Ravenloft: Magical Disaster Horrors Await Players

It’s almost time to descend onto the dread demi-plane of Ravenloft and its many realms when Dungeons & Dragons releases its latest sourcebook, Van

io9.gizmodo.com

D&D’s new Ravenloft book swaps outdated tropes for a high-fantasy approach

A sneak peek at Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft, the realm of Har’Akir, and its darklord, Ankhotep

www.polygon.com

D&D: A Preview Of Three Different Domains Of Dread In Ravenloft

Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft is full of dozens of new Domains of Dread, and today we're getting a preview of three: Lamordia, Dementlieu, and Har'akir.

www.belloflostsouls.net

Dragon Talk | Official D&D Podcast | Dungeons & Dragons

Each week, the D&D team sits down with celebrities and personalities from across gaming and pop culture to discuss the world's greatest roleplaying game.

dnd.wizards.com

Every single preview is about the changes the made
Not the domains they kept the same or found ways of tweaking
Just the ones they completely rewrote

Just like 4th Ed's marketing

 

[Parmandur]

So you can use the book to update old products? You can run a campaign set in the past using the new material with minimal homebrewing?
It contains stats for the dark lords lots of old monsters so you can update old adventures?

It does have plenty of monster stats, yes, and indicates which ones to use for Dark Lord's. Using this material with the old would be child's play.

 

[Parmandur]

An Exclusive Look At A Van Richten’s Guide To Ravenloft Domain

We talked with lead designer Wes Schneider about the Ravenloft domain of Dementlieu from the upcoming Dungeons & Dragons release this month.

www.forbes.com

Meet one of D&D's next gruesome settings: 'Ravenloft's Lamordia,' a place of 'stitches and semi-dead flesh'

SYFY WIRE has an exclusive preview of one Domain of Dread from Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft, Lamordia, a snowy land where a diabolical scientist stitches flesh together.

www.syfy.com

D&D's Guide to Ravenloft: Magical Disaster Horrors Await Players

It’s almost time to descend onto the dread demi-plane of Ravenloft and its many realms when Dungeons & Dragons releases its latest sourcebook, Van

io9.gizmodo.com

D&D’s new Ravenloft book swaps outdated tropes for a high-fantasy approach

A sneak peek at Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft, the realm of Har’Akir, and its darklord, Ankhotep

www.polygon.com

D&D: A Preview Of Three Different Domains Of Dread In Ravenloft

Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft is full of dozens of new Domains of Dread, and today we're getting a preview of three: Lamordia, Dementlieu, and Har'akir.

www.belloflostsouls.net

Dragon Talk | Official D&D Podcast | Dungeons & Dragons

Each week, the D&D team sits down with celebrities and personalities from across gaming and pop culture to discuss the world's greatest roleplaying game.

dnd.wizards.com

Every single preview is about the changes the made
Not the domains they kept the same or found ways of tweaking
Just the ones they completely rewrote

Just like 4th Ed's marketing

Those are examples to show you are overreacting, yes, particularly compared with the 4E approach.

 

[Reynard]

So you can use the book to update old products? You can run a campaign set in the past using the new material with minimal homebrewing?
It contains stats for the dark lords lots of old monsters so you can update old adventures?

I think if you are expecting simple 5e conversions of earlier material you are being both unrealistic and intentionally "disgruntled." You surely know that is not how it has EVER worked in the past and therefore can't actually expect that to be the case now, so you are not critiquing in good faith.

 

[darjr]

So much straw.

 

[Sithlord]

I have the setting material from 2E. So i don’t care too much about that. I’m curious if they have good mechanics for things like sinkhole of evil and other tools to make the setting better.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

You mean the campaign guide that was published in 2017? When they would have started work on GHOSTS OF SALTMARSH
They knew CRITICAL ROLE was a hit, but it was still growing and the full effect it was having on the industry was still uncertain
2 years ago they knew. But we're just seeing the books the started planning at that time now
Just like we're not going to see the books the decided to make based on the 2020 surveys until next year

Waterdeep: Dragon Heist came out in September of 2018. Matt Mercer contributed a lot the that book, WotC approached him to collaborate with him on that book's villains and adventures. They almost definitely would have started on Waterdeep: Dragon Heist before the Tal'dorei campaign setting came out, so they knew well before that book even came out that Critical Role was a huge success and that it was bringing a lot of new players into the game.

They would have been working on that book in the same time period that they were working on Ghosts of Saltmarsh, so they both a) knew that Critical Role was a huge success and bringing a bunch of players into the game and b) were creating an adventure compilation book with older editions' adventures being transported to D&D 5e, both at the same time. We also know that about half of the book ideas that get floated end up getting shut down for various reasons, even some well into their development phase, we even have specific examples (like this book that's never come out, and the Adventurer's Handbook). If they didn't care about older players once they knew newer players were coming into 5e in droves (like you've been asserting), why did they make and publish Ghosts of Saltmarsh? They could have just cancelled it, and could have done so early enough that they wouldn't have lost more money than they could make up by replacing the book with one more geared towards newer players. They didn't do that, though, which proves to me that they do care about pleasing older players.