D&D 5E The Printers Can't Handle WotC's One D&D Print Runs!

One of the reasons why the three new core rulebooks next year will not be released together is because D&D is such a juggernaut that the printers can't actually handle the size of the print runs!

Jeremy Crawford told Polygon "Our print runs are pretty darn big and printers are telling us you can’t give us these three books at the same time.” And Chris Perkins added that "The print runs we’re talking about are massive. That’s been not only true of the core books, but also Tasha’s Cauldron. It’s what we call a high-end problem."

 

[Azzy]

Just what I observe.

Source: Dude, trust me.™

 

[darjr]

Because no one can agree on what "baseline D&D" is supposed to be. You've read the threads... you see exactly all the discussions about how D&D is "too easy" while at the same time being "too complicated" for new players. For every person that think baseline D&D should be balanced like Level Up is... there are others that want to strip the game down to its bones.

At least WotC's internal alpha testers go into the job knowing that they aren't balancing how THEY think it should be... they are balancing based upon the foundations WotC has told them they are going with.

You know that? Someone told you?

I mean it’s a good answer just not satisfying to me.

 

[Parmandur]

You know that? Someone told you?

I mean it’s a good answer just not satisfying to me.

Mike Mearls did talk about this a bit in the Happy Fun Hour streams back in the day, during Q&A.

 

[beta-ray]

One thing to consider (which I am not an expert on at all) is the the business of printing nowadays. I do know during the height of the pandemic, doing a print run was much more difficult than it was prior. If my memory serves, even leading up to the pandemic, things were not up to scales as in years past. There could be a lot of factors (businesses drying up, lack of material, etc). So a printer not being able to handle many large runs is not that inconceivable.

But it is probably some dumb conspiracy or flex.

Sheesh.

 

[bedir than]

This is from 2021

Until 2018, there were three major printing presses in the US. Then one of them, the 125-year-old company Edwards Brothers Malloy, closed. The remaining big two, Quad and LSC, attempted to merge in 2020, but then the Justice Department filed an antitrust lawsuit. Quad responded by getting out of the book business entirely; LSC filed for bankruptcy and sold off a number of its presses. Smaller printers have continued to operate, but the infrastructure to keep up with the demand for printed books in North America is in shambles.

You can think that every single book publisher and printer is in on a conspiracy with a relatively small book publisher or you can think that Wizards of the Coast is lying to you.
While there has been some recovery in printing during 2022. The industry doesn't have the bandwidth it did in 2018 and at the same time people are reading more books and playing more games with books than every before.

 

[Michael Linke]

I don't back Kickstarters that don't have product ready to go.

If they have product ready to go, they don’t belong on kickstarter.

 

[Hussar]

You're putting a lot of faith in the design team at WotC as being better than anyone else.

Professional game designers with years and sometimes decades worth of published projects to their name can some 20 something rando whose never gm’d before.

Yeah I’d say I have more faith in the design team.

Funny how we have years of people pooping on dms guild and fan made products having terrible mechanics but now we’re supposed to believe that Joe Q Gamer is a professional game designer.

 

[Demetrios1453]

If I am not interested in something, I find it quite easy to ignore. I have no need to tell everyone that I do not like it.

This is no different for a CD, book, movie, game, actor, … or TTRPG book / edition / entire system

I, for one, have far better things to do with my limited time (in both my personal daily time and the overall fact that all humans have a limited lifespan) than to hang around somewhere dedicated to a thing I don't like and pettily try to drag down other peoples' happiness. Life is too short - live your own bliss instead of trying to destroy others'!

 

[Micah Sweet]

If they have product ready to go, they don’t belong on kickstarter.

Tell that to many, many companies that Kickstart new products regularly.

 

[Demetrios1453]

Monster books do sell well. At least for 3pp.

Our own @Nixlord has several best-sellers on the DM's Guild with his Monster Manual Expanded books...