D&D General Is DnD being mothballed?

[Maxperson]

Also the release pace has been covered over and over again.

The 3rd edition pace, in the king term, was bad for the edition.

And as always, I will point out that there is a rather huge middle ground between the glut of 3e and the glacial pace of 5e. After reading Matt's tweets above, I think perhaps it's a combination thing. I believe that the slowdown is part of their plan, but perhaps it's the lack of resources that makes it as incredibly slow as it is.

 

[DarkCrisis]

As a person around for 3E, YES there was too much stuff. I think 5E is wise to pull back the throttle. And even with that it’s still over saturated a bit. But all lines get bloater after so many years

 

[billd91]

Matt’s awesome, but he also says a lot of things. Like a lot of people. I just wish more folks would take a deeper dive before taking g things on board.

It's not like he isn't aware of many of the things going on with D&D (even if it's not his primary focus).
But from an outsider perspective, a AAA D&D computer game drops and Wizards does... what? A couple of posts on D&D Beyond? There does seem to be a relative lack of engagement between the TTRPG end and the broader brand.

 

[darjr]

It's not like he isn't aware of many of the things going on with D&D (even if it's not his primary focus).
But from an outsider perspective, a AAA D&D computer game drops and Wizards does... what? A couple of posts on D&D Beyond? There does seem to be a relative lack of engagement between the TTRPG end and the broader brand.

Except WotC creative folk on the team did work with Larian. Throughout the development.

Decent was the tie in product, it’s even got story tie ins in BG3 itself.

However you may have a point about outsider perspective. Matt self admittedly doesn’t know what WotC is doing, wasn’t buying their products or books, but went in deep in BG3. I imagine it might skew perspectives. Maybe.

 

[Maxperson]

No.

This is the best selling rpg ever.

If that other stuff was the secret sauce it might have been 3rd.

This is a case of correlation is not causation. 5e came out at a time when D&D was being mainstreamed by Stranger Things, Big Bang Theory and more. As well as being made famous via the streaming of Matt Mercer and company. You can't say that the success is because of the slow release rate. Nor can you say that if 3e had been released in 2014 that it wouldn't have done as well or better.

It's possible that 5e is the best ever(different from best selling). It's also possible that the release rate has a lot to do with it. And it's also possible that neither of those things are true and it's due to other factors.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

Even if they could, they shouldn't publish too many, because thanks the open licence there is a lot of titles by 3PPs, and even free homebred ideas, and when we are talking about lore, the books from previous editions, or the fandom wikis, is enough. And the translations to other languanges also need time and staff. The market strategy should be to bet for the best crunch, and unlocking more settings in DMGuild.

Other suggestion is cheap D&D monster toys, and something like "Dark Pack" by World of Darkness where 3PPs who obey certain rules are allowed to publish fiction based in the franchise. It shouldn't too different than opening a space for fiction in DMGuild.

I guess about videogames they should licence studios with enough experience, or collabs with other games.

 

[darjr]

This is a case of correlation is not causation. 5e came out at a time when D&D was being mainstreamed by Stranger Things, Big Bang Theory and more. As well as being made famous via the streaming of Matt Mercer and company. You can't say that the success is because of the slow release rate. Nor can you say that if 3e had been released in 2014 that it wouldn't have done as well or better.

It's possible that 5e is the best ever(different from best selling). It's also possible that the release rate has a lot to do with it. And it's also possible that neither of those things are true and it's due to other factors.

it was a huge hit before that. So much so it shocked the WotC folks.

 

[FallenRX]

Part of me can't help but feel like Matt's opinion (from what I understand) is coming from a place of frustration due to his enjoyment of how 4e was, and how much WotC has moved away from all the things that came with that edition, game and production wise. Grant it, I'm not too well verse in his work but from what little I've seen of what he has said in the past year, I can't help but feel like he WANTS this opinion to be true and that WotC's decisions about 5e were bad to justify his feeling of 4e being better.

Please note that I'm only going off of what little I know about him and what he and other have said about him and his opinions. This is just my thoughts from that limited knowledge.

I actually can see this too, Matt has a lot of faith in developers, espeically since some lead designers in 5e used to work directly under him in MCDM, but i still think something is up really because things about 5e and how its being put out are geniunely odd.

 

[Maxperson]

it was a huge hit before that. So much so it shocked the WotC folks.

How was it a huge hit prior to its release? And in any case the timing of those other factors is still there to boost things. Correlation is not causation.

 

[darjr]

How was it a huge hit prior to its release?

Before Stranger Things and Critical Role.

Also the playtest were a phenomenon too.