D&D General Is DnD being mothballed?

[Maxperson]

Well there was Big Bang Theory and the PAX shows and podcasts and Eve some early streaming. There was even a week long event for the 4e starter red box on a decently sized cable channel of the time. None of that changed 4es trajectory.

Perhaps not, but who is to say that it didn't help 4e out to some degree? They could have increased sales without being able to overcome the issues that edition was facing.

 

[deganawida]

They were literally publishing a book a month for 4E for a while. It was just too much, even for many of the most dedicated players. For that matter, after a while they just seemed to run out of ideas.

I agree with both of these points. I loved 4e, bought the special edition of the first three core books, then the next PHB, the FR books, and started feeling both a serious pinch in my budget, and burn out. By the time it got to the psionic source, and all four roles were covered while martial still lacked a controller, I felt that newer sources were just giving out new classes to cover the grid. I lost interest until Essentials.

That said, I do still love 4e. I just think part of the issue is that it was poorly managed, likely due to corporate expectations.

 

[Umbran]

None of that changed 4es trajectory.

So, again, I must repeat myself - we don't know what changed what. For any one of those influences, we cannot say what would have happened otherwise.

Maybe Big Bang Theory had a positive influence, and the trajectory might have been slightly worse without it. Maybe it was ineffectual, either way. Maybe, even though it was popular, since BBT relied heavily on negative stereotypes and tropes of geekdom for its humor, it actually made things worse!

We can create plausible narrative for any of these. We have no data supporting them.

 

[Oofta]

Yes, but that isn't an acute change in influence we can point to cleanly explain 5e sales, specifically. It an influence has been steadily growing for this entire century, since at least the popularity of the Lord of the Rings films.

Which is why I think the statements of "5E is successful because of [insert any single reason or three here]" makes no sense. It's a whole confluence of things.

The only thing that bothers me are those people that seem to insist that without Stranger Things or CR, 5E would have failed. I happen to disagree, I think one of the reasons 5E gets more free publicity and streams is in large part because those people doing the streams happen to like the game. The fact that they have fun playing the game shows and it's what helps to sell the streams and the game.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

You should not expect any evidence about anything else, so lack of that evidence doesn't tell you anything.

However, there is evidence. Nearly every lengthy video that comes out, you will see a bunch of astonished responses to weird, seemingly clueless things that come out of the mouths of otherwise rational and smart WotC developers. There is a persistent disconnect between what goes on in the virtual halls of WotC and what goes on outside, which is likely exacerbated by the weird ways they conduct their feedback polls. ("Is this the best thing ever or is it the worst thing ever? No, there are no shades of gray. Choose!")

 

[Micah Sweet]

No, D&D is not being mothballed. It has a new edition coming out next year.

I thought we all came down on it not being a new edition (some of us under duress)?

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

What are "players asking for"...? I wouldn't take a few thousand people on Reddit as necessarily better than WotC market research, which we know theybare doing.

Cool. I didn't mention Reddit. Please engage with what I'm saying, rather than strawmen.

Their market research is weirdly designed. I just filled out the most recent overall survey and, like the UA feedback surveys, it's difficult to tell them that something is pretty good but needs work, or something's a decent idea but approached wrong.

It's all based on dramatic binaries, which means they're getting back either lavish praise for everything they do (which certainly represents some members of the ENWorld community) or abject hatred of what they do (which likewise represents some others), but nothing in the middle -- which leaves out, I'd argue, nearly the entire user base.

 

[Sparky McDibben]

Posting Justin Alexander's comments from his discord server, because they mostly echo my own:

The game ain't mothballed. The anemic approach to content is consistent with 5th edition's history.

Thanks for sharing. Still confused by the "4E was a huge success no really" argument Mr Colville and Mr. Abadia propagate.

 

[Micah Sweet]

OK, now I’m going to say something possibly on the edge. The new book release rate is also a test. If you want it to be higher, buy them all.

Its too late now. If they had increased production before they pivoted on design a few years ago, they would have got a lot more money from me.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

This is just something I've heard say online and never experienced in person since I was not exposed to US marketing at that time, but I was told that 4E marketing was absolutely terrible back in the day. My understanding was that the attempts at hyping the system was really hostile to old school fans of D&D.

It was pretty tone deaf. It's perfectly reasonable, and expected, for designers to get hyped over what they see as fixes to previous issues. But there were better ways of doing it.