D&D General Is DnD being mothballed?

[FitzTheRuke]

marketing / market position might have a lot to do with that.

Sure but "We're outproducing WotC" with the implication that there's something WRONG with WotC because of that?

1) They're really probably NOT outproducing WotC when you compare apples to apples.
2) Maybe, if you compare apples to oranges, but then, SO WHAT?

Again, I'm not trying to toot WotC's horn. I'm simply trying to illustrate: The claim that WotC is somehow letting the game die is patently ridiculous. Laughably so. It doesn't matter if one can find one or two publishers who put out more product or not.

 

[payn]

We still can presume a little more awareness on the part of RPG customers.

You really cant. Check out The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity by Carlo M. Cipolla A very quick read, but very enlightening.

 

[Scribe]

We still can presume a little more awareness on the part of RPG customers.

My man.

The largest RPG company, with the biggest reach, with the most resourcing, conducted polling/survey/study.

They found, that calling it PHB 2, was factually confusing the market.

You may choose to presume that RPG players are somehow a breed apart from other gamers.

I however, choose to believe they are people, and 'people' are...well people.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I've heard that "the future of dnd is digital." We'll see if that ends up impacting a) the density of analog products available or b) their game design

If they automate gameplay to a much greater degree than they have, that could potentially lead to real trouble for the tabletop side. Anyone who's played an MMO or CRPG knows that the formulas underlying mechanics there can often be incredibly fiddly and difficult to duplicate with polyhedrals.

We're a long way away from this being issue, but having a table-focused design ethos, rather than a digitally focused one, matters.

 

[Morrus]

We still can presume a little more awareness on the part of RPG customers.

How very elitist of you.

 

[mamba]

Pretty sure that example there failed at, "All animals have four legs."

true... as they said, they are premises, they need not be true

 

[mamba]

The claim that WotC is somehow letting the game die is patently ridiculous.

agreed, I am not taking that serious, the only question is should they have a slightly increased release schedule or not, but that is all there is

 

[Micah Sweet]

The person I was responding to was claiming that WotC was passing up money.

Now, it is entirely rational for someone who wants a lot of game products to want WotC to follow a production pattern that historically produces a lot of products. I have no objection to them expressing that they would prefer lots of products.

But when a person goes on to claim that WotC is passing up lots of profits by not producing lots of products? It's worth pointing out that the traditional splatbook publishing strategy has been associated with rapid sales volume death spirals, across all RPG publishers, for decades.

(This is not to say that the pace of product in 5th edition is necessarily correct. It might have been better at a higher pace. Or, for all we can actually tell, 5th edition might have done far better if the new product pace had been half the rate it was. But to switch to the strategy used by most RPG companies 1990-2014 would not be a sane business move.)

Great for the consumer though.

 

[Micah Sweet]

How very elitist of you.

I would just not like everyone to be shackled to the marketing ideas pursued by a company that assumes the lowest common denominator amongst those who might buy their products.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

agreed, I am not taking that serious, the only question is should they have a slightly increased release schedule or not, but that is all there is

Sure!

It's my 30-year experience that says: They should not increase it. Not even slightly. 4-5 is maxed out. 4 is better than 5 (for $50, now $60 hardcovers, smaller products like DMs screens and dice are another thing).

A more interesting discussion, in my mind, is what can those 4-5 things BE?

I would say that they could do more setting sourcebooks that are NOT adventures, but they don't seem to like those. An ideal product, IMO, would be to make a tight adventure in one book, with lots of DMing aids, and a separate sourcebook that goes much more in-depth into the area that the other adventure takes place in, with lots of side-quests, locations that are unrelated to the adenture's metaplot, NPCs, backgrounds, subclasses, etc - essentially all the fluff and crunch that would make the adventure really sing or allow a DM to make up their own adventure in the same (or similar) place, and free the adventure itself to be designed with as many DM-centric "running it" aides as possible (perhaps including multiple paths that the PCs might follow to get through the plot, that you'd run differently if you ran the adventure multiple times, depending on what the players choose to do.).

But I'd have to give all that more thought than this one post to flesh it out.