D&D General Is DnD being mothballed?

[UngeheuerLich]

so DMs are smarter than players?

Nope. But usually the DM is the one following most updates and forum talk and so on, while a good part of the players just buy what they think is nice.

Then there is a potion of players that get D&D as gifts. Imagine the outcry if you want a PHB and find a PHB2 under the cristmas tree.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I’ll let you in on an extremely poorly kept secret: maximizing profit was the strategy from 2014 on, which is why they kept releasing material slowly. I forget which interview but Chris Perkins flat out said they were intentionally releasing material slowly because they found it performed better that way. They’ve slowly upped the release rate every couple years while likely carefully watching how the books sell to make sure they’re still making whatever profit margin they want from a book I’d guess. Good, bad, or indifferent 5e has been all about carefully maximizing profit basically since day 1.

(Goes without saying they’re obviously also watching other factors like customer satisfaction surveys to make sure the game stays healthy. Someone will read what I wrote above and think I’m saying they only care about profits and while I’m sure there are execs that are short sighted and only care about that, I don’t think the design team making the products are laser focused on squeezing revenue out of the game.)

Oopsy. I nearly stopped reading after your profit paragraph. No, it really serves two purposes: keeping the company and the game healthy.

Actually, they always have been willing to scrap projects that seem bad for the game and for the company. After Sword Coast Adventurervs guide was a dud, they scrapped the Elemental Evil adventurer's guide and rather put the material out for free.

 

[Kurotowa]

My sense is that WotC is being run in a very corporate, business-first fashion. This isn't the TSR of Gary's days, when it was a bunch of nerds trying to make their hobby into a business, or even that of 2E and 3E, when it was still clearly lead by gamers, even if under corporate oversight. 5E just feels different to me, and in that regard I think Colville's basic idea is right: D&D is more of a legacy product that will adjust only to maximize profits, rather than as gamers trying to experiment with the game they love. Maybe another false binary, but it just feels like the emphasis has changed. In other words, it doesn't quite feel like a living, growing and evolving game, but more of an artifact that they'll tweak, but not truly evolve (for better or worse).

I'm all for WotC running D&D as a business. A well run business stays in business. TSR went bankrupt and got bought out, and we're fantastically lucky that they were bought by WotC who cared about the game. These days they'd get snatched up by some terrible venture capital investment firm that would chop up D&D for parts. So I entirely support making smart business choices so WotC can keep making D&D.

This one hits close to home for me because I grew up the child of two science fiction authors. Published authors, award winning authors. I also grew up very poor, because my father subscribed to that binary between art and business, and was adamant about choosing art every time. He burned his bridges and stopped getting contracts and then there were no more novels. Refusing to compromise between art and business meant no more art and no more business.

The other extreme is bad too, of course. Soulless money grabs are just as harmful to both art and business in the long run. But lionizing art over business is just a good way to go out of business. A balance needs to be struck.

 

[Staffan]

How is 3-5 pretty meaty books - as in 2-300 pages each, hard cover, full art, plus all the extras like web articles and whatnot count as a "slow" release? I mean, sure, it's slower than other editions but, we all pretty much agree that those were too fast.

Here's an alternate perspective: one of the advantages of a rapid release schedule is that it provides options for us consumers. Maybe some like adventures, while others prefer to roll their own. Some might like lore-filled deep dives into various aspects of settings, while others have no use for that stuff. There are definitely those who would enjoy a book filled with cool magic items, but for others the DMG is enough. From our perspective as customers, this would be good.

But from a business perspective, you're better off maximizing profits with a sparse schedule, and leave people hungry for more. And clearly, a schedule along the lines of 2e is way too fast. But I think that long-term, there may be benefits to a faster and more varied release schedule, because it keeps more different kinds of people interested in the game, and there are likely "tentpole" releases that would sell more in that case.

And I'm not sure the 3e and 4e release schedules were unsustainable. Did they maximize profit? Probably not. But I haven't heard anyone claim they were losing money on them – only that they weren't making enough money for their corporate overlords.

 

[Velderan]

Then there is a potion of players that get D&D as gifts. Imagine the outcry if you want a PHB and find a PHB2 under the cristmas tree.

That is one thing they'll need to tread carefully on for Christmas 2024: how would a gift buyer who is largely ignorant to the different D&D books know the difference between the 2014 PHB and the 2024 PHB. At some point, I feel like they need to find something slightly different to call it to avoid confusion.

Oopsy. I nearly stopped reading after your profit paragraph. No, it really serves two purposes: keeping the company and the game healthy.

Actually, they always have been willing to scrap projects that seem bad for the game and for the company. After Sword Coast Adventurervs guide was a dud, they scrapped the Elemental Evil adventurer's guide and rather put the material out for free.

It would be interesting to see just how many projects have been in the works that have either been scrapped, pillaged for an idea to fill out another product, or just shelved because timing wasn't right. I wonder how many projects do they currently have in the works aside from the 2024 rulebook refresh.

 

[darjr]

It would be interesting to see just how many projects have been in the works that have either been scrapped, pillaged for an idea to fill out another product, or just shelved because timing wasn't right. I wonder how many projects do they currently have in the works aside from the 2024 rulebook refresh.

Somewhere they pretty much said. Don’t remember what or where and you had to backtrack to figure it out.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Somewhere they pretty much said. Don’t remember what or where and you had to backtrack to figure it out.

I think it was about 1 project in 3 that made it through.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

You're half-right here. 4E was a mistake, but 3E? No; a "mistake" isn't something that would become the staple of the second-most successful company (i.e. Paizo), allowing them to run with it for twelve years after WotC abandoned it. It simply wasn't generating the $100M annual ROI (return on investment) that Hasbro demanded, which is something that honestly seems like unrealistic corporate projections more than any mistake in 3E's release schedule (again, Pathfinder kept up a similar release schedule for over a decade without issue). After all, those same projections are now (as best we know) being hit (i.e. D&D is generating $100M to $150M per year), and yet still termed as "undermonetized."

Near the tail-end of 3.5 we were having trouble selling ONE copy of the books they put out, nearly monthly. 4e did a very strange thing: It caused 3e to start selling again, when it was nearly completely dead.

If I had my way, they'd go back to 3 books a year with a 4th as a sort of possibility. 2-3 adventures a year and a supplementary book of some flavor. That's the pace I want.

You're not alone. There's a reason that I can say with confidence (whether anyone believes me or not) that even six books would damage the game's momentum: I lost several customers who were happily buying every book at 4-per-year when they put out five. (I didn't lose them as customers, they just stopped buying EVERYTHING and started cherry-picking their favorites).

I call this "the Crossgen Effect" (in that I first noticed the phenomenon with Crossgen comics). Crossgen started with four comic titles per month. People who liked Crossgen bought all four. (Not everyone, mind, but many of them). Then they added four more. People who liked Crossgen bought all eight (but I could see their strain). Then Crossgen added four more. EVERYONE who liked Crossgen cut back to their favorite 3 (on average). Not 12. Not 8. NOT EVEN 4. When you break a customer, YOU BREAK THEM.

I can feel the strain on the D&D customers when they produce 5 books in a year. The increased price-point this year will also strain them. We actually NEED the break year of next year, that will (presumably) have the three Core 2024 books and the Vecna book, and hopefully nothing else. (The 3 Core are actually exciting enough that they could probably get away with 2 books other than them without anyone noticing, and it will still feel like a break, even though it's 5 books.)

 

[FitzTheRuke]

That is one thing they'll need to tread carefully on for Christmas 2024: how would a gift buyer who is largely ignorant to the different D&D books know the difference between the 2014 PHB and the 2024 PHB. At some point, I feel like they need to find something slightly different to call it to avoid confusion.

That one is fairly easy: I'm pretty sure they plan to stop printing the 2014 PHB. Now, that won't stop the confusion with the hundreds of thousands of copies of the 2014 PHB that are out there in the wild, but that's not really WotC's "problem" (it's mine). They're not that concerned with that because the 2024 PHB is INTENDED to replace the 2014 one, which wasn't the case before.

It would be interesting to see just how many projects have been in the works that have either been scrapped, pillaged for an idea to fill out another product, or just shelved because timing wasn't right. I wonder how many projects do they currently have in the works aside from the 2024 rulebook refresh.

I suspect A LOT.

 

[darjr]

Near the tail-end of 3.5 we were having trouble selling ONE copy of the books they put out, nearly monthly. 4e did a very strange thing: It caused 3e to start selling again, when it was nearly completely dead.



You're not alone. There's a reason that I can say with confidence (whether anyone believes me or not) that even six books would damage the game's momentum: I lost several customers who were happily buying every book at 4-per-year when they put out five. (I didn't lose them as customers, they just stopped buying EVERYTHING and started cherry-picking their favorites).

I call this "the Crossgen Effect" (in that I first noticed the phenomenon with Crossgen comics). Crossgen started with four comic titles per month. People who liked Crossgen bought all four. (Not everyone, mind, but many of them). Then they added four more. People who liked Crossgen bought all eight (but I could see their strain). Then Crossgen added four more. EVERYONE who liked Crossgen cut back to their favorite 3 (on average). Lower than 8. LOWER THAN 4. When you break a customer, YOU BREAK THEM.

I can feel the strain on the D&D customers when they produce 5 books in a year. The increased price-point this year will also strain them. We actually NEED the break year of next year, that will (presumably) have the three Core 2024 books and the Vecna book, and hopefully nothing else. (The 3 Core are actually exciting enough that they could probably get away with 2 books other than them without anyone noticing, and it will still feel like a break, even though it's 5 books.)

Yea. You’re not alone among retailers either. As I’m sure you know.

I hope WotC is paying attention. I suspect they would given the issues they are discovering with ruining their FLGS recruitment machine.

Let’s hope.