D&D General Is DnD being mothballed?

[Scribe]

I'd certainly spend less money on art.

On every survey I have seen from Wizards over the last, I dont know, 6 to 10 years across MTG/D&D, I have seen questions on the importance of the art.

I would put a might sum down on it being rated very important, by the vast vast majority of people responding.

 

[Hussar]

That's just a bit hyperbolic I think. My 5e proposal would have resulted in 6-7 crunch books over 10 years. 3e had 36 in 8 years. Not even remotely close to being the same.

I can't argue against that. Preference is preference and we like what we like.

You are advocating tripling the amount of player facing material. That’s bloat. Pretty much by definition. Never minding that what does get released now has far less play testing and oversight.

You are advocating for poorer mechanics, less balance and overwhelming numbers of options for players like me.

So no thank you. You already have everything you could possibly want in 3pp products. You couldn’t possibly put the slightest dent in what’s available.

Howzabout we let the main game serve everyone?

 

[mamba]

I do not really see how they can really monetize the brand without the VTT, or at least some popular software platform that everyone wants to be on/play, etc.

movies, TV series, videogames, novels, miniatures, t-shirts, ...

 

[Alzrius]

movies, TV series, videogames, novels, t-shirts, ...

Man alive, do I ever wish they'd get back into novels. Now there's an area where D&D's slowed down to the point of being mothballed! (Yes, I know there are a few coming out here and there, but it's just not the same.)

 

[mamba]

I also really wonder when people call 5e release schedule glacial. I don't know a single DM who uses all the material of a book before the next one appears.

You do not need to buy all books, obviously WotC would prefer that, but if a book does not interest you, skip it.

For me that means maybe one or two books per year on average.

I just recently realized that I pay over hundreds of dollars per year for official 5e books per year

What is 'over hundreds'? It can be over 100, but you will already have to buy everything to get over 200 and unless you buy every book as a digital and physical bundle, or full price as FLGS, there is no way to get over 300.

 

[Parmandur]

If you go all the way to 2015 - 2017, then yes, those were the only years with three books only. Since then it is 4 in one, 5 in the other year, so a 50% increase over the 'anemic years'. Hope I did not miss any

2014: 6 (LMoP, PHB, MM, DMG, HotDQ, RoT)
2015: 3 (PotA, OotA, SCAG)
2016: 3 (CoS, SKT, VGtM)
2017: 3 (TftYP, ToA, XGtE)
2018: 4 (MToF, WDH, GGtR, DotMM)
2019: 5 (GoS, AcInc, DoIP, DiA, ERftLW)
2020: 4 (EGtW, MOoT, RotFM, TCoE)
2021: 5 (CKM, VRGtR, WBtW, FToD, SCoC)
2022: 4 (JTtRC, SJAiS, DoSI, SofDQ), 5 with MotM
2023: 5 (KftGV, BPGoG, PaBSO, PAitM, BoMT)

The lean years are when they were doing 3 books internally or less (all 3 books in 2015 were outsourced!!). The point is, theybare producing more books and have many more employees. In 2016 they had 3 full time designers on staff (Mearla, Crawford and Perkins). Now they have 14 full tike developers working on more products. That costs money.

 

[Azzy]

That is a really daft hot take by Colville.

 

[Maxperson]

You are advocating tripling the amount of player facing material. That’s bloat. Pretty much by definition. Never minding that what does get released now has far less play testing and oversight.

No. You have to prove it's bloat. What you are saying is an argument to never print another book ever again, because any book with any amount of new options would be bloat.

New options do not automatically qualify as bloat. And the small amount of new options I am asking for vs. the 2e/3e/4e release rates isn't enough to inherently be bloat. Bloat is a detrimental increase in options and simply declaring what I am asking for to be bloat isn't sufficient.

You are advocating for poorer mechanics, less balance and overwhelming numbers of options for players like me.

No. I am not. Even during 3e it took waaaaaaaaaaaaaay more than 7 crunch books before quality started to suffer due to the number of options already out there.

You already have everything you could possibly want in 3pp products.

I don't. The overwhelming majority of 3pp that I have looked have very few pages of material and is mostly not balanced well.

Howzabout we let the main game serve everyone?

That's what I am asking for. Currently it's failing me and a lot of other players.

 

[Hussar]

.

That's what I am asking for. Currently it's failing me and a lot of other players.

No. It is failing to serve you. Why do you presume to speak for “lots of other players”?

And I’ve no need to prove anything. Seven 3e books wasn’t bloat? Really. Seven “Complete” class books.

Poof bloat. Poorly balanced for the most part bloat.

Since you have no problem with 3e levels of poor balance and play testing, why do you have problems with Dms Guild?

 

[deganawida]

On every survey I have seen from Wizards over the last, I dont know, 6 to 10 years across MTG/D&D, I have seen questions on the importance of the art.

I would put a might sum down on it being rated very important, by the vast vast majority of people responding.

Small tangent, apologies in advance:

The issue with that, though, is the subjectivity of what constitutes “good art,” or even, “art which inspires me.” Speaking solely for myself, while I recognize that there is a lot of technical proficiency and talent in 5e art, the majority of what I have seen of it has left me cold. It doesn’t inspire me, but distracts. Something about the art direction just doesn’t work for me at all.