D&D 5E Don't Throw 5e Away Because of Hasbro

[AlViking]

But you need to pay them to buy the books, which is the actual point of the thread--there's people who who seem to be bothered by the idea that not everyone is going to buy the 5.24 books.

I can only speak for myself. I don't care one way or another whether people buy anything. I also think some people are making mountains out of molehills. Blurgate which was what I was initially asking about was supposed to be this big issue and after watching the video where the guy basically paged through the entire book without adding much in the way of commentary I understand why the company sent out an email telling people not to do that.

 

[Micah Sweet]

They’re growing the size of the pie continuously.

But they still eat 95% of it. That's my issue.

 

[Faolyn]

I'm not telling you or anyone else what to do I just disagree that what they thought about doing or have done registers as a reason I wouldn't consider buying their products. If you've ever watched The Good Place they talk about how everyone goes to the bad place because it's basically impossible to live without getting something from companies that do terrible things. I try to avoid buying stuff for example from Nestles because of their unethical business policies. So we all decide if and when we're going to draw the line I just draw it at a different point.

I think you may have missed the point of what I wrote.

Of course we all do "bad stuff" because we buy things from companies who do bad things (whether we know what those bad things are or not). But there's a big difference between buying a necessity and buying a luxury item.

Imagine that the only way you could buy some of the foods you need is to buy from Nestle or one of the other companies they own. Either those foods are unavailable from other companies or are far too expensive. Yeah, OK, so you have to bite the bullet and buy from Nestle.

That's different than if you're choosing to buy Nestle chocolate chips for your cookies instead of store brand or Ghirardelli or some other brand, because cookies aren't a necessity, no matter what my stomach and brain and certain other body parts try to tell me. They're a luxury item.

Ditto WotC. They've made some bad or unethical decisions, and if that's not something that bothers you, the quality of what they've been putting out is very random, and if that doesn't bother you, 5.24 is a "fully compatible" half-edition instead of an actual new edition. So you can choose to spend $150 or so on somewhat updated versions of books you likely already own, plus however more it would cost to rent them or get a subscription via DDB, if that's your thing, or you can spend the same amount of money on books from other companies.

I'm choosing the latter.

 

[Faolyn]

I can only speak for myself. I don't care one way or another whether people buy anything. I also think some people are making mountains out of molehills. Blurgate which was what I was initially asking about was supposed to be this big issue and after watching the video where the guy basically paged through the entire book without adding much in the way of commentary I understand why the company sent out an email telling people not to do that.

And I don't care about "blurgate," since I only ever heard about it via this thread. But as I just said in my last post, I do care that I can't count on their books being good and I care about not spending money on somewhat updated versions of books I already have.

 

[jayoungr]

But you need to pay them to buy the books

Right now, you really don't. You can play a pretty complete game from what's in CC, or if you really want the books, you can easily find secondhand copies of the core books. (This is referring to 2014 D&D 5E, of course, but the 2024 version hadn't come out yet when the thread started more than a year ago.) You don't need anything beyond the core books to play D&D.

 

[TheSword]

But they still eat 95% of it. That's my issue.

It’s not a great metaphor but they are making the pie and inventing recipe. They’re not eating it. They’re putting it on sale and people eat more of their pie than any other.

D&D didn’t gobble up the TTRPG market. They made it then grew it.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

You don’t need to buy books to play D&D. This is why WotC are struggling to monetise the brand, despite its popularity, and why they lurch from one hair-brained scheme to the next.

 

[AlViking]

And I don't care about "blurgate," since I only ever heard about it via this thread. But as I just said in my last post, I do care that I can't count on their books being good and I care about not spending money on somewhat updated versions of books I already have.

I don't see how we go from my thinking some of the issues are overblown leads to my saying everyone should buy the new books. I happen to like the changes so I bought them. Don't care what you spend your money on.

 

[FrogReaver]

Well, there are anecdotes about YouTube creators going back to covering 5E because other videos (Pathfinder, etc.) weren't getting views.
So, yes, there is less content made because of 5E.

Theres not sufficient evidence for that conclusion even when accepting the premise that many content creators switched back to making 5e content.

5e players and content creators don’t just flock to other tabletop games in absence of 5e.

 

[darjr]

I sometimes wonder if the 5% of the pie left is larger than the entire pie a decade, or more, ago.

Or if not, how much bigger is that 5% than back then.

If it’s the same or similar proportions than that small slice is bigger, in raw numbers, than it’s ever been by a huge amount.