D&D General Ray Winninger on 5e’s success, product cadence, the OGL, and more.

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

It would be nice if this was a regular article on DnD Beyond.

It's hard to imagine that it would be hard to find a good product or two to profile each month. (If WotC doesn't receive regular data about what's new, what's selling well and what's getting good reviews, that seems like something they could easily get OBS to provide them.)

 

[Mistwell]

I recall there is evidence of the plan from early in too. Maybe even before the release. Here in ENWorld. Other quotes etc.

We certainly talked about it here at the time. I vaguely recall maybe a pre-release interview mentioning this strategy too.

 

[darjr]

We certainly talked about it here at the time. I vaguely recall maybe a pre-release interview mentioning this strategy too.

I bet he just remebrs it differently. Or got apocryphal info.


Also Is there a bit where he says some years the PHB sold more than the entirety of 3rd edition PHBs? Or was that another of these interviews?

 

[Dire Bare]

It's hard to imagine that it would be hard to find a good product or two to profile each month. (If WotC doesn't receive regular data about what's new, what's selling well and what's getting good reviews, that seems like something they could easily get OBS to provide them.)

WotC does feature DM's Guild products on Facebook. I see the ads all the time. And it's always for stuff I've never heard of before, and I visit the guild website weekly. I assume they also promote guild products on other social media platforms, but don't really know.

 

[Reynard]

WotC does feature DM's Guild products on Facebook. I see the ads all the time. And it's always for stuff I've never heard of before, and I visit the guild website weekly. I assume they also promote guild products on other social media platforms, but don't really know.

I don't know why I did not think of that. They have an official FB feed so it probably has stuff they are promoting at least.

 

[Dire Bare]

I think it's a failure, personally, for the creators. I think it could be much better if there were better curation and marketing on behalf of the creators. A 'good housekeeping seal of approval' would do wonders to separate the wheat from the chaff, and develop new talents. Right now it's a flat miasmic plain.

Failure? Nah.

The DM's Guild could certainly be managed a LOT better. Better for customers/fans, better for the creators, better for the community, and even better for WotC. It's a far from ideal set up in several ways beyond the 50% cut.

But if you are a fan who wants to get started in game design, get your work exposed to a large audience, and make some beer money . . . the guild is a great way to go, even with the 50% cut. Oh, and of course, if you want to include D&D IP in your work. The guild is the only place you can publish your "Guide to Greyhawk" or what-have-you.

Now, if you are seriously wanting to build a career as a game designer, starting with products on the DM's Guild is an okay way to go, but eventually you will want to move away from that platform.

 

[Joshua Randall]

I'm somewhat dubious about that percent and where that number supposedly came from. Trying to tie down the actual number of D&D players is no easy task.

Ah, different interpretations then!

"A little more than 50% of players regularly used DDB to manage characters" could mean... (let's call it 51% just for fun)

• 51% of the players with DDB account use it "regularly", and among the things they do is specifically to manage their characters
• 51% of the players with DDB account, when looking at specifically managing characters as an action, do that "regularly"
• 51% of all the players who play D&D [which we, WOTC, believe we have a number] also have a DDB account, that they use for managing characters. "Regularly".

 

[Dire Bare]

13) Running the D&D team has become more complicated because they're no longer selling to a monolithic set of core audiences who want things like old school heavy Forgotten Realms lore (and it has become much harder to serve the older school core audience as D&D has grown.) For example, the largest growing segment of D&D sales is 11 to 13 year olds now, who come in with no background in D&D. The Team now has to think about so many different audiences and expectations when developing products than they used to have to consider.

I run an afterschool D&D program at the middle school where I teach.

I've found myself struggling to explain to an 11 year old what exactly a dwarf or elf is. They are all over the animal-person races like dragonborn, owlin, and giff! Elves, dwarves, and halflings are boring.

It makes me very sad.

 

[Joshua Randall]

I've found myself struggling to explain to an 11 year old what exactly a dwarf

The awesomeness of ancient Scandinavia and ancient Sparta compressed into a small package. Any smaller and the dwarf would collapse into a black hole of awesome, which would absorb everyone.

 

[Azzy]

I run an afterschool D&D program at the middle school where I teach.

I've found myself struggling to explain to an 11 year old what exactly a dwarf or elf is. They are all over the animal-person races like dragonborn, owlin, and giff! Elves, dwarves, and halflings are boring.

It makes me very sad.

That's odd. Elves and, to a lesser extent, dwarves are not uncommon in modern anime (admittedly, much of it is low-quality, samey anime). I wouldn't have expected that, but then I'm an out-of-touch 50 yo.