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

[Shardstone]

He was saying that the initial shift was to women rather than young people; the young people came later.

I doubt it was a bunch of 50 year old women that made the jump. Likely younger women.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

The dog people in Dungeon Meshi are Kobolds.

I think someone coming from the anime to D&D would be very confused by 5E kobolds.

An actual dog person species would be better for them.

 

[Scribe]

I doubt it was a bunch of 50 year old women that made the jump. Likely younger women.

WoW was released end of 2004. There were a lot of women playing then. Its now 21 years later, and those women, may have had children, or may already have had children (I stood in line behind a couple on Burning Crusade release night, with their baby...)

This was 2 decades ago, and women were already increasing in the 'nerd space'. 5e just picked up what was already happening.

 

[Clint_L]

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.

You don't need to know the actual number of D&D players (very difficult, I agree!) to know the general percentage that are using DDB, though. You just have to do standard market research and make sure to survey a statistically meaningful number of players. It's no different than figuring out what percentage of your players are female.

 

[Shardstone]

WoW was released end of 2004. There were a lot of women playing then. Its now 21 years later, and those women, may have had children, or may already have had children (I stood in line behind a couple on Burning Crusade release night, with their baby...)

This was 2 decades ago, and women were already increasing in the 'nerd space'. 5e just picked up what was already happening.

Well Mistwell posted his summary and a huge number of the women are high school girls so yeah, its younger women in their teens, twenties, and thirties fueling this growth.

 

[SlyFlourish]

Don't make it a formal program? Can't game the rules if there aren't any. I see successful curation as a mixture of the objective (sales numbers, impartial lists of 'what came out this week' and lists of modules that involve 'heists in Faerun', cumulative ratings) and the subjective tastes of individual curators - whose recommendation's value relies on individual reputation.

You see it one way, someone else in charge sees it another, and you still have a corrupt system.

Here's a good example. Tell me how a company gets their product on D&D Beyond.

 

[Scribe]

Well Mistwell posted his summary and a huge number of the women are high school girls so yeah, its younger women in their teens, twenties, and thirties fueling this growth.

Are we talking today growth, or early 5e growth?

I was under the assumption we were talking early 5e growth.

 

[SlyFlourish]

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.

It is really the only place you can write a product based on their IP and its possible you might get better visibility on there than any other single platform, but you're essentially selling your product to WOTC. It's not really yours anymore. You can't Kickstart it. You can't make it a free product as part of a newsletter. You can't offer it up as a patreon feature. You lose all control over the work.

Even for new publishers, I'd recommend working on one's own IP and being able to publish it anywhere, reformat it, reshape it, and sell it lots of different ways.

 

[Staffan]

I haven't watched that yet.

And D&D has its own dog people in Mystara's Lupin. I am surprised that they haven't been updated to 5e considering we have four bird people, two cat people, a cow person, etc..

Dennis Moore got to them.

 

[Reynard]

I doubt it was a bunch of 50 year old women that made the jump. Likely younger women.

It wasn't. It was people in their 30s to early 40s. That's how old GenXers and Xennials were 11 years ago.