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

[Micah Sweet]

But the real question for anyone else in particular about any of this is "Does it actually matter?"

Now perhaps for someone like you or Mike Shea... designers who have to decide whether or not to hitch your future designs to the 5E24 wagon or not... trying to forecast 5E24's future is only doing your due diligence. That makes sense. But for the rest of the playerbase? Does it matter ultimately whether or not 5E24 lasts as long or does as well as 5E14 did? I don't know that it does. So it's more a discussion of curiosity rather than necessity.

What discussions on this entire forum are necessary? Everything here (pretty much) is curiosity.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I don't know why you need to even consider that though. As a 3PP I can put out one product that is compatible with 5e14 or 5e24. It is not like I have to chose a lane, they are in the same lane!

If that were completely true, there wouldn't be separate core books, or 3pp advertising 5.5 versions of existing 5.0 products. But there are.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Honest question: does it need to? I always understood the goal of 5e24 more than anything was to maintain the status quo, not to light a fire or shift landscapes. Isn't that really the whole point of changing so little?

So the point of 5.5 was not to change anything? What's the point of replacing the books then?

 

[Micah Sweet]

They’re kids and young adults who want to get into it. $150 is not as prohibitive as you may think.

Neither of us can say that for anyone but ourselves. It's certainly a big deal for me, and less so for you. That's all.

And why did they get into it? Where did they hear about it, if not from experienced players?

 

[Micah Sweet]

Players new to the hobby have always been the primary force behind sustained sales. Many if not most don't really care what old fogeys like you or me think about the game. Old timers may have a minor impact but it will likely always be quite minimal and a significant percentage of the old timers are buying the new version. Even if sales decline it may have more to do with a drop-off from covid era sales than anything to do with a new version.

Do you evidence of this, or are we talking some kind if received wisdom? Do you have anything more than, "everybody knows this"?

 

[mamba]

I'm still not sure where all these completely new to RPGs itching to give $150 to WotC are coming from. Where were they before, and why did they just decide to buy three thick books for a type of game they've never before experienced?

do you think most people start out with the starter set? Do you think if they go with the current starter set today and like it, they would upgrade to the 2014 core or the 2024 core?

To me it is basically the same kinds of people who bought the 2014 core the last 10 years, except that they now pick up the 2024 books

 

[Micah Sweet]

do you think most people start out with the starter set? Do you think if they go with the current starter set today and like it, they would upgrade to the 2014 core or the 2024 core?

To me it is basically the same kinds of people who bought the 2014 core the last 10 years, except that they now pick up the 2024 books

Except 5.5 has no starter set. You have to go straight to the expensive core books.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

So the point of 5.5 was not to change anything? What's the point of replacing the books then?

A cleanup.

That's it. But right now I think they did not hit the mark perfectly.

In some places more cleanup was needed (spells).
I still think the overall improvement is ok. But it could have been better.

I think it is a similar issue to ToV. Why buy books that don't do enough. For Core D&D I can at least see a bit of sense in it, because it will have my game updated for the next 5 to 10 years. I can replace my books that are falling apart. And I have a game that is a bit better balanced and maybe a bit more fun.

I had wished that instead of polling everyone they should have drawn on the expertise of treantmonk and the like to double check their design. And I guess the expertise of the digital team in finding errors would also have been appreciated.

Yeah that's it. I have significantly slowed down my purchases before 5.24. Because I have found not much use in many official adventures or sourcebooks. And woth 5.24 around the corner I was not sure how future proof those purchases were.

So now that this is out, I guess WotC was again in the same spot as before: if you don't upgrade, you slowly decline anyway. The question is if upgrading is worth it or not. Could they have gotten away with just doing minor upgrades in splat books for the next 10 years?
Probably the idea was to extend 5e's life a bit. New players can buy the bit more beginner friendly game. Lets see how that works out.

 

[mamba]

I don't think a designer needs to do anything different in terms of the product.

depends on the product, when I create new classes or subclasses, do I use the 2014 logic or the 2024 one? When I create monsters, which one do I use?

There invariably will be one side it leans towards more, even if both 2014 and 2024 can use it

 

[mamba]

Except 5.5 has no starter set. You have to go straight to the expensive core books.

for now… which is also why I said ‘today with the current starter set’, once there is a new one there is not even a question