D&D 5E (2024) Mearls has some Interesting Ideals about how to fix high level wizards.

[Zardnaar]

Sorry but this is wrong.

The market share increased after D&D became popular through critical role and stranger things (and other mentions like big bang theory which made nerd stuff in general more popular).


"When the rules where changed back", with 5E D&D had actually its weakest realease of any WotC release. It did not have any drop off in year 2, but only because year 1 was already just equal to previous editions numbers AFTER dropoff.


Also 4E had its biggest dropoff after Essentials, when the classes where changed back to look similar to previous editions, which made people stopped buying the new Essential products.


Also the biggest reason why D&D decreased its market share was the incredible bad license, which made 3rd party content almost impossible. 5E had with the OGL debacle exactly the same kind of negative reaction, only that there this decision was reversed.

Your argument actually supports 4E damaging the brand and 4E inheriting a decent ecosystem from 3E.

5E even at launch overperformed expectations.

4E had a good launch. We know that goodwill faded very fast. About a year.

They launched essentials 2010 because of 4E reception. It also feeds into Paizos observation of Pathfinder doing very well 2010.

Nothing is in conflict with these observations. 4E being popular at launch them very rapid collapse (about a year).

Even 4E fans admit they struggle to find games whole claiming its popular. Its not that hard to find OSR, Pathfinder or even 3.5 games.

3.0 and 4E are functionally extinct in terms of getting games going.

Very few people dispute 4E had a good launch. Retention more important metric. Once the marketing and buzz wears off you get a better idea how things are going.

 

[Mort]

Sorry but this is wrong.

The market share increased after D&D became popular through critical role and stranger things (and other mentions like big bang theory which made nerd stuff in general more popular).


"When the rules where changed back", with 5E D&D had actually its weakest realease of any WotC release. It did not have any drop off in year 2, but only because year 1 was already just equal to previous editions numbers AFTER dropoff.


Also 4E had its biggest dropoff after Essentials, when the classes where changed back to look similar to previous editions, which made people stopped buying the new Essential products.


Also the biggest reason why D&D decreased its market share was the incredible bad license, which made 3rd party content almost impossible. 5E had with the OGL debacle exactly the same kind of negative reaction, only that there this decision was reversed.

5e had very strong initial sales numbers, larger than 4e's very strong sales. But while 4e couldn't maintain the numbers, 5e numbers just kept getting stronger. And this was BEFORE Critical Role was a huge hit. Source

Also worth mentioning. Critical Role deliberately switched from Pathfinder to 5e for the livestream - specifically because of the 5e rules.

 

[Staffan]

How many spells are just different variations of deal elemental damage to one or more targets?

How many spells are the same effect but scaled for a higher level?

I agree that these make for boring spells, but the solution isn't to do a Savage Worlds-style reduction of damaging spells to the single-target bolt and the AOE blast. The proper solution is to add more pizzazz to the spells. Have fire spells literally set fire to people (adding a DoT effect), acid degrade armor, frost reduce speed, and so on. You do have some of this among cantrips of all things, but there should be more of it in actual leveled spells as well.

 

[Zardnaar]

I agree that these make for boring spells, but the solution isn't to do a Savage Worlds-style reduction of damaging spells to the single-target bolt and the AOE blast. The proper solution is to add more pizzazz to the spells. Have fire spells literally set fire to people (adding a DoT effect), acid degrade armor, frost reduce speed, and so on. You do have some of this among cantrips of all things, but there should be more of it in actual leveled spells as well.

Makes things more complicated. And more work for DM.

Still a DM shortage.

 

[Staffan]

Makes things more complicated. And more work for DM.

Still a DM shortage.

Complexity is the currency with which you buy depth. Having attacks be more interesting than "I hit, do damage" is complexity well spent, and what allows combats to be more interesting than just rolling a die for each side to see who wins.

 

[tetrasodium]

5.5 you can do it or really post tashas.

2014 fire, frost and lightning were viable bit had issues. Eg lack of ranged lightning cantrip.

Um... Lightning lure has been in SCAG for like a decade now. I've seen it at many tables even . The oversimplification done to tactical grid combat strips away the value of it's purpose in disrupting enemy lines.

Building a good blaster is more complicated than it looks. Mostly due to hp bloat.

"A good blaster" is something very different from the many posts in this thread about woes trying to silently check that box under the table by narrowing sorcerer to be themed around a specific element without losing the unacknowledged "good blaster" niche. The class is too big for such a narrow focus as a single element that is also "a good blaster"

 

[Zardnaar]

Complexity is the currency with which you buy depth. Having attacks be more interesting than "I hit, do damage" is complexity well spent, and what allows combats to be more interesting than just rolling a die for each side to see who wins.

Biggest D&D ever would disagree with that statement.

 

[Tigris]

Biggest D&D ever would disagree with that statement.

you mean 5.24? The half edition which, unlike original 5e, was really successfull when initially released?


The edition which brought back the 4e at will attacks for martials in the form of weapon mastery to make basic attacks more interesting than just damage?

Wizards of the Coast says it ordered a whole bunch of copies of the Player’s Handbook to meet demand

Compared to 2014, Wizards ordered three times as many copies in the initial run — then ordered even more

www.polygon.com

 

[Tigris]

5e had very strong initial sales numbers, larger than 4e's very strong sales. But while 4e couldn't maintain the numbers, 5e numbers just kept getting stronger. And this was BEFORE Critical Role was a huge hit. Source

and we have newer sources which show that 5e initial sales were actially really bad, marketing just made it sound good at that point. Only 29 million in revenue from D&D in 2014 and 2015 (compared to the 15 million in 2013 the year where no new D&D book released) which is comparable to the 25 millions at the end of 3.5

This is also why it was possible for 5.24 to outsale the first 2 years of 5e in just 2 months.


At the time 5e released D&D was on life support. So they needed to make it sound like a success to not have hasbro take it away from wotc. Now years later where this is no risk anymore, they showed the actual revenue numbers last year.

 

[Mort]

you mean 5.24? The half edition which, unlike original 5e, was really successfull when initially released?

You keep saying that, but 5e was huge upon release.

The 5e PHB hit #1 on Amazon, #1 OVERALL not just in games, on the day of it's release.

And it went even more gangbusters from there.

Your link just shows that 5.24 was prepared for a bigger print run, not that 5e didn't sell exceptionally well from the beginning.