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Very true, and as I think of it 5.5 and 3.5 are lining up to be eerily similar: Both came out after a sharp surge in D&D sales and interesting - the 3e launch and the pandemic. Both were a mix of random and sensible changes. The community hasn't really fixed on either's killer upgrade. I think...

Glad you asked. I've been doing a lot of research into how 5.5 is actually doing. This quote is a great example of what I am finding. WotC is putting a lot of work into how they frame its launch. That made me suspicious, and I think my suspicion is justified. For framing: People are going to...

Thanks for that. We very consciously built a cycle that started with the public playtest, fed into the free rules and starter set, then segued into the annual release cycle. We built a machine to juice up D&D's marketing and make it more attractive for licensing. It turns out that when you get...

I think the reason for the slowdown with 5.5 is pretty simple - does anyone have a clear idea of why someone playing 5e, or an earlier version of the game, should drop $150 on the new books? Thinking back to D&D products that really grew the audience: AD&D 1st edition, at the time of its...

Yeah, the "they" is me, Nathan Stewart, and Liz Schuh. We had asked about product frequency as part of the playtest surveys. If we had really wanted monthly releases, we would've just brought on more publishers under contract to do stuff. We had signed on Green Ronin, Kobold Press, and Sasquatch...

That's 100% incorrect. Market research showed that the typical D&D fan wasn't interested in buy multiple products a year. This also played into the marketing strategy of building each product up as a big event. You can't do a Stream of Annihilation every month. The product release cadence was a...

The monsters will be compatible. I'm building it based on the same math, so monsters will have an XP value that allows you to use them in vanilla 5e or 5.5. I've used the model for both 5e and Odyssey (my 5e-derived engine), and it's working well so far. The character options are built to allow...

How are they handling the edition change? If I read this right there are 40 more issues to go

Others talked about the realities of magazine publishing, but there's one other thing that popped up. Supporting the 4e, online versions of the magazines required a ton of overhead. The staff managing them - I believe Chris Youngs and Steve Winter led the effort - was always massively short of...

My lawyer made it clear that I should not upload my work in progress to D&D Beyond, so I'm not 100% on where the automation is these days. We used the virtual dice with paper or Word/PDF character sheets for Shadowdark. I'm 90% sure that players can run their D&D Beyond character sheets through...

Strong agree on the ease and intuitive interface. This is the excuse I need to shift my online games there. I also had a lot of success running Shadowdark on it. The import function made uploading and scaling maps a snap.

YES! Oh man, this is a great Tuesday. Can't wait to start using this.

I think we can all fondly remember our first ventures into the Glorioles, the lessons we learned, and the memories. It would be only fitting if Rob Schwalb was commissioned to write a 256 book detailing each Gloriole and its secrets.

Low key disappointed that you did not commit to the bit and make him explain why he changed it.

Small pox has been killing people for centuries, why bother eradicating it?

That makes a ton more sense, and puts everything into perspective. The numbers they talked about line up with 60% of their sales being direct. That lines up well with distributors, retailers, etc. It's great to see the revision meeting with success. I've been using it in my games - and even...

I'm curious to see if analysts ask about D&D. The press release last month didn't do them any favors if anyone wants to get on Chris about the details.

Year one of 2014 PHB sales was 5 months, so 17 months total. However, comping month 1 of any product to its subsequent months is going to look like that. It's not unreasonable to see half your lifetime sales for a product in month 1.

Huh. It would be a lot simpler to say this is the biggest success ever for D&D. Why aren't they just doing that? They keep referring back to 2014, and I'm scratching my head trying to figure out who in 2024 would use that as a metric. That's 10 years ago and a very, very different tabletop world.

Literally the only channel I've blocked on YouTube.