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No doubt, I know they’ve got enviable market research capabilities and a clear strategy: they want to be the most popular game forever. But market research fails often enough that missteps are common even among the biggest companies. And if WotC rides on its brand too much, it could easily end...

Certainly. But there’s a real risk in that marketing strategy: if you aim too broadly, you risk losing your audience due to lack of specificity. I think D&D leans too hard upon brand recognition, which protects it for now but won’t last forever; someday it’s competitors will make real headway...

Yeah I suspect you’re right. I’ve done some of the playtest surveys and given detailed feedback, and I’ve been somewhat impressed with the thoroughness of their questions—but you’re right that maybe they still aren’t asking enough of the right questions. I already think WotC’s version of 5E is...

I’m disappointed by this playtest packet because of the Warlock and Wizard changes. (Haven’t read the other sections yet.) I loved the way the previous Warlock and Wizard changes went, but this playtest seems like it’s going backwards.

I thought newspapers were an Eberron thing for flavour. We got printing presses in every little town in Faerûn now too??

Artificer. And 5E wouldn’t even have that if Eberron players hadn’t demanded it. (Dunno if anyone else remembers the first playtest article for 5E Eberron, but they literally tried to make the artificer into a wizard subclass, blech.)

…is this satire? I’m honestly not sure.

Yep, you get me! That is what I meant.

It just hit me like a ton of bricks that not only does this series of articles make me want to read all the old Dragon mags, but it also makes me wish I had this series printed and bound, sitting on my shelf. Is this an opportunity for EN Publishing or M.T. Black? I’d buy it

I mean, they wouldn’t have to include DoIP the adventure to include its handful of relevant locations and NPCs. One thing that made LMoP feel alive was the fact there were places and characters who weren’t connected to the main story; it‘s a setting ripe for sandboxing. Including the locations...

This might be the first WotC product I buy in the past few years, because I loved LMoP so much. I am wondering how much (if any) of Dragon of Icespire Peak will be integrated into this book too? That adventure came from the Essentials Kit and also focused on Phandalin, but the two stories didn’t...

Gray gloo

Ah so this is literally just a stealth-compilation? Some of the artwork Beth described sounds familiar, like the taxonomic drawings (3.5’s Draconomicon) and the Kobold wearing a dragon skull (not sure, but was this one in Races of the Dragon)? Anyway this seems pretty clearly like it’s meant...

Meh, it’s not really that weird. Anthropomorphic animals are a global staple of fantasy and fairy tales across cultures, because it’s a very relatable concept. Even D&D features PC races for anthropomorphic lizards, dragons, and several different versions of cat people. It might be a lot...

I chuckled when I saw this. I feel slightly validated in my belief that WotC is genuinely somewhat worried about losing the CR fandom from the D&and community after CR has been such a huge driver for them over the past decade. I fully believe WotC is concerned about CR’s plans to launch their...

If these guys stole all that product from GenCon in broad daylight while wearing tshirts for their own tiny company, then they’re even bigger fools than the mafia.

I’m annoyed with the 5E/One D&D playtest feedback results that “wizards should have their own spell list” at the same time people complained about some of the wizard’s class features being turned into unique spells. I loved the combined spell lists AND the new approach to wizard class features...

Excellent reference

I, for one, am looking forward to slotting space stuff into my PF2 game. Consider this a huge expansion for Pathfinder! Probably makes good sense from a marketing perspective too: Pathfinder seems a lot more popular than Starfinder, but that distinction can disappear when they’re mechanically...

Yep. And if you’ve got a decent product, you can find traction in digital before you ever commit to print. Not saying it’s easy to publish something, but you’re exactly right: writing a TTRPG has a really low barrier to entry, and the main cost will be his time. So, with that in mind, I looked...