WotC 2020 Was The Best Year Ever For Dungeons & Dragons

[Sacrosanct]

"Less Involved"

Nope. Outnumbered. Specific term. As in "More of one group than another"

And I "Owned" the fact that my statement came across as an insult. Right here:

I'm not going to apologize to you, specifically, 'cause you were also insulted by my miscommunication. I've apologized and owned it.

I am, however, going to call you out for trying use the real world marginalization of a group of people as cudgel to try and cow me into backing off.

Screw that. And screw your new line on Ageism as well. It's the same cudgel and I won't stand for it.

"Missed the point" my left nostril. The point was to try and compare grognards being outnumbered by new players to real world harm. To try and ignore any sense of nuance or scale in order to support the idea that any group being a minority is inherently bad.

Seems like you don't know what an analogy is. I've explained why I used it, to illustrate why what you said was problematic because you seemed shocked/surprised that anyone would find it as such. Again, I'm not comparing the suffering of grognards with women in real life. You seem hung up on that to where you can't see the analogy I was making, that being celebrating a group of people becoming more and more of a minority of group X as a good thing.

You brought up age with the "older players" term, not me, hence my reference to ageism. The fact that an impacted member of a group you denigrated is trying to explain to you why what you said is problematic is coming across to you as "beating you with a cudgel" is problematic in a whole new way, but I have a feeling that conversation won't go anywhere productive, so there's not point. Last I checked, you (or any of us) don't get to tell people of a certain group that what we said about them is or isn't actually offensive or not.

All I did was point out how there are a lot of reasons to celebrate the demographics of D&D players becoming more diverse, so focusing on one older group of gamers being more and more outnumbered as your top one (the only one you felt needed mentioning) is a bit odd at least, and explained why when you acted surprised.

I've said my explanation. You either accept it, or you don't. But either way, I won't repeat myself and derail this topic any further.

 

[Shiroiken]

Awesome news, but I gotta question the authenticity of " 47 years leading the TRPG genre." I'm pretty sure Pathfinder passed 4E at some point, especially during the D&D Next playtest when almost no products came out.

As opposed to other editions? Wtf does this even mean?

Technically 5E was better designed for sales than most prior editions. OD&D suffered from inability to produce enough, while most later editions suffered from product glut. 1E did a good job with it, keeping up with the golden age, but Unearthed Arcana, Wilderness Survival Guide, and Dungoneers Survival Guide showed a significant loss of quality.

The playtest of 5E was specifically geared to provide an edition that would appeal to the broadest possible player base. It carried very little assumed mechanics from prior editions, testing a lot of different choices. The rollout was also based on popular preferences, desiring quality over quantity. This is also why they've put out so many surveys, adapting to the results. IMO Wizards has done an amazing job for the game and brand, even if it isn't perfect for most.

 

[grimslade]

<S> I urge you to all switch from Grognard to the acceptable terms Wizened Old Crone or Old Grumpy Fart. </S> By the way, almost all of Gen X is contained in the 40+ demographic. We are old too. I celebrate that a majority of players are under 40. That means the game has a bright future, rather than dying off with our nerdy geriatric selves. Plus, more players means potentially more games!

 

[Steampunkette]

Seems like you don't know what an analogy is. I've explained why I used it, to illustrate why what you said was problematic because you seemed shocked/surprised that anyone would find it as such. Again, I'm not comparing the suffering of grognards with women in real life. You seem hung up on that to where you can't see the analogy I was making, that being celebrating a group of people becoming more and more of a minority of group X as a good thing.

You brought up age with the "older players" term, not me, hence my reference to ageism. The fact that an impacted member of a group you denigrated is trying to explain to you why what you said is problematic is coming across to you as "beating you with a cudgel" is problematic in a whole new way, but I have a feeling that conversation won't go anywhere productive, so there's not point. Last I checked, you (or any of us) don't get to tell people of a certain group that what we said about them is or isn't actually offensive or not.

All I did was point out how there are a lot of reasons to celebrate the demographics of D&D players becoming more diverse, so focusing on one older group of gamers being more and more outnumbered as your top one (the only one you felt needed mentioning) is a bit odd at least, and explained why when you acted surprised.

I've said my explanation. You either accept it, or you don't. But either way, I won't repeat myself and derail this topic any further.

Nah friendo. You don't get to condescend about what an analogy is.

The issue isn't that you used an analogy. The issue is that you used an example of real world problems to try and compare the mistreatment of real world people to grognards being outnumbered. This whole side discussion came from me pointing out that you are under the impression that being a minority automatically means being denigrated.

And trying to turn around after that blew up in your face to make it about a -different- real-world group of people facing serious issues of mistreatment doesn't make it any better.

I've already apologized and owned my miscommunication. Maybe you should do the same.

<S> I urge you to all switch from Grognard to the acceptable terms Wizened Old Crone or Old Grumpy Fart. </S> By the way, almost all of Gen X is contained in the 40+ demographic. We are old too. I celebrate that a majority of players are under 40. That means the game has a bright future, rather than dying off with our nerdy geriatric selves. Plus, more players means potentially more games!

I missed being Gen X by just 3 short years!

The youngest Millennial is now 25 years old. The oldest are 40! Man that's crazy to realize...

Similarly, the oldest Gen Zers (Mostly kids of Gen Xers) are having kids of their own since they're in their 20s.

I wonder if any other generations had to deal with this much emotional overlap on just how wide generations are. I imagine some people did, obviously. Watching their kids and grandkids and nieces and nephews and so on grow up... But we have the Internet as this massive archive providing us constant updates on just how long it's been... and how it feels so brief.

 

[Oofta]

Grognard comes from a French term for "Old Soldier". Old Soldiers in the ttrpg community largely referring to the older players of previous editions.

I've heard the phrase since I was about 16 years old. And it has always been a term of endearment, to my ears. It's how I intended it. That's why I put in the little heart.

I apologize that it came across as an insult. It wasn't my intention, but it was the result.

(I'm also among the old soldiers compared to that 54%, by the by)

The first definition that comes up from google:

Noun. grognard m (plural grognards) a grumbler; one who grumbles. an old veteran soldier, specifically an old grenadier of the Imperial Guard (Grenadiers à pied de la Garde Impériale); an old complaining soldier.​

​

Okay, so maybe I'm grumbling about being lumped in with grumblers, but calling older gamers grognards is never done in a positive way. It seems to always be used as an insult and "shut up old man, we don't care what you think". I just see it as a dismissive pejorative on a pretty regular basis.

If I thought you had meant it as an insult I would have reported it, not replied to your post. I didn't, I'm just letting you know

 

[see]

Awesome news, but I gotta question the authenticity of " 47 years leading the TRPG genre." I'm pretty sure Pathfinder passed 4E at some point, especially during the D&D Next playtest when almost no products came out.

This is possible, but also is disputed. Given the lack of truly reliable data, it's not something that can be definitively determined wither way, even if I tend to suspect you're right. Also, at worst, it means that a direct, made-under-license derivative of D&D was the leader in those years, which is close enough to D&D being the leader for marketing puffery.

 

[Fallen star]

I wonder how they got the 50 million player number? Does that mean 50 million PHBs? D&D beyond accounts? Did the number come from the recent survey?

 

[Steampunkette]

This is possible, but also is disputed. Given the lack of truly reliable data, it's not something that can be definitively determined wither way, even if I tend to suspect you're right. Also, at worst, it means that a direct, made-under-license derivative of D&D was the leader in those years, which is close enough to D&D being the leader for marketing puffery.

There is that possible aspect. It could also be that they included EVERYTHING D&D related during the 4e Era.

Including the miniatures, map packs, token rings, and other whozits and whatsitz they managed to sell while Pathfinder was getting big.

I wonder how they got the 50 million player number? Does that mean 50 million PHBs? D&D beyond accounts? Did the number come from the recent survey?

Probably based on Surveys, yeah.

They almost certainly aren't saying PHBs. Over 5 years, 3e only sold about 1 million PHBs including 3.5 according to John Dancey of WotC.

But 2e only sold 750k PHBs in 10 years time.

We don't have the numbers for 4e -or- 5e, but 50 times the sales seems... Egregious.

Fact is, a lot of players probably don't -have- the PHB, but instead are part of a group that has one (Or have a pirated copy). So Surveys would get a better idea of actual player counts.

 

[Burnside]

There are more players in just the 35–39 age range than in the entire 40+ range!

Does that seem odd to anyone else? What exactly happens to people when they turn 40 that causes such a steep dropoff?

It's not that 40+ is dropping off. It's that the game is growing explosively among younger players, so the proportion of older players is smaller. There are still loads of them.

 

[Parmandur]

There is that possible aspect. It could also be that they included EVERYTHING D&D related during the 4e Era.

Including the miniatures, map packs, token rings, and other whozits and whatsitz they managed to sell while Pathfinder was getting big.

Probably based on Surveys, yeah.

They almost certainly aren't saying PHBs. Over 5 years, 3e only sold about 1 million PHBs including 3.5 according to John Dancey of WotC.

But 2e only sold 750k PHBs in 10 years time.

We don't have the numbers for 4e -or- 5e, but 50 times the sales seems... Egregious.

Fact is, a lot of players probably don't -have- the PHB, but instead are part of a group that has one (Or have a pirated copy). So Surveys would get a better idea of actual player counts.

They confirmed that the 5E PHB outsold the 3E, 3.5 and 4E PHBs combined...like 2016. 5E is some magnitudes larger just in PHB sales by now, as it has only grown year to year since then.