At Least 4 Months For Conversion Documents

Those waiting for official conversion documents from earlier editions of D&D to 5th edition are going to have to wait a bit longer. WotC's Mike Mearls says that "the person who needs to do the final approvals on them is serving on a jury that will take another 4 or so months. Sorry!" So it looks like we're talking July/August at the earliest. Thanks to Adrian for the scoop.

 

[delericho]

Call me an optimist. I see a staff that is half full where you see a reason to cut and delay projects.

D&D's last major release (Essentials) had been underwhelming. They then were given two years to work on a new edition while their part of the business went on with virtually no profit at all. And through all of that there was no guarantee that their new edition would make any money.

Frankly, it's lucky 5e came at all.

. . . or have enough staff to include the conversion guide . . .

I expect Mearls' requests for more men met with the same response as those of Commander Jerjerrod.

Sure, I can imagine some folks would disagree that the best time for the conversion guide is when the new edition is released.

There's what would be best and there's what's possible.

 

[billd91]

Speaking as someone without a real dog in this hunt, I would hazard its because traditionally and appropriately, the standard time for releasing a conversion guide is the same day, or week, as the initial release of a new edition, not a year or two down the road. Most companies do normally manage to pull it off regardless of staff size.

I have to agree with this. By the time they finally get it out, the number of people who will care will have dropped significantly. For all the decent work they've done with 5e, there are some really odd and frustrating gaps. And this is the latest of them.

 

[Mark CMG]

D&D's last major release (Essentials) had been underwhelming. They then were given two years to work on a new edition while their part of the business went on with virtually no profit at all. And through all of that there was no guarantee that their new edition would make any money.

Frankly, it's lucky 5e came at all.

Essentials? I've seen nothing but glowing reports, insistence that WotC was never more profitable (just look at their DDI subs!), and that they had more people playing the edition than ever before. Companies with no more than a few people with full-time jobs outside of the gaming industry and tiny budgets manage to put out rules for games year in and year out on shorter timelines. I'm sorry but the "WotC doesn't have the budget" excuse for not delivering on schedule and for not being properly staffed rings hollow.

I expect Mearls' requests for more men met with the same response as those of Commander Jerjerrod.

There's what would be best and there's what's possible.

Nope. As Wicht said, plenty of companies manage it all the time and its standard procedure to time the conversion guide with the release. I'm not sure why this is even up for discussion in anyone's mind.

 

[delericho]

Essentials? I've seen nothing but glowing reports, insistence that WotC was never more profitable (just look at their DDI subs!), and that they had more people playing the edition than ever before.

Yeah. Did you believe that?

I'm sorry but the "WotC doesn't have the budget" excuse for not delivering on schedule and for not being properly staffed rings hollow.

It's not "WotC doesn't have the budget" and it's not "Hasbro doesn't have the budget". It's "D&D doesn't have the budget". And the evidence is simple: they have 15 staff.

You can argue that they should have more people. I'd agree with you. But they don't. The powers-that-be at Hasbro have decided that that's the staff they will have, those are the resources they can use, and that's it.

So, given that they have those people, and given that they have to bring in X million dollars in profit from D&D this year, what do you want them working on? Choose carefully.

Nope. As Wicht said, plenty of companies manage it all the time and its standard procedure to time the conversion guide with the release. I'm not sure why this is even up for discussion in anyone's mind.

Because the reality is as I stated before: they could release the PHB in August 2014 without a conversion guide or they could release it in July 2015 with one.

That's the choice. They couldn't do more with the staff they had. They couldn't get more staff.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I'm just glad I was born in a free country where you could get out of jury duty if your business or employment depended on it.

I don't know where you live, but in the USA,

1) it is a crime at the state and federal level to fire someone for serving on jury duty.

2) you can get out of jury duty if you can prove you're a sole provider for your family, your business would shutter if you served, are a primary or sole caregiver for a small child, invalid or certain other classes of people, etc.

Let me clarify, I just threw out Crawford's name as an example. Jurors aren't allowed to publically discuss trials and if this is a high profile case it's possible that means even acknowledging publically that you have jury duty (as someone could theoretically deduce what case they're on and try to influence their verdict).

Honestly we probably know too much about the situation already, Mearls probably shouldn't have said anything at all. That's the danger of sharing some info with one fan who's asked over the internet, now everyone knows more than they should - someone in this thread has already investigated and found out that there are three ongoing murder cases in that county.

If I were a judge presiding over one of those cases, I really wouldn't be comfortable with the internet taking such a close look at one of my jurors, even if it is just one thread in a tabletop RPG forum.

Remember Barbara Adams?

http://www.cnn.com/US/fringe/9603/03-14/trek.html

 

[Mark CMG]

You can argue that they should have more people. I'd agree with you. But they don't.

I do and I will continue to argue that position.

Because the reality is as I stated before: they could release the PHB in August 2014 without a conversion guide or they could release it in July 2015 with one.

That's the choice. They couldn't do more with the staff they had. They couldn't get more staff.

Nope, it's not the choice. It's what you have allowed yourself to be convinced is the choice. What we have is no choice and we get what we get. What I am arguing is that we would get better from a larger staff, and you agree. So, we've gone round the tree and we agree on the cause but you've come to terms with the result and I have not. I think you and I are just going to have to leave ourselves at that point since we are repeating ourselves.

 

[Wicht]

Because the reality is as I stated before: they could release the PHB in August 2014 without a conversion guide or they could release it in July 2015 with one.

That's the choice.

You can tell me that those are the only two choices but I would not believe you (just like I never believed the 4e warriors that tried to convince me to discount all the evidence of that editions failure with the fan-base at large). The ability of others to do conversion guides with less make me believe that WotC could have done it if they had really wanted to and had made it a priority. Paizo released its conversion guide for Pathfinder within a couple weeks, iirc, of their Core Rulebook being released and they were not the industry leader at the time, had a much smaller budget and more than a few irons in the fire. I must believe, based on my experience and my observation of the situation that it is an issue of Will, not an issue of Ability (and same goes for the 5e OGL which is looking, sadly, more and more like a pipe dream).

 

[Torgaard]

The person in question should have worn wizard robes to jury selection.

Exactly. HERE are some more tips from Liz Lemon.

 

[thalmin]

What is expected in a conversion guide? Just one generic guide to work for every module ever written? A guide for each editon's module. A guide for each module? Not every class or race or monster is yet in 5E, so we need different substitutions. Most monsters are either stronger or weaker than in previous editions, or even mixed (like stronger offensively but weaker defensively). Magic item expectations are very different from all previous editions. Treasure levels are different. Many spells work differently, or don't exist, or are on different class lists. Saves are different. Villians need to be converted to 5E equivalents, but individually must fit the story by theme as well as abilities. Bounded Accuracy changes things a lot.

 

[Umbran]

I do and I will continue to argue that position.

I would ask why. I mean, why argue a position with people who have no ability to change the situation? What constructive point is there to arguing over it?