D&D 5E Brand Vs RPG

[DEFCON 1]

Right now, they don't have a "D&D Brand", they have a "Forgotten Realms D&D Brand". I'm curious as to how many things they have put out or have planned that are D&D-oriented...and NOT related to Forgotten Realms as a world or with regards to FR specific characters/names? ... So, is this whole "D&D as a Brand" a thing they are doing, or are they just trying to blow smoke up our keesters by claiming that, when in actuality they really are pushing for a "Forgotten Realms as a Brand" and hoping nobody will notice?

That's not how branding works-- WotC has nothing to do with it. With the exception of games that Hasbro themselves put out... anything else produced comes from the company itself who makes it, and they decide what images/branding identities they want to lease from WotC to use.

If a lunchbox company wants to make a 'D&D'-branded lunchbox... they would set up a contract with the brand department of Wizards and request and receive a whole bunch of images that they would pay a stipend to use. If the lunchbox ends up having Drizzt on it, that's a result of the lunchbox producer deciding that's the picture they wanted to put on it-- NOT that WotC forced them to use it.

The lunchbox company could have just as easily said they wanted to put the D&D ampersand on their lunchboxes. What do you think was going to happen then? The WotC branding department would tell them "Nope! Sorry! You either put Forgotten Realms imagery on the boxes or you get nothing!"? Of course not! They'd sell the company a whole heap of ampersand images because one D&D image is just as good as another.

If companies put out material that has Forgotten Realms stuff on it, it's because *that* company thought that was the imagery that would sell the best-- NOT that WotC didn't give them a choice in the matter.

 

[wedgeski]

D&D as a Brand? No...that was not what made 5e successful. The "rulings not rules" and "create it yourself", and the "loosy-goosy", "simplified math", "bounded accuracy" stuff? THAT is what made 5e successful. So...WotC is now pretty much ignoring ALL of that in favor of what the "crack team of young go-getter advertising and marketing majors fresh out of college" are telling them (or at least that's what it seems like). When 5e came out, it felt like it was a game designed by role-players, for role-players. Creativity was key, and it was hard-coded into the actual game system so nobody could misinterpret (hehe...ahem...) . Now it feels like the designers are just mouthpieces for BBHME (Big Brother Hasbro Marketing Execs). I don't think they have much of any say in how 5e 'should' be handled... kinda reminds me of the scene from Dragonslayer; where Gailen (and his master) slay the wyrm, then the king strides out from his hiding spot, sticks a sword into it, and everyone yells "Hail! King Dragon Slayer!" (IIRC; or was that some other fantasy dragon-slaying type movie?)

Props for Dragon Slayer reference!

As for the rest, I really have no idea what you're talking about. You're not getting settings and splats, and therefore the designers are just corporate mouth-pieces?!

 

[wedgeski]

DnD has a brand say wut? sorry but i haven't seen any DnD branded products anywhere on the high streets of the UK not one board game, Action figure, plushy no squat never even saw SCL anywhere on the shelves so in that sense i would say the brand is dead in the water Then again its the same with the 5e books all amazon jobs as well they don't exist on shelves anywhere.

In the Midlands we have starter sets in Waterstones, and the whole 5E catalogue in the local FLGS. I've finally been able to *stop* buying from Amazon and get it locally.

 

[Eejit]

In the Midlands we have starter sets in Waterstones, and the whole 5E catalogue in the local FLGS. I've finally been able to *stop* buying from Amazon and get it locally.

Yeah I've seen the Starter Set sporadically in one of the Waterstones in Birmingham (the one in the old bank, just been shut ), but wasn't super-prominent - stuck in a corner windowsill in the area with all the Game of Thrones merch.

 

[billd91]

D&D as a Brand? No...that was not what made 5e successful. The "rulings not rules" and "create it yourself", and the "loosy-goosy", "simplified math", "bounded accuracy" stuff? THAT is what made 5e successful.

Are we absolutely sure of that? My guess is it's more a combination of the D&D brand (as a RPG) and the content of the game. After all, despite Paizo's success with Pathfinder, I suspect WotC was more successful in volume with 3.5 than Paizo has been with PF. And I figured that D&D's brand would allow it to reassert dominance in the market over PF as long as it wasn't saddled with game content that people didn't want (as seems apparent with 4e). In other words, I don't think bounded accuracy, simplified math, and rulings not rules would be sufficient to put 5e where it is on the RPG map. It also needed the D&D name.

 

[darjr]

It might not be sufficient but I think its been instrumental.

 

[Azurewraith]

My nearest Waterstones shut down and was 21miles away XD price of living in the sticks

 

[Zardnaar]

I did see the starter set here in NZ in a toy store in the board game section.

 

[Mistwell]

From Gamespy in 2004, "According to reports, Dungeons & Dragons still has a 75% brand awareness level among males 18-45." Has it really dropped off significantly in the past decade? I am not so sure.

 

[Salamandyr]

Here's a question...do we really want more of the D&D "brand"? Do we want D&D movies, D&D TV shows, D&D lunchboxes? Do we need those things.

A friend and I were talking about World of Warcraft the other day, and I said I only really learned to like WoW once I realized it wasn't a vehicle for telling my own stories but living the stories that Blizzard gave me. And that's fine and all, but D&D is supposed to be about living the stories I and my friends create. Yet more and more, they want to make D&D a shared experience that's the same for everyone who sits down at the game--the only problem being; from my perspective--that's a really bad experience. Pretty much everything they create to reinforce their brand--their art, their trade dress, even the way they choose to present the rules, actually adds negative value to their product.

The more they position D&D as a brand, the less interested they are going to be in catering to the kind of stories that I and other homebrewers may want to tell. While I want more fantasy movies and TV and books; I don't really want the kind of fantasy they look willing to give me.