Chris Perkins: Reintroducing Settings in Ways that Surprise People

WotC's D&D Story Manager, Chris Perkins, was the subject of an interview by a chap called Chris "Wacksteven" Iannitti. One of the topics covered is campaign setting books; Perkins says that they want to reintroduce settings in "surprising" ways, and that they're not guaranteed to be books. (thanks to Mistwell for the scoop)

The video is below, but if you can't watch it right now, here are the highlights as listed by pukunui on WotC's website:

• He can't talk about products that haven't been announced yet
• They value all of their worlds, as each one has "tons of fans"
• They are focusing on specific areas within settings to detail and "codify" via their story bibles
• Their goal is to "challenge people's expectations" re: sourcebooks
• They're "not interested in releasing books for the sake of releasing books anymore"
• They want book releases to be events that will "surprise and delight people"; they also want to put out books that people will actually use rather than books that will just get put on a shelf to "stay there and slowly rot"
• "One of our creative challenges is to package [setting] material - reintroduce facts and important details about our worlds - in a way that we know that DMs and players are going to use, that's going to excite them, that's actually going to surprise them. We may get that content out, but I'm not going to guarantee it's going to be a book. I'm not going to guarantee that it's going to be anything that you've seen before. But it will be something."

[video=youtube;alnwC34qUFs]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=alnwC34qUFs&feature=youtu.be[/video]
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[Sword of Spirit]

P

What if we restrict the comparison group to D&D like games (e.g. Every D&D edition, Pathfinder, 13th Age, DCC, etc.)? Outside of that group it is harder to compare since they can be very different games. However, I still stand by my (completely subjective) statement.

Outside of Pathfinder my exposure to D&D like games has been pretty limited, so I might very well agree with you if I was more familiar with them. 5e is definitely my edition of choice for D&D.

 

[Kramodlog]

If I were a shareholder, I'd say, "Yeah, yeah, Dungeons & Dragons, that's cute. Tell us again about the 2015 projections for Magic: the Gathering."

I'd look at the sudden rise in net revenues from D&D and wonder what happened. It all came from the sells of books. I would ask what is their plan for growth if they tell me "We decided to catter to those players who do not want give us there money", I would be incredulous.

 

[DEFCON 1]

I'd look at the sudden rise in net revenues from D&D and wonder what happened. It all came from the sells of books. I would ask what is their plan for growth if they tell me "We decided to catter to those players who do not want give us there money", I would be incredulous.

And the folks at WotC would pull out all their documentation and tell them "The first three core rulebooks ALWAYS sell gobs of copies to make piles of cash... but here are the metrics that show that each subsequent book released past those three sell less and less and less copies. So we either could print and sell them all in Year One and Two like we have in the past, leaving Years Three through Five almosty completely barren of sales while our costs remain fixed on design, development, art, cartography, editing, and printing... or we slow down production such that those first bunch of new books show up in Years One through Five, and we delay the wasteland of edition sales to Year Six and beyond. At which point we might have 6E on the docket anyway for another massive boost of new Triple Core Book sales."

Why this possible plan WotC appears to be doing seems perplexing to people kind of astounds me.

 

[Charles Rampant]

You make a good point, [MENTION=7006]DEFCON 1[/MENTION]: it looks like Wizards have accepted that it is difficult to increase revenue artificially for the brand, and so instead are lowering costs by producing fewer items that sell as well as the old line (in theory), while simultaneously expanding with other brand items (boardgames,etc).

 

[Gundan Shadeslinger]

And the folks at WotC would pull out all their documentation and tell them "The first three core rulebooks ALWAYS sell gobs of copies to make piles of cash... but here are the metrics that show that each subsequent book released past those three sell less and less and less copies. So we either could print and sell them all in Year One and Two like we have in the past, leaving Years Three through Five almosty completely barren of sales while our costs remain fixed on design, development, art, cartography, editing, and printing... or we slow down production such that those first bunch of new books show up in Years One through Five, and we delay the wasteland of edition sales to Year Six and beyond. At which point we might have 6E on the docket anyway for another massive boost of new Triple Core Book sales."

Why this possible plan WotC appears to be doing seems perplexing to people kind of astounds me.

If it's that cut and dry then Wizards is not very bright.

The smart thing to do would be to look at the problems with the last two editions and not just the release of books.

1: 3rd edition produced too many books. When I mean a lot of books they produced tons of stuff.

2: 4th edition was such a controversial edition that I would say the release of lots of books had nothing to do with it's demise.

This newest edition has no baggage what so ever like the last edition did so holding back on the books doesn't make sense. No edition has ever, and will never, sell an equal number of books outside of the corebooks. If that is Wizards problem then they might as well sell off D&D to someone else who doesn't hold unrealistic expectations and can give us the products we want.

Dungeons and Dragons the roleplaying game makes profits, but when you are dealing with a big corporation then just profits aren't enough. Looks like the game about dragons has found itself in the jaws of a very greedy dragon.

 

[HobbitFan]

Entsuropi and DefCon1 have a valid point about WOTC's probable strategy.

The thing is, right now they haven't open the D&D brand into products other editions haven't already done, some very recently. the offerings so far (miniatures, boardgames, computer games, etc) are all pretty safe items that cross sell to RPG fans as well.

And the AP hardbacks they have done thus far are not particularly groundbreaking in terms of design nor innovative in terms of content.

So far the only real changes are: 1. They are on a drastically paired down release schedule, which we don't know the actual reason for. They say its to avoid bloat but this could have been a financial decision imposed by the D&D team by WOTC or Hasbro people above them.

2. They have offered a simplified version of the game for free online.

They may be talking like stuff is different, experimental and revolutionary. If so, all of that is going on behind closed doors.
What we're actually seeing in released products just looks like an old-school release schedule cut to its absolute minimum level.

 

[DEFCON 1]

The thing that perplexes me about this whole thing is not WotC's strategies, nor their release schedules... but rather the numerous posters here on the boards who seem to not want to play the game unless they know ahead of time a list of products that are coming out, and that they are kept "in the know". The game itself seems to be meaningless to them... it's only the knowledge of the future that inspires them to play in the present. THAT'S what I find completely baffling.

I could understand if the game as it stood was rather unplayable right now and they wanted to make sure the rest of the system was being still being developed and on pace for release... but that's not even close to what we have here. 5E is a complete and finished game. You needn't buy anything further in the future to play 5E for the next however many years, with years of options in the PH and DMG at your fingertips to try all kinds of new and exciting things. But for some people... they seem to need three more books announced with another three years worth of character options that they'll never get around to playing before they feel it's "worth" playing the game in the first place. I am just unable to comprehend that way of thought. My problem, I guess.

 

[DMZ2112]

I just cancelled my preorder of PotA. I'm not sure I want the APs if they aren't going to be supported with traditional campaign setting books. I might consider buying it later on down the road after I get some more information from WotC about their future plans. For now, the core books are enough.

You are free to wait for more information, Graves, but I would not hold your breath. This strategy was laid out by Wizards a year ago at PAX East 2014 and doubled down on at Origins. It's not news.

But I'm totally agreed that the core books are enough in any case. You should never /need/ more than the three core books in any edition. S'why D&D4 was such a pain in the ass, rules preferences notwithstanding.

There are thousands of RPGs, and I'd count several (perhaps even many) of them as better designed RPGs than D&D.
Opinion of course, but we are probably coming from very different criteria of judgment, since I doubt anyone would argue for D&D's design superiority if they were using the term the same way I am.

I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to your death my right to deny it!

I'd look at the sudden rise in net revenues from D&D and wonder what happened. It all came from the sells of books. I would ask what is their plan for growth if they tell me "We decided to catter to those players who do not want give us there money", I would be incredulous.

D&D did made Hasbro's November 2014 10-Q filing, but considering that it didn't make any of Hasbro's official shareholder communications for 3Q or 4Q 2014 I think it's safe to assume no one but the accountants actually cared.

http://investor.hasbro.com/results.cfm

Sorry.

 

[Fergurg]

The thing that perplexes me about this whole thing is not WotC's strategies, nor their release schedules... but rather the numerous posters here on the boards who seem to not want to play the game unless they know ahead of time a list of products that are coming out, and that they are kept "in the know".

Let me help you understand my view. I don't need a list of the products that are coming out, though I would like to know. I want to know that there are products coming out, and I'm not seeing much evidence of that.

The game itself seems to be meaningless to them... it's only the knowledge of the future that inspires them to play in the present. THAT'S what I find completely baffling.

I don't even have knowledge that there is a future for 5th Edition, and that is my concern. I don't want to buy into a game (especially spending triple digits) that is not being supported.

I could understand if the game as it stood was rather unplayable right now and they wanted to make sure the rest of the system was being still being developed and on pace for release... but that's not even close to what we have here. 5E is a complete and finished game. You needn't buy anything further in the future to play 5E for the next however many years, with years of options in the PH and DMG at your fingertips to try all kinds of new and exciting things. But for some people... they seem to need three more books announced with another three years worth of character options that they'll never get around to playing before they feel it's "worth" playing the game in the first place. I am just unable to comprehend that way of thought. My problem, I guess.

The problem is, at least for me, 5th Edition is NOT complete, in that it doesn't have features that I want. For example, the Sorcerer. Your choices are "Wild Magic" and "Dragon". I don't want to run a game that has either. I want to run a game where there are other choices. Could I make my own? Perhaps. But for $150 (plus tax), I expect a game where the amount of customization I need to guess at doing is not very high. While I don't need anything else to play it in Forgotten Realms, it is not complete to play in other established settings. Even the Eberron conversion they gave us was incomplete because there are no rules on psionics (and likely, there will not be).

And frankly, there is another issue, a bigger one - everything WotC is doing is sending the message that 5th Edition is done. When Mearls told us a few months ago that the emphasis was going to be leveraging the D&D brand to go into other areas, such as video games and movies, we should have taken the clue back then that this meant the actual RPG was an afterthought. Some people on this board did; the rest of us are learning that the naysayers are right.

But there is a bigger clue, one that I think we all missed at the time. 4th Edition had Essentials released, based on the theory that the entry point for the core game was too expensive because it required 3 books at $39.95 apiece. Now here we are, several years later, with 3 books at $49.95 apiece and no digital product. Why do the very thing that they previously said they should not have done and was part of the reason for the past failure ... unless bringing in new players to 5th Edition is not important to the plans for D&D?

As much as I didn't want to see it, I have concluded that we are seeing the end of D&D as a TTRPG, and that these last books are its last hurrah. THAT is the issue! I don't want to devote money and time to a game system that I think is finished; until I see some indication that it is not (and saying they will release something, but not necessarily a book is solidifying my conclusion), I will treat 5th Edition as I will Top Secret.

 

[rosing-bull]

As much as I didn't want to see it, I have concluded that we are seeing the end of D&D as a TTRPG, and that these last books are its last hurrah. THAT is the issue! I don't want to devote money and time to a game system that I think is finished; until I see some indication that it is not (and saying they will release something, but not necessarily a book is solidifying my conclusion), I will treat 5th Edition as I will Top Secret.

I just want to comment that if they were going to drop the TTRPG entirely and it was to come to an end, spending all that time on designing and playtesting and editing and layout and art commissions and so on and so forth to produce three new, full-color hard bound books each weighing in at 200+ pages would lean towards a particularly absurd type of silliness. If you were going to bring the game to a close, why give it a "last hurrah" at all? And particularly why one so grand as a brand new edition in hard back?