D&D's October Product Revealed to Be Stranger Things Tie-In

[SlyFlourish]

I think the Stranger Things starter set is a great idea and is exactly the sort of product I want to see coming out of Hasbro. As others stated, this isn't a product for us. We're already in the hobby. This is a product to bring new people into the hobby.

Hasbro is in a unique position to put a lot of marketing money to get new people into RPGs more than any other company. T-shirts, tennis shoes, movies, video games, TV shows, sandwich meats, whatever (I'm maybe not so excited for vice products like sugar / caffeine drinks or slot machines).

I think, outside of the core books, the starter set, and the 5.2 SRD, these sorts of products can help propel D&D (and hopefully RPGs in general) into the hands of more people who can benefit from these awesome games.

Once they're there, we can show them all the rest the hobby has to offer.

 

[Parmandur]

I'm going to laugh so hard if this ends up eclipsing the Borderlands starter set. This is a starter set itself, right? At the very least, this seems to fall into the "cannibalizing sales" arena they've railed against so much in the past.

I never did pick up the last Stranger Things starter set though, not sure about this one either though I applaud the effort.

So, it's notnrrally cannibalizimg sales for a major reason: like the previous Stranger things Starter Set, this is not going to be sold in the board game section at Target, bit in the Stranger Thjngs merch section.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

It would be cool if they did a series of How To Videos with Eddie in charachter in a 80s basement explaining how to play D&D.

I think he's probably way too expensive at this point. The last set of videos they did like this, with Madeline from Dicebreaker/Just for Fun, are still out there and still pretty solid, though.

 

[Desdichado]

Thats a good lineup and drop date to align with the show. Good to see them taking advantage of that for once.

Looks like it's aligned with the last season, so I'd say rather than a good drop date, it's a good three and a half years too late.

 

[Weiley31]

Also, Darth Vader is Luke's father.

Hits the REPORT button so hard that it wakes Morrus' dog up from a deep slumber

Dude, I can't believe you did that.....next thing ya know, ya gonna spoil what happens to Mufasa!!

Don't ya dare!!!

 

[Juomari Veren]

Half-hearted D&D Beyond material released after the movie was already out is not a meaningful tie-in.

A starter set set in one or more of the areas the movie was set in would be a tie-in. A Neverwinter sourcebook that includes Forge and other characters is a tie-in. Featuring the DADHAT characters in Golden Vault would be a tie-in.

"Hey, people are asking why we aren't talking about the movie on D&D Beyond, someone knock out some NPC stat blocks that suggest we may not have actually seen the movie in 10 minutes and post them" isn't a meaningful tie-in.

WotC doesn't like doing tie-ins for some reason. Well, the probably now-former staff didn't. And I can't imagine they'll ever explain why or that anyone other than me would ask them. But they clearly didn't want to do them.

I just disagree with the notion that the tie-in wasn't meaningful. Yeah they could've done more tie in products but that's splitting hairs, they can do more of everything first- and third-party (lest it be forgotten, they don't own the rights to the characters from the movie that weren't preceding it, that's been made clear by how every other product for the movie has utilized the characters), but that's also like how people last week were just saying they should do more Stranger Things cross-promotion for season 5, which they did and have been planning and we couldn't have known until we knew. We can't know their machinations to the detail, and I don't think it comes from an aversion to do tie-in products; If anything, it probably has something to do with what's an acceptable volume of them in the eyes of fans like you and I, which this issue also highlights. It'd be unreasonable market synergy to make a book that's 1:1 the plot of the movie (not impossible, and market synergy is still market synergy) but I think giving us the characters and bespoke magic items is plenty of officially licensed fanservice.

 

[Zaukrie]

The only way I'd be interested is if the adventures are good. But I'm happy for those that want this.

 

[payn]

Looks like it's aligned with the last season, so I'd say rather than a good drop date, it's a good three and a half years too late.

Glass half empty, got it.

 

[Sionainn | Twelvefold D&D]

the first four seasons of the game.

the first four seasons of the show.

 

[Desdichado]

Glass half empty, got it.

Not really. I'm an optimist. But that was crazy. A set designed to match exactly what happened almost four years ago is not great timing, even in the most optimistic interpretation that anyone can reasonably make.