D&D General Did 5e 2024 Not meet the economic goals set, and if not, why not?

[tetrasodium]

You need a Master tier subscription to D&D Beyond to enable content sharing, so I guess this particular DM didn't want to spend any extra money on the campaign.

That's quite the phrasing about the GM's role in a game.

 

[DragonLancer]

That's quite the phrasing about the GM's role in a game.

No really. I bought the Master tier just so that my players could create their characters using the books if they didn't already have them. Seems like only a fair thing to do.

 

[Remathilis]

I've noticed that every edition seems to come in three waves:

1. The core. The bulk of the central ideas - the PHB
2. The Extensions. Xanathar's/Power source Power/the Complete series. Things designed with the same philosophy as the core but there (often with reason) wasn't space for
3. The Weirdness. Tasha's/Essentials/Magic of Incarnum/Bo9S. We've mined all the major expansions so it's time to get interesting and weird and see what we can actually do.

I'm always a fan of the weirdness but it always sells the worst because people happy with the original direction don't like it and people not happy with the original direction aren't interested.

And 2024's outlook appears to me not so good because with ten years of 5e it basically has to start in The Weird as we just need patches for the expansions.

5e hasn't even gotten to the weird yet. Tasha is barely beyond Xanathar in terms of oddities. We're 11 years in and haven't gotten a proper psion in print yet. There is no planar book beyond Planescape/Sigil, no monster books for undead or aberrations, no book of magic. Only a single monster book. We're far behind 2e, 3e and 4e in terms of covering the basics and light years behind thing like Players Options, Tome of Battle, of Essentials.

 

[Neonchameleon]

5e hasn't even gotten to the weird yet. Tasha is barely beyond Xanathar in terms of oddities. We're 11 years in and haven't gotten a proper psion in print yet.

We had Weird Psions in Tasha's. The Aberrant Mind nailed every single mechanical point of the psion except having 80 pages of pseudo-spells.

It was just far too weird for people who wanted a nice boring psion because it had a touch of the mythos about it and dared to call itself a subclass.

There is no planar book beyond Planescape/Sigil,

Yeah, nothing at all for the Feywild, nothing for the Shadowfell, and no means of jumping between realms in silly space opera fantasy.

What you mean is we have nothing predictable for the Outer Planes because most people aren't interested unless you actually do something with them. Repackaged lore to read on the loo isn't a crowd pleaser.

no monster books for undead or aberrations,

Van Richten's Guide To Ravenloft has more than 50 horror monsters. No we don't have e.g. I, Tyrant as a dedicated book of beholders because it didn't sell when 2e did it.

no book of magic.

Good.

Only a single monster book.

WotC aren't producing things that don't sell - which is why we have so little monstrous stuff. And there has only ever been one monster supplement I have ever found enhanced my games - and that because Threats To The Nentir Vale is both a concealed setting book and a book of organisations.

We're far behind 2e, 3e and 4e in terms of covering the basics

On the contrary. When it comes to covering the basics 2e didn't have a functional thief and 3.x didn't have a functional fighter until the Bo9S and didn't have a functional rogue at all. And 4e barely had a spell-collecting wizard.

and light years behind thing like Players Options, Tome of Battle, of Essentials.

Yes we aren't as deep into expanded stuff as we could be - and thank goodness for that.

 

[GreyLord]

I disagree. Let's see the sales of the next five books after these new 5E24 core books to see how the D&D line is doing.

If those books sell on par with the previous five books prior to the 5E24 core books... then everything is progressing right along as normal. You could remove the three new core books from the publishing schedule and everything would still be perfectly fine-- the 5E line still moving on. And if one then inserts those three 5E24 core books into the middle of that... they become just another set of books published in their line. Books that some people were going to buy, and some who weren't, but none of which impacting the sales of subsequent books. The 5E game line still just chugging along.

I'm expecting (and perhaps I should corral my expectations) very good sales (above what we saw at the end of the 2014 D&D run at least, perhaps more akin to it's highs...hopefully) from the new Starter Set and the two Forgotten Realms books.

Dragon Delves won't really be an indicator (to me). If the Starter and the FR books do as I expect, that's a good sign for D&D (though, Hasbro may still have a significant challenge on the horizon...this next Holiday is going to be absolutely vital in showing what the US and the world actually think about the current situation in the economy and US trade relations, as well as a reflection of how people really are doing), if they don't do as well as I expect...

Well...that would be disappointing. If they do badly (my expectations are the opposite of that)...I really don't know. That would be a bad situation as these would be dead ringers for great success no matter what the edition of D&D in my book.