Critical Role Here's The Cover Of The Explorer's Guide to Wildemount; Plus It's #15 In Amazon Bestsellers!

While Amazon may have revealed the title and description of The Explorer's Guide to Wildemount earlier, it had no cover art. Barnes & Noble, on the other hand, has the cover but at the time of writing no title or description. Here it is!

The official announcement should be coming later today. In the meantime, the book - which has not yet been announced! - is already #15 in the bestsellers chart for all books on Amazon, based only on pre-orders. That's pretty astonishing for a book which 'officially' doesn't even exist yet (although the announcement is expected later today).

 

[Parmandur]

Man, you must be trolling. I have zero interest in Critical Role or the new book, but I can admit that it's probably going to sell like hot cakes. You are very out of touch.

Yeah, this has to be an intentional trolling expedition.

 

[TwoSix]

I'm betting not. We already know that not every player buys more than the core. We know that viewers are a percentage of players (and sooner of them don't play at all). Other than as a money grab, this book isn't serving the entire potential player base and potentially alienating grognards from all editions...

So this book is a money grab, and they're also avoiding some other product that would sell to even more people (and thus serve the entire potential player base)?

Ahh, the classic "they're both greedy and incompetent" line.

 

[vecna00]

You aren't accounting for the possibility that it was just less crappy than the others rather than actually being worth the cover price...

Isn't that usually how these things work? Things with better ratings are less crappy and worth the cover price?

 

[Twiggly the Gnome]

My hope is this product has a good sales to new player conversion rate. I'd be a shame if ends up being a coffee table book for a lot of people.

Checking out the Amazon page for the Tal'Dorei book, I was heartened to see the Eberron: Rising from the Last War book listed in its frequently bought together section. New opportunities to recruit more Eberronians!

 

[Celebrim]

Are you disinterested in D&D or disinterested in what WotC is publishing? Those are, IMO, very different things.

Quite true.

I mean that I'm not interested in what WotC is publishing. During the middle of 2e's run, I was also rather uninterested in D&D.

But then I was probably more interested in what TSR was publishing during that time than I am now in what WotC is publishing with respect to D&D. Planescape was interesting, even if I had no interest in playing it, and at the time had a very low opinion of D&D as a system.

 

[darjr]

I don't think you know what a preorder is.

Apparently I dint either, ha!

 

[Reynard]

Their stream is free. That doesn't translate into book sales 1:1.


Mark my words.

Free views on twitch and YouTube don't translate into book sales. This will come out, sell for a few weeks, and then disappear.

20-somethings may be the target audience. They also have no attention span to speak of. 50 and 60 year olds have been the glue holding the hobby together and have continued to buy product for decades. If they aren't interested in this book, it'll be long forgotten while fatbeards continue buying PDF versions of the original Greyhawk Folio for the next 10 years.

My favorite part of this post is how it misses the fact that 50-60 year olds that have been playing for decades were once 20 something gamers

 

[generic]

My favorite part of this post is how it misses the fact that 50-60 year olds that have been playing for decades were once 20 something gamers

It's intentional trollery, ignore it.

 

[Nikosandros]

Apparently I dint either, ha!

To be fair, most shops do charge at once for pre-orders.

 

[darjr]

My favorite part of this post is how it misses the fact that 50-60 year olds that have been playing for decades were once 20 something gamers

Sometimes I’m not sure I was ever 20.....