WotC How new Wizards of the Coast head John Hight turned around World of Warcraft

[Ruin Explorer]

I am not sure that Crawford and/or Perkins are the blocking people. They are in charge of designing and writing the rules. But are they in charge of determining the design process? I am giving them the benefit of the doubt that the design-by-commitee style for the 2024 edition might not have been their idea. It could be a case of higher-ups saying: "Hey, D&D Next worked well for us and got us the best-selling edition yet. So we keep that process in place."

That is possible.

I would, based on what Crawford and particularly Perkins have said, think that it's unlikely this was something they were told to do from above, but I can't rule it out. What probably did come from above was the sudden change in timeline, where they were saying "Oh yeah we're going to iterate a bunch" and then later "Yeah will give you bits of the DMG and MM to test", and then neither of those things really happened. But we know where the whole 70%-feedback-loop deal came from and that was Mike Mearls, and it was chosen specifically because Mearls wanted to get lapsed players back in and to keep them. I suspect were he still in charge he might have taken a different approach to 2024, and that Crawford/Perkins retained it because they didn't really know what else to do.

Also, I am not sure about setting presentation in 5e. It seems to be aiming for a slimmer presentation. In the past, settings have been rather thick books with lots of lore. With 5e WotC seems to aim for a lean presentation, leaving room for the DM, and concentrating on immediately useful content, while not expecting readers to digest too much.

That's not the impression I've got from the actual 5E setting books. Like, VRGTR for example, the setting info is just rushed. It doesn't feel "slim and useful" to me, as much as "Holy hell we've got to cover a lot because we're only ever getting one book, so every single nation has to be covered, which means it's going to be real light for all of them because of the page count!".

We just got a lot of lore added in latter books that somehow we expect to be there now.

The "somehow" is because it absolutely did happen in 2E, 3E, 4E, and with Eberron, 5E. That's er... quite a lot of decades and again Eberron shows it isn't an impossibility in 5E. I don't think anyone actually expects everything from every book, or even most things from most books to be covered - I've never seen that opinion from an actual poster, rather than attributed to nebulous "people" who don't actually exist. What people have expressed a desire for is books more similar to 2E/3E/5E Eberron in terms of the amount of setting info.

Also, I'd say it's worth noting that 5E Eberron probably supports a new DM coming to the setting rather better than say, 5E Planescape, or 5E Ravenloft.

I do think one of the problems is that WotC are doing "one book and done" for settings that were never intended to operate that way. Especially as WotC has reduced the page counts compared to earlier releases, and insisted on including increasingly large adventures and bestiaries in the setting books (despite increasing the price by far more than inflation).

 

[Ruin Explorer]

My point was not that RPGGeek ratings are a particular authority on product quality, but to highlight that claims of WotC "bungling" 5e setting updates seldom seem to be based on anything more that "I didn't like it so it must be a failure".

I'm not sure they're actually helpful to your claim there, because the idea that 5E Planescape is "better" than 2E Planescape is, like, demented. That's even got a score close to 2E Planescape is incredible and seems to suggest that something fairly bizarre is going on with the voting at RPGGeek.

You seem to think it supports the idea that these weren't "bungled" but I don't think it does, given Dragonlance: Shadow of the Dragon Queen is rated 7.9 in the same place and is clearly not a particularly presentation of the Dragonlance setting, nor, I think it is uncontroversial to say, a particularly good adventure, given that it's a railroad that devolves into following an NPC around as he does important stuff and the PCs watch.

What it seems like you're actually proving is that RPGGeek is completely worthless to the point of providing absolutely zero information about the quality of a product, which doesn't reflect on whether something was "bungled" or not.

 

[Shardstone]

I see you chose to bite at the bait.

Woke up hungry

 

[Echohawk]

What it seems like you're actually proving is that RPGGeek is completely worthless to the point of providing absolutely zero information about the quality of a product, which doesn't reflect on whether something was "bungled" or not.

You're welcome to dismiss those ratings because they don't match your personal views. But at least I'm able to point at something other than my own point of view as a counterpoint to unsubstantiated claims that WotC "bungled" those products.

 

[WisdomOfWombats]

That is possible.

I would, based on what Crawford and particularly Perkins have said, think that it's unlikely this was something they were told to do from above, but I can't rule it out. What probably did come from above was the sudden change in timeline, where they were saying "Oh yeah we're going to iterate a bunch" and then later "Yeah will give you bits of the DMG and MM to test", and then neither of those things really happened. But we know where the whole 70%-feedback-loop deal came from and that was Mike Mearls, and it was chosen specifically because Mearls wanted to get lapsed players back in and to keep them. I suspect were he still in charge he might have taken a different approach to 2024, and that Crawford/Perkins retained it because they didn't really know what else to do.


That's not the impression I've got from the actual 5E setting books. Like, VRGTR for example, the setting info is just rushed. It doesn't feel "slim and useful" to me, as much as "Holy hell we've got to cover a lot because we're only ever getting one book, so every single nation has to be covered, which means it's going to be real light for all of them because of the page count!".


The "somehow" is because it absolutely did happen in 2E, 3E, 4E, and with Eberron, 5E. That's er... quite a lot of decades and again Eberron shows it isn't an impossibility in 5E. I don't think anyone actually expects everything from every book, or even most things from most books to be covered - I've never seen that opinion from an actual poster, rather than attributed to nebulous "people" who don't actually exist. What people have expressed a desire for is books more similar to 2E/3E/5E Eberron in terms of the amount of setting info.

Also, I'd say it's worth noting that 5E Eberron probably supports a new DM coming to the setting rather better than say, 5E Planescape, or 5E Ravenloft.

I do think one of the problems is that WotC are doing "one book and done" for settings that were never intended to operate that way. Especially as WotC has reduced the page counts compared to earlier releases, and insisted on including increasingly large adventures and bestiaries in the setting books (despite increasing the price by far more than inflation).

I do see your points. Eberron was already too light on the setting for my taste, since I still have the original 3E book on my shelf. I can pull more setting information from there than from the 5E book.

5e happens in a different publishing environment than 2e and 3e. Most D&D settings have been either invented for 2e or came into their own during that era. Both 2e and 3e had a different publishing policy. It was kind of a treadmill to stay fresh and in the stores. I am not sure if that really means that those settings do require more than a single book/boxed set/slipcase. We got those additional books anyway, and of course discovered uses for them and the sometimes deep lore they contained. 5e is a radical change from that earlier policies. Now, books are rare events with about 5 spread throughout the year with a more limited page run than in earlier editions. In case of the Forgotten Realms we so far have only gotten about 1/3 of a setting (if you are generous). The Sea of Fallen Stars area is sorely missing, as are all the southern Realms.

With 5e Planescape and Spelljammer, WotC changed the presentation from a single book to three slim books. Spelljammer was definitely too slim, and is missing some vital rules for building your own star systems.

Personally, I don‘t care for the included adventures. That space could be better used for setting descriptions. But I do like the bestiaries.

The slipcases and DM screens of course increase the price point. I am not sure how I feel about that.

Maybe doing a setting book with an integrated bestiary and then an campaign book or adventure collection as a separate book would be better. But would deviate from the „stand-alone“ model of the books. I for one would have liked a DL book and then a campaign instead of getting thread-bare setting information and a so-so campaign. Also I would have bundled the miniature skirmish game with a Birthright release not a Dragonlance one.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

You're welcome to dismiss those ratings because they don't match your personal views. But at least I'm able to point at something other than my own point of view as a counterpoint to unsubstantiated claims that WotC "bungled" those products.

This sort of specious non-argument isn't helpful. I'm not "dismissing them because they don't match my personal views", I'm dismissing them because they don't appear match any common views at all. Or even uncommon ones! The idea that 5E's Dragonlance is in fact better than all three other products, and indeed, a very excellent product is beyond wild.

They're bizarre and inconsistent scores, and the fact you're digging your heels in and refusing to accept that they are bizarre shows that on some level you understand how unhelpful they are to you, and that they prove absolutely nothing except about how weird and obscure RPGGeek itself is.

Especially as the voting numbers are absolutely tiny - Dragonlance has what, 20 votes? Something like that. Even extremely popular products on there rarely have more a few hundred votes. Given D&D has 30+ million players, and surely all of these products sold at least tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of copies (if not far more), all this shows is some weird little corner.

It's absolutely justifiable, based on the numbers voting, and the weirdness of the numbers, to say this is less representative of product quality than, say, opinions here on ENworld. We have far more people discussing these products than they do giving scores.

TLDR - All you've shown is that a weird and super-obscure website, which like, I hadn't even heard or thought of in several years, let alone come across, has weird voting trends on the very tiny number of reviews it has. That's not a counter-point - that's an illustration of oddity.

 

[Echohawk]

It's absolutely justifiable, based on the numbers voting, and the weirdness of the numbers, to say this is less representative of product quality than, say, opinions here on ENworld. We have far more people discussing these products than they do giving scores.

So your measuring stick is "opinions here on ENworld" is it? Well, here are the conclusions from the reviews of those products from this very site:

From the review of 5e Dragonlance: "So D:SotDQ is easily a B+, and maybe an A- if my old love of Dragonlance rekindles at some point or I'm in the mood for a war setting."

From the review of 5e Ravenloft: "Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft is easily the best book for 5th Edition produced yet. Imaginative settings, terrifying monsters, a good adventure, character options that are fun to role-play, and outstanding advice for DMs—it's a winner hands down. My rating: A+"

From the review of 5e Planescape: "Because Planescape: Adventures in the Multiverse did several smart things and laid solid groundwork for more to come. It sets out with clear goals and achieves them, and while it can never exhaustively catalogue the multiverse, it doesn’t feel skimpy. I'm giving this set an A."

From the review of 5e Spelljammer: "If you like Spelljammer (or are more forgiving than I am), it's likely an A- or better. For me, the short page count led to too many problems, from IoX feeling rushed at the end to the skimpy treatment the Rock of Bral got (it didn't need exhaustive coverage but more than five pages is reasonable), and more meant that it only gets a B from me, B+ if I'm feeling generous."

Of course, you're welcome to go right ahead and dismiss those reviews too on the entirely unsubstantiated basis that they don't match "any common views at all".

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Of course, you're welcome to go right ahead and dismiss those reviews too on the entirely unsubstantiated basis that they don't match "any common views at all".

You seem to be confusing the world's tamest reviews, none of which have ever - I stress ever - been significantly critical of any 5E product that I'm aware of it, with actual opinions people have about products.

The fact that Spelljammer is getting an A- is proof positive here. It's like you're going to a reviewer who always gives MCU films 4.5/5 or 5/5 and trying to say MCU films are all masterpieces lol.

 

[Echohawk]

You seem to be confusing the world's tamest reviews, none of which have ever - I stress ever - been significantly critical of any 5E product that I'm aware of it, with actual opinions people have about products.

I keep pointing at sources that contradict claims that WotC has bungled all of its 5e setting updates. You keep insisting that those sources aren't valid because they don't match "opinions people have about products". I don't think I'm the one who is confused.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

My opinion is WotC would rather content to be created by 3PPs and this sold in DMGuild. Then they risk nothing about what the players want or don't.

I don't want to buy adventures, because I am interested mainly into new classes, PC races and creatures. I have got a lot of spells, feats and magic items from my rich collection of 3.5 books.

But Hasbro needs new brands to be created, and these to sell different types of products.

* Warcraft d20 by WotC?