D&D 5E I just don't see why they even bothered with the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide.

[Chocolategravy]

They said we wouldn't be getting splat books... so they gave us a splat book.

 

[Hussar]

Let's see if this thought makes sense.

In 2000, if someone got into 3e and bought the core three and class splats, they'd have about 8 books or so, and drop about 300 bucks. Ok, fine and dandy. System is new and everyone is really keen.

Two years later, WotC tells everyone to replace those books with books that are just different enough not to be compatible but, are rules improvements. There's a fair bit of grumbling about money grab, and, I'm sure at least some people like me who refused to replace their books. I bought a 3.5 PHB and that was my last WotC purchase for a long time. I'm fairly sure there was some bleeding of the fanbase at this point.

Fast forward four years. Now, WotC is telling everyone to replace those books yet again, and try out these new books. Regardless of whether or not you like 4e, even had they gone with a 3.75, I'm pretty sure there'd be a pretty big outcry over money grab. Asking someone to replace books that are only six years old with yet another iteration is going to piss some people off.

That's what Mearls is talking about. Rapid iteration just exacerbates the loss of fanbase. Seems pretty logical to me.

 

[Jester David]

I think that it is impossible to believe that there is no corporate oversight of the DnD department, whether that comes from Hasbro or from WotC itself.

There is no point in quibbling about which logo is on the hat of the faceless upper management drone responsible for gutting the DnD department.

Hasbro has their own brands to worry about. They have their own product lines to manage and people to wrangle. If they wanted to exercise control over WotC brands they'd move them under the Hasbro umbrella rather than keeping them in a subsidiary.
There's likely some oversight, but it's likely minor and amounts to weekly or monthly reports. Maybe some rubberstamping of major decisions.
But considering MtG makes a hundred times as much money as D&D (on a slow year) the lion's share of attention is likely on that brand.

The next ICv2 report will be interesting. If DND stays on top that means they can release three books per calendar year and still outsell any other rpg company. That's HUGE. That would mean their profit margins would be far far greater than anyone else's. It would also be a pretty strong indicator that they business model is the way to go forward.

Why produce ten books if all you do is cannibalize your own sales?

Amazon charts seems to suggest D&D is doing very well, with most of the books being comfortable ahead of Paizo. That was one of the big signs Pathfinder had eclipsed D&D back in the day. It seems pretty safe to say that D&D is still going strong.

 

[Jester David]

They said we wouldn't be getting splat books... so they gave us a splat book.

It's a splatbook only by the most liberal definition of "splatbook". They didn't want content for the sake of content, and a Player's Guide to the Realms seems like a useful book to have.

 

[Jeremy E Grenemyer]

I picked up a copy of the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide tonight.

At this time I am not involved in any campaigns, but I try to write gaming material every day and the SCAG has already proven itself useful for my Realms work.

First impressions:

The book is like a cross between 3E's FRCS and Forgotten Realms Adventures.

I love the image of Elminster surrounded by children (on page 6), the smoke from his pipe forming into images to accompany the stories he tells.

The return of the Unreliable Narrator voice is long overdue. The sections I've read that use this voice are a little dry and not quite flavorful enough--that is, they come close to reading like the omniscient sourcebook-communicating-to-DM voice--but I've only looked up sections I want to update myself on (like Elturgard), so I can't say this is true of the whole book.

In order to find Elturgard, I had to look it up in the index. It's been a long time since a comprehensive index found its way into a Realms guide, and I'm damn pleased to see it return. WotC, don't ever omit a comprehensive index from any Campaign Guide or Players Guide again. Effigies will be burned, otherwise!

In order to get this post on topic vis-a-vis the OP: I don't think I'm the target audience for this book (forty something gamer that has played in the Realms for nearly thirty years). The target is new gamers and gamers with some experience in the Realms.

After browsing through the book, it appears to me the writers hit all the right points (Calendar of Harptos) and including the extra bits that some have (foolishly, in my not so humble opinion) discounted, like instruments and coinage, so I think new gamers will be well served by it.

The only quip I have, as of now, is this: the map on page 5 lists only one city--which I am fine with--but it's the wrong one: Marsember. It should have been Suzail, the capitol of Cormyr.

 

[krakistophales]

The book is largely underwhelming.

Aside from a handful of racial subtypes, some class archetype alternatives, and backgrounds that are actually worse than the original ones in the PHB, there isn't much in there. Lots of flavor text about a realm I personally don't care about since whether I play or would ever DM I would strongly prefer a custom setting anyway. Definitely not worth 50 bucks or whatever it retails for.

 

[delericho]

Because it's splitting the consumer base. 3.5 players aren't likely buying Pathfinder books and Pathfinder players aren't buying 5e books.

Not entirely true - I know several people who happily play both. In many cases the only reason they're not buying 5e books is that they already have them all.

In other words, paizo's audience is about a third or so in size of what WotC had before 4e came along.

This is also problematic: it assumes Pathfinder hasn't gained any new gamers. Which is clearly not true. (Though, of course, many of them would have become gamers anyway - just via a different game.)

 

[delericho]

New iterations aren't bad at all, its just the natural evolution of games, its a sign of thier success.

It's more complex than that.

Every time D&D has moved to a new edition, its biggest competitor has been its own previous edition. The only possible exceptions to this are 4e and/or 5e, where the biggest competitor might be Pathfinder. (But that's by no means certain - an awful lot of people didn't move to either 4e or PF, and so it's not entirely impossible that 3.5e players is still the largest competitor. And, of course, Pathfinder is itself derived from a previous D&D edition.)

So the game moving forward to a new edition can indeed be a good thing, allowing revitalisation and progress, but it does come at a cost: you inevitably leave a chunk of people behind. Do that too often, and especially too rapidly, and you have problems.

People say that 1e/2e/3e/4e were failures, but they weren't they were all successful in thier time and you can see the genes as it were of all previous editions and even of outside games like pathfinder, in D&D 5e.

I mostly agree with this. It's crazy to say that 1st Ed or 3e were failures simply because they didn't last forever - they did indeed sell huge numbers of books and both lasted a good number of years. 5e very definitely looks to be going the same way.

4e, on the other hand, does seem to have been a failure by the criteria WotC set for themselves. Hence its relatively short lifespan and, especially, the radically different approach WotC have taken with the new edition. (And, yes, that leads to the somewhat absurd conclusion that what is probably the third-best-selling version of any RPG ever is considered a failure. I guess in the same way that "Star Trek: Into Darkness" can be considered disappointing for 'only' making $1b, because it compares less well with "The Avengers" and their $1.5b.)

2nd Ed is a bit of a strange one, in that it lasted a long time but appears to have had the lowest core rulebook sales of all the editions. My suspicion there is that it had an awful lot of supplements and, especially, settings that people bought and used... with their 1st Edition books. (There was also the whole thing with TSR folding, but the reasons for that are many and complex. 2nd Ed itself doesn't seem to have been any part of those problems, though the many competing settings really didn't help. Even so, those were a drop in the bucket compared with other issues.)

 

[Charles Rampant]

Complaining that a setting book is too focused on that setting is... interesting.

 

[Jester David]

Not entirely true - I know several people who happily play both. In many cases the only reason they're not buying 5e books is that they already have them all.

Very true. However, the people that will buy both sets of books are a fractional part of the market. The overlap is likely enough to meet Paizo's sale goals, but it's still not a lot.

This is also problematic: it assumes Pathfinder hasn't gained any new gamers. Which is clearly not true. (Though, of course, many of them would have become gamers anyway - just via a different game.)

You're both right.
Pathfinder has gained lots of new gamers and introduced many into the hobby.
But its sale numbers are also small compared to D&D's 3e and early 4e numbers.