D&D 5E I think the era of 4th edition Dungeons and Dragons had it right. (not talking about the rules).

[hawkeyefan]

I'd much, much rather subscribe to a complete suite of tools/services, with advance UA material and such. I don't care who makes it. They could easily just pay herolab and roll20, and tell them to fill out the rest of the suite of tools. The 4e tools worked really well, and would have been excellent had the original company stayed existent long enough to finish them. Even unfinished, they were great, especially in that you could plug characters and monsters from the other tools into the vtt, which IMO was easier to learn to use than the ones you mention.
Combined with even a tenth of the crunch content of the online magazines, and it would be worth it both for the user and for wotc. DDi is probably what kept DnD afloat during 4e. As I posted earlier, bare minimum revenue at the end of 4e's "life" was about 8 mil a year. Almost certainly higher than that, as it is extremely unlikely that even most subs were paying yearly, which means most were paying more per year than that figure assumes.

As it is, I'm not dropping that cash on a product I have to futz around with community packs, or do the work myself. The money would only be worth it if it is actually making things easier and more convenient, and multiple tools are working together as a whole system (suite).

Fair enough. As someone who has used both products, I can say that HeroLab blows the DDI character builder out of the water. I mean it is not even a comparison. The only possible advantage I could see with DDI is that in 4E you had all those power cards that would require printing. HeroLab allows you to print in a variety of formats, but I never saw it in the 4E days, so maybe DDI was better for that specific reason? And the community pack requires no fiddling....you simply download it when it is updated, very similar to a program update. Once it's up to date, it's all set and you don't need to do anything further. Every now and then you'll find something that isn't quite 100% right, but the longer it goes, the more any errors are ironed out and updated.

You don't have to do any work yourself with HeroLab, but you can do it yourself if you like. You can take a monster and add class levels or other features in order to come up with a tougher version. Or if you do want to create something from scratch, you can do so. For example, I created a Worm That Walks template and then applied it to the Archmage entry from the Monster Manual.

All of this for less than I paid for about a half year of my DDI subscription....so yeah, you give me a better product for a lesser cost, and I'm happy every time.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Fair enough. As someone who has used both products, I can say that HeroLab blows the DDI character builder out of the water. I mean it is not even a comparison. The only possible advantage I could see with DDI is that in 4E you had all those power cards that would require printing. HeroLab allows you to print in a variety of formats, but I never saw it in the 4E days, so maybe DDI was better for that specific reason? And the community pack requires no fiddling....you simply download it when it is updated, very similar to a program update. Once it's up to date, it's all set and you don't need to do anything further. Every now and then you'll find something that isn't quite 100% right, but the longer it goes, the more any errors are ironed out and updated.

You don't have to do any work yourself with HeroLab, but you can do it yourself if you like. You can take a monster and add class levels or other features in order to come up with a tougher version. Or if you do want to create something from scratch, you can do so. For example, I created a Worm That Walks template and then applied it to the Archmage entry from the Monster Manual.

All of this for less than I paid for about a half year of my DDI subscription....so yeah, you give me a better product for a lesser cost, and I'm happy every time.

I have a buddy who has herolab, and I just am not super impressed. I prefer the offline and preferred the online wotc CB. To each their own, though. But for me, even if I preferred herolab, I would still drop it in a second for a 5e version of the package that I got with my DDi sub. The draw isn't just each tool by itself, it's the suite, and how they sync and work together. A 5e DDi sub suite would basically be like getting herolab, roll20, a monthly dragon+, and probably a little bit more, all synced together/compatable, all updated the day the new d+ issue comes out, all optionally backed up on a server and your local machine. Any addition of things like high res maps, columns like Eye on [setting], winning races, etc would just be gravy.

And the base base is so much bigger now. If the same percentage of players subscribed as did during 4e, it would be an absurd amount of revenue. If half the percentage did, it would still be profitable.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I have a buddy who has herolab, and I just am not super impressed. I prefer the offline and preferred the online wotc CB. To each their own, though. But for me, even if I preferred herolab, I would still drop it in a second for a 5e version of the package that I got with my DDi sub. The draw isn't just each tool by itself, it's the suite, and how they sync and work together. A 5e DDi sub suite would basically be like getting herolab, roll20, a monthly dragon+, and probably a little bit more, all synced together/compatable, all updated the day the new d+ issue comes out, all optionally backed up on a server and your local machine. Any addition of things like high res maps, columns like Eye on [setting], winning races, etc would just be gravy.

And the base base is so much bigger now. If the same percentage of players subscribed as did during 4e, it would be an absurd amount of revenue. If half the percentage did, it would still be profitable.

I get that. I actually do most of my stuff offline in 5E. One thing the streamlined rules are good for. I got HeroLab when my group was playing Pathfinder. I grabbed the 5E license when it came out because I knew it would allow me to customize monsters and print them easily. I don't think it's quite as necessary as I found it during the Pathfinder days.

I'm 90% sure that HeroLab works with Fantasy Grounds and D20Pro...so there is that connectivity you're talking about.

I understand why you want that suite of tools, though...understandable. Not sure if all will be provided by one company though. Might have to mix and match.

 

[wicked cool]

the best thing to come out of 4th edition was pathfinder. I'm not a fan of pathfinder but I feel like it opened up the market and possibly had wotc change 4th to 5th. So far the modules have gotten better


If 4th edition was responsible for the short adventures made for Flags then I applaud that innovation.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I get that. I actually do most of my stuff offline in 5E. One thing the streamlined rules are good for. I got HeroLab when my group was playing Pathfinder. I grabbed the 5E license when it came out because I knew it would allow me to customize monsters and print them easily. I don't think it's quite as necessary as I found it during the Pathfinder days.

I'm 90% sure that HeroLab works with Fantasy Grounds and D20Pro...so there is that connectivity you're talking about.

I understand why you want that suite of tools, though...understandable. Not sure if all will be provided by one company though. Might have to mix and match.

Yeah, if 5e was more like PF, well I doubt my group would even play it, but if we did it would definately be with a CB. Lckily 5e is still a small enough system that it's fairly easy to remember most of what is available, but eventually it's going to need a CB, too. I hope wotc figures out some kind of platform, whether it involves a new product or a different licensing model for 3pp solutions, before then. While I liked the 4e CB more, I'd be fine with that solution being just stronger support and licensing for herolab, a searchable "compendium" version of the basic rules (at least), and some damn app support.

 

[PMárk]

Please no FRCG. I've bought books and boxed sets for FR in AD&D 2ed. I've eight hardcover FR books for 3ed sitting on my shelf. I have 4e FR. I've got resources online like Candlekeep. PLEASE don't send time retreading the same thing over and over and over again.

There is an opportunity cost to put resources into a project, and that will take away from something new, or at least something that hasn't been touched in a while. The DMG teases with a lot of D&D, so of which we haven't heard anything new about for a decade. The D&D setting search that ended up being Eberron generated a huge amount of interest, doing something like that with the resources would be amazing.

Don't bump something new to revisit FR yet again. I'm burnt out buying those books for decades, WotC won't make money from me on it. And I have more then enough FR material from them for anything I would ever want to run in that setting.

Heh, I quickly run through the list of possible products, so as far as WotC is concerned:

- Don't make other setting books, because you'd cannibalize sales. If fans want to play them, there's the old material.
- Don't make FR books, because people are fed up with FR, it got re-making in every edition.
- Don't make novels, because it's not profitable enough.
- Don't make crunch books because people don't want bloat and you'd shorten the edition's lifespan and 3rd parties and DMsG got that covered.
- Don't make fluff books, because people don't want to pay for setting specific fluff for their homebrew.
- Don't make short adventures, because it's not good to FLGS and not profitable.
- don't make long adventures, because another save-the world campaign every half year is boring and putting setting information in them only is problematic.
- Don't make monster books, because 3rd parties and DMsG got that covered too.
- Don't make in-house applications and gaming aids, because again, 3rd parties got that covered.

So, basically... don't do anything! Just sit on the IP, sell the corebooks, put out long adventures and organized play material and focus on managing the brand via social media and streaming, etc...

Wait, that's sounding familiar...

Except, there is a need and demand for all of the above. You just won't sell everything for every fans. Some would buy a crunch book, some an FRCG, some a RL book, some like the novels. Putting out just the most basic and most safe material and leaving everything else to the 3rd parties (which, while there is excellent material out there, it isn't allowed in organized play and have quality assurance problems) has the danger of making the game just boring on the long run, while there's a lot of other RPGs out there.

 

[Corpsetaker]

The facts are that you can give the people what they want without going overboard. WoTc can't seem to grasp that happy medium that we gamers have grasped for a long time.

I honestly think people are getting tired of these long adventures along with nothing else and it will show.

 

[PMárk]

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[Corpsetaker]

Please no FRCG. I've bought books and boxed sets for FR in AD&D 2ed. I've eight hardcover FR books for 3ed sitting on my shelf. I have 4e FR. I've got resources online like Candlekeep. PLEASE don't send time retreading the same thing over and over and over again.

There is an opportunity cost to put resources into a project, and that will take away from something new, or at least something that hasn't been touched in a while. The DMG teases with a lot of D&D, so of which we haven't heard anything new about for a decade. The D&D setting search that ended up being Eberron generated a huge amount of interest, doing something like that with the resources would be amazing.

Don't bump something new to revisit FR yet again. I'm burnt out buying those books for decades, WotC won't make money from me on it. And I have more then enough FR material from them for anything I would ever want to run in that setting.

Then they shouldn't have used the Forgotten Realms as their flagship setting. There is a lot of the Realms that have not been explored or has had minimal support in the past. FR is a setting that has tons of history that has given it it's unique flavour and WoTc is taking away what makes the Realms unique.

 

[PMárk]

The facts are that you can give the people what they want without going overboard. WoTc can't seem to grasp that happy medium that we games have grasped for a long time.

Oh, I agree with that completely. You could do crunch without short-time bloat, you could do settings without the setting bloat of 2e, etc. I agree WotC now somewhat struggle to find the medium ground.

I honestly think people are getting tired of these long adventures along with nothing else and it will show.

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It depends. If your target audience is the most casual and new gamer, it could work. I saw that in a martial arts school, when the school's main profile is the beginner-intermediate classes. It means that there is a lot of casual practitioners, who are there for a little sword-swinging and the community, but the fallout is also high and there's a lot less experienced practitioners and researchers, most of them (90+ %) are instructors. It works, because there's always enough new blood coming in, but it's offerings for experienced people are much more limited. It has a skewed demography. It's not a McDojo, it's a good school, but it has a certain focus. I might add, that it has far-far more students than other more "elitist", more competition, or research focused groups.

I think D&D recently is heading that way as an easy to access, easy gateway rpg. I don't say it isn't a good strategy from a purely business standpoint. It's just makes it a less interesting rpg product on the long run. I think if things staying this way, we'll see a trend of gamers migrating to other games if they're staying with the hobby for longer than 2-3 years.
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