D&D 5E I think we can safely say that 5E is a success, but will it lead to a new Golden Era?

[Valetudo]

I would just like to point out that 4th sold very well when it first came out and that every time a wizards employee was interviewed they would praise how well it was selling. Now this lasted for most of the first two years of 4th and thats when I think it started declining sales wise. 5th is going to sell well for atleast its first year . The question is what is wizards going to do after that. How are they gonna handle splat books, are they going to restart dungeon and dragon magazines, how are campaign settings going to be dealt with(Im hoping for reboots that have timeline options for the different editions that are kept seperate from novel storylines).

 

[billd91]

Oh trust me, I'm familiar. It just changed the paradigm such that it was unrecognizable from 1e crawls. I guess if you squinted hard enough, the "back to" part of "back to the dungeon" didn't illicit a sour-face from you.

I found that Create Wand (WoCLW especially, but a few others as well such as SM) and Scribe Scroll had two major impacts that dramatically affected classic dungeon crawl play:

1) The impact of the work-day attrition of HP and the rationing of spells to mitigate the losses incurred was basically gone. With it went (a) all of the tension it naturally provoked and (b) the intended resource management mini-game.

2) An embarrassment of spell riches made it such that it was almost impossible not to have a load-out that could answer any and all barriers, impediments or potential problems. God forbid you had two spellcasters in your party with CW and SS. Difficult spell load-out decisions were central to trying to deal with potentially lethal conflicts.

I would consider "unrecognizable" to be something of an exaggeration. We played plenty of 3e that was quite recognizably similar to a 1e dungeoncrawl.

That said, magic item creation was probably the element with the most transformative potential that 3e introduced. Fortunately, for DMs that recognized the impact it was having on the game and player motivations, it is pretty easy to weed out of the game by just disallowing the feats and controlling what's available for purchase.

And for players who recognized the impact it was having, it was easy for them to either avoid the feats or use them with enough moderation that they weren't throwing the game out of balance. For example, in the 3e game I was running, the sorcerer PC took both Create Wand and Leadership to get a mystic theurge/magic item crafter as a cohort. But he used his feat to make fireball and acidball (energy substitution feat) wands for the rogue to use as a backup when situations got very dangerous for flanking and the theurge cohort was tasked to making items for the party and not just the sorcerer. So rather than serving to supplant another PC with cheap utility spells, the wands went to their initial purpose in 1e - providing a means of firing off attack spells in combat without fear of disruption. And the item creation feats concentrated with the mystic theurge went to benefit the whole party rather than concentrate more magic on a caster with the right feats.

 

[DaveMage]

I would just like to point out that 4th sold very well when it first came out and that every time a wizards employee was interviewed they would praise how well it was selling. Now this lasted for most of the first two years of 4th and thats when I think it started declining sales wise. 5th is going to sell well for atleast its first year . The question is what is wizards going to do after that. How are they gonna handle splat books, are they going to restart dungeon and dragon magazines, how are campaign settings going to be dealt with(Im hoping for reboots that have timeline options for the different editions that are kept seperate from novel storylines).

Based on what we've seen so far, they are going to outsource most of the products to trusted partners. They simply don't have the staff to create that many books in house. 4 of their first 8 products are being produced by non-WotC companies.

 

[Jester David]

And it's still #1 in amazon.ca and #3 in .com, following a school textbook and the book that was the source of one of the biggest movies of the weekend.

This is a good sign. Selling well last week was expected, as that was when all the preorders would be fulfilled; it was three months of sales compressed into one day. But now all the pre-orders should be done, so it's just current sales. Other people who didn't pre-order hearing about the book and deciding to buy, or hearing the word-of-mouth regarding 5e and buying.
It's certainly a good sign.

 

[Jester David]

Semi-related, WotC just canned the KaiJudo line, which was popular enough to have its own TV show. So WotC now has Magic: the Gathering, Avalon Hill (which they haven't done anything new with in half a decade), and D&D.


It does emphasise how high WotC sets the bar for success.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Based on what we've seen so far, they are going to outsource most of the products to trusted partners. They simply don't have the staff to create that many books in house. 4 of their first 8 products are being produced by non-WotC companies.

This is near mothballs, as I was predicting.

Semi-related, WotC just canned the KaiJudo line, which was popular enough to have its own TV show. So WotC now has Magic: the Gathering, Avalon Hill (which they haven't done anything new with in half a decade), and D&D.


It does emphasise how high WotC sets the bar for success.

Nah. It emphasises that a lot of the WotC staff grew up on D&D - and Hasbro provides little oversight as long as what WotC does with their actual main game (Magic: the Gathering) is providing them significant income. They've less emotional attachment to Avalon Hill. And Kaijudo? Duel Masters was cancelled years ago other than in Japan where someone licensed it. They tried relaunching it based on the show and that failed.

 

[Rygar]

Semi-related, WotC just canned the KaiJudo line, which was popular enough to have its own TV show. So WotC now has Magic: the Gathering, Avalon Hill (which they haven't done anything new with in half a decade), and D&D.


It does emphasise how high WotC sets the bar for success.

AH just released Axis & Allies 1914 last year, which was a pretty significant departure from previous A&A titles.

 

[Mistwell]

I would just like to point out that 4th sold very well when it first came out

It did, but not this well. It never got to #1 in all books, and in fact it never even got close to that number. According to Mike Mearls, the only book to ever get #1 from WOTC was a 3e PHB (I think it was the 3.0e one, but it might have been the 3.5e), and at the time Amazon was not selling as many books as they do now by a large factor.

So yes, 4e sold well at first. But no, 4e didn't sell this well at first.

The question is what is wizards going to do after that. How are they gonna handle splat books, are they going to restart dungeon and dragon magazines, how are campaign settings going to be dealt with(Im hoping for reboots that have timeline options for the different editions that are kept seperate from novel storylines).

I agree that is also an important question - how will they do things in the long term.

 

[BryonD]

It did, but not this well. It never got to #1 in all books, and in fact it never even got close to that number. According to Mike Mearls, the only book to ever get #1 from WOTC was a 3e PHB (I think it was the 3.0e one, but it might have been the 3.5e), and at the time Amazon was not selling as many books as they do now by a large factor.

So yes, 4e sold well at first. But no, 4e didn't sell this well at first.



I agree that is also an important question - how will they do things in the long term.

Let's make 2 hypothetical assumptions:
1) 5E sells 10X over 4E in the first month
2) 5E sales/popularity follow the same pattern as 4E over the next 36 months.

(For the record, I don't believe or expect either of these)

Those two assumptions lead to: 5E Failure

I'm not predicting failure. I expect huge success (though I'm not promising that yet either )

But the point is, 5E is doing some form of "really good". We don't know specifically.
And it doesn't mean anything about the long term.

 

[Jester David]

Nah. It emphasises that a lot of the WotC staff grew up on D&D - and Hasbro provides little oversight as long as what WotC does with their actual main game (Magic: the Gathering) is providing them significant income. They've less emotional attachment to Avalon Hill. And Kaijudo? Duel Masters was cancelled years ago other than in Japan where someone licensed it. They tried relaunching it based on the show and that failed.

After twenty-five years, I'm not sure how many MtG staff grew up on D&D.
And the CEO of WotC is a Hasbro suit. He's likely very unfamiliar with D&D and likely has zero emotional attachment to the game. If it doesn't make money, he will axe it without a second thought.