D&D General Is DnD being mothballed?

[Alzrius]

You have 80 posts in this thread. Which on your last post, is 7% of all posts. Since you started actively commenting in this thread, it's been 11% of all posts.

Admittedly, I have made a lot of posts, for me, in this thread. ..... Nineteen.

I meant more in general, unless you feel I've misread your posting style (which, I should add, is in no way a slight; rather it was a wry compliment).

EDIT: By the by, is there a feature here to count posts and percentages in a given thread, or did you add those up manually?

I am going to reiterate that you repeatedly state that that the people who argue against you are doing so contrary to the evidence. See, e.g., post #1142, which I quoted (and responded to).

Yes, the "evidence to the contrary" was with regard to the idea that 3.5's release schedule was unsustainable, as an unavoidable effect of releasing so much so quickly.

Yet you don't actually have any evidence.

I do, and it's self-evident. Paizo puts out that much that quickly, and it has yet to doom them. That WotC would have needed to change other aspects of how they do business isn't relevant in that regard, because that wasn't put forward (either expressly or by inference, as I saw it) as part of the idea that I'm responding to. A heavy release schedule of high-crunch books is not going to doom a company because of unprofitability; the evidence of a simple look at the #2 TTRPG company tells us that.

You don't have the numbers. You have a conversation at a seminar, and as already discussed, we don't know what the actual numbers are- you have to wait for a book. You don't know the trends. You don't know if the sales of 3.5e were down, or how much. You don't know what WoTC's numbers are.

Again, I don't believe those are relevant to what's a much simpler point than you're making out. 3.5 was not necessarily going to doom WotC due to its release schedule alone. Full stop.

Now, you can say that point I'm replying to was misunderstood by me, and that's certainly possible, but as I read it that was the idea put forward, and it's one that I not only disagree with, but find evidence to the contrary to.

My issue is that there is this dance you are doing, where you seem to keep arguing that everyone except you is ignoring "the evidence," yet there are no actual evidence that they are ignoring.

See above. There is, and it's pretty much impossible to ignore, which is what makes a lot of these replies so odd.

Anyway, I don't enjoy arguing about arguing. You can continue the argument with everyone else in the thread.

I can indeed, and will.

 

[Alzrius]

Well, if it is for your own reasons, well, there your own reasons but I see little point in it. People will believe something different in a while.

Well, I see point in it, and that's enough for me. I certainly can't control what people believe, but there's merit, I think, in debating these things.

 

[Alzrius]

I don't have any links available, but there were quite a lot of stories told about two years ago when Paizo's workers were in the process of unionization, both in terms of actual compensation and in terms of cutting corners elsewhere (like cleaning the office).

I recall those points being raised, and they're certainly not without merit. I'm simply saying that overall, I find Paizo's offenses to be less egregious than WotC's (partially because, due to their larger size and greater influence, WotC's tend to have an outsized effect, and so I find course to look upon them with less sympathy). Certainly though, I don't agree with any implication that the only way Paizo was able to maintain their release schedule was by not paying their employees enough.

 

[Staffan]

I'm seeing people arguing a number of different things in this thread.

Some are saying that clearly Wizards are doing the right thing with their current schedule, because D&D is being more successful than ever before.

Others are saying that a faster release schedule is clearly viable, because clearly Paizo are managing to do it.

These two statements are not opposed. They can be true at the same time, and probably are.

The next level of discussion is about preferences and what the best thing is. That's where you get some people saying that Wizards should stick with going slow because of various reasons:

• It's better ROI for investors.
• It gives fewer options for customers which makes it easier to choose what to buy
• It's better for a "long tail" where older products remain in print and still sell.

Others argue that they should pick up the pace because of other reasons:

• It gives more options for customers, who will have more books from which to choose.
• It would let them provide more in-depth support.

This disagreement is not over facts but over values, and no-one is going to persuade anyone else about this.

 

[Parmandur]

Another part of the perceived slowness of the release schedule is the glaring omission of sourcebooks, which used to be the mainstay of the releases back in 3e. You have setting overviews, you have adventures, you have rules expansions, and you have monster books. But the closest we've gotten to geographically themed sourcebooks since the Sword Coast's Adventuring Guide are Storm King's Thunder and Waterdeep: Dragon Heist, both of which are primarily adventures with a small geographical description attached. There's nothing like 3e's Sharn: City of Towers or Faiths of Eberron (or for FR folks, City of Splendors: Waterdeep or Faiths & Pantheons). And while some of that stuff can be found on the DM's Guild, it's not integrated into D&D Beyond.

Well, no, the gazateers in SKT and DragonbHeiat are not "small," theybare larger than old TSR products that would cover the same territory. Theybare also not the only ones: Icewind Dale, Baldur's Gate, Tomb of Annhilation, Ghosts of Saltmarsh, Princes of.the Apocalypse, Out of the Abyss, and Curse of Strahd fit that bill, as well. Yes, regional douecebooks are baked into Adventure books now, but the material is being released.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

Well, I see point in it, and that's enough for me. I certainly can't control what people believe, but there's merit, I think, in debating these things.

It is not a debate if people do not accept the premises of your argument, it is just a pointless ding dong.

 

[Alzrius]

It is not a debate if people do not accept the premises of your argument, it is just a pointless ding dong.

I respectfully disagree with the premise that you're arguing here, and will continue to debate with you about it.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

I respectfully disagree with the premise that you're arguing here, and will continue to debate with you about it.

I think my point is made.

 

[Alzrius]

I think my point is made.

Likewise (hopefully while injecting some much-needed levity into things).

 

[Hussar]

I'm not sure that we do know that sales were "outright dropping" as opposed to "growth was slowing." Would you mind linking to something (and ideally quoting the relevant text) in that regard? Because again, Paizo was putting out essentially the same content, and it was stable. Even if Paizo isn't selling 2015 books, they're selling enough of the books that they put out that their bottom line seems to be doing just fine, and then some. Likewise, I don't think that it's "inevitable" that newer books will be sold at the expense of older books; that's a presumption that I have yet to see evidence to support.

Umm, wasn't that the whole argument that Ben Riggs put forward? That the books sold in the first couple of months and then nose dived thereafter?

I didn't realize there was actually anyone who thought that 3.5 had stable sales by the tail end. I'm rather surprised that you think this.