On the one hand, as a tabletop gamer, sure - it sucks that they're not going to put out a ton of D&D books. It is nice having options.
But on the other hand, one of people's big fears about said lack of support is it could mean the edition going belly up. They're afraid the lack of hardcover books means players will tire of 5E, which they love, and it will become hard to maintain or find new players to play 5E with.
Which is the Catch-22. A game without updates starts to feel abandoned. Sure, it can be beloved and played forever, but eventually even the more ardent supporter clamor for new stuff. There is a reason OSRIC began; as support for a 20+ year old RPG that hadn't seen a new supplement since 1989.
Imagine what it would do for the hobby if Universal or Warner Brothers made a D&D movie that made more money in its opening weekend than 30 years of RPG supplement sales. Imagine all the middle school kids, teens and college students that would walk out of the theater, pull out their smartphones, and look up more about this whole "Dungeons & Dragons" thing. There's an entire generation out there for which D&D is the perfect combination of nerd chic, retro dorkiness-turned-coolness and quality time spent with your friends. Dare to dream of a world where you could say to a coworker or new acquaintance, "Hey, would you be interested in playing in a D&D game I'm hosting this Saturday?", and it would be taken the same way as asking if they wanted to play videos games on XBOX Live with you or an invitation to a pick-up basketball game.
Putting out a quality movie or two is the best possible thing they could do for the game as a whole - it could bring D&D to the general public's attention in a way it hasn't been since the early 80s, ensure the game's future and worthwhile support for years to come, and grow the entire industry as more people are introduced to the hobby than were during the d20 boom.
There is a big problem with this scenario: the movie has to be GOOD and that has to translate into sales of the RPG. Comic book movies have existed and sold well since 2002, but only recently has comic sales began to increase (and even then, they are no where near the 1990's sales totals). I don't put huge trust into said movie-into-sales moves: mostly because I don't trust said movie to be good. Ignoring the fact the last three D&D movies were tripe, one need only look at Ouija and Battleship to see Hasbro isn't exactly stellar at making IP into movies.
I don't see the current strategy as disappointing, or pathetic, or poorly thought out - I see it as bold, and risky, and visionary, and perhaps the best shot the game has at actually reentering the cultural zeitgeist and reclaiming some of its former glory as opposed to becoming an increasingly niche and graying market.
But yeah, I guess they could just release a couple of splatbooks and a campaign setting book no one outside of the hobby will ever hear about, instead.
And this runs the same problem 4e had: its chasing potential customers at the expense of its current fanbase. You can't do that. You need some balance. I'm hoping WotC has found some level of balance between IP and RPG, but my fear is that when push comes to shove, the latter is going to win.
I think the notion of a well-supported RPG being one with lots of new supplements for sale was invented by RPG companies, as part of their marketing of books when books were the only way they could make money. From the point of view of the player base, new books aren't all that essential when there are so many already-published books available.
This is why it is so important to 5e that it play like older editions, and that older edition conversions be relatively straightforward (both of which are recurring themes, that contrast with 4e). The truer this is, the more all that B/X and AD&D material available on DriveThru supports the game.
Not lots, but regular and well-announced. The debate isn't that WotC needs another book-of-the-month club release schedule, but that it needs to say what it IS doing. Its the silence that's maddening. If I'm not getting another FRCS or ECS, that's fine. I will begin the laborious process of conversion. I don't want to get 45% of the way into said conversion to find out there will be said book coming in 2016. Are we getting a psionics book or no? Is campaign settings a go or no? Are we getting new classes, another monster manual, or no? Are we getting an OGL, fan-licence, or nothing? I don't care when; I'm patient. I want to know IF.
WotC could alleviate a lot of concern simply by saying: Here is out general outline of future support for D&D. In the future, we plan to do... and fill in the rest. Even if its "we plan to release two APs and a free PDF per year", then at least we'd know what to expect.
And yet, comic books haven't decreased. We see new titles coming out on a regular basis. I just can't understand this whole direction where they need to slacken on the releases in order to focus more on doing things outside the TTRPG.
I see see all these examples of companies doing other things with the brand but are still able to churn out their original products. It shows a bit of incompetency on their part.
Me either. The video games are designed by outside studios. Their supplemental stuff is done by Gale Force 9 and WizKids. Their APs are written by outside game studios. WHAT IS THE ACTUAL RPG DIVISION DOING?
Again, the silence is deafening.
"Token support" would not have been a 2-year play-test. Moan about the post-release schedule all you like, but that process, and what it delivered, showed that someone making decisions at WotC knew that it was the right thing to do.
Which is why this confuses me so. WotC's release schedule was full the second half of 2014. In six months, we got a basic set, three hardbacks, two modules, a DM screen, plus supplemental releases from GF9 and Wizkids. And we were looking at leaks on a new Hardback (Adv. Handbook) and AP (PotA). We were promised some sort of thing for fans to make their own content (or even an OGL) in the spring. We were similarly promised conversion guides for older material. (Which would be REALLY nice for all that support we're given via DnDclassics.com)
And then Christmas came, the layoffs happened, and WotC went quiet. The Adv Handbook was "not cancelled" cancelled. We've heard nothing of the fan licence/OGL. The conversion guides were delayed. We've had one release in four months, with no hint of future releases. Its scary, almost as if the D&D division is literally a skeleton crew and their original idea for support is fading due to lack of resources. I can't believe this is what they had in mind in 2012.
