D&D 5E L&L Basic Dungeons & Dragons

[AmerginLiath]

This is BRILLIANT!

First off, I love it. Grab an adventure, download the BDD rules PDF document, and start playing. We've seen that WotC is already using Kobold Press for their Tyranny of Dragons path/event, so it looks much more likely that they'll be allowing outside companies to write adventures, even if not sourcebooks. Between that and DRAGON/DUNGEON adventures that will appear (some likely for free early on) and the conversions that have come out with the playtest or other conversion notes they release for old adventures, there will be lots of options for cheap or even free introductions to Fifth Edition.

The importance of that is that folks are balking at the $50/book price even if they agree that it's fair, because it's a new system that they haven't played yet. However, get them enjoying the basic game for a few months (maybe a 1-20 campaign) on the cheap and and remind them of the other ~8 races and classes, multiple subclass options, dozens of campaign modules, and hundred of extra monsters & enemy organizations sitting there in the Core Rulebooks waiting there for them in a game they now already love? SALE!

(but, even for those who buy the Core Rules from the get go, imagine having the Basic Rules, a couple of PDF adventures, and a die roller on your laptop or tablet at all time -- you can now literally play proper-albeit-option-slim D&D at a moment's notice!)

 

[Lord_Blacksteel]

Note that I specifically said those books - the PHB/DMG/MM. Making Basic D&D available for free might cause sales of adventures to rise, as there's no longer a $60-150 (depending on edition) prior investment required to use them.

We'll have to see the number and type of adventures they produce once the game is launched. I think that will drive sales more than the relative cost of the books. Campaign settings may also become a bigger part of sales, especially if they are well supported lines and not just a book or two each.

Bear in mind that an awful lot of D&D players only ever buy the PHB - the minimum required to own the rules of the game. If "the minimum required to own the rules of the game" is now a case of downloading a free copy of Basic, a chunk of those people who only buy the PHB will now, instead, just download Basic. That's got to hurt sales.

Beyond the previously mentioned 3E SRD which did not appear to have hurt sales then, Paizo does the same thing with Pathfinder's rules and it does not seem to have hurt them either.

There's also a difference between a fairly obscure set of HTML files tucked away in a corner of the 'net (that we knew about because we're interested, but the mainstream didn't), and a PDF presented on the main D&D website.

They were hardly obscure. It's a web page, just like this one, and the news of it was all over the place, even among the players I knew who didn't hang out on messageboards and the like. There were alternate versions and hyperlinked PDFs available for cheap and free all through 3E's time in the spotlight. I think the main difference between now and 14 years ago is that a) back then a web page or a PDF was not really considered a substitute for a "real" rulebook and b) PDF's are a lot easier to use at the table now with tablets and smartphones becoming a common thing. I think the interest in owning a physical book is still strong among a lot of tabletop gamers so this won't be as big of a deal as it could be.

Perhaps more importantly, though, I didn't say this would make 5e a failure, I said it would impact sales. And if this is part of a larger strategy, losing sales of their in-print books may not be a failure anyway.

I think it may be a time-shifting impact more than a total sales impact. A lot of the gamers I know use the Pathfinder online references as a supplement to their books (looking stuff up when the book is not in-hand) or as a placeholder until they can afford the book. It's a great tool for convincing people to spend money though. "We're playing D&D tonight - Oh I don't have the new book, can I borrow someone's? - Here, use the Basic PDF" and then assuming things go well you're likely to sell a PHB a few weeks down the road to someone who might have skipped it otherwise. It feels like they may be taking a longer view of things this time than before and giving things some time to grow.

Regardless it will be fun to watch as a new approach to the business, on top of the new game itself.

 

[DEFCON 1]

The one other advantage WotC has with going with this method is that it's driving almost everyone who buys a Starter's Set to the D&D official website. Getting many more eyes there is by no means a small thing, especially if they keep adding more reasons for people to make a stop there a weekly or daily thing. Either with more weekly articles, links to dndclassics.com so they can get more adventures, or most especially D&D Insider with all the extra stuff you can get with a subscription.

It's always been said that people who go to the websites or forums make up only a small percentage of the player base. But if having BD&D on the website gets more people to go there, they're more likely to get their eyes on other things they have made available.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Red Hand of Doom (3e), Reavers of Harkenworld and Madness at Gardmoore Abbey (both 4e) are all adventures that don't feel linear. Examples of the opposite are the 4e adventures H1, H2, H3 and P1 which I felt where linear slugfests.

I really hope WotC releases lots of adventures that aren't part of a adventure path. These often feels very railroady by their nature (you need a specific main outcome to be able to continue on the next adventure).

H2 is certainly a bad adventure but it is in no way a linear slugfest as written (as run is another matter). It's actually unusually non-linear for a D&D adventure, like, in the top 20% of pre-written adventures for non-linear-ness, because you can go a lot of ways at a lot of points. H1 and H3 though, ugh, you're spot on.

I totally agree with your hopes re: non-AP adventures, plus I hope Dungeon continues in 5E (or restarts, or however one wants to put it).

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Good call; I approve.

This is what we've been recommending in terms of format; I'm pleasantly surprised that they're releasing it for free!

 

[thundershot]

I have to say I didn't expect that much free material online.

Character creation up to lev 20. The 4 basic classes. The 4 basic races. Some monsters. Some DM stuff.

What intrigues me most is that the must be EXTREMELY confident in the value of their adventures, since they are the only products you "must" buy to play, being PHB, DMG and MM optional at this point,

I just hope they have a steady stream of diverse adventures published.....

 

[sidonunspa]

I hope it'll be in physical form for those who want it. It's hard to beat "free" as a buy-in point, but I'd love to have a boxed set that I can just hand to someone getting into the game (and physical rulebooks are better for reference at the table).

Also: Is that new art? Those look like 5e goblins.

Chances are it will say your allowed to print it, if so you can always lighting source it as a hard copy on your own.

https://www1.lightningsource.com/digital_bookblock_creation.aspx

download, send to them, pay for printing, get a professional copy of the basic set.... SCORE

 

[TerraDave]

Some people did call this.

I totally, totally didn't. Pleasant surprise

I have to say I didn't expect that much free material online.

Character creation up to lev 20. The 4 basic classes. The 4 basic races. Some monsters. Some DM stuff.

What intrigues me most is that the must be EXTREMELY confident in the value of their adventures, since they are the only products you "must" buy to play, being PHB, DMG and MM optional at this point,

Actually, once it has the other material in it....you don't have buy anything...(edit, and Jrowland said it first).

 

[DMZ2112]

I expected this and I still can't believe it. What phenomenal news!

 

[Li Shenron]

Perhaps more importantly, though, I didn't say this would make 5e a failure, I said it would impact sales. And if this is part of a larger strategy, losing sales of their in-print books may not be a failure anyway.

Yeah you're right, you only said it'll make "the D&D RPG as a whole a loss-leader for the overall brand".