D&D 5E Mike Mearls interview - states that they may be getting off of the 2 AP/year train.

[Oofta]

The difference is that smaller, rpg-focused companies, who want to make the rpg and don't have to meet some profit margin from above, are able to make the products I want to buy. Novels, setting books, player content, all the stuff, so, for me they're making a better product, hence ttrpgs are better off with them, from my standpoint, as a fan and customer.

You might bash the setting bloat of TSR, but it gave us wonderful settings. What 5e gave us this far on that level? Also, the novel lines.



Firstly, I don't hate dnd. If i woul I, indeed wouldn't be on this board. I don't hate 5e, as a system, actually, while I have some problems with it, I like it overall. I want it to be better and I hope WotC will put out content I want in the future and that's why I'm here to read news and discuss.

Secondly, I don't think all-cheerful, one-sided echo chambers are healthy to the game.

Thanks for your reply.

I would say that times have moved on since the TSR days. Print material (magazines in particular) simply don't sell like they used to. We don't have bookstores like we once did. The dmsguild is meant to take up some of the slack while limiting WOTC's risk exposure ... I can see that whether it's successful or not is open to debate. But pining for times past is kind of pointless.

Don't get me wrong, in many ways I'd love to see a return to the TSR output of old, I just don't see it happening. I'm not sure many games can maintain a high level of output and maintain quality and audience in the long term. There's too much competition for people's time.

PAIZO may be the exception to the rule, but I think they kind of fell into a niche of people that didn't care for 4E. I wish them luck but I don't know how much longer they'll be able to continue at the size and volume of output that they are.

 

[PMárk]

Thanks for your reply.

I would say that times have moved on since the TSR days. Print material (magazines in particular) simply don't sell like they used to. We don't have bookstores like we once did. The dmsguild is meant to take up some of the slack while limiting WOTC's risk exposure ... I can see that whether it's successful or not is open to debate. But pining for times past is kind of pointless.

Don't get me wrong, in many ways I'd love to see a return to the TSR output of old, I just don't see it happening. I'm not sure many games can maintain a high level of output and maintain quality and audience in the long term. There's too much competition for people's time.

PAIZO may be the exception to the rule, but I think they kind of fell into a niche of people that didn't care for 4E. I wish them luck but I don't know how much longer they'll be able to continue at the size and volume of output that they are.

Except, a lot of small companies are able to put out a lot more content, not just Paizo. WotC's approach is rather quite unique, I might say.

Paizo is doing their thing for a lot of years now and I hope they will be able to do it further.

Also, I don't think that, at this point, Paizo's market is mainly consisting of people who didn't like 4e. Years passed and a lot of new gamers came into the hobby since then.

 

[machineelf]

Putting multiple adventures in one book isn't what some are looking for either. And certainly not at hardcover prices.

Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

It's what I am looking for, so I imagine it's what "some" people are looking for.

I don't want a whole adventure path. I would prefer shorter modules, where I can place them within my own larger campaign anywhere I want. If you can give me 5 or 7 of them in one hardcover book, I'm all for it. I would prefer them being sold individually, but I don't hate one book with several.

 

[Oofta]

Except, a lot of small companies are able to put out a lot more content, not just Paizo. WotC's approach is rather quite unique, I might say.

Paizo is doing their thing for a lot of years now and I hope they will be able to do it further.

Also, I don't think that, at this point, Paizo's market is mainly consisting of people who didn't like 4e. Years passed and a lot of new gamers came into the hobby since then.

For a while PAIZO was the number 1 retailer, and now it's a distant second (based on what information we have which is limited).

I don't play Pathfinder, but I know people who do and they are constantly complaining about the bloat and broken combinations along with rumors of a new release to clear the slate. Of course come to think about it, they were always whiners so it may not mean much.

I'm personally happy with the amount of content they put out. A book of higher level monsters would be nice, but I can make my own, buy from Kobold press or check out the dmsguild.

To each his own.

 

[Morrus]

Paizo's model has an inherited subscriber base from the Dragon and Dungeon magazines, which makes them atypical. You can't use them as a model for anybody but themselves - it's not a repeatable model.

 

[Obeliske]

I would love this and miss when it was a thing.

 

[Giltonio_Santos]

While this is a very interesting discussion, it makes me wonder how the Evil Corporate Overlords™ model that seems to be WotC's thing created my favorite D&D edition ever*, while Paizo's Small Company that Loves its Customers™ model resulted in a rare situation of a D&D variant that I don't want to play at all. Shows that "what's in the interest of Evil Corporate Overlords™ is not in the interest of customers" not always work as intended.


*Also, the one I've spent most money in.

 

[PMárk]

While this is a very interesting discussion, it makes me wonder how the Evil Corporate Overlords™ model that seems to be WotC's thing created my favorite D&D edition ever*, while Paizo's Small Company that Loves its Customers™ model resulted in a rare situation of a D&D variant that I don't want to play at all. Shows that "what's in the interest of Evil Corporate Overlords™ is not in the interest of customers" not always work as intended.


*Also, the one I've spent most money in.

I think you misunderstood the argument. I didn't say it's a bad edition, because of evil corporate overlords. I has nothing to do with the quality of the rules, for example, or one's interests in a specific ruleset. It's a good edition. It's surely a lot of people's favorite edition, like yours.

I said, that's because the demands of evil corporate overlords, they have to play the most safe balls and that means I won't get content I want, because that content would be more risky, or niche. Meanwhile, infinitely smaller companies are able to put out content I enjoy, not just Paizo, I maintain my opinion that WotC's model is quite novel in the rpg industry.

So, from my personal standpoint, the evil corporate overlords model is inferior to the dedicated smaller company model, because I won't get books I want from them. It might be the exact opposite fro you it might be that WotC is putting out the content you're exactly looking for and you wouldn't be interested in the content I'd be. And that's fine.

 

[Giltonio_Santos]

I think you misunderstood the argument.

While I get your point, I think my answer relates more properly to @CapnZapp's comment that "Any rpg line that benefits customers (rather than corporate pipe dreams) will be published by a small outfit with no dreams of real profit (on the corporate scale)." Before 5e, I'd probably agree with that, but WotC not only created the game I want to play, they also created the RPG line that I want as a customer, resulting in an increased number of D&D product purchases for me when compared with any previous edition.

Maybe I'm the weird customer here, but I'm perfectly fine with what corporate people want for D&D. If D&D in a small publisher means D&D with a product schedule anything like that of Pathfinder, I hope they never license it to a small publisher. Give me corporate D&D until 2080, please.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

The main difference between corporations and small businesses, usually, is that small businesses (generally) listen to their customers, and corporations listen to their sales analysts.

Who is RIGHT depends on if the small business's customers are giving good information (and not just having a few idiots yell loudest) or if the analysts are both given good info to analyse, and are drawing goid conclusions.

WotC, for the most part, seems to be (at the moment, at least) doing BOTH. On top of that, they seem to be doing a good job of analysing whatever info they get.

Sent from my LG-D852 using EN World mobile app