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

[Shasarak]

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

It is perfect for those that do not want to spend much money.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

It is perfect for those that do not want to spend much money.

It also has the side-effect of not overwhelming the more casual customer. (Which seems to be helpful in creating more customers).

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[PMárk]

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.

I see. Of course, these things are highly about personal expectations and opinions. I don't think absolutes apply there, like 'it's always bad/good". So, while I agree with CapnZapp, from my personal standpoint, I don't think one model is objectively better, as long as there are people who like that particular model's results.

It's good for you that WotC's business model aligns with your preferences. In the meantime, it doesn't align with my preferences and we're both right. WotC's model could be both perfect for one and utterly myopic for the other.

 

[Shasarak]

It also has the side-effect of not overwhelming the more casual customer. (Which seems to be helpful in creating more customers).

Especially the ones that think the Players Handbook 2 is the new and improved version of Players Handbook 1

 

[FitzTheRuke]

Especially the ones that think the Players Handbook 2 is the new and improved version of Players Handbook 1

Yeah I thought that one was weird. I've been a retailer for over 20 years and I've never heard anyone make that mistake (aloud, they could have made it without me knowing).

I was advocating 5e making a series of 2s (because they have always sold better than other splat-books) until I read Mike Mearls' story on that subject.

I'm not sure it's a common mistake, but appealing to a casual audience that could possibly make that mistake is a good idea.

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[Oofta]

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.

So essentially the evil corporation isn't shoveling out enough product for you? That model didn't work (long term) for previous editions, what makes you think it would work now? When D&D was owned by a dedicated company TSR, the company effectively went bankrupt. For 3.x and 4, they had to do reboots to stay in business.

With today's much more fragmented marketplace, I don't see how most companies could be profitable enough to stay in business for the long term while cranking out the volume of material some people indicate that they want. Unlike Tesla, most companies need to make a profit to keep the lights on.

Which is why they created the dmsguild.

 

[happyhermit]

I see. Of course, these things are highly about personal expectations and opinions. I don't think absolutes apply there, like 'it's always bad/good". So, while I agree with CapnZapp, from my personal standpoint, I don't think one model is objectively better, as long as there are people who like that particular model's results.

It's good for you that WotC's business model aligns with your preferences. In the meantime, it doesn't align with my preferences and we're both right. WotC's model could be both perfect for one and utterly myopic for the other.

Yeah, there are definitely different preferences and different strategies among rpg publishers, but the size and nature of the companies hasn't mattered much. We have seen small companies try to milk it's audience for everything it's worth (in my unbiased opinion ), put out very little outside of core rules, and something in between, and we have seen the exact same strategies employed by large companies. Wotc is as good an example as any, under Hasbro they have released an edition with tons of products, subscriber services, etc. and then an edition that was intended to last for a long time and with a huge focus on ease of entry and avoiding bloat. I much prefer the latter strategy, and you prefer something different but either can come from a publisher of any size.

 

[PMárk]

So essentially the evil corporation isn't shoveling out enough product for you? That model didn't work (long term) for previous editions, what makes you think it would work now? When D&D was owned by a dedicated company TSR, the company effectively went bankrupt. For 3.x and 4, they had to do reboots to stay in business.

With today's much more fragmented marketplace, I don't see how most companies could be profitable enough to stay in business for the long term while cranking out the volume of material some people indicate that they want. Unlike Tesla, most companies need to make a profit to keep the lights on.

Which is why they created the dmsguild.

I didn't say anything about the quantity (although I do think it's myopic at this level - there's a lot of stages between the level of output now and the bloat of earlier times and they didn't hit the sweet spot for me). I'm speaking about the kind of content we got this far.

The two are working in conjecture, of course, because if we don1t get more content, the room left for the content we'll get will be indeed the most safe bets, nothing new, nothing risky or more niche, so probably a lot less content I'd be interested in.

And most of us know that the TSR bankruptcy was way more complicated than that and I won't go into a debate about that.

Regardless, both e2 and 3/3.5e lasted a long time, so what you consider long-term? One edition for 30 years?

 

[PMárk]

Yeah, there are definitely different preferences and different strategies among rpg publishers, but the size and nature of the companies hasn't mattered much. We have seen small companies try to milk it's audience for everything it's worth (in my unbiased opinion ), put out very little outside of core rules, and something in between, and we have seen the exact same strategies employed by large companies. Wotc is as good an example as any, under Hasbro they have released an edition with tons of products, subscriber services, etc. and then an edition that was intended to last for a long time and with a huge focus on ease of entry and avoiding bloat. I much prefer the latter strategy, and you prefer something different but either can come from a publisher of any size.

That's true, but I maintain my opinion that they have to play very-very safe, because of the overlords and because of those overlords misguided expectations about 4e, that restrict possible content. Yes, smaller companies could and did go that way, but there are a lot of smaller companies who put out a lot more and more diverse products than WotC.

But again, one person's bloat is another's diversity, regardless of what we're speaking about, settings, story, rules or whatnot.

 

[Zardnaar]

I didn't say anything about the quantity (although I do think it's myopic at this level - there's a lot of stages between the level of output now and the bloat of earlier times and they didn't hit the sweet spot for me). I'm speaking about the kind of content we got this far.

The two are working in conjecture, of course, because if we don1t get more content, the room left for the content we'll get will be indeed the most safe bets, nothing new, nothing risky or more niche, so probably a lot less content I'd be interested in.

And most of us know that the TSR bankruptcy was way more complicated than that and I won't go into a debate about that.

Regardless, both e2 and 3/3.5e lasted a long time, so what you consider long-term? One edition for 30 years?

I expect 10 years for an edition myself. 7 or 8 minimum. Longest lasting edition was close to 20 years.