D&D 5E (2014) OK WotC, I've had just about enough of this...

[Sir Brennen]

I'm in the camp of thinking all this clamoring for WHERE'S THE MORE! is a bit pre-mature. The DMG just came out in December, then we had a holiday period where WotC offices were actually closed for several days, and some employees have additional vacation around those dates, especially Mearls who had some paternity leave.

They just finished a couple of years of being entirely focused on developing and rolling out the core system, including one big adventure and another in the works with a Player's supplement. Give 'em a chance to breath, get regular content going on the main site, and take stock of where they're at.

Also remember they're looking at increasing the D&D brand presence the tabletop RPG books, so that's probably taking up some time, too, as there's alot of content being coordinated.

 

[ExploderWizard]

You missed one obvious possibility.

4: 5e going forward is essentially D&D in mothballs. That sales numbers appear to have been lower than for any previous edition since the red box (counting 4e but not 4e Essentials) and ultimately it isn't terribly popular (both 3.0 and 4e made it onto the NYT bestseller lists). People bought the PHB because it was the new PHB - but most 4e fans stuck with 4e (and large numbers had stopped buying in response to Essentials) and most PF fans stuck with Pathfinder. The D&D team is smaller than it has been at any point in history, and the other two core books didn't sell remotely as well as the PHB.

I know right! Its almost as if we were talking about GAME books for a game in which there are far more players than DMs.

 

[Sir Brennen]

I know right! Its almost as if we were talking about GAME books for a game in which there are far more players than DMs.

You know what, though... it'd be interesting to see the ratio of DMGs sold to PHBs sold. How many gamers intend on being players only, and how many also (or only) plan on being DMs? Also, since the MM is primarily a DM book, one would expect it's sales to be comparable to the DMG. But is that really true? Do some DMs forgo the MM? Do some players buy the MM without the getting the DMG?

There's probably a lot of factors that go into this, as I'm sure groups share books ("I'd like to run a campaign after yours. Can I borrow your DMG?" "Who's got the PHB? I need to look something up."), some gamers are just completionists and want to have them all, etc., but still, would be interesting.

 

[ExploderWizard]

You know what, though... it'd be interesting to see the ratio of DMGs sold to PHBs sold. How many gamers intend on being players only, and how many also (or only) plan on being DMs? Also, since the MM is primarily a DM book, one would expect it's sales to be comparable to the DMG. But is that really true? Do some DMs forgo the MM? Do some players buy the MM without the getting the DMG?

There's probably a lot of factors that go into this, as I'm sure groups share books ("I'd like to run a campaign after yours. Can I borrow your DMG?" "Who's got the PHB? I need to look something up."), some gamers are just completionists and want to have them all, etc., but still, would be interesting.

Lots of possibilities certainly, but the PHB is going to have the most overlap. There may be many players who won't get a DMG but I don't know of any DMs who won't get a PHB.

 

[TerraDave]

Well, now we know.

We get a free download.

I have no problem with a free download.

 

[M.L. Martin]

And we just got that quote from Mearls that 'too many D&D products are bad for the game.' I'm not sure if that's true, but I'm sure that WotC thinks it's true, at least. So, what would be the rationale for that?

1. Accessibility: Too many books scare people away from the game, so they're going to make sure that the game culture doesn't grow into 'you need X, Y and Z to really play the game'.

2. DM Control: Closely tied into that is the emphasis on 'giving control of the game back to the DM', so they don't want to produce more material than a DM can handle.

3. Uniformity: There has been a continued subtext during WotC's ownership of the game (if not before) that the ideal is one big happy D&D family all sharing the same formative experiences, "like it was back in the 1E days"! Reducing product to a handful of adventures seems to really support the 'One Game, One Setting, One Campaign' experience they sometimes seem to want, if only by starving much of the base of alternatives.

It will be interesting to see how it turns out.

 

[aramis erak]

And we just got that quote from Mearls that 'too many D&D products are bad for the game.' I'm not sure if that's true, but I'm sure that WotC thinks it's true, at least. So, what would be the rationale for that?

1. Accessibility: Too many books scare people away from the game, so they're going to make sure that the game culture doesn't grow into 'you need X, Y and Z to really play the game'.

2. DM Control: Closely tied into that is the emphasis on 'giving control of the game back to the DM', so they don't want to produce more material than a DM can handle.

3. Uniformity: There has been a continued subtext during WotC's ownership of the game (if not before) that the ideal is one big happy D&D family all sharing the same formative experiences, "like it was back in the 1E days"! Reducing product to a handful of adventures seems to really support the 'One Game, One Setting, One Campaign' experience they sometimes seem to want, if only by starving much of the base of alternatives.

It will be interesting to see how it turns out.

I see it more like...

1 Accessibility (as you list)

2 DM affordability - Player's are not really terribly good customers. DM's tend to be much better. But 2E and 3E tended to push player focused splats, which tended to be bought by DM's rather than the players...

3 uniformity under the logo - note that WotC/Hasbro hasn't been going after the 3pp adventures in any public way. There will probably be another 10-15 AL adventures that aren't actually sold. I wouldn't be surprised if they get released in a complilation annually... after the season they're from is closed.

4 time to playtest - much of the 2E splat nastiness was released when the culture at TSR was dominated by "Playtesting isn't vital" era... it was clear that some authors (Aaron Alston, for example) playtested on their own, while others don't seem to have ever played D&D.

5 A focus on organized play support. By keeping the mechanics from growing, it makes life easier on the DM's doing organized play. And Organized play does make for sales.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Actually what they're doing is maintaining the hype on the core products so that the core products remain strong. PHBs are supposed to be the big seller, with DMG and MM behind it. Those sales are the healthiest for the game.

And taper off naturally. People don't often buy more than one PHB.

And after The Elemental Evils Adventurer's Handbook gets out, the hype should still be on the Core.

You mean the mothballed book that's been cut down to a web download. I wonder if they think it won't sell.

Besides the system just came out. Patience, damn it.

The Starter Set (i.e. the actual system) came out over six months ago. The PHB five months ago. You don't actually need the DMG - as this edition makes clear with the release schedule.

 

[Shasarak]

If the Vatican and WotC made a joint announcement that the newest D&D book out sold the bible, there would still be some people claiming that Pathfinder outsold them, and others calling the book a failure, and then both of those groups would have a theory that means WotC is shutting down...

Which edition of the Bible?

But really one is Fiction and the other Non-Fiction so they probably would not be measured under the same category.

 

[Jester David]

Ironically, now they've actually announced something I'm a little more irked. Because we know almost as much as we did before the announcement.

We know there's a storyline called "Elemental Evil". Okay, cool. We knew about that before the MM was out.
We know the storyline will have a single $50 hardcover. Again, nothing news.
There will be minis supporting the line. Not a surprise, given WizKids like 2+ sets a year and was pushing more on Paizo. One set per storyline makes sense.
There will be a Neverwinter expansion based around EE. Again, not a surprise, given WotC's strategy seems to be cross marketing their stories and has been since 2011.

The only real "news" we got was the board game and the PDF of rules. Okay, the board game is neat but I'll pass: I only need the one stand alone delve board game. And the downloadable accessory with the genasi and new spells is interesting but not really all I was hoping for in terms of a first expansion.

They haven't told us how big the book is. We know it's 1-15, but is it 192-pages like the Tyranny of Dragons books? Which is pricey given it's almost half the size of the core books but costs the same. And they're silent on the whole Adventurer's Handbook thing despite everyone having heard of it.


So... this announcement pretty much could have just the board game and the fact the player content in Princes of the Apocalypse being a free download.