Review Dragon Heist, Mad Mage, and Ravnica!

Three books over on the reviews section need your reviews, comments, or ratings. Please head on over to Waterdeep: Dragon Heist, Waterdeep: Dungeon of the Mad Mage, and Guildmasters Guide to Ravnica and leave your rating!

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[Kramodlog]

Not generally no.
What we do here is fine. I generally like it here.

But it is worth reminding people that the enthusiasm over new D&D books isn’t necessarily low. Just low here. And a low number of reviews here doesn't translate into a general lack of interest with the larger audience.
And extrapolating from the lack of interest here to making statements about sales and possible alternate sources of the revenue is pretty dubious logic.

Here is composed of 300,000 posters. Scientific polls do not even reach that sort of representation. Looking at the dates when some accounts were made and how some themes keep coming up in threats (e.g. aligments), I'd say there is a fair share of new people to the game and the hobby here. Granted, the grognard demographics might be more represented, but there are lots of new folk here.

Looking at Amazon charts, the core books are the ones who stay high, not the APs (Dragon Heist and Dungeon of the Mad Mage aren't even APs) or supplements. Newbies attracted to the hobby because of streaming seems to drive those sells. Ashame the products that would root them in the community aren't up to par.

Streaming might just be a fad like many others, so what will drive sells of 5e once that fad passes? Certainly not the products.

 

[Morrus]

Here is composed of 300,000 posters. Scientific polls do not even reach that sort of representation. Looking at the dates when some accounts were made and how some themes keep coming up in threats (e.g. aligments), I'd say there is a fair share of new people to the game and the hobby here. Granted, the grognard demographics might be more represented, but there are lots of new folk here.

The demographics are a lot younger than they used to be.

And that's just people who have accounts, of course. The *readership* is the important stat (it's a news site, primarily, not a forum) and the are skewing a LOT younger these days.

 

[Wrathamon]

I think the biggest thing they will learn is if releasing two products at the same time was good or did it cannibalize profit since this really is the first time. They are also not very related so they dont have very much synergy with the releases. I wonder why they just didnt wait for a different window for ravnica ... only reason I can see is the xmas season is on us.

 

[Azzy]

I use Discord for a streaming game in place of Skype.

While I use Discord quite a bit, I prefer Teamspeak for gaming as it's much less resource-intensive than Discord. /shilling

 

[Jester David]

Here is composed of 300,000 posters. Scientific polls do not even reach that sort of representation. Looking at the dates when some accounts were made and how some themes keep coming up in threats (e.g. aligments), I'd say there is a fair share of new people to the game and the hobby here. Granted, the grognard demographics might be more represented, but there are lots of new folk here.

Looking at Amazon charts, the core books are the ones who stay high, not the APs (Dragon Heist and Dungeon of the Mad Mage aren't even APs) or supplements. Newbies attracted to the hobby because of streaming seems to drive those sells. Ashame the products that would root them in the community aren't up to par.

Streaming might just be a fad like many others, so what will drive sells of 5e once that fad passes? Certainly not the products.

That’s 300,000 accounts, not posters. And that’s made over the history of the site, not active forumites. It includes a lot of former posters, lurkers, sock puppet accounts, RP alts, etc.
The site has maybe 2,000-3,000 active posters. (Which is still nothing to sneeze at.) Yes, we’ve gotten a lot of new posters. But not a representative number: three-quarters of the posters here aren’t new.

Compare this to reddit/r/dnd that has 784,230 subscribers with 4,717 online last I checked. And that’s one subreddit of many. See what the posters there are talking about. Compare the conversations.

And looking at the Amazon chart, even the less popular storyline adventures are selling better than Starfinder and Pathfinder, the next most popular game. This means they’re potentially selling better than 4e! Even the old adventures are still selling, which is a dramatic difference from old editions where new products would spike is sales and then vanish, falling out of print. WotC is keeping all their products available now. They’re doing very, very well.
And accessories like Guide to Everything and Guide to Monsters continue to sell well. And Guide to Ravnica is selling very well still.

Meanwhile, streaming games has only grown in popularity over the last two-three years and shows no sign of slowing down. If it is a fad, it’s a long lasting one. (And the Critical Role campaign setting book is also outselling Paizo’s RPGs.)
While the popularity made wax and wane, I doubt people will stop watching altogether.

 

[Ash Mantle]

I've only just gotten a hold of Guildmaster's Guide to Ravnica and Dungeon of the Mad Mage, and I've been slowly digesting the contents of the two ever since. From what I've read so far, these are really high quality and well written products!
GGtR has actually inspired me to write backgrounds and factions in a way that both blends flavor and mechanics (in a more intertwined way), with also using the renown system.
And I've been mining Dungeon of the Mad Mage for dungeon ideas and even game ideas for one-shots.

 

[robus]

I think Morrus is just tired of me crapping on the popularity of his site. Cause I’m always the one pointing out we’re not the norm and implying message boards are dated...

if new players are not coming here for community, where are they going? Reddit? Youtube?

 

[robus]

The demographics are a lot younger than they used to be.

And that's just people who have accounts, of course. The *readership* is the important stat (it's a news site, primarily, not a forum) and the are skewing a LOT younger these days.

that’s interesting. I occasionally hit the front page to see what’s up, but I mostly visit for the forum chatter.

 

[Jester David]

if new players are not coming here for community, where are they going? Reddit? Youtube?

Reddit
Twitter
Twitch
Discord
Facebook
4chan and 7chan
Roll20
Role Gate

 

[pukunui]

I have left a review for Waterdeep: Dragon Heist, of which I am not a big fan.

I haven't got the other two books. If/when I do get them (am waiting to see if anyone gives one or both of them to me for Christmas), I will leave reviews.