D&D General Rules vs. lore preferences in D&D sourcebooks - forums vs. Reddit

[JEB]

The poll originally posted here on ENWorld and cross-posted to rpg.net, r/dndnext (with crossposts to r/dnd and r/dnd5e), and r/dungeonsanddragons just closed, so I figured I'd compare and combine the results for everyone's edification...

What is your preferred ratio of rules to lore in a Dungeons & Dragons sourcebook?

	ENWorld	rpg.net	r/dndnext, r/dnd, r/dnd5e	r/dungeonsanddragons	Combined
No rules, only lore	4 (4.5%)	1 (2.1%)	7 (1.4%)	1 (0.6%)	13 (1.6%)
Less rules, more lore	13 (14.8%)	10 (21.3%)	51 (9.9%)	21 (11.7%)	95 (11.4%)
Mix of rules and lore	40 (45.5%)	14 (29.8%)	229 (44.5%)	79 (43.9%)	362 (43.6%)
More rules, less lore	31 (35.2%)	20 (42.6%)	179 (34.8%)	50 (27.8%)	280 (33.7%)
Only rules, no lore	0 (0.0%)	2 (4.3%)	49 (9.5%)	29 (16.1%)	80 (9.6%)
Total votes	88	47	515	180	830

From most to least popular overall:

1. Mix of rules and lore
2. More rules, less lore
3. Less rules, more lore
4. Only rules, no lore
5. No rules, only lore

Two alternative suggestions that came up multiple times were:

• Different proportions depending on the type of sourcebook, such as setting books favoring lore vs. player option books favoring rules.
• Completely separate lore and rules books.

Observations:

• That is a significantly larger number of responses on D&D Reddit than on the forums. Even r/dungeonsanddragons alone had more than ENWorld and rpg.net combined (180 vs. 135).
• Lore-only books were the least popular option overall. ENWorld had the largest percentage in favor, while r/dndnext/dnd/dnd5e had the highest number, but neither were high.
• No one on ENWorld voted for rules-only books, and few on rpg.net, but the options were much more popular on Reddit (competitive with less rules/more lore).
• rpg.net is the only place where more rules/less lore was the most popular option; everywhere else favored a mix, although more rules/less lore was a solid second place and had most of the remaining votes.

 

[TerraDave]

Crunch sales.

The most talked about book on ENWorld recently replaces two other books with proportionally more lore, effectively pushing the balance to more crunch. This is probably not an accident. And is consistent with the poles.

 

[JEB]

Crunch sales.

The most talked about book on ENWorld recently replaces two other books with proportionally more lore, effectively pushing the balance to more crunch. This is probably not an accident. And is consistent with the poles.

I dunno, seems like the largest number of respondents favored a mix (43.6%), even if rules-preferring is a very close second (43.4%, if you count "more rules" and "only rules" together). And a little over one in ten (13.0%) are also lore-preferring ("more lore" and "only lore"). Is potentially alienating 13% of your audience, plus an unknown number of the 43.6% "mix" folks, worth the gamble of shifting towards less lore? I would stick to the middleground if I were Wizards, but I guess we'll see how things go.

EDIT: I will say this, though - shifting towards less rules and more lore would not be a smart move for Wizards, if the 830 responses above are representative.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

I bought my D&D books for the crunch. I can find lot of lore from other TTRPGs and franchises, for example from wiki fandom about comics, videogames, novels and movies.

But the "crunch" I like to buy is new classes (not only subclasses or prestige classes), PC races and monsters.