D&D 5E So what exactly is Wizards working on?

[delericho]

No amount of complaining is going to change that, right?

Cue a big announcement next week that they're aware of the complaints and are now ready to announce a dozen books for the next year...

 

[Manchu]

WoTC do not have that brand reputation.

Strong point and I never really thought of it. I was excited to hear about PotA because it has "D&D" on the cover. But I am interested in (for example) Iron Gods in spite of it saying PF on the cover (3.X rules are no longer my thing) because I associate Paizo's APs with interesting ideas and cool art.

 

[Sailor Moon]

I think the argument that more products turns off more players is absurd. Pathfinder would be dead in the water long ago if that argument held any scrap of truth. In fact I find myself wandering over to the pathfinder section in hobby stores all the time, meanwhile I don't even notice small product selections of other RPGs and never bother with them.

I also hate the lack of products for D&D, I especially hate the "DIY" mentality behind the DMG, and general lack of crunch and support for the game. But I acknowledge 100% that too many books have diminishing returns, and that WoTC cannot make money out of it.

Pathfinder I would guess makes money out if their hugely successful societies system and subscription pricing models. They also get more content out through PDF (lower cost), and they sell direct. They also have a reputation of creating great APs which people probably buy just for the sake of owning them. WoTC do not have that brand reputation.

Exactly!

D&D may be a well known brand, but Paizo has gained a reputation for producing quality products and having fantastic relations with it's customers.

 

[delericho]

I think the argument that more products turns off more players is absurd.

As with the "model airplanes" example, the issue is not turning off players as such, but rather turning away certain types of players.

A new player who, on coming to the store, is confronted with a big wall of books and especially if there are multiple "Player's Handbooks" (as in 4e) or where they're all labelled "must have!" (many other games) is more likely to be intimidated and just walk away.

Conversely, there are the 'dedicated' customers, the guys who are willing to buy a $40 book a month and who always have an appetite for more, more, more! We're not likely to be turned off by a plethora of books, and most of us are quite happy to pick and choose which of the 100 books that are out we want to bother buying.

That means you need a different strategy depending on who you want to sell to. If you're happy selling to just the core group of 'dedicated', then by all means put out multiple books, including very specialised ones.

But if you want to grow your customer base, you need to attract newbies in large numbers, and the wall of books becomes counter-productive - better instead to have a fixed core offering (PHB/DMG/MM) plus a rotating adventure offering for your current Event (ToD, Elemental Evil...)

WotC appear to have adopted the latter strategy, where Paizo are going more for the former.

(There is actually a third option available for WotC which would cover both bases: use the DDI to provide materials to the 'dedicated'. That way, the newbies see only the PHB starting point, while those who want more can seek it out. There is a potential issue if a PHB-only player sits down at a table with a group of 'dedicated', but that's not much different from a Basic-only player sitting down with those using the PHB/DMG/MM set.)

 

[Sailor Moon]

Sure. Is that such a bad thing? (Serious question.)



Sort of. My guess is that they're producing APs faster than most groups will consume them (though that remains to be seen - I don't know how long a 1-15 campaign will take to play). That being the case, once they've got a few out there that will be less of an issue - people will be able to go back and do one of the ones they've missed.



I think the hope is that they'll be lost for 6 months, but when the next Event hits they'll be tempted to come back and at least have a look - in the same way that so many people who skipped 4e were at least tempted to take a look at 5e.

It's not without its flaws and its risks, of course. But then, what is?

With regards to modules, Paizo has the right idea because they understand that not everyone is going to like one module so they may like another, so they produce multiple modules in a short time span.

 

[delericho]

With regards to modules, Paizo has the right idea because they understand that not everyone is going to like one module so they may like another, so they produce multiple modules in a short time span.

The thing is, the rate isn't actually all that different. Paizo produce full campaign Adventure Paths per year; WotC are planning two 'storylines' per year. The only difference there is that Paizo's paths are made up of six shortish adventures while WotC's are 2- and 1-volume books. (But then, Paizo's paths are considerably more expensive as a result.)

Where there is a difference is that Paizo do also produce quarterly standalone adventures, where WotC don't currently have any equivalent. But those are very much not Paizo's focus - to the extent that they fairly recently changed that line very significantly (from bimonthly shorter adventures to quarterly 64-page ones), suggesting they sell far fewer copies than the APs.

 

[bmfrosty]

There's an awful lot of truth in the post I've quoted, but I just wanted to comment on this one thing.

While it's true that launching a new edition is more expensive, it's also vastly more profitable. The few numbers I was able to find suggested that a PHB sells about ten times the number of copies that even the very best-selling supplement does (~700k 3.0e PHBs vs ~70k Psionics Handbooks).

How about a 5.0.1? A second revision to the fifth edition? Include any eratta, more useful charts and diagrams, rework the language fluff, change out the art, but leave the actual rules and mechanics the same. Does that garner a similar effect? Do a point release every 5 years?

 

[Sacrosanct]

I think the argument that more products turns off more players is absurd.

You can think that. But industry professionals and all studies done have shown that having too many products will turn off consumers. So until someone can actually show some counter evidence. Somewhere. Anywhere. There is no reason why I should suddenly abandon the only evidence we have for the word of a couple of random forum guys who probably don't work in distribution/marketing.

Pathfinder would be dead in the water long ago if that argument held any scrap of truth.

PF jumped on the 3e fanbase, and had to compete against 4e. That gave them an advantage. But that's really not too terribly relevant anyway, because it doesn't prove that too many PF products never turned away any customers. It just means PF is popular enough keep a customer base of dedicated fans. You have no idea if there were customers who walked into a store and saw a ton of PF products and just decided to walk out again because they had no idea what to buy.

 

[Jester David]

With regards to modules, Paizo has the right idea because they understand that not everyone is going to like one module so they may like another, so they produce multiple modules in a short time span.

WotC is producing APs at the same rate as Paizo: a couple times a year. WotC is just doing it all at once rather than spreading it out over multiple purchases.

Paizo does have the smaller modules line, which produces something like 2 a year. These *were* smaller products but those didn't sell well, so they doubled in size and halved the rate of release. One of these modules each year is the RPG Superstar Module. Really, it could be argued that RPG Superstar is one of the few reasons Paizo keeps that line in existence, since their modules receive very little support and attention otherwise. They pretty much focus on the APs.

 

[delericho]

How about a 5.0.1? A second revision to the fifth edition? Include any eratta, more useful charts and diagrams, rework the language fluff, change out the art, but leave the actual rules and mechanics the same. Does that garner a similar effect?

Hard to say, but I doubt it - Essentials was sold as a new set of Core Rulebooks but with full compatibility, and seems to have done relatively badly. And I don't think either the "orange spine" 1st Ed books or the "black cover" 2nd Ed books had the same splash as the 1989 2nd Ed PHB or the 3.5e PHB. You'll get some people re-buying the books, but I suspect that unless there are significant changes then most people won't. (Or, at least, you don't get the same ~700k as for a new (3.0e) edition.)

Do a point release every 5 years?

Depends on how far your "point release" goes. I suspect the equivalent of 3.0e -> 3.5e -> PF would do fine, because in each case the rules had changed 'enough'. But a 5.0 -> 5.1 -> 5.2 (where the changes are more like 4e -> Essentials, that is, included errata but full compatibility) wouldn't.

But that's all speculation. I don't have any solid figures.