NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Tony Vargas" data-source="post: 7026702" data-attributes="member: 996">Reducing targets to 0 hps, typically through focus-fire is a solid, basic strategy in all editions of D&D.  In 5e, there's few builds who can't pursue that strategy pretty darn well.  It's not like you're forced with a stark choice between casting spells and doing high DPR.  It's just, if you choose casting, you'll have a lot of other things you could do with your spells, too...Skills under BA are prettymuch the same all 'round, the same skills, similar checks thanks to BA (Expertise being the stand-out).  And every class in 5e uses spells, from sub-sets of the same list.  And everyone's proficiency bonus advances exactly the same, in lock-step with level.But, hey, even the same doesn't necessarily mean balanced. Nod.  He didn't even necessarily need to lie.  Sales can be up, and they can be strong in an historical sense, but still fall far short of revenue targets or fail to deliver on RoI because of high expenses, or whatever.  You can always make a story sound a little better by telling only part of it. We kinda do, a bit.  People can come to D&D a few different ways, but one of the best, IMHO, is to play with an established group or be introduced to it by an experienced (and good) DM.  By bringing back lots of experienced grognard DM's, 5e ups the chance of new players having a good first experience with one of them.  Whether that balances out the game being potentially confusing/frustrating/un-intuitive/etc to new players without such an introduction is an obvious question, but it seem to be working* at the FLGS, here. It could mean selling for 2.99 a stack, with whipped butter & imitation maple syrup.  I know, I know, the repetition of every disaster starts with someone saying "this time it'll be different," but, really, this time it'll be different.  No, seriously.  The thing that I'm guessing has changed is expectations:  Hasbro threw a bunch of development money at D&D in the hopes of huge increases in revenue stream and they didn't materialize (which wouldn't have been a surprise if they understood the clannish RPG market at all, but, whatever, lose money and learn, right?).  They no longer have that expectation.  I think the plan now is more like: spend as little as possible on D&D while keeping the IP out there, and invest any profits you may get in more promising opportunities.* I think.   I haven't, like, gathered data on all 40+ players showing up every Wednesday, nor even assured myself it's the same 40+ players every week (unlikely, but I can't say I've noticed shocking turn-over).  But, I assume the ones closer to my age are fellow grognards:  I've talked to some and they last played with 2e; and the younger ones new or at least new-ish (the one's I've asked have all had past experience with 3e or 4e.  (One charmingly said "Oh, I've never played D&D before - just Pathfinder..."   She's running a table, now, actually.)</blockquote>

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