D&D 5E State of D&D

[Kite474]

Most RPG's do not have the backing D&D does. And for those that do they seem to be doing fine as far as I'm aware, granted that only extend to Pathfinder, WoD, Shadowrun, and quite a few things out of Fantasy Flight. As for the argument concerning piracy its like trying to justify DRM not matter what you do its not going to stop pirates. Its just going to inconvenience your actual customers.

 

[seebs]

Lack of PDFs has nothing to do with being behind the times and everything to do with making sure they're profitable. As I said before, most game systems don't have pdfs.

Paizo and GURPS both do, and guess which are the two most successful game systems that aren't D&D...

I've never seen any evidence that availability of PDFs hurts sales or profits, and I've seen a lot of evidence that they help substantially. Although it's admittedly in different fields, see also all the research that's been done on, say, free MP3s, or free ebook versions of novels and such; everyone who tries the experiment consistently finds that making the content available electronically for free increases physical media sales. Significantly.

Which is to say: Based on the information available, the best guess I'd have is that if they think they are making sure they are profitable, but they are doing something that no one's ever demonstrated to be a good way to increase profits, the chances are that they are in fact seriously behind the times.

 

[KahlessNestor]

And I'm saying it seems to be industry standard for the rpgs tjat I own to avoid pdfs. Fantasy Flight certainly is with Star Wars, and that seems very popular. Most of the games on my shelf don't support it, even the game that gave me a free e-novella with the game (Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn RPG). How 'supported' a game is doesn't seem to matter. As you've pointed out, the cost for a pdf is negligible, so these smaller indie publications should be able to do it. But they're not. Whether it's more profitable or not is also beside the point. To fault WOTC for doing what most everyone else in their industry is doing seems unfair, especially since their actual physical product is cheaper than the others.

 

[Kite474]

Actually a hell of a lot of small indie groups publish online take a gander through DriveThruRPG and you'll see tons of small independent games on there. Like I said before their reasoning just reeks of the same kind companies use when trying to justify DRM. All it really seems to do is annoy and inconvenience the people who want to buy your stuff. The people who arent going to buy your stuff are just gonna grab it anywho

 

[Morrus]

Everyone but Wizards thinks PDFs are a good deal? I'm trying to think of a game I own besides Paizo that has PDFs of its books available (either in addition or instead of). I think Shadowrun is the only one. 13th Age doesn't. Numenara/Cypher doesnt. Fantasy Flight's Star Wars certainly doesn't. Very few games I own seem to think PDFs are worth screwing over all the money they put into developing the dead tree versions.

I can't agree with your premise that it's industry standard. You state that 13th Age and Numenera/Cypher don't. They do. Here's 13th Age. Here's Numenera.

Of the two largest RPGs in the world, Pathfinder is fully supported by PDFs, and D&D is up as far as 5E. FFG doesn't with Star Wars because their license doesn't allow them to - it counts as an "electronic game".

World of Darkness, Savage Worlds, GURPS, Shadowrun, Numenera/Cypher System, Fate, Cortex, Traveller, Dragon Age, M&M, 13th Age, Doctor Who... OK, I can just keep naming things forever, but I got tired of typing. All these and many more fully support their games with PDFs. It seems to be the industry standard to me.

Pretty much every company offers its books in PDFs. FFG and WotC are outliers (for different reasons).

 

[KahlessNestor]

Who am I to contend with the boss then I have several of thise games (and play a lot of FF SW) And never noticed the pdf support. But then I don't use pdfs.

 

[Hussar]

/snip

And... really... are you telling me that in all the D&D games you have ever played, that the Orcs or Goblins never had a chieftain? That the Fire Giants never had a King? That the last thing you had to fight in the course of the adventure was likely an Ogre or Red Dragon or something else that was bigger than what you had fought through on your way to get there? That never, not even once in all the adventures you played, that not a single one of them ever involved a name villain or target who had done or was planning to do something and needed to be killed before that time came to a close?

That no adventure that you played EVER had anything remotely like this with an encounter with a creature that was likely a bit higher level than anything previously and once you defeated it, the adventure could wrap up pretty neatly because often there would be no more challengers?
/snip

To be fair though, it was very rare that these creatures, other than dragons, would be "solo's". The orc chief wasn't alone - he had lots of other orcs around him. Same with that giant King. The idea of the "solo" encounter is something of a later development, although, I would say that it wasn't from video games. The capstone encounter in many modules were not solo encounters.

 

[Kite474]

I cant say much for adventures but for all the homebrew games I've done and been a part of its very, very, common. However I'm gonna concede that 98% percent of the people I have played with and myself got our start in videogames so it makes sense that it was brought over.

 

[Jester David]

FFG doesn't with Star Wars because their license doesn't allow them to - it counts as an "electronic game".

I had wondered about that. That makes sense. It's unfortunate but understandable. I'll have to get off FFG's back for the lack of cheap PDFs...

 

[Kite474]

I believe they can do it for their other stuff...... Which now that I think of it really only extends to WH40k.