[UPDATED] Has ADVENTURER'S HANDBOOK Been Cancelled?

Today's official announcement about the Elemental Evil storyline mentioned Princes of the Apocalypse, a new DM screen, miniatures, video games... but not the Adventurer's Handbook! This could mean nothing, of course. The book was first announced last year, back in August; but the below screenshot from Edelweiss shows it as cancelled. The mystery deepens!

UPDATE: WotC's Mike Mearls answers "We can't cancel a book we never announced!" So that sounds like the Adventurer's Handbook will definitely not be appearing. WotC certainly wrote ad copy and designed a cover for the book (see below). Mike added "we've played things close to the vest is that it's a huge, open question on what support for the RPG should look like... we do a lot of stuff that may or may not end up as a released product. For instance, we now know that the high volume release schedule for 3e and 4e turned out to be bad for D&D. It wasn't too many settings that hurt TSR, but too many D&D books of any kind. lots of experiments ahead..."

Here's the cancellation screenshot. Now, that could mean a number of things - maybe it's been pushed back, maybe it's been renamed, or maybe it's just an admin error. Princes of the Apolocaypse has been pushed back from March 17 to April 7.

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What do we know about the book? We have a description from August 2014 and a more recent cover image. Right now, anything could be true; I haven't heard anything about a cancellation or a pushed back release date. If I do, I'll be sure to report it.

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Adventurer's Handbook (March 17, 2015; hardcover; $39.95) -- A Dungeons & Dragons Accessory. Create Heroic Characters to Conquer the Elements in this Accessory for the World’s Greatest Roleplaying Game​ Not inherently evil, elemental power can be mastered by those with both malevolent and benign intentions. The Elemental Evil Adventurer’s Handbook provides everything that players need to build a character that is tied directly into the Elemental Evil story arc, with skills, abilities, and spells meant to augment their play experience throughout the campaign. Additionally, valuable background and story information provides greater depth and immersion. An accessory that expands the number of options available for character creation for the Elemental Evil story arc, providing expanded backgrounds, class builds, and races meant specifically for this campaign. Provides background and setting information critical to having the greatest chance of success. Accessory design and development by Sasquatch Game Studio LLC.​ ​

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[guachi]

I want adventures you can play in 3 or 4 sessions. I am not all that interested in 300 page paths. I am a very busy adult, I would like to buy them, rather than make them up. For 4 decades they supported this model. I miss it.

Basically this for me. I used to burn through an module in 12 hour sessions in grade school through college. I need and adventure I can complete in the same amount of time. Now, that means 3 4-hour sessions or 2 6-hour sessions.

In addition, the cost factor comes in. It's far easier, psychologically, to pay $10 7 times than $50 once. We have a guy in our group who STILL hasn't purchased the PHB because of the price tag. He'd have it twice over at MSRP if he put $10 in a box every time we gamed.

 

[Halivar]

People aren't paying attention to get that sweet D&D money, they're seeing if Disney can take Spiderman back from Sony.

That makes zero sense, seeing as neither Sony nor Disney are litigants in the case.

 

[Morrus]

That makes zero sense, seeing as neither Sony nor Disney are litigants in the case.

It sets the precedent. Precedent is a very big part of litigation.

 

[Halivar]

It sets the precedent. Precedent is a very big part of litigation.

I understand, but that's not a reason for Hasbro or WB to sue Sweetpea; I believe that litigation is motivated by self-interest, not the Spiderman franchise owned by some other schlubs.

 

[Morrus]

I understand, but that's not a reason for Hasbro or WB to sue Sweetpea; I believe that litigation is motivated by self-interest, not the Spiderman franchise owned by some other schlubs.

I think you're misunderstanding what was said. The reason that the rest of the movie industry is paying attention to this little lawsuit is because the decision made there will affect them in the future. Sony and Disney, therefore, care what happens in the case because the precedent set in it would apply to things like Spider-man.

I don't know how true that is (I'm not following the subject particularly), but that's what people are saying in this thread. Nobody's saying Hasbro is suing Sweetpea for Sony's benefit.

 

[Sailor Moon]

I don't know you so I don't want assume anything about you, so I'm asking: Do you have a teenager in your home? Because if you do, ask 'em about MLP. Especially if it's a female teenager. Places like Hot Topic, etc. are STUFFED with MLP crap. My daughter and her friends geek out over it. Whenever I drop my kid off at school or go to a school function there is a surprising amount of MLP merchandise staring me in the face. Anime expos are crawling with MLP Bronies.

A movie of MLP would do quite well, I suspect, just from the high school students who would flock to it. Would it be GotG big? No. Avengers big? No. Very profitable? Yes, I suspect it would be.

I'm very, very surprised at how popular it is within that culture.

I'm european and I can tell that MLP is not popular im Europe.

 

[Sailor Moon]

Been where and done what? What does that even mean?


This is ridiculous. Turtles merch made Nickelodeon $475 million in 2012. The movie, with horrible reviews and nominations for all the Razzies, made $477 million worldwide, $191 million of that coming from domestic box office. And sold a crapload of toys. It's a huge moneymaker.


Also ridiculous. MLP is a Core Brand at Hasbro. That means it pulls in at least $50 million in revenue -- the target that 4e D&D aimed for but could not reach -- and it probably makes more. It was a lame duck line, limping along since 1992, and actually discontinued in the States from 1999 to 2003. And it had "been there and done that" -- a TV series and movie that no one remembers. Then, Friendship is Magic comes along, a quality show by all accounts, and BOOM! The line takes off again and gets Core Brand status.


It's a cartoon from the 80s that no one cared about for 25 years. Now Hasbro and Universal think they can make some money off it. Will they? It'll probably move some merch. And the point is, if there's earning potential in Jem, for crying out loud, there's earning potential in a D&D movie produced by Universal. Not just in movie revenue, but in action figures, video games, books, and a host of other merchandise. It would put a bump in the RPGs sales.


I'm comparing a nostalgic niche IP to nostalgic niche IP that were parleyed into money-making brand franchises. I'm presenting an argument, you see, using facts, figures and examples to make a projection. As near as I can tell, all you seem to be doing is saying, "Nuh-uh," to the point of saying that currently successful multi-million dollar franchises are not popular or "a blip on the radar".

D&D has already been there done that with movies, games, comics, cartoons, and toys.

 

[Nergal Pendragon]

A thing about those is they were low budget stuff released straight to DVD and stuff. (Other then the first one which was terrible and had nothing to do with Dungeons and Dragons.)


If Hasbro gets the rights back and puts a major studio and budget under it they could make quite the franchise. And if a major movie stuff happens the rest of the products will get more attention.

They may have been low-budget, direct-to-video crap, but they show the franchise has enough fans willing to shell out money for ANY DnD movie that they can still make a profit making them. Even the direct-to-video movies have to make a profit to spawn sequels.

That's part of why Hasbro is fighting for the rights; they know there's money there.

 

[Nergal Pendragon]

And it was crap like all the others.

You can't compare the Transformers movies to the D&D ones. Hussar was indicating that there could be one, two, maybe three "successful" D&D movies.

You missed the point of the comment.

Actually, I can compare the two. See, the Transformer movies everyone's familiar with are not the first Transformer movies. Most Transformer fans are well-aware of the rather long cinema history the franchise has. Most of the movies were crap; that's why you don't really hear of them. But, they still released, still made money, and still managed to spawn sequels.

And, actually, the 2000 DnD movie was successful in a way; it was nominated for Best Supporting Young Actress at the Young Actress Awards and Cinescape Genre Face of the Future Award at the Saturn awards. And despite its low income, it did make enough money to spawn a sequel. Just like a lot of the Transformer movies did.

Also, he said that a DnD movie would make enough money to spawn a sequel; I'm pointing out that has already happened, while you're claiming it won't.

 

[Viking Bastard]

I'm european and I can tell that MLP is not popular im Europe.

I'm European and it's pretty popular here.