D&D 5E Volo's 5e vs Tasha's 5e where do you see 5e heading?

[Minigiant]

The other part that folks are forgetting here is where the growth has come from.

For the first time ever, DnD is appealing across gender lines. A very large segment of growth has come from people that have never gamed before.

Which makes predictions based on the past very suspect. Who knows what the buying habits of a new gamer are? It hasn’t been long enough for trends to really form.

The magic eight ball says the future is cloudy.

This is mainly why my personal guess for drop in sales is sooner than most.

WOTC is catering to newer, younger, more diverse gamers. Younger people get bored faster. Diverse groups are unreliable in excitement. And newcomers tend to have personal ideas different from restylized classics.

Playing safe with that is risky

 

[BookTenTiger]

B

This is mainly why my personal guess for drop in sales is sooner than most.

WOTC is catering to newer, younger, more diverse gamers. Younger people get bored faster. Diverse groups are unreliable in excitement. And newcomers tend to have personal ideas different from restylized classics.

Player safe with that is risky

But weren't most of the "grognards" of D&D once newer, younger gamers?

I think the fact that D&D has been around this long process that young people who get into D&D don't get bored with it.

EDIT: Also the fact that you threw "diverse" in there as a judgment is a little disturbing.

 

[tetrasodium]

B

But weren't most of the "grognards" of D&D once newer, younger gamers?

I think the fact that D&D has been around this long process that young people who get into D&D don't get bored with it.

Yes however back in the 1e/2e age there wasn't much competing with it & in the 3.5 era you had d20 clones playing it safe with little more than "storylines" plus a couple games like CoC & sadowrun (both still kicking & seem healthy in their current versions). Wotc's the one playing it safe with basically just storylines & the 5e forks are the ones doing new stuff to go with new storylines.

EDIT: Also the fact that you threw "diverse" in there as a judgment is a little disturbing.

Why is acknowledging that d&d players are not a single monolith of preference? Wotc hasn't shown much interest in the diverse interests of their 50mil or so players if that diversity makes up less than 70%. Sure wotc might recognize that they are a sizable enough group that they can't simply ignore them in marketing & product PR when the product being pushed does just that.

A couple people have talked up page 11 of RotF as an example... sure it might be useful if you want to apply environmental pressure to a group of players... The players are still near unkillable pack mules with a bunch of "no we have no pressure from food either" type abilities who recover Wfrom injuries like wade Wilson & Logan while the system's math is still based around a spherical cow of no feats & no magic items.

 

[BookTenTiger]

Why is acknowledging that d&d players are not a single monolith of preference? Wotc hasn't shown much interest in the diverse interests of their 50mil or so players if that diversity makes up less than 70%. Sure wotc might recognize that they are a sizable enough group that they can't simply ignore them in marketing & product PR when the product being pushed does just that.

I think what I find disturbing is that @Minigiant is creating two distinct groups: the "old" group and the "new" group, and placing "diverse" people in the new group.

 

[tetrasodium]

I think what I find disturbing is that @Minigiant is creating two distinct groups: the "old" group and the "new" group, and placing "diverse" people in the new group.

Hasnn't wotc's own marketing been playing up data suggesting that d&d players are more diverse though? Is he really doing more than simply not arguing with those red bar & pie chart things they put out not too far back showing demographic breakdowns?

 

[Oofta]

This is mainly why my personal guess for drop in sales is sooner than most.

WOTC is catering to newer, younger, more diverse gamers. Younger people get bored faster. Diverse groups are unreliable in excitement. And newcomers tend to have personal ideas different from restylized classics.

Player safe with that is risky

Huh. I thought the stereotypes were reserved just for old grognards. Good to know "younger people" are a diverse, unreliable group that get bored easily and are constantly seeking excitement. That and that there never used to be any diversity. I'll have to tell some old timers (my wife, several other people that don't fit the "straight white male" stereotype) that they never really belonged.

 

[Minigiant]

B

But weren't most of the "grognards" of D&D once newer, younger gamers?

I think the fact that D&D has been around this long process that young people who get into D&D don't get bored with it.

EDIT: Also the fact that you threw "diverse" in there as a judgment is a little disturbing.

We had a topic on Grognards and who the different generations of Grognards want different things.

Also. I don't know how diverse is disturbing. I mean how my Saturday game had people who are very outward and inward that DMing to their different likes, backgrounds, and knowledges is a challenge.

 

[Undrave]

If they reprint the PHB for the anniversary, I feel like it would be smart of them to not reprint all the same subclasses and instead try to cover similar conceptual grounds and adding new ones and even reprinting stuff from Xanathar and Tasha's. That way, regardless of which PHB version you own, you can still play a simple incarnation of every class and the core Class remains the same, but you also get different choices to pick from, and there would still be value for someone to pick up both version. This would entice previous player to pick up the new version.

I could see all the SRD subclass kept in. For exemple,in the Fighter they keep the Champion, replace the Eldritch Knight by the Rune Knight, and add the Tasha maneuvers and fighting styles. Then for the Rogue they keep the Thief, but replace the Assassin with the Mastermind and add a new magical subclass... that sort of thing.

 

[Oofta]

We had a topic on Grognards and who the different generations of Grognards want different things.

Also. I don't know how diverse is disturbing. I mean how my Saturday game had people who are very outward and inward that DMing to their different likes, backgrounds, and knowledges is a challenge.

What's disturbing is that you imply that only younger gamers are diverse. Are younger groups more diverse? Maybe. Seems like the ratio of female players is going up which is a good thing. But the groups I played with always welcomed anyone who had an interest in joining.

 

[Minigiant]

Huh. I thought the stereotypes were reserved just for old grognards. Good to know "younger people" are a diverse, unreliable group that get bored easily and are constantly seeking excitement. That and that there never used to be any diversity. I'll have to tell some old timers (my wife, several other people that don't fit the "straight white male" stereotype) that they never really belonged.

People gets so defensive about the word diverse.

The funny thing is I wasn't talking about race and gender and more about occupations, focuses, and other hobbies.

I mean how WOTC casted a wide net and succeeded. Before a school's d&D would mostly be from the stereotypes. Not those people might be outnumbered by people from all over the "school."

Casting a wide net gets you a lot of customers early. The trick is keeping them if they start expressing their divergent ideas, desires, and opinions