D&D 5E What would be your ideal 5E yearly product output?

[Jester David]

The other factor is consistency. WotC implies an inoffensive level of consistency, though that may not be true any longer, either.

There's an irony there - Kobold Press have a deserved reputation for some good products, and this is the second time that a Wolfgang Baur adventure has suffered under a WotC/D&D logo ("Expedition to the Demonweb Pits" being the other). And, in both cases, it looks like a lot of the problems have been due to factors out of the author's control.

So, I'd be hesitant to write off KP at this stage, without at least having a look at something else they've produced.

That is an interesting irony and good point. WotC has never been particularly consistent with quality and there have been some duds in its past. Some of the earliest 3.0 products really seems to have no thought behind them and the quality of some 3.5 books was abysmal.
WotC doesn't need to because reliable becaise they have the Name game system. People will buy the books and game sight unseen. A 3rd Party lives and dies based on their reputation. Their products have to be better, because no one will buy them otherwise.

 

[TarionzCousin]

I didn't read through this thread, so it might have already been said.

I would like to see a published license so that non-WotC vendors can confidently put out material for 5E.

 

[Staffan]

1. I hate the Forgotten Realms. Any adventure that has enough FR flavor for me to actually be aware that it's set there could only ever get a B+ rating. Not fair, but that's life. HotDQ is functionally impossible to separate from the Sword Coast w/o rewriting it, just using it as an outline.

I haven't attempted it myself, but other than the lack of rules support for Eberron concepts (and that's not a problem with the adventure as such), I don't think HOTDQ would be too problematic to put in Eberron (ROT might be a different story as that's more involved with major power groups and such). Eberron has plenty of areas you could use - I'd probably use northern/central Karrnath.

4b. Caravans are a strange concept in a world with trains. I was pretty hot on the idea of shortening the caravan chapters and turning them into a sort of "Murder on the Orient Express" style. See point #1, about re-writing.

The lightning rail is a pretty rare thing. Look at a map of the Five Nations and look where the rail actually travels - it's only between the very largest population centers, and parts of it were disrupted during the Last War. The maps actually have Orien Trade Routes marked, where House Orien runs caravans - and that's still the backbone of their business. The lightning rail is flashy and prestigious, but the caravans is where their meat and potatoes are.

 

[Henry]

For me, something in the "one product per 2 months" category, so I said 3-5. 6 is lumped in with 9, and that might be too much for most consumers, but I really would like to see two major APs per year (like what they're doing) plus one or two hardcovers in between and a bonus special product for sale that's not in the standard formats (supplemental cards, or special minis product, etc.)

That way, you get a little more choice than if you just don't like one of the only two offerings you get per year, and paves the way for some more playtested and vetted rules content to expand the range of genres and options.

 

[Mercule]

I haven't attempted it myself, but other than the lack of rules support for Eberron concepts (and that's not a problem with the adventure as such), I don't think HOTDQ would be too problematic to put in Eberron (ROT might be a different story as that's more involved with major power groups and such). Eberron has plenty of areas you could use - I'd probably use northern/central Karrnath.

The release of RoT was the final nail in the coffin of my conversion. Just a dead-end story, at that point. In theory, you can convert almost anything. In practice, the Waterdeep council scene would have been... problematic. Karrnath probably would have worked okay for HotDQ, but I'd already established that Phandelver was at the Aundair/Breland border, so that was problematic.

The lightning rail is a pretty rare thing. Look at a map of the Five Nations and look where the rail actually travels - it's only between the very largest population centers, and parts of it were disrupted during the Last War. The maps actually have Orien Trade Routes marked, where House Orien runs caravans - and that's still the backbone of their business. The lightning rail is flashy and prestigious, but the caravans is where their meat and potatoes are.

Agreed on the rail. The major sticking point is that HotDQ is set up to pass through two of the largest cities in Faerun, and the nature of those cities plays a role in how the PCs attach themselves to the caravan. I could have worked something out, I'm sure. The point is that, sufficiently advanced hacking is indistinguishable from a rewrite -- enough "little things" end up with more duck tape than metal, so to speak.

But, that all gets back to what I said about not being sure about where "this isn't what I want" gets hard to tell from "this isn't any good". I should probably not hold quality against Kobold Press nearly as much as I should hold the decision to go with a Realms-specific adventure, out of the gate.

 

[Inchoroi]

I'd prefer the 3-5 option. Just a little bit more, but I'd also prefer shorter adventures, especially if they're well-written. I wish they'd get the OGL going, so people will start writing them more often.

I suck at writing adventures, no matter how hard I try... *sadpandaface*

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

WotC doesn't need to because reliable becaise they have the Name game system. People will buy the books and game sight unseen. A 3rd Party lives and dies based on their reputation. Their products have to be better, because no one will buy them otherwise.

As an aside:

At least, WotC has the name game system in their favor among younglings. Old grognards know that WotC isn't TSR in the first place. WotC itself is essentially a third party provider, and if you want old TSR-era writers you go to publishers like Frog God. And that's great, because Frog God has put out some excellent products! I bought copies of the Book of Lost Spells and loaned them to my players, and it opened their eyes to what spell research can be like.

I've also cribbed pieces of adventures from Frog God's Quests of Doom for 5E, which is more than I can say for Rise of Tiamat which I also bought.

 

[Cybit]

So that the game has a 10+ year lifespan, no more than a single book outside the adventures a year, with occasional years of two books. Part of the problem is that folks have gotten used to a very short lifecycle for the game. A book or two per year means...10-20 more books in 10 years. That can be quite a bit. It can be extremely intimidating to hand a new player all of this content when they go to make their first character / DM their first game.

In my perfect world - 2 mega-adventures per year, 1 setting book per year (352 page book), and every three years a monster manual; with the player options and additional monsters attached to the mega adventures and setting books (or free pdfs online).

Setting book would be 32 page adventure, 64 pages of monsters, 32 pages of player options (both of the latter also released free online in pdf form), and 224 pages of setting material.

Monster Manual X would be a compilation of all of the monsters released in adventures / setting books + additional monsters.

I asked before, where is the six for 2015?

2014: PHB, DMG, MM, HotD, RoT, Starter Set: 6.
2015: PotA, OotA, ?, ?, ?, ?

Now, unless you have knowledge that between September and December of 2015, we are getting four new major releases, I fail to see how we get to 6 in 2015.

UNLESS you're using a nonstandard calendar (July 2014 to July 2015) to include all major releases as "year one" OR you are claiming that Fantasy Grounds, Elemental Evil Board game, Dragon+, and SCL releases as "Major" 2015 releases.

Assuming you start your years at launch
Year 1: The Core Three (which aren't repeatable), Starter Set, HotDQ + RoT, PoA
Year 2: Underdark thingy, probably another adventure, ??

My suspicion is that we'll get a setting book of some kind (Eberron? I'd have said Al-Qadim before Rodney left), and that the third "book" is really the summation of Unearthed Arcana columns + the player options tied to the four adventures. I think the part that people are forgetting is that the "player options" book has really been broken apart into the articles + the player supplements tied to each adventure.

Yes... Fingers crossed it will be sooner rather than later.

<evil cackle>. Oh, there will be sweet, sweet love coming. (I'm back to my teasing ways again. At least until Mike gets mad at me. MWAHAHAHA)