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

[Mercurius]

The catch is, this is already happening with Necromancer Games, ENworld, and others. But 3rd Party Products - even good ones - are not official enough.

After all, the 3PP Fifth Edition Foes was developed and converted by Steve Winter, an ex-WotC employee who was with D&D since 1st Edition and was working for the brand as late as 2013 and co-wrote the two Tyranny of Dragons adventures. It's pretty darn close to "official" mechanics-wise.

The problem with 3PP stuff is, as I see it, two-fold:

One, much of it is now PDF only, and some of us old fogies (grogies?) don't like PDFs (although I don't mind it for short black-and-white adventures that I can print out).

Two, official material implies a certain level of quality, both in terms of content but also the physical product. I'm thinking also for those who like splats, "officiality" has its own perks.

 

[Jester David]

Two(ish) APs per year is fine, on that front. At least one must by setting agnostic.

Tyranny of Dragons was fairly tied to the Realms (kinda sorta). It was set on the Sword Coast and made use of some key towns, but the lore of the setting didn't really much tie into the adventure. It focused around a god that never played much into the Realms before, and radically changed the motives of the Cult of the Dragon.
And Princes of the Apocalypse was a generic adventure with some generic FR names slapped overtop. So much so that just changing the names was all that was mostly needed to convert to Dragonlance, Greyhawk, or Eberron.
And Out of the Abyss sounds like it's another external threat only tangentially tied to the Realms that will likely be easily ported into any world with an Underdark.

Really, so far, the Realms have been a painted backdrop to the adventures. They're not tied to the lore or nations or groups of the setting. They're not Forgotten Realms adventures, they're adventures that just happen to take place in the Realms.

 

[Jester David]

The problem with 3PP stuff is, as I see it, two-fold:

One, much of it is now PDF only, and some of us old fogies (grogies?) don't like PDFs (although I don't mind it for short black-and-white adventures that I can print out).

Two, official material implies a certain level of quality, both in terms of content but also the physical product. I'm thinking also for those who like splats, "officiality" has its own perks.

This was totally and undeniably true... fifteen years ago.

But now 3PP have a decade and a half of experience. Many have made their own games. Heck, the two Tyranny of Dragons adventures were co-published by Kobold Press and WotC. The books used the artists, layout team, writers, designers, of Kobold Press. If you want an idea of what a 3rd Party companies can do, look at those adventures.
Plus, many 3rd Party Publishers (Rich Baker of Sasquatch Games, Wolfgang Baur of Kobold Press, Owen KC Stevens of Rogue Genius Games, Chris Prama of Green Ronin, and Monte Cook of Monte Cook Games) all have MORE experience writing for D&D than the people working at WotC since they were there first before leaving to do their own game companies. And the freelancers who write for the 3PP are often the exact same writers who work on WotC products and/or are ex-WotC employees.

 

[delericho]

A monster book for their campaign specific monsters, and conversion guide for their setting. Maybe some setting specific subclasses and spells. That's all fairly easy to do, could be handled mostly by freelancers, and the art can be recycled from existing products.

You might be right, though I suspect it's not as easy as you suggest - especially since they'll want to be sure the quality remains at the same standard as their 'normal' stuff.

But, perhaps more importantly, if they start producing two versions of their books, they run the risk of splitting their market between those who want the PF version vs those who want the D&D version. And in doing so they risk turning one successful product into two failures... even if the total sales between the two is higher than for the one alone.

 

[Jester David]

You might be right, though I suspect it's not as easy as you suggest - especially since they'll want to be sure the quality remains at the same standard as their 'normal' stuff.

But, perhaps more importantly, if they start producing two versions of their books, they run the risk of splitting their market between those who want the PF version vs those who want the D&D version. And in doing so they risk turning one successful product into two failures... even if the total sales between the two is higher than for the one alone.

I am in no way suggesting two versions of their books, just books that riff off existing Pathfinder material and convert it to 5e. Such as looking through all five Bestiaries, the Inner Sea Bestiary, and the like.
Stuff that allows people who want to use their campaign setting for 5e to do so.

Rather than two versions of books, PDF conversion guides would be cool for their APs. So you still need to buy the adventure.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

The catch is, this is already happening with Necromancer Games Frog God Games, ENworld, and others. But 3rd Party Products - even good ones - are not official enough.

After all, the 3PP Fifth Edition Foes was developed and converted by Steve Winter, an ex-WotC employee who was with D&D since 1st Edition and was working for the brand as late as 2013 and co-wrote the two Tyranny of Dragons adventures. It's pretty darn close to "official" mechanics-wise.

Fifth Edition Foes is excellent, as is the Book of Lost Spells. I highly recommend them both to anyone who's hungry for more.

 

[Mercule]

Tyranny of Dragons was fairly tied to the Realms (kinda sorta). It was set on the Sword Coast and made use of some key towns, but the lore of the setting didn't really much tie into the adventure. It focused around a god that never played much into the Realms before, and radically changed the motives of the Cult of the Dragon.
And Princes of the Apocalypse was a generic adventure with some generic FR names slapped overtop. So much so that just changing the names was all that was mostly needed to convert to Dragonlance, Greyhawk, or Eberron.
And Out of the Abyss sounds like it's another external threat only tangentially tied to the Realms that will likely be easily ported into any world with an Underdark.

Really, so far, the Realms have been a painted backdrop to the adventures. They're not tied to the lore or nations or groups of the setting. They're not Forgotten Realms adventures, they're adventures that just happen to take place in the Realms.

I agree with this, for the most part. I'm enjoying PotA and, though I'd like it even more generic, it's not horrible to convert to Eberron and well within my tolerances.

I still can't tell whether I hated ToD because it was too tightly coupled to the Realms or because it was just a hot mess in its own right. Assuming the former (benefit of the doubt), it would have been really nice to have a big ol' "Forgotten Realms" logo on the cover. The upcoming "Out of the Abyss" appears to be set in the Underdark and incorporate Menzoberan, which makes me think it'll be another setting-bound adventure. If so, I actually don't mind, but would appreciate the heads-up. Even though Eberron kinda swaps out Khyber for the Underdark, having too many drow (thankfully) makes little sense, there.

I've come to realize that, as much as I hate the Realms as a flagship setting, I'm in a phase of my life where I'm mostly interested in just having adventures to run on a casual basis. If Wizards would change-up the background settings for their modules, I'd actually go ahead and use those that were tightly coupled to the Realms. It's the looming threat of the Realms becoming de facto synonymous with D&D that vexes me more than anything, right now. In a manner of speaking, I'm willing to visit, but there's not a prayer I'd live there.

 

[Mercule]

This was totally and undeniably true... fifteen years ago.

But now 3PP have a decade and a half of experience. Many have made their own games. Heck, the two Tyranny of Dragons adventures were co-published by Kobold Press and WotC. The books used the artists, layout team, writers, designers, of Kobold Press. If you want an idea of what a 3rd Party companies can do, look at those adventures.
Plus, many 3rd Party Publishers (Rich Baker of Sasquatch Games, Wolfgang Baur of Kobold Press, Owen KC Stevens of Rogue Genius Games, Chris Prama of Green Ronin, and Monte Cook of Monte Cook Games) all have MORE experience writing for D&D than the people working at WotC since they were there first before leaving to do their own game companies. And the freelancers who write for the 3PP are often the exact same writers who work on WotC products and/or are ex-WotC employees.

The other factor is consistency. WotC implies an inoffensive level of consistency, though that may not be true any longer, either. Kobold Press and Sasquatch Games are great examples. I'm unlikely to ever give a Kobold Press product a second glance, based on Tyranny of Dragons. After Lost Mines of Phandelver and Princes of the Apocalypse, though, I'm pretty well sold on Sasquatch products. Even then, having the WotC stamp on ToD assured me that it would at least have reasonable production values and I'd be shielded from the worst of the drek (which is true -- even though I didn't like ToD, I recognize that it could have strong appeal for some).

 

[Jester David]

The other factor is consistency. WotC implies an inoffensive level of consistency, though that may not be true any longer, either. Kobold Press and Sasquatch Games are great examples. I'm unlikely to ever give a Kobold Press product a second glance, based on Tyranny of Dragons. After Lost Mines of Phandelver and Princes of the Apocalypse, though, I'm pretty well sold on Sasquatch products. Even then, having the WotC stamp on ToD assured me that it would at least have reasonable production values and I'd be shielded from the worst of the drek (which is true -- even though I didn't like ToD, I recognize that it could have strong appeal for some).

The two Tyranny adventures were likely hindered by the fact the edition was still being built. They probably spent more time revising due to changing rules and responding to shifting challenge feedback than modifying the story or tightening the adventure.
It was also the first time WotC licenced an adventure, so communication was probably awkward. I also get the impression Kobold Press wasn't given hard wordcounts as they overwrote the second part by a lot, which is a rookie mistake for two veterans like Baur and Winter.

I really want to see them take a second crack at an adventure when the rules aren't in flux.

 

[RedShirtNo5.1]

I think what I'd want to see would be
1 AP per year
2 shorter modules or 1 large sandbox adventure per year
1 monster manual every other year
1 campaign setting every other year
1 rules supplement every other year