D&D 5E Why such little content (books) for Dnd 5e?

[Dire Bare]

They've said they will support a total of 5 settings for 5E.

They did? I don't remember that at all. They have implied that eventually we would see some level of support for most of the classic settings, but at no point (in my memory) did they put a number like that to it. We might get campaign books down the line at some point, we might not. We might get a new setting at some point, we might not. WotC might eventually give us some sugar for all of the classic settings at some point, or they might not.

 

[Dire Bare]

There is really a sense of WotC not knowing what else to do with the game.

I disagree. I think WotC knows exactly what they are doing with D&D, and that they have told us. They are keeping their specific plans, product releases, close to the vest, but they have clearly stated their vision for 5th edition.

The relative silence on future releases is something I'm seeing from more and more hobby companies. I'm assuming it's for the same reasons, less internet angst over changed plans if you don't announce products much in advance.

 

[El Mahdi]

They've said they will support a total of 5 settings for 5E.

They did? I don't remember that at all. They have implied that eventually we would see some level of support for most of the classic settings, but at no point (in my memory) did they put a number like that to it. We might get campaign books down the line at some point, we might not. We might get a new setting at some point, we might not. WotC might eventually give us some sugar for all of the classic settings at some point, or they might not.

You don't remember it, Dire Bare, because nothing even remotely like that has ever been said by WotC or anyone affiliated with WotC.

All they have said is summed up in your comment, Dire Bare. Your recollections are correct.

I don't know if this was just a misunderstanding or misstatement, an exaggeration, or something made up whole cloth, but it's completely not true.

I agreed with the majority of Shiroiken's post, excepting the above and comments related to it. Somehow though, I missed that part when I read it the first time...

 

[Cristian Andreu]

I think we're still too early in the 5e cycle to be completely sure how the game is going to develop. Though, in general, I like that those in charge have chosen to give it a different spin and see how we react. I expect a more "Let's try this, gather data, then steer the ship as needed" strategy, with willingness to experiment. Perhaps we'll see 2 books a year; perhaps from 2017 onward we'll be drowning in expansion sets meant for splatbooks designed around alternate campaign boxes of which you can buy seven different versions, two of them with different types of paper smell. They've built a fantastic base to work upon that I'm sure will give them ample room to manoeuvre.

That said, my collector (which is just "consumerist" with a fancy goal, I guess) side is hungering for more books. On the other hand, my wallet and shelves are happy. But joke's on them; that just means efforts get diverted to getting more out-of-print stuff that I absolutely do not need.

 

[Zaran]

I don't buy the argument about the Player's Guide to Elemental Evil being cancelled is the reason why they aren't announcing anything else because as Mearls said it wasn't announced in the first the place. Even so, there weren't any car bombings or death threats because this book was cancelled. Were their complaints? Sure. Same for when Dungeonscape was cancelled.

I think there is a happy medium where they tell us what's coming so we can all discuss it in a timely manner. The problem is , I think we are at that point now. They just don't have anything else planned. If we want a campaign setting? We have the rinky dink articles in Dragon+. If we want new character options , we have the unvetted jottings of Mearl's in Unearthed Arcana. If we want modules for our home campaigns we have to hack up the adventure paths into parts.

This is what we are going to get. It's not going to get much better until the hire people to make it better. Maybe if we are lucky, next month they will announce Dungeon+ that will give GMs more tools to work with in our own stories.

It won't be long before third party publishers start filling in the gaps though.

 

[Jester David]

Lots of books just feels like a losing proposition.

Too much contents adds bloat, slowing down the game. It adds more rules to learn, more options to pick from when levelling up, and introduces power creep. Plus it introduces the wall of books phenomenon that makes getting into the game intimidating and introduces choice paralysis.

The counter argument of "then don't use it" just doesn't make sense.
First, because it requires a consensus not to use the content, which not all groups possess. If there isn't a consensus then there's conflict. Plus, people generally don't make wise decisions. Even knowing for a fact that certain content is unneeded or detrimental doesn't stop people. People do dumb things. It's human nature. ("I know this spicy bean burrito will give me heartburn and indigestion, but it's sooo tasty.")
Second, because WotC doesn't want books that people are encouraged not to buy or that the majority of players are not interested in purchasing. That's antithetical to running a business. Releasing more books means hiring more staff and means a larger portion of revenue from the D&D brand is expected to come from the RPG. The "optional accessories" business model didn't work particularly because you want people to buy the product.

The alternative that is bandied about is letting another company make the accessories.
Now, WotC / Hasbro isn't going to sell D&D. Ever. Only if Hasbro gets bought out by another, bigger company. Nothing has been done with MASK, Visionaries, Inhumanoids, or COPS in 30 years but they never sold those rights. Why would they do so for D&D?
Licensing doesn't work as well. This requires another company to give WotC money for the rights to publish D&D accessories. Licensing usually means less profit for the licensors but fewer expenses/risks. And it benefits smaller or more specialized companies who can also work with less profit. WizKids is a great example: WotC is capable of producing its own plastic miniatures and has done so in the past, but WizKids employees dedicated sculptures and software so there is reduced start-up costs, and WizKids has an established reputation and relationship with stores and distributors. Plus, WizKids is fairly large and can afford to pay the licensing costs knowing they can make their money back.
The catch is, licensees have to pay. And that's expensive and requires a lot of initial capital. Smaller publishers are going to be very, very hard pressed to pay licensing fees and then the production costs to make the books. It's not like you can Kickstarter getting a licence. Failure is also costly. Look at DungeonScape/ Morningstar. That cost Trapdoor Tech a LOT of money. Or the Marvel RPG from Margaret Weis Productions: critically acclaimed, award winning, and decently selling but still unable to move enough copies to make enough money with the licensing fees.

The thing is, there's *always* going to be too little content for some people. I remember listening to a podcast in the heyday of 4e (late 2009 or early 2010) when the magazines went from monthly compilations to weekly articles. So there was a new D&D book every month and new crunch every week and one of the hosts commented that "this means there was almost enough D&D content being released". Someone will always want more. WotC could release a hardcover book every other week and some collector would buy every one and wish to have something on the even weeks.
I love the Marvel movies. Even the weaker ones like Iron Man 2. I would go to the theater every two months. I want six Marvel movies every year! But I can understand that would impact the quality of the films and that most people will only go to see a couple each year. That the films do better if they're special and the more that are released the harder and hard it becomes to trump what has gone before.

 

[Jester David]

I don't buy the argument about the Player's Guide to Elemental Evil being cancelled is the reason why they aren't announcing anything else because as Mearls said it wasn't announced in the first the place. Even so, there weren't any car bombings or death threats because this book was cancelled. Were their complaints? Sure. Same for when Dungeonscape was cancelled.

The Elemental Evil Adventurer's Handbook is just an example of why WotC is being quiet. People were PISSED. This was a book people knew nothing about except its name and still it became this grand expected product.

WotC used to announce products well in advance. This ended in 2011 after D&D Essentials landed with a *thud* and the head of D&D resigned/was fired. This led to The Great Cancelling where one product was delayed and five others cancelled. Parts of one ended up on DDI, parts of another ended up as playtest articles (whose finished versions were never released). And since then, WotC has really played things close to the chest. The Adventurer's Handbook was just an excellent reminder of WHY it's beneficial to do so.
For example, the PHB was supposed to be out in July with the Starter Set. But they had to delayed it a month. We didn't know at the time because it hadn't been announced. But imagine if we'd been expecting the PHB in July for months and months and they announced the delay in May. Yikes!

It won't be long before third party publishers start filling in the gaps though.

This would require an OGL. If we were going to get one, you think we'd have seen it by now.

 

[Corpsetaker]

Lots of books just feels like a losing proposition.

Too much contents adds bloat, slowing down the game. It adds more rules to learn, more options to pick from when levelling up, and introduces power creep. Plus it introduces the wall of books phenomenon that makes getting into the game intimidating and introduces choice paralysis.

The counter argument of "then don't use it" just doesn't make sense.
First, because it requires a consensus not to use the content, which not all groups possess. If there isn't a consensus then there's conflict. Plus, people generally don't make wise decisions. Even knowing for a fact that certain content is unneeded or detrimental doesn't stop people. People do dumb things. It's human nature. ("I know this spicy bean burrito will give me heartburn and indigestion, but it's sooo tasty.")
Second, because WotC doesn't want books that people are encouraged not to buy or that the majority of players are not interested in purchasing. That's antithetical to running a business. Releasing more books means hiring more staff and means a larger portion of revenue from the D&D brand is expected to come from the RPG. The "optional accessories" business model didn't work particularly because you want people to buy the product.

The alternative that is bandied about is letting another company make the accessories.
Now, WotC / Hasbro isn't going to sell D&D. Ever. Only if Hasbro gets bought out by another, bigger company. Nothing has been done with MASK, Visionaries, Inhumanoids, or COPS in 30 years but they never sold those rights. Why would they do so for D&D?
Licensing doesn't work as well. This requires another company to give WotC money for the rights to publish D&D accessories. Licensing usually means less profit for the licensors but fewer expenses/risks. And it benefits smaller or more specialized companies who can also work with less profit. WizKids is a great example: WotC is capable of producing its own plastic miniatures and has done so in the past, but WizKids employees dedicated sculptures and software so there is reduced start-up costs, and WizKids has an established reputation and relationship with stores and distributors. Plus, WizKids is fairly large and can afford to pay the licensing costs knowing they can make their money back.
The catch is, licensees have to pay. And that's expensive and requires a lot of initial capital. Smaller publishers are going to be very, very hard pressed to pay licensing fees and then the production costs to make the books. It's not like you can Kickstarter getting a licence. Failure is also costly. Look at DungeonScape/ Morningstar. That cost Trapdoor Tech a LOT of money. Or the Marvel RPG from Margaret Weis Productions: critically acclaimed, award winning, and decently selling but still unable to move enough copies to make enough money with the licensing fees.

The thing is, there's *always* going to be too little content for some people. I remember listening to a podcast in the heyday of 4e (late 2009 or early 2010) when the magazines went from monthly compilations to weekly articles. So there was a new D&D book every month and new crunch every week and one of the hosts commented that "this means there was almost enough D&D content being released". Someone will always want more. WotC could release a hardcover book every other week and some collector would buy every one and wish to have something on the even weeks.
I love the Marvel movies. Even the weaker ones like Iron Man 2. I would go to the theater every two months. I want six Marvel movies every year! But I can understand that would impact the quality of the films and that most people will only go to see a couple each year. That the films do better if they're special and the more that are released the harder and hard it becomes to trump what has gone before.

Everything you have described there is not a justification for the release schedule we have now.

There is no evidence what so ever that Wizards lost money during 3rd and 4th edition because of the books and yet I see this argument pop up. I also keep hearing this argument about creating books that people won't buy. I think this statement is a bit vague and I think it's being taken that way. I bet you Complete Mage and Complete Arcane sold well during the 3rd edition era, as did the Forgotten Realms books, and many others. Sure you would have that odd book that didn't sell but if you want to use that argument then you need to provide figures for each and every book that was created and go from there.

I also never heard that 4th edition did badly because of the amount of books that were available. A lot of what I heard was the amount of errata that came out and made a lot of the books seem a bit obsolete.

 

[Shiroiken]

You don't remember it, Dire Bare, because nothing even remotely like that has ever been said by WotC or anyone affiliated with WotC.

All they have said is summed up in your comment, Dire Bare. Your recollections are correct.

I don't know if this was just a misunderstanding or misstatement, an exaggeration, or something made up whole cloth, but it's completely not true.

I agreed with the majority of Shiroiken's post, excepting the above and comments related to it. Somehow though, I missed that part when I read it the first time...

I'll have to find it. It was before the release of 5E, IIRC, either near the end of the playtest or during the wait for release. I was heavy in the WotC boards at the time (I've since abandoned them), and there was a thread or two devoted to figuring out which five it would be.

It's possible that this was started by someone outside WotC, but it was taken as gospel there.

 

[Jester David]

Everything you have described there is not a justification for the release schedule we have now.

There is no evidence what so ever that Wizards lost money during 3rd and 4th edition because of the books and yet I see this argument pop up.

There is no evidence they made lots and lots of money either, especially since they kept rebooting the game moving from 3.0 to 3.5, 3.5 to 4e, 4e to Essentials, etc.
And this ignores all the other problems with a heavy release schedule (bloat, power creep, intragroup conflict, option paralysis, the "wall of books" intimidation, etc).

I also keep hearing this argument about creating books that people won't buy. I think this statement is a bit vague and I think it's being taken that way. I bet you Complete Mage and Complete Arcane sold well during the 3rd edition era, as did the Forgotten Realms books, and many others. Sure you would have that odd book that didn't sell but if you want to use that argument then you need to provide figures for each and every book that was created and go from there.

Complete Mage likely sold well, but not as good as Complete Arcane, which was out first. And Complete Arcane likely didn't sell as well as the PHB. Each new book, even if it is a good book, will sell a diminishing number of copies.
And that's the catch, each new release has fewer and fewer sales so it's an unsustainable product cycle with a finite lifespan, which makes it problematic from a business perspective. So relying on this as the primary source of revenue is tricky, especially for something so staff intensive.

I also never heard that 4th edition did badly because of the amount of books that were available. A lot of what I heard was the amount of errata that came out and made a lot of the books seem a bit obsolete.

The core books did well and then successive books did increasingly poor. And it tried to avoid the atrophying sales of 3e by insisting everything was core.

4e had other problems. It's books were divided between classes so there was little reason for everyone to buy all the books, and since most contained new subclasses, they were most beneficial to new characters and not existing PCs.

Still, it's hard to use 4e as the basis for anything. Its successes and failures are really non-representative.