Critical Role Wildemount: Most Pre-orders Since D&D Core Rulebooks

It seems that the most popular D&D setting in the 5E era is... Wildemount! Talking about the upcoming Explorer's Guide to Wildemount, WotC's Greg Tito said on a Twitch stream recently that "we're pretty sure that this book has seen the most pre-orders and pre-release excitement since any of the core rulebooks for Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition were released".

Here's the quote in full:

"...It was number 1, ranked number 1, for all books on Amazon. How many of you out there remember when Amazon was just selling books? Raise your hands. Yeah, that's me. So it's really cool, even though obviously I do a lot more other fun stuff right now, there is a ton out there that are excited for this book, and it isn't even out yet.

"We have little bit of an internal metrics, but we're pretty sure that this book has seen the most pre-orders and pre-release excitement since any of the core rulebooks for Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition were released, and if you've been following along at home, Dungeons & Dragons has been selling like hotcakes since 5th Edition released in 2014."

It sounds like the Critical Role setting is proving more popular (at least right now) than traditional D&D settings like Ravenloft or Eberron, newer ones like Ravnica, or adventures set in the Forgotten Realms.

Explorer's Guide to Wildemount will hit game stores on March 17th.

 

[darjr]

Maybe what they told Mercier is different from what really went down, its not like WotC has lied to people before.

Calling WotC liars. Real class there

 

[Salthorae]

Matt Mercier made it clear that it means absolutely nothing for other settings,

As I said... I understand that concept for THIS book. But its success is going to mean more CR products from WotC, and likely those will come at the slot/spot/expense of time & resources of other potential settings in the future.

 

[FlyingChihuahua]

As I said... I understand that concept for THIS book. But its success is going to mean more CR products from WotC, and likely those will come at the slot/spot/expense of time & resources of other potential settings in the future.

And that would be a bad thing because...?

 

[werecorpse]

CR is quite a phenomenon.
I know plenty of people buy Rpg material to read rather than play but is anyone aware of any information on what proportion of fans of watching critical role actually play tabletop RPGs?

 

[Urriak Uruk]

It seems tht Chris Perkins has said the opposite in his interviews on D&D Beyond- this certainly did take up WOTC resources (and he talks about the development, and editing, and art, etc). According to him, they had a gap in their schedule and decided to fill that gap with the Wildemount book. So definitely not Mercer's fault- but WOTC certainly could have filled the schedule with a different product- They chose to reach out to Mercer for a CR book.

It took up resources, but not as much as a normal book, as Mercer had to do most of the work himself... it looks like Perkins was occupied by this somewhat, and some editors/designers, but not any rules development except as filtering at the tail-end of the development.

 

[Salthorae]

And that would be a bad thing because...?

For me? Because I don't care about CR or their setting information. I'd rather have ones that I do care about.

 

[QuentinGeorge]

Oh, so we are going to start with the "Wildemount stole a spot that could've been Dark Sun/Planescape/Greyhawk/Birthright" conspiracy theories again?

Guys WoTC/Hasbro is big enough to release books every month if they wanted to. IF THEY WANTED TO is the key word. The reasons we haven't got a Greyhawk book or the others yet is not because they don't have the "time". It is because they haven't yet discovered an angle that makes it a worthwhile release. With the core books and DMSGuild you can play pretty much any previously released campaign setting. Most of them don't need new campaign settings, and since WoTC has given up on metaplot and advancing timelines, just what new info would most of them have?

 

[OblivionDrive]

As I said... I understand that concept for THIS book. But its success is going to mean more CR products from WotC, and likely those will come at the slot/spot/expense of time & resources of other potential settings in the future.

If it makes you feel any better, it's highly unlikely you'd see another CR book for at least a few years.

They're still playing campaign 2 and even if they finished up and campaign 3 started later this year, they're not going to release a new campaign guide as soon as it starts up. It took two years+ between the start of C2 and the release of this guide.

 

[Salthorae]

Oh, so we are going to start with the "Wildemount stole a spot that could've been Dark Sun/Planescape/Greyhawk/Birthright" conspiracy theories again?

No. Read my posts more carefully. I am aware Wildemount didn't do that.

With the core books and DMSGuild you can play pretty much any previously released campaign setting

Only officially released Settings have material for 5e on DMs Guild. So Ravenloft, Eberron, Forgotten Realms.

If it makes you feel any better, it's highly unlikely you'd see another CR book for at least a few years.

Maybe? Why do book/material releases need to be tied to where CR is adventuring?

 

[OblivionDrive]

Maybe? Why do book/material releases need to be tied to where CR is adventuring?

I mean, I guess it's possible they could do just standalone adventure paths set in the world but... there isn't really much precedent for that yet save for FR because that's been the "default" setting so far?

But so far their books have kinda followed the "part setting guide, part adventure" format and until they show a plan make a major departure from that, I don't think you have much to worry about.

What books do you think they'd choose to release tied to the setting if not campaign guides?