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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Turjan" data-source="post: 2557823" data-attributes="member: 3477">I don't see WotC going through a rough patch lately, at least not more so than they have already done for a while. But it is correct that the books that came out lately don't appeal to everyone, unlike most of the general topics that were published in the beginning, when there was no competition and the big topics were still waiting for the first one to touch them.<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The "Complete" series was the last thing that was a sure seller. Those books replaced the class splats of 3.0 and were of general applicability. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The "Races of" series was already less crucial, but as the core races are still the most used ones for PCs, those books must have been good sellers (I didn't buy them, btw, because I'm fine with the old Green Ronin splats, but I guess that I am an exception here <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />). </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Monsters always sell, and the Draconomicon pictures dragons, which should be a no-brainer with most D&D fans. Libris Mortis tackles undead, which are also fan favorites (I didn't buy that one, either, as I'm not a big undead fan, but I'm not that delusional that I think that this is the norm). Lords of Madness is already a bit of a fringe product, even if it contains some big D&D icons as beholders and mind flayers (one of my two favorite WotC books this year <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />). </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The environmental series has the problem that it addresses very specific subsets of players. Whether people use deserts or the seas in their games or not depends very much on the preferences of the DM. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Then comes the "Heroes of..." series, and I have the problem to immediately see what the books are about. Heroes of Battle? But we battle all the time? </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Magic of Incarnum? I really have to look what it is about. I'll probably give this a pass, as I have already enough third party books that are built around some similar ideas. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Weapons of Legacy? Do those differ in any way from the legacy weapons in "Artifacts of the Ages"? I also don't have the need for getting this topic another time.</li> </ul>This means that the last books have very narrow topics. For people who have been buying lots of d20 books during the last years, many of the topics of the recent WotC books sound awfully familiar when they look at their shelves. I don't see this as a problem for WotC though. On this messageboard, we have lots of people who buy d20 products, and if everyone of the general D&D fans would buy as many d20 books as many of us here, there wouldn't be much of a problem for d20 companies.This means that we have to be cautious with detecting a  "rough patch" for WotC here. This   may well be the product of the specific outlook many members of this board have on what is already available in the d20 market.</blockquote>

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