WotC WotC in a small decline as revenue drops by 16% as Hasbro shares hit a new 52-week low

[DarkCrisis]

I don’t know you have been wrong about every other prediction you have made in my opinion.

So you’ve seen and read the new Dragonlance book then?

 

[darjr]

Never mind.

 

[MGibster]

If you read about the real life you could guess 2023 may be a year of "thin cows" ( = year with a bad economy. Don't you remember pharaon's dream about seven fat and thin cows in Joseph's story from the Bible?).

Holy cow! I've never heard that expression before, but I'm going to use it for something because it's just too cool to pass up.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

So you’ve seen and read the new Dragonlance book then?

And you have? The book doesn't come out for another 5 weeks.

 

[DarkCrisis]

And you have? The book doesn't come out for another 5 weeks.

Doesn’t mean I’m wrong.

Yet.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

So you’ve seen and read the new Dragonlance book then?

Was not talking about that one, just every other books you have dismissed which is most of them for a while.

Can't judge a book before it's out.

 

[DarkCrisis]

Was not talking about that one, just every other books you have dismissed which is most of them for a while.

Can't judge a book before it's out.

I honestly can’t think of any other book I’ve commented on short of “I don’t like what I’ve seen.” Which is of course opinion.

The only one I’ve gone into depth about is Icewind Dale which I’ve played through and I’m not the only one who has issues with it.

WotCs output since 5E began has had writing issues. The whole demons adventure has some big issues.

Heck I liked their Ravenloft campaign but parts of it needed help.

I don’t know what happened between 4th and 5th Ed but the quality of the adventures has tanked.

Best 5th Ed adventure I’ve ran is a 3rd party Greek inspired book called Odyssey of the Dragonlords. WotC needs to hire this guy. Highly recommend it BTW.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Doesn’t mean I’m wrong.

Yet.

Doesn't mean that you should assume that you're right.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Mod Note:

Howzabout the sniping at each other in this thread getting toned down a bit?

 

[QuentinGeorge]

Yes.

Certainly WotC ones.

The whole "mining ideas" thing for D&D is usually pretty silly, in my opinion, like, unless you just aren't a person who thinks of adventure ideas, or are pretty new to RPGs/D&D. I can "mine" more ideas by watching a single episode of a SF/fantasy show on TV (especially some anime, interestingly) than I can by reading an adventure, and they're usually better ideas too. Frankly WotC has zero top-flight adventure designers right now.

I used to buy WotC adventures but WotC stopped making "finished" adventures in 5E. In 3E and 4E, WotC adventures were just mostly crap (with some notable exceptions), but they tended to be complete. In order to run them, you needed to read them through once, and make some light notes, maybe a few small tweaks. With 5E, virtually all WotC adventures, certainly the "adventure path"-style ones are just incomplete, and they're very poorly written too, with terrible organisation. The key audience seems to be people who don't seriously intend to run the adventure, rather reading it for pleasure almost like an incredibly bad fantasy novel. Not all of them are worthless - Strahd is pretty okay - but the vast majority require so much effort to make them actually run that it's barely less effort than working from scratch (for me at least), and if there's one thing I have absolutely zero problem with, it's coming up with adventure ideas for broad fantasy or SF stuff. I mean, I came up with an entire sci-fi campaign with two dozen major NPCs, loads of plot points, alternate ways things to go, over a weekend a few months ago - I just kept typing and coming up with ideas.

I still buy adventures from non-WotC sources sometimes, if I know they're going to be well-made, double-especially if it's for an RPG I don't naturally think in the style of (like complicated intrigue/wheels-within-wheels stuff, that doesn't come naturally to me), but D&D I got covered, thinking-wise.

Re: Radiant Citadel, yeah, maybe I am missing out, that could be. Those designers are newer and might have fresher ideas, and short adventures like that usually are complete, unlike WotC's longer ones. But Radiant Citadel is extremely heavily themed to a pretty wild theme. Usually with short adventures, I want them because I can drop them in for a session I didn't have a chance to prep for, or because I don't want to do the work for a week, or just for something different. With Radiant Citadel my impression was that's not really what those are for.

I actually don’t mind Radiant Citadel, but it works best if you have a diverse home brew setting with regions modelled after the same cultures the book draws from. The Radiant Citadel framing device is bollocks, on the other hand is best ignored.

I don’t understand what has happened with the writing of D&D adventures. In 2nd edition they were railroaded as hell but at least with strong thematic focus and narrative structure, now they are still railroaded but all over the shop narratively and done by a committee of authors. It’s like they strong a few disconnected “set pieces” and encounters together with the flimsiest of logic and call it a day (Descent into Avernus being a prime example)

 

[Jadeite]

There has been a huge amount of successful 3rd party supplements in recent years. And considering that some of those products easily rival WotC's recent offerings, I can imagine people preferring them to official stuff, although getting them outside Kickstarter can be an issue in some cases. We'll see if the release of One D&D affects 3PPs as much as 3.5 did.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

unless you just aren't a person who thinks of adventure ideas,

I certainly can't think them up fast enough to keep my players continuously supplied!

That would require both the writing technique and work ethic of a Barbara Cartland!

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I don’t understand what has happened with the writing of D&D adventures. In 2nd edition they were railroaded as hell but at least with strong thematic focus and narrative structure, now they are still railroaded but all over the shop narratively and done by a committee of authors. It’s like they strong a few disconnected “set pieces” and encounters together with the flimsiest of logic and call it a day (Descent into Avernus being a prime example)

I detect Chris Perkin's grubby fingers getting into most of the pies.

 

[Sorcerers Apprentice]

Dark Alliance didn't do well in reviews, but it seems to have made rhem money, based on these charts.

A video game doesn't have to be good to turn a healthy profit, that's why the video game industry is the way that it is. Being great can lead to a lot of money, but even mediocrity can cover payroll and keep the lights on.

Also, it was on Gamepass, IIRC, so Microsoft probably helped them cover costs.

A video game also doesn't need to make a profit to boost quarterly revenue. The income from the game will be concentrated in the quarter it went on sale, while the development cost will have been spread out across the previous years.

 

[Morrus]

We'll see if the release of One D&D affects 3PPs as much as 3.5 did.

It already is, at least based on anecdotal evidence.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

It already is, at least based on anecdotal evidence.

Could you expand on this? As a homebrewer-turned-freelancer just getting into the business, it would help to know what effects have happened already.

 

[Morrus]

Could you expand on this? As a homebrewer-turned-freelancer just getting into the business, it would help to know what effects have happened already.

5E-based Kickstarters appear to be underperforming a little since the 1D&D playtests started coming out, compared to similar previous projects. Nothing drastic yet, but it's starting to become noticeable. This is just anecdotal observation, though; I haven't gathered any industry-wide statistical data or anything.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

5E-based Kickstarters appear to be underperforming a little since the 1D&D playtests started coming out, compared to similar previous projects. Nothing drastic yet, but it's starting to become noticeable. This is just anecdotal observation, though; I haven't gathered any industry-wide statistical data or anything.

Thanks! Good to know.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Well, it's not good for those trying to earn a living, but it's understandable.

 

[TwoSix]

I certainly can't think them up fast enough to keep my players continuously supplied!

That would require both the writing technique and work ethic of a Barbara Cartland!

Huh. Adventure ideas are a dime a dozen to me; it's the work of making them appealing to the PCs' needs and maintaining some kind of continuity and verisimilitude with the current campaign that actually takes some work. And that's the work that published adventures don't do very well at all.