WotC's Nathan Stewart: "Story, Story, Story"; and IS D&D a Tabletop Game?

Forbes spoke to WotC's Brand Director & Executive Producer for Dungeons & Dragons, who talked about the 5th Edition launch and his vision for D&D's future. The interview is fairly interesting - it confirms or repeats some information we already know, and also delves a little into the topic of D&D as a wider brand, rather than as a tabletop roleplaying game.

In the interview, he reiterates previous statements that this is the biggest D&D launch ever, in terms of both money and units sold.

[lq]We are story, story, story. The story drives everything.[/lq]

He repeats WoTC's emphasis on storylines, confirming the 1-2 stories per year philosphy. "We are story, story, story. The story drives everything. The need for new rules, the new races, new classes is just based on what’s going to really make this adventure, this story, this kind kind of theme happen." He goes on to say that "We’re not interested in putting out more books for books’ sake... there’s zero plans for a Player’s Handbook 2 any time on the horizon."

As for settings, he confirms that "we’re going to stay in the Forgotten Realms for the foreseeable future." That'll disappoint some folks, I'm sure, but it is their biggest setting, commercially.

Stewart is not "a hundred percent comfortable" with the status of digital tools because he felt like "we took a great step backwards."

[lq]Dungeons and Dragons stopped being a tabletop game years or decades ago. [/lq]

His thoughts on D&D's identity are interesting, too. He mentions that "Dungeons and Dragons stopped being a tabletop game years or decades ago". I'm not sure what that means. His view for the future of the brand includes video games, movies, action figures, and more: "This is no secret for anyone here, but the big thing I want to see is just a triple-A RPG video game. I want to see Baldur’s Gate 3, I want to see a huge open-world RPG. I would love movies about Dungeons and Dragons, or better yet, serialized entertainment where we’re doing seasons of D&D stories and things like Forgotten Realms action figures… of course I’d love that, I’m the biggest geek there is. But at the end of the day, the game’s what we’re missing in the portfolio."

You can read the full interview here.

 

[pemerton]

Okay let me turn this around for a minute... do you believe that none of the money from the boardgames, novels, MMOrpg's, videogames, comics, etc... went towards funding 5e? If not I again think it's erroneous to make a statement along the lines of 4e financed 5e... because it didn't.

Of course that money helped. That's why I've invited conjecture upthread as to what the amounts might be - I've given what I think is a reasonable conjecture for DDI, for instance.

Of course, if 4e can't finance 5e's R&D and is just a lost, they will stop developing 4e. Which mean you argument that 4e financed the R&D of 5e is moot.

Seriously, this makes no sense. If you've decided to not publish for an edition, and have announced a two-year public playtest for a new edition, why would you devote design resources to publishing splatbooks for the edition you're abandoning?

DDI was generating revenue for the two years that 5e was in development. Upthread I've conjecture some income that suggests it might have covered the salaries of 15 employees. I don't know how big the 5e development team was; I don't know what the other revenues during that period were. Any rational and/or informed conjecture would be welcome.

 

[aramis erak]

Sorry, but I still feel you're essentially making stuff up. I've heard the $50 mil bandied about . . . was that $50 per year? Per quarter? Per edition? And how close did 4E come to hitting that goal? Did it make it, did it fall short? By how much? YOU DON'T KNOW.

I've also heard the "D&D needs to be #1" also thrown around. Did WotC/Hasbro expect D&D to be #1 all 12 months of the year? Did WotC expect D&D to be #1 when they weren't really publishing any products? I have my own guesses, but YOU DON'T KNOW. And really, D&D was only NOT #1 when there was no edition being supported in the dry years between 4E and 5E. When 4E was in full swing, D&D was #1. Now that 5E is in full swing, D&D is #1 again.

There is NO evidence that WotC/Hasbro has ever considered 4E a failure. None. They might have! I doubt it personally, but WE DON'T KNOW. Mearls knows, but he won't tell us, neither should he.

Keep your head buried in the sand.... It's obvious you haven't been keeping up on things for years, why should you start now?

Mearls has outright stated that Corporate considered it to have been unsuccessful. Both right at the start of the 5E playtest, and again late in the playtest.

 

[bmfrosty]

Keep your head buried in the sand.... It's obvious you haven't been keeping up on things for years, why should you start now?

Mearls has outright stated that Corporate considered it to have been unsuccessful. Both right at the start of the 5E playtest, and again late in the playtest.

Failure lack of success are two very different thing.

 

[redrick]

Keep your head buried in the sand.... It's obvious you haven't been keeping up on things for years, why should you start now?

Mearls has outright stated that Corporate considered it to have been unsuccessful. Both right at the start of the 5E playtest, and again late in the playtest.

What's the goal here? What is it that's keeping this debate going? What is the point of demonstrating irrefutably that 4e was a failure?

I don't have a personal stake in the matter. Out of the editions of D&D that I played (B/X D&D, 2e, 4e and 5e), 4e was my least favorite, though it had its strengths and I can see why some would gravitate towards it. But what's the point of declaring that 4e was an abject failure? (As opposed to the several editions that preceded it, all of which were replaced.)

 

[Relax]

What's the goal here? What is it that's keeping this debate going? What is the point of demonstrating irrefutably that 4e was a failure?

I don't have a personal stake in the matter. Out of the editions of D&D that I played (B/X D&D, 2e, 4e and 5e), 4e was my least favorite, though it had its strengths and I can see why some would gravitate towards it. But what's the point of declaring that 4e was an abject failure? (As opposed to the several editions that preceded it, all of which were replaced.)

I think it may just be something about the nature of these discussion boards, the weird anonymity they provide, that make some (okay, a lot) of people oddly argumentative over things that really matter very little.

Whether 4e was a success or failure is largely up for debate because there are so many criteria by which something could be judged so.

4e isn't a bad game, and I can understand both its faithful followers and devout detractors as it really did go in a different direction than previous editions.

Ah, it's late, I'm going to bed...

 

[mflayermonk]

In the baseball front office, we would walk around and as a mantra say "Pitching, Pitching, Pitching." But we never had the arms and things didn't work out for us.

So, does WoTC have the people that can make "Story, Story, Story" happen?

 

[houser2112]

For fans of a certain game, let's say D&D , it is absolutely NOT essential that we be aware or educated on the business behind our favorite hobby. Having an INTEREST in that type of information is understandable, but is not necessary.

Obviously, a lot of us are interested and find this sort of discussion fascinating, and that's awesome. But there are plenty of D&D players (I'd say the majority) who could care less and their D&D games are not damaged by the lack of interest and knowledge of the business of D&D.

For it to matter, we would have to be able to DO something with the knowledge gleaned from tweets and message board posts. And we can do . . . nothing with this info. We can complain and kvetch all we want, we can even participate in marketing surveys and such, but we cannot affect the business side of D&D unless we actually got a job at WotC (and a managerial one at that). We can affect the rules and direction the game itself might go in IF WotC allows us to (which they have for 5E), but that's about it.

You could have been a playtester to affect the game in a direct way, but you also have a wallet to to affect the game indirectly. Knowing the business decisions of a company has certainly affected my buy/don't buy decisions for other products, why not RPGs? A company's decisions may not affect your ability to play the game (assuming they are selling you a product and not a service), but they may affect the future products that come out, and if you like a game to be supported with product, this can be an issue. I know I don't like buying into something I don't think will last.

 

[billd91]

D&D the brand or the RPG? What I got from Ryan Dancey is that D&D the brand was supposed to make 50 millions dollars. Not just the RPG. And you know, Nathan Stewart told us D&D ain't an RPG anymore.

50 million dollars just from the RPG is unlikely. Since we know from ICv2 that the RPG industry was 15 millions dollars in 2013 (just from brick and mortar sells or also online sells that is not clear), it is doubtful the 50 millions came from just the RPG. Of course, in 2013 D&D wasn't in print at the time and the last edition was unpopular.

At the end of 2014, ICv2 said the market of RPGs was getting steam. Just when D&D saw the light of day again. So that 15 million might just pick up steam. At least momentarely.

That was part of 4e's problem. The movie rights were held by someone else. The digital tabletop project faltered. Were there any D&D video games (other than a stupid Facebook app) out there? Were there fiction books published in the numbers that appeared for other editions? 4e largely was the D&D brand. It pretty much couldn't make the core brand metric. That's one reason I hope Hasbro is treating 5e-era D&D differently. The fact that they're aggressively working on getting the movie right back suggests they are thinking a bit differently this time around - exactly how differently, we'll have to see.

 

[DEFCON 1]

What's the goal here? What is it that's keeping this debate going? What is the point of demonstrating irrefutably that 4e was a failure?

I don't have a personal stake in the matter. Out of the editions of D&D that I played (B/X D&D, 2e, 4e and 5e), 4e was my least favorite, though it had its strengths and I can see why some would gravitate towards it. But what's the point of declaring that 4e was an abject failure? (As opposed to the several editions that preceded it, all of which were replaced.)

Who I'd really would love to see posting about this topic are the people who played and enjoyed 4E as a game but still consider 4E a failure (in either design or financial concerns)... and the people who didn't like 4E as a game and wouldn't play it, but also think it successfully achieved what it set out to do.

Because everyone else who comments always seem to be the people who think 4E was great and was a success, or the people who hated 4E, don't think it was "D&D", and was a complete failure of a game. And in both cases their views cannot be taken completely objectively.

For me personally... I look at all four recent games (3.0, 3.5, Pathfinder & 4E, of which I played three of them) and see success. Both creatively *and* financially. All four of these games were popular with a segment of the roleplaying populace, and they all brought new players and returning players to the game. None of them were met with 100% satisfaction, but none of them were hated by all of the roleplaying population either. And for the type of game they were trying to design, I can see what they were aiming for and believe they succeeded in their design goals for the most part. And as far as financially, I consider being able to produce a product that allows you to pay your staff and keep the lights on so that you can then produce MORE product to be a success. Because that then allows you to pay your staff again and keep the lights on again, so you can then produce more product again... and so on and so on. That's what a company does. And all of those games allowed WotC (and the D&D department) to do that.

With so many fans of all four of those different games, all of which kept the D&D department of Wizards of the Coast going and not being shut down... why anyone would consider any of them a "failure" is beyond me. But obviously, their metrics for what they consider a success to be different than mine. I'd just love it if the fact that the person HATED a particular game wasn't so prevalent in their overall claims of whether it was a "failure".

 

[Halivar]

For me personally... I look at all four recent games (3.0, 3.5, Pathfinder & 4E, of which I played three of them) and see success. Both creatively *and* financially. All four of these games were popular with a segment of the roleplaying populace, and they all brought new players and returning players to the game. None of them were met with 100% satisfaction, but none of them were hated by all of the roleplaying population either. And for the type of game they were trying to design, I can see what they were aiming for and believe they succeeded in their design goals for the most part. And as far as financially, I consider being able to produce a product that allows you to pay your staff and keep the lights on so that you can then produce MORE product to be a success. Because that then allows you to pay your staff again and keep the lights on again, so you can then produce more product again... and so on and so on. That's what a company does. And all of those games allowed WotC (and the D&D department) to do that.

I played and enjoyed 4E. I believe ultimately, however, that it failed to serve me as a player, but it served WotC just fine. The goal (IMHO) was the pump out as much content as soon as possible for a quick cash-in. I mean, in half the lifespan of 3.x we got just as many books, covering just as many options. It was the glut of 3.x with the hose opened wide. Now maybe someone has better stats than me and can prove me wrong, but that is my impression from what I saw at the time.

I think 4E would have been more successful for me if the PHB1 and 2 and had been combined, and then no further player options released. I think the edition would have lasted longer, as well. BUT, that was not WotC's plan for the edition in any event. I am thankful for the new approach.