Adventure trends

Beoric said:
I'm still not clear if this is supposed to be 5.5e or 6e.
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5.5e. They keep pointing out that it's "backwards compatible" with 5e - a new edition would not be doing that. The changes bring to mind the changes of 3 to 3.5 (i.e. a rules clean-up, more than anything)
 
Things are pretty quiet around here. This article ought to liven things up.

Actually, despite the provocation in the title, the article is pretty interesting. I suppose an alternative is that orc children are capable at birth of surviving independently without any help from their parents or the orcish community. Although that doesn't explain why they don't get eaten. Maybe they are poisonous while young, and only edible when fully grown? I don't remember, was the "meat's back on the menu" scene in the book, or just in the movie?
 
It's possible that people should be shitting on Hasbro rather than (or at least more than) WotC.
I can't fault the corporate folks for trying to turn a profit on the hobby (it keeps it alive and relevant). People are trying to put their kids through college by making D&D, after all. I just wish they could find a less hideously evil way to do it. God DAMN I hate subscriptions and walled gardens.
 
Yeah, D&D has never been a good fit for Hasbro, I think the people at WotC who have to report to them have a tough job.
 
Hasbro might be the catalyst, but WotC is fucking up D&D on their own accord. I wager all the (shitty) choices for modern D&D are being made by WotC; Hasbro is just applying the pressure that WotC is buckling under.
 
I expect that sales of DMGs and PHBs are down, because most interested people already have them, so Hasbro wants to bring out new, shiny DMGs like they do with Transformers or My Little Pony. Because they don't understand that the core books are a toolkit, not a finished product, and they don't understand that the tastes of teenagers and adults don't change as quickly as small children and tweens. Because a small child isn't a small child for very long, and there is always a new crop coming up. Whereas adults are adults for a long time, and new adults are not a particularly large segment of total adults.

So the serfs at WotC have to come up with a new set of core books. And it needs to be different enough from 5e to distinguish it, and also compatible with 5e so you don't upset the 5e grognards, and you can still sell them modules. I don't know that it is going to work that well for them unless 5.5e is genuinely an improvement on 5e, while still being recognizable to 5e players.

As I have mentioned before, I think a better tactic would be to lower the perceived barriers to becoming a DM, so you can sell more of the current core books. But Hasbro isn't asking for my opinion. 🤷‍♂️
 
Beoric said:
I expect that sales of DMGs and PHBs are down, because most interested people already have them
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I think the big smoking gun is that an inordinate amount of players these days use apps instead of books - half of my current players don't even own a base PHB. The apps do all the calculating for you, gathers all the splatbook materials together in one place, tracks everything, notates everything, references quickly through hyperlinks, is always with you on a phone... there's very little incentive for players to even use paper anymore, let alone paper reference books.

And if you're on VTT, you have no choice - the books are nearly worthless to you, just a duplication of effort.

Technically the only reason my groups still use paper character sheets is because I force them.
 
DangerousPuhson said:
I think the big smoking gun is that an inordinate amount of players these days use apps instead of books
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Sure, but that can be monetized using subscriptions - and I understand that the plan is to monetize it. A lot of people are disgruntled by this, but I think it is fair game, if you are providing electronic tools for an indefinite period, that you should be permitted to charge for them. You can own a book, the printing and distribution of which is a sunk cost by the time you buy it. You can't really expect to own access to a tool on WotC's website for ever and ever, and also expect them to bear the cost of providing that service forever and ever.

So maybe a subscription service is the way to save D&D as a brand, by ensuring that Hasbro has continuing revenue from it. Hell, I used to pay for WotC's shitty online 4e tools, and would still be paying for them it they were available.
 
Beoric said:
Sure, but that can be monetized using subscriptions - and I understand that the plan is to monetize it. A lot of people are disgruntled by this, but I think it is fair game, if you are providing electronic tools for an indefinite period, that you should be permitted to charge for them. You can own a book, the printing and distribution of which is a sunk cost by the time you buy it. You can't really expect to own access to a tool on WotC's website for ever and ever, and also expect them to bear the cost of providing that service forever and ever.

So maybe a subscription service is the way to save D&D as a brand, by ensuring that Hasbro has continuing revenue from it. Hell, I used to pay for WotC's shitty online 4e tools, and would still be paying for them it they were available.
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Well, it's exactly what they're doing with Beyond and 5.5e, so looks like you and they align.

The real sticky issue for WotC is that they're stepping with a full VTT game management platform- D&D Beyond - into a crowded market (one that's got very anti-competitive traits built in). Existing systems like Roll20, Fantasy Grounds, Foundry, Tabletop Simulator, and so many others are eating Beyond's lunch (aka WotC's intended primary revenue stream) right now, and that's on top of already self-cannibalizing via offline play offerings. They don't have much room in which to stretch, which is problematic because Hasbro demands constant stretching.

Personally, I refuse to subscribe to anything in order to play D&D, regardless of how flashy the tools. The idea of money steadily trickling away for a hobby that I've mostly enjoyed for decades for free bothers me. That's just me though, YMMV.
 
All that is to be expected. The 4e digital tools they had didn't work well, and they abandoned a lot that they were going to roll out, because building this stuff isn't in their skill sent and they just aren't very good at it. I don't think it's really Hasbro's thing, either, I can't think of anything that they do by online subscription.

So when I said that subscriptions are a legitimate business tactic, I should not have suggested that it it something they could actually pull off.

And like I have said before, I think the subscription tactic is in support of a flawed strategy, which is to try to sell a new version to existing DMs, who already have the game and are wondering why they would pay a subscription, or to brand new players. I think a better strategic objective would be to try to make DMs of people who are already players, and already like the game. If the average game has one DM and four players, and you convince two of those players to also try DMing, you have tripled your existing market. And as I have mentioned before, of the seven people in my regular gaming group in the 80s, six of them were DMs who bought the core books.

Unfortunately, as I have also mentioned before, WotC/Hasbro seems to be doing all they can to make it seem like DMing requires an uncommon talent, and convincing players that they aren't up to it.

EDIT: Case in point.
 
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Beoric said:
EDIT: Case in point.
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Yeah, that whole pay thousands of bucks to be celebrity DM'd in a castle all weekend... I mean, the Euro-grogs on this very site get together every year to do that for, I'm guessing, several thousand euros less every damn year, and probably have a lot more fun. (A little peaved they started doing that the second I left Europe, but hey, maybe they were celebrating getting de-colonized?)

That said... Jim Zub!!!! squeeeeee

I seriously still can't believe dudes/dudettes/other are getting paid more than beer'n pizza money to DM. That would utterly ruin the game for me as a DM, and probably as a Player as well.
 
The1True said:
I seriously still can't believe dudes/dudettes/other are getting paid more than beer'n pizza money to DM.
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I once joined in on a paid session as a player to check out all the hulabaloo. Cost was $25/person, session lasted about 4 hours. It was... unremarkable. The DM had some chops, sure, but nothing beyond what a DM who has been playing for a few years would already have. Their pre-made materials were decent, about what I'd expect, but all-in-all not really worth it. My biggest gripe is that the session was just generic as all heck and too short to be a proper adventure, so I can't really look back on it fondly.

The Castle thing is silly, but I can see why they do it. Some folk go to astounding lengths to capture the right atmosphere, strange as it might appear to the rest of us.
 
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