Zero Buzz on 5E...Is It Dead Out The Gate?

Neurosis · Post by **Neurosis** » Mon May 19, 2014 6:20 pm

If 5E is released, and is really terrible, will anyone even know? Will anyone even not buy it?

ishy · Post by **ishy** » Mon May 19, 2014 6:33 pm

Is there anything buzz worthy in 5e?

I mean for example 4e : no more magic item christmass tree, no more wizard fighter imbalance, etc.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Mon May 19, 2014 8:08 pm

Well...

$50 a manual is buzz worthy-ish.
This is what I get for not following this thread.

angelfromanotherpin · Post by **angelfromanotherpin** » Mon May 19, 2014 8:18 pm

virgil wrote:Well, they were selling the 3E core books at a loss back during release so as to encourage people getting into the game.

Do you have a source for this? Because I find it very difficult to believe.

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Mon May 19, 2014 8:26 pm

angelfromanotherpin wrote:
virgil wrote:Well, they were selling the 3E core books at a loss back during release so as to encourage people getting into the game.
Do you have a source for this? Because I find it very difficult to believe.

I will admit that the idea of the books being priced at a very low-to-negative margin is apocryphal, so we'll consider it debatable while I try to fact-check.

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Mon May 19, 2014 8:32 pm

aha! It was the launch price they sold at drastically smaller margins to get market penetration/conversion...
http://www.lloydwrites.com/2011/12/highpricesrpgs/

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Mon May 19, 2014 8:53 pm

Those D&D Next books look very 4th edition to me.

I assume that the adventures are being outsourced because they want a fallguy in case they are as universally reviled as Keep on the Shadowfell was.

-Username17

angelfromanotherpin · Post by **angelfromanotherpin** » Mon May 19, 2014 9:10 pm

virgil wrote:aha! It was the launch price they sold at drastically smaller margins to get market penetration/conversion...

Yes, I'll totally buy 'at low margins,' but not 'at a loss.'

I'm also kind of confused as to what the deal is with the drawn-out release schedule. There's an intro box out in July, the PHB drops in August... but then the Monster Manual isn't out until September, and the DMG until November? What are you supposed to do, pick up the PHB and just appreciate it for a month until you get your monster stats? And then another two months to find out what the reward is for defeating those monster stats? Because that really seems like a recipe to sabotage your PHB sales, and your honeymoon period in general.

talozin · Post by **talozin** » Mon May 19, 2014 9:44 pm

Perhaps character creation is so confusing they expect people to take a month to figure it out. (Joking. Mostly.)

Or maybe this is just one more ill-advised homage to AD&D, which released the three core books at intervals?

Krusk · Post by **Krusk** » Mon May 19, 2014 9:50 pm

You can pre-order at amazon for 40$ a book. So 120$ entry fee. IIRC I paid 60$ in total for 4e, with their combo box. So quite a jump.

The drawn out release is super annoying. I think the intent was to release the PHB so you can spend a month or so building characters and coming up with ideas, then a month for the DM to read up on cool monsters to think about putting in an adventure, then you design and can play around christmas? I mean, thats not what anyone does, but it is what I think people are expected to do (by WoTC).

And you can always just have PC vs PC fights until then. Unless they kept the special math idea from 4e.

Previn · Post by **Previn** » Mon May 19, 2014 10:18 pm

Why the staggered release? Mike Mearls says "PH/MM/DMG releases were split because stacking them causes big quality issues, a la the 4e errata. Too much work at once."

That is not an encouraging sign. It says that they're still working on stuff, and that their system was not only not finished, but was not simple enough and/or understood well enough by the developers to be worked on efficiently as a whole.

Pixels · Post by **Pixels** » Mon May 19, 2014 10:21 pm

They are selling a game book for $40 that cannot even be used for two months? Insanity. I mean it literally; I cannot think of a single good reason to trickle out the core books.

I have to imagine that they still are not finished writing them, but were pushed by the higher-ups to release anyways. If the team promised a "summer 2014" release then I suppose they are technically-kinda-sort-but-not-really making it by releasing 1/3 of the game in August. But seriously, if you cannot sell me a full functioning game until November, don't sell me the game until November. The whole affair stinks of snake oil.

Cyberzombie · Post by **Cyberzombie** » Mon May 19, 2014 10:26 pm

I don't think it'd be a terrible idea for an RPG to release the monster manual a month or two after the PHB, so you can let the mass community get ahold of it and optimize it, so you can see what numbers are good for your monsters to have, so you don't run into the 4E problem where the first MM is totally useless.

Of course... none of that really applies when you had a public playtest for over a year which should have fixed that stuff. Of course, monsters hardly changed at all in the playtest, despite everyone saying they're weak as hell. So there's no real expectation that they're going to be changing the monsters at all.

The staggered release is just another scheme by Mearls to keep his job a few more months. Everyone that worked on 5E knows that they're going to be laid off, it's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when.

Pixels · Post by **Pixels** » Mon May 19, 2014 10:58 pm

No, it is a terrible idea. In a month there's no time for anything more than the most trivial changes. You have to do final QA, printing, and shipping in that time. If you systemically change numbers at the last moment, you are going to cause more trouble than you fix. Even worse, while you are busy dicking away, your customers are bored of reading your player book that they couldn't play with and all go back to Pathfinder. The whole release schedule is just so bad that it is hard for me to properly express.

Mord · Post by **Mord** » Mon May 19, 2014 11:23 pm

There's no way they can edit the MM or DMG based on feedback from the published PHB and still keep to their printing/shipping schedule. I can't think of any explanation for the delay other than that the writing team crapped the bed.

Night Goat · Post by **Night Goat** » Mon May 19, 2014 11:48 pm

I think the plan is for players to buy the PHB, then feel forced to play the Tranny of Dragons adventures because they don't have anything else to do with it. I doubt that's going to happen, but I suspect it's WotC's intention.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Mon May 19, 2014 11:54 pm

Most likely, WotC expects the intro pack to busy people for a month, then Intro Pack+Add'l monsters for another month.

Hell, they're probably focusing on getting brand new players for the first couple months, ie, the type of players who'd actually use an Intro Pack, since they know that seasoned gamers are going to be more cautious about it anyway, and look at reviews and store demos and such.

K · Post by K » Tue May 20, 2014 12:25 am

July 15 — Dungeons & Dragons Starter Set, $19.99.

August 19 — Player's Handbook, $49.95.

August 19 — Hoard of the Dragon Queen, $29.95.

September 30 — Monster Manual, $49.95.

October 21 — The Rise of Tiamat, $29.95.

November 19 — Dungeon Master's Guide, $49.95.

TarkisFlux · Post by **TarkisFlux** » Tue May 20, 2014 12:31 am

So, I guess no one remembers that they released 3.0 on the same month between schedule? The 3.0 PHB dropped in August 2000 (with some sample monsters and xp awards and magic item bits in the back), the DMG in September 2000, and the MM1 in October 2000. Dropping books without support may be dumb, but it's hardly the first time.

fectin · Post by **fectin** » Tue May 20, 2014 12:35 am

Yes, but that was also $20, and included enough content to run low level adventures in an insert in the back. That's less than 2CDs, and actually got you playing.

nockermensch · Post by **nockermensch** » Tue May 20, 2014 12:38 am

TarkisFlux wrote:So, I guess no one remembers that they released 3.0 on the same month between schedule? The 3.0 PHB dropped in August 2000 (with some sample monsters and xp awards and magic item bits in the back), the DMG in September 2000, and the MM1 in October 2000. Dropping books without support may be dumb, but it's hardly the first time.

The book is with a friend right now so I'm speaking from memory, but I'm almost certain that my 3.whatever PHB has some pages added after the end with some low level monsters and magic items.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Tue May 20, 2014 12:47 am

Krusk wrote:You can pre-order at amazon for 40$ a book. So 120$ entry fee. IIRC I paid 60$ in total for 4e, with their combo box. So quite a jump.

Treasurer Joe Hockey wrote:Only sixty bucks though, that's only a 100% mark-up. It could have been a lot worse, you were expecting a lot worse, this is actually a good deal. It's only what, one doctor visit, or a couple of cups of coffee or a beer?

To be fair, they might offer them together as a bundle for around $80 once all three are out. You know, in an effort to scrape some sales together once they know how badly that ship has sunk. And yeah, the PHB might still have some monsters and crap in the back so a game at all can be run. Maybe. Yes, this is me being as fair and generous to them as possible.

Cyberzombie · Post by **Cyberzombie** » Tue May 20, 2014 1:27 am

nockermensch wrote: The book is with a friend right now so I'm speaking from memory, but I'm almost certain that my 3.whatever PHB has some pages added after the end with some low level monsters and magic items.

It did. And I expect something similar for the 5E PHB.

TarkisFlux · Post by **TarkisFlux** » Tue May 20, 2014 1:51 am

nockermensch wrote:
TarkisFlux wrote:So, I guess no one remembers that they released 3.0 on the same month between schedule? The 3.0 PHB dropped in August 2000 (with some sample monsters and xp awards and magic item bits in the back), the DMG in September 2000, and the MM1 in October 2000. Dropping books without support may be dumb, but it's hardly the first time.
The book is with a friend right now so I'm speaking from memory, but I'm almost certain that my 3.whatever PHB has some pages added after the end with some low level monsters and magic items.

It did, and I included those in parentheses. The ones you quoted even.

Seerow · Post by **Seerow** » Tue May 20, 2014 2:05 am

Apparently Mearls is saying on Twitter that the game will be fully playable with just the PHB.

My guess? The actual PHB will be about 150 pages worth of content, with the other half of the book going to monster and DM rules, which they can then reprint for the Monster's Manual/DMG. Getting to pass off the same work twice sounds exactly like something a Mearls desperate to hit a deadline after years of doing nothing would pull.