When 5E D&D flops, will the designers go to the 3E D&D well?

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Insomniac
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Post by Insomniac »

Going to the third edition well? Isn't Dungeons and Dragons Next somewhere between 2nd Edition and 3.0 with a bunch of funky houserules? It is conceptually such a huge step backwards. It doesn't feel "Next" at all. 4E, for all of its many faults, felt very radical and Next. This is just a very funky 3.0 with House Rules.

If this was any more going back to the well, it'd just be pure 3.5 material.

I guess 6th edition, if there ever is one, could do the last really radical thing I can think of and have them ditch classes and canned spells altogether and be the unholy lovechild of d20, HERO, GURPS and Mutants and Masterminds.

Or maybe they could took a more rules light approach and steal liberally from an indy system like Savage Worlds.
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Post by Dogbert »

Ok, people keep hoping for 5E to fail... mind you, I don't care one way or the other, but I'd like to know what reasons people have for believing it will.

So far it seems to be a hit with their target demographic (neckbeards), so the only reason I could think for 5E to fail would be neckbeards being a considerably smaller demographic that Mearls thought, thus making 5E unsustainable for the tools at Hasbro.
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Post by Lago PARANOIA »

Dogbert wrote:Ok, people keep hoping for 5E to fail... mind you, I don't care one way or the other, but I'd like to know what reasons people have for believing it will.
Because modest, incremental changes to an IP that's going down a death spiral has rarely resulted in a turnabout in its fortunes? Because 5E D&D is being helmed by a lazy fuckup who wasted two years of time on buzzwords? Because 5E D&D already tripped on its own dick with a delayed DMG and scuttled digital tools?

Quoting myself:
Lago PARANOIA wrote:To go back to the original OP's question, I'm putting my money on 'flops, and flops immediately'. I'm sure it'll be the top-selling TTRPG of the month but only for lack of competition. But the writing will be on the wall after three months, maximum.

It has all of the problems of 4E D&D, with a few additional ones.
  • Unlike 4E D&D, it's not being packaged with some first or second-party software to sweeten the deal. The Virtual Tabletop looked rad as hell and even though I was skeptical of the edition at first I hung on for a couple of years in hopes of getting to see it to completion. Hell, I bought a subscription to DDI just in hopes of getting to do the beta test for it. No dice. This is the 21st century and I agree with other people that any major TTRPG release has to have some kind of digital support these days to be taken seriously.
  • 5E D&D does not have a good pre-existing campaign to go along with it. You'd think that Mike Mearls would've learned that the campaign setting is by far the most important part of a TTRPG by now. If 5E D&D had a really good default campaign setting, he could probably get 4-5 years out of the product while releasing the rules that he currently has. But no.
  • It has no pre-existing settings to back it up. 4E D&D killed the Forgotten Realms in the cradle, but up until that point there was no reason to believe that FR was going to die anytime soon. It had a hugely successful 3E D&D run and was coming fresh off the Neverwinter Nights 2 trilogy. 5E D&D has nothing going for it.
  • Few new ideas. Oh, it has a couple of old ideas repackaged as new ones like modular game design, but aside from bounded accuracy everything I've heard or seen about the edition has been a rehash of Shit We've Already Seen. Not to say that the 'same, but more refined' strategy is a necessarily unfruitful one but if you're not going to cater to pre-existing fans nor are you going to try to pull in a new audience with a new pitch, then who the hell is supposed to enjoy your edition?
  • 5E D&D is shedding people faster than Enron in its final months. Seriously, they've lost their number two and number three and the edition isn't set to be released for a few months. And they didn't lose them due to firings or because they found gainful opportunities -- Monte Cook and Bruce Cordell made it clear that extended unemployment was better for their careers than being associated with 5E D&D. Even if 5E D&D did manage to beat all odds and succeed, convincing people to stop bailing out, the working environment would be a shambles just from turnover.
  • No clear release strategy. 4E D&D's release strategy was stupid and unrealistic, but at least they had one: pump out massive amounts of shovelware expansion material so that you had some kind of major release every six months, use the DDI for playtesting and to retain fans between book releases, and use the GSL to pump more money from their fans. Only one aspect of that strategy seemed to have any kind of success, but at least they had one.

    What exactly is 5E D&D's plan? Are they going to re-rollout the old SRD and hope that other 3rd party developers save them? Are they going to go with the old shovelware approach or bundle up all of their 'A-game' material into infrequent but quality releases?
4E D&D, including 4.5E, lasted for a bit less than 4 years, right? I'm putting 5E D&D's death at a little over a year after its release.
Seriously, what sign of success does it actually have? All of the metrics I've seen that it's anything but a flop relies on glittering generalities like 'it appeals to neckbeards'. The detractors can point to stuff that has actually sunk other IPs like a delayed release schedule and a contentious project leader and a lack of promotional material.

If you were writing up an article for the Economist and was going to argue that 5E D&D was going to fail, what arguments or evidence would you use? What if you were going to argue that it was going to succeed?
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In short, your entire post is dismissive of not merely my intelligence, but my agency. And I don't mean agency as a player within one of your games, I mean my agency as a person. You do not want me to be informed when I make the fundamental decisions of deciding whether to join your game or buying your rules system.
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Post by Previn »

Dogbert wrote:Ok, people keep hoping for 5E to fail... mind you, I don't care one way or the other, but I'd like to know what reasons people have for believing it will.
Imagine it didn't have the D&D name on it. It was just awash in the ocean of D&D clones. What does it bring that everything else doesn't? What is new and original about it? Why would I stop playing Pathfinder, or 4e, or FATE, or whatever game and learn this new D&D?
So far it seems to be a hit with their target demographic (neckbeards), so the only reason I could think for 5E to fail would be neckbeards being a considerably smaller demographic that Mearls thought, thus making 5E unsustainable for the tools at Hasbro.
It won't fail to make money, just having the D&D brand practically assures that. However it won't make as much money as they want, won't grow the brand, and won't unite players under one edition. Really D&D is mostly coasting on the massive goodwill that 3.x brought them still and trying to get that back without understanding why 3.x got them where it did.

Honestly I can't even start to think why appealing to old people is seen as a viable marketing strategy when what WotC needs to do is to grow the D&D brand. Something they seem hell bent on doing the opposite of in just about every way they can.
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Post by Lago PARANOIA »

Previn wrote:Honestly I can't even start to think why appealing to old people is seen as a viable marketing strategy when what WotC needs to do is to grow the D&D brand. Something they seem hell bent on doing the opposite of in just about every way they can.
I don't know what to tell you. Hasbro obviously doesn't give a fuck because D&D isn't even on the short list of IPs they have that they can milk for mad cash. And even if D&D did somehow catch fire and launch a line of AAA platinum video games and a critically-acclaimed movie, it's not like they're going to give a fuck even then; people complain about Hasbro not giving a fuck about My Little Pony.

Wizards obviously doesn't give a fuck for the same reason. The competent people are over at Magic and their jobs aren't at risk if D&D goes under. And as for the current D&D division... well, let me just quote the head honcho:
A dwarf in a steel top hat and steel tuxedo called MC Killzalot, the most famous dwarven rapper who's on the skids after a disastrous attempt at a prog rock album. Oh, his class is Fighter.
Josh Kablack wrote:Your freedom to make rulings up on the fly is in direct conflict with my freedom to interact with an internally consistent narrative. Your freedom to run/play a game without needing to understand a complex rule system is in direct conflict with my freedom to play a character whose abilities and flaws function as I intended within that ruleset. Your freedom to add and change rules in the middle of the game is in direct conflict with my ability to understand that rules system before I decided whether or not to join your game.

In short, your entire post is dismissive of not merely my intelligence, but my agency. And I don't mean agency as a player within one of your games, I mean my agency as a person. You do not want me to be informed when I make the fundamental decisions of deciding whether to join your game or buying your rules system.
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Post by Dogbert »

Ok, true, for a moment I forgot about the fact that, like 4E, 5E will lack 3PP support altogether... something inimical for a game of d&d's size (unless Mearls' "plan" involves surrendering and willingly shrinking the brand, which would be completely stupid unless he's attempting to repeat Boom Comics' Ducktales stunt before quitting).
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Post by Windjammer »

Dogbert wrote:Ok, people keep hoping for 5E to fail... mind you, I don't care one way or the other, but I'd like to know what reasons people have for believing it will.

So far it seems to be a hit with their target demographic (neckbeards), so the only reason I could think for 5E to fail would be neckbeards being a considerably smaller demographic that Mearls thought, thus making 5E unsustainable for the tools at Hasbro.
That's exactly my take on it too. As long as that demographic is successful in attracting further, perhaps even younger, and casual players (and contrary to the impression they give through their online persona, which is insular, they may actually succeed at that), WotC' plan to not overly invest in organized play etc may pay off.

The latest indication that WotC can do no wrong with its current customerbase is a thread on Enworld where a guy received the DMG early and already confirms that the edition's key selling points (pillars and modularity) are vaporware. Instead of a kitbasher's toolkit it's a Mearlsy prosetext dealing in 'advice' without daring to proscribe things mechanically.* Now you'd think this would draw the reaction 4e got when skill challenges were released in its DMG (and clearly Frank is gearing up to write a point by point dissection of the book, like it's 2009) - but no, it's all fine, who needs mechanical precision and "get out of my thread if you have precise, factual misgivings because this edition makes me feel good". There literally is no place left for system analysis, and D&d as a brand has disappeared up its own arse.

*True to form (and in keeping with his customer interaction since 2007) Mearls has promised that the actual material providing modularity will be published in online articles in 2015 or 2016. The fix is just round the corner, kids! In the meantime, that will be $49.99 please for a wall of reassurances.
Last edited by Windjammer on Fri Nov 21, 2014 7:30 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Username17 »

That sort of hug-boxy "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything" defenses of games that have nothing to offer is a thing that happens on RPG.net to games that are dying. No one cares if you say something flippant and dismissive or hard hitting and factual about Pathfinder. Windjammer, you're describing the RPG.net reaction to people doomsaying about White Wolf while White Wolf was circling the drain.

The fact that people on the big purple feel the need to shout downnaysayers and talk about their feelings when it comes to D&DNext puts it in the same category as Vampire: the Requiem back in 2010. That's not a good place to be.

What you're reporting is "loser talk." If people had anything factual to say in support of things they liked, they'd say them. If they have to resort to generalities like "the only poll that matters is the one on election day" or "I just like it, OK?" it means that they know their team is losing and they think they have to say something.

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Previn wrote: Honestly I can't even start to think why appealing to old people is seen as a viable marketing strategy when what WotC needs to do is to grow the D&D brand. Something they seem hell bent on doing the opposite of in just about every way they can.
An echo chamber discussion environment. They probably don't have resources to conduct proper marketing research if they wanted to (EDIT: or enough intelligence to convert the results into project goals, remember, people don't even know what they actually want all the time). Their insular inner circle of buddies happens to not have people capable of sufficiently broad vision. And trawling for opinions on the net is worse than useless even before we take into account the fact that places like ENWorld and Wizards' own forums have a habit of brutally enforcing the current party line, which destroys them as a tool of measuring audience opinions. By definition you'll see the discussion competely dominated by the existing crowd of players, not the people you want to attract. This is much the same for any form of popular entertainment, you're mostly getting opinions of rabid ultrafans, so whether their circles are willing to suck your corporate cock or are seething with bilious hatred at the direction you're taking the franchise indicates next to nothing about commercial viability of that direction. In DnD's case nearly all forums are willing to suck Wizards' cock and subject criticisms to concentrated attacks.
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Post by Windjammer »

FrankTrollman wrote:That sort of hug-boxy "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything" defenses of games that have nothing to offer is a thing that happens on RPG.net to games that are dying. No one cares if you say something flippant and dismissive or hard hitting and factual about Pathfinder. Windjammer, you're describing the RPG.net reaction to people doomsaying about White Wolf while White Wolf was circling the drain.

The fact that people on the big purple feel the need to shout downnaysayers and talk about their feelings when it comes to D&DNext puts it in the same category as Vampire: the Requiem back in 2010. That's not a good place to be.
Another analogy would be Dark Heresy 2nd edition, if you look at the current discussions of the core rulebook on the company's own forum, which fit the exact same pattern. Disgusting as it may be in all three cases, I'm not convinced DH 2 or D&D 5 have as little staying power as VtR in 2010.*

We have no reliable data at this point, and the fact that the 5e PHB has been unavailable for weeks on Amazon US (except Marketplace) reeks of doom (ridiculously tiny print run, and no 2nd print run in sight in the shopping craze weeks from Black Friday to Christmas??) but could mean anything.

* edit: I think 4th edition lasted much longer, and fit the same pattern too. Then again, I personally hold the minority opinion that the last product for 4.0 proper was in July 2010 (Demonomicon), so it only lasted 2 years, which is abysmally short - but still longer than the doomsayers predicted. // Ditto with FFG 40k RPGs - I've predicted their demise ever since playtesting and text editing were given the boot in 2010 - but FFG simply adapted, and put out 5 new 400+ core rulebooks on the market since, all unedited or properly playtested, and their gamelines are still alive and running. Why? Because they can rely on a loyal fanbase (with purchasing power) who doesn't care about editing and math hammering. That's my question to someone like you Frank: it seems to me that your exacting standards on product quality and integrity are so out of synch with the market in 2014 that your predictions of doom - no matter how much we may want them to be true - have lost their persuasiveness.
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Post by Username17 »

Windjammer wrote:Then again, I personally hold the minority opinion that the last product for 4.0 proper was in July 2010 (Demonomicon), so it only lasted 2 years, which is abysmally short - but still longer than the doomsayers predicted.
I don't know where you found doomsayers who predicted that 4e would last less than 2 years. For fuck's sake, their initial product rollout schedule called for a full set of core books in 2008, 2009, and 2010. I confidently predicted that the product was doomed, but even I believed that they would print a DMG 3. That the whole line got canned before that was something of a shock even to doomsayers as I understand the term. Was there seriously anyone who said they would actually fold the line rather than release something called a DMG 3?

Even if you go back to the Hundreds of Thousands conversation, I was saying that it was doing badly, but I was hedging my statements way more than turned out to be necessary. In July of 2009, we collected a bunch of data and concluded that 4e was failing pretty badly, and that they would change tactics soon - right about that time they stopped soliciting new 4e books. I didn't call the premature end of 4e until February 2010, when they publicly admitted that there wasn't going to be a DMG 3.

Now, 5th edition is seemingly tanking much harder than 4th edition did. With 4th edition, it was the heir apparent, and on release prophetic people like myself were loan voices in the wilderness when we said that 4th edition was going to fail to be the #1 role playing game. We weren't even saying it was going to get canceled early, just that it was going to fail to be #1. With 5e, I don't think anyone is seriously suggesting that it's going to unseat Pathfinder as the #1 game, the only question is whether it's going to run a full three years. Signs are pointing to no at this time, what with the fact that there's nothing on the production schedule and the DMG is delayed.

Now the 40K and Star Wars games are different kettles of fish altogether. For one thing, they are licensed properties. So Games Workshop or Lucas aren't making those games and aren't calling the shots. Secondly, they aren't the primary product of Fantasy Flight, which mostly makes board games. They generate an amount of money for the licenser and and amount of money for the licensee, and as long as those don't hit zero for either party, there isn't much reason for the situation to change. 1st edition WFRP stayed in print for nineteen years despite being kind of terrible, because Games Workshop simply doesn't give a fuck.

Dark Heresy is a pretty bad game in a lot of ways. But since it's not competing for the #1 game slot and isn't being overseen by corporate taskmasters that care about its absolute profitability as long as it stays in the black - I don't see any reason for it to actually get canceled any time soon. It's profoundly underperforming what a genuinely good game could accomplish with the same license, but so what? As long as it generates more of a revenue stream as a license than fucking Inquisitor did in-house, Games Workshop is going to be content with that. And it's pretty hard to see it falling below that bar any time soon.

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Post by Artless »

Tangent: is D&D anything beyond a licensing tool for Wizards? I have a hard time imagining anyone, production apparatus that doesn't produce anything aside, notices any money moving around except when they hand out the name to other media. I have a hard time imagining it's even pennies compared to their Magic money on top of that.

Other tangent: I'm certain it's been discussed more in-depth outside of the M:tG/D&D thread from a long while ago, but is there some witch's curse in place that keeps the RPG and CCG teams from mingling? Wizards seems plenty adept at setting their money on fire in various ways, so I can't imagine it's a financial disincentive that's keeping them from leveraging one into the other, otherwise I think they'd have done it already.
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Post by Prak »

We'll never get a real answer (unless some former employee from one team or the other decides to break any possible confidentiality agreement), but I would put money on the suits actually fearing that any failing in such a project would taint the MtG brand. While a lot of companies might use their wildly successful brand to boost a floundering one, the Hasbro suits seem leery to do that with MtG and D&D, and possibly for good reason.
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Post by Artless »

Ryan Dancey gave an answer basically to that effect to some redditor's question about a Magic sourcebook, citing internal deliberations from after the release of 3rd Edition. I'm just surprised it's been maintained for as long as it has. Given my impressions of both teams I'm merely baffled that a product or two hasn't been drunkenly approved.
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Post by ishy »

FrankTrollman wrote:
Windjammer wrote:Then again, I personally hold the minority opinion that the last product for 4.0 proper was in July 2010 (Demonomicon), so it only lasted 2 years, which is abysmally short - but still longer than the doomsayers predicted.
I don't know where you found doomsayers who predicted that 4e would last less than 2 years. For fuck's sake, their initial product rollout schedule called for a full set of core books in 2008, 2009, and 2010. I confidently predicted that the product was doomed, but even I believed that they would print a DMG 3. That the whole line got canned before that was something of a shock even to doomsayers as I understand the term. Was there seriously anyone who said they would actually fold the line rather than release something called a DMG 3?

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Does Ryan Dancey stating that D&D was in a death spiral in april 2009 count?
See the comment section
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Post by Username17 »

ishy wrote:
FrankTrollman wrote:
Windjammer wrote:Then again, I personally hold the minority opinion that the last product for 4.0 proper was in July 2010 (Demonomicon), so it only lasted 2 years, which is abysmally short - but still longer than the doomsayers predicted.
I don't know where you found doomsayers who predicted that 4e would last less than 2 years. For fuck's sake, their initial product rollout schedule called for a full set of core books in 2008, 2009, and 2010. I confidently predicted that the product was doomed, but even I believed that they would print a DMG 3. That the whole line got canned before that was something of a shock even to doomsayers as I understand the term. Was there seriously anyone who said they would actually fold the line rather than release something called a DMG 3?

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Does Ryan Dancey stating that D&D was in a death spiral in april 2009 count?
See the comment section
Nope. I mean, everything he said there was prescient and true (except for the part where he thought that lowered quality standards would mean less words per book, when in the 21st century it means more), but he never predicted that the 4e death spiral would catch up with them just 12 months from then. He was talking about rounds of firing and contractions and shit - but they just fucking hit the wall, canceled the line, and did an incredibly half assed attempt to reboot with Essentials from a cold start.

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Post by Mistborn »

Artless wrote:Ryan Dancey gave an answer basically to that effect to some redditor's question about a Magic sourcebook, citing internal deliberations from after the release of 3rd Edition. I'm just surprised it's been maintained for as long as it has. Given my impressions of both teams I'm merely baffled that a product or two hasn't been drunkenly approved.
As much as I have long-standing issues with the MtG people but lumping them in with the D&D people is undeserved and honestly seriously insulting them. They by and large understand their own game and can identify problems and correct them when they crop up.
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Post by Artless »

Don't get me wrong; as much as I find the Magic design work to be fairly hit-or-miss, the fact that they at least attempt to correct problems for a competitive game, that they have an idea of community engagement and that they apply some amount of rigor to maintain a release schedule puts them well ahead of their RPG counterparts at Wizards. The game's architects were at the very least clever enough to build in ways for it to fail but not destroy itself entirely when they introduce content.

I would still not put them above mishandling what would ostensibly be the fringes of their product, however. Their history of issues with Magic Online, despite it being like a third of their revenue, speaks to that I think.
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Post by Lago PARANOIA »

So. How are those 5E D&D sales going? Good? I doubt it; where the hell is our Alice in Wonderland-type setting? Or that 'Against the Giants' one?
Josh Kablack wrote:Your freedom to make rulings up on the fly is in direct conflict with my freedom to interact with an internally consistent narrative. Your freedom to run/play a game without needing to understand a complex rule system is in direct conflict with my freedom to play a character whose abilities and flaws function as I intended within that ruleset. Your freedom to add and change rules in the middle of the game is in direct conflict with my ability to understand that rules system before I decided whether or not to join your game.

In short, your entire post is dismissive of not merely my intelligence, but my agency. And I don't mean agency as a player within one of your games, I mean my agency as a person. You do not want me to be informed when I make the fundamental decisions of deciding whether to join your game or buying your rules system.
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Post by Ferret »

Well, I don't know how Sales are going specifically, but they've already altered the publishing model. The next release is going to be Sword Coast Adventurers Guide, which will include setting information detailing the Sword Coast in the Forgotten Realms, as well as additional character options to support those things, including new subclasses.
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Post by Kaelik »

Ferret wrote:Well, I don't know how Sales are going specifically, but they've already altered the publishing model. The next release is going to be Sword Coast Adventurers Guide, which will include setting information detailing the Sword Coast in the Forgotten Realms, as well as additional character options to support those things, including new subclasses.
Meanwhile, Sword Coast legends doesn't offer Druids, Sorcerers, or warlocks, because fuck man, the already super limited classes in 5e is just tooooo much for them.
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Post by Occluded Sun »

I see absolutely no evidence that 5E is flopping. Whether it's successful from a design or aesthetic perspective or not, it's clearly keeping the brand alive, which arguably was all it was ever *intended* to do in the first place.
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Post by Username17 »

Occluded Sun wrote:I see absolutely no evidence that 5E is flopping.
The only way you could fail to see evidence of 5e flopping is by refusing to open your eyes. They abandoned their release schedule and fired almost all of the staff.
Whether it's successful from a design or aesthetic perspective or not, it's clearly keeping the brand alive, which arguably was all it was ever *intended* to do in the first place.
It's only keeping the brand alive in the sense that "Cinderella III: A Twist in Time" resets Walt Disney's IP expiration dates because of loopholes in the Mickey Mouse Laws. There are less D&D branded books coming out now than there were three months into 3.5 being officially discontinued. And there are less 3rd party D&D books coming out now than there were a year and half after the d20 "crash."

By the decadent standards of 3rd edition, 5e is dead, and has been dead since about January or so.

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Post by CapnTthePirateG »

It does seem to have a significant number of fans on sites like EnWorld and r/dnd. Granted, EnWorld is basically wizards shills, so...
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Post by FatR »

CapnTthePirateG wrote:It does seem to have a significant number of fans on sites like EnWorld and r/dnd. Granted, EnWorld is basically wizards shills, so...
As I mentioned in this thread back then, net presence and net reception are non-indicative. By definition rabid fans will post disproportionally often. And I don't think it will take more than a hundred of dedicated shills, shitposters and deluded people to create a background of seemingly positive reception on every major site.

Well, there is one indicator, to be honest - the overall number of threads and posts in corresponding discussion areas on forums. And on many boards 5E was not considered worthy of having a separate subforum from 4E.
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