D&D 5e has failed

[Eikre]

Magic is, in a lot of ways, run with the same nepotistic employment methods that D&D is. It benefits from a competitive circuit that channels a lot of higher-quality thinkers into contact with each other, and the nature of the game itself promotes more legalistic and structural methodology, but I'm not so certain that all their talents are fungible with TTRPGs. 4E was in line with the sort of design I'd expect from MTG randos.

Holding the D&D team accountable to the MTG guys would probably work really well, though. I'm certain they're better at playtesting, rules-management, and getting the product into the consumer's hands. Art direction is fungible, too, but D&D doesn't have a glaring problem with that, right now (I'm certain the MTG guys would never have let Wayne Reynolds put that squishy-faced dragonborn fuckhead on the cover of a player's manual, though.) MTG fiction these days is really, really shitty, though, and that's something that D&D needs locked the fuck down; not just for interstitial vignettes in the manuals themselves, but for computer games, which the franchise absolutely needs.

[Almaz]

Seeing what happens to WotC now should be interesting after their attempt to roll back the Platinum appearance fees.

[Username17]

Maybe they can import some of the Magic talent, now that there's an official Magic: The Gathering setting document for D&D 5e, based on the Zendikar set and The Art of Magic The Gathering?

http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/ar ... 2016-04-27

Well, that piece does get five out of five James Wyatts on the James Wyatt scale of James Wyatting. It has about fourteen thousand words and much of it is copypasta from M:tG background materials. Fuck, much of it is copypasta from obsolete M:tG background materials.

Despite the harshness of life on Zendikar, human civilization flourishes in a few scattered towns. Sea Gate (on the continent of Tazeem)...

Yeeah. I'm gonna stop you right there.


Feel the flourishing!

Basically we're looking at less than a week's work by one person and attention to detail was very poor. There's no editor at all. The art, while gorgeous, is basically just taken off of random Zendikar cards from various sets. This is Exhibit A for how the remaining D&D staff are a small cadre of chucklefucks who need to get fired.

MTG fiction these days is really, really shitty, though, and that's something that D&D needs locked the fuck down; not just for interstitial vignettes in the manuals themselves, but for computer games, which the franchise absolutely needs.

This is true. Although I'm gonna say that MtG fiction has always been shitty. MtG has never produced stuff of much quality beyond pithy leads and allusions on card flavor text. Longer fiction pieces have been rather poor for a long time. The move to 2 set blocks was welcomed in no small part because it de-emphasized the big plot events, and the big plot events were generally shit.

Right now they are gearing up for a big reveal of the true villain of Innistrad in Eldritch Moon. And it's going to be Emrakul. Right after they just did a block about fighting Ulamog and Kozilek. It's just really going to be a disappointing big reveal. The big reveal of Tarkir was that they were binning all the cool Khanates they'd drawn up, and that was shit. There hasn't been a really good big reveal... maybe ever? I mean, the chucklefucks who wrote up Homelands thought that they were writing fucking Lord of the Rings with their "Baron Sengir" and shit. It was and is embarrassing.

MtG suffers and has suffered from poor writing. The medium doesn't require stellar writing, but you're right that it would be an albatross on the neck of an RPG property.

-Username17

[Eikre]

The big reveal of Tarkir was that they were binning all the cool Khanates they'd drawn up, and that was shit.

Christ, don't get me started. That entire block followed the travels of a literal dragon-flavored brony otherkin with no friends and no motivations outside of sucking dragoncock and flipping out in pointless fits of bland hack-fantasy power overflow, to the detriment of everyone around him. His schtick is autism. He goes home, time-travels, and changes history to undo the greatest achievement in his plane's history, thus restoring the tyranny of a monster race over his own humanoid kin. Yaaaaay.

The way it fit into the changing block structure was pretty cool. Permitting two-thirds of the block to fall off with the new rotation schedule without leaving the last set seeming like such an orphan is really the prevailing purpose of that story, and I do think there's a measure of satisfaction in it. Still, though, what the fuck? It was a tale of sound and fury, signifying nothing. Did not at all have to be that way.

[Prak]

So, basically what I'm getting from this is-

We're ending the demilitarized zone between D&D and MTG!

Here's stuff for 5e!

But, it's not like I expected them to suddenly say "Yeah... fuck 5e. We're going back to third." I just wish they'd done this shit back when they were doing third. Fuck, they could have done an Alara book instead of 4th, and then just kept the brand alive with a regular "Magic the Adventures" core campaign book, and then supplements that translated the yearly magic sets over to D&D worlds.

[name_here]

Llorowyn/Shadowmoor had a pretty sweet big reveal, IMO.

[maglag]

I'll have to agree with Frank's "lazy work is lazy".

" The appearance of the archons is deceptive:
they look like hooded humans riding winged lions, but
they are single creatures with just one mind and will. "

" A pteranodon can represent a smaller drake, while a larger one is more like a giant eagle. "

"Use the triceratops statistics for baloths, but woodcrasher baloths have a
climbing speed of 30 feet in addition to their normal walking speed."

Also the vampire PC race seems able to produce infinite zombies nulls as long as you find new living humanoids to drain of blood.

[Ghremdal]

So, basically, we're all hopefully waiting for Cocks to give WotC a good reaming?

You, sir, have made my day.

[Koumei]

So Neverwinter Online is talking about the up and coming expansion that is largely about stabbing giants in the kneecaps, in the Icewind Dale area. No I didn't go to the wrong thread: they specifically mention that it's to tie in with an up and coming expansion for the tabletop game.

So have they decided to actually release some kind of supplement for the game now that it's basically already been buried? Also does anybody actually care that now the game can have extra stuff for going into cold places and fighting big dumb brutes that lack interesting abilities and can almost definitely be killed by archer platoons?

[OgreBattle]

MTG cards with flavor text are fun to read, getting bits and pieces from creatures, sorceries, lands, left a lot of space for imagination to bridge the gaps.

I preferred when they were more about describing the setting than following specific individuals though. Like if "Jace's ____" had some description of how it fit in the world instead of a one liner from Jace that would be nice.

[Nebuchadnezzar]

So have they decided to actually release some kind of supplement for the game now that it's basically already been buried?

It's an adventure and collectable miniature tie in with a related board game scheduled to be released a couple of quarters later, which I'd guess to be the actual focus.

[Koumei]

Oh in that case it makes perfect sense. I didn't think they'd actually be focusing on material for 5E and drumming up excitement for that, it just doesn't fit their recent history.

[Ghremdal]

If you want a good laugh go check out this months Unearthed Arcana:

https://dnd.wizards.com/articles/featur ... characters

Mearls is so lazy he didn't even bother to upload the file as a PDF.

[Rawbeard]

anyone is still employed at WotC D&D department? that's impressive, thought they outsourced all of the writing and publishing.

[OgreBattle]

http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/news/du ... ittle-pony

[Neon Sequitur]

D&D has indeed failed...

...to stop selling.

https://twitter.com/mikemearls/status/7 ... 8128419840

[angelfromanotherpin]

Oh look, an unsourced assertion from the person who benefits most from the assertion being perceived as true. So credible.

[erik]

I'm skeptical, but the continued presence in amazon sales rankings with a resurgence back up to the 100's and better this summer is interesting along with the high number of reviews. If they sold a 200k on amazon then that would put em in striking range with brick and mortar sales maybe.

It'd be hilarious though if he's comparing lifetime Amazon sales. Prak, you should've asked if that was lifetime amazon sales or total lifetime sales, heh.

[Prak]

Allegedly, he legally can't share sales numbers because WotC's publicly traded? Is that legit?

[erik]

I expect he'd be fired if he did. Technically it is Hasbro that is publicly traded. But I think what would legally prevent him would be a NDA.

tsk tsk. shouldn't have tipped your hand with the vested interest bit, nor doubling down on it with xmas layoffs.

[PhoneLobster]

Anecdote time.

Local board game club has strong role playing presence, has added an additional regular role playing event to it's schedule.

At said even people mostly play pathfinder. But other random stuff happens.

But ONE group this month sat down to play 5E.

Now the 5E GM didn't know he was GMing 5E, as in he though he was just going to the RPG night with his wife and friends but it turns out someone had decided he was running a game for said group without telling him.

He wanted to play in my game instead. Maybe bring his group if that's what it took. That didn't work out for him, you know how it is, decisions had been made. But that's aside from the point of the anecdote. The point is this bit.

One of the other regulars passed his group. Pretty sure the whole thing was spontaneous and entirely without malice.

"Hey, guys, playing D&D hey?" (perhaps slightly surprised it wasn't pathfinder, though certainly not offended)
"Is that 5E?" (in a genuinely surprised "wow, really?" tone)
"Good on you guys." (in a kind of slightly condescending, but also sort of genuinely glad and congratulating way because SOMEONE was doing some form of proper but thankless duty)

So it looks like that's where 5E is at here. No one wants to run it, but someone might suddenly make you, but if so don't worry, the community sees it as some sort of charitable sacrifice.

[Mechalich]

5e PHB sales beating 4e I could see, but beating 3e with both the downward trend in physical copies of gaming books overall and competition from Pathfinder affecting 5e its hard to see how it could possibly be beating 3e seems extremely far fetched. Just matching 3e would imply some kind of smashing success that simply doesn't match the presentation you see in stores. Heck my local Barnes and Noble still had more 4e books for sale than 5e when I was last there like 2 months back.

[virgil]

My earlier analysis of Amazon's work really seems to contradict his claim. If you assume that Amazon represents a third of the mass-market branch, which itself is half of their overall sales volume, then Amazon is roughly 1/6th of their total book sales. At which point, the 5E's PHB's lifetime sales might have finally exceeded 3E's PHB sales first month

[deaddmwalking]

It's possible that they've been 'sold' to distributors. The only way I'd see that working is if it's a Hasbro division that 'bought' them and has them in inventory.

I don't have anything against 5th edition - it wasn't 'for me', but neither was 4th edition - but I don't really see it appearing successful. Maybe I'm too much in a bubble these days, but with other editions I saw them in play. Not with 5th.

[pragma]

As a bit of contrary anecdata: I play quite a bit of 5e, and most of my peers do as well: I find it easy to GM and easy to teach, which works well for my schedule. That said, I see a lot more Pathfinder at gaming stores.