D&D 5e has failed

[rasmuswagner]

I'm surprised to see Star Wars doing so well.

I'm not. It has a clearly designated beginner box out, based on a popular franchise, it looks sleek and well-designed, it has supplements out...FFG may not be very good at designing games, but they're very. very good at being a games company.

[ACOS]

I actually see that as surprisingly well for 5e.
The tell will be what those numbers look like a year from now.

I'm going to make a big deal of the fact that those numbers listed a significantly lower proportion of players to games compared to the other two games in the top 3 for number of games being played.

Good catch - I hadn't noticed that.
And I'd say that you're analysis is probably spot on.

[Ghremdal]

Ill do a quick runup of mythweavers:

Games planned (Game ads):
Pathfinder...12
3.5...9
5e...5
4e...3

Active games (I think Mythweavers defines that as one post a month):
Pathfinder...165
3.5...173
5e...65
4e...42

My take on this small sample is that there was a surge in 5e games a few months back, but now that interest is falling off.

[Windjammer]

So, any evidence as of yet to people turning on 5E D&D?

Second place on Roll20.

Given that the DMG just came out (and the rest of the game is only a few months old), I actually see that as surprisingly well for 5e.
The tell will be what those numbers look like a year from now.

Can you explain the reasoning behind this? I understand these are the numbers for the first sales quarter (though the site in question doesn't measure sales but number of people playing). I previously thought that's been the high water mark for any edition, certainly D&D 3.0 - which inaugurated its release with the PHB by itself - and D&D 4.0 - which released all 3 core books at once, with a huge number of people trying out the game, and then dropping it within the first year.

With 5e, it seemed the marketing and word on the street was that its DMG was the 'most optional' of the 3 core, so the idea that a significant portion of groups have held off starting their 5e campaigns because the DMG was only available towards the end of that quarter strikes me as less than plausible; unless, that is, you can explain a bit more the reasoning behind your conjecture. Thanks.

[Username17]

Can you explain the reasoning behind this? I understand these are the numbers for the first sales quarter (though the site in question doesn't measure sales but number of people playing). I previously thought that's been the high water mark for any edition, certainly D&D 3.0 - which inaugurated its release with the PHB by itself - and D&D 4.0 - which released all 3 core books at once, with a huge number of people trying out the game, and then dropping it within the first year.

With 5e, it seemed the marketing and word on the street was that its DMG was the 'most optional' of the 3 core, so the idea that a significant portion of groups have held off starting their 5e campaigns because the DMG was only available towards the end of that quarter strikes me as less than plausible; unless, that is, you can explain a bit more the reasoning behind your conjecture. Thanks.

I'm not ACOS, but the logic seems pretty obvious to me.

D&D traditionally uses the "Older Cousin" model of marketing. That means one dude knows the game and recruits new players. That dude is usually (but not always) the DM. So while most players "don't need a DMG," most of the games start because someone wants to DM. Expecting some potential DMs to hold off until they get their hands on a DMG doesn't seem weird to me at all.

You would expect the biggest sales day to be right when the PHB comes out, but the Role20 stuff is measuring online games that have been started. And that's obviously going to lag the book release somewhat as people take time to actually read the books and decide to start up a game and other people decide to join.

The numbers there don't look great, but they look like something that with positive word of mouth and a strong older cousin patronage could grow to challenge Pathfinder in a few years. I don't think it's going to. There isn't anything on the release schedule that even looks like an aggressive hand gesture at Pathfinder. I don't know where strong word of mouth is supposed to come from.

-Username17

[fectin]

There would certainly be an audience who would find a book, "how to actually play 5th ed. D&D so it works" useful.

You should publish that. It would be the biggest middle finger to WotC.

[Windjammer]

Thanks, Frank. That makes a lot of sense.

[Blicero]

Does anyone know how the game is doing on google+? That's the big venue for OSR-type folks, I think.

[virgil]

I'd be curious as to whether there are resources that tally such.

Looking at Google Trends, you can notice I am being incredibly generous to 5th edition at arguably its highest hype point and Pathfinder still decisively wins. Change it from web search to news search and D&D literally drops to zero after Dec 13th and hasn't moved since then (Pathfinder continues to rise during this time). It's just datum, but it supports the other evidence and I certainly don't hold high hopes for its success.

[ACOS]

@ Windjammer:
Since I am ACOS, I can certainly say that Frank's explanation follows my thought process pretty well.
The only thing I can (maybe) add to that explanation is that "a year from now" will reflect (1) how well that word of mouth has spread, and (2) people's reaction to the game after they've really had time to explore the new rule set. It might not even take a year for those numbers to settle in; but it could, and that's how long I'd personally wait to pass final judgement ... it can often take a few months just to assemble a stable gaming group, and sometimes people will stick around far longer than they should just to give the game an honest full chance (aka, don't want to disappoint their friends).

[MGuy]

I'd be curious as to whether there are resources that tally such.

Looking at Google Trends, you can notice I am being incredibly generous to 5th edition at arguably its highest hype point and Pathfinder still decisively wins. Change it from web search to news search and D&D literally drops to zero after Dec 13th and hasn't moved since then (Pathfinder continues to rise during this time). It's just datum, but it supports the other evidence and I certainly don't hold high hopes for its success.

Does it track news just from companies or in general? I've seen at least two articles about 5E just recently. One complaining about the delay with the DMG and another complaining that the DMG doesn't provide the modular options that people were waiting to see.

[virgil]

I'm not really certain. I think it's just the number of people that looked for X in the News search rather than Web, which implies (very weakly) that even though people are writing news about D&D5, nobody cares to look for it.

[TheFlatline]

If you asked me to make an Alice in Wonderland inspired adventure, I'd pretty much make Planescape. Expedition to a surreal universe with a lot of talky encounters with crazy people who are also strange alien beings. Sounds like it would be Tales of the Infinite Staircase if you took out the Never Ending Story bit and gave a bigger role to the Formian Queen.

Unfortunately, I have no confidence that the slackers and grognards writing for contract to WotC at the moment can think sufficiently abstractly to understand that inspiration can be that... abstract. I think it more likely that we're going to get something not unlike Gygax's EX modules Dungeonland and The Land Beyond the Magic Mirror.



1980s style clumsy literary references where the entire joke is that you're being shown something from your childhood and expected to bark like a trained seal. Like a late period Shrek movie.

-Username17

I have this gut feeling that they might decide to go all American McGee's Alice if they do this. Because writing Alice in Wonderland style nonsense is a lot harder than it sounds.

[TheFlatline]

I'm surprised to see Star Wars doing so well.

I'm not. It has a clearly designated beginner box out, based on a popular franchise, it looks sleek and well-designed, it has supplements out...FFG may not be very good at designing games, but they're very. very good at being a games company.

That link also conglomerates all editions of Star Wars together. You might have 90% of the games playing WEG version of Star Wars or Star Wars Saga. You essentially combining completely unrelated systems together under one theme.

[Prak]

D&D traditionally uses the "Older Cousin" model of marketing. That means one dude knows the game and recruits new players. That dude is usually (but not always) the DM. So while most players "don't need a DMG," most of the games start because someone wants to DM. Expecting some potential DMs to hold off until they get their hands on a DMG doesn't seem weird to me at all.

You would expect the biggest sales day to be right when the PHB comes out, but the Role20 stuff is measuring online games that have been started. And that's obviously going to lag the book release somewhat as people take time to actually read the books and decide to start up a game and other people decide to join.

The numbers there don't look great, but they look like something that with positive word of mouth and a strong older cousin patronage could grow to challenge Pathfinder in a few years. I don't think it's going to. There isn't anything on the release schedule that even looks like an aggressive hand gesture at Pathfinder. I don't know where strong word of mouth is supposed to come from.

-Username17

Would it have made more sense, then, if they were set on the staggered release thing for them to have published the DMG first along with the basic rules online, and then follow up with MM and finally PHB? That way people buy the DMG, decide to run, gather a group, get more converts, can buy the MM when they're running out of sample material/published adventures, and finally the players can buy the PHB for more options?

[Antumbra]

I'd be curious as to whether there are resources that tally such.

Looking at Google Trends, you can notice I am being incredibly generous to 5th edition at arguably its highest hype point and Pathfinder still decisively wins. Change it from web search to news search and D&D literally drops to zero after Dec 13th and hasn't moved since then (Pathfinder continues to rise during this time). It's just datum, but it supports the other evidence and I certainly don't hold high hopes for its success.

http://www.google.com/trends/explore#ca ... today+12-m

This seems to be a little better - yours gets Nissan Pathfinder results. Roleplaying Games is apparently a category for sorting trends.

Playing around gives mostly the same results, but it's all fairly vague in the end.

[Previn]

This seems to be a little better - yours gets Nissan Pathfinder results. Roleplaying Games is apparently a category for sorting trends.

Playing around gives mostly the same results, but it's all fairly vague in the end.

I think that trying to rely on any ultra-simple comparisons is going to miss-represent the actual state a lot. Especially since WotC isn't marketing it as 5th edition, 5e or Next, but just D&D. Looking at those results gets you this.

[Seerow]

So this is an interesting look at things, since it shows just how fast 5e spiked relative to Pathfinder.

Then again, Pathfinder's slow start is to be expected since it isn't fucking Dungeons and Dragons. Meanwhile this other chart shows D&D at its height compared to Pathfinder, and you can see how even where they're almost even now, Pathfinder is still small potatoes compared to where D&D was 9-10 years ago.

[schpeelah]

Would it have made more sense, then, if they were set on the staggered release thing for them to have published the DMG first along with the basic rules online, and then follow up with MM and finally PHB? That way people buy the DMG, decide to run, gather a group, get more converts, can buy the MM when they're running out of sample material/published adventures, and finally the players can buy the PHB for more options?

I don't think so. The PHB is almost entirely information everyone at the table needs to know. The DMG is information one person at the table should know. The fact that this one person is the one starting the game means the edition doesn't really take off and start being played before the all the core books are out, which is a rather trivial conclusion in retrospect.

[Eikre]

Question: Is there actually anything in the 5E DMG that isn't just the same lukewarm pablum that has been published in every other GM manual in every edition of every other game ever? "You've read it once, you've read it a hundred times" kind of shit? The kind of shit you probably don't need to review in the first place if you've already had an adequate "older cousin" experience?

'Cause outside of misplaced player information (point-buy table; magic items) I literally can't remember what's in the 3X DMG. I have no idea what's in the 4E DMG; I'm actually second guessing whether I ever read it in the first place. My games for those editions ran fine, though.

So even if I've got some pointed criticisms about dragging ass on the release of a "core" manual, I do concede that I probably don't need that manual if I get around to running a 5E game.

[Pixels]

'Cause outside of misplaced player information (point-buy table; magic items)

And prestige classes! I do recall a few DM important things, like descriptions of environmental effects, random treasure generation tables, CR -> XP tables, and trap descriptions. It's hard to recall with clarity what was in what book though, since I've used the SRD instead of the dead tree versions for years and years.

[Prak]

Off the top of my head, the 3.X DMG has

• Wealth by Level (should be in PHB)
• CR>EL numbers
• XP
• Treasure
• Environment Encounter Tables
• Traps, Dungeon Feature (walls, doors, etc) stats
• How to write a new class
• How to write a new race
• Almost entirely useless quick sample NPCs
• Very basic Epic stuff (3.5 only)
• Leadership (should be in PHB)
• World building stuff, from the good general "think of what the world is shaped like, how the celestial bodies function, and what this might mean for the world" to the bad specific "a settlement of this size has this many 20th level fighters"
• Conditions, Poison and Disease rules
• Magic Items, and creation rules therefor (should be in PHB)

[ACOS]

Would it have made more sense, then, if they were set on the staggered release thing for them to have published the DMG first along with the basic rules online, and then follow up with MM and finally PHB? That way people buy the DMG, decide to run, gather a group, get more converts, can buy the MM when they're running out of sample material/published adventures, and finally the players can buy the PHB for more options?

I think not.
You get the PHB, and can start recruiting players with "hey, look at what you can do, and this is how you play". Without prospective players, you don't have a game.
MM lets you start planning encounters and fleshing out a generic setting.
Starter set gives you some very basic stuff that the DM needs for running the game.
DMG can be covered during down time the week prior to game start.

That being said, the only context in which staggered release makes sense is to avoid sticker shock; otherwise, it's bullshit, I don't care what excuses they gave.

[ACOS]

[*]Leadership (should be in PHB)

Given that it is explicitly optional, and attached with a fair amount of warning - in addition to it coming at the end of a multi-page discussion on followers in a story-building context - I think that DMG was the right place for it. That location also made it less controversial to ban - which dovetails with the word of warning.

[*]Magic Items, and creation rules therefor (should be in PHB)[/list]

I have mixed feeling on this. I think that the PHB should have had the crafting rules, as well as a couple of examples that actually used those rules. But as far as the vast majority of the Items, I certainly prefer the DMG. Putting it all in the PHB, I think, gives too much player entitlement. Don't get wrong, I'm all for player empowerment - that's very much a good thing; player entitlement can derail a game quicker than a hiccup.

[Lago PARANOIA]

@ACOS
In the context of choice, empowerment and entitlement are the same thing. Like, literally the same thing. Any argument that tries to draw a distinction is doomed to fail on first principles.

If you said something like 'between races, classes, feats, spells, traits, etc. players have too much empowerment and I prefer to draw a line in the sand at magical items', your argument would make a lot more sense. I'd still think that, at least in the context of D&D as she is played, would be mistaken but it'd at least be coherent.