I agree with this, and here's the thing - none of his suggestions would have actually made a book like Spelljammer any better. In fact, a couple of them ("shorter books!" "fewer collaborators!") would have actively made it worse!
Well, to be accurate, 'shorter books' is one of the things wrong with Spelljammer, and the fact that he suggests it indicates he doesn't really understand the publishing business, because the reason for longer books is that shorter books are much more expensive per page. If Spelljammer had been printed as a single 192 page book instead of three 64 page books it would have been substantially cheaper.
Why do you think a game like ShadowDark that is more DM-oriented and not just one full of player options managed to exceed its Kickstarter goal by over a million dollars?
Wow, a whole million in gross revenue! Impressive!
What that Kickstarter achieved is unprecedented in the hobby. That and the fact it's a damn good game is why it's being talked about by the most influential YouTubers in the TTRGP community. If your only game news comes from Beyond and these forums I can't blame you for being in the dark.
While I'm not saying it's unsuccessful for a RPG kickstarter, you're overselling its significance. It's neither the most-backed nor the biggest take. (And number of backers is really more significant than money; money just sounds more impressive.)
More importantly, it's a niche product. D&D has tens of millions of players. WotC aren't even going to get out of bed for a product unless it's going to move 100,000 units. (And that's a low estimate, honestly.) At 13,000 and change, it's really not any more significant to them than the DIE RPG or Thirsty Sword Lesbians (both around 8,000).
You can't list things Wizards haven't produced:
Where are their city generation kits? Their books of tables for adventure and campaign generation comparable to things like Tome of Adventure Design?
Their short modules and not just strings of them thrown into books trying to be everything for everyone?
Their zines and magazines with great content?
Their alternative monster manuals that think outside of the box?
This is mostly niche stuff. (Canned adventures as a whole aren't, but any given adventure is. This is probably why they only do the adventure bundle books and campaigns.)
Wizards cheap out on the production of what they do make. And what they do make is leaving a very large hole.
A hole being filled by players who are also designers. Because they know what people want more than suits who just want more money.
This is what the third-party ecosystem is for: letting indie designers find the niches WotC can't fill. But they're still niches.
This is mostly niche stuff. (Canned adventures as a whole aren't, but any given adventure is. This is probably why they only do the adventure bundle books and campaigns.)
There's a reason most RPGs that aren't D&D don't publish adventures at all; they just don't sell as well as rule books. You can easily find Amazon's top list.
At the time I'm writing this
The top, by a lot, is the PHB.
Every book in the top ten is generic.
The first non-Wizards product is at #11. It's also generic (The Game Master's Book of Traps, ...)
The first adventure is at #12 (there are zero non-Wizards adventures in the top 80).
Of the top 10 adventures, 5 are the 'multiple adventures in one book' style that he says people don't want.
Depending on how you classify VRGtR, the first setting book is either at #13 or #22.
Also: Amazon is Amazon. Most in the hobby these days buy things from DriveThruRPG or direct.
Amazon doesn't even stock what would be most publications in the hobby so it's laughable to use it as a measure of what sells.
First: citation needed.
Second, DriveThruRPG doesn't stock official 5E products from WotC, just the independent stuff by independent companies. So by your own criteria, it doesn't qualify as a measure of what sells.
How would it selling official 5th ed. stuff tell us anything about how adventures by other companies sell?
I said adventures for other RPGs, not adventures by other companies. There are plenty of RPG companies that produce adventures for D&D (or pathfinder), but that doesn't mean they sell well relative to core books, it's just that the market is large enough to support marginal products.
The fact that DrivethruRPG has many adventures for sale is not an indication of what the sales volumes of those adventures are, especially given that the site specializes in providing PDFs for out-of-print games. The fact that they're selling it does not indicate anything about how many sales they're actually getting for it AKA what percentage of the market it gets. The fact is that Amazon is a much bigger vendor than DrivethruRPG is and its sales figures are consequently going to be significantly closer to providing an accurate look at what's true of the market as a whole than Drivethru's.
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Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
I disagree with his points because he didn't deign to explain any of them. His "expertise" (or lack thereof) has nothing to do with it.
EDIT: The post I was responding to appears to have been self-deleted or nuked.
Every day on these forums people make bold statements and bold claims but shy away from any cogent criticism of these.
Opinions are opinions. Yours are of no more value than mine or his or any other poster's.
Opinions might be opinions.
But when something is ****y on a constantly observable basis by more people than One...
Maybe there's a point?
Its been years since I, personaly noticed WotC trend of be like "Yeah we know we just released a 50$ book, but you can't expect us to ACTUALLY work and give out real content now do you?, Anyways, Ask your DM to fix our halfassed Job and go pay 10$ for a set of digital dices you nerd"
All the latest "Books" of WotC when you read through it as a DM, you notice it, that they ARE NOT DM friendly( especially if you are a Newbie DM...)
You think people are pissed at WotC just for the shit and giggles?...
You think there's SO MUCH 3rd party/Homebrew that Fixes WotC books on DMsGuild, just for the shit and giggles?...
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"Normality is but an Illusion, Whats normal to the Spider, is only madness for the Fly"
Do you think their shelves are just full of multiple copies of rule books?
No adventures?
A local game store near me has an entire shelf of scenarios for Call of Cthulhu.
Looking at Amazon for trends in the TTRPG hobby is like looking at Spotify and thinking it tells you what serious music lovers listen to. It's ridiculous.
Do you think their shelves are just full of multiple copies of rule books?
No adventures?
A local game store near me has an entire shelf of scenarios for Call of Cthulhu.
Looking at Amazon for trends in the TTRPG hobby is like looking at Spotify and thinking it tells you what serious music lovers listen to. It's ridiculous.
If I walk into my local comic book store I can see two things immediately.
The first is that the section of their shelves devoted to 5E D&D is nearly as large as the section devoted to every other RPG they carry.
The second is that they have individual copies of books for Shadowrun, Gamma World, and other RPGs that have been sitting on the shelf for the last three decades because they don't sell well, whereas the store owner has to order more D&D PHBs every month or two.
What does this prove? Absolutely nothing because it's just an anecdote, the same as everything you've said so far. Looking at store shelves doesn't provide you with any data beyond what is for sale at that store at that moment in time. Getting actual sales figures, which Amazon provides and DrivethruRPG as far as I can tell does not, actually tells you about what products sell well and what ones are just shelfwarmers.
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Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
Goodman Games' annual revenue is around 13 million. (And before you remind me how much Wizards make that is not at all the point.)
They produce just a single core rule book.
The vast majority of their products are game modules for their game.
Do they sell more copies of their core rule book than any individual module? Of course they do. But don't act like these things don't sell.
If Wizards decided tomorrow they were going to start producing shorter modules again how many people in this thread insisting adventures "don't" sell would be lining up to buy them to prove themselves wrong?
It's as if people have locked themselves into mental cages and what Wizards are doing at any given moment is the one and only possible right thing to be done in the hobby.
What's funny about that is the reason some other publishers perform as well as they do is because they're doing the very opposite on many fronts.
Oh well, we get to see how they do the VTT space. The direction change after Mearl's removal have left me with post-Mearl's purchases that I don't use. I don't see how a VTT will improve the quality of their adventures. I get so much better use from Goodman Games, Kobold Press and Paizo for monsters, classes and campaigns. It's highly unlikely a D&D VTT will allow me buy and import Paizo, Kobold Press and Goodman Games content, while Fantasy Grounds does (and it saves me a lot of time when I want my players to try some other subclasses for a change with new spells).
Add in Critical Role with their own cartoon series + youtube show + Critical Role making Daggerheart, this is starting to feel like a 4E moment or TSR 1990's moment.
WotC really needs to reevaluate their content and what they put out, this is starting to feel like TSR 1990's. Hiring on writer and game designers abilities is something that has helped Goodman Games, Paizo and Kobold Press.
Oh well, we get to see how they do the VTT space. The direction change after Mearl's removal have left me with post-Mearl's purchases that I don't use. I don't see how a VTT will improve the quality of their adventures. I get so much better use from Goodman Games, Kobold Press and Paizo for monsters, classes and campaigns. It's highly unlikely a D&D VTT will allow me buy and import Paizo, Kobold Press and Goodman Games content, while Fantasy Grounds does (and it saves me a lot of time when I want my players to try some other subclasses for a change with new spells).
Add in Critical Role with their own cartoon series + youtube show + Critical Role making Daggerheart, this is starting to feel like a 4E moment or TSR 1990's moment.
WotC really needs to reevaluate their content and what they put out, this is starting to feel like TSR 1990's. Hiring on writer and game designers abilities is something that has helped Goodman Games, Paizo and Kobold Press.
If Critical Role begin to use their own game system for their show there will likely be an exodus of players who came to D&D through that show.
Mordiphius, Free League Publishing, Cubicle 7. The list goes on.
It's amazing how these publishers can produce adventures for their games and find players willing to buy them but we are supposed to believe Wizards just can't risk their billions of dollars by publishing smaller modules.
We all know why Wizards won't do that. And it's not because they wouldn't be able to sell them if they did.
Wizards have realised just how prepared people are to pay 50 dollars for hardcovers that aren't worth as much as they charge for them. Prepared to do so for no reason but they say D&D on the cover.
It reminds me of that experiment in which gormless children were fed McDonald's fries in McDonald's packaging but also some in other packaging and they all said they preferred the ones in McDonald's packaging.
What Wizards lack in ability to produce good game products they make up for in marketing and branding.
If you want the 1E/2E trade dress and modules similar to that period, Dark Wizard Games is what you want. Its OSR based, but they easily transfer into 5E. They also have conversion guides for non-OSR games (Savage Worlds, 5E and Paizo).
I'm not holding my breath for smaller modules or even a dragon/dungeon magazine, so I buy from 3rd parties and use them for my 5E campaign. At this point, I use 5E for rules and that's basically it from WotC. Maybe pressure from Critical Role will adjust 5E's product decisions for the better.
There's a reason most RPGs that aren't D&D don't publish adventures at all;
Most of the major competitors in the hobby whose games are doing relatively well do publish adventures.
These two statements are in no way contradictory. Most RPGs are not "the major competitors whose games are doing relatively well". There's presumably a sweet spot in the business where you have enough of a player base that smaller stand-alone adventures sell well enough to be viable, and are not such small potatoes that they aren't worth a slot on your publishing schedule. It's not necessarily the best use of your time and resources -- packaging several of those stand-alone adventures into a collection will probably make you more money, even if it sells less than the stand-alones would have in total.
(And the OP was specifically talking about small stand-alone adventures, rather than bundles or campaigns, both of which WotC do publish.)
But stand-alone adventures are still niche products, selling only a small fraction of what a more general-use supplement would, and it doesn't make sense for WotC to try to fill every single niche that exists. Third-party publishers can and will do that for them, and most everyone is happier for it.
Also, it occurs to me that WotC do publish individual adventures, just not into the retail market. I don't do Adventurer's League at all, but I would assume it gets a steady flow of new material.
That said, you should produce a ten to twenty page pamphlet that would be available free on your website of the most important D&D rules.
Does he really play D&D? That is literally what the BR/SRD is. Part 2 of BR is literally about 20 pages (60-80) long, and that is where the meat of the game mechanics lie. For the SRD, if you strip out rules for specific races, classes, spells, and monsters, that leaves about 50 pages (56-104) of the main rules, which is kind of long, but it is more comprehensive.
Campaigns should have one to three authors. Add more with only great caution…
I do not think this is relevant? All the campaign books have at least half a dozen designers, which is no different from the anthology books having a dozen writers.
Campaigns should be pitched by authors & designers.
There is a reason why marketing teams exist. People who make the product are not always the best ones to sell it.
You should pay your game designers like they are working on video games, and you should give writers royalties.
While I agree with this, not every creative worker got the resources and backing like Taylor Swift to leverage better financial deals. Designers and writers should still try of course, but unless they unionize or something to have more gravitas, I am not sure they can do much to improve their current situation. TTRPG fans are stingy as hell, and there are not a lot of them, so good luck relying on them for support.
There should be a consistent format for campaigns that carries over from book to book.
He needs to elaborate on this, because the format is pretty consistent in my opinion.
Time for playtesting should be included in your production cycle. It should be measured in months.
While having more QC is nice, it is also expensive. Now that I am into D&D, while I would not mind paying $80 for a book, most people would not, especially potential new comers. I myself probably would have just stuck with the Starter Set and treat it like any other boardgame, and never went into the books.
Your books need to be shorter! Incorporate 21st century RPG layout & design.
**** no! This is my MAIN COMPLAINT against Spelljammers: Adventure in Space. Hell, in my opinion, S:AIS is fine in terms of quality; the stuff that is in it is decent and good. All books (or at least the ones I have skimmed and read) are fine in terms of quality. What is NOT FINE is the QUANTITY. What S:AIS needs is not better writing, spelljammers, monsters, magic items, or adventures; what it really needs is more of that shit. I expect at least three times the amount of spelljammers and monsters, because that pitiful selection is absolutely unsatisfying. There was literally only one new magic item, which is freaking ridiculous; there should be 20 bare minimum, and ideally around 50. I do not care about the adventure, and I think S:AIS should have been sold as a sourcebook rather than an adventure; but if I did care about the adventure, then yeah, I would expect more of that too.
Return to the boxed set! Create handouts, maps, character portraits, in-game journals, & clues to go with the game. (Also make PDFs of those goodies available.)
We have box sets. They literally just made a new Starter Set. I do agree that I would like to see a bit more though.
Relative to booklets, handouts are expensive, even cheap cardboard ones. Deluxe Edition of D:SOTDQ literally has a boardgame tacked on. If we tacked on comparable amount of stuff onto the Starter Set, it would probably double the price, and that is literally the opposite of what Wizards is trying to achieve with their boxes. Their boxes are meant to be an easy entry into D&D with the bare minimal goodies you need for a short campaign.
While I do not think there is anything wrong with including PDFs of the paper handouts, Wizards is pretty allergic to give out PDFs of any kind for 5e, whether it is free or not.
Can you make a sort of Dungeon Mastering graduate school, with perhaps special products only available for purchase by graduates?
Limiting the sale of products to only a smaller group of consumers is quite frankly stupid. We are already calling Wizards a complete and utter ******* dumbass for discontinuing the sale of VGTM and MTOF. Hell, when WGTE was coming out of UA, seems like the general sentiment at the time was that they should have kept UA the same, and they could probably sold us WGTE2.0 and many of us would be okay to pay for it to get the new version. That is the route took with MP:MOTM, and the main complaint with that is the discontinuation of the sale of two older books.
So no. Limits on sales are kind of dumb in my opinion. If people want to pay for it, let them buy it. Hell, I am more than happy to pay for UA if they incorporate that into Beyond, even if UA is free in pen-and-paper format.
Can you run DM contests at gaming conventions? Winners get swag, trips to Renton, honor, glory, etc. Can you create some sort of Academy Awards for DMs?
Sounds like a good idea, but if the point is to drive sales, I am not sure if it is worth it compared to existing marketing campaigns. And instead of just DMs, you might as well include players too and having player contests and awards.
— — — — — — —
As for the topic of adventures being sold at physical stores, yeah, I am not seeing a lot of them besided D&D adventures. In my area, D&D has two to three times more shelf space than all other TTRPGs combined (if other TTRPGs appear at all), and in the D&D section, at least two thirds (if not all) of the space is for official Wizards products. There are like a few Pathfinder and Starfinder adventures, and a few MLPRPG adventures too. Hell, if we are judging by just shelf space, My Little Pony is about half as popular as Starfinder or Pathfinder, which is pretty impressive in my opinion.
The author's point about the number of authors is that too many cooks in the kitchen spoil the broth.
Both campaign books and anthology books taste fine to me. And the benefit of anthology books is that you can easily take them apart and plug them in anywhere.
Look at campaign settings and adventures/modules of the past authored by just one, two, or three writers. And with the one artist mostly or strictly used for consistency.
Those campaign settings are unparalleled. Those adventures/modules are still considered some of the greatest ever written. Nothing today compares to classic adventures/modules like Against the Giants, White Plume Mountain, Descent into the Depths of the Earth, Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, Temple of Elemental Evil, Queen of the Demonweb Pits Keep on the Borderlands, or the Tomb of Horrors.
There are really no 5e campaign book that has only one, two, or even three designers, so I am not sure what you are talking about. If you can find one with less than 5, tell me. There is always at least several designers, maybe a lead designer, and maybe additional designers (not sure why they are called additional, but they are there).
Also: A number of smaller publishers put out boxed sets. Be it for rules. Campaign settings. Or even collections of adventures/modules.
Wizards could easily afford to do this. More so than those smaller publishers. They choose not to because it's cheaper for them to just print books in the format they've chosen and then charge 50 dollars for these.
I want more boxes too, but they might not be as profitable. Just because Wizard's can afford to do something does not mean they should. They are beholden to their investors to use their assets in the most profitable way possible, and investing in boxes means they are not investing in something else.
They could put out "deluxe" editions of things in the format of boxed sets. People would buy them. (I have on the shelf a boxed set of the Basic Rules some other company put out.)
They seem to want to reserve boxed sets for the more casual audience.
For deluxe edition boxes, I think they have only started doing that with D:SOTDQ. I would not mind seeing more, but I am not convinced people are going to buy them in significant enough numbers to justify releasing them constantly.
Riggs had a good idea of the talent and capabilities of TSR, but I don't think he knows as much on WotC current staffing capabilities. I don't think the books they are releasing are based on economic strategy to make more money, but it reflects the fullest extent that WotC currently possesses for writing and imagination to maximize profit based on their capability of inputs.
For whatever reasons, Paizo, Goodman Games and Kobold Press can put out more compelling modules and better art than what I've seen from WotC in a while. With the current management and current public goals of WotC, its not going to change. Those studios are addressing the lack of long form and coherent focused content. If you had to go with an analogy, if WotC was televised News Paizo, Goodman and Kobold press are long form interview on streaming platforms. Some people have been conditioned for the 2 minute snippets and commercials whereas other people want to have long form with no interruptions. If WotC can make money from it, good on them. I'm just glad for WotC that more members here aren't going Kobold Press for their monster manuals or Paizo for their adventure paths or Goodman for their whacky modules. Otherwise, Hasbro would probably not be funding 6E, it appears to be working for them.
I just don't think Riggs analysis and request for WotC makes sense for where WotC is today as a company. He should look more at the talent that WotC currently has and tailor a request for improvement based on that first.
Well, to be accurate, 'shorter books' is one of the things wrong with Spelljammer, and the fact that he suggests it indicates he doesn't really understand the publishing business, because the reason for longer books is that shorter books are much more expensive per page. If Spelljammer had been printed as a single 192 page book instead of three 64 page books it would have been substantially cheaper.
While I'm not saying it's unsuccessful for a RPG kickstarter, you're overselling its significance. It's neither the most-backed nor the biggest take. (And number of backers is really more significant than money; money just sounds more impressive.)
More importantly, it's a niche product. D&D has tens of millions of players. WotC aren't even going to get out of bed for a product unless it's going to move 100,000 units. (And that's a low estimate, honestly.) At 13,000 and change, it's really not any more significant to them than the DIE RPG or Thirsty Sword Lesbians (both around 8,000).
This is mostly niche stuff. (Canned adventures as a whole aren't, but any given adventure is. This is probably why they only do the adventure bundle books and campaigns.)
This is what the third-party ecosystem is for: letting indie designers find the niches WotC can't fill. But they're still niches.
There's a reason most RPGs that aren't D&D don't publish adventures at all; they just don't sell as well as rule books. You can easily find Amazon's top list.
At the time I'm writing this
First: citation needed.
Second, DriveThruRPG doesn't stock official 5E products from WotC, just the independent stuff by independent companies. So by your own criteria, it doesn't qualify as a measure of what sells.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
I said adventures for other RPGs, not adventures by other companies. There are plenty of RPG companies that produce adventures for D&D (or pathfinder), but that doesn't mean they sell well relative to core books, it's just that the market is large enough to support marginal products.
The fact that DrivethruRPG has many adventures for sale is not an indication of what the sales volumes of those adventures are, especially given that the site specializes in providing PDFs for out-of-print games. The fact that they're selling it does not indicate anything about how many sales they're actually getting for it AKA what percentage of the market it gets. The fact is that Amazon is a much bigger vendor than DrivethruRPG is and its sales figures are consequently going to be significantly closer to providing an accurate look at what's true of the market as a whole than Drivethru's.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
Opinions might be opinions.
But when something is ****y on a constantly observable basis by more people than One...
Maybe there's a point?
Its been years since I, personaly noticed WotC trend of be like "Yeah we know we just released a 50$ book, but you can't expect us to ACTUALLY work and give out real content now do you?, Anyways, Ask your DM to fix our halfassed Job and go pay 10$ for a set of digital dices you nerd"
All the latest "Books" of WotC when you read through it as a DM, you notice it, that they ARE NOT DM friendly( especially if you are a Newbie DM...)
You think people are pissed at WotC just for the shit and giggles?...
You think there's SO MUCH 3rd party/Homebrew that Fixes WotC books on DMsGuild, just for the shit and giggles?...
"Normality is but an Illusion, Whats normal to the Spider, is only madness for the Fly"
Kain de Frostberg- Dark Knight - (Vengeance Pal3/ Hexblade 9), Port Mourn
Kain de Draakberg-Dark Knight lvl8-Avergreen(DitA)
How many of the things you talk about have you ever seen in a store? The digital model is fundamentally different.
Do you have a citation for this claim, account-that-was-created-today?
So, no data to support the claim then. Got it.
If I walk into my local comic book store I can see two things immediately.
The first is that the section of their shelves devoted to 5E D&D is nearly as large as the section devoted to every other RPG they carry.
The second is that they have individual copies of books for Shadowrun, Gamma World, and other RPGs that have been sitting on the shelf for the last three decades because they don't sell well, whereas the store owner has to order more D&D PHBs every month or two.
What does this prove? Absolutely nothing because it's just an anecdote, the same as everything you've said so far. Looking at store shelves doesn't provide you with any data beyond what is for sale at that store at that moment in time. Getting actual sales figures, which Amazon provides and DrivethruRPG as far as I can tell does not, actually tells you about what products sell well and what ones are just shelfwarmers.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
Oh well, we get to see how they do the VTT space. The direction change after Mearl's removal have left me with post-Mearl's purchases that I don't use. I don't see how a VTT will improve the quality of their adventures. I get so much better use from Goodman Games, Kobold Press and Paizo for monsters, classes and campaigns. It's highly unlikely a D&D VTT will allow me buy and import Paizo, Kobold Press and Goodman Games content, while Fantasy Grounds does (and it saves me a lot of time when I want my players to try some other subclasses for a change with new spells).
Add in Critical Role with their own cartoon series + youtube show + Critical Role making Daggerheart, this is starting to feel like a 4E moment or TSR 1990's moment.
WotC really needs to reevaluate their content and what they put out, this is starting to feel like TSR 1990's. Hiring on writer and game designers abilities is something that has helped Goodman Games, Paizo and Kobold Press.
If you want the 1E/2E trade dress and modules similar to that period, Dark Wizard Games is what you want. Its OSR based, but they easily transfer into 5E. They also have conversion guides for non-OSR games (Savage Worlds, 5E and Paizo).
I'm not holding my breath for smaller modules or even a dragon/dungeon magazine, so I buy from 3rd parties and use them for my 5E campaign. At this point, I use 5E for rules and that's basically it from WotC. Maybe pressure from Critical Role will adjust 5E's product decisions for the better.
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These two statements are in no way contradictory. Most RPGs are not "the major competitors whose games are doing relatively well". There's presumably a sweet spot in the business where you have enough of a player base that smaller stand-alone adventures sell well enough to be viable, and are not such small potatoes that they aren't worth a slot on your publishing schedule. It's not necessarily the best use of your time and resources -- packaging several of those stand-alone adventures into a collection will probably make you more money, even if it sells less than the stand-alones would have in total.
(And the OP was specifically talking about small stand-alone adventures, rather than bundles or campaigns, both of which WotC do publish.)
But stand-alone adventures are still niche products, selling only a small fraction of what a more general-use supplement would, and it doesn't make sense for WotC to try to fill every single niche that exists. Third-party publishers can and will do that for them, and most everyone is happier for it.
Also, it occurs to me that WotC do publish individual adventures, just not into the retail market. I don't do Adventurer's League at all, but I would assume it gets a steady flow of new material.
The article is meh.
Does he really play D&D? That is literally what the BR/SRD is. Part 2 of BR is literally about 20 pages (60-80) long, and that is where the meat of the game mechanics lie. For the SRD, if you strip out rules for specific races, classes, spells, and monsters, that leaves about 50 pages (56-104) of the main rules, which is kind of long, but it is more comprehensive.
I do not think this is relevant? All the campaign books have at least half a dozen designers, which is no different from the anthology books having a dozen writers.
There is a reason why marketing teams exist. People who make the product are not always the best ones to sell it.
While I agree with this, not every creative worker got the resources and backing like Taylor Swift to leverage better financial deals. Designers and writers should still try of course, but unless they unionize or something to have more gravitas, I am not sure they can do much to improve their current situation. TTRPG fans are stingy as hell, and there are not a lot of them, so good luck relying on them for support.
He needs to elaborate on this, because the format is pretty consistent in my opinion.
While having more QC is nice, it is also expensive. Now that I am into D&D, while I would not mind paying $80 for a book, most people would not, especially potential new comers. I myself probably would have just stuck with the Starter Set and treat it like any other boardgame, and never went into the books.
**** no! This is my MAIN COMPLAINT against Spelljammers: Adventure in Space. Hell, in my opinion, S:AIS is fine in terms of quality; the stuff that is in it is decent and good. All books (or at least the ones I have skimmed and read) are fine in terms of quality. What is NOT FINE is the QUANTITY. What S:AIS needs is not better writing, spelljammers, monsters, magic items, or adventures; what it really needs is more of that shit. I expect at least three times the amount of spelljammers and monsters, because that pitiful selection is absolutely unsatisfying. There was literally only one new magic item, which is freaking ridiculous; there should be 20 bare minimum, and ideally around 50. I do not care about the adventure, and I think S:AIS should have been sold as a sourcebook rather than an adventure; but if I did care about the adventure, then yeah, I would expect more of that too.
We have box sets. They literally just made a new Starter Set. I do agree that I would like to see a bit more though.
Relative to booklets, handouts are expensive, even cheap cardboard ones. Deluxe Edition of D:SOTDQ literally has a boardgame tacked on. If we tacked on comparable amount of stuff onto the Starter Set, it would probably double the price, and that is literally the opposite of what Wizards is trying to achieve with their boxes. Their boxes are meant to be an easy entry into D&D with the bare minimal goodies you need for a short campaign.
While I do not think there is anything wrong with including PDFs of the paper handouts, Wizards is pretty allergic to give out PDFs of any kind for 5e, whether it is free or not.
Limiting the sale of products to only a smaller group of consumers is quite frankly stupid. We are already calling Wizards a complete and utter ******* dumbass for discontinuing the sale of VGTM and MTOF. Hell, when WGTE was coming out of UA, seems like the general sentiment at the time was that they should have kept UA the same, and they could probably sold us WGTE2.0 and many of us would be okay to pay for it to get the new version. That is the route took with MP:MOTM, and the main complaint with that is the discontinuation of the sale of two older books.
So no. Limits on sales are kind of dumb in my opinion. If people want to pay for it, let them buy it. Hell, I am more than happy to pay for UA if they incorporate that into Beyond, even if UA is free in pen-and-paper format.
Sounds like a good idea, but if the point is to drive sales, I am not sure if it is worth it compared to existing marketing campaigns. And instead of just DMs, you might as well include players too and having player contests and awards.
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As for the topic of adventures being sold at physical stores, yeah, I am not seeing a lot of them besided D&D adventures. In my area, D&D has two to three times more shelf space than all other TTRPGs combined (if other TTRPGs appear at all), and in the D&D section, at least two thirds (if not all) of the space is for official Wizards products. There are like a few Pathfinder and Starfinder adventures, and a few MLPRPG adventures too. Hell, if we are judging by just shelf space, My Little Pony is about half as popular as Starfinder or Pathfinder, which is pretty impressive in my opinion.
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Both campaign books and anthology books taste fine to me. And the benefit of anthology books is that you can easily take them apart and plug them in anywhere.
There are really no 5e campaign book that has only one, two, or even three designers, so I am not sure what you are talking about. If you can find one with less than 5, tell me. There is always at least several designers, maybe a lead designer, and maybe additional designers (not sure why they are called additional, but they are there).
I want more boxes too, but they might not be as profitable. Just because Wizard's can afford to do something does not mean they should. They are beholden to their investors to use their assets in the most profitable way possible, and investing in boxes means they are not investing in something else.
They seem to want to reserve boxed sets for the more casual audience.
For deluxe edition boxes, I think they have only started doing that with D:SOTDQ. I would not mind seeing more, but I am not convinced people are going to buy them in significant enough numbers to justify releasing them constantly.
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Riggs had a good idea of the talent and capabilities of TSR, but I don't think he knows as much on WotC current staffing capabilities. I don't think the books they are releasing are based on economic strategy to make more money, but it reflects the fullest extent that WotC currently possesses for writing and imagination to maximize profit based on their capability of inputs.
For whatever reasons, Paizo, Goodman Games and Kobold Press can put out more compelling modules and better art than what I've seen from WotC in a while. With the current management and current public goals of WotC, its not going to change. Those studios are addressing the lack of long form and coherent focused content. If you had to go with an analogy, if WotC was televised News Paizo, Goodman and Kobold press are long form interview on streaming platforms. Some people have been conditioned for the 2 minute snippets and commercials whereas other people want to have long form with no interruptions. If WotC can make money from it, good on them. I'm just glad for WotC that more members here aren't going Kobold Press for their monster manuals or Paizo for their adventure paths or Goodman for their whacky modules. Otherwise, Hasbro would probably not be funding 6E, it appears to be working for them.
I just don't think Riggs analysis and request for WotC makes sense for where WotC is today as a company. He should look more at the talent that WotC currently has and tailor a request for improvement based on that first.