Monstrous Compendium Vol. 1: Spelljammer Creatures
Frozen Sick
D&D Beyond Basic Rules
Basic Rules (2014)
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I agree - to the individual player, the sales figures absolutely should not matter. What should matter is your own opinion, your own experiences, and the recommendations and experiences of friends you trust to provide honest-non-biased views.
The sales matter for a different element of the conversation. Certain elements on this thread are making claims beyond their personal experience, extrapolating their own dislike of 5.24 (for whatever reason) to "everyone hates 5.24." That is obviously a silly position to take, especially given the number of folks on this thread who have stated things they love about 5.24 from their own, personal-level experiences.
However, since they raised the conversation to the aggregate level, that pivots the discussion from "do you love 5.24 personally?" to "is 5.24 loved on an aggregate level?" There are one of two pieces of data available showing popularity on an that level. Sales data is one piece of that - with large sales showing a large popularity and interest, that is continuing to be high, even as word of mouth spreads reviews of whether folks should buy into the 5.24 rules. The other piece of data is the wide-ranging responses to the 2024 playtest surveys - tens of thousands of participants, with content that made it into the final game scoring at least 80% approval, and often as high as 90% or more approval.
None of that necessarily matters to any single individual in their determination of whether they love 5.24 - unless that individual is avoiding 5.24 because they falsely believe the doomsayers that "everyone hates 5.24" - but it is relevant to the greater conversation of "as an aggregate whole, is 5.24 popular or, as some claim, a miserable failure.
I know I would much rather talk about all the things I like about 5.24 - bastions returning from way earlier editions, fixes to certain long-standing problems, the clear fact that they looked at some common homerules and added them to the game, etc. - but I also am not super fond of the misinformation and claims of doom and gloom that folks are making without any real evidence to support their auguries - especially since the data we do have is all positive data.
You know something I genuinely love in D&D 2024? Wild shape for druids. IMNSHO the 2014 rules offered an overpowered version, especially for Moon druids. 2024 version is MUCH more balanced. And I like the change extended to other shapeshifting spells that the hit points from the new shape are temporary hit points, which solves a lot of the problems I had with Wild Shape and polymorph in the 2014 rules.
If the statement is "I don't like 5e24" then fine, nobody is going to argue against that. (They might ask what you don't like about it, and steer you towards elements that address your complaints, but at the end of the day your preferences are your preferences.)
But if on the other hand the statement is "5e24 failed" or "5e24 is dying" then obviously the sales figures and investor call are going to come out to refute that. Because we've moved beyond personal opinion to misinformation at that point.
Honestly, Moon Druids are in an awkward place in ‘24 now imo. Dialing back their soaking was nice, but between losing the elemental forms and a lot of the old giant beasts being reclassified to other types, their pool of late game options is pretty small without additional books, and the performance is iffy since lots of the attack mods fall short for the tiers.
Polymorph isn’t so bad off, but True Polymorph got messy with the shift to temp HP since it can be argued now that the “permanent” duration will seemingly be overridden by the temp HP expiring on a Long Rest.
To address this question, from the perspective of an individual who has actually taken the time to study and even provide feedback on the new rules set, even started new players and veteran hobbyists with the new rules, and most agreed they preferred the older rules.
That, and the fact that yes little is to be liked or even loved about the changes simply because the changes made are in-line with “house-rules” from a designer who has had a significant amount of time to learn the actual 50 years of how the game has evolved, and the decision to develop the new rules set was to make them more like 4e.
The personal experience of others is the feedback we DM/GM’s are getting from players about their experiences with the new rules, and we are just echoing that feedback on the one place where not so wonderful always positive feedback can be made.
If the new rules were doing so well, and are loved so much how come on every investor call and in every investor report, the actual ability to communicate with evidence just how more successful the new rules are to the former has not only been lacking, but the former reports that were invaluably detailed by individual subsegments and sub-holdings of Hasbro’s company, which allowed “public” love to be given to the game, has been condensed into a blob of general information that can easily hide bad news.
The doomsayers can say all they want, when the attitude towards those “doomsayers” is turned against those who want what is best for the game, company who owns be-damned, and treated like biased ignorant fools, Again, Where is the love for a set of rules by a corporation that doesn’t care, and that people who want a “Real D&D” experience, not a video game.
Real D&D has always been, doing the most with the least you are given. Now, the game has become lost love for the new because it brought back old memories of the struggle the game and it’s rules has had over 50 years.
Personally, I know how edition changes go, seen and been through all but the fact remains I still love the “Game”, but the different rules are a different story. Some where good, some questionable, and some that just wasn’t well thought out.
[ The total average element of 2024 based on just the numbers that Crawford stated in all the feedback videos, where certain parts received a 90 percent positive feedback ( which was the changes to parts of the mechanics such as Surprise, Weapon Mastery, and things that caused larger “Rules as ?” Debates.), to the latter parts of the feedback having to accept as low as a 55 percent positive feedback rate for proposed changes.
That said, the best guess on overall acceptance of the new rules can be seen as the average response from just what could be reported, and the love of the new rules is only 60 percent of the community that will ever “invest significant money into a ‘Niche Hobby’ that appears the same as a ‘Video’ game’”.
Thing is we expect the game and it’s rules to only change every 10 years, not every 5. Hard to love something that changes it mind whenever it is not happy with how much success it currently has.
The rules are just as much a victim of corporate “incompetence” as are the people who love the hobby, and the love is fading. ]
" Darkvision doesn’t work in Magical darkness, and if something is magical, Never Trust it acts the same way as a non-magical version of that same thing!”- Discotech Mage over a cup of joe.
Your argument was that because D&D offers 'for the most part 0 value outside of entertainment'—something that isn't even true provided the proven therapeutic and educational benefits of playing role-playing games—it needn't be made more affordable or more accessible to those in need.
You were asked about the costs of movie tickets. Whether theaters should no longer allow pensioners or students in for less. Because going to the movies has 'for the most part 0 value outside of entertainment.'
Why is it always one rule for Wizards of the Coast but different rules for others? Apparently capitalism is only a bad thing when those with whom one disagrees are singing its praises. I reckon most people on these forums probably have no time for commentators whose content is largely geared towards defending it. But they sound just like them.
Tasha's. A supplement comparable to those old Unearthed Arcana books.
It sold very well.
The sales figures for the 2024 core books come absolutely nowhere near those for that book.
That speaks well for Tasha's.
It looks real grim for the new books.
The 2024 players has outsold Tashas
As many others have posted here. All those journalists and YouTubers and media analysts who report on the industry and have reported this mustn't know what they're talking about.
The numbers are available to show where both books landed on best seller lists. And they are far behind those for Tasha's. A statement as abstract as the one given is not evidence of performance.
I do not think they are driving out the "core" audience though. Sure there are a lot of people that claim they hate it, but yet they are still here. People like to complain about things.
You are correct, there are more people using 2014 rules then 2024 right now. the main reason of that is people do not want to change rules in the middle of a campaign. As campaigns end i beleive we will start seeing an influx of people switching over. Just looking at StartPlaying.games i see more seats for 2024 games then 2014.
If by 'informed reports' you mean statements as abstract as 'these are our best selling books ever' ...
The numbers say otherwise.
Not even the PHB hit best seller lists as well as Tasha's did.
Has that even ever happened before?
That is like an edition's Unearthed Arcana outselling the next's PHB.
That's because the books got reclassified so they don't even show up on the same charts, the people seeing tiny sales for D&D 2024 were looking in the wrong place. Which, sure, could have been intended to hide something, but given that they did it before any of the 2024 books were released, it probably wasn't.
Mearls has gone public with how poorly he sees 2024 doing.
Providing the rather grim numbers for where the books landed and went in subsequent weeks on best seller lists. Compared to Tasha's.
Why would he do that?
Is he 'uninformed' if we are supposed to believe what is 'informed' is the most abstract of statements?
Their rankings on best seller lists say otherwise.
If the 2024 PHB has outsold Tasha's it's because of duplicated hybrid (physical-digital) sales. Which don't give us an accurate indication of how well it has been received.
The PHB for an edition—the baseline for playing the game—shouldn't just 'outsell' a supplement comparable to Unearthed Arcana. It should sell exponentially more.
The OGL was the worst and best thing to ever happen to the industry.
1: it allowed creatives a chance to get their work out to the world and make some money and created New games and content for us all to enjoy.
2: It created alot of entitled people.
There are a lot of people still on Twitter/X despite their constantly complaining about it. Someone's presence isn't synonymous with support.
When you have someone as important to the development of 5E as Mike Mearls sharing the sentiments of those 'complainers' that ain't nothing.
At some point physical media will cease to exist, or will be very rare. That is the way the world is moving, weather you like it or not. will it be in our lifetime? possibly. but it will happen.
WotC sees the writing on the wall and are creating way to keep their business model afloat.
Take Barnes and Noble as an example. They say the trend of E-Books happening and they developed a device and digital storefront to sell E-Books and sold the hardware themselves. Boarders didnt and ended up going under.
Gamestop say the rise of digital games and adapted their business model to sell those codes and became the largest distributer for digital games. EB didnt and ended up going under.
Companies that do not pay attention and change with the trends will fail.
Yes, there will probably always be physical copies, but they will be the vast minority of sales and be regulated to limited editions at some point like records and old media is now.
Mearls was laid off in 2023 - he has no internal knowledge of the current sales for 2024. The only tangible information we have on numbers is that they are larger than anything else - show your receipts if you claim something to the contrary, and folks here will probably be able to show you why you (or the folks you're parroting without fact-checking) are misreading the data. Bestseller lists mean very little - especially with major changes both in how Wizards' books are classified (making them not as eligible for certain lists) and the increased push for both digital sales and LGS sales (which also do not submit data to bestsellers lists).
Call me old fashioned, but I am going to trust the Big Four Accounting firm's independent audit on sales data - which is going to be backed up by hard data and a dedication to accuracy in order to preserve a reputation worth more than Hasbro's entire net worth - over what some Youtubers, ex-employees, and forum commenters are saying as they try to make up a narrative out of very different data points.