Monstrous Compendium Vol. 1: Spelljammer Creatures
Frozen Sick
D&D Beyond Basic Rules
Basic Rules (2014)
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It is pretty naive to think Mearls couldn't comunicate with ex-coworkers and couldn't have some information that others wouldn't have. But hey narratives are pushed by most everyone and not everyone is allowed to reveal how they know something.
It doesn't assume that at all. If you sell a digital copy of something. That's a sale. If you sell a physical copy of it. That is too.
Are you really suggesting if the very same customer bought a digital copy of the PHB one day but a physical copy perhaps even in a physical store another day then that's obviously two sales but if he or she bought them at the same time it's just one? Would you like to explain how auditors exhibiting any degree of 'basic critical thinking' or 'independent analysis' would believe both of these things?
Why would bundles not be counted as two sales? Technically they are. Just as much as your ordering the physical book from Amazon and then deciding a month later you want that content here and buying access to it here.
My point is simply there are factors in place that make the statement too abstract.
The content is what it is. You could personally buy more than one copy. A DM who buys a few for his or her tables is making a few sales. Not one.
Sales—and particularly if bundles are calculated as two—do not give an accurate indication of how popular or unpopular 2024 is.
But a new PHB—the baseline for the game—performing worse than a supplement for its previous version is not performing 'very well.' That is unprecedentedly bad. No matter how well Tasha's sold.
Agree on all points.
I personally think it was a bad idea to put out new rulebooks in the year marking the hobby's anniversary.
They could have reissued OD&D or even reissued 5E but looked to OD&D for how it might be presented.
Another company did that. Several years ago.
Complied the basic rules for 5E into three little books. Put them in a white box.
It ain't cheap. But I happily paid for it more than I am prepared to pay for 2024.
I initially wrote up my thoughts on how you interpreted my stance but in the end decided not to as it distracts from the topic - so I'll just say that I stick by my previous comments, if you would like to know more - feel free to reach out in private and we can have a friendly discussion there :)
In saying that I do find it interesting that alot of the negatives people mention work in the grey area of "what ifs", "did you hear" or "someone thinks this" with little outside of emotions and knee-jerk reactions as their reasoning.
What happened to the days where people were able to voice their likes or dislikes for something and give reasons based of their own conclusions rather then what someone else says...
So I'll ask a simple question, without referencing/comparing older editions or mentioning what someone else may think, sale figures or what not - what are your thoughts on the new core books released?? Because honestly the only opinion I'm personally interested in is the individuals, and in this case yours, not Mike mearls or some ex-employee, not YouTube's, not some social media entity, just yours.
In simple terms, it's a better-edited player's handbook of 5th edition but as a new product does little to inspire running a new campaign for me, especially with the current set of adventures available for it at least from Official 5e releases. I think in part because I have already played a lot of 5th edition, the novelty of it is gone and 2024 is not a new game but also I found a lot of parts of that system to be problematic. The new edition doesn't do anything about the issues of the original release and I find the general commitment to anything goes super-hero fantasy a pretty boring version of Dungeons and Dragons as a whole.
I will make one argument for 5th edition and that is that many great variants of D&D were created based on it, including Five Torches Deep, Shadowdark, Grim Hollow as well as Crown & Skull. So the base system I think has a lot of potential, but 5e as it is today is quite overcooked resulting in a game that is tough to manage, slow and interferes too much with traditional storytelling and D&D gameplay.
In my immediate gamesphere, I think the issue is that I find a lot of people are ok to play 5th edition as it is today, but considerably fewer people are excited to run it. This is a problem, both for the longevity of the game as all RPG's are essentially driven by GM's but also because if you don't have someone willing to GM or you have someone who is talked into it rather than excited to do it, you either don't have a game or end up with a poor one.
The rule of thumb is that the GM has to be the most excited player, they are the driving force behind a good table experience and I'm finding such people to be few and far in between, I'm certainly not one of them. I'm fairly sure if I were to create a list of games I was excited to run as a GM, 5e wouldn't even make the top 20.
I understand what Wizards of the Coast is doing with 5e 2024 and honestly, I don't blame them at all, it makes business sense. They are trying to maintain a sort of continuity between editions and maintain a stable and long-term system to avoid upsetting the community as has so often happened when D&D is re-invented. This evergreen approach I think will probably pay off in the short term, but I think its misguided as a long-term strategy. The various editions of the game may not always worked to maintain a constant community, but each edition of the game added something new, creating a new evolution to the game and to the genre.
We already had 5e once, we had a good time with it, it was exciting, new, it triggered people to start new campaigns and explore a new game. This time around that excitement just isn't there. Sure the new books are better edited, but its still the same game we have been playing for 10 years. There is nothing to be excited about.
I tried starting a new 5e campaign with my local group and after 5 sessions, it just died, mainly because there just wasn't any excitement for it and honestly I was mostly just running it because it was a new edition and I wanted to explore it a bit, but there just wasn't much to explore and after 5 sessions I completely lost interest in it. At this stage I'm not sure what's going to happen, but whatever it is, its not going to be running 2024 edition of D&D. From the looks of it, its going to be a sort of non-D&D period where we will explore other games.
[Quote]
"for me"
Being the operative word.
A lot of what you argue is based on your specific experience, and you're assuming that it's representative of the whole because if fits your biases.
[Redacted]
DM, player & homebrewer(Current homebrew project is an unofficial conversion of SBURB/SGRUB from Homestuck into DND 5e)
Once made Maxwell's Silver Hammer come down upon Strahd's head to make sure he was dead.
Always study & sharpen philosophical razors. They save a lot of trouble.
[Quote]
I was not implying anything more than my opinion, nor arguing for or against anything, I simply gave a direct answer, to a direct question.
[Redacted]
Public information can be skewed, statistically distorted, & otherwise misrepresented.
What are you referring to specifically?
(If Wikipedia sources are not acceptable, than neither are TTRPGtubers, since a good chunk don't disclose their sources or just repeat random articles verbatim & sprinkle in commentary that sells well in Shorts/TikTok), if they even use a human voice.
I personally think that things are selling better than doomsayers think they are, but there is some standard statistical distortions across the fandom, because everyone has an agenda.
Unless someone solidly sues to get the facts, not just reaffirmation of personal truth, then discovery might generate something.
There are still people who like the game, most dislike Hasbro(Who have virtually eliminated all of WotC's independence, so blaming WotC is redundant after 2019-2020), and are neutral towards the fandom.
There are people who work on the games whose passion is visible.
There's still great non-AI art being made of DND material by independent creators.
There IS love. Denial of such due to doomerism & being in other fandoms is, quite frankly, dishonest to ignore for the sake of pushing a narrative.
Just because HASBRO doesn't make Beyond go full Archives of Nepthys doesn't mean there is no love & doom is upon DND.
I'm tired of doomerism in general. There's very little honesty in it.
DM, player & homebrewer(Current homebrew project is an unofficial conversion of SBURB/SGRUB from Homestuck into DND 5e)
Once made Maxwell's Silver Hammer come down upon Strahd's head to make sure he was dead.
Always study & sharpen philosophical razors. They save a lot of trouble.
And when a major corporation utilizes the fact that “Public information can be skewed, statistically distorted, & otherwise misrepresented.” And that evidence is noticeable in the context of reports that have to be publicly released, it’s not doomsayers who are spreading false information, they are simply telling it like it is.
If you look at Quarterly reports digital licensing is up, a deal with a major casino operator is a big win and any sales of “digital” books or cards or anything “digital” is classified as a digital license and can easily bury bad news. That comes from the continued decline in “Consumer Products” ( physical books, toys and anything physically manufactured) of around -7% quarter over quarter, year after year for at least 2 years.
That alone is enough to force a very serious inquiry by the US Securities Exchange Commission into Hasbro’s statements, and the evidence against Hasbro doesn’t look good for them.
The company has been doing some questionable practices since 2021, and given the recent events of D&D in the same time periods, and the reality is messing with the D&D general community is not like messing around with other brands, people have grown up and have had D&D as a “brother from another mother” for 50 years, and the 50 year love is being eroded. “Goodwill” from a major company is actually “money in the bank, savings” that Hasbro used (1,196M or 1.2billion dollars) to prevent there debt from jumping into the 3+:1 debt to income ratio, which is a very bad sign in business.
When Chris Cho, Cynthia Williams, and a number of other prominent figures are stating all is fine and better than what is rumored, while the very company they are representing is having to “work the spin of business is restructuring” and the rest is just the tip of the iceberg.
Love for hasbro/wotc who bought DDB, and has shown that instead of reallocating resources to improve the site’s functionality, has wasted time and development resources on a project that like per usual has blown up in the corporate executives face, and one has to seriously question if Hasbro/WotC even cares anymore.
Before this massive push to an all digital content business model, the company was doing very well, now it’s question of can the company can survive an all digital roadmap, and the recent events clearly demonstrate the answer is “no”.
Love for the new rules is mixed, love for the corporate “incompetence” is getting old, and it’s high time the masses get some real honesty and accountability from the company, else we start looking elsewhere and supporting the 3party projects that have shown better quality than the sadly produced elements of a major Corporation.
The SRD5.2 will be the make or break of D&D in the future, and is the last chance for Wizbro to get itself together, otherwise it doesn’t look like the “game”s future is all that great.
”Prepare for the worst, hope like hell for the best.” , bring the love back by starting with being absolutely honest, yes people will jump on it, but discourse would be short lived, and the “goodwill” restored.
[ or keep pushing the roadmap, and watch as the brand is driven off an incomplete bridge into a deep chasm.
ether way the last remains of this site and the company is hanging by a thread and sooner or later ether that thread snaps, or a welcoming hand is offered. Start being honest, or fall and watch as the D&D community breaks the company’s financial back like a twig.
Ether way love it or not, D&D is seeing bad days, and the future is uncertain. ]
" 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.
4th in the world is not an indictment of their quality. They themselves are audited by the PCAOB, just like the other three. And it's KPMG.
Right, nobody who wants to paint a narrative of D&D failing has a bias of any kind. Pull the other one.
That's fine, you're allowed to hate the company (opinion). None of that changes their financial results (fact).
I myself am enjoying the new rules. I am playing a PBP right now that uses them and while it is still early, I have enjoyed reading the rules and preparing my character ahead of time, plotting advancement and things that I would like to achieve. It is still early yet for the full core release and I believe once we have our first adventure published post-core release, we will see more transitions to the new rules. Right now, people are still deep in their 2014 games. Two years from now though, I think we will see a strong shift to the new rules.
And who knows, OP, maybe they will expand your potion options by then too!
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ModeratorAs this conversation cannot seem to remain focused on the original topic and only seems to be derailing further each time, I think it is best now to lock it. The OP has had plenty of opinions to review, many of which remained focused on their actual question.
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