Derailing the Tippyverse; or how to make DnD look as expected

[Raineh Daze]

P.S.:  the game(s) could really be organized in a way that is much more user-friendly to veterans and new players alike.

I'm sure they could, but it would at least be nice if it could stick to the 'everything you need to play in a game is in one book' thing. Seeing as D&D can't manage the 'everything, GM and player rules alike, is in one book' style at all.

[Jackinthegreen]

I suppose part of it might be tradition, but WotC's D&D business model doesn't really allow for only having a single book/core three.  Hm, now I'm curious on how economical the splatbooks are.

[Samwise]

I suppose part of it might be tradition, but WotC's D&D business model doesn't really allow for only having a single book/core three.  Hm, now I'm curious on how economical the splatbooks are.

This is part remembering that old internal document and part "hearsay" from industry people:

According to WotC research, people generally bought stuff for about 5 years and then moved on to other stuff. That is why they settled on the 5 year cycle for editions, and intended to do so whether it was needed or not. Clearly it was needed to get rid of 4E. Theoretically 3.5 could have just been cleaned up. 3E needed to be cleaned up and was apparently good enough to get "just" a cleaning.
Of books, everyone was expected to buy the core books, including players buying the DMG and MM. Only the DM could be expected to buy an adventure, and several members of a group would buy splats.
Everyone would buy other stuff like dice, character sheets, and so forth, with the biggest item being miniatures.

In terms of profitability, mostly it depends on what you consider "profitable".
Splatbooks at the start of the cycle would have prints runs around 10-25K. Compare that to core books which have print runs around 100K.
An adventure near the end of the cycle printing AND selling 50K would make a game company person have an embarrassing incident. It would make a Hasbro executive wonder why they were even bothering.

Back in the day for wargames, the profit breakdown was:
Half for the store.
Half of the remainder for the distributor.
Half of the remainder for the printer.
Half of the remainder for parts.
The remainder for the company.
I'm pretty sure splatbooks are running around the same, but I haven't heard anything from inside on that in well over 5 years.

$50K/year is filthy rich/top tier/who did you blackmail? pay for a company staffer. Regular people make much less with "job security" a more fantastic concept than the stuff in the books they write. Once that runs out they may try and survive as freelancers, who generally have day jobs unless they are really good at getting comped on the con circuit, have a special ability thrive on Ramen noodles, have a devoted fanbase with lots of surplus cash and no self-control, or all of the above.


Basically, the whole industry operates on the fringe. Every once in awhile it strikes gold with something, then they cash in on for a year or three and hope they can cash in even more before anyone notices the profits draining back down to oblivion.
More simply, why do you think they everyone and their brother, including what you'd think are completely solid companies, going the crowdfunding route? Never mind the startups that don't have the money, more and more of the big boys don't want to risk the expenses until they have cash in hand.

TL;DR
Economical?
 
 
Are you serious?

[linklord231]

Do you have a link or something to this "internal document" that you keep mentioning?

[Unbeliever]

This 5 year cycle seems, anecdotally, untrue.  It even seems like bizarre behavior.  Gamers naturally move in and out of games, motivated by new shinies, genre changes, etc.  But, I don't see people fully "abandoning" games they like.  People tend to notice a new book coming out for a game they like or have affection for or just like seeing on their shelves, especially if they are quality products. 

This seems to go doubly so for a game that has both the intense capital start-up that D&D does (lots of books, minis, etc.) and the kind of broad-based fan-base and cachet that it has, historically at least, enjoyed.

I'm not saying that they didn't conduct this marketing research.  Or, that it didn't say exactly what Samwise is contending it said.  But, assuming those both to be true for a second, it strikes me as a marketing department failing to understand how things work "in the wild."  I think the edition cycle of D&D has been particularly idiosyncratic and frustrating to the customer base. 

[Samwise]

Do you have a link or something to this "internal document" that you keep mentioning?

It seems . . .

I can find one:

http://www.seankreynolds.com/rpgfiles/gaming/WotCMarketResearchSummary.html

[Samwise]

This 5 year cycle seems, anecdotally, untrue.  It even seems like bizarre behavior. 
. . .

At some point I had more concrete information regarding the 5-year cycle.
Maybe it was in some publicity material in Dragon as they were rolling out 3E or maybe it was in some message board post somewhere, but it has long since passed into long term memory with no physical reference.

As for it being "bizarre" behavior, it works for Magic: The Gathering, though I think they are on a 4-year cycle or somesuch - the base set, a number of expansions, then a new base set.
A similar plan was eventually tried by WizKids for Mage Knight then Mech Warrior where it failed spectacularly. (How spectacularly? You mean aside from being sold to Topps and now out doing licensed miniatures for WotC?) (Who managed to wreck their miniatures line by, as I understand it, picking the wrong person to run the organized play program for it, rather than a direct product or marketing failure, which they managed anyway after killing the organized play program.)

Mind you, I completely agree with you about the 5-year cycle being bad, at least the way they have executed it.
I can sort of see why they would go with it, as apparently spending drops off by 30% after 5 years. I expect they completely misread how likely people were to drop the game because of how massively they changed the system while doing a core reboot.

[SorO_Lost]

As for it being "bizarre" behavior, it works for Magic: The Gathering, though I think they are on a 4-year cycle or somesuch - the base set, a number of expansions, then a new base set.

MtG I think runs 1 core set per year (and about 4 prebuilt decks), and 2 expansions (4 prebuilt decks, fatpat, etc) + other productions like 1 prebuilt Event deck per expansion, Duals of releases (2 a year?), a set of 5 Commander Decks each year, Return form the Vault (1/year?), and then there is the expansion tie ins like the ten guild boxes for Ravinicia and miscellaneous tie ins like Planechase, Archenemy, Vanguard, Schemes, etc.

A "block" used to consist of three expansions, typically one "big" and two "small" card counts lasting a year-and-a-half each. This is getting dropped for a 2 expansion block with equal card counts in 2015. In additional "clash" packs will be released which function like the dual decks but expansion-based rather than an overall theme like Planewalkers or such.

tl;dr: MtG shoves a ton of content out the door each year and they make a ton of money.
Wait till Spells are sold in randomized packs, OotS already called it too

[linklord231]

Do you have a link or something to this "internal document" that you keep mentioning?

It seems . . .

I can find one:

http://www.seankreynolds.com/rpgfiles/gaming/WotCMarketResearchSummary.html

So it's a 15 year old document based on a survey only 1000 people responded to, and doesn't actually make many conclusions on its own.  Gotcha. 

[Unbeliever]

The key distinction between the MtG model and applying it to D&D is that new Magic cards are not automatically completely and utterly incompatible with your old ones. 

It's possible WotC made that analogy once upon a time, which only tells me they are idiots.  But, when I label the behavior "bizarre," that's why.  I haven't played Magic for a long long time, but I was not under the impression that MtG players burned all their cards every 3 months.  I feel like I would have noticed that trend.

[oslecamo]

I haven't played Magic for a long long time, but I was not under the impression that MtG players burned all their cards every 3 months.  I feel like I would have noticed that trend.

Pfft, forget 3 months, Wotc did try to promote the idea that people should tear up their cards three seconds after playing them!

[SorO_Lost]

Well besides that. There was an official AD&D to 3rd update document and they ran the time of troubles arc to update the book lore to the new mechanics too. And of course everyone should have a copy of the 3.0 to 3.5 conversion manual too. For a game with radically different rule sets, WotC at the time was interested in helping their fanbase convert their beloved characters to the new system. Oh, and one notably quirk was in the 3nd-> conversion you could "roll" a starting 23 Strength (18/00 becomes 23) so yeah it really was a conversion and not simply a rebuild.

4th didn't care because the corporate executives at the time didn't give a flying fuck about the product. Their stance? Start at 1st level and lean2play. As if you needed more reasons to dislike 4th

5th Mike Mearls has been quoted saying there is a plan to produce a 3rd/4th/Essentials/Next to 5th document and WotC's forums already have community guides up on the last two. So maybe you don't have to burn your old cards

[Samwise]

So it's a 15 year old document based on a survey only 1000 people responded to, and doesn't actually make many conclusions on its own.  Gotcha.

*shrugs*

Not my research.
Not my marketing plan.

Just my commentary based on observations and conversations over the years.

If you've got different information or can make a presentation demonstrating significant divergences from the connections I've suggested between that research and how WotC has done business for the last 15 years, I'd love to see it.

If you just don't like my analysis, again, I was told that many times in the run up to those pretty 4dventure banners at Gen Con '07 yet there they were and here we are 5 years plus 1 after that with 5E starting to fill the shelves.


Addition
Some new information:
http://icv2.com/articles/news/view/30759/d-d-layoffs

"Sims confirmed that there are currently eight in-house full-time staff members, including the producer, remaining on the tabletop Dungeons & Dragons team, not including additional staff employed for art design, brand, and licensing."

The friend who sent me that link suggests that perhaps WotC isn't being given the funds from Hasbro to start the splat surge.

Back during 3.5 there were statements that Hasbro was cutting the budget for WotC despite increases in profitability and shifting the remaining money to M:tG and the novels from the RPG line.

[Samwise]

So maybe you don't have to burn your old cards

The real threat is they will come confiscate your dice if you don't play the game right. 

[PlzBreakMyCampaign]

@derailment: it isn't that unreasonable to have 7 beefy splatbooks. Players don't need the monster one and DMs don't need the item one (lazy DMs make players shop for their own stuff). Mundane PCs don't need the spell book. They can borrow the race one to use just once at the start of play. The DMs don't need the race one. They only need to more than borrow the class one if they plan on multiclassing. Again the DM doesn't strictly need that book either. Both DMs and players need the rulebook and feat book. So a non-reincarnating, single-classed non-caster only needs three books. That's like 95% of all noobs anyways.

CQ is totally on track.

Buy a toadfamiliar a set of 3' stilts and take enough Balance that he can automake his balance check, and the toad will have the high ground advantage on all attackers.

You forget two important letters: higher ground. If they enemy is not, in fact, higher up than the toad, then there is no higher ground bonus.

And protecting cat girls isn't house ruling anything. It's drawing a line in the sand that advanced physical sciences aren't found in the rules and therefore their use would be house rules.

I should show you my write up on a Post-Magical Crash society.

I read your erudite handbook. I'll read that.

They have the most munchkined set of equipment, customized, everything is reduced cost by alignment and class.

The result of what you propose will simply encourage a player to become the party armorer. Instead of it being a half-assed tack on to a Concept, someone will focus on making the BEST and most cost effective crafter the party can have.

You don't have to allow those guidelines, but it is often fun to. Also 'sinking' a party member into that role seems like a great help to DMs who make threads like, "What do I do? The party wizard over-shadows the party fighter, rogue and ranger!"

I would have loved standardize rules on Armor and weapon construction clearly laid out and explained so that a player could make a customizable suit of non-magical equipment.

I did this for weapons. But you are aware that there are a lot of other nonmagical weapon properties

Still my system could be used to calculate all the other random properties.

When all three were in full swing and they had an average of 2.5 full books coming out per month, plus adventures . . . well, actually, they went bankrupt.

Inflation perhaps?

[Samwise]

When all three were in full swing and they had an average of 2.5 full books coming out per month, plus adventures . . . well, actually, they went bankrupt.

Inflation perhaps?

What were all the reasons . . .

1. Setting bloat - too many settings splitting the fan/customer base
2. Product decline - later products tended to sucktastic, with lots of rehashing/reprinting of older supplements and lots of poorly thought out splat
3. Quality decline - editing reached a legendary nadir (they left out entire pages, even chapters, never mind common typos)
4. Physical decline - later products had increased margins, increased font size, and increased spacing to the point of a 64 page product containing the same word count as a 32 or even 16 page product from 10 years earlier
5. Production overreach - which would seem to make no sense with the previous three but they managed it; particularly with the boxed sets, which, IIRC, cost something like $40 to manufacture while selling for $30 (mind you, some of those were quite beautiful, just not priced to be profitable)
5. Full return sales - probably the biggest killer, they signed a bunch of contracts with some chain distributors then got a whole bunch of product returns at once

Topping all of that off, their debt was secured by copyrights, so when they couldn't roll over their debt one more time, WotC which had shown up to negotiate being bought by TSR wound up negotiating to buy TSR.

[Raineh Daze]

Wasn't something like 75% of that because of one person?

... who, if I recall, did unintentionally cause Spelljammer to be created, which is a plus.

[Keldar]

It was also the person that forced TSR to license Buck Rogers.  From her.

TSR was largely ruined by being run by an incompetent asshole.