I know the days of D&D 3rd ed may seem like a long time ago to some but really they were not that long ago. And yet I'm seeing the start of the same flooding of the market for 5e that we saw for 3e/d20 days. Just like back then you had some small 3rd party companies producing a mess of stuff (a lot of it complete crap) and then larger companies starting to release their games for it as well.

I know it isn't too far in yet but it is starting. Troll Lord Games is releasing their stuff for 5e now (both Castles and Crusades material and Amazing Adventures). RiotMinds just announced they're releasing Trudvang for 5e as well. Again I know it isn't to the point where it will be an issue yet, but it just has the same feel of everything must be converted and released for the "greatest system ever" BS as before.

I agree. 5E is really mainstream with all sorts of extra books, a huge array of accessories, 3rd party material etc.

It'll probably last for a year or so more and then crash like 3.X did.

The term that you are thinking of is Sturgeon's law which is basically that "ninety percent of everything is crap".

Personally I dont really see the problem with people being excited to make new stuff.  Yeah most of it is going to suck but you are going to get some gems there.

I'm not wild about it, but I can't blame them.  With the economic chaos right now, it must certainly look like a safer bet.  I just hope they're all around a year from now and can change gears if they want to.

There are:

A.  People who were aggravated by the slow trickle of releases for 5E early on.  They had money they wanted to spend on D&D 5E, which they didn't.  Some of these people moved on to other games.

B.  People who loved the fact that content was released in a slow trickle for D&D 5E.  They thought the slow pacing was pure genius.

C.  People who still don't care either way.

I most closely identify with group A.

I think you are 16,800 products too late with this complaint.
https://www.dmsguild.com/browse.php?filters=45469_0_0_0_0_0_0_0&language=en

Eh, there were basically two sides of the d20 glut

On the plus side, you had tons of new people publishing labor of love stuff. A lot of this was good

On the negative side, you had the larger companies (and some startups like Mongoose) just flooding the market with crap. But even then some of this was interesting.

To me the worst products are the conversions.  They can work, but so many times they are just lazily done. Especially adventure conversions.

Quote from: estar;1129639I think you are 16,800 products too late with this complaint.
https://www.dmsguild.com/browse.php?filters=45469_0_0_0_0_0_0_0&language=en

Agreed. The market is beyond saturated and the glut only continues.

However, in the age of PDF/POD, the creators don't suffer from garages full of unsold books like in the early 2000s.

The barrier to entry and the risk of failure is so low that the glut doesn't matter anymore.

Unless you're a mid-tier company overspending on art and printing stacks of books for the dwindling number of gaming stores.

My complaint isn't exactly the amount of stuff released for 5e, because lets face it with PDF releases as an option anyone can throw something together and put it up. It is that some established companies are starting to convert their games and worlds to 5e just to get in on the action. This is riskier then staying with your tried and true system and you already have a fan base for. You are looking at increased costs from printing two versions of the same book, time spent converting, and storage of two versions of the same book. And while 5e is popular they'll be tempted to slow the release of product for their system and increase the production of 5e losing existing fans. Then when it loses its popularity and people move on to the next system they mostly wont go to you and many of those fans you had lost will have already found something else and wont comeback.

*At least this is what my sleep addled brain is saying. Oh and when people enjoyed the hobby we would share and post many of our creations and work freely on message boards and web sites. Now everyone tries to make money off it no matter how crappy by putting it up as a PDF for sale and hiding it behind a paywall on patreon or similar.

The Trolls and Frog God have been doing 5E stuff for years- this isn't a recent development (?)

In the Trolls case they are simply converting existing materials to 5E and updating the look of both the C&C and 5E line. Good for them, hope they cash in on it. The influx of cash has certainly allowed to them to get out a ton of Kickstarters and projects for C&C too. Also, there is a decided tone of "converting" 5E players to C&C in some of these books. Amazing Adventures is also a Siege Engine game that has been through two editions prior to a 5E version.


To the larger topic at hand- In hindsight, despite the absolute glut of garbage, and CF of a rules update of 3.5, I think the D20 movement of the early Y2Ks was a much better time- the reaons being that the creatives were  not only showing us thier settings and worlds, etc, but also branching out into completely different games.,and suport products.

For 5E we still have a glut of garbage, but the vast majority is tied into the IP of Wizards- The DMs guild is full of Volo this, Mordy that, Xanathars book of, Waterdeep list of. There are far fewer products being done outside of the DMs guild, sadly.

As I mentioned elsewhere- this is WOTC wanting you to share the experience they want you to have with the community they deem "kosher"n for D&D. This is the total opposite of the intent of the D20/3.0 era.

Quote from: JeffB;1129663As I mentioned elsewhere- this is WOTC wanting you to share the experience they want you to have with the community they deem "kosher"n for D&D. This is the total opposite of the intent of the D20/3.0 era.

   I don't know; I think both were manifestations of the same philosophy:

  "One game to rule them all, one game to find them,
   One game to bring them all and to WotC bind them."

 

Quote from: Spinachcat;1129651The barrier to entry and the risk of failure is so low that the glut doesn't matter anymore.

It more than that, the efficency of digital communication is such that you can get by on a couple of hundred customers as long as they are regular buyers. With books, you have distribution, with distribution you are competing for shelf space at the warehouse and in the store. So what you see in stores is going to gravitate to what can be sold in volume.

In contrast with a internet sales model you can focus on building up your audience one customer at a time. There is no third party you have satisfy with target numbers to keep doing what you doing.

Quote from: lordmalachdrim;1129654This is riskier then staying with your tried and true system and you already have a fan base for. You are looking at increased costs from printing two versions of the same book, time spent converting, and storage of two versions of the same book.

Except now there is crowdfunding which gives a more accurate picture of demand. And if you structure it right, you make your profit, and if followup sales are not there you don't make another print run and let it go out of print. Except that you keep it up digitally. If enough complain and it still sketchy you can do another KS for another print run. If enough complain and it doesn't look sketchy then you can just do a print run.

Quote from: lordmalachdrim;1129654And while 5e is popular they'll be tempted to slow the release of product for their system and increase the production of 5e losing existing fans. Then when it loses its popularity and people move on to the next system they mostly wont go to you and many of those fans you had lost will have already found something else and wont comeback.

In world of brick and mortar you have to sell broadly. You market your store towards roleplaying hobbyist of which a certain number plays X game, (D&D 5e).

In terms of geography you going to get a broad slice of the hobby and it highly unlike you find enough of a subgroup to cater to them.

In constrast the situation is opposite for the Internet. Because the internet is so efficent at communication, if you are able to get the word out then you not only attract customer but a specific subset of a larger hobby. These subgroup tend to be far more loyal than the general hobby. Some of what you say applies but it plays out over a longer cycle. And if you do your marketing right, you get get enough new customer to offset those who drop out.

That what I view Troll Lords and other OSR publisher doing with their 5e wares. They are going to keep doing the DCC RPG, Castles & Crusade, Swords & Wizardry stuff because of their love for what they done with those system. But they are using 5e to rope new hobbyist into how they do thing. Then a portion of them will look at what else the company does and try that as well.

In most cases only the mechanic changes not the quality or tone so some of the 5e fan hobbyist are now transformed intoa  Troll Lords hobbyist or a Frog God games hobbyist.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1129651However, in the age of PDF/POD, the creators don't suffer from garages full of unsold books like in the early 2000s.

The barrier to entry and the risk of failure is so low that the glut doesn't matter anymore.

Agreed!  SpinachCat has the right of it here.  Part of the problem with the d20 glut was all the physical product that clogged up the supply chain.  Retailers bought a lot at first, then consumers got burned by bad products so they stopped buying, leaving retailers with lots of unsalable product on the shelf and no interest in buying more.

With PDF and POD, there is no warehousing, no unmovable product for the retailer to lose money on.  It's only a matter of space.

Plus, as far as alternative versions of 5e cannibalizing sales, the realities of the current market place make that far less likely.  There is no confusion at the retailer between the D&D PHB and the Conan rulebook.  There are no "alternative" PHBs (like the ones Green Ronin published back in the day).  WotC still dominates physical shelf space.  So customer choices are far less confusing at this point.  Plus, from what I'm seeing, most third party publishers are sticking to things that WotC isn't producing: settings, alternative genres, etc.  That helps too.

When the bubble does burst, its going to be from something different, I suspect.

Tom