Jason Tondro, the underqualified "D&D Lead", states on social media that he doesn't care what regular D&D fans think.

This Tondro fucker can't leave the industry fast enough. Fuck WotC!

Honestly? That's how all of WotC thinks of regular D&D fans. They see the older fans as completely disposable.

I've always been under the impression WOTC's modern failures are a result of their older successes, 5th edition poisoned the brand in a weird way where it brought in a tone of tourists (temporary customers) that WOTC misunderstood as long-term buyers. And now that new crowd has up and gone and the old players have been put-out, they don't have much to go on anymore.

Quote from: Socratic-DM on November 28, 2024, 09:32:33 PMI've always been under the impression WOTC's modern failures are a result of their older successes, 5th edition poisoned the brand in a weird way where it brought in a tone of tourists (temporary customers) that WOTC misunderstood as long-term buyers. And now that new crowd has up and gone and the old players have been put-out, they don't have much to go on anymore.

I think that most of the "tourists" (aka casual players) also didn't particularly want Woke nonsense. That's why their numbers started to drop off fast after Candlekeep, where in subsequent books the Woke content became more prominent and the efforts to "deconstruct" D&D (in stuff like Fritzhaven, Witchlight and Radiant Citadel) and at an increasing rate.

Quote from: RPGPundit on November 29, 2024, 07:24:57 AMI think that most of the "tourists" (aka casual players) also didn't particularly want Woke nonsense. That's why their numbers started to drop off fast after Candlekeep, where in subsequent books the Woke content became more prominent and the efforts to "deconstruct" D&D (in stuff like Fritzhaven, Witchlight and Radiant Citadel) and at an increasing rate.

I think the tourists don't want to think hard (they fit the "NPC" meme) and are mostly left-liberal. They want to just "play D&D", preferably their OC in some kind of unchallenging mashup of Stranger Things and Critical Role. That includes the ability to Kill Things And Take Their Stuff, without traditional D&D tropes being Problematised. They do not want to play Hot Mess Barristas or Thirsty Sword Lesbians. 2014 D&D really hit their sweet spot.

Quote from: Darrin Kelley on November 28, 2024, 08:11:20 PMHonestly? That's how all of WotC thinks of regular D&D fans. They see the older fans as completely disposable.

Not just disposable. But an actual detriment to new product.

Quote from: Socratic-DM on November 28, 2024, 09:32:33 PMI've always been under the impression WOTC's modern failures are a result of their older successes, 5th edition poisoned the brand in a weird way where it brought in a tone of tourists (temporary customers) that WOTC misunderstood as long-term buyers. And now that new crowd has up and gone and the old players have been put-out, they don't have much to go on anymore.

Quote from: S'mon on November 29, 2024, 10:53:21 AM

Quote from: RPGPundit on November 29, 2024, 07:24:57 AMI think that most of the "tourists" (aka casual players) also didn't particularly want Woke nonsense. That's why their numbers started to drop off fast after Candlekeep, where in subsequent books the Woke content became more prominent and the efforts to "deconstruct" D&D (in stuff like Fritzhaven, Witchlight and Radiant Citadel) and at an increasing rate.

I think the tourists don't want to think hard (they fit the "NPC" meme) and are mostly left-liberal. They want to just "play D&D", preferably their OC in some kind of unchallenging mashup of Stranger Things and Critical Role. That includes the ability to Kill Things And Take Their Stuff, without traditional D&D tropes being Problematised. They do not want to play Hot Mess Barristas or Thirsty Sword Lesbians. 2014 D&D really hit their sweet spot.

I don't think it makes sense to call casual players "tourists". Under both TSR editions and WotC editions, casual players have always made up the majority of sales. It's why TSR needed the BECMI line, for example. The hard-core grognards are important to the market, but IMO D&D has stayed at the top of the RPG market compared to more niche games like Savage Worlds or GURPS by having easy-to-run dungeons and easy-to-understand settings that are fun for casual players.

I'd agree with S'mon that 2014 D&D hit the customer's sweet spot, which is a good thing. Still, every RPG company ever has run into the edition treadmill problem. After selling the core books to everyone and growing the player base as much as possible, it gets harder and harder to publish a book that most players want to buy. The customer base becomes fragmented as different groups try different settings and/or variations.

The implication from the quotes above is that if only WotC kept publishing what they did in 2014 they'd make top dollar forever, but that's not how the RPG market works. Looking at how well the different official D&D adventures have sold below,

1. Curse of Strahd (2016)
2. Waterdeep Dragon Heist (2018)
3. Hoard of the Dragon Queen (2014)
4. Tales from the Yawning Portal (2017)
5. Ghosts of Saltmarsh (2019)
6. Spelljammer: Adventures in Space (2022)
7. Icewind Dale (2020)
8. Tomb of Annihilation (2017)
9. Candlekeep Mysteries (2021)
10. Out of the Abyss (2015)
11. Waterdeep: Dungeons of the Mad Mage (2018)
12. Baldur's Gate: Descent into Avernus (2019)
13. Storm King's Thunder (2016)
14. Princes of the Apocalypse (2015)
15. The Wild Beyond the Witchlight (2021)
16. Curse of Strahd: Revamped (2020)
17. Dragonlance: Shadow of the Dragon Queen (2022)
18. Journeys Through the Radiant Citadel (2022)
19. Critical Role: Call of the Netherdeep (2022)
20. Keys from the Golden Vault (2023)

Source: https://alphastream.org/index.php/2023/09/29/dd-5es-top-selling-adventures-and-what-it-means-for-the-hobby/

The question is what effect wokeness has on sales vs edition-treadmill effects.

In my experience, all of the 5E adventures are a mixed bag, but the downward trend seems to be general in the last two years. Spelljammer did pretty well, and the lowest was Keys from the Golden Vault, which I haven't heard any complaints about the wokeness.

There are lots of things that WotC could have done better. I was especially underwhelmed by their early 5E adventures and many of their later 5E books as well. Still, WotC has done financially much better than TSR, and particularly with 5E.

Quote from: RPGPundit on November 29, 2024, 07:24:57 AMWitchlight and Radiant Citadel) and at an increasing rate.

They were inserting stuff as early as Curse of Strahd so barely 2 years in and it is cropping up already.

Wild Beyond the Witchlight is one of the few of the later books to have almost no wokeness in in. I -think- one character might be referred to as THEY. But thats as far as it goes really. None of the in your face stupid of everything from Curse of Strahd onwards.

There's no easy solution to the edition treadmill either. "Why do I have to buy a new edition when my current books work fine?"

The edition treadmill kills any game that doesn't have the endurance to keep up with burnout. Unsurprisingly, most writers aren't interested in reissuing the same game every 5-10 years just to stay solvent.

Even if a game is still being sold on drivethrurpg, people are just gonna lose interest if it doesn't keep getting new releases and marketing. It's shallow, but true. There are loads of interesting games from the 80s, 90s and 2000s, but nobody is interested. Any fans can't even write new editions because of copyright.

Quote from: Socratic-DM on November 28, 2024, 09:32:33 PMI've always been under the impression WOTC's modern failures are a result of their older successes, 5th edition poisoned the brand in a weird way where it brought in a tone of tourists (temporary customers) that WOTC misunderstood as long-term buyers. And now that new crowd has up and gone and the old players have been put-out, they don't have much to go on anymore.

They don't seem to learn from successes.

Quote from: Omega on November 29, 2024, 05:59:19 PM

Quote from: RPGPundit on November 29, 2024, 07:24:57 AMWitchlight and Radiant Citadel) and at an increasing rate.

They were inserting stuff as early as Curse of Strahd so barely 2 years in and it is cropping up already.

Wild Beyond the Witchlight is one of the few of the later books to have almost no wokeness in in. I -think- one character might be referred to as THEY. But thats as far as it goes really. None of the in your face stupid of everything from Curse of Strahd onwards.

Curse of Strahd was also their best-selling adventure, not even including the additional sales from the revised version of it published in 2020. I've never read it, so no comment on the content.

Quote from: RPGPundit on November 29, 2024, 07:24:57 AM

Quote from: Socratic-DM on November 28, 2024, 09:32:33 PMI've always been under the impression WOTC's modern failures are a result of their older successes, 5th edition poisoned the brand in a weird way where it brought in a tone of tourists (temporary customers) that WOTC misunderstood as long-term buyers. And now that new crowd has up and gone and the old players have been put-out, they don't have much to go on anymore.

I think that most of the "tourists" (aka casual players) also didn't particularly want Woke nonsense. That's why their numbers started to drop off fast after Candlekeep, where in subsequent books the Woke content became more prominent and the efforts to "deconstruct" D&D (in stuff like Fritzhaven, Witchlight and Radiant Citadel) and at an increasing rate.

You are pretty well hitting the nail on the head. Most people are not super up and on what ever the invouge political winds are and in most of what they consume they more or less want political passivity out of there media most of the time.
The only thing I would disagree with you on is lumping casuals and tourists as the same group if only because the tourist passes threw at a faster rate.
So in my experience a tourist is in to a thing they maybe pick up on something possibly buy some merchandise but these people tend to be hard to retain. The  tourist moniker very much refers to on the way through customers. You can have devoted casuals that stay with a brand for long periods and don't buy much.
A good example would be those guys who buy a set of core books and don't engage with the community beyond there regular group.
Another sub set that is worth thinking about is the political motivated tourist who buy things based on the politics alone they do exist but tend to be poor and 8/10th of the time are in collage with no money.

Quote from: RPGPundit on November 29, 2024, 07:24:57 AM

Quote from: Socratic-DM on November 28, 2024, 09:32:33 PMI've always been under the impression WOTC's modern failures are a result of their older successes, 5th edition poisoned the brand in a weird way where it brought in a tone of tourists (temporary customers) that WOTC misunderstood as long-term buyers. And now that new crowd has up and gone and the old players have been put-out, they don't have much to go on anymore.

I think that most of the "tourists" (aka casual players) also didn't particularly want Woke nonsense. That's why their numbers started to drop off fast after Candlekeep, where in subsequent books the Woke content became more prominent and the efforts to "deconstruct" D&D (in stuff like Fritzhaven, Witchlight and Radiant Citadel) and at an increasing rate.

The Tourist is the person who plays because it is trendy, that is different than casual, casuals can be longterm they just might not be the big buyers, DMs are really the only core purchasers, because only the DM needs the Monster Manual, only the DM needs the DMG, only the DM needs Curse of Strahd.

and there was likely plenty of tourists who enjoyed the idea of identity politics, for the same reason it was trendy or an aesthetic, the tourist and the casual are a distinction worth noting.

Quote from: jhkim on November 29, 2024, 07:35:38 PMCurse of Strahd was also their best-selling adventure, not even including the additional sales from the revised version of it published in 2020. I've never read it, so no comment on the content.

It deserves its spot at the top of the list.