Quote from: GeekyBugle on August 13, 2023, 11:28:34 PM
Who lacks IQ?

I wrote clearly and at 4th grade level who it is.  Anyone with an IQ >50 would know who was being referenced... Hmmm

Pundit's Claim: Ever since Mearls and Ray Winninger stopped working on D&D, D&D has slowly lost customers. He then specifically highlights declining ADVENTURE sales.

Truth: Adventures, as Pundit rightly points out but then ignores, sell a fraction of the rules crunch books. They're aimed at DMs rather than all customers, and the more adventures you have the less you tend to buy over time because you don't have time to finish what you've already bought and tend to play in just one setting. Tasha's Cauldron of Everything, a crunch rules book which came out well after both left, is the second best selling D&D product after the Player's Handbook itself.

Record overall D&D sales happened well after Ray and Mike left. This has been verified repeatedly using Amazon sales data, and again during Hasbro shareholder meetings which are covered as Forward Looking Statements and therefore actionable if they were lying or misleading. Most of those sales, as always, happened with crunch rules book regardless of what Pundit discussed with Mike prior to 5e coming out.

Likely explanation: Adventure sales decline over time due to quantity, particularly as you approach a new edition of the game which, no matter what WOTC says, will at least possibly have compatibility issues with the adventures. Crunch rules sell, always have sold, and continue to be the overwhelming bulk of sales regardless of edition or politics.

Proof will be in the 2024 crunch rulebooks, which will have Species instead of Race, and orcs will no longer be inherently evil. If it's politics, those crunch rulebooks will sell poorly right? If instead it's an issue tied to adventures in general, we will see the new crunch rule books (which have some left leaning tendencies built in) sell very well.

One thing we do know for sure? D&D is not going broke yet (sales at record highs), and pretending adventure sales alone is proof of D&D going broke is spin for clicks.

Quote from: Mistwell on August 14, 2023, 06:03:40 PMProof will be in the 2024 crunch rulebooks, which will have Species instead of Race, and orcs will no longer be inherently evil. If it's politics, those crunch rulebooks will sell poorly right? If instead it's an issue tied to adventures in general, we will see the new crunch rule books (which have some left leaning tendencies built in) sell very well.

I'm sure they'll sell well, because, much like the shambling corpse of the Simpsons, there's a large group of people with brand loyalty, that'll eat up any shit put out. A good few of them just put the books on a shelf anyway, next to the Funkopops.

The test is:
How long before sales drop off?
How many people play the thing for any length of time?
And (most importantly) how does 7th ed sell?

Quote from: Grognard GM on August 14, 2023, 07:18:02 PM


I'm sure they'll sell well...

How quickly they backtrack and move the goalpost.

Quote from: Mistwell on August 14, 2023, 11:30:09 PM

Quote from: Grognard GM on August 14, 2023, 07:18:02 PM


I'm sure they'll sell well...

How quickly they backtrack and move the goalpost.

Who is 'they?' Are they in the room with us now?

I swear, you fucking Marxists and arbitrarily assigning individuals to monolithic groups.

Quote from: Grognard GM on August 15, 2023, 12:24:27 AM

Quote from: Mistwell on August 14, 2023, 11:30:09 PM

Quote from: Grognard GM on August 14, 2023, 07:18:02 PM


I'm sure they'll sell well...

How quickly they backtrack and move the goalpost.

Who is 'they?' Are they in the room with us now?

I swear, you fucking Marxists and arbitrarily assigning individuals to monolithic groups.

LOL it's hilarious you'd call me a marxist. Truly hilarious.

Quote from: Mistwell on August 15, 2023, 12:35:52 AM

Quote from: Grognard GM on August 15, 2023, 12:24:27 AM

Quote from: Mistwell on August 14, 2023, 11:30:09 PM

Quote from: Grognard GM on August 14, 2023, 07:18:02 PM


I'm sure they'll sell well...

How quickly they backtrack and move the goalpost.

Who is 'they?' Are they in the room with us now?

I swear, you fucking Marxists and arbitrarily assigning individuals to monolithic groups.

LOL it's hilarious you'd call me a marxist. Truly hilarious.

Is it as hilarious as Pundit making a statement, then accusing me of moving goalposts with my only post?

Quote from: Grognard GM on August 14, 2023, 07:18:02 PM
The test is:
How long before sales drop off?
How many people play the thing for any length of time?
And (most importantly) how does 7th ed sell?

Back in the 80s you could fond D&D candies on the shelves. I used to have some of the molds they came in with the plan to use them to make simple minis with. Sadly long gone. Wonder who made them They were not bad really.
 
I suspect the hang time between 6e and 7e will not be as long as 5e. wotc loves their damn 5 year plan too much.

Quote from: Omega on August 15, 2023, 01:05:33 AM

Quote from: Grognard GM on August 14, 2023, 07:18:02 PM
The test is:
How long before sales drop off?
How many people play the thing for any length of time?
And (most importantly) how does 7th ed sell?

Back in the 80s you could fond D&D candies on the shelves. I used to have some of the molds they came in with the plan to use them to make simple minis with. Sadly long gone. Wonder who made them They were not bad really.
 
I suspect the hang time between 6e and 7e will not be as long as 5e. wotc loves their damn 5 year plan too much.

Aaannnndd I'm back, after a half hour rabbit hole that began with your candies, and turned in to general retro candy sites 

Sadly I couldn't find images of the actual D&D candy (and moulds) just the boxes.

Quote from: Venka on August 12, 2023, 01:07:05 AM
At 10:30ish you mention that "Strixhaven went up (in sales) for the same reason Spelljammer went up" or something similar.  You then attribute that to it being an established setting with fans.

I will offer an alternate or additional explanation:  Strixhaven has an *unusual amount of crunch* in it.  There's some things that that make it sound like the spells and other details are meant for restriction to the setting (there's even a feat or background or something that has, as a perk, access to some of the spells, probably originally written for players in other campaigns).  But, in the final product, there's no such restriction.  While I don't think it's legal in their adventure's league (most campaign type things are not), it's generally considered part of the "smooth everything together and assume it's all legal" set of things.

The most notorious spell here is Silvery Barbs, a 1st level spell that uses a reaction.  Like Shield and Counterspell, this then is a tool for serious time-economy.  Unlike those two, it's really good, with the main effect of forcing them to "reroll and use the lower roll".  This is distinct from disadvantage, so if the target had advantage, rolled twice and got a good roll from the highest and you used this, he'll be rolling a d20 and using the lower one- turning the end result into not much better than disadvantage, statistically.  And of course, your whole team can do this stunt.  So you throw a spell at them that they *really* want to pass, they pass it, and you (and possibly another caster on your team) begin throwing this at them, and if at any point they fail, that's it- they failed, or they burn a legendary resistance.  It also buffs allies at the same time. 

There are cool spells in there too, and other player options.  But when something contains really powerful player options, or even just one, it's gonna drive sales... or at least that's my take.

That's an interesting theory. It may be correct.

Right now, D&D is doing so "well" in its sales that it's seriously in doubt whether WotC will even bother to publish dead-tree books after the three core OneDnD books, at all. And in fact, they may even choose not to do so just as a way to be able to fire the useless trash that have produced the recent books without being accused of being 'racists' or 'transphobes'.

I can hardly claim to have my finger on the pulse of RPG publishing, but my gut feeling is that Grognard is right in that D&D has such brand strength core books will sell huge regardless of any good or bad content within.  They aren't too big to fail, but they've got much more wiggle room than pretty much anyone else because they're "the" RPG.  If you bug some moron on the street to name a roleplaying game, safe bet they aren't coming up with Pathfinder.  Even if most of what they put out at this point is garbage, it's going to take time for it to really seep down to the average player who isn't reading all the gay tiefling prom and no white writers allowed books.  My one friend who's in a 5E game had never heard of the Radiant Citadel or any of those setting books, since they're not being used in the game he's in.

Quote from: Valatar on August 15, 2023, 11:00:08 AM
I can hardly claim to have my finger on the pulse of RPG publishing, but my gut feeling is that Grognard is right in that D&D has such brand strength core books will sell huge regardless of any good or bad content within.  They aren't too big to fail, but they've got much more wiggle room than pretty much anyone else because they're "the" RPG. 

Case in point.  GM stopped making good cars in the 70's, for the most part.  They are just now completely collapsing because of their size and Brand recognition gave them inertia.

I'll be honest, before I bought into 5E on its release, I read through the PHB on the shelf and I saw two names listed as consultants and the guy who wrote Iron Heroes listed as the lead designer. And this was the reason I bought the book in the first place.

After I had played it for a while and then found out that those names had no association any longer with the game, and I saw the direction the new crew of designers was headed, I have completely reduced my usage of 5E to nil.

It didn't help WotC's case in my mind when I found out that Schwalb had dropped working on 5E like a hot potato, either. He is far and above my favorite game designer (no offense no RPGPundit meant). SotDL is by far a better game than 5E can now ever be with its current trajectory.

These are decent rundowns on how ESG financing is able to hold hold billion dollar corporations in thrall:


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Can Wotzi going Woke make them Broke? In theory, Yes...

But there is a catch:

The massive network effect of players and GM's that D&D enjoys will act as a bulwark to a large degree from the effects of their decisions.

Most of the people that play RPG's only play D&D. Even with the colossal own-goal that was the 4e fiasco, Wotzi only split the player base, (with totally not D&D Pathfinder...) and were still able to win back the majority of their base with a single pivot.

D&D fans want to play D&D. And they are clearly willing to forgive, and put up with, a lot as long as they get to play their D&D.

Wotzi has to stay Woke and incompetent enough, long enough, for a competitor to not only gain a foothold, but surpass its player network to make it not worth the effort to switch back.

And at any time before that happens, Wotzi can Pivot, and virtually instantly re-gain its market leader status...

The level of mind-bending irrational brand loyalty in RPG land cannot be discounted when talking about Wotzi's potential demise.