Quote from: yosemitemike on January 27, 2025, 06:14:23 AM

Quote from: HappyDaze on January 27, 2025, 06:03:43 AMThe game is very much recognizable as D&D.

I would say that stuff like Radiant Citadel and Strixhaven are practically unrecognizable from what D&D was up until a few years ago.  Maybe your games involved working as baristas but I don't remember anything like that.   

I can't speak for Strixhaven, which as a Magic The Gathering setting cross-over book we've never used as we don't play that campaign setting. I think it was marketed specifically to draw some MTG fans over to D&D.

But I can speak to Radiant Citadel. I would say claims like that about Radiant Citadel might be a sign you never read it or played it, and are operating off rumors of rumors. Radiant Citadel has some solidly good modules in it. I say modules because it's just a book of short adventures akin to the old modules. For example, we played through the "Sins of Our Elders" adventure in that book, which is based on medieval Korea. Excellent adventure. We had a blast. I think lots of old school players would enjoy that adventure. Reminded me of an old 2e adventure I once played.

What is it you think is in Radiant Citadel that you believe to be "practically unrecognizable from what D&D was?" I know there was a RUMOR it had adventures that supported a battle wheelchair, but that rumor turned out to be false. There was a rumor it was "woke" but even the one author who supposedly wrote a "woke" adventure got all upset his adventure was edited to remove that stuff, so that was also a false rumor. So what is it you think is actually in the book that is unrecognizable as D&D?

Quote from: Mistwell on January 27, 2025, 03:27:16 PMThey're courting 11-14 year olds, not the pink haired angry adults you imagine they're courting.

No, they're pink haired angry middle aged adults who think they're courting 11-14 year olds because they know what was allegedgly cool... in 2003.  Admittedly, I'm not sure they're any more correct than balding (almost)retirees in their 50s and 60s though but that group isn't actually shooting for that demographic specifically; they're just hoping/grateful if just some of them join along for the ride. 

FWIW, I finally got to look at the PHB this past weekend and I see why there are complaints about the art throughout the book.  Of course I've seen the cringe with mexican orcs and dwarf baker twinks but I was also surprised by how inconsistent the styles and asthetics were for basically the entire industry's flagship product effectively.   And then there are the (for me) previously unknown cringe pieces like victorian cosplayers shooting up Castle Ravenloft that made me do a literal triple take that it was in D&D and not some sort of Cthulhu by Gaslight indy rpg instead as well as the second most popular pose/expression in the color art being a magical combat O-face that looked like it could have been a still from a fantasy version of the old SNL "jizz in my pants" music video skit...

Quote from: Ratman_tf on January 25, 2025, 06:24:21 AM

Quote from: Anon Adderlan on January 25, 2025, 12:03:04 AM

Quote from: Mistwell on January 23, 2025, 02:48:43 PMThey discovered, accidentally, that by scaling down the number of products they published, the remaining books they did publish sold a lot more. In fact they were not losing in total sales by producing 3-4 books per year versus producing far more books per year. The prior TSR policy of selling 60 books per year was cannibalizing book sales from each other, and to some extent that had been still happening with 3e and even 4e. Even though they knew signs of this problem had been seen in 1998's surveys.

The fact a company's own products can be competing against each other shows just how much of a zero sum game this market actually is. And lots of designers seem to be in complete denial of this.

Not necessarily. It's possible to saturate a market. We saw it with X-Wing Miniatures. The game was very sucessful and very popular, so FFG started pumping out expansions. Eventually they covered all the major aspects of gameplay, and everyone had plenty of ships. They painted themselves into a corner, so to speak.

 

This exact same thing happened with repainted D$D minis. From Harbinger through about 2006, WotC constantly sold through the print runs very quickly. 4E, amongst other things was also meant to push a new edition of the D&D mini game. Just like the new rpg, the revised "4E" d$d mini game killed the line.

Quote from: Mistwell on January 25, 2025, 07:40:52 PMAccording to this article, "According to Wizards' internal studies of the player population, 60% of D&D players are male, 39% are female, and 1% identify otherwise" That's supposedly from January 2023.

That's just D&D beyond demo data. They haven't done a "real" survey since '99.

Quote from: HappyDaze on January 27, 2025, 06:18:53 AM

Quote from: yosemitemike on January 27, 2025, 06:14:23 AM

Quote from: HappyDaze on January 27, 2025, 06:03:43 AMThe game is very much recognizable as D&D.

I would say that stuff like Radiant Citadel and Strixhaven are practically unrecognizable from what D&D was up until a few years ago.  Maybe your games involved working as baristas but I don't remember anything like that.   

If the customers have stats, you can still kill them and take their stuff, right?

Game on! Stuffershack employees having been dying in Shadowrun for 35 years, bout time for the fantasy baristas to have a taste.

Quote from: RNGm on January 27, 2025, 03:38:27 PM

Quote from: Mistwell on January 27, 2025, 03:27:16 PMThey're courting 11-14 year olds, not the pink haired angry adults you imagine they're courting.

No, they're pink haired angry middle aged adults who think they're courting 11-14 year olds because they know what was allegedgly cool... in 2003.  Admittedly, I'm not sure they're any more correct than balding (almost)retirees in their 50s and 60s though but that group isn't actually shooting for that demographic specifically; they're just hoping/grateful if just some of them join along for the ride. 

Again, do you have better evidence than what WOTC has from their extensive surveys that their fastest growing customer base is 11 to 14 year olds?

Quote from: M2A0 on January 27, 2025, 06:14:32 PM

Quote from: Mistwell on January 25, 2025, 07:40:52 PMAccording to this article, "According to Wizards' internal studies of the player population, 60% of D&D players are male, 39% are female, and 1% identify otherwise" That's supposedly from January 2023.

That's just D&D beyond demo data. They haven't done a "real" survey since '99.

Bro, the quantities of respondents makes the 99 survey look like a toy. It was a larger survey than any in the history of TTRPGs.

Quote from: Mistwell on January 27, 2025, 06:21:46 PM

Quote from: M2A0 on January 27, 2025, 06:14:32 PM

Quote from: Mistwell on January 25, 2025, 07:40:52 PMAccording to this article, "According to Wizards' internal studies of the player population, 60% of D&D players are male, 39% are female, and 1% identify otherwise" That's supposedly from January 2023.

That's just D&D beyond demo data. They haven't done a "real" survey since '99.

Bro, the quantities of respondents makes the 99 survey look like a toy. It was a larger survey than any in the history of TTRPGs.

Even though it's a bigger set, that doesn't necessarily mean that it's more representative of the full D&D playing population. The 1999 survey is the only one publicly released where they weren't just going to gathering places, but actually mailing people in their homes to see if they played D&D (or other games).

The problem is that the subset of D&D players at any given venue (i.e. game conventions, game stores, or D&D Beyond) isn't necessarily the same as people who play casually with their friends at home.

Quote from: M2A0 on January 27, 2025, 06:10:53 PMThis exact same thing happened with repainted D$D minis. From Harbinger through about 2006, WotC constantly sold through the print runs very quickly. 4E, amongst other things was also meant to push a new edition of the D&D mini game. Just like the new rpg, the revised "4E" d$d mini game killed the line.

Not really. It wasn't oversaturation as there was still plenty of excitement for the game locally, at GenCon, and online right up until that point; prices had gone up (both for production and the end consumer) and paint steps for common/uncommon figs had gone down but there was still lots of genuine demand.  What killed DDM was that they had literally over 800 minis at the time (14? sets of 60 minis each) and they said they'd only restat 60 of them for the 4e version of the minis game.. but we could vote for which 60!  They eventually backtracked on that and said they'd restat them all but the damage was done.  With 4e landing with all the success of a wad of wet toilet paper splat once players got their hands on the full rules along with 4e's own version of the original OGL scandal, pretty much every use for them as well as the excitement dried up for them.   

My local FLGS scene went from playing twice weekly with about a dozen players each day (we literally had to set up a second day for overflow!) to being dead within a year.  Myself, I had full collections (and still do!) of those first 14 or 15 sets but the last 2-3 sets (basically corresponding with whichever one was the official switchover to the 4e rules) I only picked up a few figs on the secondary market as I had lost interest.

Wait, are you all saying that a WotC source quoted by known WotC shill Mistwell, has discrepancies?

Say it ain't so.....

Quote from: jeff37923 on January 27, 2025, 07:06:07 PMWait, are you all saying that a WotC source quoted by known WotC shill Mistwell, has discrepancies?

Say it ain't so.....

I am glad someone said it and not me.

Quote from: Mistwell on January 27, 2025, 03:27:16 PMThey're courting 11-14 year olds, not the pink haired angry adults you imagine they're courting.

Looks like they are courting the same crowd that Marvel was courting with their silly lifestyle shows and shows like Agatha All Along.

Quote from: Mistwell on January 27, 2025, 03:27:16 PM

Quote from: yosemitemike on January 27, 2025, 05:42:41 AMThe problem is that they are contorting the game almost beyond recognition in an attempt to appeal to people who don't care about D&D, never cared about D&D and never will care about D&D.  The modern audience isn't coming no matter how many gay gnome kings they shove into adventures.  They don't care about ttrpgs and never will.  The few who even know or care about these changes only like them because they hate us and we don't like them.  They are just petty, vindictive, malicious people who want to dunk on "the chuds".  They like it that they are taking away and ruining our thing.  They don't actually care about the thing beyond that.  That they think they can take away D&D shows that they have no understanding of how this hobby even works.   

They're courting 11-14 year olds, not the pink haired angry adults you imagine they're courting.

Then WotC is doomed.  Because none of the 11-14 year-olds I have encountered want to play fantasy barista.  They want to kill monsters and take their stuff (even the girls).

Quote from: Eirikrautha on January 27, 2025, 10:45:48 PMThen WotC is doomed.  Because none of the 11-14 year-olds I have encountered want to play fantasy barista.  They want to kill monsters and take their stuff (even the girls).

It's funny. The activist types want to change the game to be more accomidating for women players, but they rarely think to ask what the women actually playing the game want.
It's like it's not about appealing to women, but appealing to a certain ideology...