Quote from: HorusArisen;950873The third party support is interesting but proves my point, extra material is interesting

It can be. But quantity isn't necessarily the key to it being so.

Quote from: fearsomepirate;950810When WotC took over TSR, they looked at the books and saw that books like Player's Option: Combat & Tactics outsold modules many times over. They didn't decide to base their business model on expansions in order win online arguments or for ideological reasons.

I could be wrong, but I heard somewhere they switched to adventures because 4e didn't make enough money to be considered a "franchise brand" by Hasbro.

This is much the same thinking that went into GURPS with their 4th edition focusing on the rule books rather than the setting books. This led to an overall drop in sales of GURPS books. The issue was that with no setting books nobody wanted to buy the rules. If you have 100 GURPS players, all 100 will buy the rules, but 100 won't buy GURPS Colonial America, maybe 10 of them will. But if there's nothing like Colonial America, the rules are just another generic rule set - and one with 576 pages. So though the setting books themselves don't make much money, and may even make a loss, they're necessary to get people to buy the core rules. The setting books are advertising for the rules.

Similarly, at the big gym I used to work at, they looked at the childcare they offered and found that it was making a loss. So they cut staff and hours. And gym membership dropped, as did personal training income. They wondered why. I could have told them: childcare at a gym looked at by itself will always lose money. But the women (it's always women) who put the kids in there pay gym membership, and many of them do personal training, too - "If I'm only here for 45 minutes twice a week, I'll get the most I can out of it - this my me time." They lost about 100 women members, which is over $100,000 in gym fees (about the centre manager's wage of $107k in fact) and another 10-15 PT clients, which is another $50,000 or so gone. Childcare didn't make money, but it enabled money from other things to be made.

In both cases the people in those businesses still don't recognise this, instead blaming "the market." But we expect this with management anywhere: "My success is due to my own brilliant decision-making, my failure is due to circumstances beyond my control." Being outside these organisations we can ignore this self-serving bullshit and look at things objectively.

Basically these guys are the same as someone selling hot chips who stops giving out salt and tomato sauce. "But salt and ketchup don't make me any money."

I'll also point out that that was the theory behind the OGL.  Wizards would put out relatively few adventures and focus on the money-making rules books, and they'd rely upon all of the fan-boy 3rd party people for adventures - most of whom did it as a hobby more than to make money anyway.

And as a result of that we have Pathfinder, which I believe is still selling more than 5e...? At worst a close competitor. And what do they put out? Settings and adventures.

So maybe if what you write is good, it'll sell. Radical concept.

I've no personal interest in PF, but it illustrates the idea well.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;950888And as a result of that we have Pathfinder, which I believe is still selling more than 5e...? At worst a close competitor. And what do they put out? Settings and adventures.

Pathfinder puts out one setting, and a bunch of adventures.  I'm not sure how this is some devastating critique of 5e's line of one main setting and a bunch of adventures.

Quote from: Dave R;950895Pathfinder puts out one setting, and a bunch of adventures.  I'm not sure how this is some devastating critique of 5e's line of one main setting and a bunch of adventures.

Don't think it was.  The point was, I believe, adventures sell just fine.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;950806I don't use the typical nomenclature and tribalism by claiming something is 'old school' or not, they're all variations on the various editions D&D.  Let everyone else make this false distinction and draw up battle lines, I'll play the games I like.

I rather enjoy Scarlet Heroes for example,and I hear Godbound is similar, if you like high powered play.  Swords and Wizardry is a little too basic for me, however.

If I have a complaint about 5e's business model, I'd have to say it's their focus on adventures over source books, but if it's what makes them money...  It's also not like I haven't made enough worlds in my lifetime.  What's a few more?

1: Same here. And for me I detest the "OSR movement" because so often its just a front for design theft and has become more and more a banner for flat out game theft with the serial numbers filed off.

2: Scarlet Heroes to me shows how to do this right.

3: WOTC has so far two sourcebooks. If this is their idea of sourcebooks then probably better that they passed this time around. They are though cranking out these little UA articles and theres that odd ongoing "Plane Shift" setting thing they have been releasing as PDFs, Instraad, Zendikar and Kaladesh so fat I believe. From the playtest material it seems they may be gearing up for a sourcebook. But could be it will just be all collected into a new UA PDF. Hard to say with WOTC.

Quote from: CRKrueger;950824Player's Option is 2.5, the modules TSR was releasing at that point had been absolutely rancid for years.

Not really. You still need the core game to play and TSR never switched over to using much of anything from it thereafter. It was just another in a long line of experimental add-ons to 2e. Its no more 2.5 than the Players Handbooks are.

Quote from: CRKrueger;950897Don't think it was.  The point was, I believe, adventures sell just fine.

They do when they're well-written. But my point was more that even if they don't sell well, they're necessary (along with setting books) to help sell the rulebooks.

Quote from: HorusArisen;950873The third party support is interesting but proves my point, extra material is interesting

Keep in mind that some of that third party stuff is still going through WOTC first, others they just license and are relatively hands off. Its an odd set up. But this has been WOTC's thing for a long time now.

Quote from: HorusArisen;950800I've glanced at Iron Kingdoms once or twice but seems a bit pricey to buy just to convert, what's the system like?

Iron Kingdoms was a d20 RPG for the WarMachine minis universe. I heard some mumblings about their own RPG system, but I haven't seen it.

Quote from: fearsomepirate;950810When WotC took over TSR, they looked at the books and saw that books like Player's Option: Combat & Tactics outsold modules many times over.

There are more players than GMs.

That's why Palladium makes all their books dual use. AKA, all the setting books have new toys for Players (classes, spells, guns, etc)

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;950876Hell, my real life brothers and I use "shit for brains" as an endearment to each other.

And accuracy!

Quote from: The Butcher;950877and now stands a non-zero chance of getting a suite of digital tools that actually comes out and does not suck.

Has anyone been following this D&D Beyond thing?

Anyone part of any testing?

Any reason to believe it isn't 5e's vaporware?

Quote from: HorusArisen;950610At the risk of a slightly negative first thread I have to ask where has D&D gone?

Ha! Ha! (seriously, this made me laugh)

Where has D&D gone? Without reading further through this thread. There are a ton of resources, google it.

Quote from: CRKrueger;950897Don't think it was.  The point was, I believe, adventures sell just fine.

Sorta, the difference here is an AP for PF is 6 books long at 25$ a pop compared to a setting or splat book at 45$ a pop, but the manufacturing costs are almost the same.  At least according to the printer in my gaming group.
Kinda nifty to sell less but make more money.

What was hinted at before Paizo's one off modules don't sell very well compared to their APs

Quote from: Spinachcat;950920Has anyone been following this D&D Beyond thing?

Anyone part of any testing?

Any reason to believe it isn't 5e's vaporware?

It literally just launched. I signed up for the beta. We'll see. I heard the 4e online tools were pretty good.

Quote from: Omega;9508982: Scarlet Heroes to me shows how to do this right.

Kevin Crawford is truly talented and notably absent from any OSR drama. Focuses on just putting out good shit.