Get ready for more 5E books

[jaappleton]

I cannot believe I never picked up on this earlier. However, now that I see it, many pieces have fallen into place.

"We delivered compelling gaming experiences, led by the work of our teams at Wizards of the Coast. Our positive results to date have us on plan to double Wizards of the Coast coast revenues over five years from 2018 to 2023."
- Brian D. Goldner, chairman and CEO of Hasbro 2/12/20

https://twitter.com/misterorange/status/1310633660975116293?s=20

I looked it up. Yes, it was said.

Now, lets put the pieces into place, shall we?

In April of this year, Ray Winniger was hired to head WOTC's D&D brand. Ray's since said three classic settings are coming to 5E, I made a topic on that already. He's also said that more Magic: The Gathering crossover content will be coming, and they already announced a Forgotten Realms M:tG set, so I fully expect more Magic settings as D&D content coming.

The short story is, Ray was put in charge to increase sales. How do you do that with D&D? You push out more content. They're hiring more and more designers for the 5E team. The goal is to pretty much double their output from 2018, which was 3 years in 5E's life cycle, by the end of 2023, which is 8 years into the life of this edition.

And I think you can almost mark your calendar; in 2023 we'll see 5.5 or 6E.

Gone are the days of two or three books a year, in my opinion. I think we're going to see 5 books a year starting 2021.

Lets not forget there's also multiple video games on the way, as well.

EDIT: I can already see the "Here's comes the bloat!" comments. And... I agree, to an extent. I'm wholeheartedly in favor of more content, if its thoroughly and properly vetted.

[JackPhoenix]

Oooor you sell what you have to more people. Or up the prices while keeping the same customer base. And yeah, video games and other side products will also add up... and that's before poiting out that WotC isn't just D&D... most of the comments on that tweet talk about MtG too.

[MinotaurWarrior]

Oooor you sell what you have to more people. Or up the prices while keeping the same customer base. And yeah, video games and other side products will also add up... and that's before poiting out that WotC isn't just D&D... most of the comments on that tweet talk about MtG too.

It's almost entirely MTG, and probably a very optimistic take on arena and the new approach to supplemental products like secret lair, Modern Horizons, etc that are sold at a premium price to whale-bait.

[OldTrees1]

It's almost entirely MTG, and probably a very optimistic take on arena and the new approach to supplemental products like secret lair, Modern Horizons, etc that are sold at a premium price to whale-bait.

Yeah, WotC has made some very obvious cash grabs in MtG recently (including the Arena economy). I suspect they are overfishing mtg and will eventually turn to other smaller catches like D&D out of desperation. However in the short term I would not expect much to change around here. If they cancel MtG Secret Lair, expect D&D 6E.

[KorvinStarmast]

EDIT: I can already see the "Here's comes the bloat!" comments. And... I agree, to an extent. I'm wholeheartedly in favor of more content, if its thoroughly and properly vetted. Do we have evidence of this being likely?
Also, I have an idea that they MtG is a bigger money maker, but, they may also try something like a mini series or a Netflix series or a movie or even more video game (Sword Coast Legends or something like that) as additional revenue streams.

Not seeing more books per year as the increase, necessarily.

@MInotaurWarrior:
I am almost afraid to ask this: what is whale bait referring to? :smallconfused:

[OldTrees1]

@MInotaurWarrior:
I am almost afraid to ask this: what is whale bait referring to? :smallconfused:

Whale: A person who is an outlier that spends much more on a game.
Whale Bait: A product designed to get the Whales to buy it.

This can also coincide with predatory practices. Preying on a Whale can be quite lucrative and they are usually more vulnerable. For example Secret Lairs are "One time opportunity and you only have a window of 24h to decide. No chance for the 'morning is wiser than the night', you must buy NOW!" Pay $450 for 5 land cards.

[Comaward]

I just hope they stick with 5e, and if they really have to update it into 5.5, that they at least make it backwards-compatible.

[TrueAlphaGamer]

And I think you can almost mark your calendar; in 2023 we'll see 5.5 or 6E.

I might be able to envision the concept of a 5.5e, but I don't know how it could even be executed. Just new rules? Rules+errata? Multiple new classes? Rules overhaul? Levels past 20? Prestige classes?

Or are they going to pussyfoot around and just give us more "variant" rules? :smallannoyed:

But 6e? No way! 5e already has a very strong brand presence in the tabletop world, so I don't think WotC would want to give that up for a new edition.

[Imbalance]

What do you mean, "get" ready? I'm always ready (to wait for initial hype to subside and take advantage of clearances)!

[ahyangyi]

I might be able to envision the concept of a 5.5e, but I don't know how it could even be executed. Just new rules? Rules+errata? Multiple new classes? Rules overhaul? Levels past 20? Prestige classes?

Or are they going to pussyfoot around and just give us more "variant" rules? :smallannoyed:

But 6e? No way! 5e already has a very strong brand presence in the tabletop world, so I don't think WotC would want to give that up for a new edition.

We already have those "class overhaul" OAs don't we? If it turned out that half of the PHB classes get renovated in the end, we might as well call the end product "5.5e".

Sure, they might just call the new versions "optional rules", like Pathfinder 1e did with their unchained classes. But mostly they are functionally just new versions of things, allowed to co-exist with the old versions.

[jaappleton]

Do we have evidence of this being likely?
Also, I have an idea that they MtG is a bigger money maker, but, they may also try something like a mini series or a Netflix series or a movie or even more video game (Sword Coast Legends or something like that) as additional revenue streams.

Not seeing more books per year as the increase, necessarily.


Ray Winninger was Senior Platform Strategist at Microsoft for awhile before taking over D&D.

WOTC is led by Chris ***** (That's just his name, please don't mod me) who was one of many Vice Presidents at... Microsoft.

Hasbro hires people like this to aggressively push out new content. And while its easy to point to MtG as a major source of revenue (Which it absolutely is), and see how they're milking that cow faster than ever (They absolutely are), if you believe D&D isn't also being told to push more content out... I'm sorry, I don't mean any disrespect when I say this, but you're kidding yourself.

The design team has a history of this process:

1. Hire new designers
2. Assign a lead designer as oversight (There's more leads than just Jeremy Crawford & Chris Perkins at this point)
3. Have the new designers bring old D&D content to 5E (Yawning Portal, Ghosts of Saltmarsh) while the lead designer gives some oversight
4. Push out that product
5. They've now grown the team, given new members understanding and growth, and now they can handle a larger workload without needing hand holding

They've been doing this for quite some time now. After 5E's initial release, there was a mass exodus of staff. Chris Sims, Rodney Thompson, Greg Bilsand, etc. Now they've more than completely replenished that staff. In fact, its larger than ever.

Why would you have such a large staff unless it was to produce more content?

If you've read what I've said above, about how they use older content to teach their newer staff members... What do you think they've been working on? Quite possibly they've been working on bringing the old D&D settings to 5E, right? That would make sense.

So what's everyone else working on?

[OldTrees1]

Hasbro hires people like this to aggressively push out new content. And while its easy to point to MtG as a major source of revenue (Which it absolutely is), and see how they're milking that cow faster than ever (They absolutely are), if you believe D&D isn't also being told to push more content out... I'm sorry, I don't mean any disrespect when I say this, but you're kidding yourself.

It makes sense we should expect D&D to be pushed to bring in more revenue. I just think MtG will siphon off a decent amount of that pressure. WotC thinks MtG can print money*, but does not have a similar delusion about D&D. So if WotC is expected to double, then maybe they only expect a 50% increase from D&D. We should expect to see something, but probably not as bad as WotC's usual.

*5 lands, $450.


PS: How much does Baldur's Gate 3 factor into this increase in staff?

[KorvinStarmast]

No chance for the 'morning is wiser than the night', you must buy NOW!" Pay $450 for 5 land cards. Goodness, I once again thank my lucky stars that I never bit the hook on MtG.
Or are they going to pussyfoot around and just give us more "variant" rules? :smallannoyed: We did that for the first 15 years that game was in play ... so it kinda works?

But 6e? No way! My sentiments as well

The design team has a history of this process:
1. Hire new designers
2. Assign a lead designer as oversight (There's more leads than just Jeremy Crawford & Chris Perkins at this point)
3. Have the new designers bring old D&D content to 5E (Yawning Portal, Ghosts of Saltmarsh) while the lead designer gives some oversight
4. Push out that product
5. They've now grown the team, given new members understanding and growth, and now they can handle a larger workload without needing hand holding

They've been doing this for quite some time now. After 5E's initial release, there was a mass exodus of staff. Chris Sims, Rodney Thompson, Greg Bilsand, etc. Now they've more than completely replenished that staff. In fact, its larger than ever.

I am guessing that Baldur's Gate, being a video game, may have an impact on that. But thanks for the update. (More jobs, good!)

[jaappleton]

Regarding the question of, “How much staff is dedicated to the video games?”

Mearls was assigned to be their liaison to Larian Studios, the games developers. He’s since been reassigned back to work on tabletop.

Kate Welch had... some strange, particular title for a time. She was a game designed for about 18 months at WOTC before becoming “Senior User Experience Designer”, a title she held for almost nine months. As it was explained to me, that’s more of a title associated with a video game design scenario. She’s since moved on to a new job, at a new video game development studio.

Look.... We all have our opinions on Mearls. I’m just going to say that he has certainly put in his time at WOTC, he’s worked there quite awhile. If he was assigned as liaison to Larian for Baldur’s Gate 3, undoubtedly the biggest D&D video game since... Oh, geez. The Neverwinter MMO was released in 2013, and before that it was maybe Neverwinter Nights 2 in 2006. If you take the MMO out of it, D&D’s had a few really garbage games since NWN2 in 2006.

My point is, BG3 is a huge deal. Massive. Absolutely massive, and it’s not an understatement to say how this game performs financially is going to direct a lot of decisions for WOTC for the next 5-8 years.

And they put Mearls on it. Safe to say, they wanted to make sure it really felt like a D&D game.

......but now he’s back on tabletop. They put him on the biggest narrative driven (aka not MMO) digital D&D project in about 15 years.

And he was on that project for about 18 months.

If all they put in their biggest digital project was one guy, and that was partially to get him the heck out of the spotlight, I think we can assume they don’t have a full team dedicated to video game design.

[KorvinStarmast]

And they put Mearls on it. Safe to say, they wanted to make sure it really felt like a D&D game. Which in Mearls case means "magic all over the place" but I guess with video games that's a good fit. And you are right: he's certainly someone to turn to for the feel bit.


......but now he’s back on tabletop. They put him on the biggest narrative driven (aka not MMO) digital D&D project in about 15 years. And he was on that project for about 18 months. If all they put in their biggest digital project was one guy, and that was partially to get him the heck out of the spotlight, I think we can assume they don’t have a full team dedicated to video game design. I think he might have some reach back to WoTC if he's off somewhere else, and that may need another filled chair or two, but I see your reasoning and it makes sense.

[JadedDM]

WOTC is led by Chris ***** (That's just his name, please don't mod me) who was one of many Vice Presidents at... Microsoft.

Wow, poor guy. You'd think he'd legally change it to 'Cox' or something. :smalleek:

[jaappleton]

Wow, poor guy. You'd think he'd legally change it to 'Cox' or something. :smalleek:

Im legitimately curious how many swear words did you google trying to guess what was behind the censoring? :smalltongue:

For the record, I didn’t censor that. I just typed his name out and the post was censored as it uploaded.

[OldTrees1]

Im legitimately curious how many swear words did you google trying to guess what was behind the censoring? :smalltongue:

For the record, I didn’t censor that. I just typed his name out and the post was censored as it uploaded.

1d3 10 char

[JadedDM]

Im legitimately curious how many swear words did you google trying to guess what was behind the censoring? :smalltongue:

None. I just googled 'wotc leader chris.' :smallcool::smallbiggrin:

[MinotaurWarrior]

I just think MtG will siphon off a decent amount of that pressure. WotC thinks MtG can print money*, but does not have a similar delusion about D&D.

*5 lands, $450.


It's not a delusion if its true.

We've entered into the third postmodern age of collectibles. First started in the 50s where they actually became valuable (think Action Comics 1). Next was in the 90s when people were deluded into thinking they were investments (Beanie Babies). Now everyone knows they're worthless, but is spending the money anyway. Secret lair gets young single childless men with moderate career success, arena gets kids with their parents credit cards, and WotC gets as much money as people are willing to spend.

In 2005, if you were a MtG fan willing to spend $500/mo on magic (with the money going to WotC), how were you going to do it? You could maybe, at most, hit two sealed events per week (if your area had two game stores supporting FNM) and loose out, but that only costed about 240. Buying constructed decks happens on the secondary market and doesn't give WotC any money. Special art cards were similarly all promos at events given out for free and cost money only on the secondary market. If you were a kid you could beg your mom for a pack in the check out aisle at Walmart, but that was once a week. You could play more on MtGO/MODO, but the UI was very unattractive and the community was higher skill creating a very feels-bad environment that deterred people.

Now they're figuring out how to capture all of the demand that exists. "Booster Fun" both actually serves kids / collectors better and gets more of their money. Arena lets kids beg their parents for stuff any day of the week. Secret lair gets money directly from collectors and people who just want to spend money.

Until they run out of these new product ideas, MTG very much does have a license to print money.

Oh, and they're also making a TV show on Netflix.

[OldTrees1]

It's not a delusion if its true.
I think the "print money" analogy is not quite true. If they ruin their reputation they will lose the ability, so it is more like fishing for money than it is printing money. As long as they don't overfish (do things that damage their reputation with the audience) they will have an income. However if they start to overfish, they will get more money in the short term but damage or destroy their income in the long term.

Secret Lairs is kinda like a new pond to fish from. I don't think they can print new ponds, but they can discover new ones.

[GeoffWatson]

The only way to double D&D sales is by printing new PHBs, so that means a new edition. The PHB is the only book everyone buys.

It could be more computer games.

[MinotaurWarrior]

I think the "print money" analogy is not quite true. If they ruin their reputation they will lose the ability, so it is more like fishing for money than it is printing money. As long as they don't overfish (do things that damage their reputation with the audience) they will have an income. However if they start to overfish, they will get more money in the short term but damage or destroy their income in the long term.

Secret Lairs is kinda like a new pond to fish from. I don't think they can print new ponds, but they can discover new ones.

I think the fishing analogy is wrong because overfishing is just fishing more. To ruin their reputation, mtg has to do something else other than sell more products. This isn't like in prior waves of collectibles, like the 90s alt-cover comics craze, where oversupply damaged demand because the demand was predicated on a belief that the comics would increase in value.

If there is a guy who wants to spend 1k$ a month on mtg but is currently only spending $500, and they come out with basic lands that cost 1k$ each and have $0.25 of gold leaf on them, this new product will likely actually *increase* his demand because his demand for mtg isn't predicated on those cards holding value, but rather on the somewhat addictive reward he gets from spending money on the hobby, and that reward is getting reinforced by this new opportunity.

Eventually, yes, mtg will find all of the markets that really exist and saturate them with product, loosing their ability to grow by selling more whale-bait. And maybe they will suffer a loss of reputation if, say, they outsource writing to another Homophobe who goes even harder than the big Chandra screw up. But unlike in fishing, they probably won't ever end up hurting themselves by doing too much.

The real analogy is to sneaker sales.

[KorvinStarmast]

If there is a guy who wants to spend 1k$ a month on mtg but is currently only spending $500 Is that because his wife takes his credit card away and reads him the riot act? :smallbiggrin:

[MinotaurWarrior]

Is that because his wife takes his credit card away and reads him the riot act? :smallbiggrin:

No, it's because the secret lairs currently only take about half of it.

AFAIK though you're absolutely right about what happens when these guys get married - or even just serious enough in a relationship that their partner gets invested in their personal finances. But then hopefully fifteen years or so later they've raised a nerdy enough kid that they're begging for theme boosters at the checkout aisle and gems for Arena.

The fact that those spending patterns are so inconceivable to us (it's common to share books within a playgroup. Six people could have bought 1/2 a book each, easy) is why I think revenue talk for WotC has nothing to do with the DnD.

[Waazraath]

YES HELL YES GIVE ME MORE BOOKS!!! Eh, ahum. I mean, nice! Please make it good books though.

[jaappleton]

YES HELL YES GIVE ME MORE BOOKS!!! Eh, ahum. I mean, nice! Please make it good books though.

I have confirmation on the first book.

This isn't a joke. This is legitimate. I'm making a new topic on it momentarily.

Power Rangers for 5E

[Waazraath]

I have confirmation on the first book.

This isn't a joke. This is legitimate. I'm making a new topic on it momentarily.

Power Rangers for 5E

...

...

....... ok.

No joke. Ok, no joke - continue breathing - who knows, give it a chance, it might be wonderful....

....

WUT?!?!

[KorvinStarmast]

...

WUT?!?! It appears that the 5e game will spawn a power rangers rpg, not that power rangers will be folded into 5e. That's based on a post and link in that thread. But it's early yet. Check renegade games on twitter, they have the announcement up (https://twitter.com/PlayRenegade/status/1311259496342323206).
Also (https://www.renegadegamestudios.com/news/hasbro-partnership-gi-joe-my-little-pony):

Renegade Game Studios and Hasbro first partnered for Power Rangers: Heroes of the Grid Miniatures Board Game in 2018 and have released 11 expansions for the game since its debut. First up will be a 5th Edition compatible Power Rangers Role Playing Game and the upcoming Power Rangers Deck-Building Game which will be available to demo virtually at Renegade Con (October 9-11) and Renegade’s Morphin Meet Virtual Event beginning on October 23rd, and on shelves in Q2 2021.

[Spriteless]

I don't think you counted the A Young Adventurer's Guide line of books. Or are those outliers? I mean, they are either about expanding to a new market or adapting to the old market being parents. They certainly are not for us sorts to use, except possibly to scout new players. Leave it on the coffee table as a conversation starter, how coy.

[SiCK_Boy]

2014 - 5 Books (Core Books plus Tyranny of Dragons 2 Hardcovers)
2015 - 3 Books
2016 - 3 Books
2017 - 3 Books
2018 - 4 Books
2019 - 4 Books plus rerelease of Tyranny of Dragons plus 3 Boxed Sets (Stranger Things, Essentials, Rick and Morty)
2020 - 4 Books plus Curse of Strahd rerelease

The book product line has been increasing a little each year. There's also Beadle and Grimm's Editions for things now to go with the dice, maps, DM Screens, etc. coming out. It's these sorts of outliers that will most likely increase in the next couple of years methinks. A few more books, sure, but I don't see anything significant for the main game. Maybe 5-6 Books a year to include crossovers with other media, a couple of setting and adventure books, and maybe something core related.

I'm thinking 2024 (50th anniversary) is when the rules will get a fresh compiled coat ala 5.5 or a new 6th edition that won't stray too far from 5th. Time will tell.


What I do know for sure is I won't own a single physical copy of any of it. Thanks life.

You forgot the Starter Set in 2014.

Beadle and Grimms, and most of the DM screens, maps, and such, are not produced by Wizards of the Coast. They are licensed to other companies (like Gale Force 9), and as such, WotC is taking minimal risk (for minimal reward, one should also assume) on these products; I don't think an increase in such products would really impact WotC's bottom line, unless they want to start manufacturing them and selling them directly rather than subcontracting and licensing out (they did start with their dice sets and now the "dice and miscellany" kits).

The one area that I think is still badly exploited in the market is the support for online gaming. We have multiple solid virtual tabletop options, but most of the "products" sold by WotC for those platforms are just electronic versions of their paper books. I hope we see more products designed directly for online play; you would think that with the pandemic going on for 6 months now, people would have started turning their mind to bringing innovative solutions in those areas rather than just looking for how to sell more dead trees to us. But we also know that WotC's history with anything having to do with a computer is a long series of failures with a couple mitigated success here and there, so I do know if we can really count on them to seize the opportunity afforded by the pandemic.

As for the next edition, whenever it does come out (the 50th anniversary would make sense), I'm pretty sure it will be much more backward compatible than what we have seen with past edition changes. They will be very wary of repeating the 4th edition fiasco. Trends in the videogame industry are also pointing toward more backward compatibility, and the public expects more and more to be able to keep using its current product as well as start enjoying the new stuff. That will be a challenge for a company like WotC that is basing a lot of its product output (in the D&D line) on nostalgia and retreading the same ground all over again (Princes of the Apocalypse, Curse of Strahd, Tales of the Yawning Portal, etc.), but the large influx of new talent in the RPG world since 5e launched should allow the creation of new classics (rather than just retelling the same stories over and over again) in the coming years.