Zero Buzz on 5E...Is It Dead Out The Gate?

Insomniac · Post by **Insomniac** » Mon Apr 27, 2015 4:45 pm

Wow, 5E sold better than a game that hadn't had new product put out for it in like 3 years, and was officially announced as an unsupported dead edition in January 2012. Its "really on a tear."

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Mon Apr 27, 2015 5:55 pm

Note also that not only does the Hasbro CEO not seem to know that D&D came out with a new edition or what edition it's currently on - there's also no way to know that he's talking about the table top RPG at all. I was sitting in a game store on Sunday and a guy came in to talk about D&D with the proprietor and I had no idea what they were talking about. And it turned out that they were talking about Attack Wing. It's a WizKids miniatures game with pre-painted dragons that happens to be called "Dungeons & Dragons." It is unrelated to 5th edition D&D, but fans of its sister system Star Trek Attack Wing and X-Wing seem to think it is pretty decent.

It came out in Q4 of 2014, so expect WotC to include it in "Dungeons & Dragons Sales" for the last two quarters. So not only is Hasbro's CEO's comment actually saying that D&D is selling much better than last year when they literally had no products, but he's also not even specifically saying that the new edition of the books is even doing that.

-Username17

erik · Post by **erik** » Mon Apr 27, 2015 10:24 pm

Milwaukee Brewers are on a tear!

In other news, with their most recent win, the Milwaukee Brewers are projected to have a record winning season of 147-15. All they need to do is keep winning their next 143 games following their current trend of having won a game.

Stubbazubba · Post by **Stubbazubba** » Tue Apr 28, 2015 12:12 am

Today's official blogpost wrote:Mike Mearls has always been lazy

Well, at least it's out there now.

Edit: For some strange reason if I try to put in a link it eats the post. http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/feature ... m’s-helper

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Tue Apr 28, 2015 12:25 am

FrankTrollman wrote:Note also that not only does the Hasbro CEO not seem to know that D&D came out with a new edition or what edition it's currently on - there's also no way to know that he's talking about the table top RPG at all. I was sitting in a game store on Sunday and a guy came in to talk about D&D with the proprietor and I had no idea what they were talking about. And it turned out that they were talking about Attack Wing. It's a WizKids miniatures game with pre-painted dragons that happens to be called "Dungeons & Dragons." It is unrelated to 5th edition D&D, but fans of its sister system Star Trek Attack Wing and X-Wing seem to think it is pretty decent.

It came out in Q4 of 2014, so expect WotC to include it in "Dungeons & Dragons Sales" for the last two quarters. So not only is Hasbro's CEO's comment actually saying that D&D is selling much better than last year when they literally had no products, but he's also not even specifically saying that the new edition of the books is even doing that.

-Username17

Oh yeah.... I need to get some of those and see if my friends will let me field dragons against their enterprises and x-wings...

momothefiddler · Post by **momothefiddler** » Tue Apr 28, 2015 12:37 am

Stubbazubba wrote:
Today's official blogpost wrote:Mike Mearls has always been lazy
Well, at least it's out there now.

Edit: For some strange reason if I try to put in a link it eats the post. http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/feature ... m’s-helper

Eh, I'm pretty pro-laziness, especially in situations like that post where it's about making tools to do things rather than doing it all the hard way. As an example, I'm quite fond of the computer on which I type this, because I don't want to have to do all the boring shit it does repeatedly by hand.

(Of course, it occurs to me that if you want your onerous calculations done for you rather than doing them repeatedly yourself, D&D may not be your thing)

Stubbazubba · Post by **Stubbazubba** » Tue Apr 28, 2015 5:57 am

momothefiddler wrote:
Stubbazubba wrote:
Today's official blogpost wrote:Mike Mearls has always been lazy
Well, at least it's out there now.

Edit: For some strange reason if I try to put in a link it eats the post. http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/feature ... m’s-helper
Eh, I'm pretty pro-laziness, especially in situations like that post where it's about making tools to do things rather than doing it all the hard way. As an example, I'm quite fond of the computer on which I type this, because I don't want to have to do all the boring shit it does repeatedly by hand.

(Of course, it occurs to me that if you want your onerous calculations done for you rather than doing them repeatedly yourself, D&D may not be your thing)

I actually approve of the content of the article, and that blurb about Mearls was almost certainly written by him in a self-deprecating joke. There's not really anything objectionable about this blog entry, I just read that line and thought "But it's true outside the context of the joke, too."

momothefiddler · Post by **momothefiddler** » Tue Apr 28, 2015 9:52 am

Stubbazubba wrote:
momothefiddler wrote:
Stubbazubba wrote:
Well, at least it's out there now.

Edit: For some strange reason if I try to put in a link it eats the post. http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/feature ... m’s-helper
Eh, I'm pretty pro-laziness, especially in situations like that post where it's about making tools to do things rather than doing it all the hard way. As an example, I'm quite fond of the computer on which I type this, because I don't want to have to do all the boring shit it does repeatedly by hand.

(Of course, it occurs to me that if you want your onerous calculations done for you rather than doing them repeatedly yourself, D&D may not be your thing)
I actually approve of the content of the article, and that blurb about Mearls was almost certainly written by him in a self-deprecating joke. There's not really anything objectionable about this blog entry, I just read that line and thought "But it's true outside the context of the joke, too."

Fair.

Insomniac · Post by **Insomniac** » Tue Apr 28, 2015 6:56 pm

Speaking of Mearls, is this his last hurrah? If 5E flops, and to my read of the situation it looks like it is flopping, is he out of the company, or at least demoted? Unless he's tunneling like a mole and "knows where the bodies are buried," what could be the reason for keeping him around? Hasbro just doesn't care? They're happy that the video games and board games and stuff like Attack Wing is making money and they don't really care if the pen and paper game is a dud? I don't know. I'd have to imagine he's gonna get forced out sooner rather than later.

Grek · Post by **Grek** » Tue Apr 28, 2015 6:59 pm

I honestly think its as simple as Hasbro not giving two shits about D&D. They want the name because the name is periodically worth some licensing fees, but there's no money in actually making a good tabletop game. So they don't make one.

Stubbazubba · Post by **Stubbazubba** » Tue Apr 28, 2015 9:43 pm

I think Hasbro has made a conscious decision to slash D&D's production and maintenance costs to almost nothing. That's why the lead designers have all stopped working full-time, and why even what they are releasing on their glacial schedule is actually being farmed out to third parties. The D&D offices are barely staffed, so that this edition will actually make a little bit of money. Not a lot; there's no ambition here, just looking for a safe, mediocre return on a small, small investment. I don't know how Mearls survived in 4e for so long, but this, I think, is why Hasbro keeps him on; he's promised to slash the D&D department to almost nothing, and just try to make as much money off the release as possible, and go into evergreen minimal profit mode so real business people can make the brand profitable (which means video games and soon, movies).

The brand is far more worthwhile than the P&P product.

Insomniac · Post by **Insomniac** » Tue Apr 28, 2015 10:37 pm

That could be it. Windjammer and others have said that Dungeons and Dragons is working on a skeleton crew and that for every Dungeons and Dragons employee, Paizo's got three. The third party farming is a way for the Dungeons and Dragons guys to hook their friends up, some of them fired after the 4E fiasco. Its got more than the whiff of a scam about it. It seems scummy at best, quasi-illegal at worst and could be a genuine crime called "tunneling."

Also, somebody said here that Hasbro really wants to get the movie rights back from Sweet Pea, that company that turned out a few lousy "Straight to SyFy" Dungeons and Dragons movies. Hasbro wants some o' dat Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones money.

Shady314 · Post by **Shady314** » Wed Apr 29, 2015 1:47 am

Insomniac wrote:Also, somebody said here that Hasbro really wants to get the movie rights back from Sweet Pea, that company that turned out a few lousy "Straight to SyFy" Dungeons and Dragons movies. Hasbro wants some o' dat Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones money.

Id love to see the crap they'd undoubtedly churn out with that. Well not see but hear of and read funny reviews of.

erik · Post by **erik** » Wed Apr 29, 2015 3:05 am

I don't think that is tunneling. Tunneling is when you direct resources to yourself for personal gain and to the detriment of the company. It would be kind of amazing if Mearls was a Paizo agent scuttling the ship so that Paizo could prosper and employ his friends who got burned by WotC. But I'll take Occam's Razor that the truth is far less complicated than that and D&D is just failing and Mearls is just riding the wave as long as he can surf it.

Anywho, onto the movies, licenses and wot.

If they were to make a D&D movie/series in the vein of LotR or GoT with the intent of making tons of money on serials, their options of settings and characters are pretty limited. It would pretty much have to be Drizzt. A movie needs a story brand, and that's their golden goose from the underdark right there. Anyone else would get you blank stares.

But the visuals and message of evil black elves who live underground unlike their good white brethren... fuck. How do you make that pop culture, and should you even? I contend that D&D doesn't have great stories to translate into movies and as such it's movie brand power is pretty shitty. Hasbro doesn't make epic movies anyway.

So Hasbro won't do that. They could give D&D to the folks behind MLP:FiM, or equivalent talents. They could make a fun cartoon about murder hobos defending the realm against the threat of the week and slowly rising in power. It's not a money shitting factory on its own, but they could renew the brand and get tons of built-in marketing if they made a cartoon again. Generate toy lines, games, whatever.

Give D&D to people not in the WotC culture, don't even make an RPG with it for another few years (again). Make your cartoon and toy line and eventually when ready to aim for a new RPG edition, hire game designers behind their board games or from somewhere else distant in the company and certainly from outside of Seattle.

angelfromanotherpin · Post by **angelfromanotherpin** » Wed Apr 29, 2015 4:41 am

erik wrote:It would pretty much have to be Drizzt. A movie needs a story brand, and that's their golden goose from the underdark right there. Anyone else would get you blank stares.

I would not put it past them to do a gritty reboot of the 80s cartoon.

Shady314 · Post by **Shady314** » Wed Apr 29, 2015 4:50 am

erik wrote:I don't think that is tunneling. Tunneling is when you direct resources to yourself for personal gain and to the detriment of the company. It would be kind of amazing if Mearls was a Paizo agent scuttling the ship so that Paizo could prosper and employ his friends who got burned by WotC. But I'll take Occam's Razor that the truth is far less complicated than that and D&D is just failing and Mearls is just riding the wave as long as he can surf it.

Anywho, onto the movies, licenses and wot.

If they were to make a D&D movie/series in the vein of LotR or GoT with the intent of making tons of money on serials, their options of settings and characters are pretty limited. It would pretty much have to be Drizzt. A movie needs a story brand, and that's their golden goose from the underdark right there. Anyone else would get you blank stares.

But the visuals and message of evil black elves who live underground unlike their good white brethren... fuck. How do you make that pop culture, and should you even? I contend that D&D doesn't have great stories to translate into movies and as such it's movie brand power is pretty shitty. Hasbro doesn't make epic movies anyway.

So Hasbro won't do that. They could give D&D to the folks behind MLP:FiM, or equivalent talents. They could make a fun cartoon about murder hobos defending the realm against the threat of the week and slowly rising in power. It's not a money shitting factory on its own, but they could renew the brand and get tons of built-in marketing if they made a cartoon again. Generate toy lines, games, whatever.

Give D&D to people not in the WotC culture, don't even make an RPG with it for another few years (again). Make your cartoon and toy line and eventually when ready to aim for a new RPG edition, hire game designers behind their board games or from somewhere else distant in the company and certainly from outside of Seattle.

Super easy fix there is to just make dark elves pale white and always call them Drow. Fanboys will howl but still see it.

Anyways I never thought any company would make the first crappy DnD movie but they did it. Id never underestimate the amount of envy companies have towards Marvel at the moment.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Wed Apr 29, 2015 5:22 am

angelfromanotherpin wrote:
erik wrote:It would pretty much have to be Drizzt. A movie needs a story brand, and that's their golden goose from the underdark right there. Anyone else would get you blank stares.
I would not put it past them to do a gritty reboot of the 80s cartoon.

Megan Fox is Sheila the Thief. Shia Labeouf is Eric the Cavalier. It is directed by Michael Bay. It is nominated for four Golden Raspberries and grosses four hundred million dollars world wide.

-Username17

rasmuswagner · Post by **rasmuswagner** » Wed Apr 29, 2015 6:03 am

FrankTrollman wrote:
angelfromanotherpin wrote:
erik wrote:It would pretty much have to be Drizzt. A movie needs a story brand, and that's their golden goose from the underdark right there. Anyone else would get you blank stares.
I would not put it past them to do a gritty reboot of the 80s cartoon.
Megan Fox is Sheila the Thief. Shia Labeouf is Eric the Cavalier. It is directed by Michael Bay. It is nominated for four Golden Raspberries and grosses four hundred million dollars world wide.

-Username17

We all laugh at Michael Bay; mostly because his movies have shitty plots, worse acting, and substitute explosions for character growth.

But the man is a visionary genius in the fields that do interest him, and it becomes very clear when you see a film by his imitators, such as Battleship. You watch Tarantino for homages, genre mashups and snarky gangsters; you watch Bay for the sweeping, panning, rotating shots.

PhoneLobster · Post by **PhoneLobster** » Wed Apr 29, 2015 6:12 am

FrankTrollman wrote:Shia Labeouf is Eric the Cavalier.

To be fair, it may be the one and only role he was actually born to play.

maglag · Post by **maglag** » Wed Apr 29, 2015 10:10 am

erik wrote: If they were to make a D&D movie/series in the vein of LotR or GoT with the intent of making tons of money on serials, their options of settings and characters are pretty limited. It would pretty much have to be Drizzt. A movie needs a story brand, and that's their golden goose from the underdark right there. Anyone else would get you blank stares.

Three counter-words: Eberron the Movie.

Doesn't matter that most of the public has no idea what Eberron is. You show armies of robots against armies of zombies with fire airships and lighting trains in the background while the psionic monastic order fights against transdimensional horrors and the dragonmark guilds compete for supremacy and people will be interested.

MGuy · Post by **MGuy** » Wed Apr 29, 2015 12:05 pm

maglag wrote:
erik wrote: If they were to make a D&D movie/series in the vein of LotR or GoT with the intent of making tons of money on serials, their options of settings and characters are pretty limited. It would pretty much have to be Drizzt. A movie needs a story brand, and that's their golden goose from the underdark right there. Anyone else would get you blank stares.
Three counter-words: Eberron the Movie.

Doesn't matter that most of the public has no idea what Eberron is. You show armies of robots against armies of zombies with fire airships and lighting trains in the background while the psionic monastic order fights against transdimensional horrors and the dragonmark guilds compete for supremacy and people will be interested.

Why not do both? You have one fluffy and fun kids DnD and another, more mature, DnD franchise going on.

rasmuswagner · Post by **rasmuswagner** » Wed Apr 29, 2015 12:30 pm

maglag wrote:
erik wrote: If they were to make a D&D movie/series in the vein of LotR or GoT with the intent of making tons of money on serials, their options of settings and characters are pretty limited. It would pretty much have to be Drizzt. A movie needs a story brand, and that's their golden goose from the underdark right there. Anyone else would get you blank stares.
Three counter-words: Eberron the Movie.

Doesn't matter that most of the public has no idea what Eberron is. You show armies of robots against armies of zombies with fire airships and lighting trains in the background while the psionic monastic order fights against transdimensional horrors and the dragonmark guilds compete for supremacy and people will be interested.

You put a dude with a sword and a lightning-gun in the front and a chick in corset and brass aviator goggles in the back and a zeppelin above them. Boom, instant cash cow.

Leress · Post by **Leress** » Wed Apr 29, 2015 12:36 pm

You put a dude with a sword and a lightning-gun in the front and a chick in corset and brass aviator goggles in the back and a zeppelin above them. Boom, instant cash cow.

Really? "Steampunk" doesn't look like something that is really selling right now.

maglag · Post by **maglag** » Wed Apr 29, 2015 1:51 pm

Leress wrote:
You put a dude with a sword and a lightning-gun in the front and a chick in corset and brass aviator goggles in the back and a zeppelin above them. Boom, instant cash cow.
Really? "Steampunk" doesn't look like something that is really selling right now.

Cough Bloodbourne cough Order 1886.

Also the sword should be glowing. And the robot and zombie armies extradimensional horrors lurking in the background.

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Wed Apr 29, 2015 2:06 pm

maglag wrote:Cough Bloodbourne cough Order 1886.

I hope this is a joking reference to silva not knowing what the fuck steampunk is.