D&D General Mike Mearls sits down with Ben from Questing Beast

Whizbang Dustyboots said:

WotC is licensing a lot this past year, most famously online gambling, but I'm seeing ads for all sorts of random products with D&D logos or artwork on them.

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mamba said:

As I wrote, I do not really follow Magic, but I did hear complaints about too many sets to keep up with and people losing interest because of that. The Q4 report also does not look like it is going from strength to strength. Digital gained a little, analog lost a little, the only real growth is in licensing (I assume much of that is owed to BG3, but not sure)

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There was one fewer Magic set released in that year. There are complaints about Magic all the time, but I don't think it's driven off a cliff yet - it's still a VERY good game with stuff people like being released.

kapars said:

Youtube will become more positive about 5.24 / 5.5 when they publish the new SRD and third parties can start making money off it too.

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We already are. You don't need a new SRD to make 5.5 compatible products.

Just watched the interview. Some interesting points in there. I was super hyped for 5e24 and I've kind of set back and taken some time to let it roll out. I have the 3 core books now. I'm just kind of meh now. The monster manual just kind of fell flat for me. I'm still holding on though, I really want to see setting materials and adventures. I feel I can easily make those work with 5e14. With each edition I like to look at the Orc and see how they change...there's no Orc in the new MM. I'm just gonna wait and see.

Wolfpack48 said:

And why wouldn't you want to reproduce "happy accidents?" If they caught lightning in the bottle, why wouldn't you want to know as much as possible about how to repeat that?

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Because it’s not something they can replicate. The success of 5E within the tiny RPG industry circa 2014 was because of the design. The massive pop culture phenom 5E became was entirely down to outside factors. Stranger Things and Critical Role. Those two expanded the hobby and took 5E from top dog within the tiny hobby to global fad.

overgeeked said:

Because it’s not something they can replicate. The success of 5E within the tiny RPG industry circa 2014 was because of the design. The massive pop culture phenom 5E became was entirely down to outside factors. Stranger Things and Critical Role. Those two expanded the hobby and took 5E from top dog within the tiny hobby to global fad.

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I assume you mean "wasn't because of the design" here?

However, I don't think it is fair to say 5e's popularity was solely based on outside factors. As has been shown, 5e was already a success before Critical Role & Stranger Things. Also, I don't know that CR had much effect on this pop cultural success. I don't know anyone outside of D&D people who know what CR even is. I am sure ST did, but that came out 2 years after 5e was already a success. Some of its success was because of the design. To deny that is just revisionist history IMO.

dave2008 said:

I don't know anyone outside of D&D people who know what CR even is. I am sure ST did, but that came out 2 years after 5e was already a success.

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Critical Role's biggest impact came during the pandemic, when suddenly a lot of people had a lot of time to watch four hour episodes of actual play. (This is also the period I binged all of Matt Colville's Mastering the Dungeon videos.) I picked up the Starter Set during lockdown, and I suspect a lot of people did the same.

Wolfpack48 said:

"Player-driven" means driven by feedback from players, that is, reinforcing the things they like and fixing the things they don't. It's an engagement model where you constantly ask how things are working for customers, and it's a working and well-known business model.

And why wouldn't you want to reproduce "happy accidents?" If they caught lightning in the bottle, why wouldn't you want to know as much as possible about how to repeat that?

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Isn’t that exactly what 2024e is? They repeatedly asked for feedback. The changes to the game were largely driven by feedback.

dave2008 said:

I assume you mean "wasn't because of the design" here?

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No. I’m being generous and saying the design was good enough to take over the tiny RPG industry. As opposed to marketing or name recognition, etc.

dave2008 said:

However, I don't think it is fair to say 5e's popularity was solely based on outside factors. As has been shown, 5e was already a success before Critical Role & Stranger Things.

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Hence mentioning the split between before ST & CR and after. The design was good and captured the tiny RPG market. But the design was not so good the game had a second pop culture fad moment. That’s down to outside forces. Just like last time. The Satanic Panic made AD&D a pop culture phenom back then, not the strength of the design nor Gary’s coke-fueled spokesmanship.

dave2008 said:

Also, I don't know that CR had much effect on this pop cultural success. I don't know anyone outside of D&D people who know what CR even is. I am sure ST did, but that came out 2 years after 5e was already a success. Some of its success was because of the design. To deny that is just revisionist history IMO.

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Yes, some was the design. Granted. Hence pre- and post-ST & CR. Success within the tiny bubble, design and pre-. Success outside the tiny bubble and dramatically expanding the tiny RPG bubble, 100% down to outside forces.

Whizbang Dustyboots said:

Critical Role's biggest impact came during the pandemic, when suddenly a lot of people had a lot of time to watch four hour episodes of actual play. (This is also the period I binged all of Matt Colville's Mastering the Dungeon videos.) I picked up the Starter Set during lockdown, and I suspect a lot of people did the same.

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Quite a lot of people made the time prior to that. CR had the most successful Kickstarter back in early 2019. They were already able to get $11.3 million in funding prior to the pandemic.

Whizbang Dustyboots said:

Critical Role's biggest impact came during the pandemic, when suddenly a lot of people had a lot of time to watch four hour episodes of actual play. (This is also the period I binged all of Matt Colville's Mastering the Dungeon videos.) I picked up the Starter Set during lockdown, and I suspect a lot of people did the same.

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I think "a lot" is probably a lot less than what is needed to give D&D pop culture muscle. Like I said, I don't know anyone who knows what CR is (minus my EnWorld peeps of course).