D&D sales jumped 33% last year!

In case anyone else was wondering.

www.cnbc.com/2021/03/13/dungeons-dragons...the-coronavirus.html

My daughter and her friends have been playing D&D at school.

It's genuinely great that normies have embraced RPGs

I saw an anecdotal estimation that more people are playing D&D now than have ever played in the entire history of the game. As in more people played in 2019-2020 than between 1975 and 2018.

I was in Target a few weeks ago and they had D&D ads on their giant monitors - showing people playing and everything. It’s amazing.

It’s also one of the places where I break from OSR. I promote and advocate for the little indie stuff, for going back and playing B/X to the hilt. But the reality is that 5e is the best designed and most accessible the game has ever been. I love the 1e, TPK on the first trap Murder dungeons where you count torches and rations....but that is not a mainstream vision of the game at all.

5e’s popularity is good for everyone. You hear all of this bellyaching about 5e stealing all of the oxygen. “People only play D&D because it’s the most popular.” That is absolutely true, and as I’ve said here before it’s what people mostly play because it’s the most available. Doesn’t matter how much I dislike certain aspects of it, coming from over 30 years of exposure to it. It’s the RPG that a kid with $15 can walk into Target and buy.

Maybe next year, two years from now that kid is running Through Ultan’s Door or putting something in Zinequest. Maybe their interest will drive them to Emmy Allen, Patrick Stuart, Ben Milton, Harvey Stroh, and others away from the more available, corporate-owned game. I don’t see why the indie crowd doesn’t get this, it’s more like the kind of bland, unfocused “I don’t like popular stuff” elitism that characterizes many scenes. Let’s face it, Monsterhearts, Deep Carbon Observatory, and UVG are not for everyone. But 5e is designed to be.

I love that D&D is bigger now than ever- I despise Critical Role, I fucking hate all of the memes that speak to 5e bullshit, and I don’t like WOTC’s published adventures much. But this is -awesome- news to be celebrated

I think market dominance is not a big deal if the cost for entry into the market of other systems is close to 0 like in RPGs.

I've been playing 5e off and on for a few years now, but my longest running campaign was during the pandemic on Zoom. DnD Beyond has been great.

A nice step up from its devil-worship reputation in mainstream media 40 years back.

Part of what allows this game (and other RPGs) to thrive is that it is different things to different people. Where boardgames are rigid in structure D&D lets people take the game where they want to be. I've seen some pretty crazy settings and storylines over the years.

We'll see what happens post Covid-19 vax. I've been playing roll20 1 day a week since May 2020 and 2 days a week since October 2020. The latest is in the post WW1 Eberron world. I think the 2020 D&D joiners will revert to their regular in person game nights and drop the Discord / roll 20 this summer. The thing what I'll miss the most about the Covid-19 lock down is the weekly roll20 D&D gaming interaction with the out of state people that we normally only get to game with once or twice a year.

KingPut wrote: The thing what I'll miss the most about the Covid-19 lock down is the weekly roll20 D&D gaming interaction with the out of state people that we normally only get to game with once or twice a year.

Facts.

This is pretty rad. The very cool thing about 5e is that you can pull it in all sorts of directions to really tune it's to your frequency. Do you want to make a fairly over-the-top narrative focused game with lots of magic? Go for it. Do you want a more survival-based system that emphasizes hexcrawling or something? Do it. I mean, 5e isn't the best at most of those things, but it is pretty good at a lot of things. You could always learn another game, but most RPG fans I know underestimate how daunting it can be to learn a new system.

It's easy to run badly too, and you kind of need to just figure it out. But it's doable, and it does help that the starter sets are both good. (At least the original Starter Set is. I think haven't played the Essentials kit but I hear good things.)

I've been playing weekly for a few years now, and it's almost always the highlight of my week.

This suggests to me that a "5.5 edition" with really streamlined rules and even stronger emphasis on narrative improv is coming. As well as a lot more was to bling your table.

Also, a 46% PROFIT on 400 million!?!

Think about that the next time you buy a $50 splat book or adventure.

Gonna be interesting come time for Chris Perkins and Jeremy Crawford to renegotiate their contracts. How much them writers get? Not nearly enough apparently!

I have almost all of their books, but im at the limit for releases. If they pump up the volume (dance dance) i can't imagine quality and sales will stay linear.

I bet we will see more things like those themed dice sets to go with each adventure as well.

I hope they do Dragonlance justice (if that is really coming this year). I want a Ravenloft sized box with an honest to god cloth map, minis for each character (this assumes its Tanis and co again), and all the swag. Or Gord the Rogue is back in Greyhawk, that'd be cool.

jason10mm wrote: This suggests to me that a "5.5 edition" with really streamlined rules and even stronger emphasis on narrative improv is coming. As well as a lot more was to bling your table.

Thing is the theory crafting and focus on builds is a huge draw for some people. Seems to me if someone really wants that they could play Pathfinder (or Diablo) but 5e is good enough at it.

The thing is 5e is very much trying to be all things to all people, and the miracle is that it holds a together at all.

This is why i think they will start to split the line but keep the 5e moniker.

I can see them trying a more minis focused tactical combat line and a streaming friendly narrative one.

Id like to see Battlesystem come back for a mass combat game. Spelljammer as well (with the undoubtedly GLORIOUS minis they can do today). 5e is a brand now, not just a specific rpg edition.

The biggest driver has to be high-quality session videos on YouTube. Back in the day you had to know someone in the weirdo cult to even figure out what to do—picking it up and running it cold was a nonstarter for most people. But now you can just watch a video of people doing the thing and obviously having fun, and instantly grok all the beats. And it doesn't hurt that the activity itself is reminiscent of telling stories around a campfire, an innately human activity that's positively prehistoric.