5e: settling for the geek ghetto when they should be owning the airwaves

Al recently posted this really fascinating list of mods to B/X D&D that Mike Mearls made to his home game in the genesis of the 5e rule set.  This got me thinking about what makes me frustrated with 5e.

Rant follows with otherwise unforgivable use of caps but I have FEELINGS:

WotC's whole marketing strategy seems to be to sell three $50 books to people who already play funny elf games.  There's no real effort to sell D&D to people who don't already have some experience with the game.  The Starter Set and the Basic Rules pdf marketed in game stores and on the internet where intended to poach players from Pathfinder, retroclones, and to pick up lapsed Gamers. You didn't get anything but a sample adventure to try out the rules and the pdf only of char gen was weird and inconvenient.  They were hoping that the geek in the game store would see the Starter set and think, "D&D, cool, I remember that.  Well I've gotten my kids into Settlers of Cataan, I bet they're old enough for this now"

And that's all great.  Invite the Pathfinder folks back into the fold.  make the OSR true believers again.  Sell to Geek Dad.  Great.  but that's not really a whole lot of folks, the roll out seemed clumsy, and what about EVERYONE else?

Oh Mearls, why didn't you throw your mods into a rewrite of Moldvay and take that 32-64 page pamphlet that has truly everything you need to play and sell it in every freaking store in America? 

If ten people buy that pamphlet for $15 that's the same as one geek who buys three books for $150.  And you know what?  go ahead and make the three $50 books.  Us geeks will buy them.  Anytime humanity is presented with a social phenomena with an inner and an outer circle there will be folks who feel they must be in the inner circle.  That's why there are hipsters.

And I mean every store in America, not just game stores and Barnes and Nobles.  Comic book stores. The magazine rack in grocery stores.  Freaking 7-11s and Circle K, heck sell to truckers at the flying J! Maybe a cardboard stand in the lobby of movie theaters.  I mean, when every movie Peter Jackson has made for the last 15 years is basically a giant ad for D&D and they've made millions and millions of dollars and Game of Thrones is as big as it is I can't help but feel like the folks at D&D headquarters are letting this cultural moment pass them by when THIS SHOULD BE THERE MOMENT.

And where are the ancilaries?  It looks like the VTT is up now, that's good.  And there is a Neverwinter MMORPG apparently to compete with WoW.  I don't know or care as much about the video game market as I do the tabletop, but it seems to me that D&D is the thing that WotC has that competes with WoW, and they might be better off making ancilary products that support it more.

 How about a web series or multiple web series? (Multiple would be great actually, to show how the game is different with different groups.  That would highlight the huge difference/advantage that tabletop has over computer games) Apparently I hit it with my Axe isn't going to be on the Escapist anymore, why not grab that up and make it official DnD?  Dead Gentlemen has made great work that is already essentially an ad for D&D.  Hire or license those guys.

Heck go all out and make a web series with Peter Dinklage, Mandy Morbid and Vin Diesel.  Put them on the cardboard stand with the Basic books in the multiplex lobby.  They'll sell like hot cakes.



Oh well, maybe for 6th edition?