DnD Minis Sets Cancellation And 5E

I've been on hiatus for the last six weeks, so I missed this news, about the cancellation of the DnD Minis sets. I'm reprinting the news here, simply because I find these news-content pieces often get moved or archived, and I have a hard time finding them later. This news item is taken whole-cloth from the Examiner.com website, and is credited to Michael Tresca.

Wizards of the Coast has announced that it will no longer release prepainted Dungeons & Dragons Miniatures sets. According to Bill Slavicsek in Dragon #395:

"We have made the decision to depart from prepainted plastic miniatures sets. Lords of Madness stands as the final release under that model. We will continue to release special collector’s sets (such as the Beholder Collector’s Set we released last fall), as well as make use of plastic figures in other product offerings. Check out the Wrath of Ashardalon board game next month for the latest example of this. Moving forward, we will continue to explore more options for players to represent characters and monsters on the tabletop, including Monster Vault and other D&D products that feature monster and character tokens."

Scott Thorne at ICv2 is not entirely surprised:

"I can actually understand the cancellation of the miniatures line. The rise in oil prices has driven up the price of plastic and the D&D Miniature line is not as hot a seller as it when the company promoted and supported it as a stand-alone product line. Though sales have remained respectable, with some stores I know reporting sales of several thousand dollars a year of the product line, movement of the product is nowhere near as large as it was two to three years ago."

What Thorne objects to however is an announcement buried further in Slavcsek's article:

"The Heroes of Shadow product, originally scheduled for March and presented in digest-sized, paperback format, is moving to April to accommodate a change to hardcover format. Additionally, three D&D RPG products have been removed from the 2011 release schedule—Class Compendium: Heroes of Sword and Spell, Mordenkainen’s Magnificent Emporium, and Hero Builder’s Handbook. While this means fewer books, we plan to deliver just as much great content for players this year through other formats, including board games, accessories, and digital offerings. I’ll keep you up-to-date on the latest releases each month as we go along."

"Say what?" asks Thorne:

"Cancellation of an entire product line and three planned releases for the D&D line is something that should get announced to retailers directly, not second or third hand through a buried article on the WOTC website...The problem is the lack of communication. Retailers did not have any indication of this turn of events. During WOTC’s presentation at the Alliance Open House last fall, every indication was full steam ahead on the D&D Miniatures line, with a release of a new set of miniatures once a year and a full slate of D&D book releases. Now, less than 4 months later, no more miniatures line and a third of the promised D&D books will not hit the shelves until 2012 at least. This could be a good thing, if it increases demand for the scarcer releases but is also worrisome."

The new Dungeons & Dragons film was also announced in the Ampersand article:

"We just wrapped up a contest tied to the new Syfy Original Movie Dungeons & Dragons: The Book of Vile Darkness. We’ll announce the winner shortly, and that lucky individual will get to play his or her D&D character in the film. Our own Dungeon Master to the Stars, Chris Perkins, has been consulting with screenwriter Brian Rudnick and helping to get the D&D details right."

The drastic change in Wizard of the Coast's production schedule has sparked speculation that the 5th Edition of Dungeons & Dragons is on the horizon. George Strayton, a D&D blogger and closely affiliated with WotC as playtester, and co-writer of the new D&D film mentioned above, speculates that 5th edition will be announced on GenCon this year and released in 2012.
Strayton admits this is largely conjecture, but his opinion carries some weight due to his credentials:

"As for a source, I honestly don’t have one. This is my conjecture based on having worked as the high levels of a big RPG company, the current state of affairs of the hobby (with the splintering of the game), my knowledge of Hasbro (including all my work on the TRANSFORMERS films), the recent announcement by Bill, and my gut feeling."

I'm not shocked by the cancellation of the D&D Miniatures Sets line. The fact that they cancelled the D&D Miniatures game reduced the demand for the miniatures, in the prior blind, collectible format. That was compounded by the subsequent and confusing changes in the delivery method, release delays, a perceived drop in value/quality and increases in price-per-mini. Is it possible they will be re-tooling and selling the minis as themed sets, for specific adventures? That's something I would be interested in seeing, depending on the implementation.

The random painted WOTC D&D minis were convenient, if you could purchase them from re-sellers who broke apart the cases, but there are other minis out there, like the Reaper pre-painted minis line, and unpainted miniatures. This announcement will provide additional impetus to get back to painting my several hundred unpainted minis!

As for speculation that 5E is in the works, i'd like to believe that a system re-boot would be an improvement over 4E, but if the new fortune card-based system is any indication, 5E will be even further removed from the type of Dungeons and Dragons i'm interested in playing. Thank goodness for the OGL and the OSR.