WotC Hasbro selling D&D IP?

[Ruin Explorer]

Given that no other version of D&D has ever matched 5E's success, I don't thing this is much of a clarifier. AD&D didn't match the success of 5E, doesn't stop the OSR crowd. There's 4E clones and stuff like 13th Age that go off with some of its ideas on their own showing it does have that lasting appeal and audience, just, y'know. A small audience. Given we're comparing to OSR games which are, let's be generous here, basically complete unknowns outside of the TTRPG space? Yeah, that's expected (i'd also argue there's also more tactical stuff around with some 4E inspiration, so your 4E fans might be drawn off to stuff like, y'know. Lancer)

Just, if you're trying to compare things to 5E's success? Every other edition of D&D is a failure. Basic? Doesn't meet 5E's stuff. 2E? Doesn't meet 5E's stuff, also bankrupted a company on the way out. 3e? Certainly doesn't meet 5E's stuff. 3.5E? Nup. Pathfinder 1E didn't even break past 4E's numbers until the tail end of the line, its got nothing on 5E. That's basically the problem of trying to compare to 5E's meteoric numbers: No edition has ever had the numbers 5E did.

Exactly. This whole "5E is successful because of the rules!!!" thing is hilarious because if that's true 5E should have astonishingly, mind-blowingly well-designed rules to be wildly outperforming every previous edition by insane margins. Whereas in fact 5E's rules are, by TT RPGs standards, pretty okay. They're like 7 out of 10. They're accessible but far less accessible than most RPGs designed since 2010. They're flexible but far less flexible than an awful lot of RPGs and rules-sets. They're not bad, but the idea that their remarkable quality is why they succeeded basically 5x-10x more than previous editions and culture isn't acting as a multiplier here is just funny. It's not even worth arguing with because it's so transparently nonsensical!

The way the rules did play into things is that they're wildly more accessible, so they didn't actively block people from coming into the hobby or returning to the hobby. But even there they're like, not that accessible. D&D is still one of the harder RPGs to teach to new players in the grand scheme of things. I think part of the difficulty in seeing this is that we're mostly grogs and whilst 5E is towards the crunch-heavy end of things (again, about 7/10), we grew up with wildly more crunchy stuff, which was much harder to learn.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Ignoring the edition war burning in the background behind me, but still talking 4e and slightly on topic about WotC and license rights: How's the apparently 9+ month task of putting previous edition SRDs that already existed into Creative Commons coming?

 

[Oofta]

That it was inspired by MMORPGs/WoW? No. That's not true as far as I know, and I'd challenge you to produce any quotes supporting that it was "freely admitted". That it was influenced by video games? That might be, but that's hardly the same thing.

They stated that they were influenced by and took ideas from WOW. I never said it was "inspired by".

 

[Ruin Explorer]

They stated that they were influenced by and took ideas from WOW. I never said it was "inspired by".

I don't think they did say that.

Fans made out that they were a ton, but I don't remember any statements from the actual lead designers of 5E at the time (or even later), to that effect. Could you please find any quotes at all?

I think Mike Mearls said something along those lines after 5E came out, but it was in the process of taking a big dump on 4E generally, and I don't think any other team members came out to agree with him.

 

[Oofta]

Given that no other version of D&D has ever matched 5E's success, I don't thing this is much of a clarifier. AD&D didn't match the success of 5E, doesn't stop the OSR crowd. There's 4E clones and stuff like 13th Age that go off with some of its ideas on their own showing it does have that lasting appeal and audience, just, y'know. A small audience. Given we're comparing to OSR games which are, let's be generous here, basically complete unknowns outside of the TTRPG space? Yeah, that's expected (i'd also argue there's also more tactical stuff around with some 4E inspiration, so your 4E fans might be drawn off to stuff like, y'know. Lancer)

Just, if you're trying to compare things to 5E's success? Every other edition of D&D is a failure. Basic? Doesn't meet 5E's stuff. 2E? Doesn't meet 5E's stuff, also bankrupted a company on the way out. 3e? Certainly doesn't meet 5E's stuff. 3.5E? Nup. Pathfinder 1E didn't even break past 4E's numbers until the tail end of the line, its got nothing on 5E. That's basically the problem of trying to compare to 5E's meteoric numbers: No edition has ever had the numbers 5E did.

There have certainly been cultural and technical shifts that has helped 5E, but nobody flipped a light switch and turned it on in 2014. All the pieces were there for 4E's success, it just never gained traction.

Other than that ... I have no idea what you're saying. That the fact that 5E is the most successful version of the game ever indicates that it's a bad game? That up is down? Is it the best version of a game ever developed for everyone in the world? No. I think it's the best version of D&D ever produced and I enjoy playing it. So do the people I game with. That's enough for me.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Ignoring the edition war burning in the background behind me, but still talking 4e and slightly on topic about WotC and license rights: How's the apparently 9+ month task of putting previous edition SRDs that already existed into Creative Commons coming?

Yeah this question right here! What's happening with that?

 

[Ruin Explorer]

That the fact that 5E is the most successful version of the game ever indicates that it's a bad game? That up is down?

There is literally not a single word in @Mecheon's post that supports this interpretation of it. Not one. That's not very nice.

What Mecheon is saying is very simple. That 5E may or may not be "better" to some greater or lesser degree than other editions, but that's nowhere near enough to explain the vast disparity in success and that if we say 5E doing better than 4E means 4E was bad, it also means all other editions of D&D were bad.

 

[Oofta]

There is literally not a single word in @Mecheon's post that supports this interpretation of it. Not one. That's not very nice.

Which is why I stated that I have no idea what they're trying to say.

 

[Mecheon]

There have certainly been cultural and technical shifts that has helped 5E, but nobody flipped a light switch and turned it on in 2014. All the pieces were there for 4E's success, it just never gained traction.

Other than that ... I have no idea what you're saying. That the fact that 5E is the most successful version of the game ever indicates that it's a bad game? That up is down? Is it the best version of a game ever developed for everyone in the world? No. I think it's the best version of D&D ever produced and I enjoy playing it. So do the people I game with. That's enough for me.

I'd argue they weren't there. Streaming wasn't big, there were no big shows at the moment tapping into that particular right nostalgia boom to give it a big push, virtual tabletop technology was in its infancy and there wasn't a massive pandemic on the horizon to give a lot of people a lot of time to spend at home. 5E's success was catching lightning in the bottle. About the only thing WotC did that helped it was the rules being simple enough to quickly understand, the rest of the game's success was other factors

And, no. I'm saying there's anything wrong with 4E not matching 5E's success doesn't make it a failure or less popular. No edition, ever, has met 5E's success. Its selling the best it ever has, even the AD&D days weren't at these rates.

Which, to drag it back to the topic, is also why this whole thing was never going to happen in the start. Like, Hasbro still have the rights to Rom, the Space Knight, a property that's only famous due to Marvel doing a comic with it, and they'd rather experiment with doing their own comics and movie for Rom than sell the rights to Marvel for those massive Disney dollars. Hasbro never sell IPs

 

[Oofta]

I'd argue they weren't there. Streaming wasn't big, there were no big shows at the moment tapping into that particular right nostalgia boom to give it a big push, virtual tabletop technology was in its infancy and there wasn't a massive pandemic on the horizon to give a lot of people a lot of time to spend at home. 5E's success was catching lightning in the bottle. About the only thing WotC did that helped it was the rules being simple enough to quickly understand, the rest of the game's success was other factors

And, no. I'm saying there's anything wrong with 4E not matching 5E's success doesn't make it a failure or less popular. No edition, ever, has met 5E's success. Its selling the best it ever has, even the AD&D days weren't at these rates.

Which, to drag it back to the topic, is also why this whole thing was never going to happen in the start. Like, Hasbro still have the rights to Rom, the Space Knight, a property that's only famous due to Marvel doing a comic with it, and they'd rather experiment with doing their own comics and movie for Rom than sell the rights to Marvel for those massive Disney dollars. Hasbro never sell IPs

D&D has been helped by the acceptance of geek culture, but that started well before 5E came out. Streaming didn't suddenly burst onto the scene a decade ago. Cultural changes take decades, it's not something that happens overnight. Nothing significant changed in the year or two leading up to the release of 5E to make that much of a difference in it's uptake.

IMHO the cards were all there on the table in plenty of time for 4E to pick them up. It did not.