D&D General IF D&D were for sale ...

[Minigiant]

Companies we like can't afford it.

That leaves mostly big video game and tech companies. Most of them suck.

Larian and Paradox are mostly nice but they probably fall into the can't afford it category.

And to be frank , they only act the way we like because they can't afford it and are in the position to do the things of the companies we do like.

 

[Thomas Shey]

So the most popular game is the best game? Right..

Feel free to give me a criterion that doesn't add up to "I and the people who think like me like it better."

I don't think you can define "best" without a criterion of some kind, and if there's one that actually seems to have anything resembling universal agreement, I don't know what it is. At least "most popular" shows the largest group of people like it, which is more than anything else can say.

Edit: I just realized from reading some other responses in the last couple pages that all I'm likely doing is contributing to threadcrapping in the actual context of what the OP was trying to do, so I'm going to step out.

 

[Umbran]

Thats a fair point. Not one that communicates well with one word in text, but certainly fair.

I was hoping the one word plus the specific edit down to that line, would do it. So much for my trying to be clever, I guess.

I don’t understand social pessimism on basically any level except the very remote “I understand that this is a thing other people experience”, but yeah it be like that. I can recognize that some people’s brains filter for negative patterns rather than positive patterns and basic unconscious biases cause them to then view that perspective as neutral and “realistic” rather than just as bias based as any other perspective.

But like…why bring that into a fun discussion about who you’d enjoy seeing in control of D&D? Why willfully make fun things that one is not personally interested in less fun for other people?

So, having just said this wasn't the thread for discussion internet discussion dynamics, here I'm going to do it anyway.

Note, I am not speaking about the specific person you were responding to - I don't read individual minds. I am making a generalization....

The key is in "willfully". Much of how people suck is in how we aren't actually making considered, willful choices. If we don't realize a consequence, we don't willfully choose that consequence. They probably didn't see that it makes something less fun for others - they just had a thought and posted it.

My level of social pessimism isn't that people willfully choose to suck, but that we often don't think enough to avoid sucking.

 

[MichaelSomething]

Well if we're operating on the idea that people do suck are not worthy of owning D&D; we could consider developing a powerful A.I. that would manage it instead??

 

[Zardnaar]

Well if we're operating on the idea that people do suck are not worthy of owning D&D; we could consider developing a powerful A.I. that would manage it instead??

More the people who can afford it are likely a holes.

 

[MichaelSomething]

More the people who can afford it are likely a holes.

We just have to feed it the right data set. I know, let's use Enworld!!!

 

[Meech17]

But we might have gotten a different car in '67 that you'd like just as much, and you wouldn't have people complaining about how they keep changing the Corvette from what you liked and the community won't stop talking incessantly about the new one.

I don't know about this. How sacred is a nameplate anyway? Should they have just made the same old Corvette every year over and over? To keep this car related, look at Nissan. The 370z and the GTR both existed in their most recent forms for a very long time, and even though they were both very well liked and critically acclaimed vehicles, they both also wore out their welcomes. Everyone just complained how the designs were a decade old.

Sensibilities change over time. Nothing stays green forever. Even the OSR has changed OD&D because people almost unanimously agree THAC0 was lame.

So then you might say, okay, don't carry the name forward. Leave the old thing for the people who like it, and make a new thing for new people. This leaves you with multiple problems. You're splitting your audience and competing with yourself. Where do your development and advertising dollars go? If product A is slowing down and product B is selling like hot cakes do you pump A to try and catch up, and potentially let B's momentum fade? Or do you pump B and ride the hype wave and leave A to wither and die?

I could go on forever but I don't want to derail too much more from the thread than what's already been done. I am in favor of refreshing nameplates. I like the Mustang Mach E and the C8 Corvette, and I also like 5E.. But that doesn't mean I don't also like Fox Bodies and 3.5E. Was 3.5 the Fox Body of D&D?

I'm going to say Brandon Sanderson and Dragonsteel Press, because I think they could manage the game and business.

As a Brando Sando fan, I don't know. He'd probably do well with it.. The man is great at business, and apparently he's a good dude. Supposedly whenever new MTG sets drop he buys thousands of dollars of product to host drafts for his company. That's awesome.

We'd certainly see a wild explosion of new settings, probably with slim books to support them. (Fantasy High doesn't need a 300-page book to spell out the setting.) I think presenting gamers with a book that says "Dungeons & Dragons" on the cover explaining how to use contemporary New York City as a setting would be greatly expand the possibilities of the game for many groups.

I love splat books. I know a lot of people don't, and I can understand why. As someone with a love/hate relationship with MtG I do believe there is such a thing as too much product. But I have a lot of nostalgia for splat books. The person who taught me to play D&D came over for our first game night with a big Rubbermaid tote full of books. They broke out the core books, but then this stack of the "Complete" series. I loves pouring over all the options.

Little 30-50 page paper back splat books with city/town settings, or adventures like the old style modules would be something I could really get behind.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I love splat books. I know a lot of people don't, and I can understand why. As someone with a love/hate relationship with MtG I do believe there is such a thing as too much product. But I have a lot of nostalgia for splat books. The person who taught me to play D&D came over for our first game night with a big Rubbermaid tote full of books. They broke out the core books, but then this stack of the "Complete" series. I loves pouring over all the options.

Little 30-50 page paper back splat books with city/town settings, or adventures like the old style modules would be something I could really get behind.

Dimension 20's Blood Keep could easily fit into a book the size of the 2E softcover Complete books. It needs a keep map, a lightly detailed map of the world beyond that, some NPC stats and maaaaaybe that's it. But still, the basis of a very satisfying short campaign.

 

[DammitVictor]

My plan is functionally identical to @doctorbadwolf in the OP-- I'd split the teams into Classic, Advanced (including PO), 3.PF1 (minus Paizo's PI), 4e, and 5e-- but I would assign ownership to the top 200 D&D content creators, including Critical Role and Dropout, Larian and Owlcat, Paizo and OSR publishers, with one share each and buy-in or buy-out by supermajority approval only.

Everyone on the inside has full creative rights to copy and remix anything published as official D&D as official D&D. Official D&D has a licensing department and makes most of its money from licensed merchandise, but is required to keep rach of its respective core rulesets in print and in online storefronts, along with digital and POD legacy content. Everything published as official D&D is CC-BY/OGL/ORC.

Owning "official D&D" probably isn't a huge moneymaker for anyone, except the smallest partners, but responsible stewardship maintains a more profitable environment for everyone.

 

[Shardstone]

Myself.