D&D 5E Speculating about the future of the D&D industry/community in a post-5E world

[Mercurius]

I started wondering about the impact that 5E would have on Pathfinder, and the question arose in my mind: Can the D&D community/industry support two major, vibrant, versions of the game? (By "D&D community/industry" I mean the whole kit-and-kaboodle, including but not limited to all versions of the official game from TSR and WotC, retro-clones, Pathfinder, other d20 knock-offs, etc; anything that is in the "D&D family").

Perhaps it has been an unspoken assumption, or hope, that Paizo won't be effected by a presumably successful 5E, even that they would feed off each other. Certainly, a healthy D&D means a healthier RPG industry as a whole; if your flagship is doing well, the whole fleet is positively impacted.

But the other side of things is that there's only so much pie to go around, only so many people who want to play D&D and buy books. Sure, we know that WotC is trying to extend the net and capture a whole new generation of gamers - and perhaps they'll be successful to some extent. But I think the law of diminishing returns is also in effect to some degree; it just doesn't seem that as many people are becoming gamers as are aging and fading away from the game. I would imagine that over the next year or two we might see a nice influx of new gamers, as well as lapsed players returning, but beyond that?

As a side note, I would say that the health of the industry depends upon how much people are buying books, while the health of the community depends upon how much people are playing. There are scenarios where one is stronger than the other for various reasons. I can use myself as an anecdote; I plan on buying most 5E products for the foreseeable future, but very possibly won't play for some time because A) my focus is elsewhere - work, family, graduate thesis, novel, etc, and B) my game group is in shambles. I imagine that there are others in my rough demographic - D&D "Boomers", age 35-45ish who started in halcyon days of the early to mid-80s before Gary was ousted and people started getting MADD, and of course before the World of Darkness muddied the waters (just kidding) - people who want to stay in touch with the game, still love it, but can't quite fit it into one's life, or at least only minimally, or there isn't the right context, etc.

So there are numerous ways to address this inquiry - take it how you will.

 

[TerraDave]

Its a big question.

PFs win seemed to come off of 4Es loss. If 5E does start to win...

But you never know.

 

[Dungeoneer]

I think the era of a single, dominant game is over. Official versions of D&D will still be big and important, but they will have to share the pie with other stuff like Pathfinder.

People simply have so many excellent choices for what to play nowadays that I don't see one single game having a lock on the market in the future.

 

[DEFCON 1]

I think the era of a single, dominant game is over.

Although conversely, the era of a single, dominant name in the mainstream media is still the same as it's ever been. In the roleplaying gamer world... all manner of games have a place and a piece of the pie. But when it comes to the "face" of the industry to those outside of it... it begins and ends with Dungeons & Dragons. And that isn't going to change any time soon.

When even the most "nerd-expansive" mainstream television show out there, The Big Bang Theory, still defaults to D&D when needing to reference the RPG industry... that tells us just how little they feel a "deep cut" of a nerd reference is necessary. D&D *is* the "deep cut" reference for the mainstream. Always has been, probably always will be.

 

[Mercurius]

Although conversely, the era of a single, dominant name in the mainstream media is still the same as it's ever been. In the roleplaying gamer world... all manner of games have a place and a piece of the pie. But when it comes to the "face" of the industry to those outside of it... it begins and ends with Dungeons & Dragons. And that isn't going to change any time soon.

When even the most "nerd-expansive" mainstream television show out there, The Big Bang Theory, still defaults to D&D when needing to reference the RPG industry... that tells us just how little they feel a "deep cut" of a nerd reference is necessary. D&D *is* the "deep cut" reference for the mainstream. Always has been, probably always will be.

I think this is true but I continue to be surprised at the number of teenagers I meet (I work at a small private high school) who play Pathfinder and have a mild to moderate negative reaction to D&D. There seems to be a whole generation, or sub-generation, of gamers for whom "Pathfinder" is just as big a name as "D&D" and may even be the Apple to PC. Apple was ingenious (annoying so, imo) at portraying themselves as the "little company for the people, and less nerdy than PCs," which led to them being the biggest kid on the block.

But still, it seems to me that while there are diehards who will stay with Pathfinder, a large number of "inbetweeners" are excited about 5E, so I can't help but think that a significant chunk of Pathfinder fans will convert to 5E - at least the moderates.

 

[TerraDave]

(PF to D&D) even be the Apple to PC.

This feels like a backwards analogy, on various levels.

 

[billd91]

They will definitely have an effect on each other. There are some people on the Paizo boards saying that they will be shifting to 5e from PF. And there are some people also saying that they aren't interested in 5e because they're having fun with PF. That's the two games already affecting each other.

There are a lot of people also pussyfooting around the issue - including, I'd say, the official Paizo line. There's plenty of room for both games to thrive, their audiences won't completely overlap, etc. And that's all true to an extent, but there's always going to be that downside that they're in competition as well.

What I'm looking to do is continue to play PF with the awesome APs and adventures Paizo publishes (as many as I have time and fellow players for) and also work in time to play 5e with in its simpler options for a fantasy game that's lighter in rules. But it's true that I don't have money for everything I want in both product lines, so I'll probably be cutting a PF product or two to make room for 5e.

Ultimately, I hope that the competition between the two remains friendly between personnel (I don't see this being a problem) and that both companies and products will be improved by the experience. I think that Paizo has already set a very high bar for this dating back to their stewardship of Dungeon Magazine and the way they handled reader complaints as they experimented with format and content. I'd like to see Wizards catch up.

 

[Morrus]

The pie analogy doesn't quite work, because it leaves out the issue of player acquisition - something traditionally done by the leading RPG in the industry. D&D is the only mainstream brand the industry has of its own (no matter what the difference in sales between the leading games are), and WotC is in a position to leverage that to grow the industry in ways that other companies can't, although Paizo has made some inroads into that with its Beginner Box and various branding initiatives like comic books, toys, and so on. So a successful D&D means a bigger RPG industry with more players in it.

Plus, of course, actual competition makes people bring their A-Game. Neither company can coast. This benefits everybody!

 

[Tony Vargas]

I started wondering about the impact that 5E would have on Pathfinder, and the question arose in my mind: Can the D&D community/industry support two major, vibrant, versions of the game? (By "D&D community/industry"

Well, sure. Especially if they're cross-compatible enough that they act like complementary rather than substitute goods.

It's happened in the past, indeed, it was the norm from 1977 through 1992. D&D started out as one game ('0'D&D, published in little APA-like booklets). In 1977 it split into Basic D&D (which went on to become BECMI and the Rules Cyclopedea) and AD&D (1e). The first AD&D book was the Monster Manual, and it was entirely useable with 0D&D and pitched as such. AD&D was published through 2 editions over 23 years. For the first 5 or so years, not one was 0D&D still being printed and sold by TSR, but a 'clone,' Arduin Grimoire, was quite successful (until TSR sued them). Even after the fad years ended, AD&D & BECMI/RC co-existed for years.

Really, D&D and Pathfinder could have co-existed, too, even with the crazy of the Edition War, it's just that D&D was committed to delivering on a business model that (to make a long, 'perfect storm' story short) just didn't work. 5e faces no such challenges, so should be able to 'share' the market with Pathfinder, just fine. If WotC is wise enough to make 5e officially OGL with it's own SRD and set 3pps loose to make current-ed D&D content, again, the two games may even complement eachother in the marketplace. That could mean people playing both at different times or combining both into an uber-system, but it could also just mean people playing one, but often buying supplements, adventures and the like of the other to adapt.

 

[Gundark]

I saw a post from Lisa Stevens (I think I got the name right...Paizo CEO) on the Paizo forums about this. Apparently PF is poised to make sales records this quarter again (the quarter of 5e's release). She seems to think that they can exist in the same space and are not really competing as much as what people think. She claims that the two games are really two different creatures (5e is about lighter crunch, PF is heavier crunch).

To an extent I think she's right, the die hards will never convert to 5e and will buy Pathfinder to their dying breath. Also the bulk of their sales still comes from their AP's, I myself have purchase some of their APs for the sake of conversion to other game systems (I've never been a PFRPG customer). In some ways the AP's can be looked at as "system neutral" .

OTOH The moderates/New Players I think is where they may take a bit of a hit. This also depends on organized play and how much living Pathfinder competes with the organized play of 5e (ie. are they on the same nights? Are they advertised equally?). 5e offers a menu of play styles and rules crunch as opposed to the hardline that PF offers. PF has a ton of options but those options are hard fastened to a game with a lot of crunch. 5e is selling itself as a low barrier game as far as cost, learning curve/ game prep to actual time spent playing ratio. PF can be played for free, but I would argue that the actual barriers to play are higher with PF.

All in all though I don't think PF will suffer too badly. I think Paizo will do fine. I do think that the market can handle both.