The best thing for DND...

[seregil]

As we have seen with the departure of Monte Cook, there is little consensus about what shape 5E should take.

IF 5E does like 4E and essentially fails to rally the user base, what would be the best thing for DND?

Personally, I think that the best thing would be for DND to be bought out by someone else (Paizo?) and that a new SMALLER organization takes over and does a good job.

Do I see this happening? No, for what it is worth, DND is a powerful brand and Hasbro/WOTC is unlikely to jettison it.

I certainly hope 5E works, but Monte's departure worries me.

 

[Janaxstrus]

D&D being run by a smaller company (not small, just smallER) would be a huge benefit to the brand, imo.
Some privately held company who can focus on D&D and it's associated properties, and less about shareholders and profit returns.
The game, if not messed with, diluted and devalued by asinine decisions will be profitable, it's just the level of profits are in question.

I doubt Paizo wants it now, to be honest. Hasbro is already doing more for Paizo by continuing to marginalize D&D, than Paizo could likely do with the D&D properties in the short term.

 

[Alzrius]

As we have seen with the departure of Monte Cook, there is little consensus about what shape 5E should take.

IF 5E does like 4E and essentially fails to rally the user base, what would be the best thing for DND?

My understanding, based on articles from Ryan Dancey, is that Hasbro currently has split WotC's departments between Magic: the Gathering and D&D. Each of these departments is measured separately in terms of profit return.

Given that the annual standards set for each department are a minimum of $50 million, with $100 million being considered "good," M:tG tends to regularly exceed the $100M mark, while D&D struggles to try and reach $50M.

What would be best for D&D then would be if Hasbro ceased to slice WotC into separate departments based on its properties, and folded them back under a single umbrella. In that case, M:tG would regularly pull in enough profits that smaller properties like D&D wouldn't need to worry about annual target sales, and would have a lot more freedom to design a game - and a line of products - based around quality, rather than marketability.

 

[am181d]

D&D being run by a smaller company (not small, just smallER) would be a huge benefit to the brand, imo.
Some privately held company who can focus on D&D and it's associated properties, and less about shareholders and profit returns.
The game, if not messed with, diluted and devalued by asinine decisions will be profitable, it's just the level of profits are in question.

I doubt Paizo wants it now, to be honest. Hasbro is already doing more for Paizo by continuing to marginalize D&D, than Paizo could likely do with the D&D properties in the short term.

I don't see any evidence that the designers are compromising their vision to appease shareholders. It's certainly possible that someone else might be able to do D&D better, but I think it's as likely (perhaps more likely) that someone else would do D&D worse.

 

[Steely_Dan]

D&D Extreme

D&D Max

D&D Lite

D&D Total

 

[Janaxstrus]

I don't see any evidence that the designers are compromising their vision to appease shareholders. It's certainly possible that someone else might be able to do D&D better, but I think it's as likely (perhaps more likely) that someone else would do D&D worse.

I don't say the designers, nor were they mentioned. Hasbro, on the other hand...

A smaller company has smaller needs, especially privately held ones. 2 million in profits for a smaller company is fine, if D&D were only to bring in 2 million for Hasbro a year, how long do you think it would last?

 

[Steely_Dan]

It seems table-top-role-playing-games are dying (so sad).

 

[DEFCON 1]

It doesn't matter.

Whether a big company like Hasbro still runs it, or a small niche company buys the brand and runs it... the same thing is going to occur:

A new edition of the game will be printed which changes a few of the rules from editions past, and will piss off a percentage of the fanbase... who will proceed to rant incessantly for years about how the game is destroyed and that the company who did it has no concept of what Dungeons & Dragons is.

The rest of us will just notice every three to five years that we have a spare $90 in our wallets and decide to spend it on three new core books just because we like games.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

They won't sell it, since the IP can be used for other things, like boardgames, which do great.

That said, it wouldn't be out of the question that they would license the rights to make the roleplaying game associated with the name. I certainly think most of the usual suspects would jump at the opportunity, depending on the cost of the license.

Hasbro would be free to do what they seem to be more comfortable doing -- the non-RPG parts -- and a smaller, nimbler company could worry about the part that Hasbro has the least interest in.

 

[Yora]

If 5th Edition doesn't sell, I assume they'll just put it into a box and put that in some basement. I am pretty sure they won't attempt a 6th Edition just two years later and instead just call it quits. They won't sell it either, as the short time income probably won't be regarded worth it compared to enabling a competitor to gain large shares of the gaming market.

Instead we would probably see new genuine attempts to produce mainstream RPGs by medium-size companies.Always seems that nobody even would want to try challenge WotC for the market of generic fantasy RPGs.
The other big names I know are Shadowrun and World of Darkness, which are both something entirely different, and DSA, which seems to be really popular only in Germany (and isn't really well suited for export). For more than a decade, everyone who wanted to do something with more generic fantasy did a d20 adaptation based on D&D. There are some rumors that the Dragon Age RPG will be made into a generic fantasy RPG, but even that started as a licenced game and the rules probably don't hold a very large mass appeal.
If 5th Edition doesn't sell and WotC withdraws from the market, we may finally see some real innovation.