The best thing for DND...

[amerigoV]

Just before they announced 5e, I figured they would mothball the system for a number of years and just leverage the IP for other things. Expand the brand then bring back the PnP back in 5 years or so when there would be demand for it. I still think they should do that, especially now that Monte is gone.

 

[johnsemlak]

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.

this

 

[Scribble]

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

I think it would be equally bad if it resembles 3e or 1e or 2e, and not all of the above.

If the game excludes anyone in favor of one group it's going to further the edition wars, and player base split.


What I think they should do personally is just re-release all of the editions, and support it all. Maybe not as hyper focused and intense as they do when they have a single edition, but let people buy and play what they feel like buying and playing.

Move on from trying to funnel the fan base into buying/supporting one edition over another.

 

[Ramen]

I think WOTC should continue with the path they're on. Make a game you can use to emulate any previous D&D play style. Make it a game that doesn't just do D&D esqu games but any type any archaic and fantasy game.

They should also reopen the availability of the older editions in exclusively pdf format except slightly higher priced say $10 a core book $4 a module or small release. As much as I liked the everything at $4.99 price they had and took advantage of it, I believe it was to cheap.

 

[Redbadge]

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.

If I'm WotC and 5e sells as well as 4e, 3.X, etc., then I continue to do what I've always done, which is to market and sell a new edition/revision approximately every four years. Afterall, gamers with disposable income are very likely to purchase my "new" products, whether or not they actually end up liking them. What I don't do is screw up again and let in a competitor on my core turf by developing an OGL. Rinse and repeat with 5th (Revised!), 6th, and so on, along with a good amount of licensing, merchandising, and spinoffs (boardgames, etc.). I'll also throw in a mass layoff every year or so, as needed.

But the main thing is new core books about every four years.

 

[Balesir]

If I'm WotC and 5e sells as well as 4e, 3.X, etc., then I continue to do what I've always done, which is to market and sell a new edition/revision approximately every four years. Afterall, gamers with disposable income are very likely to purchase my "new" products, whether or not they actually end up liking them. What I don't do is screw up again and let in a competitor on my core turf by developing an OGL. Rinse and repeat with 5th (Revised!), 6th, and so on, along with a good amount of licensing, merchandising, and spinoffs (boardgames, etc.). I'll also throw in a mass layoff every year or so, as needed.

At this stage, I think that would lead to disaster.

You can fool all the people some of the time, and you can fool some of the people all the time - but the fooling on the edition treadmill and the venal, gollum-esque, grasping cleaving to "precious" IP at any cost to the paying customer has run its course.

A constellation of zeitgeist, internet 'culture' and years of complacent, unashamed greed on the part of corporate senior management have worn the store of tolerance in the masses of people who constitute the market perilously thin. And I say this as a fiscal conservative; I think a minority among the corporate directorates have screwed it up very nearly enough to finally piss off the 'global customer' enough to shake them out of their own complacency.

In terms purely of D&D, the results of the OGL compounded by the 'push' given by 4e to those who wanted something that 4e didn't give them, I think are close to tipping the balance. If WotC don't get it right in the next iteration, I think the role of "archetypal RPG", hitherto the sole preserve of whatever game bears the "D&D" logo, will be lost to WotC/Hasbro. "The customer" will wise up. Instead of going for the "default RPG", roleplayers will follow another course - maybe even thinking about what they actually want out of RPGs and finding a good fit among the myriad games out there. Or maybe just transferring the crown of "honorary D&D" to Pathfinder.

This has nothing to do with the OGL; if it was not Pathfinder it would be some other system. The story is similar to that of Hoover. The very name "Hoover" used to be synonymous with 'vacuum cleaner', but the corporation were arrogant enough to think that they could control the market and keep selling the customers an inferior product because it was they, the mighty corporation, that decided what the customer would buy. Today, they seek desperately to compete with the new "cyclonic" cleaners by copying the designs as closely as they can and price cutting to the bone. And still they come up only 1 hit in six on a quick search...

If you want a model of how roleplaying games can succeed as a business, look at a little Swedish computer games company called "Paradox Interactive". Here is a company that very deliberately puts no DRM on any of its in-house games because, despite the "pirates", they believe in giving the best product they can give to their paying customers - and that means no intrusive or inconvenient DRM. Here is a company that licenses its core game engines to minute, first-time developer groups to produce innovative games that they then market and publish (you'll find my name in the credits to one such game). This strategy has harmed them so badly that they have seen over 1000% growth over the last seven years, 75% growth in 2011 alone.

The CEO of Paradox, Frederick Wester, puts it better than I could (and with far more authority) right here.

 

[Redbadge]

At this stage, I think that would lead to disaster.

You can fool all the people some of the time, and you can fool some of the people all the time - but the fooling on the edition treadmill and the venal, gollum-esque, grasping cleaving to "precious" IP at any cost to the paying customer has run its course.

A constellation of zeitgeist, internet 'culture' and years of complacent, unashamed greed on the part of corporate senior management have worn the store of tolerance in the masses of people who constitute the market perilously thin. And I say this as a fiscal conservative; I think a minority among the corporate directorates have screwed it up very nearly enough to finally piss off the 'global customer' enough to shake them out of their own complacency.

In terms purely of D&D, the results of the OGL compounded by the 'push' given by 4e to those who wanted something that 4e didn't give them, I think are close to tipping the balance. If WotC don't get it right in the next iteration, I think the role of "archetypal RPG", hitherto the sole preserve of whatever game bears the "D&D" logo, will be lost to WotC/Hasbro. "The customer" will wise up. Instead of going for the "default RPG", roleplayers will follow another course - maybe even thinking about what they actually want out of RPGs and finding a good fit among the myriad games out there. Or maybe just transferring the crown of "honorary D&D" to Pathfinder.

This has nothing to do with the OGL; if it was not Pathfinder it would be some other system. The story is similar to that of Hoover. The very name "Hoover" used to be synonymous with 'vacuum cleaner', but the corporation were arrogant enough to think that they could control the market and keep selling the customers an inferior product because it was they, the mighty corporation, that decided what the customer would buy. Today, they seek desperately to compete with the new "cyclonic" cleaners by copying the designs as closely as they can and price cutting to the bone. And still they come up only 1 hit in six on a quick search...

If you want a model of how roleplaying games can succeed as a business, look at a little Swedish computer games company called "Paradox Interactive". Here is a company that very deliberately puts no DRM on any of its in-house games because, despite the "pirates", they believe in giving the best product they can give to their paying customers - and that means no intrusive or inconvenient DRM. Here is a company that licenses its core game engines to minute, first-time developer groups to produce innovative games that they then market and publish (you'll find my name in the credits to one such game). This strategy has harmed them so badly that they have seen over 1000% growth over the last seven years, 75% growth in 2011 alone.

The CEO of Paradox, Frederick Wester, puts it better than I could (and with far more authority) right here.

Honestly, I don't see the edition "treadmill" any different than the annual release of new Magic sets. Now, Magic doesn't reinvent its rules every 4 years (it's more like every 8), but if WotC has discovered that people prefer to buy core books to splat books on the whole, why is it so vile to put out a new core every so often, even frequently, relatively speaking. People obviously buy them.

 

[Rhenny]

If 5e gets it right (and offers many old and new D&D players what they want), they can shift their resources into developing mega support for 5e including awesome adventures, adventure paths, online tools (compendium, character builder, monster builder, Virtual Table Top), etc. If they do that properly they will always have product to sell and more people will want to buy those products.

Like others have said, I don't think many people will stay with the brand if there has to be a 6e.

 

[Balesir]

Honestly, I don't see the edition "treadmill" any different than the annual release of new Magic sets. Now, Magic doesn't reinvent its rules every 4 years (it's more like every 8), but if WotC has discovered that people prefer to buy core books to splat books on the whole, why is it so vile to put out a new core every so often, even frequently, relatively speaking. People obviously buy them.

The splatbooks, world books and so on are analogous to the new MtG sets; D&D Encounters uses only recent releases in a similar way. The total reinvention of the Magic rules is more like the new editions, and as you say they are less frequent.

I would also guess that old cards can be used with new rules with minimal conversion, but I have not been an avid follower of MtG since the '90s, so I may be well out of date on that.

A constant availability of new sourcebooks (even of varying quality) for an RPG I really don't mind - and I don't suspect that many others do, either. Reprinting the core books when the basic rules don't really need a rewrite gets old fast, however. And "strong-arming" customers into switching to the new edition be cutting off all life-support for the old one rankles, too. Actually, that's another thing Paradox do - it's still possible to buy their original "Europa Universalis" game by download if you want to, despite that fact that we are now on Europa Universalis 3. EU3 is actually far better in just about every way, so I'm not sure why anyone would want to, but it is cheap and you could probably run it on a machine that costs about as much as a current game does!

I think the fear is that sales of 'old' games substitute for the "current" version. I actually don't think that's remotely true, for a host of reasons, but I can see that someone who really has no clue about actual gaming could see it that way.

 

[Redbadge]

A constant availability of new sourcebooks (even of varying quality) for an RPG I really don't mind - and I don't suspect that many others do, either. Reprinting the core books when the basic rules don't really need a rewrite gets old fast, however. And "strong-arming" customers into switching to the new edition be cutting off all life-support for the old one rankles, too. Actually, that's another thing Paradox do - it's still possible to buy their original "Europa Universalis" game by download if you want to, despite that fact that we are now on Europa Universalis 3. EU3 is actually far better in just about every way, so I'm not sure why anyone would want to, but it is cheap and you could probably run it on a machine that costs about as much as a current game does!

The problem is, from their perspective, a "constant availability of new sourcebooks" just isn't as profitable for them over the long run (which is why I question whether this model really is more popular amongst the mainstream consumer on the whole).

But my question for you is, that if 5e, 6e, and each subsequent edition is assumed to sell well (I'm not really trying to advocate if they will or won't), but if we knew for a fact that this model worked, would you question WotC's decision to pursue this route? (I understand that you think this model doesn't work, but that is not really the angle I'm looking at this from just yet).

Theoretically, there is some mainstream consumer out their that is content to buy the 3e core, and then the 4e core, and then just play this system (perhaps with one or two splat books in between) until the next system comes out. And if they really are content with 3e, or 4e, then WotC isn't forcing them to buy or support the newest edition; they are just making it available (obviously with the hope that it will sell). But what cause does this consumer have to be upset to WotC, as long as they are pleased with the products they've been purchasing (and continue to purchase). And I understand that there are people who get upset when Apple releases the iPhone 4 when they own the iPhone 3, but *I* really don't find these people too rational. And I'm also not upset when WotC releases their Archenemy version of M:tg (or any of their other numerous rule sets the company constantly release). I just choose to purchase them, or I don't.