4.33 Years in: What Now for 5E? (and have we reached "Peak Edition?")

ad_hoc said:

Yeah, the 2 things I want are:

1. A random encounters book.
2. A short adventures book. Have a bunch of adventures, maybe a couple as long as YP but a bunch that are shorter; designed to be played in 1 long rest. And focused on levels 5-10.

I would buy both of those in a heartbeat but have little interest in new adventure paths.

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Dunno if this is exactly what you're looking for, but comments like yours is what inspired it:

Offbeat Encounters

That's a link to the book's product page on DMSGuild.

It's a collection of 10 drop-in diversions, each a couple of pages long, designed to provide an encounter that can be a one-off or could spur further plot development. Three of them are loosely linked together as a sort of sequential story, and we give suggestions on how to incorporate others, but the primary focus is on providing frameworks for a few memorable events.

Yeah, Pathfinder 2e is a very different beast, and from what I’ve seen, already dividing the Pathfinder fanbase. Which, really, was unavoidable – their whole design was based on staying the same and just giving people more of that thing they liked. Unfortunately, that pretty much baked bloat in as unavoidable.


But, back to D&D. As [MENTION=6670153]gyor[/MENTION] said, social media presents an unparalleled avenue of D&D experience and advertisement. The Stream of Many Eyes was an experience never seen before, and I’m super-excited for the eventual next one. There are so many ways to experience D&D, not just as a game, but as a culture.

Charlaquin said:

Pathfinder 2e, unfortunately, has a major identity crisis. It’s wavering between wanting to make itself approachable to new players, and wanting to retain an existing fan base that revels in complexity, and it shows. I do think it’s going to push WotC to up their game, but I don’t think it’s going to drive anything close to an edition change.

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Elfcrusher said:

Honestly they could just shutter the company and we could happily continue playing D&D for decades.

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I've hit the sobering realization that there is vastly more gaming that I would like to do than could be completed in a lifetime.

Ralif Redhammer said:

Yeah, Pathfinder 2e is a very different beast, and from what I’ve seen, already dividing the Pathfinder fanbase. Which, really, was unavoidable – their whole design was based on staying the same and just giving people more of that thing they liked. Unfortunately, that pretty much baked bloat in as unavoidable.

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I think it is important to keep in mind, that as far as sales numbers go, no other RPG matters. They're all just blips compared to D&D. None of them are big enough for WotC to notice, let alone push them to do anything.

Ralif Redhammer said:

But, back to D&D. As [MENTION=6670153]gyor[/MENTION] said, social media presents an unparalleled avenue of D&D experience and advertisement. The Stream of Many Eyes was an experience never seen before, and I’m super-excited for the eventual next one. There are so many ways to experience D&D, not just as a game, but as a culture.

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This. I'm not going to spend hours watching release-party streams, but I would have LOVED to have attended. It would be great if they would do release parties in multiple cities at the same time. The logistics and costs of that may not make sense, but I would definitely attend if I didn't have to fly to Los Angeles. Unlikely they would do it in the Twin Cities area, but Chicago could work.

Also, a couple years ago the Acquisitions Incorporated live game was shown in movie theaters throughout the United States though Fathom Events. The one I went to in Minneapolis was PACKED. All attendees got a softcover adventure and watching the stream with a live audience was a lot of fun. Apparently, they most not have made enough money, because they have not done it again.

But I feel we are close to folks figuring this out. Part of me worries that about D&D becoming passive entertainment and a spectator sport, but part of what drives the popularity of playing sports is the interest fed by watching them.

Speaking of sport, I like how LARPing is starting to break into the main stream. It wasn't very long ago where politicians had to defend themselves against ridicule when evidence of participating in LARPs was revealed. But I'm seeing more an more activities that seem to feed the kind of make believe that drive interest in LARPing.

Cardboard Camps are huge (here's the one my kids go to in the summer). I could see Hasbro making a branding deal for a D&D themed cardboard camp.

Escape rooms are huge. Some have fantasy, medieval, or ancient dungeon themes. Again, why isn't there more branding deals for these?

In personal fitness, I'm starting to see more "geeky options." Critical Fit was a recent Kickstarter that tries to use RPG mechanics to help you build a work out routine, with options for gaining XP, leveling up, and completing quests. There is also Dungeons & Workouts and d20 athletics. The problem I find is that is really isn't fun in isolation.

What I would like to see is fitness-focused LARP groups. When I used be involved with the Society of Creative Anachronisms (SCA), the holiday events and fairs were fun, sure. But the bread and butter of the SCA were the weekly fighting practices. I would be cools to see a fitness program that was integrated with a well-designed LARP ruleset, and supported by a community and local gyms and apps and social media. Again, branding opportunities exist.

Li Shenron said:

No.

You are making a mistake: you are basing your comparison on time alone, while the publishing pace of 5e is a lot slower. This is a bit like comparing a bicycle ride with someone else who took the same trip by car in one hour, and after half an hour wondering if you (with the bike) should be already at 50% of the journey.

WotC can of course decide to kill the edition and start another any time for financial reasons, but as far as "production output" 5e is still far from jumping the shark.

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You misunderstand what I was saying. I was not saying that because previous editions were in various states of decline at 4.33 years, then 5E will soon enter decline. I was merely comparing them to give historical context; actually, I was making no conclusion whatsoever. So I'm not sure what "mistake" I'm making.

There's another point to remember as well - the growth of the market. We'll have to see what 2018 brings, but, year on year, 5e has been explosively growing the RPG market. Honestly, I'm not sure if D&D has ever seen this degree of sustained growth before. Boom and bust? Sure. But, we're not seeing any evidence of bust yet. Just very strong growth. It's certainly a healthier business cycle this time around.

Hussar said:

There's another point to remember as well - the growth of the market. We'll have to see what 2018 brings, but, year on year, 5e has been explosively growing the RPG market. Honestly, I'm not sure if D&D has ever seen this degree of sustained growth before. Boom and bust? Sure. But, we're not seeing any evidence of bust yet. Just very strong growth. It's certainly a healthier business cycle this time around.

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True. Despite many people's attempt at prediction, we won't beable to tell when the current edition will bust until it happens. Even if we see dips in performance (and we haven't yet), we won't be able to tell if they are temporary or indicative of a downward patter until some time has past.

I'm thankful that D&D is still in a good place, while I like this edition, it's also good for the health of the hobby. As goes D&D, so does the hobby.

Asgorath said:

Yeah I'm still skimming through DotMM, but so far I've been pretty disappointed in the lack of story. I was excited for an official product that went all the way to level 20 because I was looking forward to an actual campaign arc, not just a bunch of dungeon levels with enough XP to get there.

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I am the complete opposite! The lack of meta plot means it's a much more usable book. It can be played in sequence sure but it can also be chopped up and used as you see fit which excactly what we need at the moment imo.

Mercurius said:

3.5E: Nov, 2007. 4E had already been announced, a few months previously. 2007 saw a flurry of releases, but down from "peak production" of 2006, and WotC had started to move into compilations (Rules Compendium), homage/legacy products (the Expedition books) and edition-neutral products (e.g. Grand History of the Realms). I believe the last official 3.5 book was City of Stormreach for Eberron, published in February of 2008. So essentially 3.5 was also dead, or almost dead, 4.33 years in.

3E: Dec, 2004. 3.5 had been out for a year and a half, and was in high gear. So depending upon how you look at it, 3E was either dead or thriving in a new, improved form.

So the questions, again:
- Where is 5E within its edition cycle?
- Has it reached "peak edition?"
- How might it age, relative to past editions?
- What do you see going forward, over the next 5-10ish years?

I'll offer some speculations, but will write them up in a reply.

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If the 3/3.5 approach worked well for 3rd edition, then could a 5/5.5 approach add another 4.33 years without issue? I bought both those editions and would certainly by a 5.5. In a premium version if they released it.

The 5th edition mechanics are overall robust, yet with room for clarification and enhancement in many areas that are coming to be well understood. They have a good collection of classes and could consider folding some archetypes and some creatures and creature lore into an expanded core. They could strengthen the couple of classes that are struggling, and take another hard look at the vision and hiding gameplay. On the DMG side, they could take a really hard look at encounter guidelines, and at magic items with bounded accuracy more firmly in mind.