WotC didn't necessarily save D&D

[Minicol]

At the time, I was embarking on my first job, and D&D was Dead !.

By Dead !, I mean nobody wanted to play it, it had a really bad rep, both among players and non players, and I had to use heavily my good DM credentials, favours and non standard campaigns to motivate a tiny group to play it.

3e and LGh changed that for good, and sometimes not quite as good, but it saved the game. Who knows ? I might even have found a girlfriend if it had not happened

/ducks

 

[an_idol_mind]

I think they killed and Buried AD&D and the D&D system as it was known and replaced it with the D20/Pathfinder system that we now know.

Frankly, this bit sounds kind of like edition warring, suggesting that the d20 system isn't "true" D&D.

As to the rest of the post, if I recall correctly, it would have been much cheaper for WotC or another company to sit and wait for TSR to have been dismantled and then acquire the license. WotC didn't want to wait that long and paid a lot more than they needed to, if what I've heard is correct.

Without WotC around, it's pretty likely that D&D would have been dead at least for a period of years. The impact on the RPG industry would likely have been significant as a result. Whether it eventually came back or not would have depended on whether tabletop RPGs were even considered viable by then.

Whether or not D&D eventually came back, I'm pretty sure that AD&D as a separate game would have remained dead barring legal issues. D&D has massive market penetration even to those without any knowledge of RPGs, but the same can't be said for AD&D, which runs the risk of confusing newcomers. (It got even more confusing in the mid- to late-90s, when there was an Advanced D&D but not any basic D&D to speak of.) Whatever company picked up D&D would likely have done the same thing WotC did and unify the brand.

As to another company picking up D&D, that might have happened. But it's just as likely that the other company might have decided that D&D was more profitable as something other than an RPG. Without WotC around, D&D might now only exist as a board game or a series of computer games.

Bottom line: D&D was dead before WotC came and revived it. They also made the OGL, which has allowed support for every edition to thrive. Even if another company had picked up D&D and brought it back as an RPG, the odds of them introducing something like the OGL were very slim.

 

[prosfilaes]

Whether it eventually came back or not would have depended on whether tabletop RPGs were even considered viable by then.

At the time, White Wolf was big. Certainly the fantasy RPG part would be hurt, but Rolemaster, GURPS, Fantasy Hero, Palladium Fantasy and D&D copies would offer choice for that part of the market.

 

[prosfilaes]

...

 

[kitsune9]

I think if TSR was never bought by WotC, the rights to AD&D would have been sold to some gaming company eventually. The creditors who end up owning the property after TSR's bankruptcy would want to do at least something with the rights to AD&D and probably would have issued competitive bids to various game companies (including game companies like Hasbro with odds they would be shopped first since they have the deepest pockets).

Now, if AD&D just died (the creditors failed to get a price they wanted so they shelved the IP), there's so much of the 1e game books in print and one can still find fairly new print in used bookstores (I just picked up a 1e Player's Handbook that is in excellent condition from the library's book sale). So the Internet would have meeting groups, forums, torrents would have the rules out there. There would be people playing this game in some shape or form.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Well, when I got into RPG in the mid-to-late 90s, AD&D was the lamest thing on the block. A lot of people liked D&D-like fantasy, but the common wisdom was that AD&D was mechanically awful (unplayable unless house ruled into pieces), horribly out-dated and too inconsistent. More streamlined systems were in. Nobody seemed to play D&D, even though a lot of people still bought it (officially, it was usually for inspiration). WoD was the big seller.

3e made D&D seem fresh and modern. Heck, it kinda made it cool.

This may vary from place to place, but was absolutely not my experience (I started gaming in the late 80s and was heavily into gaming during the 90s). My experience was 2E was still the default system for most people. There were other systems out there, Storyteller was a very close second to AD&D in my area (possibly even catching up toward the end). Knew people who also played GURPS, TORG, Palladium and a few other games. Generally though regular campaigns around here were either AD&D 2E or Vampire. Anything was usually a one to two session thing. Once in a while we would play Cthulu or Star Wars to mix things up.

 

[kitsune9]

I think a fun thread would be to ask the question, "If TSR was never bought by WotC and AD&D was never picked up by another game company, what game do you think you would be playing today?"

I know for a lot of players, they would just stick with their old AD&D books until they fall apart. For me, I think I would have switched to Rolemaster (since I had that game around that time of TSR's demise).

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

Other

WotC is not a knight in shining armor, and D&D is not a damsel in distress.

 

[jonesy]

WotC is not a knight in shining armor, and D&D is not a damsel in distress.

D&D is a hydra with editions for heads, and WotC is a wizard.. who likes hanging around coastlines enticing random people to play cards with him. The damsel in distress is the marketing department, and the knight in shining armor is every player who buys their products.

 

[WheresMyD20]

Isn't this like trying to claim the life guard didn't really save that kid from drowning, because maybe the kid could have made it if the life guard hadn't been there.

Not really. TSR was bankrupt, so the kid (D&D) clearly wasn't going to make it on his own. WotC is like a lifeguard who saved the kid and then tells everyone "He'd be dead if it wasn't for me", while ignoring the other lifeguards on duty who could have saved the kid if WotC didn't save him first.

Oh, and by "clearly wasn't going to make it on his own", I'm talking about D&D existing as a commercial product. Even if it were discontinued, D&D wouldn't really be "dead" since people would still be playing it using their old books and resources on the web. Even without an OGL, there would have been fan-made material cropping up on the web unless whoever held the rights decided to make an effort to crack down on it (like TSR did in the late 90s).