D&D 5E (2014) Speculating about the future of the D&D industry/community in a post-5E world

[Branduil]

It's hard to say. I don't think Pathfinder would have been a huge success if 4e didn't split the playerbase, so it's difficult to see the exact results if 5e succeeds in pleasing the majority of D&D fans. But even if the PRPG sales drop off they'll still have their APs.

 

[DaveMage]

Why would that be? Obviously, the lack of supplements post-Essentials was due to resources being diverted to developing 5e (as well as resources just plain being slashed when D&D failed to meet unrealistic revenue goals, of course). Once 5e is in the can, shouldn't WotC be able to churn out new material at a reasonable clip?

No - for two reasons.

#1 - D&D PnP RPG staff has diminished significantly; and
#2 - Mearls said so.

 

[BryonD]

There are a lot of "successful" RPGs and Paizo is diversifying. So I think you will see Paizo continue to maintain the Pathfinder game for quite some time.
As others have pointed out, for D&D the brand value greatly exceeds to RPG value. Paizo wants the PF brand to follow suite there.

The portion of the population that actively plays TTRPGs will not change by any significant factor. There may be a flicker with the 5E roll out, but the long term status quo will persist.
If there are two "awesome" games as defined by "enough players within the market", then the pie of cashflow from the same group of people could be shifted. A tiny negligible shift on the economy scale could be huge for the RPG market. So it *could* happen that you have 2 powerhouses. But that isn't really likely.

If 5E is a huge success in the summer of 2017, then PF will be diminished and Paizo will be in a different strategy (PF 2.0 / hold the line on the RPG and push more diversity in the Brand/ most likely something else I'm not going to think of)

If 5E tails off like 4E did, then who knows? PF will at least retain dominance. But sooner or later something will still drift into change.

So my answer is : yes they can both exist, unless they don't because one of them comes out on top or something else happens.

 

[Quartz]

I think it's far too early to tell. That said, I'm going to speculate anyway!

System-wise? The Pathfinder system never tempted me away from 3.5E + house rules. I never played 4E and didn't really like the system. 5E looks to be a move back towards 3.5E and seems to be very tempting for lower-level play. But one of the things 3.5E does very well is creating rounded characters via multi-classing and prestige classes (fighter / rogue being the classic); we've yet to see how 5E handles this. Another thing 3.5E does very well is high-level characters and monsters, particularly Epic; with its bounded accuracy, 5E may not handle this as well.

As a company? Their work is top-notch and it would not take a lot of effort for them to support 5E.

Paizo will thrive, and if 5E takes off I would not be surprised to see them absorbed into Hasbro / WoTC.

 

[Dungeoneer]

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!

I think you have to differentiate between the brand and the game. 'Dungeons & Dragons' will probably always be THE thing people think about when they think of role-playing games. But to amateurs, Pathfinder is D&D. So is 13th Age. So are various OSR clones.

If I were to introduce a bunch of new players to the game today, I would run 13th Age. But I would tell them it was D&D. Because it is really close, and explaining the fine distinctions would just confuse them. You roll a d20, you kill monsters, you take their loot. Same idea.

There are many different games that can represent D&D, and not all of them are made by WotC.

Intuitively, I expect the main thing that brings new players into the hobby is other players. Joe invites Jamie to sit in on his weekly tabletop game. She likes it and keeps coming back. Whatever Joe and Jamie play every week is 'D&D', as far as Jamie knows.

Really the hobby is best served by having healthy communities of players, not by a particular company or ruleset.

I think this golden age of indie games we are in means more and more people can find a version of D&D that they can really connect to. Hopefully that will bring in more players. But it may mean that the big guys have to get leaner.

And honestly that would be in line with every other industry in the digital age. The long tail of the internet means people can find AND produce stuff more easily. It makes it harder for the big, established players to stay big. I don't think that TRPGs are immune from that disruption.

 

[Morrus]

Paizo will thrive, and if 5E takes off I would not be surprised to see them absorbed into Hasbro / WoTC.

Lisa Stevens (and plenty of other Paizo staff) came from WotC. I don't want to speak for them, but I don't imagine for a second that they want to go back. They're doing what they want to do, the way they want to do it.

 

[variant]

Lisa Stevens (and plenty of other Paizo staff) came from WotC. I don't want to speak for them, but I don't imagine for a second that they want to go back. They're doing what they want to do, the way they want to do it.

If Hasbro bought Paizo, I doubt the staff would have much of a choice.

 

[Morrus]

If Hasbro bought Paizo, I doubt the staff would have much of a choice.

I'm fairly sure Lisa has a choice whether to sell her company. You can't just buy something against the owner's will!

 

[Morrus]

I think you have to differentiate between the brand and the game. 'Dungeons & Dragons' will probably always be THE thing people think about when they think of role-playing games. But to amateurs, Pathfinder is D&D. So is 13th Age. So are various OSR clones.

Yes, D&D the only mainstream brand. That's exactly what I said! Except your version is longer.

 

[Starfox]

If 5E is a major success, I think it will be because they bring new people into the hobby - either completely new or lapsed players. The whole simplicity deal gears it up for that. This will directly benefit WotC and in the long run benefit the whole RPG community.

5E stealing Pathfinders customer base? Not to any large extent. And even if they did, I'm not sure that would qualify as a major success by Hasbro standards.