D&D (2024) Is 5th edition too big for there to be a 6th edition?

[Sacrosanct]

Yeah, that was the closest, but even just the introduction of kits, priestly spheres, main class bards, etc. still made it fairly different.

Indeed, but it was still fairly backwards compatible, and considered a new edition. I imagine a 6e would be the 2e to 5e's 1e.

The backwards compatibility was intentional. I recall Skip Williams (I think it was him) in an interview years ago saying, "Of course with 2e we thought about ascending AC, but we wanted to make sure players were able to use all of their 1e stuff with 2e."

 

[OB1]

The strategy now comes down to User Acquisition Cost vs the Lifetime Customer Value. Perhaps the biggest boost that 5e is getting is that there is now a generation who grew up with D&D teaching it to the next generation, which WotC leaned into by making the game simple enough to run for those with busy lives and only a casual interest. Liveplay podcasts and twitch streams being the other major factor.

The supplemental materials sold every year are intended to appeal to current customers, yes, but more importantly to keep attracting new customers. Because those are cheaper to produce than a brand new system, it's much more likely that they make adjustments to the types of materials they are producing than to develop a brand new system.

It would be fascinating to know what the LTV of the average 5e purchaser is, I'd guess it's around $100. Hasbro doesn't need every player to buy every book for the rest of their lives, they just need to keep attracting new players to the game at a cost less than what their LTV is. As long as releases like Ravnica, Waterdeep, Avernus and Eberron keep new players buying PHBs, it would be counterproductive to develop a new PHB.

And even if there is a bust, it will still likely make more sense to focus on producing better supplemental materials to attract new users than to change the core game as it exists now. At least until Digital becomes the primary way that users consume the game, at which point they can slowly patch the game to freshen it up without requiring new buy in (like we saw with the Beast Companion tweaks via D&D Beyond).

 

[Tony Vargas]

Sure, there are a lot of GenXers who have returned to the game (some of us never left) but all those GenZ kids are just as likely to find a different hobby, or realize just how narrow D&D is in the context of the broader roleplaying hobby.

I'm not really disagreeing, but the last bit seems not to happen, IMX. I've been with the hobby for decades, and D&D seems to hold onto a fairly large portion of it because a fairly large portion of those who play it never really play anything else. They stay in that narrow D&D experience, unaware of, or uninterested in, the potential of the broader hobby and the (very niche, always languishing) nigh-cottage industry that supports it.

 

[Jer]

Yeah, that was the closest, but even just the introduction of kits, priestly spheres, main class bards, etc. still made it fairly different.

Different enough that I know of groups who refused to change editions because they hated everything about 2e. In 1989 the idea that 2e and 1e were not that different led to arguments.

1e and 2e only look "not that different" with the benefit of hindsight after seeing how much of a shift the 2e -> 3e changes were. At the time it looked like a major revision that wasn't in line with what had come before it in a lot of ways (notably as I recall there was thought that Unearthed Arcana would be part of a second edition and it mostly was not).

 

[Mistwell]

To be fair, the "modular D&D" version of 5E was in fact vaporware. We did not get that. The game we got was probably better than that would have been, but even so.

In no way, in no interpretation of that thread by any reasoned, rational way, is "modular" part of what he's talking about when he says 5e is vaporware. Let's not give him any false defense - he's definitely, unquestionable NOT talking about the nature of the game. He is saying literally 5e would not happen. And then when it did happen, he's saying it was being run on a skeleton crew to barely keep it alive by just publishing the game with no support at all just to get something out there as a sort of placeholder to maintain their rights. So yes, let's be fair, and hold him accountable for what he actually said rather than what we can imagine to spin it as.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Different enough that I know of groups who refused to change editions because they hated everything about 2e. In 1989 the idea that 2e and 1e were not that different led to arguments.

As I recall, those arguments weren't really about the differences in the mechanics though, but in design philosophy. I.e., what upset people was how 2e "wussified" itself and sold out by removing the assassin, half orc, and demons. The actual mechanical changes were largely welcomed. THAC0 was official instead of how we just used it anyway, the bard class wasn't a mess, psionics were a lot better than what was in 1e, and thief skill progression (being allowed to have control) was much welcomed. Priest spheres and specialty schools were also positively received. And the monstrous manual was a huge hit.

That's what I remember anyway.

 

[billd91]

Do you really see that as a "6E" though? Every time we've gotten a new edition, the changes have been substantive...maybe we're just using the terms differently.

Maybe that’s the problem. Edition changes in games like Call of Cthulhu are incremental, evolutionary. v7 is pretty different from v1, but it was a slow transformation to get there.

Some other games are strongly transformational like the shift from Villains and Vigilantes v1 to v2 or MegaTraveller to Traveller New Era.

There’s no standard definition for what should be the appropriate bounds for a new edition.

 

[Reynard]

In no way, in no interpretation of that thread by any reasoned, rational way, is "modular" part of what he's talking about when he says 5e is vaporware. Let's not give him any false defense - he's definitely, unquestionable NOT talking about the nature of the game. He is saying literally 5e would not happen. And then when it did happen, he's saying it was being run on a skeleton crew to barely keep it alive by just publishing the game with no support at all just to get something out there as a sort of placeholder to maintain their rights. So yes, let's be fair, and hold him accountable for what he actually said rather than what we can imagine to spin it as.

i wasn't defending the person. I didn't even read much of the post. I just remember that initially "5E will be modular" was a big portion of the hype and that never materialized. Now that the system is mature, though, I would not be surprised by a "Unearthed Arcana" type book with lots of dials and switches in another year or two.

 

[Jer]

As I recall, those arguments weren't really about the differences in the mechanics though, but in design philosophy. I.e., what upset people was how 2e "wussified" itself and sold out by removing the assassin, half orc, and demons. The actual mechanical changes were largely welcomed. THAC0 was official instead of how we just used it anyway, the bard class wasn't a mess, psionics were a lot better than what was in 1e, and thief skill progression (being allowed to have control) was much welcomed. Priest spheres and specialty schools were also positively received. And the monstrous manual was a huge hit.

That's what I remember anyway.

Eh - I remember it differently in my neck of the woods. The things that you point out were certainly a part of it - there was very much an idea that the core books had an "attitude" towards the game that wasn't what the folks I knew who stuck with 1e felt like the game was "about". They thought that 2e pushed the game more towards "rescue the princess" style gaming than they liked. But there were other concerns that I can remember. There was anger that the new classes from UA weren't fixed and included in the core rules. There was irritation that the illusionist as a class disappeared and was replaced by something they thought was far lesser. There was a general feeling that the edition as a whole wasn't well thought out and was kind of slapdash in production - especially the DMG. And I remember a strong annoyance by a number of folks about the Monstrous Compendium format - because a whole page for a monster was wasted space that wasn't needed and felt like a "cash grab" when they could have fit far more monsters into a real book.

(Actually on that front I don't remember the new MC being universally loved outside of the pages of Dragon magazine, tbh - most of the people I gamed with - even the 2e converts - thought it was a stupid idea, that monsters didn't need that much space, that you never were going to be able to organize it properly anyway because you were printing on both sides of the page so you'd have monsters that would have to be out of order, and that having things in a binder meant that pages were more easily ripped and lost than in a book.)

 

[Sacrosanct]

Well, the binder sucked. I'll give you that. I'm talking about the actual hardback monster manual.