D&D General Ch-Ch-Changes

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

(quite probably still Faerun unless a new setting somehow becomes massively popular in the next 20 years, which could happen)

I'm betting on Exandria. If any campaign setting surpasses FR for the title of "most popular generic fantasy setting", it's gonna be Exandria.

 

[Scott Christian]

As far as technology, I think things like a VR headset for players might come into play for those with the money. Similar to those fake backgrounds you see on Zoom, and adding things like they do in the Pokemon game. And then, just like that glasses website that lets you try on glasses virtually, they will probably have skins for the DM to "try on." So, even at the table, you can tell everyone to look through their phones or put on their VR headset, and then have the DM, with their fake background and skin, RP the merchant.

I don't know it that will happen, but it'd be cool to see.

 

[Oofta]

As far as technology, I think things like a VR headset for players might come into play for those with the money. Similar to those fake backgrounds you see on Zoom, and adding things like they do in the Pokemon game. And then, just like that glasses website that lets you try on glasses virtually, they will probably have skins for the DM to "try on." So, even at the table, you can tell everyone to look through their phones or put on their VR headset, and then have the DM, with their fake background and skin, RP the merchant.

I don't know it that will happen, but it'd be cool to see.

Well, 20 years ago most people still had flip phones. The very first black-and-white (incredibly small) touch screens were just starting to appear. The "advanced" cell phones had a physical keypad. Current VR systems are already past that, so who knows what we'll have in 20 years?

Technology is going to change a lot of things over the next 20 years, probably in ways we can't imagine right now.

 

[dave2008]

20 years from now? So in 2041?

I'm pretty sure the D&D brand, will, at that point, be owned by some sort of video game company primarily (even if it's still WotC, just fully transformed into a video game company - they're already starting studios and so on), and the primary "kind" of D&D that people will be playing will be some kind of DM-less online deal with procedural generation elements and so on.

I hope not. I enjoy being the DM the most. It is not D&D without a DM for me.

 

[MarkB]

After 2020, I've given up trying to predict anything.

 

[BookTenTiger]

In 2040 D&D will have become so mainstream that it will have worked its way into every aspect of our lives.

We will call sleeping at night a "long rest," and when the baby gets fussy it will be time for a "short rest."

Grades in school will be on a scale of 1 - 20, and yes it is possible to critically fail a class.

On forms at the doctor's office, you will have to check off your lineage, alignment, and if you play with the Lingering Wounds house rule.

Political campaigns will include rewarding experience points and randomized treasure to voters. The two major political parties will be the "Dungeon Crawl Party" vs the "Story Arc Party." Clinching the Murderhobo Vote is a must, but luckily any politically-driven violence occurs only in the Theatre of the Mind. Political scientists and pundits alike will be hotly debating on cable TV if the DM, truly, is a player.

At baby showers, gifts often include large foam polyhedral dice and "Baby's First D&D Podcast" kits.

Holiday family arguments will all be centered around Edition Wars.

New Olympic Events will include Dice Stacking, Hex Crawling, and a bunch of centaurs trying to climb ladders. Instead of saying "Let the games begin!" announcers will instead launch the events by saying "Roll initiative!"

Every TV channel, steaming service, radio station, and podcast network will have their own competing D&D live streams.

Instead of new Marvel movies, Disney will just film the cast playing their roles in an ongoing Marvel RPG.

They will reboot Friends but all the Friends just play D&D every episode.

They will reboot Cheers but instead of a bar it's a D&D game.

They will reboot the Office but the entire series is about a long-running D&D game in the Dunder Mifflin break room.

The United Nations flag will feature a 20-sided die instead of a picture of the Earth. As global leaders play out their power fantasies at the gaming table instead of in real life, as families and friends come together weekly to slay dragons and find treasure, as the global population improves in number sense, estimation, and quick math skills, as the world unites under one Mega Campaign That Never Ends, we as a species collectively level up and achieve world piece.

Then we get bored of D&D and switch to something like FATAL and it all falls to pieces.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

"Now tell me, how many Hit Dice would you say you'd need to spend to not feel in pain anymore?"

Now that I think about it, that's not a bad way to measure pain...

On forms at the doctor's office, you will have to check off your lineage, alignment, and if you play with the Lingering Wounds house rule.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

As far as technology, I think things like a VR headset for players might come into play for those with the money. Similar to those fake backgrounds you see on Zoom, and adding things like they do in the Pokemon game. And then, just like that glasses website that lets you try on glasses virtually, they will probably have skins for the DM to "try on." So, even at the table, you can tell everyone to look through their phones or put on their VR headset, and then have the DM, with their fake background and skin, RP the merchant.

I don't know it that will happen, but it'd be cool to see.

Right, so imagine a fairly capable VR. You can visualize anything, it can tweak the VR to make it seem like you have various amazing levels of skill at whatever, etc. This is an RPG, but it would be useless to compare its 'rules system' to anything like D&D... It might be literally built around D&D tropes, so there are beholders, mind flayers, red dragons, Demogorgon, whatever, and some version of D&D cosmology. It might even be set in some D&D IP like Faerun or DS, but play would be a lot more like LARPing than existing TT RPG play.

The main thing that will be required is a LOT of AI and support systems such that GMs can translate their ideas into visualization at a sufficiently detailed and varied level, and that things like NPCs/Monsters will play in an acceptably sophisticated manner. Some of that is in reach now, video games have generative detail and enough 'AI' to be challenging combat opponents within narrow parameters, but decent depth in social interactions and linking that together with plot elements and such is nascent at best (modern games are, in this area, totally scripted). So it is hard to say how close all that will be in 20 years. We might blow past it, or we may still be trying to figure it out.

 

[MarkB]

As far as technology, I think things like a VR headset for players might come into play for those with the money. Similar to those fake backgrounds you see on Zoom, and adding things like they do in the Pokemon game. And then, just like that glasses website that lets you try on glasses virtually, they will probably have skins for the DM to "try on." So, even at the table, you can tell everyone to look through their phones or put on their VR headset, and then have the DM, with their fake background and skin, RP the merchant.

I don't know it that will happen, but it'd be cool to see.

That's more along the lines of AR (Augmented Reality) glasses, which have been trialed for awhile now, and are a promising area. They overlay graphical elements on your view of the real world, and aren't nearly as bulky or cumbersome as a VR headset.

I could certainly see something like that becoming workable and popular. It wouldn't take you fully into a world, but could overlay elements of a fantasy world over your real-life environment, much as you described with the DM being overlaid with the creature he's portraying. They could also be used to project a virtual battlemap on your tabletop - more realistic than even the best 3D terrain tiles, with animated miniatures and the ability to zoom and re-orient the scene independently by each player.

I imagine them being particularly good for LARPing. People could find a suitable real-world location, then add virtual set-dressings to it in AR, and similar augmentations to their own costumes. Some NPCs could be entirely virtual, life-sized but existing only within the AR system, while others would be real people overlaid with fantastic or monstrous forms.

 

[Oofta]

Right, so imagine a fairly capable VR. You can visualize anything, it can tweak the VR to make it seem like you have various amazing levels of skill at whatever, etc. This is an RPG, but it would be useless to compare its 'rules system' to anything like D&D... It might be literally built around D&D tropes, so there are beholders, mind flayers, red dragons, Demogorgon, whatever, and some version of D&D cosmology. It might even be set in some D&D IP like Faerun or DS, but play would be a lot more like LARPing than existing TT RPG play.

The main thing that will be required is a LOT of AI and support systems such that GMs can translate their ideas into visualization at a sufficiently detailed and varied level, and that things like NPCs/Monsters will play in an acceptably sophisticated manner. Some of that is in reach now, video games have generative detail and enough 'AI' to be challenging combat opponents within narrow parameters, but decent depth in social interactions and linking that together with plot elements and such is nascent at best (modern games are, in this area, totally scripted). So it is hard to say how close all that will be in 20 years. We might blow past it, or we may still be trying to figure it out.

I don't think graphics, generation of details or a VR experience will be an issue in 20 years. Whether you can have an AI DM or whether the AI will just assist the DM is a different story.

There will likely also be a desire for a PnP game, because half the fun of D&D is just socializing and getting together with friends. It will be interesting to see if there's some kind of merger between the two.

Or the handful of survivors of the alien nanotech zombie nuclear apocalypse* may just be hiding in caves and wondering what spices to add to the rat they're eating for supper.

*Where aliens study our culture and, noting the popularity of zombie movies, gift us with nanotech to make the living dead a reality during which we start nuking each other because people are idiots.