D&D General WotC Has Owned D&D Longer Than TSR Did

As Matt Forbeck pointed out on Twitter, WotC has owned D&D for 24 years since it purchased TSR in 1997. TSR created D&D in 1974, 23 years before WotC bought it.

 

[Jaeger]

Brand matters a whole lot, definitely. A lot of the time, to outsiders, any RPG is D&D, like any adhesive bandage is a Band-Aid.

Also, people have a loyalty to the brand. Back when I got back into gaming with 4e, I tried to get people to play Castles & Crusades instead. Despite it being essentially just another version of D&D (and one that would've felt more in line with our past experiences with the game), people wanted to play Dungeons & Dragons specifically.

Oh yes this!! People are very loyal and longsuffering when it comes to their gaming IP.

It really shows how badly WOTC screwed the pooch with 4e for a clone of the past edition to beat it on merit.

But it is also noteworthy that the second WOTC gave the D&D base what they wanted with 5e - they all came running back...

#1, 2, and 3 are probably going to be in the game going forward if we get Edition #6...

But what happens when #4 is gone (it is slowly transforming now, doing away with evil Orcs, Trolls, etc) and the races are changing to things uncommon in fantasy, though they can be found in some places (Dragonborn, Drow, Tieflings...etc).

Do you think your idea on this will remain?

#5 probably may stay, though if a shift to a stronger emphasis on levelling at endpoints by the DM decision rather than by XP could change that up.

For #4 I think that D&D's market dominance will make it irrelevant. The way it made the increased complexity of 2e-3e irrelevant.

#5 ... A type of session based XP system can serve just as well. So long as the players can see their next goalpost etc..

The rub lies in what a 6e turns out to be.

I believe in 2024 6e will be launched or an announcement of some kind will be made. The 50th anniversary of D&D is Just too good of a marketing opportunity to pass up.

And as much as people like it, 5e does have noticeable issues.

If WOTC is smart; 6e will resemble a AD&D1e to AD&D2e very backwards compatible upgrade/transition for D&D.

Cleaned up, clarified, streamlined where needed, and known issues actually fixed with the knowledge from a decade of actual play.

But I will never again underestimate a corporations ability to utterly screw things up chasing what they think will be the new hotness...

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[jmartkdr2]

It's not enough to merely mimic the design of the market leader, people have to perceive that you are offering an objectively better product to make a switch worth the trouble.

You have to go one further: people need to be dissatisfied with the current product before they even look for alternatives. So long as DnD is fun enough and lets people do what they want with the game, they'll stick with it. This is the advantage of 5e's broad (not universal but broad) design. Most people are having fun with it, so they don't even research other options.

One of 4e's issues is that it didn't scratch the itch for a lot of existing players, because it's such a focused game. There were a lot of people who tried to play 4e like they played 3e and it just didn't work. So they looked around, found Pathfinder, and made the switch.

Something similar, I think, happened with White Wolf and 2e (more rules didn't help tell the stories those players were interested in), although to a lesser degree.

 

[Jaeger]

You have to go one further: people need to be dissatisfied with the current product before they even look for alternatives. So long as DnD is fun enough and lets people do what they want with the game, they'll stick with it.

I agree, I called it the "Good Enough" effect in my posts. And D&D in most of its incarnations has been Good Enough that most don't bother even looking to see if other RPG's even exist.

One of 4e's issues is that it didn't scratch the itch for a lot of existing players, because it's such a focused game. There were a lot of people who tried to play 4e like they played 3e and it just didn't work. So they looked around, found Pathfinder, and made the switch.

Agreed, a big misread of the player base by WOTC. 4e is actually a better designed system than 5e.

Unfortunately for 4e, it was not the system most wanted to use to play a game of D&D!

Something similar, I think, happened with White Wolf and 2e (more rules didn't help tell the stories those players were interested in), although to a lesser degree.

Some similarities for sure; Lore, and system all took a turn the fanbase didn't really want, and WoD has faded away as a result. (In WW case they ran into lore issues due to going in deep on their house metaplot...)

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[Stormonu]

The idea that "new edition = new system" isn't totally unique to WotC D&D, but it is, I think, fairly rare outside of the d20 ecosystem. And D&D players are, I think, uniquely used to the idea. (Which works out conveniently well for a company that, I'm sure, would like very much to sell you a new set of core rulebooks at least every decade or so.)

Nah, it’s not unique to “the d20 ecosystem”. I can point to numerous other systems that have changed through their lifetimes, though usually also with a change of publisher - and usually by a 3rd edition, of all things*. Star Wars, Star Trek, Gamma World, Deadlands, Legends of the Five Rings, World of Darkness, Warhammer Fantasy, Twilight 2000, 40K (tabletop & RPG), Shadowsun, “Cortex” - just to name a few.

Heck, even Call of Cthulhu has seen variants such as the d20 version (can’t speak to the original CoC, I only have the 7E book).

* It seems to me that most non-D&D RPGs get a “revised”/2E version if they survive their first year in the wild, then a completely-rewritten-from-scratch 3rd edition a few years hence if they survive long enough. D&D (and CoC) seem to have unnaturally long shelf lives.

 

[Zardnaar]

A bit might just be people love D&D but not RPGs.

I'll play other RPGs but it's mostly a waste of time and money trying to run them.

In effect that means you don't play other RPGs it's just to hard getting players.

 

[Jaeger]

A bit might just be people love D&D but not RPGs.

I'll play other RPGs but it's mostly a waste of time and money trying to run them.

In effect that means you don't play other RPGs it's just to hard getting players.

I have found that effect to be rather a "depends" kind of thing. IMHO it's about finding the right crowd in your area.

I've never had a hard time finding a group or players to play other RPG's.

Evidently my experience seems to be a bit of an anomaly though. By some accounts others have found it mission impossible.

I have been fortunate that my group is willing to change systems with each new campaign. With two other members of the group besides me willing to run stuff. If you find a game group that is willing to do a rotation like that = gaming gold.

 

[Stormonu]

Granted, getting buy-in for other RPGs can be difficult - I suppose that is why D&D sits on the top of the heap for popularity. It’s a “safe” bet people have heard of it, and most people will have either started their RPG career with it, or it has been the only RPG they’ve ever played.

Still, I don’t feel it’s a waste, but I’m biased as I’m looking at a 6 ft. tall bookshelf full of RPGs.

I can say I have run across a number of people who will happily play other RPGs, but wouldn’t touch D&D. Mostly White Wolfers.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

I can say I have run across a number of people who will happily play other RPGs, but wouldn’t touch D&D. Mostly White Wolfers.

That is because in the 90's, White Wolf players got the rep of being elitist snobs who looked down on all other RPGs. Maybe that was a big city thing, or a West Coast thing, because all the people I played the Storyteller games with also enjoyed other games, including D&D.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

I love the lore/background of World of Darkness but I would rather the "crunch", the game mechanics of d20 system. Then I buy "corebooks" but I forget the sourcebooks what only I read once. In the internet age you haven't to spend money when you can read freely lots of fandom wikis about videogames, cartoons, comics, novels, TV-shows, movies..

 

[Stormonu]

That is because in the 90's, White Wolf players got the rep of being elitist snobs who looked down on all other RPGs. Maybe that was a big city thing, or a West Coast thing, because all the people I played the Storyteller games with also enjoyed other games, including D&D.

I live only a couple hours from New Orleans, so there was a bigger crowd of WW players in the area. I could tell some tales of the rivalries between the Werewolf and Vampire players, let me tell you. The weirdest were the "panty raids" - the LARP players from one group would sneak into the other group's games and abduct players or props. Then there was the whole IHOP affair...