D&D 5E Is 5e's Success Actually Bad for Other Games?

[PsyzhranV2]

Without D&D, there would be no other RPGs at all.

This has no bearing on whether the current edition of D&D is dominating the market to the point of actively stifling its competitors or not.

Frankly, quite a few other games I've seen could be improved by making them more like D&D.

No.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

Gygax did Chainmail and it's Fantasy Supplement in 1971. OD&D was 1974.

Warhammer started in 1983.

"Same Time" being a decade apart with Warhammer clearly having taken inspiration from Chainmail. What with Elves being good against Undead, based on Chainmail's Elves being Paralysis/Sleep immune as a Rock-Paper-Scissors advantage over undead units in Chainmail which carried forward into D&D.

Games Workshop was also the primary importer of D&D to the UK in the 70s and 80s. Sooo.... >.>

Now you could instead argue that Warhammer was an advancement of Reaper with it's smaller-unit combat and fantasy characters... But that's literally what Chainmail was. And Reaper came out in 1978. Well after both Chainmail and OD&D...

Huh, didn't know that.

Still, I think that the origins of chainmail (coming out of medieval wargaming) would have eventually been developed by someone else, and that would have eventually led to D&D. Heck, it may even first happen in video games and move over to tables later. I don't know, but I'm skeptical that if Gygax was never born a different TTRPG would never emerge.

Now, emerge to prominence? Less certain about that.

 

[Parmandur]

This has no bearing on whether the current edition of D&D is dominating the market to the point of actively stifling its competitors or not.

No.

That, like, just your opinion, man.

 

[clearstream]

Short answer:
No. The only destructive thing thing about 5e is the continued inclusion of Bards and the Soulless, Dead-eyed Elves.

Long Answer:
No. This falls under "A rising tide lifts all ships." It has always been the case that D&D (and D&D variants, like PF) have been the 800 pound gorilla in the TTRPG market. Arguments can be made as to whether this is good or bad in terms of introducing players to the hobby. But the following two things are true:
1. There will always be some contingent of people that will continue to play D&D, say that D&D is all they need, etc.
2. There will always be a contingent of people that will grow dissatisfied with D&D over time, and will branch out to other games.

The massive success of 5e has brought all sorts of new players to the hobby. Some will fall away, but many will stay, and some of those many will be playing alternate games- players that would not have been in the hobby to begin with.

The success of D&D right now is providing a whole new generation of TTRPG players, many of them will end up playing other games as well. It's a good thing.

EDIT: Kinja'd by @Fanaelialae !

Obviously wrong about bards. Transparently correct on rising tide.

 

[Parmandur]

Huh, didn't know that.

Still, I think that the origins of chainmail (coming out of medieval wargaming) would have eventually been developed by someone else, and that would have eventually led to D&D. Heck, it may even first happen in video games and move over to tables later. I don't know, but I'm skeptical that if Gygax was never born a different TTRPG would never emerge.

Now, emerge to prominence? Less certain about that.

I dunno, the more I study about the history of the formation of the game, the more tenuous the circumstances are: without the Napaleonic flop that Arnesons group had tries, Arneaon wouldn't have done the proto-D&D, and if Gygax wasn't singlehandedly pushing Medieval wargsmming so hard he might not have gotten in touch with Arneaon, or if Arneson hadn't brought Gygax on board it's unthinkable that he would have developed a final product...and if D&D wasn't there, there ry weren't any parallels running. Pop culture from the 70's would be basically unrecognizable.

 

[Mercurius]

D&D is both the gateway drug to RPGs and also the home that people come back to. That's kind of always been the case, and is still the case today. I suppose one difference from the 90s is back then, you had two major streams: D&D and World of Darkness. But the difference now is the "secondary stream" is just more varied, and includes a wide range of games, some with very established niches (there were obviously a lot of other games in the 90s, but probably not as much as today, and the player base was more centralized around the two streams).

There are also game companies that come along and offer something that WotC doesn't, like Fria Ligua, which in my mind is the current market leader on quality of presentation. But it is also more niche; maybe Fria Ligua games would be even more popular if they got more exposure, but the simply fact of the matter is that popularity has little to nothing to do with quality, and the most popular things are those with widest appeal, while higher concept stuff tends to gain only cult followings (e.g. Cthulhu, Numenera, etc).

That said, it probably has hurt the OSR, at least as far as total numbers are concerned. The OSR is sort of like model railroading: there are more fans aging out then there are new people coming in. Further, a lot of OSR folks went that direction because they didn't like the excesses of 3E and 4E. 5E, while not perfect for old school D&D, is "good enough" so that the positives outweigh the deficits for a large number of OSR folks. It isn't uncommon on OSR forums for people to say something like, "I play 5E because of X, Y, and Z" (and then often get attacked for it by the more "edgelordy" folks).

(All of the above is just my impressionistic take and not meant to be confused with factual reality, whatever that is)

 

[EzekielRaiden]

It will be, if the people who make games take the wrong lesson from 5e....as they have from nearly every other major entertainment product that sells. I call it the "Watchmen effect," after the poster-child of "a popular work imitated badly by the entire industry."

That is, there's stuff to learn from 5e as a piece of design. However:
(a) the fact that it is successful does not mean that every single part thereof is axiomatically successful, because games (and comics and a lot of other things) are never just the sum of their parts and are never enjoyed for ABSOLUTELY every single component they contain, and
(b) the fact that a component of 5e was successful in 5e does not mean that it is axiomatically successful in all games always, because every component of an entertainment product exists in the context of the components that surround it.

To use a simple food analogy, (a) is analogous to saying "just because a popular carrot cake recipe calls for decorative sliced almonds doesn't mean the decorative almonds are part of why it's popular or tasty," and (b) is analogous to saying "just because baking at 350 for 15 minutes is absolutely vital for making those snicker doodles taste good does not mean that it will be at all good to bake a salad at 350 for 15 minutes."

Given that I already see LOTS of fans making these mistaken conclusions on a regular basis, I'm not exactly hopeful. Yes, it is good that 5e is bringing new blood into the hobby, and yes, on the net, this is probably for the best. But there is a shadow that can be cast by such success, and I'm not really seeing anyone meaningfully tackle that.

 

[dragoner]

Do you think 5e is so successful that it actually takes away players from other systems?

It creates the environment for other games to be made, in business terms: substitutes.

• Substitutes provide choices and alternatives for consumers while creating competition and lower prices in the marketplace.

How Substitutes Work

A substitute, or substitute good, is a product or service that a consumer sees as the same or similar to another product.

www.investopedia.com

 

[Aldarc]

Any idea which stream that was? The most recent where he's finally got a haircut?

Wednesday Night Hangout starting at about the 1 hour 35 mark. He also criticizes 5e a fair bit, adding thoughts to a tweet he made.

He may have also talked more about 4e on the Thursday Night Hangout as well. I can't remember.

 

[Parmandur]

while higher concept stuff tends to gain only cult followings (e.g. Cthulhu, Numenera, etc).

It is worth noting that Call of Cthulu is one of the most successful RPGs on the market right now, and is less niche than just about any non-D&D RPG.