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

[DEFCON 1]

Capitalistic markets don't work like that in practice. Once the market leader entrenches themselves and manages to establish themselves in the consumers' minds as the "default", or as a "prestige brand", then familiarity, over quality, becomes the primary determinant of success. Remember five years ago when everybody was going crazy over Beats by Dr. Dre? Even though those headphones were overpriced for their actual sound quality? Though Beats ended up being bought and cannibalized by Apple, and now it's all about Airpods.

I can say with utmost confidence in a vacuum, looking solely at the rules design, that Stars Without Number, Lancer, and Blades in the Dark are far better games than D&D. But Kevin Crawford, Massif Press, and Evil Hat all don't have the level of financial resources or the existing fan base for their brand that WotC has for D&D. In this market it takes money to make money, and right now WotC has the lion's share of the money.

Yeah, but who gives a crap about "rules design"? Is the game fun? Then people will play it.

But that's not really what this whole thread is about. What this thread is really about is EGO. All the people who prefer games other than 5E have their egos bruised because THEIR game that THEY think is superior is not seen in the same light as 5E. THEY think 5E isn't worth all the cache it gets, and it kills them that THEIR choice of game gets nothing.

If they have a hard time getting people to play THEIR game, because everybody else wants to play 5E? Well, maybe, just maybe... THEY don't do a good enough job of showing all their friends why the game THEY like is better than D&D. If THEY could actually get across all the points of favor for their game... maybe more people would play it. But if not... I think they're afraid it says more about THEM as players and cheerleaders than it does WotC.

I mean, I understand why they wish to blame WotC and the D&D game because they are unable to convince people their game of choice is better. And I'm sure it hurts to know that other people just don't see the same "brilliance" that they do. But you know what? Too bad.

 

[Mercurius]

I don't really buy this notion that a Thing arises due to random events that, if they didn't occur in just the right way, the Thing wouldn't have happened.

In other words, if Gygax and Arneson didn't create roleplaying, someone else would have. Doesn't take anything away from them, of course, and the brilliance of the idea.

I've also found that new ideas often arise in multiple places. We remember the person who brought it to the public, but it could be that there were other people creating roleplaying games in the early 70s that never saw the light of day.

 

[Morrus]

No. 5E is the primary way new players enter the hobby. Not many TTRPG companies have the size and clout for new player acquisition; WotC is the industry leader, and the responsibility largely falls upon them. Nobody else can really do that.

Eventually, some of those new players will find their way to other games. Not all of them, not even a large percentage, but a small percentage of a lot of people is still a boon for the rest of the industry.

And finally... D&D is the game responsible for normalizing TTRPGs. Now celebrities and popular streams show how much fun it is. That ties in to new player acquisition.

 

[Parmandur]

Yeah, but who gives a crap about "rules design"? Is the game fun? Then people will play it.

But that's not really what this whole thread is about. What this thread is really about is EGO. All the people who prefer games other than 5E have their egos bruised because THEIR game that THEY think is superior is not seen in the same light as 5E. THEY think 5E isn't worth all the cache it gets, and it kills them that THEIR choice of game gets nothing.

If they have a hard time getting people to play THEIR game, because everybody else wants to play 5E? Well, maybe, just maybe... THEY don't do a good enough job of showing all their friends why the game THEY like is better than D&D. If THEY could actually get across all the points of favor for their game... maybe more people would play it. But if not... I think they're afraid it says more about THEM as players and cheerleaders than it does WotC.

I mean, I understand why they wish to blame WotC and the D&D game because they are unable to convince people their game of choice is better. And I'm sure it hurts to know that other people just don't see the same "brilliance" that they do. But you know what? Too bad.

There is something to this, particularly any claim that one set of rules is "objectively" superior in some fashion. Superior at doing what? Different games have differing goals, and form follows function.

 

[Retreater]

But that's not really what this whole thread is about. What this thread is really about is EGO. All the people who prefer games other than 5E have their egos bruised because THEIR game that THEY think is superior is not seen in the same light as 5E. THEY think 5E isn't worth all the cache it gets, and it kills them that THEIR choice of game gets nothing.

I don't have "a game." I'm not trying to push players to Savage Worlds, Cthulhu, Traveller, or even Buck Rogers. I don't find it especially noble to play games other than 5e - play what you want. I've run (and am currently running) multiple games of 5e every week, have published for 5e, and purchase a lot of 5e content.
And yes, I remember how hard it was to find a gaming group prior to 5e. For decades I had difficulty finding even 4 consistent players. Now, I could run a game every night of the week. I think the system of 5e has had a definite role in that.
But is it so good that it's hurting other systems? That's the question I was posing. Consider Pathfinder for example. Does 5e scratch enough of the gaming itch that the market no longer needs a Pathfinder like it did in 2009?

 

[overgeeked]

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.

Here’s to hoping he writes a 4E clone that plays better and supports all the things 4E did badly.

 

[Mort]

But is it so good that it's hurting other systems? That's the question I was posing. Consider Pathfinder for example. Does 5e scratch enough of the gaming itch that the market no longer needs a Pathfinder like it did in 2009?

Pathfinder is a bit of a special case in that it's direct competition to D&D.

5e was partially a response to the fact that, for the first time ever a system other than D&D (though, of course, pathfinder was essentially D&D) was the best selling RPG.

Has the rise of 5e hurt pathfinder? I suspect so. Anecdotally I know quite a few people who moved from pathfinder (1e) to 5e and stayed there. I suspect these are not isolated incidents.

But other non D&D games - separate issue.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

We have an American Flag on the Moon because the Dukes of Burgundy came up with the idea of Credit.

The Dukes of Burgundy came up with the idea of Credit in the "I have a line of 'Free Money' based on what you anticipate I'm worth that I can spend now and pay you back at a later date.". This allowed them to put more soldiers on the field of battle with better equipment, particularly cavalry and armor. As a response, the Swiss created the Pike Square formation. The Pike Square didn't require heavily trained or armored troops to perform. You just get a large number of peasants together, put them in a square, put the Pikes outward, and suddenly you've got a box that cavalry can't easily overcome.

Hundreds of years later, the Pike Square is used to great effect by French Revolutionaries in France, and leads Napoleon to decide to have MASSIVE armies that can protect his cannons with their feeble meatsack bodies! Allowing his bombards to destroy fortifications and troops while keeping his cannons safe from cavalry. But this caused Supply Chain problems.

It's expensive and dangerous to feed an army. So Napoleon entreated his soldiers families to send them food on the battlefield. The common response to this, for a bunch of -very- French Parisians, was to bottle food in empty wine or champagne bottles, put the cork in, and send it out. This worked pretty well, but sometimes the food would be spoiled by the time it got there while tinned food didn't. The French chalked it up to "Bad Air" from the swamps around Paris and mostly focused on getting tinned food to their soldiers.

The "Bad Air" theory carried on. And when Malaria was a problem it was theorized that the "Bad Air" of places where Malaria occurred was the -real- problem. So a doctor in India asked one of his friends to send him "Good Air" to use from Switzerland, where Malaria didn't occur. By pressurizing air in a metal container the air got colder, which lead to the invention of Air Conditioning. Which, while not a cure for malaria, helped to keep people alive as they fought off the infection so it was "Good Enough".

In the late 1800s a scientist wanted to try and mess around with Air Pressure because air conditioning was a thing and compressing air made it turn cold. So he created a way to put a Vacuum between two pieces of metal to see if the heat and cold would transfer across that empty space. It did not. And thus he invented the Thermos.

Then a couple of geniuses realized that putting a Thermos full of Liquid or Solid Fuel in their rocket allowed the fuel behind the vacuum to remain relatively cold while the fuel being burned off was incredibly hot and that's why the Saturn V rocket allowed a man to reach the Moon.

History is so naughty word weird, man... It's -so- weird...

I mean... yes this is all causality, but it doesn't actually reveal that every event is like a single row of dominoes. History is more like dominoes spread all over a room; knocking over one will set off a bunch of other falling, but that doesn't mean that if you instead started with a different domino, that those other dominoes would never fall eventually.

It's a lot like how different cultures that had nothing in common, and no trade between each other, were able to come up with similar (not the same, but commonalities) innovations. The Mayans made paper out of fig trees, far after the Egyptians made paper with papyrus.

I'm not going to presume that TTRPGs are as inevitable an innovation as papyrus... but it could be, and I think with all the tinkering with wargaming people were having at the time, and the growth in popularity of some fantasy material, that it is possible a different game would have emerged even if Gygax did not exist.

 

[Fanaelialae]

Pathfinder is a bit of a special case in that it's direct competition to D&D.

5e was partially a response to the fact that, for the first time ever a system other than D&D (though, of course, pathfinder was essentially D&D) was the best selling RPG.

Has the rise of 5e hurt pathfinder? I suspect so. Anecdotally I know quite a few people who moved from pathfinder (1e) to 5e and staid there. I suspect these are not isolated incidents.

But other non D&D games - separate issue.

I think 5e was the final nail in PF's coffin, but I think the writing was on the wall before 5e came out. There's only so much content you can produce for a crunch heavy game before it starts to get extremely bloated and bend under its own weight. Paizo did an incredible job with it, but I think that even without 5e they would have probably produced the new edition. 5e probably pushed the timetable up, but only a little I think.

 

[Aldarc]

Here’s to hoping he writes a 4E clone that plays better and supports all the things 4E did badly.

Sadly, I think that the biggest impediment to a 4e clone - and likely why we won't get a New School Revival - is because of the legal restrictions that enabled OSR and its initial wave of retroclones don't apply to 4e. There have been some games that have taken inspiration from 4e (e.g., Lancer, SotDL, Strike!, 13th Age, etc.) but I am highly skeptical we will ever get a polished retroclone version of 4e.