Grognard view of One D&D?

[haakon1]

So what do we, the Older Edition community, think of One D&D?

My initial thoughts on a new edition are: Please don’t. With the exception of 3 & 5, the number of players in new editions has been smaller than the edition before - 50/50 chance that it hurts the long term prospects for the game. And new editions divide the community everytime it seems.

I’m not a 5e fan, but I’m hoping for their sake it‘s nearly unnoticeable like 3e to 3.5e.

I suspect WotC has absolutely no interest in Older Edition fans, so I don’t suspect it’ll bring us back into the fold (whichever Older Editions we prefer), but whatever One D&D is, I’ll buy the PHB and presumably play it occasionally with someone else DMing … and learn to convert some of the avalanche of new material backwards.

8 years between editions isn’t much when your campaigns last decades … yup, I’m definitely not the audience,

 

[payn]

Well, 5E D&D is more popular than ever. During the playtest the designers painstakingly took down old gen gamers thoughts and preferences and weighed them against newer gamers. So, I do think they care about older gamers, but if "care" means just reprinting Chainmail, then you are probably right.

 

[Kobold Stew]

I’m not a 5e fan, but I’m hoping for their sake it‘s nearly unnoticeable like 3e to 3.5e.

I would not have said the transition from 3e to 3.5 was nearly unnoticeable. They are sayig that the transition from 5 to One will be smaller, which is what many of us are hoping for.

 

[Dire Bare]

With the exception of 3 & 5, the number of players in new editions has been smaller than the edition before . . .

This is simply not true. Each edition of D&D has outsold previous editions, and D&D has seen upwards growth since 1974. The current edition, 5th, has seen explosive growth like never before.

A new "edition", a 5.5E if you will, is not going to hurt the growth of D&D or book sales.

 

[Bedrockgames]

This is simply not true. Each edition of D&D has outsold previous editions, and D&D has seen upwards growth since 1974. The current edition, 5th, has seen explosive growth like never before.

A new "edition", a 5.5E if you will, is not going to hurt the growth of D&D or book sales.

I don't know about the sales numbers but what he says largely matches my experience, which is the player base has shrunk or fragmented around editions. I don't it is always the case. 3E, with its back to the dungeon mindset, seemed to bring back a lot of people who had written off D&D as a dead brand (not sure if people remember the late 90s but it was pretty grim). Definitely remember it feeling like the 2E era, which I really liked, saw a shrinking base of players. I don't think it is very deniable that 4E split the player base and that allowed Pathfinder to grab a huge chunk of the D&D audience. The whole point of 5E was to bring people back together. I don't play 5E, like the OP, but it does seem they achieved that. I think the wild card here is D&D is exeperiencing very unprecedented popularity right now, and that might mean they don't have to worry as much. On the other hand, an edition break could be the sort of thing that disrupts popularity if its very divisive among current fans (I can't say whether One D&D would be or not as I am not familiar enough with 5E, so I can't really gauge all the proposed changes I have seen).

 

[billd91]

This is simply not true. Each edition of D&D has outsold previous editions, and D&D has seen upwards growth since 1974. The current edition, 5th, has seen explosive growth like never before.

A new "edition", a 5.5E if you will, is not going to hurt the growth of D&D or book sales.

Not if we believe Ben Riggs's stats. 2e rulebooks did not outsell 1e by the numbers we have from him as far as I can tell. We may not have numbers for 3e and 4e, just statements that the initial 4e print runs were doing better than 3e, but I don't believe for a second that 4e ended up with more players than 3e given the 4e controversy and success of Pathfinder as an alternative.

So I can see some room for concern given the track record of editions. But if the changes to 5e that come in One D&D are well-managed and not too drastic, I can see it being the most successful follow-up to an edition yet.

 

[Malmuria]

I suspect WotC has absolutely no interest in Older Edition fans, so I don’t suspect it’ll bring us back into the fold (whichever Older Editions we prefer),

but whatever One D&D is, I’ll buy the PHB and presumably play it occasionally with someone else DMing … and learn to convert some of the avalanche of new material backwards.

Like everyone else, the grognards will complain about wotc and then buy the game anyway

 

[Tutara]

This thread confuses me.

You don't think D&DONE will bring you 'back into the fold'.
You're 'not the audience'.
You're 'not a 5E fan'.

But you'll 'buy the PHB' anyway? Why? If you don't like something, why would you buy it? It makes no sense to me. If I don't like something, I don't buy it. Why would you?

 

[Akrasia]

So far I dislike that feats look to be no longer optional and that inspiration no longer can be readily ignored. I play with neither feats nor inspiration in order to foster a "gritty" and "old school" feel to my game and that may not be possible with 5.5e. I also like to minimize the choices that players have to make at first level.

 

[Akrasia]

This is simply not true. Each edition of D&D has outsold previous editions, and D&D has seen upwards growth since 1974. The current edition, 5th, has seen explosive growth like never before.

A new "edition", a 5.5E if you will, is not going to hurt the growth of D&D or book sales.

Now this is "simply not true."

2e AD&D core rulebooks had about 50% as many sales during its run than the 1e AD&D rulebooks did. (See Ben Riggs's data and book Slaying the Dragon.)

We don't have publicly available data on 4e, but I strongly suspect that given how quickly it wilted and was replaced by 5e, its sales were pretty terrible a year or so after the initial release.