D&D (2024) What happens if One DnD fails?

[payn]

I am skeptical that it will fail based on this alone. The outrage cycle tends to be relatively brief, especially when consumers are eager to find excuses to consume.

They are eagerly consuming Paizo right now.

 

[ilgatto]

A different question might be: what happens if “dnd” as an IP and lifestyle brand fails? As in the movies, tv shows etc are not as popular as they expect? They may find out soon that dnd is not marvel or lord of the rings.

A "lifestyle brand"!?

My oh my, we have come a long way, haven't we?

 

[Aldarc]

They are eagerly consuming Paizo right now.

IMHO, this confuses short-term behaviors for more meaningful long-term ones. I've seen similar claims with people outraged about game companies (e.g., Blizzard). They raged quit over this and that and went to play other games, claiming they would never play Blizzard games again. What are they doing now? Playing Blizzard games again.

We are still in the short-term ripples effects. There is at least a year between now and the release of One D&D. People's attitudes can and will change.

 

[mhd]

A "lifestyle brand"!?

My oh my, we have come a long way, haven't we?

1976. Didn't take that long.

 

[payn]

IMHO, this confuses short-term behaviors for more meaningful long-term ones. I've seen similar claims with people outraged about game companies (e.g., Blizzard). They raged quit over this and that and went to play other games, claiming they would never play Blizzard games again. What are they doing now? Playing Blizzard games again.

We are still in the short-term ripples effects. There is at least a year between now and the release of One D&D. People's attitudes can and will change.

Sure but if even ten percent stay away that's alot. There are plenty former D&D gamers still with Paizo since 2009.

 

[Aldarc]

Sure but if even ten percent stay away that's alot. There are plenty former D&D gamers still with Paizo since 2009.

And if fifty percent stay away, that's even more, but hypotheticals don't change the fact that we are still in the short-term. People are still navigating the controversy. WotC has not responded or released a statement yet. One D&D has not yet been released. Some other major players have kept their mouths shut. Upset 5e fans have not even had a week to "eagerly consume Paizo," and they may bounce off it for another alternative out in the market. And many casual (and even hardcore) fans have short-term memories and fickle behaviors when it comes to their favorite products and brands.

 

[DEFCON 1]

It's not the game anyone need concern themselves about... it's whether or not the D&D Beyond VTT they are putting together catches on. That will be the way to say whether or not any part of all of this is a "failure".

If WotC gets their VTT up and running and working perpetually online like they want, and the entire system works well for more people (who haven't already jerry-rigged other online options for themselves to get them exactly in the standard they want)... then D&D will maintain a place in the gaming ecosystem. Short-term losses (or what the blogosphere might call "failures") in the actual game won't matter if WotC's servers remain online and the service is there for people to continually use over the next 5-10 years. And if WotC continues to put money into it and iterate on their design... D&D will always have a place at the table and players will always have an option available to them.

The 2024 "game books" selling less copies than the 2014 ones is not really the concern here I do not believe.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Grousing to the contrary, I think anyone still playing 5E when the 1D&D core set comes out will switch over sooner rather than later. I'm guessing the PHB wil be the best seller by far, though, and the DMG the worst. The Monster Manual's sales will depend on the art, mostly, I think.

I tend to agree, though I think the speed of the switchover overall will depend heavily on three factors:

1) Does 1D&D offer anything "exciting" over 5E, especially something can't be trivially backported to 5E?

Primarily this applies to DMs, I'd suggest.

2) How significant are the non-class rules changes?

More significant changes will slow changeover as inevitably some people will get bees in bonnets re: specific changes and/or not want to learn new rules.

3) The exact situation with D&D Beyond and 5E/1D&D.

Right now up to 13 million of the estimate 30 million D&D players are on D&D Beyond, and WotC are trying to get as many more people there as possible, as their whole heavily-invested 3D VTT strategy requires it. How Beyond treats 5E and 1D&D will be very determinative on the speed of switchover. There are approaches I can see:

A) Treat 5E as "incompatible" with new features, and require buying new PHB/DMG/MM.

This is the most "hardline" approach. No doubt current functionality will be maintained for 5E, but in order to access new/updated functionality, you'll need to buy a new PHB (and possibly the other books) or have them shared with you. I think this is unlikely but it would definitely both piss people off and segregate 5E players in a way that would likely slow uptake.

B) Treat 5E as "Legacy content" and essentially update rules functionality - but not content - "for free" to 1D&D.

In this scenario, all 5E core stuff becomes "Legacy content" which you have to enable, and the rules, like the way the character sheet calculates unarmed combat, for example, change to the 1D&D. You'd only have access to the 5E versions of races/classes/subclasses (albeit likely with free assignment of the racial ASIs defaulting to or forced "on"). You'd get access to all new tools or functionality, but where D&D rules were invoked, they'd be the 1D&D versions. Rules-text-wise you'd still only have the 5E stuff though I daresay there will be a 1D&D Basic Set that's free.

I think this is pretty likely. It'll piss some people off, but I suspect the people most likely to be annoyed are those who are least likely to be using Beyond anyway, and it provides strong encouragement to change to 1D&D.

C) "Free upgrade" to 1D&D for subscribers.

This would be the most aggressive approach, and it's not entirely out-of-line with Microsoft approaches. In this case, as long as you're on a Master level subscription to D&D and own the 5E PHB/DMG/MM, or content-linked to an account that is, you'd get access to the 1D&D PHB/DMG/MM. If you unsub, you lose access unless you buy them separately of course. This is losing WotC a chunk of cash in the short term, but it does mean that you're making people into extra-loyal subscribers, because they need to keep subscribing for stuff to keep working (which is not currently the case). It would also likely massively speed up transition.

I think this is less likely than B, because the sweet, sweet quarterly returns WotC would get from extra millions of people dropping $150+ on the new PHB/DMG/MM in 2024 to the longer-term lock-in of them having to sub to keep owning the books (buying them would still be an option, but people will take a "well I'd sub anyway!" attitude and not do it). However if the transition goes slower than WotC hopes, especially if the 3D VTT is ready and waiting for delicious microtransactions, I think we might well see C.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

If WotC gets their VTT up and running and working perpetually online like they want

I mean, I mostly agree with what you're saying here, but I think we have to allow that this is a big "if".

WotC are investing far more heavily than anyone has ever done in VTT, by a huge margin, but as @Umbran so often cautions us, software projects have a very high rate of budget or time overruns, failure to achieve major objectives, or just outright failure to produce a functional product. That WotC have an exceptional history of failed software projects and have never attempted one on even a quarter of this scale before does not bode well.

But it could happen!

Short-term losses (or what the blogosphere might call "failures") in the actual game won't matter if WotC's servers remain online and the service is there for people to continually use over the next 5-10 years.

I think it needs to do more than "be there". It will also need to be pleasant and easy to use, cheap to get started with - or use continually, even, if you don't want pretty minis - and fairly flexible. It'll also need to be quite full-featured at the "basic" level.

Otherwise it'll gradually or even rapidly dwindle, like so many online projects.

The killer app for it is probably an AI DM that's reasonably reliable and not prone to "deviance" lol (but people are getting better at stopping that). It's a little perverse because one of 5E's goals was to recognise the DM and make their decisionmaking truly integral to the game, but I think 1D&D is going to want to gently reverse course on that, as it'll make the game more accessible and easier to "digitize". An AI DM, even a fairly simplistic/dim one that could, say, only run official WotC (TM) adventures would potentially bring in a whole bunch of new players, and potentially sell content. Like, your DM doesn't have/want to run Curse of Strahd 2: The Strahddening? But you'd like to play it? Just buy it and get the AI DM to run it for you (you'll need to up your sub to Master tier to access the AI DM of course!). Our novel "autoscaling" tech will ensure the encounters get rescaled for your group size and/or let you control multiple characters! Huzzah now D&D is a subscription-based computer game of a particularly overpriced kind! And you're heavily invested in it! Let's see you Sunk Cost Fallacy your way out of this one!

NB: The people who would be keen on the AI DM will be a very different lot to the sort of people inspired to play by Critical Role or the like, but that's fine, you've just got more audiences for your product!

And if WotC continues to put money into it and iterate on their design...

Yeah and that's a very interesting question to me. Will they? We don't know if they're a company that thinks like that. They've never shown any sign that they are, but we've had recent management changes, and they've brought in huge numbers of people to work on the 3D VTT, and depending on who is in charge, that culture could have come with.

One thing I would caution people against reading as a failure re: the 3D VTT - if they get it up and running and functioning properly, and then suddenly we hear like 30-60% of the 350 people they hired for it got fired/let go, that is not necessarily indicative of anything but the project being complete. That's normal in an AAA-style software development cycle. Even World of Warcraft, which succeeded far beyond the wildest dreams of Blizzard, let hundreds of people go once it launched. If they get let go before it's functioning properly, that's a bit more concerning.

 

[embee]

So the worst (for WotC and Hasbro) happens. One DnD launches and instantly makes 4e look like a record success. Meanwhile all the players just continue quietly playing 5e instead.

This is a question which has been on my mind since before the OGL disaster, as pretty much every single person I've talked to plans to just keep on playing 5e rather than switching to One DnD.

Do WotC/Hasbro double down on it and keep pushing it hoping for it to eventually become popular? Do they do a 4e and try to push out a replacement edition as fast as possible? Do they try to force people to switch by removing all the 5e tools from DnD Beyond?

Or do the higher ups at Hasbro just decide the brand isn't possible anymore, and throw the entire thing into the bin of dead IPs?

Clearly, if this were to happen, Hasbro would send out an army of stooges to go house to house, kicking down doors and seizing everyone's 5e materials.

Of course, if this didn't happen, I imagine that if people didn't buy into OneD&D, they'd likely just continue using all of the 5e and 5e-compatible materials out there. Additionally, the Sun would keep on shining and the world would keep on spinning on its axis.