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

[Xyxox]

God I would have bought that lol. 4E back AND OGL 1.0a left alone? Sounds pretty ideal.

I must admit as an aside, a someone who played 4E once and moved to Pathfinder, 4E was probably the most balanced TTRPG I ever played.

 

[MoonSong]

(And honestly if the right patents had been filed at the right time, or we had a modern-style IP regime in place in the late 1800s/early 1900s, we might well have seen a scenario where only one company was allowed to make actual cars lol.)

Umm there was a car patent that was controled by a club of car manufacturers. It took Henry Ford taking them to court twice for it to be declared void.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Umm there was a car patent that was controled by a club of car manufacturers. It took Henry Ford taking them to court twice for it to be declared void.

I probably half-remembered that or something, because that makes sense lol.

 

[Benjamin Olson]

Since OneDnD is backwards compatible, I don't see how it's a problem.

Someone will buy the new PHB (as they stop selling the old one) and they can still play with the other people playing with the old PHB. So any new player will be using a revised class.

And the new version will just be better in a bunch of little ways. So eventually one of those old players will want buy a new book to play the new class.

Over time, everyone will eventually switch. It's just a question of how fast.

I mean, obviously there's a lot of value judgement here, but that's not really consistent with what I have seen of OneD&D. At the first playtest the "5e PHBs and 5.5 PHBs at the same table with minimal confusion" scenario seemed plausible as basically the DM could let 5e players swap their background feature for a feat and characters built with either book would be broadly equivalent. But since then, unless they are going to roll back the amount of changes, it seems like the design modus operandi is very much to change just enough to make it a headache to play together with different PHBs. At the very least it would be hard to run a multi-PHB game without the DM having both PHBs at the ready. My sense is that they are shooting for "compatible" in the sense of you could run an adventure written for 5e at a OneD&D table, more than seriously trying to support dueling PHB tables.

Personally my evaluation of what we've seen of OneD&D is much more "arbitrarily different in a bunch of little ways" than "better in a bunch of little ways", but I accept that people's mileage will vary.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

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?

Nah, if the OneDnD core books don’t sell, they’ll just quietly keep making 5e books.

like, the OGL debacle makes it more clear than ever they intend to make new core books for 5e D&D and lean harder than before into just calling it D&D.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I mean, obviously there's a lot of value judgement here, but that's not really consistent with what I have seen of OneD&D. At the first playtest the "5e PHBs and 5.5 PHBs at the same table with minimal confusion" scenario seemed plausible as basically the DM could let 5e players swap their background feature for a feat and characters built with either book would be broadly equivalent. But since then, unless they are going to roll back the amount of changes, it seems like the design modus operandi is very much to change just enough to make it a headache to play together with different PHBs. At the very least it would be hard to run a multi-PHB game without the DM having both PHBs at the ready. My sense is that they are shooting for "compatible" in the sense of you could run an adventure written for 5e at a OneD&D table, more than seriously trying to support dueling PHB tables.

Personally my evaluation of what we've seen of OneD&D is much more "arbitrarily different in a bunch of little ways" than "better in a bunch of little ways", but I accept that people's mileage will vary.

Well I think that it was always the intent to replace the PHB. It’s backward compatible because it doesn’t matter which core set you’re using, you can use all the supplements.

 

[mamba]

OneD&D can't "fail" in the sense that Hasbro has way too much invested to just give up on D&D. It can "fail" in the sense that Star Wars: Galaxy Edge failed, i.e. by being a major disappointment that requires substantial additional investment and rethinking of plans.

so like 4e then

It could also lead to Hasbro being bought out, or having to sell D&D. If Hasbro has another year like last, you have to think folks like Disney will be looking hard at acquiring all that tasty, tasty IP.

what tasty IP ? Hasbro seems to go the generic fantasy movie route, if even they do not believe in their IP, why would Disney?

 

[mellored]

My sense is that they are shooting for "compatible" in the sense of you could run an adventure written for 5e at a OneD&D table, more than seriously trying to support dueling PHB tables.

Mixing PHBs for the same character would take a bit of work. You can't readily use a new Cleric with old feats and subclasses.

So yes, that part is not compatible, though shouldn't be hard to home brew.

But it's not an issue to have both at the same table. A new Cleric and an old Cleric can play together just fine.

The game as a whole is compatible.

 

[Benjamin Olson]

Well I think that it was always the intent to replace the PHB. It’s backward compatible because it doesn’t matter which core set you’re using, you can use all the supplements.

Certainly that makes sense. I just held out hope (perhaps a fool's hope) with the first playtest, that it was only as radical a change as it was because the role of "races" was the thing WotC was quite open about being most unhappy with in 5e, and that on the whole it was mostly just going to be a codification of the changes that had happened over the life of 5e (the thing I actually wanted). It wasn't until the next playtest that I fully realized that every little thing was going to get tweaked and remixed whether it was broken or not.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Certainly that makes sense. I just held out hope (perhaps a fool's hope) with the first playtest, that it was only as radical a change as it was because the role of "races" was the thing WotC was quite open about being most unhappy with in 5e, and that on the whole it was mostly just going to be a codification of the changes that had happened over the life of 5e (the thing I actually wanted). It wasn't until the next playtest that I fully realized that every little thing was going to get tweaked and remixed whether it was broken or not.

Well we still don’t even know that’s true. It’s possible we have seen the most radical ideas they plan to put out, and the end product will just be 5e with more clarity, more RAI turned into RAW, and a suite of quality of life improvements based on a broad base of feedback.

Hell, at this point I almost hope that isn’t the case, because if it is I think it’ll be a hit, and I don’t know that I’m rooting for them anymore.