D&D General Does D&D (and RPGs in general) Need Edition Resets?

[soviet]

I don't think D&D's market dominance is really based on its system. I think classic AD&D (either edition) with minor edits and WotC's budget would still be number 1.

 

[Lanefan]

Evolution Smevolution.

A version of 1e D&D that is slowly and barely changed from its original form published by TSR or WOTC would be outsold by 2 or 3 RPGs. Maybe even 5+.

Let's say TSR remains and WOTC creates 3e as their own WOTCRPG 1st edition.

Does anyone else see WOTCRPG and want to pronounce it "what-crap-gee"?

We can't undo history, but had TSR been better run (and thus survived) I highly doubt WotC would have come out with their own RPG; and TSR would now be reaping the zeitgeist-based benefits of the 2010s.

 

[Minigiant]

Does anyone else see WOTCRPG and want to pronounce it "what-crap-gee"?

We can't undo history, but had TSR been better run (and thus survived) I highly doubt WotC would have come out with their own RPG; and TSR would now be reaping the zeitgeist-based benefits of the 2010s.

My point is a 1e that never resets would send as outdated today and be outsold in the 2020s by the offerings of any big game company that uses the experiences and innovation 1e doesn't use.

It would make "late stage 4e" look like a blockbuster.

 

[Zardnaar]

I don't think D&D's market dominance is really based on its system. I think classic AD&D (either edition) with minor edits and WotC's budget would still be number 1.

I think you would need an AD&D 3E and evolution from that.

Specifically unified ability scores and ascending AC. And evolve from there.

 

[Minigiant]

I don't think D&D's market dominance is really based on its system. I think classic AD&D (either edition) with minor edits and WotC's budget would still be number 1.

I doubt that.

D&D's success is built on its marketing and ability to adapt to popular current and past trends.

Classic AD&D is too rigid and segmented for today's market and some other publishers with a looser and easier system that allows for more archetypes would blow Classic D&D out the water once the first big scandal hits the Internet.

A fearless, maneverless, skill less RPG with few level character features and attack and save charts wont be the market leader in 2023.

 

[Micah Sweet]

My point is a 1e that never resets would send as outdated today and be outsold in the 2020s by the offerings of any big game company that uses the experiences and innovation 1e doesn't use.

It would make "late stage 4e" look like a blockbuster.

So the claim here is an iterated version of 1e would be less successful than any RPG of the modern day produced by a large company?

 

[Minigiant]

So the claim here is an iterated version of 1e would be less successful than any RPG of the modern day produced by a large company?

No

It's that slowly updated 1e that never resets would be less successful than a RPG produced by a large company that is allowed to reset and/or incorporated modern game design.


Or basically.

If 1e never resets, it will never catch up with the current level of game design and be outdated. This would open a path for any well funded well designed well marketed RPG to surpass them with modern game design.

 

[Thomas Shey]

So the claim here is an iterated version of 1e would be less successful than any RPG of the modern day produced by a large company?

I suspect it depends on how iterated. There are a number of advantages D&D was going to have no matter what, but it should be noted that even the people who fled 3e and 4e into the OSR sphere don't seem to have usually run to AD&D knockoffs. It wouldn't have to be a 5e, but I think it might not be what it now is with something terribly close to that system as-was.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I suspect it depends on how iterated. There are a number of advantages D&D was going to have no matter what, but it should be noted that even the people who fled 3e and 4e into the OSR sphere don't seem to have usually run to AD&D knockoffs. It wouldn't have to be a 5e, but I think it might not be what it now is with something terribly close to that system as-was.

No. They run to knock-offs that are older than 1e.

 

[Staffan]

Evolution Smevolution.

A version of 1e D&D that is slowly and barely changed from its original form published by TSR or WOTC would be outsold by 2 or 3 RPGs. Maybe even 5+.

Let's say TSR remains and WOTC creates 3e as their own WOTCRPG 1st edition. Then they make WOTCRPG 2e. Then Paizo makes Pathfinder 2e as their Pathfinder 1e.

I think either WOTC'S WOTCRPG or Paizo's Pathfinder outsells TSR's D&D 6e.

Because if D&D does not reset, it doesn't get to utilize many of the advancements and new ideas in RPG game design.

If TSR remains, there is no 3e-style WOTCRPG. Wizards started as an RPG company. When they first started getting flush with Magicash, they expanded into more RPGs because that's what Adkison was into. They bought Ars Magica and Talislanta (and maybe some others), and published Everway on their own. But they realized pretty quickly that resources spent on RPGs were pretty much wasted in comparison to resources spent on Magic, so they sold them off again and got out of RPGs – until they got the chance to buy the biggest RPG on the block.

And without 3e, there is no Paizo or Pathfinder. Paizo started because Wizards wanted to outsource making the Dragon and Dungeon magazines, so Lisa Stevens and Vic Wertz took some of the money they got from Wizards selling out to Hasbro and started a publishing company with it. They got known for raising the standard of the magazines, and particularly for their adventure paths in Dungeon. When they lost the license to the magazines because Wizards wanted to move them in house again, they switched focus to making magazine-like adventure paths, and mainly created Pathfinder because they didn't want to make 4e adventures (partially because they didn't like the rules, and partially because they couldn't abide the GSL) and it made little long-term sense to make adventures for a system that was no longer being published.

Pre-3e, the biggest competitors to D&D were White Wolf (who were about to blow themselves up and sell to an Icelandic video game studio), Palladium, and FASA. West End Games would have been one too if their parent company hadn't gone bankrupt in 1998 which made them lose the Star Wars license (just before the release of the Phantom Menace, too).