D&D General D&D's Utter Dominance Is Good or Bad Because...

[Minigiant]

I would say that a D&D Beyond subscription model should address that...but the same people who don't want to buy new books may not be any more happy about paying a subscription for buying classes, monsters, etc. piecemeal--I can see the gnashing of teeth over "microtransactions" as I type this.

TTRPG gamers, like War Gamers and CCG gamers, are weird with money.

They will scream to the Hilltop that X, Y, and Z broken.
If you offer them a book with fixed X, Y, and Z in it , they will scream again that they have to buy X, Y, and Z again.
If you offer them a service that lets the dev/publisher patch X, Y, Z electronically, they will scream again that their collections are locked in that service.
But if another smaller indy company does the same thing, it's "shut up and take my money".

Wait... that 90% of fandoms.

That's another benefit of D&D's dominance, it covers the smaller guys from scrutiny.

(Insert Gordon Ramsey: Oh Dear Gorgeous/You %&*#ing Donkey Mme Here )

 

[Hussar]

Literal nonsense.

Even if the most condened elements of the fandom who respond to polls count, the existence of a broad and diverse 3rd party ecosystem proves that there is an appetite for 5E beyond the WotC borders.

A broad and diverse 3rd party ecosystem that accounts for what, maybe 10% of the industry? On a good day?

We got the 5e that we demanded. This is what we wanted. As a fandom, we demanded that this is the 5e that WOTC provides. WotC is not permitted to go beyond that mandate by a fandom that will absolutely crucify them if they try.

We cannot now complain that we got what we asked for.

 

[Hussar]

Nah.

They tried experimental and got thoroughly spanked by the fandom who has very clearly spoken that they do not their old books to be invalidated.

The D&D fandom isn't anti Expertimentation. The D&D fandom is cheap and wants all their purchased books to be evergreen.

The D&DD fandom will agree that the Twilight Cleric is OP but not want the WOTC to print a new book with a balanced Twilight Cleric because they don't want to buy another book.

I would hardly call the Twilight Cleric experimental. It brings in no new mechanics. It's a pretty bog standard class - a bit OP maybe, but, certainly nothing experimental. To me, experimental would be something like bringing in social mechanics. Or exploration mechanics. The new Bastion rules look pretty experimental actually. So, there is some hope on the horizon.

But, as far as the general goes? Nope, it's tried and true all the way.

 

[Minigiant]

I would hardly call the Twilight Cleric experimental. It brings in no new mechanics. It's a pretty bog standard class - a bit OP maybe, but, certainly nothing experimental. To me, experimental would be something like bringing in social mechanics. Or exploration mechanics. The new Bastion rules look pretty experimental actually. So, there is some hope on the horizon.

But, as far as the general goes? Nope, it's tried and true all the way.

I meant the absolute #1 priority of the fandom is that their already purchased books are compatible.

They will allow for experimentation as long as the experiments don't invalidate, duplicate, nor replace stuff they already brought (unless the old stuff sucks)

As seen in the 2023 playtests, everyone was so cool with experiments until they realized that some old stuff could not be used with it until the update/remake books/pdfs could be made.

 

[Aldarc]

Again you completely ignored my point. All those narrative-heavy games take a lot of thought and effort from the player to come up with stuff. 5E is pressing a button and light RP (which isn't bad). I don't really care about what would convince you to play 5E, I'm just saying this is why a lot of casuals prefer 5E.

This is incidentally why I have seen many in one gaming community in my area move from 5E to Dragonbane, as it arguably does some of what you describe even better than 5e does.

UA is littered with Experimental ideas which didn't Spark Joy in 70% of the fans. Psionics, prestige classes, mass combat, swappable subclasses, etc. the One D&D playtest had 5 UAs full of alternate ideas for classes that all got abandoned in favor of "like 2014, but better".

I'm with you on this, WotC is collectively conservative because its fan base is, regardless of what individuals say they want in experimentation.

This annoys me because with some things like psionics WotC went to one extreme (i.e., the Mystic), which was rejected, but then they ignored a lot of other ideas that would have also been far less experimental, such as a psion class that used spell slots.

 

[cranberry]

That's another benefit of D&D's dominance, it covers the smaller guys from scrutiny.

Going a little off topic, but WoTC has earned scrutiny from the player base.

It's perfectly reasonable to give the smaller guy the benefit of the doubt...unless they prove otherwise.

 

[Hussar]

Going a little off topic, but WoTC has earned scrutiny from the player base.

It's perfectly reasonable to give the smaller guy the benefit of the doubt...unless they prove otherwise.

Really? Considering we've just had a big thing about Evil Genius games, like last week? But, yeah, we should be giving the smaller guy the benefit of the doubt?

 

[DEFCON 1]

I meant the absolute #1 priority of the fandom is that their already purchased books are compatible.

They will allow for experimentation as long as the experiments don't invalidate, duplicate, nor replace stuff they already brought (unless the old stuff sucks)

As seen in the 2023 playtests, everyone was so cool with experiments until they realized that some old stuff could not be used with it until the update/remake books/pdfs could be made.

I think your point about compatibility is a valid one... but I don't think things are as... clear-cut... as you are making them out to be though.

If the fandom was really as cheap and unchanging as you suggest... there wouldn't have been so many people wanting and asking for rules changes over the last decade to make the designers thing an update and revision to the rules was necessary (or at the very least something desired and purchasable by a good number of players).

I mean at the end of the day I think the whole thing ended up rather simple-- Jeremy, Chris, and Company have spent the last 10 years listening to people complain about bugaboos in the rules. Jeremy especially (as the Sage Advice guy) has received first-hand just what the main and most frequent rules questions have been in the 5E14 books. But rather than go the way of 4E and print full-on rules changes in errata documents (forcing people to carry around dozens of photocopied pages everywhere)... he (and the books via Rulings, Not Rules) told people to change the rules themselves in the interim if they felt like they needed things to be different right now... while he collected all of these rules issues and 10 year later decided to publish all of the corrections all together in a new revised book. And in the process of publishing all the rules corrections that people have been clamoring for, the designers decided to find out if the players felt like they also wanted/needed new rules altogether or changed versions of previous rules... seeing as how these revised books would be the best place to incorporate them.

But what they found out was that no... most players seem rather happy with the 5E game they've been playing for 10 years as it is. And thus (other than in certain instances) players don't want NEW design, they just want the design they've been happy with cleaned up. Which is totally understandable. If people have been relatively happy with 5E, why would they want 5E to greatly change? They wouldn't. And while sure, compatibility with old material is probably one of the reasons why they don't feel the need for the game to greatly change... I think it's more just that lots of players think that 5E works. It's a good game. It's fun. And I bet that even if the designers never even mentioned the idea of revising the rules (and we weren't going to get new books at all but just continue using the 5E14 rules)... players for the most part would be fine with that too. Because again... the game works.

 

[cranberry]

Really? Considering we've just had a big thing about Evil Genius games, like last week? But, yeah, we should be giving the smaller guy the benefit of the doubt?

Everyone should be given the benefit of the doubt, until they prove otherwise.

WoTC is long past the benefit of the doubt.

 

[Micah Sweet]

But at the numbers necessary to sell the volumes Hasbro/WotC needs?

Hasbro/WotC doesn't need the sales volume they have now.