WotC WotC can, and probably should support multiple editions of D&D.

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Except Chaosium almost went bankrupt and had to be saved by a large injection of cash from Stafford and Peterson.

They're doing a LOT better now, but Chaosium almost disappeared under mismanagement.

I haven't personally engaged with Chaosium since playing Runequest a few times in the early 1980s. Not a surprise that they had their challenges -- it publishes extremely niche stuff, devoted as its fans might be.

 

[Clint_L]

I think the thing that WotC could do, instead of printing new material, which is mostly there on dmsguild etc...is they could provide a D&DBeyond type experience to older rules sets. Particularly 4e where they've already have the database set up already.

This isn't competing with itself, this is simply providing tools to a set of players that exist for each edition, and specifically, aren't likely playing the current product.

I think it definitely would be competing with itself, and DDB is expensive to build and maintain. I'm not seeing what would possibly motivate WotC to spend that money to maintain old editions that produce basically zero revenue and divide their customer base.

The current project was originally called "OneD&D" for a reason. They want to get away from the confusion and division engendered by having multiple versions of the game.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

I think it definitely would be competing with itself, and DDB is expensive to build and maintain. I'm not seeing what would possibly motivate WotC to spend that money to maintain old editions that produce basically zero revenue and divide their customer base.

The current project was originally called "OneD&D" for a reason. They want to get away from the confusion and division engendered by having multiple versions of the game.

I agree. I don't think WoTC has any interest in competing with themselves, splintering the fanbase, or paying the money that would be required to support multiple rulesets for marginal (at best) returns.

That said, I do think that WoTC should continue to allow the older rules and supporting materials to be published as pdfs for the many people who love them. So long as they "support" the older editions in that way (by continuing to make those materials available), I have no complaints.

 

[Oofta]

I think the idea was to have modules that would add rules to the base system. 5E proved too popular to bother with it though.

I think 5E is more flexible than any other WotC version of D&D, it's just not "flexible enough" for some people. A lot of things are optional, there are optional rules, there's 3PP if the official rules don't go far enough. That, and the whole modular thing was from a single interview by Mearls early on in development and was probably more of a white board goal than actual business driven or even thought out goal.

 

[payn]

I think 5E is more flexible than any other WotC version of D&D, it's just not "flexible enough" for some people. A lot of things are optional, there are optional rules, there's 3PP if the official rules don't go far enough. That, and the whole modular thing was from a single interview by Mearls early on in development and was probably more of a white board goal than actual business driven or even thought out goal.

We will have to just disagree on that. Its not about flexibility, its about adding significantly to the design. It was talked about much more than once, but did vanish one day.

 

[Oofta]

We will have to just disagree on that. Its not about flexibility, its about adding significantly to the design. It was talked about much more than once, but did vanish one day.

Sometimes you have goals early on in a project that just don't pan out. A truly modular system would have been incredibly complex to implement and balance and something better left to 3PP. But I would disagree that 5E is not modular at all even if it's not modular enough for some people.

Water under the bridge now of course. Obviously the edition has been quite successful without achieving that goal.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Sometimes you have goals early on in a project that just don't pan out. A truly modular system would have been incredibly complex to implement and balance and something better left to 3PP. But I would disagree that 5E is not modular at all even if it's not modular enough for some people.

Water under the bridge now of course. Obviously the edition has been quite successful without achieving that goal.

Agreed, except I am hard-pressed to think of any project in any field that took more than a few months where an early design goal didn't pan out....

Implementation is the constant sad process of hard realities sanding down the idealized dream of the design goals.

 

[payn]

Agreed, except I am hard-pressed to think of any project in any field that took more than a few months where an early design goal didn't pan out....

Implementation is the constant sad process of hard realities sanding down the idealized dream of the design goals.

I dont think it was an idea that didnt pan out, I think it was an idea that just didnt need doing. It was the plan for when customers began calling out for more and more content and if the game wasnt taking off. Turns out folks were tired of the book a month rate and enjoyed 5E just for what it is.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

I don't think they can or should, there was a time when there were 2 different "editions" supported by TSR, and it was AD&D 2nd edition that came out on top as other edition faded away.

 

[bmfrosty]

I'm not sure how seriously anyone is "arguing" this. I'm certainly not.

I started from the point where B/X is basically the starting point for a large portion of the OSR and it is full of flaws. I think those flaws can be resolved in a number of ways, but no attempt to resolve those goes past being at most the popular OSR game supported by a small company for a short period of time. In just the last few years it's gone from any one of a small handful (Labyrinth Lord, OSRIC, Basic Fantasy, DCC) to OSE and now Shadowdark. I'm not even getting into the NSR stuff like Cairn and Knave.

My thinking has been that resetting that starting point is can only really be done by whomever owns the Dungeons and Dragons trademark. From my point of view OSE Advanced is the most complete version of this with B/X as a base (almost to a fault) with a bunch of the stuff representing AD&D added in, but keeping the math fairly consistent.

If that were to have some of it's flaws fixed (like smoothing out progression tables) or at least have some optional fixes codified and then actually called Dungeons and Dragons, it would set a new starting point and maybe inject some additional awareness into the less character build and more ruling over rules style of play that OSR tends to represent.

My own reason is that I almost left role playing entirely about 5 years ago when I became tired of how character build focused D&D plays out, but eventually found and came to love OSR style games.

The rest of the OP was mostly a brain dump of most of the thoughts I've had about this and that makes it a thread that might garner some interesting discussion.