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

[Oofta]

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.

As a software developer, we were always incredibly careful to not share early design ideas too soon or with too broad an audience. It's what we always referred to as "whiteboard goals", things that come up in discussion that would be kind of cool and, at first glance, seem reasonable. Because it doesn't matter how much you qualify things with "we would like to" or "what we're currently planning" far too often it gets turned into "you promised" accusations.

I'm sure at some point they thought that after initial release they would provide additional modules if they still had jobs (which at a certain point was questionable). Then the game started growing by double digits almost immediately surprising everyone and it wasn't necessary.

That, and tying it back to the thread, significant modules would have effectively meant multiple editions of the same game. It's bad enough now with some people using feats, some not, what supplements you're using not to mention house rules and 3PP. You can only have so much variation before it starts to feel like different games and leads to confusion and frustration.

 

[MGibster]

According to WotC's analysis of TSR's data, not only were many of these book unprofitable, they could never have been profitable. They were a doomed venture that was designed to kick the can rather than get TSR out of the hole. Which...kind of worked, in the sense of keeping the company alive long enough to be acquired by WotC.

I used to own a lot of 2nd edition AD&D books. A lot. But there were a lot of AD&D books/sets I never purchased including Dragon Lance which was extremely popular. It's been a long time since AD&D 2nd edition stopped being published so I can't reasonably expect to remember everything they put out, but nontheless, I am surprised at times when someone brings up a book that I can't remember even seeing on shelves. There were just so many products they put out back then.

I just don't see releasing a plethora of products being a good thing for their business. It's one of the reasons I don't think trying to support multiple editions of D&D would be a good idea.

 

[Alzrius]

I can't reasonably expect to remember everything they put out

Teh Internetz have you covered, there:

TSR Archive

A visual checklist and catalog of the role-playing games of TSR, Wizards of the Coast and others

tsrarchive.com

 

[bmfrosty]

Teh Internetz have you covered, there:

TSR Archive

A visual checklist and catalog of the role-playing games of TSR, Wizards of the Coast and others

tsrarchive.com

That's fantastic. I find myself googling dndlist0 a bunch. This is way easier and better.

 

[Lanefan]

WotC already does "support" older editions or versions of D&D. They sell all the older product on DriveThurRPG and DMs Guild.

An official TSR module that you don't already own is "new support" for your game as far as your table is concerned. Just buy that. It's just as "new" as something that someone at WotC could write right now. Especially considering that a module or supplement written in 2024 by someone at Wizards of the Coast is not going to automatically be "better" than some product published in 1983... and in fact would most likely be considered crap by a lot of people in comparison anyway (see: 5E Dragonlance / Van Helsing's Guide / Spelljammer / Planescape).

If you don't already own every single product previously published for whatever your edition/version of the game is... then you have a bonanza of "new support" right there waiting for you.

Some of those BX-1e-era modules are getting well up there in price, though; says he who is pretty much only missing those "hard targets" in his collection.

To the bolded, while re-doing a supplement or setting might not suit the tastes of those who might have wanted it, I've seen enough people in here claim "adventure design has improved over the last 4 decades" to think that either a) maybe they could bang out some pretty good modules these days or b) those making such claims are talking through their hats.

 

[ECMO3]

Actually, it almost certainly isn't.

Someone collected the reported numbers for various TSR book sales into a single spreadsheet, and the total reached for the AD&D 1st edition PHB is 1,557,371 copies sold through 1990.

Per the numbers reported here, the 5e PHB sold 1,563,586 copies, through US retailers that are part of BookScan, as of mid-July 2023.

Now, I grant we're mixing data sources on the AD&D 1e PHB numbers. And there also have been print sales of the AD&D PHB since 1990 (the premium reprint, the current POD availability).

But, well. That stuff would have to total to a truly huge undercount to overcome the unknown number of 5th edition PHB sales through all channels that aren't US BookScan prior to mid-July 2023 (which includes all hobby channel sales, all non-US sales, and all sales of every type in the last 10 months).

During the 1E heyday TSR was selling over 100,000 copies of Dragon Magazine a month and had dozens (hundreds?) of adventures in print in addition to the hardcover books. Also of you look at the data, it does report a higher number of PHBs sold, but fewer of every other comparable hardcover they have numbers listed for.

I don't think 5E has nearly the volume of print copy 1E had (although online sales close this a lot I think). I was around and buying d&d in the 1980s and I know the bookstores and hobby shops certainly had more volume and more varied volume on their shelves than they do today. I remember d&d took up a third of the BDalton bookstore in our local mall. Now that was not all 1E and did include BXCMI stuff too.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

During the 1E heyday TSR was selling over 100,000 copies of Dragon Magazine a month and had dozens (hundreds?) of adventures in print in addition to the hardcover books. Also of you look at the data, it does report a higher number of PHBs sold, but fewer of every other comparable hardcover they have numbers listed for.

I don't think 5E has nearly the volume of print copy 1E had (although online sales close this a lot I think). I was around and buying d&d in the 1980s and I know the bookstores and hobby shops certainly had more volume and more varied volume on their shelves than they do today.

If you look at digital products from all producers, not just WotC, there is vastly more product out there than there's ever been, including for older editions.

Go to DriveThruRPG and pick whatever edition of D&D you like and there's more stuff being published each year than TSR/WotC did for the whole lifespan of each edition. Some of it is short, comparable to a Dungeon or Dragon piece, but lots of it is even more fully featured than anything that ever came out of TSR/WotC.

Lots of it is available via POD -- and lots more if you look to Kickstarter, where OSR stuff is surprisingly popular. (Also: Lulu) So even if you only want print products, you can get more OD&D, BD&D, AD&D, 3E stuff, etc. than you could ever play.

Brick and mortar is getting killed all over, unfortunately, which certainly includes many game stores. But I don't think that's the best barometer to use for the industry as a whole.

 

[MichaelSomething]

The bolded both shocks and saddens me: of the 771 5e games in progress at the time of that snapshot, 511 were pay-to-play.

Of the 39 non-5e D&D games, 12 were pay-to-play; still a surprisingly high ratio but nowhere near that of 5e.

Don't suppose that'll push you to run a free game there? Be the change you want to see???

The world deserves more Lanfan games!

 

[Blue]

This has been a post that for me has been a long time coming. I think WotC can and should support multiple editions of D&D.

One of the big reasons TSR went bankrupt when it owned D&D was that it made lots of different campaign settings, with adventures in each of them, and it split the player base. Profit per book is way down - costs for design, editing, art, layout, and the stuff is the same, cost per copy is up with smaller print runs, and they sell less books.

So, everything else you say needs to address the financial aspects to have any foundation.

They've been in this mode since they bought the product from TSR where they're only supporting one edition at a time, and frankly, it creates great amount of disruption for them and alienates fans every time they stop supporting a product that their fans like.

Alienating some existing players, and reselling core books to all the other players, still makes financial sense.

I think they should keep a maintenance version of 3e and for that version they should be publishing alternate stats for their new 5e adventures. Maybe even publish two versions of each new adventure for the hardback. One for 5e/onednd rules and another for their new 3.x maintenance version.

So, higher development costs, additional printing costs for the additional pages, just to sell to the same total number of players. Failure. Plus that means that for some of them they haven't sold the new core books - additional failure.

The other thing that I think they could support and probably should support would be a couple of Classic D&D versions meant to support running in OSR style. This would take the form of two different things. The first would be a version of Old School Essentials Advanced. They should pay Gavin Norman for this. The only change that I would make would be to the to-hit tables and saving throw tables to smooth them out (that's another rant that involves Target 20 and the very early decision by Gygax to extend from 9 levels to ~14 (the math supports 14, but could be 13 or 15, but the wizard in OD&D has a spell table to 16, but is functionally unlimited - I should really not get started)).

What is their motivation to all of this?

Optional changes would include d20 style ability checks (I don't means skill, more about setting a DR, having the player roll a d20 and add bonuses and meet the DR) and saving throws (5 arbitrary numbers is bad), optional ways to deal with death (more nuanced than just dead), maybe that funky cleric spell table, and anything else that tends to get house-ruled anyway.

Support for this would mostly be refreshed versions of old adventures (rewritten for clarity and brevity and packaged in bundles to support hardcovers) and what's seen in the sizable OSR community already.

Sorry, looking at all of this, I can't see anything that makes sense for WotC to follow this as a business plan.

 

[bmfrosty]

Some of those BX-1e-era modules are getting well up there in price, though; says he who is pretty much only missing those "hard targets" in his collection.

To the bolded, while re-doing a supplement or setting might not suit the tastes of those who might have wanted it, I've seen enough people in here claim "adventure design has improved over the last 4 decades" to think that either a) maybe they could bang out some pretty good modules these days or b) those making such claims are talking through their hats.

I personally can't do better, but I'm a crazy OSR people on the internet. What I can say is that it's really interesting to compare the recently released chapter of Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth with the original. Style has definitely changed for the better. I dislike the lack of brevity in the original.