D&D General Ben Riggs interviews Fred Hicks and Cam Banks, then shares WotC sales data.

[Dire Bare]

If we are talking preferences, the worse 2024 does, the better, becasue then maybe we will get an actual new edition.

I sure do love folks with these types of toxic opinions.

I hope the game tons of people love playing fails so that maybe I'll get a game I would like.

Toxic.

Thank goodness D&D 2024 is doing exceedingly well. Not so you don't maybe get a game you might like, but so that the folks who are playing and enjoying it continue to be able to do so.

 

[DarkCrisis]

I was talking to my wife about this deciding where I thought the D&D term mattered and where it did not. If I'm talking to someone on the street about my hobby, I'll just say D&D even if its Dragonbane or Tales of the Valiant or 13th Age. They won't know the difference. If I talk to someone who will know the difference, I'll discuss the specific system I'm using.

When I talk about the hobby mostly I say "I publish books for tabletop roleplaying games like D&D" and they get it.

What I'm mostly getting at in this discussion is that I think its healthier to lean on WOTC as a publisher of great RPG products along with lots of other publishers instead of depending on them to lead the way.

I like D&D 2024 a lot. I obviously like 5e overall a lot. I also like Dragonbane and 13th Age and others. So when I want a different flavor than 5e, I'm not waiting for WOTC to do 6e and I have no need to rely on them making 6e into any sort of system I want to play because I already have more systems to play than I know what to do with.

D&D, the Kleenex of RPGs.

I always say "D&D" when I really mean Shadowdark or OSE etc.

 

[Reynard]

At that point aren't you just chasing the owner of the trademark though? What's to say the group who buys the trademark are any better than the designers working on other flavors of fantasy RPGs? I just don't see how the actual D&D logo matters that much to each of us individually. Brand recognition is certainly a thing but that doesn't have a lot to do with game design.

Healthy or not, I am emotionally invrested in what D&D IS. Always have been, since I was 10 years old I discovered Basic and it literally changed my conception of not just what games could be, but what GAMING could be.

I am not suggesting there aren't other great games. better games, in many, many cases. But none of those games have the same MEANING as D&D, so I feel perfectly comfortable saying that I want a different D&D than 5E. And it isn't because I don't like 5E. 5E is my favorite not-2E edition and I have run A LOT of it.

But it is time to let it go, and let D&D be something new again.

As a note: for all the people that point to 4E and say "This is what happens if you let them make a different version" all I can say is -- 4E was someone's first edition and someone's favorite edition, and they aren't always the same people.

 

[darjr]

Healthy or not, I am emotionally invrested in what D&D IS. Always have been, since I was 10 years old I discovered Basic and it literally changed my conception of not just what games could be, but what GAMING could be.

I am not suggesting there aren't other great games. better games, in many, many cases. But none of those games have the same MEANING as D&D, so I feel perfectly comfortable saying that I want a different D&D than 5E. And it isn't because I don't like 5E. 5E is my favorite not-2E edition and I have run A LOT of it.

But it is time to let it go, and let D&D be something new again.

As a note: for all the people that point to 4E and say "This is what happens if you let them make a different version" all I can say is -- 4E was someone's first edition and someone's favorite edition, and they aren't always the same people.

Nah. I’m good.

What’s more, at this point, I think it’s a good thing for the hobby.

 

[Reynard]

What’s more, at this point, I think it’s a good thing for the hobby.

I am not sure how a complete lack of innovation in the industry leader could be good.

 

[darjr]

I am not sure how a complete lack of innovation in the industry leader could be good.

It’s a nice familiar place for people to find and re-find and spread the hobby.

It also in no way stifles innovation in this hobby. In fact I might argue that it encourages it.

 

[Hussar]

I am not sure how a complete lack of innovation in the industry leader could be good.

Ignoring the "lack of innovation" thing for a bit, I would point to the leader of most industries is not the one that innovates. The industry leaders in cars haven't particularly changed what a car is or innovated in a very long time. Incremental changes from year to year? Sure. But actually straight up making major changes? Not so much. The big video game companies? I mean, is GTA 6 going to be a radical departure from GTA 5? Probably not. It's not like they're suddenly going to make it a full VR game and completely change the UI.

"Innovation" or lack thereof, tends to be in the eye of the beholder. My group weekly stumbles across something new that 2024 has changed and most of the time it's for the better.

 

[Zardnaar]

It’s a nice familiar place for people to find and re-find and spread the hobby.

It also in no way stifles innovation in this hobby. In fact I might argue that it encourages it.

Doesn't encourage WotC to innovate and several of the biggest companies and ENworld essentially make knock offs.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

Ignoring the "lack of innovation" thing for a bit, I would point to the leader of most industries is not the one that innovates. The industry leaders in cars haven't particularly changed what a car is or innovated in a very long time. Incremental changes from year to year? Sure. But actually straight up making major changes? Not so much. The big video game companies? I mean, is GTA 6 going to be a radical departure from GTA 5? Probably not. It's not like they're suddenly going to make it a full VR game and completely change the UI.

"Innovation" or lack thereof, tends to be in the eye of the beholder. My group weekly stumbles across something new that 2024 has changed and most of the time it's for the better.

To reinforce that, recently Civ VII was a fairly big departure from CiV VI and the reception was lukewarm to say the least.

 

[Cruentus]

It’s a nice familiar place for people to find and re-find and spread the hobby.

It also in no way stifles innovation in this hobby. In fact I might argue that it encourages it.

It certainly helps me and my table innovate. We get all kinds of ideas from everywhere and incorporate it into our RPG experience (currently OSE Advanced). I don't care anymore what WOTC does or doesn't do with the D&D brand or game. 5e is not the game for me, so I play something else. When we did play 5e, we hacked the hell out of it (and was that a struggle to make work). I find that the more I worry about "How WOTC is doing it" or "How other people are doing it", the less fun I have with my hobby.

I make the game my own (and my table's own) D&D (as a player starting back in '83, and currently not WOTC's target audience).