D&D General You're In Charge of D&D -- 2025 Edition

Reynard

Reynard

aka Ian Eller
Supporter
It's been a minute, so:

Through an accident of fate, you are put in charge of D&D as a game and as a brand. You have 1 year to get things running the way you want before the board votes on your future inchargeness.

What do you do?

NOTE 1: This is supposed to be fun. Don't turn it into a fight.

NOTE 2: Try and be somewhat reasonable and realistic. Magic goes in the game.

NOTE 3: That said, ignore lead up or ramp up time. Assume R&D has been working on "it" -- whatever that is.
 

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A year ago, my answer would be "put out a new edition!" But given we just got shiny new core rulebooks, that would probably be a problem even in wish-fulfillment land.

So barring that, I would broaden the possibilities within 5E 2024 and put out some genre focused books -- sci fi and urban fantasy for sure, with built in (and probably established legacy) settings. I would be inclined to crowd fun those, or at least do big pre-order events that drove interest and established a baseline for interest. Aside from that, though, if the pace of books and types of books was still working, i would not mess with it too much.

On the brand side, I would push for an Eberron animated series with a similar sensibility to The Clone Wars series. I think Eberron is the setting best positioned to capture the coolness factor of D&D and I think a high quality, well made animated series would cement it for a generation.

But for the longer term (because i feel confident that my contract would get extended) I would also run another Setting Search contest. I am still shocked that WotC has never done it again (and am super curious as to why) and barring some insidedr piece of info that reveals it to be a horrible thing, i would absolutely embrace the fun and marketing inherent in the contest.

Finally, I would make some deals with Paizo and see if we couldn't get some official classic APs done up in 5E, and maybe even put out a joint project where they put the thing out for PF2 and WotC puts it out for 5E.
 


A small thing. I would change statblocks and such to use the 2014 text fonts and colors.

Bigger things to add in

Have a official manual of the planes be made, and have a modern version of book of exhalted deeds/vile darkness be made.

Implement a more robust system for playing past level 20
 

GreatestHonor said:
a modern version of book of exhalted deeds/vile darkness be made.
Click to expand...

Bird Ok GIF by foodieg
 

My main goal would be to treat the next five years as a celebration of 5E, and looking at 2030 to be the launch of 6th Edition.

In this "maintenance" phase, I would focus on:
  • DM tools (improved Chases, Mass Battles, monster building mechanics, Skill challenges); anything that we can throw together into a toolbox for the DM
  • A series of adventures that are lightly-connected, which will eventually lead into 6th Edition (like a metanarrative)
  • A series of anthology adventures (stuff that you can drop into the middle of a campaign)
We'd do a Tasha-esque thing to soft-launch some of the stuff we're looking at doing for 6E.

Outside of that, the focus is entirely on D&DBeyond.
  • get Encounters out of beta (how long has it been in beta?)
  • focus on the DM user experience. If I make it easy for a DM to manage their campaign here, it'll be another thing making it harder to quit me 😂
  • Focus on AI tools (ooh yeah, controversial!) By "AI tools", I mean I want an AI plugged into D&D Beyond that can answer questions on the fly; it can create a legal monster/spell/item in seconds; it can help a DM brainstorm specifically for 5E.
All the other stuff - movies, video games, books - is just candy. The end goal is to get people onto D&DBeyond.

(I'm then promptly fired by Hasbro three weeks in)
 

Dungeons and Dragons 2
Baldur's Gate The Animated Series
Ravenloft: Gryphon Hill Campaign Adventure with a summer event 3 day event streaming push.
Large investment in YouTube AP streaming again

And yes, start planning for 6th Edition now with an eye on a 2030 release.
 



  1. Create simple setting bibles for all TSR/WotC D&D settings, and then do triage:
    1. "We want to publish this as a setting in the next five years" -- do not license, do not open up to DMs Guild, develop proposals for all these settings
    2. "We don't want to publish this as a setting in the next five years, can be released as-is" -- license it out, open it up to DMs Guild
    3. "We don't want to publish this as a setting in the next five years, we need to tweak some problematic elements" -- fix the elements as time allows, then license it out, open it up to DMs Guild
    4. "This is a trash fire." -- stick it in the vault with Walt Disney's frozen head
  2. Bring in outside consultants to look at the VTT project -- how much money has been sunk into it, how close is it to being ready to be released to the public, how much would it cost to get there, how much money is it expected to bring in every year -- if the numbers don't work out, look into purchasing the best VTTs on the market today or partnering with them
  3. Again, bring in outside consultants to look at what the market will bear in terms of product released annually, who's buying it, what the market is asking for and not getting, and what non-traditional ancillary products could be pursued. Use this as a plan going forward. (It's likely that a study like this was conducted in the past, but market conditions are changing all the time and new data is often helpful.) Within two years, match output volume to apparent market demand.
  4. Staff up, either in-house or on contract, with more editors and designers so that products don't often vary so wildly in quality from chapter to chapter. No one is trying to have this be a problem -- it needs more manpower, which should be rewarded in higher sales of better products.
  5. Contract with product placement specialists. Get D&D into more movies and television shows, ideally not as a very special episode, where the cast of Friends plays D&D, but instead show it as part of regular life for all sorts of people, like them having a Monopoly set on their bookshelves.
 

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