D&D 5E 5E: Ten Years Later

[Jeff Carlsen]

Imagine you were tasked with laying out a ten year plan for this edition. What would it look like? What's your reasoning? Which products would you release early? What about in the later years? And finally, what would a complete D&D bookshelf look like in ten years?

 

[Sacrosanct]

Not many actual books beyond the core 3. Maybe another MM, but that's it. Lots of adventure modules, with plenty that were setting generic where you could plug and play into any setting you wanted.
Get a goddamned cartoon already. It's not like Hasbro owns the HUB channel or anything....
Diversity in computer gaming. Not only the action/rpg that's so big right now, but also introduce some turn based RPGs. I refuse to believe that genre is dead...
Work out whatever deal you need with what's his face to get the rights to do an actual movie. Not a half assed low budget Sci-Fi movie either. Take a page from Marvel. Once they got past their crappy superhero movie phase and actually did a big budget one, look that happened for the brand.

 

[Gecko85]

Baldur's Gate III using 5e rules.

A mix of individual modules at different level ranges (or better yet, concrete examples in each module to scale it up or down in level), mega-modules, and module series sold individually.

Re-vamped campaign settings.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

My first priority would be box set campaign settings... with maps that on 1 side are the main part of the world and the flip side a set of dungeon stuff for a mod that came with each set.

FR, Greyhawk, Birthright, Dragonlance and Darksun would all get worked on... in each box 3 booklets... 1: the basics of the world, 2: Player options for the world, and 3 a mini adventure... then a few sheets of sturdy cardboard with one side of art of a event or place and the other side a brief description... those would go on sale for $45, then you when you buy it get a code to unlock PDF of all of the content. Each box would come out about 8-9 months after the last, and when a new one sells put the last one up for PDF only sale for $15...

make 1 splat book per year based on a generic theme... Champions of Ice, Champions of shadow, Champions of the Mind, Champions of the empire... ect

and my first priority would be to get more optional rules out with full alt sub classes and spells called Unearthed Arcana

get in touch with a big name studio... and get a forgotten realms movie series going ala marvel movies... Drizt and Elmunchkin and black staff all in the same world, building to the cross over movie "Time of troubles."

get a Dragonlance cartoon on HBO... yes HBO, market it as a more kid friendly game of thrones in the off season of game of thrones...

get those guys that do the story telling games for bio shock and game of thrones to do a story based D&D game... then get a more build your own friendly togather for PS and X box and Wii

Hire the guy that did masterplan to do something like that, then put it up for download on the web site... then get someone to intergrate a character builder and online table BUT put those up as subscription based....

 

[KirayaTiDrekan]

Some of this is wishlisting and some of it is more realistic projections. My own wishlist is marked with an asterisk as I doubt it will ever happen.

1. Yearly adventures with tie in products like the recent dragon queen and upcoming elemental evil will continue through 2017, maybe 2018, before sales start to wane and they try to change up the formula.

*2. Dragonlance Chronicles is adapted for television.

3. A D&D movie finally comes to fruition in 2020 (ish), loosely adapting a Forgotten Realms story, angering fans for how much it deviates from standard Realms lore and D&D lore, but achieving at least some success as a summer popcorn blockbuster. A sequel will arrive in 2023 or there abouts, but not perform as well and the movie line will end at that point.

*4. Hasbro partners with Microsoft to create virtual D&D adventures via the new Hololens.

5. Actual RPG products from Wizards will come at a trickle, only one or two a year, due to the decreased staff. Gone are the days of splatbooks and campaign setting guides. There will be an attempt to keep up a traditional publishing schedule with a few new books through 2017, but eventually, the only products coming out will be the adventures noted in item 1.

6. A few mobile apps and games will appear over the next few years.

*7. An open sandbox style video game, in the style of Skyrim, will finally appear for the current generation of consoles, set in Greyhawk.

8. After the current push to make D&D more marketable, it will quietly fade back into an obscure pop culture reference by 2024, when the 50th anniversary will see one final commemorative edition of some sort.

 

[Mark CMG]

5E: Ten Years Later

Won't they be several year (at least) into 6E by then? According to WotC, there will be precious little published by them for 5E. Whatever it winds up being, the 5E shelf of the future is seemingly going to be very sparsely populated.

 

[Paraxis]

6th edition will be on the shelves, and we might be speculating about 7th at that point.

As far as what will come during 5e's run, I believe them when they say few core/splat books so I doubt we will get individual race books or things like that. I expect 2 big story adventures per year, maybe a campaign book for the each of the big worlds like Forgotten Realms, Eberron, and Dragonlance, possible a monthly digital offering and thats about it.

Now if 3rd party companies start using the OGL to make books compatible with the 5th edition of the worlds most popular roleplaying game then I expect a whole slew of stuff from other people.

 

[IchneumonWasp]

The products I'd release....

For the actual roleplaying game:

1. First of all, the amount of products of course depends on how much one can produce and how many writers you can employ, but I think the primary focus should lie on publishing a series of small short adventurers, not linked into one adventure path or something really separate adventures, the type you can finish in 1 to 3 sessions, somewhat setting neutral so they can be implemented in most campaigns without difficulty. These would be great to introduce new players to the game. Either publish each adventure separate or in one bundle/book, maybe grouped by theme (undead, demonic, desert adventurers, underwater adventures etc.) or by level (low level adventures, epic level adventurers, etc.). Available digital and in print.

2.Other than that, I'd try to rerelease a couple of campaign settings books in the 10 year period. I really liked the 4e Dark Sun Campaign Setting. I also liked Ed Greenwood's "Elminster's Forgotten Realms", the edition-neutral forgotten realms lore book that was published at the end of 4e. So, if I were in charge, I'd try to release a couple of campaign settings, mostly focussing on fluff, but also containing necessary rule updates for specific (sub-)classes and races that are necessary for the campaigns in question. I'd mostly focus on republishing old settings first (Eberron, Dark Sun, Spelljammer). I'm not sure if all these need to be rewritten completely, partly fluff and text can be copied from old editions, since WoTC owns the rights to those anyway and they were great, I think. It's just about making a new fancy printed edition available to the masses again.

3. Most likely no other 'core rulebooks' other than maybe a second or third Monster Manual (certainly not at a yearly rate, but we are talking about a 10 year period.) I think that for optional rules, we could use with a rulebook-sized Psionic Handbook and if there is time in 10 years, maybe another Magic of Incarnum or Tome of Magic (like the 3.5 version) would be cool, but I don't think the game needs a lot of extra rules. Maybe stuff like mass-combat rules or naval combat rules, but that is basically it. I don't think we really need a lot more sub-classes for many classes, although a couple would be nice. So maybe this will all be enough to place it in an Unearthed Arcana-style handbook.

 

[Trickster Spirit]

Estimate the exact number of hardcover splat books a D&D edition can put out before the player base is saturated - for the sake of a nice round number, let's say that that's 100. 100 5E books before the diminishing returns from each product make a new edition necessary.

Then, lay down a road map for the next 10 years, during which I plan to put out exactly half of that number - 50 books, so 4-6 a year, putting 5E at about halfway through it's life cycle in 2025. Book sales are of secondary importance to having people actually play the game - the plan of course is to grow the player base as much as possible to get as many butts in seats as possible when it comes to the big movie / TV series / video game premiere.

And since book sales aren't actually that much of a concern next to the actual number of groups playing D&D, it makes sense to put most of that material up for free, a la the upcoming Elemental Evil download.

That's what I expect Wizard's is already doing, and what I'd do in their place. There are a couple of other things I would do, namely release a proper on-boarding product for first-time groups along the lines of Angry DM's suggestions for a starter set.

I'd also make sure Dragon and Dungeon come back as a monthly e-zine to serve as ongoing support for DMs and players hungry for more material.

I'd continue to allow third-parties to produce unofficial 5E products under the original OGL, so I could have my cake and eat it too - providing a variety of options for D&D players who want that sort of bloat while retaining plausible deniability about the number of "official" D&D books on shelves and keeping my own costs down.

And I'd also do more publicity geared stuff like the Acquisitions, Inc. stuff. Get the Big Bang Theory cast on YouTube being DMed by Chris Perkins (a necessary if bitter evil), or better yet get ourselves on Steven Colbert's Late Night in the fall, maybe an official Late Night web series with players like Vin Diesel and Mike Myers. Hell, Ben Affleck and Matt Damon used to play with Kevin Smith, didn't they?

 

[steeldragons]

OO! Utterly pointless and impossibly arbitrary subjective speculation, YES PLEASE!

Lessee...10 years down the road...what do I produce/my 5e bookshelf look like.

Well, ignoring all of the "broader brand" as already (wisely) incorporated, like video games and [gods please!] a decent cartoon (ya know that portrays an actual D&D world and party, tropes-a-go-go] and mechandising stuff (teeshirts, coffee mugs, dice cozies are utterly trivial to make these days. Where's my supplemental complete expendable income/impulse-buy random D&D "stuff"?)....ignoring all of that and looking at "printed materials" (whether or not there are partial or additional PDF versions of any of this, as I expect ALL printed stuff will be/have electronic equivalents in the coming 10 years)...

Year 1: A PHB, DMG & MM. A Starter/Basic Set. An adventure...turns out we have an "Adventure Path" (dragons/Tiamat). That's nice n' all. But more on that later. Got alla that already. Good job.

Year 2: Adventure Path #2 (elemental evil) is in the works/about to come out as we type. A "Fiend Folio" [a.k.a. MM2]. A campaign setting [hardback or box set, either or is fine with me]. I believe this is similarly already int the works and would expect it to be an FR supplement.
Again, most of this is already a foregone conclusion. So that's Year 2 done.

I, personally, would produce at least 2 "single [open to/cover 3 levels] modules" (as opposed to the 1-15 adventure path), one low-levels, one mid-levels, that have NO crossover/nothing to do with the adventure path material, for those who don't want to follow the "adventure path" or deal with elemental evil.

Year #3: So. Now...I would do (though probably wouldn't use) a third adventure path, levels 1-15, undead and/leading to liches, vampires and death knights [oh my!] focused. Tie in a trip to Ravenloft and, eventually, Acererak in there someplace. There's your Year 3 path project.

3 "single modules": 1 low level, 1 mid levels, 1 high (12 or 15+) levels. No tie in. No crossover. No undead Big Bads.

"Deities & Demigods", with, maybe Norse, Celt, Egyptian, Babylonian as guides for using "real world" mythologies, guidelines for animist religions, poly-, mono- and pan- theistic religions/societies, and then the FR, Greyhawk, Dragonlance, and...I dunno...Eberron mythologies for "World of D&D" mythologies. [And against any of my personal taste, but popular enough to recognize and exploit for sales] Section on Sigil & Planescape setting. That's your "big new release", as now adventures/adventure paths are to be expected, for Year 3.

"Psionics Handbook". Not nearly the encyclopedic tome DD is, maybe half the size and price. Psionics in 5e. Including some tidbits, maybe an appendix-to-not more-than-half-the-book about the "World of D&D" Dark Sun campaign setting.

With 3 years of play, and APs going up to 15, higher levels are to be expected, so a "World Builder's Handbook", en par for page count with the Psionics book. Cover castle/keep and nation building. Governments. Large scale combat/war rules/guidelines. Same amount of pages devoted to a "World of D&D" Birthright and/or Dragonlance (provides a little synergy with the DL's DeitiesDemigods material) campaign settings.

Year #4: "Year of the Attack of the Settings", following up on the momentum of Deities & Demigods. Greyhawk setting set/hardback. Eberron (though, again, I personally don't care for it, but I'll publish it) setting/hardback.

Year we skip the adventure path. d4+2 single modules: 1 low/2-4 mid/1-2 high levels.

Year 5: Amid the din of congratulatory praise and desirous cries for "MOAR!" by the raging public, we celebrate a "5 Years of 5e!" anniversary in regal form, with a colossal rewrite/expansion of GDQ in hardcover adventure path "Against the Descent of the Giant Drow Queen's Demonweb Vault of the Depth Pits."

5e's "Unearthed Arcana" introduces 5-10 new optional subclasses/archetypes, 5 optional new PC races (whatever hasn't been covered yet in their respective setting-specific books), spells, magic items, feats, combat-additive stuff, etc... All optional stuff.

Year 6: When the complaints about why don't I have a planescape book to go with what Deities/Demigods said about it have reached fevered un-ignorable annoyance pitch: Planescape setting book/set.

d4 Single modules that have nothing to giants or drow, at least 1 should be for Planescape.

"Wilderness Survival Handbook": For those not interested in interplanar shenanigans...all kinds of optional adventuring environmental stuff/rules. Maybe a new subclass or two. A couple of sylvan/monstrous races. Like the Psionics & World Builder's books, some-to-[no more than]half page count devoted to exposing/exploring options to use "Worlds of D&D"...I dunno...who goes best with "wilderness" stuff who doesn't already have a setting book? Mystara? "Nentir Vale"? Some new/independent? Oo! Maybe Blackmoor?! But some "Worlds of D&D" campaign setting that goes well with using the wilderness survival stuff.

Year 7: d4+1 single adventure modules.

Year 8: When everyone's complaining about how nothing came out last year, "Book of Spells Handbook" & "Book of Swords Handbook", en par page count and content-wise with Psionics & Wilderness handbooks. One focused on magic-using classes, one on non-magic-using classes [if we haven't seen a spell-less ranger before now -and I would be amazed if we didn't- it would go in here].

Year 9: ...meh....guess it's time for another adventure path: "The Sinister Slavers of Dunwater Stockades of the Enemy Lord's Aerie's Undercity of Saltmarsh."

Year 10: "10 Years of 5e!" Super celebratory 10 -year special limited anniversary edition/printing of 3 core books, the Tiamat and Elemental Evil books....while sitting back to count my millions garnered over the past decade.

SO, after 10 years, my 5e bookshelf looks like this:

Top Shelf: PHB, DMG, MM, FF, DD [potentially Anniversary editions of the PHB, DMG, MM]

Middle shelf: A Psionics (w/Dark Sun) Handbook. A World Builders (w/Birthright/Dragonlance) Handbook. A Wilderness (w/Mystara/Blackmoor/whichever is best suited) Handbook. A Magic/Spells Handbook. A Weapons/War Handbook. FR setting guide. Greyhawk setting guide. Eberron setting guide. Planescape Setting Guide.

Bottom shelf: Dragon/Tiamat AP. Elemental Evil AP. Ravenloft/Liches AP. Giant/Drow AP. Saltmarsh/Slavers AP. And roughly 10-15 individual "a few levels module" adventures. [potentially "Anniversary" editions of the Dragons and Elemental APs, though I probably wouldn't bother.]

Do note: this is not all stuff I would WANT or, necessarily, enjoy, but it is all stuff I think would make enough people happy to warrant printing stuff up for them to get and...well...take their money.