D&D 5E 5th edition driving people back to 1st/2nd edition.

[Sunseeker]

Noone in my group, or any of the people I know off hand is dropping 5E.

Well except me. I think I'm losing interest, but I'm going back to 4th when my campaign is done.

 

[Ath'kethin]

Overall, I think 5e is energizing D&D any edition.

This has been my observation. 5e seems to have brought a good number of "old school" gamers back into active play, though not all of them are playing 5e. For example, some of my old friends restarted a 2e Jakandor campaign that had been dormant for fifteen years.

 

[Corpsetaker]

That's interesting. I don't think it is a either/or phenomenon. I think 5e players (and more importantly for WOTC the consumer buying product) may be playing 1e and 2e as well. Who knows. In my group, we predominantly play 5e, but we have run sessions of 2e. We even ran a level 0 2e session to get back to basics. Overall, I think 5e is energizing D&D any edition.

But what happens, like in our group, when you don't have the time and you have to choose one over the other? That can't be good for the edition when you choose an older edition over the new one.

 

[Corpsetaker]

Is it time for our monthly forecast of doom for D&D5E already?

Why does it have to be doom?

It's actually just an honest observation of the way things are going in my area.

 

[Remathilis]

Something I've noticed in my area is that people are dropping their 5th edition games and going back to playing 1st/2nd edition games. I've noticed on the Dungeon Master's Guild site that the top 7 most popular books are the 1st and 2nd editions of the game. People in my own game are wanting to drop 5th and go back to 2nd edition.

Is this becoming a trend? It's like playing 5th edition is sparking an interest to go back and playing those older editions.

I don't think you can draw that conclusion from the data interpreted (except, of course, when your obvious bias leads you to that conclusion).

Dndclassics has been merged with DMsGuild. You have classic material now competing with fan-material. A book like "Van Richten's Guide to Vampires" is going to outsell some dude's "1,001 Vampire NPCs" because the former is well established and beloved while the latter is untested. A lot of that material can also be used by 2e, 3e, or 5e players. I don't see any trend that 5e is being dropped to go play 2e or 1e anymore than 3e or Pathfinder or anything else is. You need a little more evidence to show that.

 

[Storyteller Hero]

Is it time for our monthly forecast of doom for D&D5E already?

Cloudy and obscure with a slight chance of tarrasque.

 

[Guest 6801328]

But what happens, like in our group, when you don't have the time and you have to choose one over the other? That can't be good for the edition when you choose an older edition over the new one.

It's neither good nor bad for the edition. In any large sample set there will be outliers. And some of those outliers will be clustered (perhaps because of a local synergy), leading observers of that cluster to conclude that it is the norm and not comprised of outliers.

C.f. power lines causing cancer.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Is it time for our monthly forecast of doom for D&D5E already?

It's sort of the OP's thing.

 

[Rhenny]

But what happens, like in our group, when you don't have the time and you have to choose one over the other? That can't be good for the edition when you choose an older edition over the new one.

It is only a problem for WoTC if sales of 5e products starts to wane. At this point, that does not seem to be the case. From data and anecdotal reports of PDF sales for older material and sales of 5e material, it seems like the resurgence is overall very good for WOTC (and the industry). Sure, some groups may decide to opt for old material and not buy new material (or buy into another system entirely), but it seems more likely that many groups buy new 5e material, or at least a combination of new 5e material along with other systems or older material.

I'm sure this is something that WotC marketing will be tracking, and I bet, it is also one of the reasons why they decided on a slow build publishing schedule. They may be timing the sales statistics to determine the best times to reintroduce new product to stimulate sales and perpetuate long, sustained growth rather than splat and kill short term growth.

Just my own theories. I do find the entire topic interesting though, and love to hear about personal observations from different people in different parts of the world, etc.

 

[fjw70]

Well, I buy 1e and BX adventures on DND Classics to use with 5e.