I'm not saying it will but that it could. Part of me thinks that the changes we are seeing will be scaled back due to negative feedback and not be as many big proposed changes that we have seen so far in the playtest material.
I don't believe this is an actual playtest in the vein of D&D Next or any other playtest. They've more than likely already decided what changes they're going to make and will massage the released "playtest" documents to generate the feedback they want or simply ignore feedback that goes against what they've already decided. They released Experts 4 October, opened the survey 20 October and it will close after 14 days. So a whopping 16 days to use it before the survey opens and a total of 30 days to use it before the survey closes. The responses they're getting are not playtest responses, rather they're gut reaction, reading it a few times, and maybe...maybe trying it once or twice at the table.
But if the level of changes (or something close) that we are seeing go through, the game will be changed quite a bit. It will still have the same basic structure/mechanics but there will be limits to how much mixing and matching can happen between 5e and 1D&D.
Currently you can't use the more powerful Races from 5e (which provide Ability increases) with the Backgrounds from character origins playtest (which provide Ability Increases and a feat) and pick a Class from 5e with a subclass from 1 D&D (or vice versa) that have a different number of subclass features at different levels. And yes they cover the ability score increase in a sidebar and can make conversion rules for other things. But freely mixing and matching will through off the balance of things.
Backwards compatibility is a marketing gimmick to soften the drop in sales the announcement of a new edition brings.
But with the amount of changes we are seeing (if a similar amount make it into the final product) I know there will be groups that don't change to the new rules and am sure there will be groups that will abandon all the old rules and just stick to just the new. Other groups may use a houseruled mix of the 2.
It happens every edition.
It is possible this with will create a divide in the community where some people are not buying the new material that is being produced by WotC and maybe even being supported by some 3rd party publishers that stick with 5e.
The vast majority of players will switch over to the new. Especially with the new stuff being inherently more powerful than the old stuff.
So while there is certain to be a divide, how significant do you currently think it will be? It might only be a small number of groups that don't convert to the new rules and stop buying any new books from WotC. Just like with every edition change some groups will remain with the edition they are used to/like. But will the size of this 5e only community be significant? Could the divide be big enough that 1D&D actually, ironically, creates a need to make a new 6e to reunite the community? (Probably not?)
The holdover fan community will likely be bigger than any other previous edition, except maybe AD&D and the variations of Basic. Maybe. It will definitely utterly dwarf most other non-D&D communities. Edition changes cause fandom splits. The best WotC can hope for is that the split will be small. It all depends on how significant the changes are and how invested players are. The bigger the changes and the more invested the player, the less likely they are to switch. Unless they happen to have heaps of disposable income.
And with the changes you have seen so far, if they all pretty much make it into the finished 1D&D release, would you and your group change to the new version?
My main D&D group is switching to DCC for the time being. We might go back to AD&D. We might pick up OSE. Who knows. We're incredibly tired of the fantasy superhero, no challenge, cakewalk nature of 5E. We'll look at 5.5 after it drops and go from there. Unless there's a serious shake up in direction, the chances of us playing 5.5 are negligible.
What are your thoughts so far about this?
Some people love it and good for them. I don't think the minor tweaks they've released so far are enough to make me and mine enthusiastic about 5.5. Kinda the opposite. Power escalation, more feats, 1st-level feats, feat chains, clear drive and focus on digital...it's going the wrong direction for us. But that's what sells, so that's what WotC chases.