D&D 5E How would you ensure longevity and sustainability for 5th Edition?

[Patrick McGill]

This hypothetical is inspired by Mike's comments about the expected playbook when it comes to rpgs. Specifically, he said that players have a script that turns out badly for publishers. (Via a twitter conversation here.)

So imagine you are given the monumental task of ensuring the longevity of D&D fifth edition. A Hari Seldon role, if you will, of ensuring the game and brand can weather the usual difficult timeline of an RPG.

What do you do? What products become priority? What gets released, and more importantly, what doesn't?

Keep in mind this isn't a personal wishlist. The very things many of us hardcore players want may be what starts the fall of the empire!

 

[Li Shenron]

As for longevity, the best thing to do is to design a very solid core game, which is already in the past now. Older editions of D&D are still being played by thousands of groups, even if no new material is published for them, and that's what longevity means to me. If you mean longevity = stretching the time between editions, I suspect that this has zero value for a publisher.

As for sustainability, from a publisher's point of view one possibility is to keep reinventing the wheel, create problems that don't exist so that you can keep 'fixing' them with additions and revisions, and move on to a new edition again, trying to choose the timing so that the number of frustrated gamers who quit following editions is balanced with the new generation entering the hobby. The other option is to focus on producing fiction (incl. adventures and fantasy settings sourcebooks), but probably this is sustainable only at smaller volumes.

 

[wizardoest]

Use an Open Gaming License.

 

[MonkeezOnFire]

I think the two key goals are: 1) introduce D&D to new people and 2) keep current fans playing.

For the first goal Wizards is already creating D&D related products such as video games and board games to get people familiar with the D&D brand. I remember reading a tweet from Mearls where the goal of these products was to bring people to the TTRPG. An idea might be to try to get into conventions like Comic Con which have been increasingly about general hobbies rather than just comics (unless Wizards already does make a showing at these types of events, I've only been to local ones).

Another thing that I think would be great for this would be either a tv series or a movie. With fantasy films and television becoming increasingly popular it could be great publicity for the game as long as it achieves the high quality people have come to expect for these things. However, unless there has been some update, I recall that there was a legal dispute regarding the rights to a D&D movie that was going nowhere fast.

For the second goal you have to maintain a good relationship with the community and steadily release interesting products. I think Mearls, Crawford and Perkins are doing a good job so far engaging the community on social media platforms. They routinely answer questions about the game via twitter. They stream sessions from their twitch account though I find other play podcasts to be more interesting. They don't take down videos of other people playing their game so they're doing better than Nintendo. The fact that they take surveys every month to get an idea of what the community wants is also a good thing.

As for product release schedules I think Wizards is in a good place, but perhaps could release a bit more than they currently are. Two APs a year is good but many are hungry for more options and the Unearthed Arcana articles aren't doing it for them. I also think it's worth mentioning that I think releasing an OGL would benefit the long term health of people playing the system. It would allow the community to help sustain itself by providing interesting content of all play styles.

 

[Sadrik]

Slow the roll of rules expansion. Much slower than 4e, and 3e. When doing rules expansions think big picture, not small.

Spend effort on making adventures to play. Playing the game with lots of resources to do so. Maybe once a year, or less, a rules expansion. Multiple times per year adventures and campaigns. I would rather see lots of small adventures rather than mega dungeons and campaigns.

 

[Dausuul]

Side note, it would be really nice if people asking for responses to comments by Mike Mearls or whoever would link to those comments so we can see what we're responding to.

Anyway: The goal is to keep players excited and engaged without cranking out tons of product. Churning splatbooks is a waste of resources and burns up the edition's lifespan; after a certain point, there's such a glut of material that it's hard to make an impact with anything new. At the same time, there's a certain minimum level of support that they have to provide, or the game withers.

I would do pretty much what they're doing, releasing a couple of APs each year, plus Unearthed Arcana and the like. Then, every 2-3 years or so, I would have a "big event" release. This release would consist of three books, following the PHB/DMG/MM model:

• A player book with new classes, races, feats, spells, and other options.
• A DM book with new system options and subsystems (e.g., mass combat, dominion rules).
• A monster book with MOAR MONSTERS, because everybody loves MOAR MONSTERS.

Waiting 2-3 years between "big events" would serve several purposes. First, it would ensure there was plenty of demand, maximizing sales per book release. Second, it would give WotC time to conduct surveys and do extensive playtests, as well as studying how the game works today so they can make improvements in the new release. Third, it would stretch out the useful lifespan of 5E.

I think they could keep 5E going for 10-12 years that way. Then it would be time for 6E, which would be incremental rather than revolutionary; similar to the 1E to 2E edition change, which was more about cleaning up 1E and sanding off its rough edges rather than reinventing the core of the game. 5E material would be easy to convert to 6E, so people wouldn't feel like their entire collection of 5E books had just become worthless.

As for expanding the brand through fiction, movies, video games, and such: Absolutely try, but don't bet the farm on it. If something becomes a smash hit, that's awesome. However, D&D has a poor track record with such efforts. Look for partners who will take on most or all of the costs.

 

[Jeff Carlsen]

I think that changing the default setting for the big stories every few years can help keep the game fresh. Plus it might dramatically increase sales of each setting.

 

[Patrick McGill]

Side note, it would be really nice if people asking for responses to comments by Mike Mearls or whoever would link to those comments so we can see what we're responding to.

Good point, fixed the post to include a link to the tweet.

Though I would note that I'm not exactly asking for a response to that tweet in particular, he was talking about the RPG industry as a whole as well as in the context of board game publishing rather than about D&D specifically. The comment did, however, inspire my question because it made me start to think about how different the D&D publishing schedule could look in comparison to what core consumers expect.

 

[Redthistle]

I think that changing the default setting for the big stories every few years can help keep the game fresh. Plus it might dramatically increase sales of each setting.

Assuming you're referring to the current Forgotten Realms setting being joined by setting material (AP, sourcebooks, etc.) for the prior editions' settings of Dark Sun, Eberron, Greyhawk, Krynn, and perhaps generic-setting material, is there any particular order that you'd like to see the world-setting coming out?

I agree with those who've stated on this and other venues that every 2-3 years seems good, although some "teaser" offerings to whet the appetites of fans of specific world-settings, perhaps along the Unearthed Arcana route, might be worthwhile.

Also, once all of the world settings have been rolled out, future setting specific updates would be historically advanced. Perhaps those might be spaced on a timeline of a decade or a quarter-century, useful for a player of a shorter-lived PC race, such as humans, to have a multi-generational relationship with a PC of a longer-lived race.

 

[Enkhidu]

I think that changing the default setting for the big stories every few years can help keep the game fresh. Plus it might dramatically increase sales of each setting.

I think TSR had it right - settings drive sales. But their execution ("hey! let's release all this stuff side-by-side!") was poor. Releasing them in serial, and then once you've cycled through them all pulling a Disney and "reopening the vault" for updates/new material would help keep interest high.