D&D 5E Hypothetical: WotC goes under and Hasbro vaults D&D. Now What?

[TiQuinn]

I feel like we almost played out this scenario with Paizo/Pathfinder and that if this were to happen as you say, someone like Kobold Press or ENworld Publishing would see a big spike in interest for their products. At some point if the D&D trademarks don’t see actual use in products, the value of those trademarks would start to decline. It’s like putting the Beholder in a vault and no one can have a Beholder anymore in a game. Instead we have an “Eye of Terror” that does roughly the same thing (I think this is MCDM’s version of it), and eventually it becomes the norm for people.

 

[Umbran]

Now what? What does "D&D never dying" look like under this scenario?

D&D, in this scenario, probably looks like the rest of the RPG market. Various publishers each try to snag their own chunk of the now-unsupported player base, resulting in a balkanized collection of vaguely similar games with smallish followings, as well as some scattered folks continuing to put material out for the core ruleset for a while. But, the central shared experience of the RPG hobby dissipates, leaving not a whole lot of reason for anyone to continue to support that core.

I expect that the RPG hobby, in general, would contract quite a bit over time, as the major entry point for most of the people into the hobby goes away. No company has sufficient budget to do significant outreach to keep RPGs in the minds of potential new players. Overall contraction of the market means RPG publishing of all kinds contracts.

 

[Remathilis]

D&D, in this scenario, probably looks like the rest of the RPG market. Various publishers each try to snag their own chunk of the now-unsupported player base, resulting in a balkanized collection of vaguely similar games with smallish followings, as well as some scattered folks continuing to put material out for the core ruleset for a while. But, the central shared experience of the RPG hobby dissipates, leaving not a whole lot of reason for anyone to continue to support that core.

I expect that the RPG hobby, in general, would contract quite a bit over time, as the major entry point for most of the people into the hobby goes away. No company has sufficient budget to do significant outreach to keep RPGs in the minds of potential new players. Overall contraction of the market means RPG publishing of all kinds contracts.

I would suspect that the market looks like the model car or short wave radio communities. Small, dedicated, insular.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

A rather pessimistic take on what would happen. While it might be possible for their popularity to decline, I think the majority of players would either keep playing or move onto something else. New players will still join groups to play, people might be more open to playing different rpgs. I doubt that the groups of people playing different games would turn on each other, most people are content to play their own game and not take jabs at others for playing what they like to play.

WotC/Hasbro seems to be the only TTRPG producer that is putting a large amount of resources and active effort into bringing new people into the hobby. While there will always be existing players bringing their friends into gaming groups, WotC are making efforts to market to people new to TTRPGs and get them to start playing.

Most other TTRRPG producers, whether D&D-adjacent like Paizo, or completely different systems, seem to direct their advertising into areas already populated by TTRPG players (like ENWorld,) or similar. They seem to be marketing to existing players, and relying on Hasbro/D&D to bring fresh people into those areas.

Unless the smaller companies direct efforts into making TTRPGs more mainstream like WotC has done, there will be a decline in the hobby numbers if Hasbro were to stop promoting D&D. (Assuming a different system doesn't go viral for some reason.)

 

[Dausuul]

ETA: Folks can respond how they want, of course. I'm not a cop. That said, the intent of the thread isn't really to give folks a venue to talk about how little they'd care. The intent was to attempt to imagine what it would actually look like.

One of the things that is said a lot with regards to the OGL and related discussions is that D&D being Open (and especially now that it is in CC) means it can never go away. There will always be "D&D" regardless of what happens to the company owning it.

So this thread is meant to be a discussion about what that might look like. What if by some series of unfortunate events D&D is no longer published or even licensed out? Let's even presume that Hasbro gets real litigious about any trademark violations, but doesn't bother doing anything about people using either SRD under CC.

Now what? What does "D&D never dying" look like under this scenario?

I think we've already seen it: Pathfinder. Some other company with a connection to D&D picks up the torch and makes a 5E clone under a different name.

 

[MGibster]

I expect that the RPG hobby, in general, would contract quite a bit over time, as the major entry point for most of the people into the hobby goes away. No company has sufficient budget to do significant outreach to keep RPGs in the minds of potential new players. Overall contraction of the market means RPG publishing of all kinds contracts.

I would expect the hobby to shrink quite a bit as well. Even if a bunch of games try to fill the large shoes of D&D, if you're a retailer, which one do you stock? I know there's the internet, I've certainly learned about games here at En World, but you're going to see fewer people in games overall without D&D. Right now I don't see any game replacing D&D, but who knows?

 

[Faolyn]

Isn't D&D creative commons now?

I'd imagine there'd be an immediate gold rush to try and do what paizo did with pathfinder at the end of 3.5e, take the open parts of D&D and try to make a semi-proprietary spinoff, though in this case you're not competing against WotC but a bunch of other small presses to try and be the last man standing. Realistically, it might just be Paizo who whips up a 5e-alike and reigns as the biggest fish in the small pond since they have a lot more infrastructure and brand awareness than many other indie TTRPG publishers.

Another wildcard might be that a video game company who already have some infrastructure in place manages to publish a 5e-alike of their IP and that ends up sucking up market share as well.

Actually, what would happen to the things not in the OGL/SRD, like displacer beasts and Melf? Do they get lost to time because they're forever forbidden, or can anyone grab them now because nobody owns the copyright?

 

[Misanthrope Prime]

Actually, what would happen to the things not in the OGL/SRD, like displacer beasts and Melf? Do they get lost to time because they're forever forbidden, or can anyone grab them now because nobody owns the copyright?

Final Fantasy has displacer beasts and mindflayers so I'm sure something can be worked out.

 

[Umbran]

Right now I don't see any game replacing D&D, but who knows?

There's this one genuine psychic in Spokane, named Gemini Kozwalski. She knows.

 

[Umbran]

Actually, what would happen to the things not in the OGL/SRD, like displacer beasts and Melf? Do they get lost to time because they're forever forbidden, or can anyone grab them now because nobody owns the copyright?

No. The copyright is still owned, it is just not being used. They can sue you for infringement even if they have no intention of putting Melf back in print.