D&D (2024) Is the 5E player base going to split?

[OB1]

I don't know though, as a company in the business of making money so they can show profits to their corporate overlords to prove the sustainability of the brand, I would think that yes, WotC definitely wants to sell as many copies of each book as they can.

Right, but fracturing the player base by having all post PHB2024 content require the new PHB may not be the best way to sustain the brand. In fact, they may net more sales by making it a completely optional purchase. MotM is currently sitting at #9 in all book sales at Amazon (and #1 Fantasy), even though it is a refresh of the exact same monsters and races in MToF and VGtM. If a future AP references a monster from MotM, you can still drop in the MToF or VGtM version, or if you have both, choose which one you want. I think this will be the same model that PHB2024 will use, and it will probably sell massively because of it.

 

[Mercurius]

Oh yeah, some of the early alt covers are gorgeous but I doubt I'll ever pick them up now. First one I got was Eberron. It broke the seal by just being so damn perfect, on the book i'd been waiting for since 2014, both in terms of fitting the setting, and just fitting my personal aesthetic preferences.

Yes, agreed! I also love the Mordenkainen's alt cover, Xanathar (too expensive), Tasha's, and Ravenloft, although Eberron is my favorite.

Oh yeah, genre fiction related art from the last century is so chock full of incredible gems. I wish more novels had chapter art, tbh.

One thing I want to do when I publish my game, is to have a mix of gorgeous fantastical art, and hand drawn in-world scribbling like you see in a lot of Stephen King novels. I'll show you the sign of the Crimson King, sure, but the first time you see it is going to be as it was scrawled on the wall of the building where his servants congregate in downtown New York.

Imagery is just...fundamental to understanding the world, in my experience.

Yeah, agreed. What you said about the King novels reminds me of a book from the early 80s, I think, called Dragonworld, that had tons of sketches inside. And of course the Dragonlance books, at least Chronicles, had a drawing at the beginning of each chapter, I believe.

 

[Mercurius]

Right, but fracturing the player base by having all post PHB2024 content require the new PHB may not be the best way to sustain the brand. In fact, they may net more sales by making it a completely optional purchase. MotM is currently sitting at #9 in all book sales at Amazon (and #1 Fantasy), even though it is a refresh of the exact same monsters and races in MToF and VGtM. If a future AP references a monster from MotM, you can still drop in the MToF or VGtM version, or if you have both, choose which one you want. I think this will be the same model that PHB2024 will use, and it will probably sell massively because of it.

I just don't think this is true - especially in the era of a new iPhone every year. Now I personally am setting a record, I think, with having the same iPhone 7 for over five years, but most people seems to get a new one every 2-3 years.

Meaning, good or bad, it is the nature of the consumer treadmill, and I don't see why D&D needs to be any different. And again, we're talking about a 10-year update. What you say may have been true if, say, a "revised edition" came out after a few years, but ten years is a long time. My guess is that most of the new players will be/are excited about it - as the first major update they've experienced. New books! Shiny new covers! Updated rules! Etc.

 

[Parmandur]

I just don't think this is true - especially in the era of a new iPhone every year. Now I personally am setting a record, I think, with having the same iPhone 7 for over five years, but most people seems to get a new one every 2-3 years.

Meaning, good or bad, it is the nature of the consumer treadmill, and I don't see why D&D needs to be any different. And again, we're talking about a 10-year update. What you say may have been true if, say, a "revised edition" came out after a few years, but ten years is a long time. My guess is that most of the new players will be/are excited about it - as the first major update they've experienced. New books! Shiny new covers! Updated rules! Etc.

Yeah, and they are playing it smart in terms of finding out the pain points with big data, amd catering the design towards that.

 

[beancounter]

No real fracturing. People will continue to play the version they prefer.

It makes sense to have the playable races (species, really) any alignment, but I just don't get the motivation for making demons and devils "typically" evil

The bottom line is that they nerfed the firbolg, and for that I will never forgive them.

 

[Krachek]

If they stick to the « fully compatible » there won’t be players base split, and what we call 5.5. will be in fact a 5.01 Edition.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Right, but fracturing the player base by having all post PHB2024 content require the new PHB may not be the best way to sustain the brand. In fact, they may net more sales by making it a completely optional purchase. MotM is currently sitting at #9 in all book sales at Amazon (and #1 Fantasy), even though it is a refresh of the exact same monsters and races in MToF and VGtM. If a future AP references a monster from MotM, you can still drop in the MToF or VGtM version, or if you have both, choose which one you want. I think this will be the same model that PHB2024 will use, and it will probably sell massively because of it.

A tacit premise here is that any sort of major change or alteration necessarily results in a bad effect, "fracturing," and no good effects. What about horizontal market segmentation? If they keep the overall rules structures unchanged (e.g., there's no need to edit the AC values or skill check DCs of old adventures because those things haven't changed, only the ways one gets to them), then the new books may end up opening a new market without actually costing the old one. There will always be some folks upset at change solely because it is change. But if future adventure paths work without any need for rewrites on the 5.0 PHB content, then WotC can sustain most or all of their old sales numbers while injecting a new group brought in by adjustments in 5.5e.

 

[JEB]

Yeah, there will be a split - there are already lines being drawn on the increasingly noticeable differences in rules, lore, and general tone since Tasha's. Even as some dismiss the significance of those changes. (Such disagreements themselves represent a burgeoning split...) But it won't kill the game, most 2014 5E players will stay on for 2024, unless they make truly radical changes. I expect something akin to the 1E/2E split, rather than the 3E/4E split (which did eventually put the game's future at risk).

I do expect this may be the end of their years of exponential growth, though, since some folks will surely be staying behind, or at least buying fewer new books. But the game will still grow.

I agree with others here that this may create an opening for more D&D alternatives, as well (but probably not a "5E Pathfinder").

 

[el-remmen]

I just don't think most D&D players are that hardcore that a "split" is an accurate description. While some people will stan for an edition, most people, I think, just negotiate what they want to use from which rules, especially when it comes to iterations within an edition.

 

[MichaelSomething]

More splits! More splits!

I won't rest until every DM has transformed the game into their personal paradise!