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

[Ruin Explorer]

Sure, there is, they've openly talked about that as a possibility. And if the future is a huge "Rules Cyclopedia" supported by digital Monstrous Compendiums...well, they won't have forced anyone to re-purchase a PHB or DMG.

That's an interesting possibility.

If they essentially went to a model more like 4E's DDI, just a lot better executed, i.e. "subscribe and you get all the rules/classes/races/items/monsters etc." (but not the text/images of all the books), well, I'd subscribe. For sure. For more money than Beyond was taking off me back when I was subbed to that. That model in 4E was incredibly attractive and effective for our group. And great for me as a DM, especially as they had a wonderful monster-building tool, where you could get it to automatically put right values in stuff, or just grab features from one monster and put them on another.

That would also likely speed the transition considerably for a lot of groups, thought it might cause a starker digital/non-digital divide. If so that split might be the split more than 5E vs 5.5E/6E.

 

[Parmandur]

That's an interesting possibility.

If they essentially went to a model more like 4E's DDI, just a lot better executed, i.e. "subscribe and you get all the rules/classes/races/items/monsters etc." (but not the text/images of all the books), well, I'd subscribe. For sure. For more money than Beyond was taking off me back when I was subbed to that.

That would also likely speed the transition considerably for a lot of groups, thought it might cause a starker digital/non-digital divide.

When they were floating that weird model for a digital solution, they were talking about making all of the rules free, and selling aesthetics as a monetary model .

 

[Ruin Explorer]

When they were floating that weird model for a digital solution, they were talking about making all of the rules free, and selling aesthetics as a monetary model .

Interesting. I doubt they'll do that in the end though, as Beyond has already shown (if I understand correctly) that cosmetics/aesthetics don't sell great.

 

[Maxperson]

More splits! More splits!

 

[Scott Christian]

The only thing that will split are groups that are already split. One table that runs gritty, and had someone leave, or another that runs Rick & Morty, and had someone leave. It's always happened. This will cause no more than the norm.

 

[Parmandur]

Interesting. I doubt they'll do that in the end though, as Beyond has already shown (if I understand correctly) that cosmetics/aesthetics don't sell great.

This was in regards to a VTT, as per the proposal.it may just turn out something like that, because WotC business model is to get people to play...so that they buy licensed merchandise and go to movies, etc. Selling rules is a side gig to that.

 

[teitan]

Sure, there is, they've openly talked about that as a possibility. And if the future is a huge "Rules Cyclopedia" supported by digital Monstrous Compendiums...well, they won't have forced anyone to re-purchase a PHB or DMG.

Ew gross. I hated the Monstrous Compendium model.

 

[teitan]

If it splits you will see an uptick in Pathfinder2e. I already sense an uptick on Pathfinder2e coming anyway now that the full potential of the system is on display.

 

[James Gasik]

I would think for WotC, the best way to go moving forward isn't to officially "end" 5e and announce 6e any time soon, but to keep making refinements to the engine they have until there's a compelling reason to change it.

They'll adjust things based on player feedback, like the whole debacle about making species less specialized (not going to use the "r" word here, it's too loaded) and to change lore to eliminate "bad guy humanoids".

Every so many years, if the core books start looking out of date, update them, but avoid constant errata so you don't end up with dead books sitting on distributor shelves.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

This was in regards to a VTT, as per the proposal.it may just turn out something like that, because WotC business model is to get people to play...so that they buy licensed merchandise and go to movies, etc. Selling rules is a side gig to that.

I wonder if that last bit is true though.

WotC have becoming extremely profitable, and D&D's success is a big part of that, but whilst D&D has some merchandise from WotC it certainly seems like the the current main profit-driver is rules/books sales. That might not continue indefinitely, and I've talked before about how D&D seems to be in the process of ceasing to be an RPG, and becoming a sort of "lifestyle" brand which is merely linked to an RPG. But even then, it seems likely they'd want to sell stuff beyond the basics, though whether on a per-book basis or a subscribe-to-get-all basis I don't know (it looks like the latter model is increasing in popularity, c.f. the expansion of Gamepass by Microsoft for example).

I mean, even Disney, who people have suggested makes most of its money from merchandise and parks, doesn't, actually - it makes about 1/3rd of it from that, the rest being from TV/movies (via various networks), except for 11% which is from licencing. I feel like WotC are kind of moving towards that model, but a subscription model, certainly to go beyond the basics, seems more likely than a pure F2P one with cosmetics.