D&D (2024) Is There A New Sheriff in Town?

[Deset Gled]

Some people think there's some magic formula that can occur to make D&D fall behind some other game(s) permanently... but it's just not going to happen. If D&D ever drops off the face of the earth to the point where it's noticeable... it means some sort of massive societal shift has occurred that is going to take ALL of the RPG genre with it. If D&D ever sinks, every other game is going to be pulled down with it.

Isn't this pretty much exactly what happened in the late 90s/pre-3e era? People keep talking about the 4e/Pathfinder thing, but seem to forget just how dire the situation was a decade before it.

The publisher of D&D was literally going bankrupt, and D&D was very close to dropping off the face of the earth. There was a massive market shift into Magic the Gathering and CCGs. It was exactly the unimaginable apocalypse you describe, and we barely survived it. We don't have good market anaysis from the time, but games like Vampire and Shadowrun were definitely challenging D&D for superiority at the end of the 2e run, and I suspect West End Games would have been as well if they weren't bankrupted by bad shoe sales.

D&D 3e was a dream of Peter Adkinson and an independent WotC, not something that had buy in from a Fortune 100 company like Hasbro. And it was a success in terms of keeping the brand alive and historically significant in giving us the OGL (also, I personally love the rules set). But at the same time, 3e was a period where RPGs were an extremely niche hobby. Sometimes I think that people forget just how niche it was. How niche was it? In 2006, Hasbro saw their new Tooth Tunes line of musical toothbrushes as a bigger growth and profit center than D&D (https://www.annualreports.com/HostedData/AnnualReportArchive/h/NYSE_HAS_2006.pdf).

D&D can fail. D&D has failed in the past. Multiple times. It's only in the past ~6 years that we've had this happly little spot of major attention and growth. There is no assurance it will last.

 

[Laurefindel]

Some have. Some haven't.

THAC0. Bards as (functionally) a ridiculously over-complicated PrC. Five bizarrely- (and often inaccurately-)named saving throw categories. Skill points.

In all fairness though, those were never traditions. They were elements of the game, most of which never survive the next edition change, which by definition excludes them from being traditions by themselves.

Instead, all of the things you mentioned are part of a wider tradition that still endure.

THAC0, like attack tables and ascending attack bonuses, are all part of the tradition that characters get better at fighting as they gain levels. The biggest departure from that tradition was that classes no longer progress at different rates! That was quite a revolution!

Awkward 1e/2e saving throw categories vs Fort/Ref/Will vs ability saves are all saving throws, mostly to resist spells and monsters abilities. That is the tradition. Calling them resistance rolls or whatever would be a bigger departure than switching the saves around.

1e bard proto-prestige class vs kits vs prestige class vs epic paragons vs subclasses are all part of the growing tradition that (otherwise pretty rigid) classes can be customized within strict parameters rather than free-form classes. Subclasses across different classes; that would have been a departure from tradition (3e kinda did that but it was not a strongly established tradition at that point).

But your point stands; traditions need to be allowed to change through time. I for one could do without alignment. I still think that D&D should continue to honour its traditions though. So far it managed to be relatively innovative* within those traditions, and has allowed them to grow and change. Other games can afford to innovate more as they have less traditional baggage to carry.

* sometimes even too much for the sake of its image. 4e was too much of a departure from traditions than what the community could digest. It was doomed to fail no matter how good it was.

 

[Minigiant]

Some people think there's some magic formula that can occur to make D&D fall behind some other game(s) permanently... but it's just not going to happen

The magic formula is MONEY.

Spend money on the best available designers you could find then advertise and market the living HELL out of it.

The main thing after legacy age that D&D has going for it is that 90% of fantasy TTRPG rely on TSR or WOTC to do the marketing to the mainstream to get new fans then they snatch up D&D Fans.

A big corp pushing a full court press of movie, TV show, video game, and TTRPG could do it

But no company but WOTC can and would.

 

[Morrus]

The magic formula is MONEY.

Spend money on the best available designers you could find then advertise and market the living HELL out of it.

The main thing after legacy age that D&D has going for it is that 90% of fantasy TTRPG rely on TSR or WOTC to do the marketing to the mainstream to get new fans then they snatch up D&D Fans.

A big corp pushing a full court press of movie, TV show, video game, and TTRPG could do it

But no company but WOTC can and would.

You don't even need the best designers. Just spend enough money on marketing, you'll be #1. The product itself is almost irrelevant to that. The sad truth about the modern world--in any industry--is that marketing matters much more than the actual product quality.

 

[mamba]

The magic formula is MONEY.

Spend money on the best available designers you could find then advertise and market the living HELL out of it.

maybe it would work, spend 10x to 100x what you have any chance of ever making back, and you probably do have a chance at unseating D&D, for a while at least.

The main thing after legacy age that D&D has going for it is that 90% of fantasy TTRPG rely on TSR or WOTC to do the marketing to the mainstream

No, WotC could stop marketing / ads tomorrow and nothing would change at all. Their school programs are good for them, their marketing is close to nonexistent.

What keeps them firmly in the center is network effects, not marketing.

 

[Morrus]

their marketing is close to nonexistent.

That's completely incorrect. It's the actual opposite of the truth.

 

[Deset Gled]

A big corp pushing a full court press of movie, TV show, video game, and TTRPG could do it

But no company but WOTC can and would.

Isn't that what Critical Role is actively doing? They started with a podcast, then got a TV show (Vox Machina), now they have a TTRPG (Daggerheart). There have already been teasers of a video game (Critical Role Will Announce Their Video Game "Any Day Now").

 

[Staffan]

The publisher of D&D was literally going bankrupt, and D&D was very close to dropping off the face of the earth. There was a massive market shift into Magic the Gathering and CCGs. It was exactly the unimaginable apocalypse you describe, and we barely survived it. We don't have good market anaysis from the time, but games like Vampire and Shadowrun were definitely challenging D&D for superiority at the end of the 2e run, and I suspect West End Games would have been as well if they weren't bankrupted by bad shoe sales.

The best available data is probably Wizards' 1999 survey*, which among other things asked those who had already self-selected as RPG players what games they were playing monthly (with multiple answers allowed):

D&D: 66%
Vampire: The Masquerade: 25%
Star Wars: 21%
Palladium: 16%
Werewolf: The Apocalypse: 15%
Shadowrun: 15%
Star Trek: 12%
Call of Cthulu: 8%
Legend of the Five Rings: 8%
Deadlands: 5%
Alternity: 4%
GURPS: 3%

So D&D's closest competitor had about 40% of the players D&D had. If you count World of Darkness as a whole, it becomes harder to say because I suspect that there's significant overlap between players of Vampire and Werewolf, so they don't really add up to 40%. Star Wars had about a third of D&D's players.

* Yes, there are methodological issues with the survey, primarily in only focusing on the US market and in excluding people over 35, but it's the best we have.

 

[cl3ver]

No, no chance at all. People like tearing D&D down, but those two did not make it and it will do just fine without them.

They might still be valuable assets for CR and grow their business, that does not require they surpass D&D however.

this is probably the most reasonable response to the OP. Definitely a "shift in power", but does that spell then end? Probably not... who knows it might be the beginning of something else though.

 

[Minigiant]

Isn't that what Critical Role is actively doing? They started with a podcast, then got a TV show (Vox Machina), now they have a TTRPG (Daggerheart). There have already been teasers of a video game (Critical Role Will Announce Their Video Game "Any Day Now").

Not enough.

Darrington Press still is using D&D as their jump off and customer funnel