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

[Theory of Games]

An exciting time much like the late 70's when Runequest and Chivalry and Sorcery and Tunnels and Trolls all made a splash ... and the 80's where the mighty Avalon Hill released Powers & Perils, plus GURPS was new and Fantasy Hero was new ... and the 90's where FASA - FASA! - put out an actual fantasy RPG called Earthdawn ... and the 2010-ish era where we saw Pathfinder and 13th Age and Shadow of the Demon Lord and Dungeon Crawl Classics and others who were capitalizing on the perceived lack of enthusiasm around 4E D&D, not to mention the OSR thing snowballing right along.

I know not everyone was around for the entire history of RPGs but all of these things were thought of as big deals at the time and many of them went on to at least moderate success and many have some version in print today. None of them "de-throned" D&D and it is extremely unlikely that any of this new wave of OSR-Fallout games will either. It's also very premature to start speculating weeks and months after their release. There's nothing wrong with being excited about new games - there are new ones every year, especially Fantasy games - but the hyperbole is strong with the OP.

No time better than the present. This way, when it does happen and everyone's looking around in shock, I can be the guy that says "Told ya so!"

 

[Micah Sweet]

I do know that over on the Critical Role subreddit there are people saying that if their Campaign 4 were to use Daggerheart instead of D&D that they would not be interested in following it. Campaign 3 also lost a good bit of viewers and momentum versus how well-received the first two were, so CR isn't exactly in the safest position to make a gamble on switching to their own in-house system versus if they had done it earlier.

On the other hand, if they don't it's hard not to see that as a lack of faith in their own bespoke system.

 

[payn]

No time better than the present. This way, when it does happen and everyone's looking around in shock, I can be the guy that says "Told ya so!"

 

[Sacrosanct]

Will Daggerheart beat D&D? I don't think so. Even with CR audience. Kesley's got a much smaller audience than CR and Shadowdark seems to be much more popular than Daggerheart is, or will be. Yeah, it's an offshoot of D&D, but it's not called D&D and not owned by WotC or Hasbro. And yet, from every convention I've been to, it's #2 behind 5e. 3rd place is far behind it.


So we shouldn't even be asking if DH will beat D&D. It's doubtful it will even beat SD.