My main thesis was that there is a potential split between the VTT market and the rest of the tabletop market. This is a shift that we are already starting to see. For example, you'll generally find that people using a VTT are much more likely to track encumbrance than those in a pen-and-paper game. As time goes on, I think it is very likely that this gap will become more and more noticeable. Eventually, I think it's possible we will see games that are optimized for VTT play, and different games that are optimized for in-person play.
I would care about encumbrance if it tracked Size instead of guess-the-weight.
Maybe:
• Three Tinies = one Small.
• Three Smalls = one Medium.
• Three Mediums = one Large.
Etcetera. A satchel is Tiny container, including its content.
A Medium creature can carry one Size smaller without any encumbrance. Two Smalls require a check. Perhaps carrying three Smalls or one Medium is automatically encumbered.
Heh, special items like gold being surprisingly heavy, can have special rules, which I would then probably ignore.
Rules that are conceptually clear and mechanically simple (and that dont require guess-the-weight or tedious bookkeeping). Something like that.
As for the specifics, I named D&D because it's the obvious monolith in the market. And, to your point that they make active attempts to follow financial trends, WotC has made multiple announcements over the last few years that they want to work as much as possible on digital content and VTTs. They have backed these statements up with investments in DNDBeyond. Frankly, it's a business path they've wanted to be on since 4e, and they haven't been shy about it. Their success in digital obviously isn't as monolithic as the success of D&D as a brand, but their intent is fairly clear.
DnDBeyond seems to be doing well. I am glad about that.
At the same time, WotC made efforts into other digital tabletop products that did less well.
Before Daggerheart, I would have named either an OSR game or a PbtA game as a possible candidate for the group that could come to dominance by challenging the D&D VTT side of the TTRPG market with more story-based play. Both have vocal contingents that are opposed to VTTs. But, as time goes by I think the OSR may lose some steam as a core section of their market dies (literally), and I've always suspected that the number of people playing PtbA games is overestimated by it's fans. Bringing in the names it has behind it, Daggerheart very well could be the game that comes to challenge VTT space.
Future D&D, including Daggerheart, will continue to mine old school for inspirations (just like 5e does). Old school is a valuable resource, a treasure of ideas. But old school in its own right, that era has passed.
Also, y'know, Daggerheart is kinda the game that this thread is about, so... yeah. Seemed like talking about it vs D&D was topical. And it's all hypothetical; I ain't investing my 401k on this pile of possiblys.
To me, Daggerheart looks more like an edition of D&D.
I agree, future technologies will soon change the nature of gaming. We will see how WotC and various indies adapt to the new environments.
