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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Cergorach" data-source="post: 9575305" data-attributes="member: 725">Honestly, what I read in the OP article sounds 'fake' from Mike Mearls, and quite honestly, a bit dishonest. Like the D&D fanboy that got disillusioned by his obsession, especially when he now works for Chaosium (which doesn't do D&D 5e compatible products at all as far as I can tell). What I remember from Mike Mearls, pre-WotC, left a far better impression. On the other hand, the interview format is something else from forum posts, so maybe Mike Mearls and live interviews don't jive.D&D is still the biggest monster on the block in pnp RPG land. Even if you look at the Cosmere KS ($15 million), that's like 6 books, a GM screen, dice, minis, multiple VTTs, map packs, decks, digital sales, all at the retail/direct level sales. And that's going to take a year+ to deliver. What does D&D make in a year, most of which isn't at the retail/direct sales level (but through wholesale channels and licensing)...The only time D&D wasn't the biggest monster on the block was D&D 4e. And who designed that... <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /> And while D&D 4e was mechanically very strong, it showed us that theme is very important, that's where D&D 4e failed and Paizo/Pathfinder (an OGL publisher at the time) succeeded. But WotC took back the crown with D&D 5e, and continues to do so with D&D 5e (2024/2025).And while the publisher side has far more choice and is way more fragmented, 'blaming' that on the OGL also feels dishonest. WotC bought a dysfunctional company/IP (TSR/D&D) in 1997 and launched D&D 3E in 2000 with the OGL, that's 25 years ago! Do I need to remind people about how the Internet looked back in 1997-2000? In 1997 Amazon was around for 2 years and also the year it went public. The online pdf industry for game books was virtually non-existent and most publishers avoided that like the plague. Self publishing was very costly, as online resources were very sparse. Fastforward 25 years and online sales are pretty much the standard, whether physical or digital, self publishing is easy, with many, many resources availiable and multiple sales channels for global distribution. It isn't strange that everyone and their grandmother is now publishing pnp RPG material for whomever small niche they sell to. You can even produce pdfs with free or very cheap tools. Back in the day it was QuarkExpress or InDesign.While the pie is now far bigger then 25+ years ago, WotC/D&D still dominate a relatively large portion of it. There isn't a larger publisher as far as I know, and I don't see that changing anytime soon. And while the most recent OGL disaster gave many of the larger 5E publishers the oppertunity to shed the OGL and make their own 'D&D' like Paizo did 14 years earlier. Even Paizo shed the OGL when they could without backlash. But making complete games from the OGL goes back much further AEG was doing it with SpyCraft and there are dozens of attempts, and besides Pathfinder, none stuck around for a very long time or became very popular. I understand when you see many name cards for different slices of pie, you asume that the many must mean it's bigger then the one, they might be collectively, but not singularly.As for publishers diving onto D&D 5e 2024/2025. Unless they have a working relationship with WotC and have access to the whole of the finished PHB/DMG/MM, they are going to develop an incomplete product. The chances to the MM are pretty drastic imho, so people waiting what they'll get is normal. There is no new SRD available either. The only company taht I know of that's doing a D&D 5e 2024/2025 product is the Foundry VTT team with their Ember KS last year. And that's not that strange as they are a WotC partner that's implementing the PHB/DMG/MM 2024/2025 on their platform at release. They raise $700k+ on their KS, which isn't bad for one campaign/adventure/sandbox for D&D 5e (and their own unfinished RPG system) on their VTT platform. It's going to be officially out in 2026, but Alpha 1 is starting in a week or two.Is D&D (5e/5.5e) the best game ever? No! Of course not, the reason we (as in our group) play it is because of nostalgia. We've been roleplaying for ~35 years with virtually the same group. We've done Vampire, Shadowrun, and more recently Kids on Bikes, but we always return to D&D as our 'comfort' RPG (except for 4e). I suspect it's the same for many, many others. My own collection is far larger, it already was 25 years ago, but with digital pdfs and Humble Bundles/Bundles of Holding, my collection has taken on new insane sizes. There are quite a few games on my wishlist to play: Pathfinder 2e as a possible replacement for D&D, Mothership, Spire/Hearth, Blades in the Dark, Ars Magica, The Dark Eye (something else from Nostalgia Avenue), WFRP, etc.What happend to many publishers during the OGL crisis reminds me of XKCD 927: <a href="https://xkcd.com/927/" target="_blank">Standards</a> and I suspect those new 'standards' won't be around for long. Heck, look at all the backing the ORC license had during it's conception when everyone was shouting angrily, after the hype train died down, very few actually adopted the ORC license... The same is true with all the negative shouting about D&D (5e 2024/2025), most will eventually move over to it, most that leave will eventually come back. And especially online the shouting sounds very loud in an echochamber.</blockquote>

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