D&D 5E Ray Winninger, in charge of D&D, states his old school bonefides.

[Blue Orange]

I always kind of wondered what the big deal was. I mean, with TV shows or movies changing there's a lack of new content (if you're a fan of movie westerns you're not getting any more), but with a game there's nothing to stop you from getting one of the OSR clones (or buying the 1st or 2nd ed rulebooks off the website) and running your own old-school game. You can even make custom material and advertise it.

I mean, Hasbro owns D&D. They can hit you with a cease-and-desist if you publish a module with a beholder in it. But they can't stop you from running a game in contradiction to everything they stand for, or making your own retroclone and publishing that as long as you avoid Product Identity.

 

[Aldarc]

Just to be absolutely clear here because I think I've been acting under a misapprehension. Didn't the OSR crowd vote themselves off the island about twenty years ago? They weren't told to leave. They pulled up stakes and staked out a new territory for themselves. The OSR territory. Which is perfectly fine. No problems.

So, why would the OSR crowd possibly care about what D&D does? I guess I just don't quite get it. It was a fairly amicable parting AFAIK. The OSR bunch using the SRD, created a clone of AD&D that can then be used to create new content. Fantastic. Great.

I guess I just don't get the issue here.

Don't underestimate the (petty) desire for some people to have their gaming preferences validated through the biggest TTRPG on the market. If WotC were to move D&D more towards an OSR (or some other) style play, it can be interpreted as a form of validation of their play preferences.

 

[Blue Orange]

Don't underestimate the (petty) desire for some people to have their gaming preferences validated through the biggest TTRPG on the market. If WotC were to move D&D more towards an OSR (or some other) style play, it can be interpreted as a form of validation of their play preferences.

Thanks, that makes sense. I think I was too much of an inconstant player for this to happen to me, but if you were a heavy gamer I could see it being a part of your identity. Just like people get angry about changes to football or baseball rules...

 

[Alzrius]

Speaking as someone who plays an awful lot of OSR games, and considers themselves a fan of the OSR as well as other sorts of games, I do not see how Wizards can reasonably make a game that appeals to old school sensibilities more than 5e without ignoring large swathes of their existing audience.

They don't necessarily have to actually put out old-school-style products to show support to old-school fans. A good alternative, one which would cost them very little (if anything), would be to open up the DMs Guild for people who want to write pre-5E D&D products.

If they're worried about that watering down what's available on the DMs Guild, then they could just have OneBookShelf set up a sister site for pre-5E materials. Either way, I think that would make a lot of the old-school fans happy, and it would be a tangible show of support from WotC (as opposed to a statement with no force or effect) that wouldn't require that any resources be diverted on their part.

 

[Warpiglet-7]

Just because some random members of a demographic feel uncared for doesn't mean that demographic is isn't cared for.

I won’t touch this!

as it is, I don’t think WOTC actually hates the old guard anyway. Witness 5e!

some people who come out and say it/demonstrate it are a different thing and there’s plenty of them.

 

[Swarmkeeper]

They don't necessarily have to actually put out old-school-style products to show support to old-school fans. A good alternative, one which would cost them very little (if anything), would be to open up the DMs Guild for people who want to write pre-5E D&D products.

They already do this. Check the left hand navigation on DMs Guild:

Edition

• Original Edition (OD&D)
  
  
• Basic/Expert
  
  
• 1st Edition
  
  
• 2nd Edition
  
  
• 3rd Edition (d20 System)
  
  
• 4th Edition
  
  
• 5th Edition

 

[Alzrius]

They already do this.

No, they don't. Those links you posted are for old WotC/TSR products that are available for download (or POD). I'm talking about letting people write original materials, the way they currently do for the 5E rules and lore, with the rules and lore from pre-5E.

 

[Swarmkeeper]

No, they don't. Those links you posted are for old WotC/TSR products that are available for download (or POD). I'm talking about letting people write original materials, the way they currently do for the 5E rules and lore, with the rules and lore from pre-5E.

Ah - right - you are correct. And it's a good idea!

 

[beast013]

4th edition is locked down - no OGL.

 

[dave2008]

Boy some people here are lot more cynical and bitter than I realized. This just comes off as fun little tweet to me, no need to read so much into it. I guess we know why WotC staff stopped interacting with fans!