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Speculating about the future of the D&D industry/community in a post-5E world
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<blockquote data-quote="Rygar" data-source="post: 6343935" data-attributes="member: 6756765"><p>I think there's a very strong possibility that nothing will change from the market during 4th edition.</p><p></p><p>If you look around, it seems that 5th edition's customer base is 4th edition's customer base. The poll at the top of the forum shows ~70% "Current players", which I believe represents 4th edition players. Many of the topics are 4th edition oriented, especially on WOTC's forums. On WOTC's forums there's virtually no indication of pre-4th edition players returning, and an overwhelming trend towards 4th edition oriented takes/discussion.</p><p></p><p>If these areas represent the edition's customer base as a whole, then 5th edition isn't doing much more than continuing to sell to the 4th edition market.</p><p></p><p>Its interesting to note that Mearls left them an "Out" in the form of "Listening to the people a year from now", which indicates to me that they don't have a lot of faith in the ability of the edition to gather customers and they plan on doing a deep assessment with an eye towards changing directions at that point. It also telegraphs to me that it is very likely 5th edition today is the product of significant internal arguements that ended up in an agreement to "Try it" and "Change if it doesn't work", indicating you intend to do course-corrections before the product is even on the shelves tells me that the producers feel the product is going to underperform.</p><p></p><p>5th edition has made the fatal error of being very polarizing. If you dislike certain features of 4th edition that were ported to 5th edition, you have no recourse as it is a base assumption. If you prefer things like using XP, you have no recourse (That doesn't involve substantial work). These things that people tended to feel strongly about have taken a position that forces people to either accept what they don't like or play some other product. That was very much the wrong approach to take. The xp thing is an excellent example, if you prefer to have players level when you say it's time, it is trivial to take an adventure designed with xp in mind and do that. If you prefer to have players level based on xp, you now have to spend significant time finishing the adventure before you can play it. Playgroups who preferred xp and depended on pre-written material due to time constraints are completely excluded, whereas if they'd done it the other way there's virtually no time investment for the "Level when I say you level" crowd.</p><p></p><p>So I suspect the post-5th edition world is:</p><p></p><p>-D&D does well in the 3rd and maybe 4th quarter of 2014</p><p>-Pathfinder retakes the number 1 spot in 4th quarter 2014 or 1st quarter 2015</p><p>-The D&D playerbase is predominantly the portion of 4th edition that was "Moderate" in commitment to it.</p><p>-The 4th edition hardcore and the pre-4th edition players largely stay where they are.</p><p>-In 2nd to 3rd quarter 2015 WOTC announces a major change in direction: Going edition neutral or announces that they're releasing "3.75" an update to the 3.5 ruleset to correct its issues and meant to make it usable with 5th edition product like the Monster Manual (Likely while porting over a few of 5th edition's features), possibly the same with 4th edition.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Rygar, post: 6343935, member: 6756765"] I think there's a very strong possibility that nothing will change from the market during 4th edition. If you look around, it seems that 5th edition's customer base is 4th edition's customer base. The poll at the top of the forum shows ~70% "Current players", which I believe represents 4th edition players. Many of the topics are 4th edition oriented, especially on WOTC's forums. On WOTC's forums there's virtually no indication of pre-4th edition players returning, and an overwhelming trend towards 4th edition oriented takes/discussion. If these areas represent the edition's customer base as a whole, then 5th edition isn't doing much more than continuing to sell to the 4th edition market. Its interesting to note that Mearls left them an "Out" in the form of "Listening to the people a year from now", which indicates to me that they don't have a lot of faith in the ability of the edition to gather customers and they plan on doing a deep assessment with an eye towards changing directions at that point. It also telegraphs to me that it is very likely 5th edition today is the product of significant internal arguements that ended up in an agreement to "Try it" and "Change if it doesn't work", indicating you intend to do course-corrections before the product is even on the shelves tells me that the producers feel the product is going to underperform. 5th edition has made the fatal error of being very polarizing. If you dislike certain features of 4th edition that were ported to 5th edition, you have no recourse as it is a base assumption. If you prefer things like using XP, you have no recourse (That doesn't involve substantial work). These things that people tended to feel strongly about have taken a position that forces people to either accept what they don't like or play some other product. That was very much the wrong approach to take. The xp thing is an excellent example, if you prefer to have players level when you say it's time, it is trivial to take an adventure designed with xp in mind and do that. If you prefer to have players level based on xp, you now have to spend significant time finishing the adventure before you can play it. Playgroups who preferred xp and depended on pre-written material due to time constraints are completely excluded, whereas if they'd done it the other way there's virtually no time investment for the "Level when I say you level" crowd. So I suspect the post-5th edition world is: -D&D does well in the 3rd and maybe 4th quarter of 2014 -Pathfinder retakes the number 1 spot in 4th quarter 2014 or 1st quarter 2015 -The D&D playerbase is predominantly the portion of 4th edition that was "Moderate" in commitment to it. -The 4th edition hardcore and the pre-4th edition players largely stay where they are. -In 2nd to 3rd quarter 2015 WOTC announces a major change in direction: Going edition neutral or announces that they're releasing "3.75" an update to the 3.5 ruleset to correct its issues and meant to make it usable with 5th edition product like the Monster Manual (Likely while porting over a few of 5th edition's features), possibly the same with 4th edition. [/QUOTE]
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