Teasing out a few things...
WotC seems to have abandoned the splatbook assembly line that was such a central feature of 2nd and 3rd edition as a commercial product. I don't even remember how things looked in 4th, 5th edition now follows a very different production strategy.
I am sure that has a major impact on how they approach future revisions.
Yes, agreed - but how do you see it impacting future revisions?
Hello there. We stuck with AD&D when 2E came out...and when 3E came out...and when 3.5 came out. We still play AD&D. But we also played 4E for the entire lifespan of that edition and have played 5E since the playtest.
Honestly...I think they've learned their lesson with 3X and 4E. They have a winning combination and they're on the absolute top of the heap of the market. They would be stupid to risk that position. The only way they can update the rules and not lose a substantial section of the fanbase is to deliver exactly what they said, a few revisions and tweaks that remain 100% backwards compatible with 2014 5E. Anything like a proper edition change...2E to 3E or 3E to 4E...will cause the fanbase to split in a dramatic way. They still have memory of Pathfinder overtaking the market during 4E. There's no way they'd ever risk that again.
I agree, and don't think they'll risk that. But two things: One, "100% backwards compatible" means different things to different people, as I said in the OP. Two, to follow along from one, even if they only incorporate stuff from Tasha's and Multiverse, not to mention the tonal changes that have been occurring, we're already essentially at "5.2," so to those for whom "100%" means "5.01," there
might be backlash. Or not?
As I said elsewhere, I think they'll push the needle as far as they can as far as backwards compatibility is concerned, but it will still end up being something like "5.3" - maybe even "5.4," but definitely shy of "5.5." I think?
If the changes are small enough, the fans will get over it. They'll either play the original version of 2014 5E or they'll update to 2022 5E...or 50AE...or 5.5...or whatever we're calling it today. If the changes are big, the fanbase will split and there is potential that some other 3PP will swoop in and dominate the market. It's not likely to happen unless the 5E fanbase shatters into several camps. But even a bifurcation with rough parity between the camps would still leave both utterly dominating the RPG market. Looking at the numbers you can see that many older editions of D&D have more players than non-D&D games. It's wild.
I actually trust WotC that they'll stop short of doing too much that will split the fan-base, or at least if it happens, it will be minimal.
You'll take Volo's from my cold, dead hands!
And as someone said elsewhere, which is part of what got me wondering about this, the newer cohort might be less
picky granular about the rules, so backwards compatibility might be less of an issue to 80-90% of the fan-base.
Frankly, I don't know what the future is going to be. It seems to me that the situation we have here may be equal parts "things are going pretty well" and "we're keeping costs low by keeping staff low and licensing." (I may be beating a dead horse, but taking absolute ages just to get out an extremely simple conversion document because ONE PERSON was on jury duty? Yeah, that doesn't speak to a game that is getting the staff it needs to produce the things it could really use.)
My hope is that, between the pretty open calls for some more options just not as many things as had come out for 3e or 4e, and the pretty significant implied changes from stuff like their talk about adding feats to backgrounds, they're going to slightly increase their publication rate. Something like 6-8 products a year, with one or two being heavy on player-facing options, as opposed to the pretty-much-just-one we've been getting. That, plus the potential to streamline and slightly increase the density of options in the PHB, sounds like it would truly hit the sweet spot for most players--light enough on options to be something most folks can still grasp, but dense enough with options that people can feel there's a richness to what one can choose to play.
Yes, this is about what I expect: six core products (splats, settings, adventures) and two special/other/luxury ones ala the Dragonlance Battle Game, new starter sets, and maybe a surprise here and there. But 6+2 seems like a nice sweet-spot between minimalism and glut.
Edition changes are messy things. You'll lose some of your customers who aren't willing to buy into the new edition (I intend to be one, when it happens), while you'll have a small percentage who pick it up BECAUSE they heard of it due to the noise volume about an edition change.
If the 50th year books are a MAJOR change, I think it will be a blow to game's popularity. If the changes amount to the level of incorporation of Xanather's changes, Tasha's and Monsters of the Multiverse, there will be some minor grumbling, but the game will keep on.
If anything, I expect this to be on the level of if the 1E UA, Dungeoneers & Wilderness Survival guide info had all been rolled into the original DMG & PHB. Or about the Black book redux of the PHB, DMG & MC for 2E. Or 4E to Essentials. I'm not expecting it to be 3E to 3.5, 3.75 (the 2nd round of Complete, PHB2, DMG2 & To9S) or 3.95 (Pathfinder) level of change.
I'm expecting you will still be able to use the 2014 PHB at the game table, but some of the options won't be as optimal. I think that's been WotC "evergreen" plan for this edition - tweaks here and there, with new additions or ways of doing things that work with the older material, but may be superseded by new, superior content (i.e., Eldritch Knight isn't redone, but the new Sorcerous Blade is clearly a superior way to do a Fighter/Wizard).
As I said earlier in this post, those changes are probably already a 5.2. If they keep to that and maybe add or subtract or revise a bit more, that's 5.3ish (I keep oscillating between 5.3 and 5.4 in my mind).
But yeah, unless this proves to be a boom, and thus is followed by a crash, we won't see a truly new edition (e.g. 6E) - and presumably that's not for
at least five years, and only then if A) there is an impending crash, and B) 50A is poorly received.
On one hand, I think it would be foolish not to expect
some contraction, but AFAICT, D&D is still expanding. So it is one thing to contract from 30 million players, quite another to contract from 50-100 million. My suspicion is that it will continue to grow for a few years, get another bump in 2024, and then the novelty for some will start to wane, but that it will contract down to a higher plateau than in previous contracts. So rather than a 5 million strong diehard base, it might be 10-15 million - but even then, I don't see that happening until 5+ years from now.
(Assuming we survive the next five years relatively intact!)
Every edition (and half edition) from this point on I expect to be advertised as "Fixes the problems of the Previous Ed to try to convinces people to buy it.
Why wouldn't you want 5E but the Classes are so much better and more powerful!?!?!?!? Abd look Critical Role switched to the new hotness!
"Its like 5E but FIXED and BETTER!"
Ooohhh!!! Shells out $150
This is something that I meant to highlight in the OP, but forgot: When considering the newer generation, how will they respond to the "new and shiny?" Everyone likes the new and shiny, of course. But there's also the
new and novel - meaning, the joy of learning a new version of D&D, which many/most have generally embraced over the decades.
I don't think we'll have that answered in 2024, due to it likely being no more than a 5.3-4 revision, but we might get a glimmer of it.
