D&D (2024) The future of edition changes and revisions

[Mercurius]

@Mercurius here are the numbers from nearly a year ago, it will be interesting to see if we get another update soon:

"The infographic breaks down stats about the Dungeons and Dragons player base, revealing that the game has achieved more than 50 million players to date. This makes it the seventh year in a row that Dungeons and Dragons has seen growth, with the TRPG boasting 33% year-over-year increases, globally."

View attachment 157075

Yes, of course - I remember that now. For some reason I remembered it as 30 million.

 

[Parmandur]

Yes, of course - I remember that now. For some reason I remembered it as 30 million.

I mean, it was in 2018 or so. Crazy few years.

 

[Thomas Shey]

3. The OP mentioned how there wasn't much kerfuffle when 3e rolled out. Umm, there's a pretty large community over at Thunderfoot that might disagree with you there. Never minding an entire OSR community that rejects 3e completely. Might not be as large as the Paizo community but, it isn't small.

Oh, good gods yes. The USENET D&D group was a wave of outraged edition warring at the time. People called it a powergamer's dream, hated feats, claimed skills were an unnecessary complication--you name it.

 

[Mercurius]

I mean, it was in 2018 or so. Crazy few years.

Yeah, crazy indeed. I think as @Ruin Explorer said, the bubble will inevitably burst, but as I said, it is one thing bursting from the 20 million (or whatever) in 1984, white another from the hypothetical 70-100 million it might be in a few years. If 20 million contracted back to 5 million, then 80 million might contract back to 20 million.

(Or whatever - the exactly numbers aren't the point).

 

[Parmandur]

Yeah, crazy indeed. I think as @Ruin Explorer said, the bubble will inevitably burst, but as I said, it is one thing bursting from the 20 million (or whatever) in 1984, white another from the hypothetical 70-100 million it might be in a few years. If 20 million contracted back to 5 million, then 80 million might contract back to 20 million.

(Or whatever - the exactly numbers aren't the point).

I don't think we are looking at a bubble: growth will slow, but eventually a new even keel replacement rate will emerge, I reckon.

 

[Mercurius]

Re: the 3E kerfuffle to @Hussar and @Thomas Shey. My main connecting point with the larger D&D community in 2000 was here and rpg.net, so it is a very different context than Usenet.

Anyhow, it may be that the kerfuffle that did exist was not only smaller (at least compared to 2008), but more contained within specific venues.

 

[Mercurius]

I don't think we are looking at a bubble: growth will slow, but eventually a new even keel replacement rate will emerge, I reckon.

We shall see. I don't really buy the pragmatism of the idea of endless growth to begin with, and tend to see things move more in cycles - whether circular or spiral. So I can buy that we are "spiraling upward," but there's an inevitable a down turn. But my point is that when things plateau out, that plateau--no matter how far the drop from whatever peak it reaches--will be much higher than its ever been.

That said, the world of 2022 is quite different than it was even a decade ago. And in terms of the internet, I read that in 1995 there 16 million users worldwide, about 0.4% of the population, then 350 million five years later (6%) and over 5 billion today (about two-thirds of the world population). So this also has an impact, in terms of how many people have access to stuff like D&D, not to mention global distribution and such.

I was thinking about how I lived in the UK for a couple years in the late 80s, and completely fell out of touch with my beloved baseball. Back then, you really only had access to world events and news through TV, the radio, and print media, and the UK didn't really cover baseball back in 1986-87. This specific fact isn't relevant in and of itself, but I think the interconnectivity and access to information that the internet provides changes everything - and now, in 2022, two-thirds of the world population has internet access. I mean, how would someone in, say, Kinshasa in 1985 have any way to even know about the existence of D&D? So it could be that perpetual growth is at least theoretically possible now in a way that it wasn't 30-40 years ago, even just 10-20 years ago, due to the ubiquity of the internet.

 

[TerraDave]

Without even finishing the post, much less the thread:

2e was not embraced that warmly. Anecdotally I knew of more groups not playing then did. Sales of core books also never got to where they were in the 1980s.

Forget not T$R.

 

[Raith5]

I am torn on this because on a general level I think they should go through the 5.1e (minor change) route because it has been so successful for so many but at a personal level I would like 6e (major change) because while I like 5e, I have played so much 5e during the pandemic that I am sick of the some issues in 5e and have done it to death - Id love something new.

So I think a 5.5 option is the best thing - feats as core (more character customisation options but be careful of the maths), tweak concentration, more equipment choices, more interesting monsters, a few more classes, more attention to high level play.

I also think than the revised edition will be made with the VTT at forefront of any changes.

 

[Mercurius]

Without even finishing the post, much less the thread:

2e was not embraced that warmly. Anecdotally I knew of more groups not playing then did. Sales of core books also never got to where they were in the 1980s.

Forget not T$R.

Couldn't resist, TerraDave