D&D 5E The Last Edition of D&D?

Changes in Dungeons & Dragons' various editions have ranged from the incremental to the epic, shaking up the game's sales along with its playerbase. There is evidence that Wizards of the Coast is following a new model in which there are no more editions, just updates and backwards compatibility. It's a model long touted by the software industry, and for an idea what the future might hold we can look to the future of video game consoles.

Picture courtesy of Unsplash.​

Edition History​

To put Fifth Edition's longevity in perspective, it's worth looking back at the lifespan of the earlier editions. These editions lived long after the debut of later editions (and will live on in perpetuity on the Internet):

[EDIT: Alzrius did a much better job of summarizing editions, so I've replaced my timeline with his here, thanks Alzrius!)

• Original Dungeons & Dragons: 1974 (woodgrain boxed set) through 1976 (Swords & Spells) - 2 years
• Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (1st Edition): 1977-1979 (depending on whether you could it as beginning with the release of the Monster Manual in 1977, the Players Handbook in 1978, or the Dungeon Masters Guide in 1979) through 1988 (DL16 World of Krynn) - 11 years
• Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (2nd Edition): 1989 (Player's Handbook) through 2000 (Die Vecna Die!) - 11 years
• Basic Dungeons & Dragons (Holmes): 1978 (the Holmes Basic set) through 1979 (B2 The Keep on the Borderlands) - 2 years
• Basic Dungeons & Dragons (B/X): 1981 (the Moldvay Basic Set to 1983 (X5 Temple of Death) - 2 years
• Basic Dungeons & Dragons (BECMI): 1983 (the Mentzer Basic Set to 1993 (Champions of Mystara: Heroes of the Princess Ark) - 10 years
• Dungeons & Dragons (3.0 Edition): 2000 (Player's Handbook) through 2003 (Ghostwalk) - 3 years
• Dungeons & Dragons (3.5 Edition): 2003 (Player's Handbook) through 2008 (City of Stormreach) - 5 years
• Dungeons & Dragons (4th Edition): 2008 (Player's Handbook) through 2012 (Into the Unknown: The Dungeons Survival Handbook) - 4 years
• Dungeons & Dragons (4th Edition Essentials): 2010 (Dungeons & Dragons Starter Set) through 2011 (Monster Vault: Threats to the Nentir Vale) - 1 year
• Dungeons & Dragons (Next): 2013 (Ghosts of Dragonspear Castle through 2014 (Legacy of the Crystal Shard) - 1 year
• Dungeons & Dragons (5th Edition): 2014 (Starter Set) through Present (Mythic Odysseys of Theros) - 6 years+

Looking at these averages, the lifespan of an edition ranges from as low as a few years to as long as 11 years. At 6 years old, Fifth Edition is now at the beginning of when it might be considered old enough to warrant a new edition—Fourth Edition lasted just four years (if we count Essentials).

No More Editions?​

Mike Mearls had this to say about a hypothetical sixth edition:

We’re nowhere near 6th edition D&D, but if we get there this is how I’d like it to play out. Zero disruption to what you’re already doing, just new toys to make your game better.

In an Ask Me Anything on Reddit, Mearls clarified in response to a question about modeling D&D's roll-out after Microsoft's roll-out of Windows 10:

Is the goal of 5e to get all D&D players onto one edition and then to support it for a long time, much like what Microsoft is doing with Windows 10? Should we expect 5e to last longer than the 5-6 year lifespan of the previous several editions?
I think we'd do a new edition only when the warts of the current one are bothersome enough that people want them excised.

The much-touted Microsoft model, itself inspired by the iPhone model, comes up frequently because it minimizes disruption to consumers while ensuring they still benefit from systemic improvements. And there's a good reason for customers and developers looking for another way: A platform change can be devastating to a game's market.

Damaged Edition​

As D&D has become more embedded in the Internet ecosystem, it has become increasingly difficult for it to pivot. The Open Game License (OGL) era ushered in by Third Edition, in which many third parties flourished in support of the new game, came to a hard stop with the debut of Fourth Edition. Two planned hardcover supplements I wrote never saw the light of day because the rumors of a new edition spooked the publisher from producing new material. The hint of a new edition was enough to make third party developers change their tactics, and for good reason.

The current D&D ecosystem has only grown larger thanks to the new OGL and the DMs Guild. All the video streamers who are currently buoying interest in the game, the D&D-related Kickstarters launched every week, and market expectations for the brand’s IP as a transmedia franchise suggests that the investment in D&D goes beyond customers and includes small business owners too.

Before a new edition comes out, the existing edition takes a hit: D&D gradually lost market share to Pathfinder, dipping to third place according to ICv2 in 2012 (when Fifth Edition was announced). The drop was not solely attributable to D&D's edition change of course. The issues with Fourth Edition and Pathfinder's popularity certainly had something to do with the shift in positions, but it seems likely the steep drop to third place was accelerated by the edition announcement. We have further data that bears this out in Pathfinder's Second Edition launch, in which Pathfinder First Edition slipped to fifth place in Spring 2019, just before the Summer launch of the new edition.

There's a parallel between an edition of a tabletop game and a video game console, which can have limited backwards compatibility with the games before it. Like the tabletop game industry, the video game industry convulses every six to eight years when a major game development platform (Xbox and Playstation) announces a new system. Developers change their schedules to accommodate and gamers stop buying the current platform as they wait for the new one to debut. This cycle grinds sales of video games to a halt; it can be so devastating that the current down cycle threatens to wipe out GameStop, one of the few remaining brick-and-mortar video game resellers in the United States (GameStop's desperation was on full display during the pandemic).

Something Has to Give​

Increasingly, publishers are realizing that although this model produces an uptick in sales and expenditures in the short-term, it's damaging to the wider gaming ecosystem. This is why console producers are moving away from the existing model to one in which continual upgrades are possible while still guaranteeing backwards compatibility. They do this by building in compatibility from the start so that the console can easily run older games, while at the same time releasing more powerful products that consumers can opt-into as they see fit. In a similar fashion, one of Fifth Edition's goals was to be backwards compatible with the editions that came before it.

A longer market window to sell D&D has had some interesting side-effects, most notably that it creates an opportunity for luxury, high-end products. These products wouldn’t be able to flourish in a market where a potential high-end consumer would balk at investing a significant amount of money on something that wouldn’t compatible in a year.

There’s also signs that the old model no longer makes sense. D&D’s older editions never went away—Pathfinder’s success is an important reminder of this fact—and any new edition would have to compete with the five editions before it for digital attention. In the video game industry, downloadable content allows games and platforms to incorporate feedback and update themselves in real time—just like D&D is now doing with its Unearthed Arcana content and surveys.

Will we ever get a new edition of D&D? With Ray Winniger replacing Mearls as head of the D&D team, there may well be a declaration of a Sixth Edition in the near term, but it seems the game will always be backwards compatible … in which case an edition change is more a branding update than a radical change in the game’s rules.

 

[Alzrius]

Excellent work Alzrius, I updated the article, thank you!

Glad I could help out.

I've updated my list to fix the formatting tags, and to make some corrections pointed out by other posters in this thread, in case you want to add those tweaks to the body of the article.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I can't see that lasting. That backwards compatibility costs, both in terms of the hardware and also because it closes off options for future development. Sooner or later, probably sooner, it will be dropped as not being worthwhile.

I think this is a short-sighted take because it ignores the history of backwards compatibility in consoles, and the changes in their basic design in the most recent generations.

Historically, backwards-compatibility was indeed abandoned, because the costs of maintaining it were too great. They were too great because each console generation was designed in an entirely different way. They didn't have the same basic way of operating as the previous generation, let alone the same chips. The main exception being the Xbox - which was far more backward compatible, because of its PC-like design.

Now, both major consoles have PC-like designs. The PS4 and the Xbox One, and the PS5 and Xbox SX are all PC-like. Backwards compatibility, after being intentionally abandoned, has not only intentionally been brought back, but has been brought back in a major way. Why? Because its important to consumers. They don't want to lose all the games they bought previously. They don't want multiple consoles sitting in the living room. The console developers gain more benefit by maintaining compatibility than potentially selling the same game twice (they get little benefit from that). And they're extending, not truncating this. Further, with the new generation they're going as far as to say with some games, that if you buy the previous-gen version, it won't just be backwards-compatible, you'll actually just be given the next-gen version if you buy the next gen console and transfer your account to it.

This is because retaining you as a customer is important. Yeah, they could potentially make you re-buy a bunch of stuff, but that causes bad will, and further, gives you the chance to say "Hmmmm, maybe I will not to do that...".

And there's a great example of this in D&D's history. 4E was effectively not backwards-compatible. It was less backwards-compatible than any previous edition change, including 2E-3E (which wasn't very but kinda sorta kinda was). That caused exactly the problem described, and caused a big win for Paizo when lots of people decided actually they wanted to stick with an upgrade to their existing console, instead of going to a different console, as it were. So I think its safe to say any 6E will be backwards-compatible with 5E to a large extent. Not perfectly, I'm sure, but probably at least to the degree 1E and 2E were (and you could basically just run most 1E stuff in 2E without actually adjusting anything).

 

[CapnZapp]

RIP the Beastmaster Ranger, who now will never become viable.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

My opinion is plans by Hasbro/WotC for D&D is multimedia, not only the TTRPG, but also novels, comics, toys, videogames, cartoons and movies. The TTRPGs are crunch(feats, magic items, spells.) and fluff(lore/background). Today crunch can be created by the 3PPs, and today in the internet age we haven't to spend money to get lore/background when we can read the fandom wikis. Their dream is to create the ultimate TTRPG to can use all the genres, even space opera and superheroes. WotC not only would wish a new d20 Star Wars (+d20 Transformers or d20 G.I.Joe), but also a d20 Overwatch, or a d20 Marvel superheroes and d20 DC.

Nor even Hasbro knows the strategy of D&D after the first movie, because this can be a smashing-hit or a flop. Maybe the teleseries in the media streaming services (Netflix, Hulu or Disney+) could help to promote the franchises. Michael Bay's transformers have showed an old and almost forgotten IP can make money and become a cash-cow again with the right remake/reboot.

About the game mechanics, the key is the videogame industry. An AAA tiles needs three years or more, but after when they are played by thousands, theses start to find weak points in the power balance. Do you remember the e-sports of RTS where old titles are updated to buff or nerf units? My opinion is the videogames Baldurc's Gate and Newerwinter Nights were a great influence for 3rd and 4th Ed.

I guess in the next years we will D&D settings to test the transition since medieval fantasy to sci-fi, for example Red Steel/Savage Coast(firearms and mutants with superpowers), Spelljammer and Ravenloft. Later Gamma World with some risked ideas, for example adding some new abilitie score (for example spirit and acuicity, and aligments with allegiances because even the evil groups need a common goal to cooperate).

The 6.5 Ed will not be paper printed, but a update patch of a videogame.

 

[Hatmatter]

This is a nice summation and I would welcome a change away from "edition thinking." Whereas I was excited about the announcement of 2nd & 3rd edition as they permitted certain inconsistencies to be smoothed out, now that D&D is approaching turning 50 in a few years, I have been concerned for a while about a certain mentality that expects a new edition every few years, as if there is a need to change editions for change's sake. I understand this desire from designers and developers, who are professional iterators, but when an edition change takes place, it sucks up so much creative energy and community attention for years that many wonderful narrative opportunities and ways to grow the imaginary environments are either lost or sidelined.

The announcement of a new edition not only means having to anticipate all of the hassle and community complaints about rule-changes, but then it consigns us to talking about "when will the 6th edition of [blank] come out" for years. I mean, "when will the 5th edition of Dark Sun or Spelljammer come out" still occupies a considerable amount of time and energy in these forums. Heck, for 5th edition, we are still at "when will the psionic options" be released.

I would love to see Wizards of the Coasts devote its energy for years and years of more narratives, world creation, interesting supplements, and so forth (and, gasp, new rpgs). I do not see a need for there to be a new edition every few years, or even every decade. In my opinion, as someone who has been playing D&D since 1980, Wizard's totally nailed it with 5th edition. I read the forums here at ENworld often and read how people are occasionally disgruntled with this subclass or that class or this or that. I read the posts closely and I have yet to find any of the criticisms that resonate with me. The reality is that if one is committed to an iterators mindset (i.e. the perspective of a designer or developer) there will always be a way of looking at the game where it can be improved. The beauty of D&D is that built-into the game is the attitude for the DM to make whatever changes he or she desires.

If a sixth edition becomes the focus, then it is guaranteed that there will be people finding faults with it and pining for 5th edition a few years after the 6th edition's release; in the meantime, the community would have lost a number of years worth of narratives and world-development from the brilliant writers at Wizards. This is my concern with "edition thinking." I would like to see the RPG community adopt a new paradigm when thinking about and discussing its flagship game, D&D.

Also, importantly, as much as I am looking forward to psionic in 5th edition, Spelljammer, Dark Sun, and so forth, which I anticipate. I would love to see Wizard's create new role-playing games. Reiterate and support a d20 Modern compatible with D&D, make new crazy role-playing games that let the designers explore their imagination.

 

[Weiley31]

This maybe a bit of Heresy on my part, so forgive me, but honestly I wouldn't MIND AT ALL if we didn't get a 6th Edition, and we just kept on getting stuff, updated backwards compatibility, rule variant/add-ons/refinements. There is so much books/crap from previous editions that it be a shame to let it go to waste. Heck if 5E is supposed to be the "Nostalgia" edition that it's called at times, make it compatible with 6E like how 1E and 2E were with each other.

Anywho, DND 5E, despite it's quirks, runs well. Please note: I'm fully aware no edition is perfect.

 

[TwoSix]

I'm totally fine with 5e staying evergreen. I've invested a lot into homebrew in this edition, so I'm less dependent on WotC to release rules I like, but simultaneously I want 5e to continue be the base that draws a broad audience to keep that flow of homebrew/3pp going.

 

[Birmy]

Two planned hardcover supplements I wrote never saw the light of day because the rumors of a new edition spooked the publisher from producing new material.

Did this material ever show up somewhere?

 

[Hatmatter]

I'm totally fine with 5e staying evergreen. I've invested a lot into homebrew in this edition, so I'm less dependent on WotC to release rules I like, but simultaneously I want 5e to continue be the base that draws a broad audience to keep that flow of homebrew/3pp going.

Amen!

 

[Dungeonosophy]

I think though, that where WotC could open up some design space is to experiment with offering an entirely different D&D-branded game alongside the 'perpetual 5th edition.' This 'other game' would fill a niche in the D&D Brand, alongside the many D&D card games and board games (as exemplified in the long-running Adventure System boardgame series). Note that Hasbro commissioned (from a third-party design studio) the Tails of Equestria RPG with an entirely different system than 5E, which suggests there was a niche/market for that. Or like the Pokemon Junior RPG which WotC released during the 3E era.

That's what I'd like to see: float various D&D-themed standalone RPGs / Adventure Games which test the waters. These would have to be different enough from 5E that they don't step on 5E's toes and confuse the customer. In particular, I feel there's room for a super-streamlined (but complete) version of D&D which boils it down to something like The Black Hack or Tiny d6, as a one-off product. If it sells well, then of course there could be follow-ups.

While at the same time, 5E would keep rolling 'forever'* as the flagship line, via backward compatibility. *By 'forever', I mean until such time as it obviously and truly doesn't match the contemporary zeitgeist of gamer consciousness (in 20 years?), and must be relegated to the "D&D Classics PDF department" of DMs Guild.