Uniting the [Publisher] Fanbase?

[Remathilis]

Allow me some wild, rampant speculation.

Flash forward to 2013 and D&Dnext is out. And for whatever reason, its a huge success. Bigger than imagined. It unites players from across the generations, streamlines and simplifies gameplay, cures devil chills, whatever. People love the game.

The game also has a fairly robust OGL/third party contract, at least better than the GSL was.

I wonder, would any of the classic 3pp come back to support D&D? Would Paizo (having their own successful 3e clone), or Goodman (who just made their own retro), or Necro/Frog God or Kenzer or Mongoose or Green Ronin?

Even if Next sold gangbusters, would it be enough to entice any of these companies to rejoin with WotC, or is the 3pp fanbase too hopelessly fractured across too many side-games (Pathfinder, DCC, etc) to ever see these companies support a new D&D again? Has the 4e/GSL debacle soured them to ever trust WotC?

 

[malkav666]

I think most good publishers and content creators will try and have products available that their customers want to buy (at least the ones that want to stay in business). If D&D5 is awesome AND successful I could see many of them making content for it.

If the customers WANT d&d5 support from their favorite 3pp and when they make those products if they sell well then I imagine you will see support. If not, then not so much IMO.

love,

malkav

 

[Halivar]

I don't know if it's just me, or does the retro-market right now seem kind of saturated? Especially with the AD&D 1E reprint coming up. I don't think this market is sustainable in the long-run with this many publishers in the retro game.

As for Paizo, I think they'll continue to do well. They have no competition in their chosen strata of the retro-market, and I don't see this changing at any point in the future.

 

[Skyscraper]

And most importantly:

Is the number 42 really the answer to all questions that matter?

 

[mkill]

The current situation is WotC's own making. Due to a royally botched Intelligence check, they forced 3PPs to choose between supporting 3E/OGL and 4E. At which point they all went "oh, you're leaving the 3E fanbase to us? Kthxbye"

 

[IanB]

If it is as successful as you throw out as a hypothetical and there's a decent 3rd party license model, I think nearly all of them would put some resources towards it. More sales is more sales.

The only one I think wouldn't necessarily benefit is Paizo, because they have a larger, more stable business.

 

[Scribble]

I personally think the biggest detractor from the 3pp products in 4e was the DDI.

The DDI made me less inclined to buy 3pp because they weren't really all that well supported by the DDI. (Read not at all.) If I bought a 3pp book it would then cause me more work, or headaches trying to get everything working right.

So even if D&D Next sells like gangbusters if there is a DDI attached that also does not support 3pp (or an easy way to add their stuff as houserules) and said DDI support is as useful to me as the current stuff is... Then I will probably still not buy a lot of 3pp stuff.

If there is no D&D Next DDI or there is and it allows for easy introduction of non WoTC material... Then yeah I would buy 3pp stuff, and I think a lot more would sell.

 

[Yora]

How important has DDI really been?

I never played 4th Edtion, but even if DDI had 3rd Edition support, I don't see any reason why I would want to pay a monthly fee to play a game for which I have everything I need at home?

With commercial publishers coming back to 5th Edition, I don't see much of a problem. Wasn't it White Wolf who had the Sword and Sorcery line and the entire Warcraft RPG? And that would have been in addition to their own World of Darkness brand and who knows what else they are producing. And green ronin also released quite a number of books that where not all copatible with each other. D&D still has brand recognition, which is by far the most valuable resource any company can have. Unless fewer people like 5th Edition than those who like 4th Edition, D&D will be a great hit and worthwile for other publishers to support.
The real unknown here is Paizo. They frequently state that their main business is making and selling adventure modules. The whole Pathfinder RPG stuff was only done to be able to produce adventures and they are pretty much down with rulebooks now. But they won't drop it now they have such a devoted fan base. They might produce some D&D adventures at the side, like one D&D adventure for ever 4 or 5 PF adventures they release, just to test the waters. After that, I really have no idea how it will go on.

 

[trancejeremy]

Well, as I said before, I'm hoping that somehow material for past editions can be used in 5e without too much conversion. So Paizo can still make their pathfinder stuff and adventures at least, could still be used with 5e without too much of a headache.

 

[Scribble]

How important has DDI really been?

You can obviously game without it, but I would hazzard a guess that the majority of 4e players use it in some form.