D&D 5E Volo's 5e vs Tasha's 5e where do you see 5e heading?

[Parmandur]

3.5e sold tons of books (for the time). Hell, 4e sold plenty of books early. And the attempt to take back the SRD was as big a blunder with 4e as anything stylistic in that edition.

Probably a bigger blunder than the at will/daily/encounter powers was.

Given the size of 5e's player base, a set of 5.5e books would sell better (in that quarter) than any previous core release.

3E spiked...and then crashed.

3.5 spiked...and then crashed.

4E spiked...and really crashed.

Essentials didn't even spike, and crashed.

5E has taken a slow and steady approach, and not crashed. Evolution, not revolution, is the future.

 

[ph0rk]

3E spiked...and then crashed.

3.5 spiked...and then crashed.

Data needed.

 

[Parmandur]

Data needed.

WotC has said as much repeatedly over the years. That's why 3.5 came out so fast, and 4E for that matter. The product lines crashed, and crashed hard.

 

[ph0rk]

WotC has said as much repeatedly over the years. That's why 3.5 came out so fast, and 4E for that matter. The product lines crashed, and crashed hard.

3.5 was some rules tweaks, and it was backwards compatible. You could play modules designed with 3.5e in mind in 3e and vice versa. Most likely what will happen with 5e, like it or not. Come to think of it, the story in the early to mid 2000s was about how 3e was part of a DnD resurgent and an overall rise in popularity of P&P RPGs.


People say it was because 3e was failing, but as WotC isn't releasing sales numbers and most certainly did not claim 3e was failing while the books were still on shelves, this seems dubious.

And - what will Hasbro do when the pandemic-driven boom fades? It wouldn't take much for 50m players to become 20, 15, or even fewer. That's still more players than there were in previous editions, but will seem like the end of an edition in a fiscal sense. They've printed money in 2020, but that can't last.

 

[Parmandur]

3.5 was some rules tweaks, and it was backwards compatible. You could play modules designed with 3.5e in mind in 3e and vice versa. Most likely what will happen with 5e, like it or not. Come to think of it, the story in the early to mid 2000s was about how 3e was part of a DnD resurgent and an overall rise in popularity of P&P RPGs.


People say it was because 3e was failing, but as WotC isn't releasing sales numbers and most certainly did not claim 3e was failing while the books were still on shelves, this seems dubious.

And - what will Hasbro do when the pandemic-driven boom fades? It wouldn't take much for 50m players to become 20, 15, or even fewer. That's still more players than there were in previous editions, but will seem like the end of an edition in a fiscal sense. They've printed money in 2020, but that can't last.

Primarily going off of what Monte Cook said about the internal situation years later. 5E has lasted nearly as long as 3E and 3.5 combined (you are overselling how compatible they were a bit there). It doesn't show anynsign of changing course. I expect a 6E will come, but it won't be as big a shift as 3E to 3.5 was.

 

[Parmandur]

And - what will Hasbro do when the pandemic-driven boom fades? It wouldn't take much for 50m players to become 20, 15, or even fewer. That's still more players than there were in previous editions, but will seem like the end of an edition in a fiscal sense. They've printed money in 2020, but that can't last.

That's why Hasbro on the corporate level is focusing on things like movies and video games, and the accompanying merchandise. If Dark Alliance or the Paramount movie are modestly successful, that's more income than a new TTRPG.

 

[Mistwell]

They had a lot of ideas while trying to figure out what to do with 5E. Some of the ideas worked, some didn't. During development you have a ton of ideas that you throw at the wall and see what sticks. Modularity to the point they considered for what appears to have been a very brief period of time before reality set in was just one tiny aspect of the game that never saw the light of day.

So Mearls thought about how to implement some stuff that never got implemented. So the **** what? They couldn't make it work so they dropped it. Can we please stop complaining about something that didn't get implemented that we only know about from an off-the-cuff interview 9 years ago?

The development of 5E had far more polling and feedback than any previous edition. Obviously significant modularity didn't make the cut. There were other things that also never saw the light of day like detailed stealth rules. We are getting modularity, just not everything Mike discussed.

Whatever gave you the idea that "so what" and "complaining" was involved with the post you're responding to, it's the wrong impression.

To summarize: 1) STATEMENT: We got the modularity they talked about originally; 2) RESPONSE: We did not get the modularity they talked about originally; 3) FOLLOW-UP STATEMENT: We got the modularity they talked about originally in these recent books, 4) FOLLOW-UP RESPONSE: We didn't, here is the list of originally talked about modularity and none of this is in the recent books.

Do you see any judgement tone, of any kind, in any of the responses from me? No. Do you see a tone of complaining? No. Do you see me looking for someone to justify how things played out? No. So, maybe reconsider this sub-thread and your reaction? Because to me you just came out of left field swinging for no reason at all.

 

[Mistwell]

So they tried out some modules and ended up not including them. Still a modular game in the end.

@Parmandur Yes, a modular game in the end in some respects, but no, we didn't get the modularity they talked about originally. Hence my initial reply which was "The ship has sailed on the expectations regarding modularity." Because the expectations were set by what they originally said, and the specific modularity in what they originally said never made the cut and will never make the cut. The ship has sailed on those elements.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

A "failed new edition" is a bizarre and frankly slightly paranoid idea. The closest D&D has had to that was 4E, and that took vast effort to create a "failed new edition". The stars had to absolutely align in a totally fantastic way.

To be successful with a new edition, all they really need to do is two things:

1) Retain 2E-ish levels of backwards-compatibility with 5E adventures.

2) Implement a relatively cautious 6E that's more like 1E-2E than any other edition change, implementing all the ideas they're half-implementing in 5E, and fixing some stuff.

Combine that with attractive new art and visual design, maybe better writing, better optional rules and DM suggestions in the DMG, and later an updated MM (one of the selling points will be that you don't need updated MMs initially), and boom you just sold a ridiculous number of physical and digital copies. If you release you own digital product instead of letting DDB take your money, at the same time (or just buy DDB), you make even more money.

Re: "even more cautious" and "trialled in another format", I think this is half-true. They're likely to stick to a 1E-2E-style incremental change model, rather than the revolutionary changed of 3E/4E/5E, so that is "more cautious" than previous editions. However, I don't think they'll but putting out 6E's changes in another format, because it would be incredibly obvious and worse PR than just putting out 6E. I do think we may eventually see another RPG with a different system from them, because of the vast potential for selling it the now-vast base of D&D players, but not for a while yet.

You could be right about how they will do a new edition when it come but I still do not see that this would be anytime soon.
First off why do a new edition while sales of the original PHB are still strong and sales of new books are growing. At best that looks like pissing off the people that bought into the game in the last 2 years or so "Waddya mean I have to buy the books again?"

Second, why would you bring out a new edition while trying to establish an multimedia franchise. You do not want a kid wanting to buy the books because of the pc game/tv/movie and looking at 2 different editions and wondering which one to buy.

This is with out getting in to the material covered in the 3.x/4e lifetime and not yet covered in the current edition.

I am not saying there will never be another edition but I see no reason for it now, or even soon. At the very least let us see if the TV series and movie gain any traction.

That said, personally the only reason I could see for a new edition, is if there is a fall in market share.

 

[Oofta]

No. I do it because at some point the cost of entry is too high.
If 90% people play with Tasha by default, at some point it is the better choice to carry it over into the core rules instead of telling new players to buy two books.

It's one class, and a class that works reasonably well for a lot of people. It's the outlier that proves that for the most part they did a decent job with the initial release (nothing is perfect). Most people won't know if there's a difference. If they do know there's a difference most won't care that much. If they do care and can't afford the book they'll just borrow a copy and spend a couple minutes making notes for the new subclass or play something different.

It's a huge difference from previous editions where many, many things were much significantly modified and there was broad power creep across the board. Most people don't care about that nth level of DPR, they care whether or not their PC does a reasonable job contributing and are fun to play. There's no way that a 0.1% difference in the books is going to justify a new edition.