What if WotC just said "That's it."

[thedungeondelver]

What if WotC, tomorrow, just up and said "That's it. We're freezing the D&D codebase. No new versions, no new editions. It's what we want, it sells, we'll write adventures and sell rulebooks. Enjoy!"

I don't mean the financial or business "what if" for them. That speculation is beyond me.

I mean you guys, the people who play WotC D&D - or we can expand it out and say "What if TSR were still around and they'd said 'that's it' at AD&D."

I would ask folks to keep EW stuff out of this - I'm not asking for "Why didn't they stop when xyz edition was obviously perfect and all others are just pale imitations" type answers.

Just wanna know if you'd keep on going with D&D hereafter. Or thereafter in the alternate futures.

(Me? yes on the would keep playing in the alternate future; I don't play the current ruleset.)

 

[Puggins]

Easy and confident answer- I would keep on playing. Why do I know this? Because I remember when the AD&D universe was composed of the core 3, fiend folio and deities and demigods. I never even considered the possibility that more hardback would be published, and it seemed like a loooooong time until MMII and UA were released (in reality, it wasn't THAT long, but it seemed like an eternity to my ten year old brain).

But I differ fundamentally from you, delver, in the sense that the D&D that I played back then wore out on me. I had stopped playing D&D for the better part of a decade before 3e came out. I think any edition would wear out on me without new COMPELLING material, with the emphasis on compelling. The dreck coming out at the end of 2e and 3e weren't exactly promoting a long shelf life. Complete Champion made me want to drop 3.5e like a rock. The Option series sucked the remaining life out of 2e.

So its a fine line- stop publishing stuff and lose me eventually, start publishing dreck and lose me almost immediately.

 

[jdrakeh]

It wouldn't have any effect on me. I'd just keep playing OSRIC, Fudge, and C&C.

 

[DumbPaladin]

Right, your answer is mine as well. It would have zero effect on me, and I'd keep playing 3.5, which they are not putting new material out for anyway.

So ... I'm all for it?

 

[I'm A Banana]

The only thing that can keep up with my constantly-shifting desires is an occasionally transforming core system.

That said, I would be interested in seeing a hypothetical/theoretical "final edition," where exception-based design is taken to the nth power, where I can mix and match genres and races and classes and plots and dungeons and rules like I change clothes.

I would also like a unicorn.

Get to it, magical wish-granting genie!

...oh, wait, that's just my drunken hallucination.

Hello there, drunken hallucination!

 

[Odhanan]

Yeah, I got to join the chorus. It wouldn't affect me at this point. I'd just keep on running OD&D and AD&D.

 

[Dice4Hire]

This probably should be two questions.

1: If WOTC stopped 4E/Essentials (which is all they are doing now) would that affect you?

2: and for non 4E people, how about your game? (assuming it is still supported)

I play 4E, and it would not affect me much at all. Even if no person on the planet ever made support for the game again, I could keep playing. If WOTC stopped but 3PP were still out there, I might look for stuff from them, eventually.

3.5 has no more support (and I have not gone to 3PP yet (and probably never will)) and it has not stopped me or even slowed me down.

 

[amnuxoll]

In all likelihood some other game company would step up and fill the void. Any game can benefit refinement and improvement. So, there would be demand for a revised version.

I think that folks who complain about "too many versions" are really complaining the the new versions are too extreme or coming too quickly. Gentler transitions like D&D3 to D&D3.5 or 4e to Essentials are probably the best approach.

 

[prosfilaes]

I'm not a one-game person anyway, nor to do I generally control which games are being run in my area. With something like Pathfinder, I think it will last me until it gets to being like 3.5, where pulling out a pile of books is standard for character creation. Unlike Puggins, it's as much the sheer weight as the quality. Whether or not I play Pathfinder/D&D 3/D&D 4 will wax and wane over time, but I suspect I would always come back to Pathfinder (or whatever the current D&D is), as long as it's as massively popular as it is, whether or not they're running new editions. I only have the PHB for D&D 3.5 and D&D 4, so to some extent the changing editions have already lost me; a stable system would make me more likely to buy other books.

Edit: Frankly, I think I've overstating the degree my volition has in it. I come back to D&D in large part because it's the 800 pound gorilla (though I've tempered my anti-D&D extremism of my youth.) As such, I play what the people around me are playing. If I were to run D&D now (since it is an evocative set of tropes to play off of--and easy to find material for), I'd use Pathfinder. But if D&D 3.5 books become reasonable in price, it could become D&D 3.5 or possibly even D&D 4 if it managed to sink all other D&Ds.

 

[Shemeska]

I'd continue playing the D&D version of my choice, and my games wouldn't be affected in the slightest. The marketplace would be an interesting thing to watch evolve however.