D&D 5E Why I Think D&DN is In Trouble

[doghead]

For what it is worth, here is a little snap survey of threads started in the Playing the Game forum during the Last Year, sorted by Prefix. Make of it what you will.

124 threads were started, of which 52 have no prefix and have not been included in the figures below. They form a mixed bag. Someone who cares about this more than I do can go through them and sort them if they so wish.

The following threads all have a prefix drawn from the D&D Editions category:

OD&D - 0
AD&D 1st Edition - 7
AD&D 2nd Edition - 0
3/3.5 Edition - 5
4th Edition - 4
D&D Next (5E) - 1

13th Age - 0
Castles and Crusades - 0
Chainmail - 0
Dungeon Crawl Classics - 0
Dungeon World - 0
Hackmaster - 0
OSR - 2
Pathfinder - 43

Conversions - 1
WOTC - 0
General DnD topics - 1

Adding the total of 64 to the 52 with no prefix gives us 116, leaving 8 threads with other prefixes.

thotd

 

[darjr]

As it is, the best people have all migrated elsewhere, and the best products have been produced by other companies for quite a few years now.

After reading Stans! blog post it's not so much that people are migrating, it seems that WotC is actively pushing good people away. After everyone but the HR folks say that WotC should capitulate on the hiring terms in order to keep him, that it was important to keep him, the CEO says no. Foot meet bullet.

 

[darjr]

http://www.examiner.com/article/the...ragons-4th-5th-edition-gaming-at-gen-con-2013

Were there NO RPGA events at GenCon? Not a one? I hope that wasn't the case.

 

[jodyjohnson]

For what it is worth, here is a little snap survey of threads started in the Playing the Game forum during the Last Year, sorted by Prefix. Make of it what you will.

124 threads were started, of which 52 have no prefix and have not been included in the figures below. The following threads all have a prefix drawn from the D&D Editions category:

AD&D 1st Edition - 7
3/3.5 Edition - 5
4th Edition - 4
D&D Next (5E) - 1

OSR - 2
Pathfinder - 43
Conversions - 1
General DnD topics - 1

thotd

Caveat: my data is slightly skewed in that I can't get posts more than 100 days old to show.

Pathfinder Play-by-post campaigns were split between 18 authors, notably 2 of the authors also posted 4e campaigns (Leif and Scotley switched recently to PF). 5 authors (Perrinmiller, mowgli, Dr. Simon, Scotley and Leif) generated 23 of the 38 PF campaigns I counted.

Both OSR were by the same poster.

My conclusion would be that 4e doesn't work as Play-by-post as well as Pathfinder.

 

[doghead]

Google "Pathfinder". It's the #1 RPG in the world right now. And it's led by ex-WotC employees who used their extensive knowledge of WotC's game to create a competing one.

So, I Googled Pathfinder RPG and got the following:
Pathfinder RPG - About 6,120,000 results (0.14 seconds)

Which lead me to try some more searches:
D&D RPG - About 15,900,000 results (0.35 seconds)
OD&D RPG - About 1,760,000 results (0.37 seconds)
AD&D RPG - About 1,450,000 results (0.32 seconds)
D&D 3rd Edition RPG - About 1,010,000 results (0.41 seconds)
D&D 3.5 Edition RPG - About 13,000,000 results (0.41 seconds)
D&D 4th Edition RPG - About 8,140,000 results (0.40 seconds)
D&D Next RPG - About 8,710,000 results (0.37 seconds)

Old School Renaissance RPG - About 148,000 results (0.38 seconds)
D&D Retro-Clone RPG - About 182,000 results (0.45 seconds)

13th Age - About 2,020,000 results (0.30 seconds)
Castles and Crusades RPG - About 173,000 results (0.35 seconds)
Chainmail - About 534,000 results (0.42 seconds)
Dungeon Crawl Classics - About 143,000 results (0.43 seconds)
Dungeon World RPG - About 11,700,000 results (0.24 seconds)*

* Which illustrates a critical limitation to the survey - the search results are heavily dependent on the choice of search terms. Changing the Search term to "Dungeon World RPG" results in About 32,300 results (0.11 seconds). Changing it to "Dungeon World" RPG produces About 224,000 results (0.16 seconds). "Dungeon World" produces About 558,000 results (0.24 seconds).

It will take someone smarter than this old dog to sort that out sorting that out.

thotd

 

[Warunsun]

Were there NO RPGA events at GenCon? Not a one? I hope that wasn't the case.

Good sir (or madam) the RPGA Network doesn't exist anymore. All that is left is the rotting corpse sometimes known as the Wizard's Play Network. Living Forgotten Realms is still around for a bit but it exists outside of the former Network or perhaps as the last vestiges of it. All other programs and records of the Network has been deleted by Wizards. Thrown out like yesterday's trash.

Personally I would love to see a new organization replace the RPGA Network that supports role-playing with tournament programs for any popular game for any company.

 

[Morrus]

So, I Googled Pathfinder RPG and got the following:
Pathfinder RPG - About 6,120,000 results (0.14 seconds)

Which lead me to try some more searches:
D&D RPG - About 15,900,000 results (0.35 seconds)
OD&D RPG - About 1,760,000 results (0.37 seconds)
AD&D RPG - About 1,450,000 results (0.32 seconds)
D&D 3rd Edition RPG - About 1,010,000 results (0.41 seconds)
D&D 3.5 Edition RPG - About 13,000,000 results (0.41 seconds)
D&D 4th Edition RPG - About 8,140,000 results (0.40 seconds)
D&D Next RPG - About 8,710,000 results (0.37 seconds)

Old School Renaissance RPG - About 148,000 results (0.38 seconds)
D&D Retro-Clone RPG - About 182,000 results (0.45 seconds)

13th Age - About 2,020,000 results (0.30 seconds)
Castles and Crusades RPG - About 173,000 results (0.35 seconds)
Chainmail - About 534,000 results (0.42 seconds)
Dungeon Crawl Classics - About 143,000 results (0.43 seconds)
Dungeon World RPG - About 11,700,000 results (0.24 seconds)*

* Which illustrates a critical limitation to the survey - the search results are heavily dependent on the choice of search terms. Changing the Search term to "Dungeon World RPG" results in About 32,300 results (0.11 seconds). Changing it to "Dungeon World" RPG produces About 224,000 results (0.16 seconds). "Dungeon World" produces About 558,000 results (0.24 seconds).

It will take someone smarter than this old dog to sort that out sorting that out.

thotd

I'm not really sure now that relates to what I said, which was that Pathfinder was the #1 selling RPG right now. I doubt it's the #1 "has a web page written about it since the 1970s" (or the 90s or whenever web pages started getting made) RPG, though.

But that aside, the point is that folks can leave WotC and use their knowledge of the game make stuff that successfully competes with D&D.

 

[doghead]

... 5 authors (Perrinmiller, mowgli, Dr. Simon, Scotley and Leif) generated 23 of the 38 PF campaigns I counted.

Living Pathfinder account for a significant number of the Pathfinder games. I am not sure when LPF migrated to the Playing the Game forum. The "Living" games started with Living Enworld (3.5 Edition IIRC) before expanding to include Living Eberon, Living 4th Edition and Living Pathfinder. They used to be played in their own sub-forum. I forgot about those.

A quick and dirty manual count (threads started in the last year) gives the following:
Living 4th Edition - 28 threads, 13 Adventure threads.
Living Eberron - 8 threads, 6 Adventure threads
Living Pathfinder - 34 threads, 0 adventure threads ('cos they are all in the Playing the Game forum)
Living Enworld - 0 threads

My conclusion would be that 4e doesn't work as Play-by-post as well as Pathfinder.

Its a possibility.

thotd

 

[doghead]

I'm not really sure now that relates to what I said, which was that Pathfinder was the #1 selling RPG right now.

Nor am I really.

I Googled Pathfinder but didn't really see anything about it being the #1 selling RPG. Then I got distracted by the funny little numbers at the top of the page ...

I doubt it's the #1 every has a web page written about it since the 1970s (or the 90s or whenever web pages started getting made) RPG, though.

Yeah. That is another fairly significant flaw in methodology

But that aside, the point is that folks can leave WotC and use their knowledge of the game make stuff that successfully competes with D&D.

Agreed.

I wasn't really trying to establish anything in particular.

thotd

 

[Morrus]

I Googled Pathfinder but didn't really see anything about it being the #1 selling RPG.

Without wanting to retread a million old threads, it has been for a couple of years now. Mainly because WotC hasn't been producing D&D for a couple of years, of course, so it would be kinda embarrassing if wasn't!

If you're after online discussion counts, this monitors over a thousand sites:

http://www.enworld.org/forum/hotgames.php