WotC With 5E now under Community Commons, WotC is now "just" another 5E publisher -- here's how they can still dominate

[overgeeked]

But clunky as hell.

Eh. How clunky it is would be a matter of taste.

1st level: 2 cantrips, 2 short rest spell slots, 1 long rest spell slot. You could either split spells into short vs long rest or just give the long rest spell slot auto upcasting, say level +2 or something.

Make short rests 5 minutes. Then just build all classes on that framework. It wouldn't be hard.

 

[Reynard]

I wonder how many of the folks that speculate about WotC releasing a drastically new edition rather than 5e with updates (i.e. a 6e) are active users of DnDBeyond. DDB is integral to how many, if not most, people play the game now, and a massive edition change would wreak havoc on it.

I really don't think everyone understands how integral DDB already is to D&D. WotC paid $146 million for it for a good reason. They have stated that they think they already have a version of the game they want to stick with (5e) and a great interface for its digital platform (DDB). The VTT is the final piece of that puzzle.

This is a good point. If 1D&D is highly compatible, it still wins against Black Flag or whatever if WotC keeps DDB closed to material not specifically designed for 1D&D (and probably under a closed, tight license).

 

[Parmandur]

were was that stated? Backwards compatibility was desired but I don’t recall any of this being said?

In the playtest packets, they actually call out all options from Tasha's, Monsters of the Multiverse, or Xanathar's as planned to be usable in the new books. The proof is in the rules we already have.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I wonder how many of the folks that speculate about WotC releasing a drastically new edition rather than 5e with updates (i.e. a 6e) are active users of DnDBeyond. DDB is integral to how many, if not most, people play the game now, and a massive edition change would wreak havoc on it.

Heck, anything that works dramatically differently than the rest of 5E gets implemented slowly, if at all.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Will these include high end reprints of the 1st Edition AD&D books like they did in 2013?

We don't know yet. It's what I'd do, but then, I'd also have produced an Honor Among Thieves starter set, so obviously I'm not in tune with their product strategies.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

What percentage of D&D players do you think are even aware Kobold Press exists?

What percentage of D&D players are aware of anything about the RPG scene? Not a very high percentage. Hell I doubt even a majority of D&D players could reliably identify that Wizards of the Coast made D&D if you gave them a multiple-choice question with plausible-seeming answers.

What percentage of D&D DMs is the meaningful question. And as noted, however many it was, it's higher now, and likely to continue rising for some time. Also finally there might be a serious reason to actually try to advertise a non-D&D RPG to D&D fans which was always a bit of a losing prospect before. I expect Black Flag, MCDM's game and so on to get a fair bit of discussion and free advertising on the sort of videogame-centric websites that covered the entire OGL crisis, now they know there's some real audience for this kind of RPG news, and also because anything created in reaction to the OGL debacle will be of interest. Obviously it'll be up to KP and so on to leverage that free advertising, but that's how this works.

 

[Jer]

This is a good point. If 1D&D is highly compatible, it still wins against Black Flag or whatever if WotC keeps DDB closed to material not specifically designed for 1D&D (and probably under a closed, tight license).

Yes. This is part of why I don't think 1dnd will be very different.

And also if Wizards truly is pursuing a digital strategy then the changes have to be within the bounds of what ddb can get online by roll out. And from what folks have told me, ddb is already slow to get existing sourcebook rule changes implemented. Rewriting it for a whole new edition?

And then there's the vtt. They're working on it now based on the existing rules. Having to modify it for different rules will take time and money. The closer the new rules are to the current ones, the more likely they actually have a product that supports them at roll out.

(If Wizards digital strategy works for them, I suspect rules will change even more slowly because the software guys will need to be involved in potentially every rule change...)

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Pretty sure they are going to move onto an new edition in a year.

I'm pretty sure they're going to spin it as 5.5e (just not by that name, because calling it "5.5e" might upset people even if it's true.) My bet is "50th Anniversary Revision/Version" or the like, or as people used to call it before the "One D&D" playtest, "5.50e." They aren't going to change the fundamental math, but a lot of baseline stuff is going to be rewritten in ways that are not quite compatible without significant oversight. You'll still be able to use the deprecated 5.1 SRD content, but certain aspects will be disfavored without alteration. E.g. the level at which subclasses come online may change for some classes (I expect them to try to normalize it to level 3), spell lists are being heavily rewritten, several spells are likely to have their mechanics modified while still using the same name, "species" don't offer stat boosts but non-"species" character options do, etc. The conversion document won't be terribly long, but it will require some conversion.

On the sliding scale of edition changes, it will be bigger than the not actually a change at all 4e Essentials (which was literally just "here are more options, they don't replace or overwrite anything, they're just other options"), comparable to the 1e->2e or 3e->3.5e shift, and smaller than the comparisons most people make between 3.5e and 5e (that is, "different games that are really similar, enough that you'll get tripped up on the places where they differ" or the like.)

The actual dynamics of play and building-block mechanics will change very little, but their structure and interrelation will change meaningfully, and individual bits and bobs may change significantly.

 

[Benjamin Olson]

5e in some form is here to stay for a long, long time. It has a massive install base and is a nostalgic touchstone for a massive number of people who came into the hobby during the 5e age. The SRD being released to creative commons (and other editions not getting such treatment) makes in the version of D&D that can actually belong to everybody (legally, not just in their hearts), and the soil upon which D&D as folk tradition (or what have you) can most readily flower.

It had occurred to me before that in the coming 5e clone age "5e compatible" will certainly be more abstracted from its historical relationship with the particular brand of 5e compatible games called "D&D". In that hypothetical clone market of broadly compatible game materials, the compatibility-oriented OneD&D is more like a comparable competing product to, say, Level Up, or the little heartbreakers many of us are hard at work on right now, than it was without this Creative Commons-ing of the SRD. In some ways, WotC is just another cloner now (so long as they try to make editions that are broadly 5e compatible).

I got in a tiff with someone in another thread over whether one could call their 5e compatible product "compatible with D&D" rather than just "5e compatible", and whether I was right or wrong on my interpretation of trademark law in saying it was risky to do so, I stand by my core point: in the coming clone age, it is likely you won't particularly want to. "5e compatible" will tell customers everything they need to know (within the market of people interested in 5e-derived products). Mentioning "Dungeons and Dragons" on your product is just giving a competitor free advertising.

But, while I am excited about the 5e clone age, I think the truth is that the dynamic that would have powered one or more unusually successful clones to being serious rivals to WotC's official clone, OneD&D, was everyone being furious at WotC and looking to move elsewhere, and that has mostly subsided (though I still think far fewer people are taking transitioning to OneD&D for granted, publishers are looking to have less D&D-centric product lines, and most heavily D&D-oriented youtubers or what-have-you will vary their content more from here on out). Now it's entirely possible WotC will figure out a new way to absolutely alienate everyone in the next couple years (as long as the same buffoons who orchestrated OGL-gate remain in charge I'd say its as likely as not, but I think there will be some departures soon). It's also possible OneD&D is a massively divisive product that turns an unusual number of people to reject the name-brand clone in favor of one or more upstarts, but since I think the fundamental source of its near-inevitable mediocrity is that it is a "play everything safe, mitigate all risks, design by committee" product, while I think it will be less of a success than WotC assume it will, the chances of being a complete flop are pretty negligible.

So WotC really becoming "just another 5e cloner" in an actual market way seems pretty unlikely based on the current status quo and known factors. In the world of 5e compatible products there is not really an obvious in-road for someone else to create a rival as far as "big tent, heroic high fantasy" (or however you want to define D&D's sub-genre) goes that is likely to be a serious threat to WotC's market dominance. At present it seems like the best opportunities for a clone product to distinguish itself is to either be a different genre or sub-genre, or else to support a very different style of play that some significant portion of 5e customers yearn for.

But, the future is full of unknowns. WotC might well figure out a new way to put all their brand loyalty and goodwill on top of a massive fire and watch it burn, in which case the WotC as just another 5e cloner scenario becomes much more likely. Or someone else may just create the perfect 5e-derived game that, somehow, through sheer superiority as a product, overcomes all the built in advantages WotC has.

 

[darjr]

The PHB is currently 198 out of all books on Amazon us right now. I think they’d be nuts to cycle to a completely different version.

But then again….