WotC WotC can, and probably should support multiple editions of D&D.

[payn]

One is called D&D and one isn't - that's where the difference is.

Daniel Proctor is doing a new revision of Labyrinth Lord and I'd definitely play that over B/X, but if I'm talking about it, I need to end up calling it D&D, or someone is most likely to wonder what the hell Labyrinth Lord is. Same exact note goes for Pathfinder. If I have to explain that it's relabeled D&D then the conversation is about that.

D&D is synonymous with Fantasy Role Playing. It's the Kleenex of facial tissue.

Once I get into discussing the difference between different editions and OSR and NuOSR and Retroclones and everything else, it's all about preferences in how you play Fantasy Role Playing games.

As someone who still plays Pathfinder classic, WotC would have to do a mountain of work to get me to buy any 3E product from them. Im just one guy so take that with a grain of salt, but that juice is not going to be worth the squeeze.

 

[Lanefan]

Yup, there are thousands of other TTRPGs to play. Maybe try playing one of those. WotC doesn't have to do everything.

The one thing WotC can and does do, however, which many of the publishers of those thousands of other RPGs can't (or won't) do, is produce physical product and get it on to a shelf at my FLGS where I can touch it before I buy it.

 

[Morrus]

The one thing WotC can and does do, however, which many of the publishers of those thousands of other RPGs can't (or won't) do, is produce physical product and get it on to a shelf at my FLGS where I can touch it before I buy it.

Sure. Their extreme market dominance makes it nearly impossible for other publishers to get distributors to even take their calls. You're right.

This isn't a good thing, however.

 

[June Soler]

I looked at Roll20 stats two months ago and this is what i gathered.

On 4/8/24 0001 Hours (12am) there were 1000 games on offer (including mature only games) [At least this is how many games it showed 34 Pages. 30 games per page and the 34th page had 10 games.]

81% Official DnD systems (5e, 4e, 3e, 2e, 1e, od&d) [771 are 5E, 39 are 4e, 3e, 2e, 1e, od&d; 523 [511 5E] have a cost, 287 [260 5E] are free to play]
8.5% Pathfinder 1&2e (50 games or 60% PF1E, 35 games or 40% PF2E)
2.6% Call of Cthulhu (any edition)
1.7 % WOD systems
1.4 % Star Wars (any system)
1.1 % Savage Worlds
1.0 % Old School Essentials
.9% Apocalypse World Systems
.7 Traveler (any edition)
.6% Dungeon Crawl Classics

99.5%
.5 % All other games.

Now this is not representative of actual play since many games are TotM and perhaps are organized elsewhere (discord, reddit, etc) But its good to see the biggest vtt's numbers.

 

[mamba]

The one thing WotC can and does do, however, which many of the publishers of those thousands of other RPGs can't (or won't) do, is produce physical product and get it on to a shelf at my FLGS where I can touch it before I buy it.

they can because they have one major product instead of 10 small ones...

 

[Thomas Shey]

they can because they have one major product instead of 10 small ones...

Not every publisher produces a bunch of small ones. That doesn't help because they're still small-to-tiny compared to WOTC, and there's little they can do to change that.

 

[Dire Bare]

This has been a post that for me has been a long time coming. I think WotC can and should support multiple editions of D&D.

They've been in this mode since they bought the product from TSR where they're only supporting one edition at a time, and frankly, it creates great amount of disruption for them and alienates fans every time they stop supporting a product that their fans like.

I think they should keep a maintenance version of 3e and for that version they should be publishing alternate stats for their new 5e adventures. Maybe even publish two versions of each new adventure for the hardback. One for 5e/onednd rules and another for their new 3.x maintenance version.

The other thing that I think they could support and probably should support would be a couple of Classic D&D versions meant to support running in OSR style. This would take the form of two different things. The first would be a version of Old School Essentials Advanced. They should pay Gavin Norman for this. The only change that I would make would be to the to-hit tables and saving throw tables to smooth them out (that's another rant that involves Target 20 and the very early decision by Gygax to extend from 9 levels to ~14 (the math supports 14, but could be 13 or 15, but the wizard in OD&D has a spell table to 16, but is functionally unlimited - I should really not get started)).

Optional changes would include d20 style ability checks (I don't means skill, more about setting a DR, having the player roll a d20 and add bonuses and meet the DR) and saving throws (5 arbitrary numbers is bad), optional ways to deal with death (more nuanced than just dead), maybe that funky cleric spell table, and anything else that tends to get house-ruled anyway.

Support for this would mostly be refreshed versions of old adventures (rewritten for clarity and brevity and packaged in bundles to support hardcovers) and what's seen in the sizable OSR community already.

Nah.

Certainly, some fans would appreciate this, no doubt. But this would be a lot of effort for little return, and confuse the market.

I remember being a kid in the 80s and discovering that D&D and AD&D were two different games! I was soooo pissed and confused. Still doesn't make sense to me to this day that TSR supported two different versions of the same game at the same time.

What I would like to see is an SRD for each edition of the game opened on CC, OGL, and the ORC licenses. And for each edition and each setting opened up on the DM's Guild. That would be enough for me, and I think for most fans of the classic versions of D&D.

 

[Zardnaar]

Nah.

Certainly, some fans would appreciate this, no doubt. But this would be a lot of effort for little return, and confuse the market.

I remember being a kid in the 80s and discovering that D&D and AD&D were two different games! I was soooo pissed and confused. Still doesn't make sense to me to this day that TSR supported two different versions of the same game at the same time.

What I would like to see is an SRD for each edition of the game opened on CC, OGL, and the ORC licenses. And for each edition and each setting opened up on the DM's Guild. That would be enough for me, and I think for most fans of the classic versions of D&D.

At one point they had 3 versions of D&D.

 

[Moonmover]

The OSR community already exists, supporting old editions. I don't see that WotC is any more qualified than the fans to support games they did not design.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

There's a difference. Those markets are enormous compared to TTRPGs, and those items are consumed constantly and quickly. A TTRPG product can take months or even years to full 'consume'.

See my later post regarding the automobile industry. Most car lines today are owned by a handful of companies, each of which produces multiple brands of cars.

Volkswagen, for example, produces Volkswagens, Audis, Lamborghinis, Bentleys, Ducatis and Porsches, many of which are competing in the same luxury car space.