D&D (2024) You own D&D
UngeheuerLich
Legend
Make it a limited run. Put fine art in it and add some hard to get by originals.
Now I bet there are collectors buying it and you will be able to sell it for a higher price...
Aldarc
Legend
Re-release a polished 4e D&D (and Nentir Vale sourcebook) under an irrevocable OGL or equivalent license. Step away and let the 3pp retrocloners and hackers breath new life into the project as part of a New School Revival.
The Stray
Hero
That's why I'd want to put up 1e and 2e SRDs, too. Let folks make ANY version of D&D they want
Whizbang Dustyboots
Gnometown Hero
First, set all of my social media channels to private and change my phone number.
Second, I'd want to maintain the current game's status quo while simultaneously getting together a team to look at possible improvements. The intent wouldn't be a new edition, but to find things that can be folded in, with supplements over time. They would be informed that 4E is no longer radioactive and encouraged to bring compatible things forward without fear. (I'd expect the bloodied condition, for instance, to return.)
If and when the current version is running into problems, like 3E did at the end of its life, when there were too many unintended consequences making a mess of game balance and ease of play, that second team would be the nucleus of designing the next edition. But the intent would be to have the game go as long as reasonably possible between editions and to make the differences between editions as small as possible.
Designers who wanted a radically different set of toys to play with would be encouraged to do so in a boutique line of limited run games and settings rather than necessarily going elsewhere. (There would be a vetting process. Anyone suggesting we publish hot garbage would be allowed to work on their wildly different system outside the company.)
I would make a comprehensive audit of our IP and open up all of the "no way we're ever doing more with this stuff" category (JAKANDOR!) for fanpro use on DMs Guild.
I would continue the relatively slower pace of content roll-outs, particularly full-fledged settings. I'd probably cap settings at one a year and support it by having the adventures and supplement releases for the year have optional hooks published in them that would work with the setting of the year, although setting books would stand alone unless an astonishing product suggestion was made.
I'd also roll through the back catalog and, as they go out of print, update them to modern trade dress, incorporate rules or lore updates as well as run everything through better sensitivity readers, and go wider in scope than in the past, as there are definitely still blindspots that current systems don't catch.
I'd continue supporting digital products, including selling bundles, but also as a way to do lower-cost and lower-risk products that aren't worth committing the resources for one of the year's big hardcover releases to. This would also be a way to support the yearly settings.
I would reach out to a broader array of designers and developers. In addition to bringing in new voices, I'd also want to work with longtime competitors when it makes sense. If Erik Mona was willing to work on our big one-and-done World of Greyhawk book, for instance, I would figure out a way to make it happen.
I would also create a more robust framework to help more people work with our rule sets, separately from our world content, with an irrevocable 1.0-something OGL, along with a revised SRD. There are things the third party sector will do that will never be worth our time and money, and they should be encouraged to do so, as the rising tide lifts our boats, too. This includes working with outside video game development houses, probably with us as publisher, meaning that we lose some of the revenue but also a lot of the risk at the same time.
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