Now that I'm only 1 degree of separation from Elon Musk, I figured I ought to give you my plans for when he puts me in charge of WotC �#dnd�
�#ttrpg� �#osr�

An interesting possibility, though I have to ask does this mean for your historical authentic products would they be put on the back burner for the duration of your stay at WOTC?

Do you think it would be a right decision, financially?

I have to assume most (or a least a large part) of the people playing 5e do so because they like the current direction, no?

what will 5e have to offer people already happy with OSR games? if not much, wouldn't it mean losing the younger crowd and not gaining enough to replace them?

Quote from: a_wanderer on December 08, 2024, 02:34:42 AMDo you think it would be a right decision, financially?

I have to assume most (or a least a large part) of the people playing 5e do so because they like the current direction, no?

what will 5e have to offer people already happy with OSR games? if not much, wouldn't it mean losing the younger crowd and not gaining enough to replace them?

I'm gonna make a guess and say you didn't listen carefully to the video.  As 5e has aged, players (consumers) have dropped off due to the direction it's taken. 

He said he'd basically reboot 5e to it's starting point and polish some of the problems that 5e core has.  This would result in a game that's more approachable to the casual player than the OSR is and easier to run from a GM perspective.  After that, he'd turn right where WOTC made a left turn midway in it's lifecycle and focus on better settings and adventures rather than a bunch of extra player features.

I personally would like to see a return to the gazette and module style of adventure publication.  I also think WOTC could do a lot of looking at how the game is played at the table and finding ways to support tabletop play, like play mats, tokens, and dice trays.

Quote from: Socratic-DM on December 08, 2024, 12:27:48 AMAn interesting possibility, though I have to ask does this mean for your historical authentic products would they be put on the back burner for the duration of your stay at WOTC?

In the unlikely event that Elon buys WotC, and the also unlikely event that he hired me to fix D&D, I suppose that my own projects would be on hold. Duty has its costs.

Quote from: a_wanderer on December 08, 2024, 02:34:42 AMDo you think it would be a right decision, financially?

I have to assume most (or a least a large part) of the people playing 5e do so because they like the current direction, no?

what will 5e have to offer people already happy with OSR games? if not much, wouldn't it mean losing the younger crowd and not gaining enough to replace them?

I'm not sure if you actually watched the video, but I propose a new edition that would not fit the OSR design mold. It would in fact be based on the principles of 5e but more streamlined for better casual adoption.

And given that the number of people buying 5e stuff has been steadily declining for years now, clearly they're no longer that happy with it.

Quote from: RPGPundit on December 08, 2024, 08:31:07 AM

Quote from: a_wanderer on December 08, 2024, 02:34:42 AMDo you think it would be a right decision, financially?

I have to assume most (or a least a large part) of the people playing 5e do so because they like the current direction, no?

what will 5e have to offer people already happy with OSR games? if not much, wouldn't it mean losing the younger crowd and not gaining enough to replace them?

I'm not sure if you actually watched the video, but I propose a new edition that would not fit the OSR design mold. It would in fact be based on the principles of 5e but more streamlined for better casual adoption.

And given that the number of people buying 5e stuff has been steadily declining for years now, clearly they're no longer that happy with it.

I listened, I even agree with a lot of what you said and personally would love to see this happen.
 
However, it seems to me people who play 5e actually like the superheroic vibe, and the leaning into digital, and the endless variety of spells that allows builds etc... that's why Tasha was popular- it's a whole industry that feeds itself with people who don't necessarily play but buy stuff because they like to vicariously, and youtuber that live off of builds videos, and a whole community that is there not gaming per se (also things you've talked about before), but still keeps the brand awareness. Critical Role may not be pure gamers, but they raise millions for their show, fill arenas and such.

Now let's say Elon takes control. what happens to all of that? it implodes, and takes most of the casuals with it.  because their favorite celeb/ youtuber doesn't like or promotes that game anymore. the smear campaign will be of epic proportions.

The game can be excellent, but the younger players will go elsewhere to fulfill that type of power fantasy.

So we're left with the people who don't care about that. But most of those are already playing games that better suit them. If I'm playing BoF, why would I go to 6e?

I could be totally wrong. I'm not marketing or designing anything. but I spent some time in other TTRPG forums and that was my first thought

Quote from: a_wanderer on December 08, 2024, 10:58:40 AM

Quote from: RPGPundit on December 08, 2024, 08:31:07 AM

Quote from: a_wanderer on December 08, 2024, 02:34:42 AMDo you think it would be a right decision, financially?

I have to assume most (or a least a large part) of the people playing 5e do so because they like the current direction, no?

what will 5e have to offer people already happy with OSR games? if not much, wouldn't it mean losing the younger crowd and not gaining enough to replace them?

I'm not sure if you actually watched the video, but I propose a new edition that would not fit the OSR design mold. It would in fact be based on the principles of 5e but more streamlined for better casual adoption.

And given that the number of people buying 5e stuff has been steadily declining for years now, clearly they're no longer that happy with it.

I listened, I even agree with a lot of what you said and personally would love to see this happen.
 
However, it seems to me people who play 5e actually like the superheroic vibe, and the leaning into digital, and the endless variety of spells that allows builds etc... that's why Tasha was popular- it's a whole industry that feeds itself with people who don't necessarily play but buy stuff because they like to vicariously, and youtuber that live off of builds videos, and a whole community that is there not gaming per se (also things you've talked about before), but still keeps the brand awareness. Critical Role may not be pure gamers, but they raise millions for their show, fill arenas and such.

Now let's say Elon takes control. what happens to all of that? it implodes, and takes most of the casuals with it.  because their favorite celeb/ youtuber doesn't like or promotes that game anymore. the smear campaign will be of epic proportions.

The game can be excellent, but the younger players will go elsewhere to fulfill that type of power fantasy.

So we're left with the people who don't care about that. But most of those are already playing games that better suit them. If I'm playing BoF, why would I go to 6e?

I could be totally wrong. I'm not marketing or designing anything. but I spent some time in other TTRPG forums and that was my first thought

What you describe is why D&D is doomed as long as it belongs to a large publicly traded corp regardless of who is in charge. Shareholders want more earnings per share and don't give a rats ass about the integrity or quality of the game itself. If Elon wanted to truly save D&D he would need to make it a private company and concentrate on quality products. That model would still provide a profitable enterprise but not the kinds of earnings that would satisfy rabid shareholders. Once you have to answer to hordes of shareholders, all considerations other than those which boost revenue go out the window.

Quote from: Exploderwizard on December 08, 2024, 11:28:49 AMWhat you describe is why D&D is doomed as long as it belongs to a large publicly traded corp regardless of who is in charge. Shareholders want more earnings per share and don't give a rats ass about the integrity or quality of the game itself. If Elon wanted to truly save D&D he would need to make it a private company and concentrate on quality products. That model would still provide a profitable enterprise but not the kinds of earnings that would satisfy rabid shareholders. Once you have to answer to hordes of shareholders, all considerations other than those which boost revenue go out the window.

Sure, that's why I asked if that would be the right move financially. Elon may be rich enough to eat the losses, but I'm not sure D&D as a brand and IP (which is where most of the money is, I assume) would do as well without that hype machine. I'm not coming to this with animosity, on the contrary. just a thought.
Pundit talks about WoTC not catering to D&D's core audience. I wonder if said core audience didn't move to other systems/ editions. Hopefully that pans out in the long run, but someone would need to weather the storm

Quote from: a_wanderer on December 08, 2024, 10:58:40 AM

Quote from: RPGPundit on December 08, 2024, 08:31:07 AM

Quote from: a_wanderer on December 08, 2024, 02:34:42 AMDo you think it would be a right decision, financially?

I have to assume most (or a least a large part) of the people playing 5e do so because they like the current direction, no?

what will 5e have to offer people already happy with OSR games? if not much, wouldn't it mean losing the younger crowd and not gaining enough to replace them?

I'm not sure if you actually watched the video, but I propose a new edition that would not fit the OSR design mold. It would in fact be based on the principles of 5e but more streamlined for better casual adoption.

And given that the number of people buying 5e stuff has been steadily declining for years now, clearly they're no longer that happy with it.

I listened, I even agree with a lot of what you said and personally would love to see this happen.
 
However, it seems to me people who play 5e actually like the superheroic vibe, and the leaning into digital, and the endless variety of spells that allows builds etc... that's why Tasha was popular- it's a whole industry that feeds itself with people who don't necessarily play but buy stuff because they like to vicariously, and youtuber that live off of builds videos, and a whole community that is there not gaming per se (also things you've talked about before), but still keeps the brand awareness. Critical Role may not be pure gamers, but they raise millions for their show, fill arenas and such.

Now let's say Elon takes control. what happens to all of that? it implodes, and takes most of the casuals with it.  because their favorite celeb/ youtuber doesn't like or promotes that game anymore. the smear campaign will be of epic proportions.

The game can be excellent, but the younger players will go elsewhere to fulfill that type of power fantasy.

So we're left with the people who don't care about that. But most of those are already playing games that better suit them. If I'm playing BoF, why would I go to 6e?

I could be totally wrong. I'm not marketing or designing anything. but I spent some time in other TTRPG forums and that was my first thought

I don't expect deeply engaged gamers who know about stuff like the OSR to move back to D&D (or at least, not exclusively, or primarily). What I expect is that casual gamers will do so, the more D&D looks like mainstream Heroic Fantasy, and the less it looks like a lecture on Diversity combined with an Eat/Pray/Love tumblr-fantasy tourism simulator.

On a similar note, I think that a great deal of the influencers would likely get right on board, because that's where the money will be for them. For the ones who have lived off of promoting D&D, the alternative is just slowly or quickly disappearing. Of course, some of the more intensely ideological people won't do that, and they'll just disappear. Which is another net benefit.
They'll be replaced by non-woke people who will ultimately be more popular because it's become very clear now that WOKE IS NOT POPULAR. Note that by "non-woke" I don't mean people who infuse right-wing politics into their media, I mean people who focus on the game and what it's all about, which should have nothing to do with modern political propaganda.

Quote from: a_wanderer on December 08, 2024, 12:52:07 PM

Quote from: Exploderwizard on December 08, 2024, 11:28:49 AMWhat you describe is why D&D is doomed as long as it belongs to a large publicly traded corp regardless of who is in charge. Shareholders want more earnings per share and don't give a rats ass about the integrity or quality of the game itself. If Elon wanted to truly save D&D he would need to make it a private company and concentrate on quality products. That model would still provide a profitable enterprise but not the kinds of earnings that would satisfy rabid shareholders. Once you have to answer to hordes of shareholders, all considerations other than those which boost revenue go out the window.

Sure, that's why I asked if that would be the right move financially. Elon may be rich enough to eat the losses, but I'm not sure D&D as a brand and IP (which is where most of the money is, I assume) would do as well without that hype machine. I'm not coming to this with animosity, on the contrary. just a thought.
Pundit talks about WoTC not catering to D&D's core audience. I wonder if said core audience didn't move to other systems/ editions. Hopefully that pans out in the long run, but someone would need to weather the storm

The evidence seems to say NO, for the most part. Of course, old schoolers moved to the OSR, and some people have kept going that way as D&D became more and more insufferable. But Pathfinder hasn't gotten bigger in the last 10 years, rather much much smaller. EVERY bigger-size game that isn't D&D has lost participation, only indie games (mainly, overwhelmingly, the OSR) have actually had significant net growth over the last 10 years.

What this means is that you  have a bunch of people who really liked 5e when we created it, and as the products became progressively (in both senses of the word) worse, those people either just stopped buying stuff and kept playing 5e with what they had (or possibly some 3rd party 5e stuff), or just stopped playing altogether.

It's very likely that a lot of those people would come back if things turned around.
Beyond that, though, when 5e came out its audience was mostly Millennials, who were the young-adult generation at the time.
Now it's Gen-Z, who are much more conservative, have much less agreeableness as a generational trait, and prize Authenticity as a value much higher than Virtue Signal Posturing like the Millennials did. They are a much better audience for a successor that takes the best of 5e and builds on that, than Millenials ever were for 5e itself. As I said before, the people who ended up being the customers for 5e by and large didn't get how it was supposed to work. 5e was the most modular, most easily adaptable D&D of all time, and virtually none of the millennial sheep made any use of that trait at all. They just wanted to do whatever Jeremy Crawford told them how to play.

Quote from: RPGPundit on December 09, 2024, 07:00:06 AMWhat I expect is that casual gamers will do so, the more D&D looks like mainstream Heroic Fantasy, and the less it looks like a lecture on Diversity combined with an Eat/Pray/Love tumblr-fantasy tourism simulator.

So why not go for the easy path and just re-release the 2024 books with different art? Mechanically, the 2024 versions are considerably improved over the 2014 versions.

Appendix N is the soul of D&D.  Without it, you get the rot that we have.  Not sure what the fix would be.  Add short story snippets from the masters and include them in chapter headers with sources so that people new to them would get a teaser?  Popular quotes from media that embrace the swords and sorcery feel?  Elon levels of money and influence might get the kind of rights needed for that.

Quote from: HappyDaze on December 09, 2024, 11:17:42 AM

Quote from: RPGPundit on December 09, 2024, 07:00:06 AMWhat I expect is that casual gamers will do so, the more D&D looks like mainstream Heroic Fantasy, and the less it looks like a lecture on Diversity combined with an Eat/Pray/Love tumblr-fantasy tourism simulator.

So why not go for the easy path and just re-release the 2024 books with different art? Mechanically, the 2024 versions are considerably improved over the 2014 versions.

Scotty's Rule as applied to marketing; if you oversell how big of a problem there is to fix, then the more impressive it is when you fix it.

Honestly, I've seen a vast amount of 2024's class fixes in various people's homebrew class fixes on GMBinder. The issues with 2014 5e (and the most efficacious fixes) are well known within the sphere of homebrew/designer circles. It honestly reads like the WotC design team took all the GMBinder options, sorted out the most used with an AI algorithm, and used the results as the new book.

Other than the basic problem of 5e having always been a largely soulless hodgepodge of rewritten/obscured 3e and 4E mechanics with little in the way of a true spine (hence the need for "rulings not rules"), yes, the 2024 version, outside of art, layout and maybe 10% of the non-rules fluff text, is vastly superior to the 2014 version.

Quote from: Chris24601 on December 09, 2024, 12:22:39 PM

Quote from: HappyDaze on December 09, 2024, 11:17:42 AM

Quote from: RPGPundit on December 09, 2024, 07:00:06 AMWhat I expect is that casual gamers will do so, the more D&D looks like mainstream Heroic Fantasy, and the less it looks like a lecture on Diversity combined with an Eat/Pray/Love tumblr-fantasy tourism simulator.

So why not go for the easy path and just re-release the 2024 books with different art? Mechanically, the 2024 versions are considerably improved over the 2014 versions.

Scotty's Rule as applied to marketing; if you oversell how big of a problem there is to fix, then the more impressive it is when you fix it.

Honestly, I've seen a vast amount of 2024's class fixes in various people's homebrew class fixes on GMBinder. The issues with 2014 5e (and the most efficacious fixes) are well known within the sphere of homebrew/designer circles. It honestly reads like the WotC design team took all the GMBinder options, sorted out the most used with an AI algorithm, and used the results as the new book.

Other than the basic problem of 5e having always been a largely soulless hodgepodge of rewritten/obscured 3e and 4E mechanics with little in the way of a true spine (hence the need for "rulings not rules"), yes, the 2024 version, outside of art, layout and maybe 10% of the non-rules fluff text, is vastly superior to the 2014 version.

Vastly superior is quite a claim to make seeing as how the DMG was just released and the MM still has not been released. Is this opinion coming from players who simply love the power boost? I prefer for the entire core of the game to be released and see some play and read some feedback from both players and dungeon masters before declaring superiority for anything.