How likely are you to drop coin and buy the Books?

I'm suspicious that a percentage of players will cling to 5E; assuming they are still rolling with D&D.

5E is more popular than 3.5 was, and people chose to cling to it.

Who can say? We have no idea what direction they'll take it.

What I am curious about is how they're going to throw 5E under the bus when the marketing for 6E gets going.

I don't think 6e will be coming all that soon. TPTB seem content to drop one official product every 6 months to a year and leave most of the work to third-parties.

That said, if they DO throw it under the bus, my guess would be something to the effect of "we made a game that was easy to sustain in a maintenance mode, but wasn't the best game we could possibly design. Now that D&D is on the upswing that's what we want to bring you."

I'd guess that they have at LEAST another 5 years before they seriously consider making 6e. There just isn't much bloat to sweep away - and Hasbro (via Wizards) seems happy to let D&D be a solid performer and maintaining the IP enough to make $ off of it.

For many game companies, 1-2 games basically ARE their business, so if they want to grow the business they have to grow the game. For Hasbro or even Wizards, D&D is a pretty small part of their portfolio. No need to upset the applecart to try to grow it when it's churning out solid profits at its current level. Just put the resources into different product lines entirely.

As much as the track record says a new edition is about due...5e has had so little printed for it that I'm thinking they're going to make this edition last. The huge production of 4e was a disaster in the end, and the massive bloat of 3.5 likewise sunk the ship. 5e, with a fairly minimal rules set is at quite playable, and while you can certainly use some rules exploits to "break" it, the DM is in a much better position to say "no" and get back to having fun.

Quote from: Razor 007;1060752How likely are you to drop coin and buy the Books?

I'm suspicious that a percentage of players will cling to 5E; assuming they are still rolling with D&D.

5E is more popular than 3.5 was, and people chose to cling to it.

I'll buy the PhB, at least. I'm not too enthralled with 5E--It's Ok, but I'm not going to cling to it. I prefer either OSR or Gurps for fantasy.

Edit: But I think it will be a while before we see a 6E.

The 5ed-6ed changeover will probably be mostly a lot of little tweaks like 1ed to 2ed or 3.0ed to 3.5ed. While the core basically works there are a lot of things that could be changed up a bit like the ranger class or the lucky feat. Also now they can file away some of the 4ed holdovers now that nobody much gives a crap about 4ed anymore.

It'll be probably be sold as being compatible with 5ed, "you'll be able to play all fo the 6ed adventures and use the splatbooks with 5ed core with this simple conversion document!" but nobody will do that much and it'll drift away from 5ed as the splatbooks come out.

Don't think it'll come out until at least a decade after 5ed dropped. No real sense of urgency from anyone about that.

I wonder if they'll first pump out a bunch of player focused classes, powers and feats books.  Then after a year to 2 years of that, then sweep it all away with 6E.  Get as much money as possible out of all the new and returning customers and then do an edition change and go back to the slower schedule?

They currently have a big success and are selling a LOT of 5e PHBs. They could easily tank that with an edition shift and harm the brand. The main role of 5e is to enhance the value of the D&D brand. So I can't see 6e coming for a long time.

Personally - if they announced 6e I would keep playing 5e for a few years. Not sure after that but on past performance I might try the new game after a while.

2e I never fully adopted.
3e I got on release and it got me back into RPGs.
4e I only went over to .ca 2010.
5e I tried mid 2014 and had campaign going 2015.

Quote from: S'mon;1060778They currently have a big success and are selling a LOT of 5e PHBs. They could easily tank that with an edition shift and harm the brand. The main role of 5e is to enhance the value of the D&D brand. So I can't see 6e coming for a long time.

Personally - if they announced 6e I would keep playing 5e for a few years. Not sure after that but on past performance I might try the new game after a while.

2e I never fully adopted.
3e I got on release and it got me back into RPGs.
4e I only went over to .ca 2010.
5e I tried mid 2014 and had campaign going 2015.

My understanding is that you're exactly right, they care about the D&D brand a whoooooole lot more than the actual D&D game.

Their corporate best case scenario (which almost certainly won't actually happen) is that the D&D game will be like Marvel comic books, a small side annex of the overall Marvel brand. They want to use the D&D brand to sell computer and board games, various bits of plastic crap, maybe an animated TV show or movie or get a successful novel line going again like in the 90's. A big nasty edition war would get in the way of that. They want to maximize the number of people who care about D&D, not rulebook sales which makes a less splatbook-focused/edition treatmill business strategy make more sense.

I'd have to get an entirely different gaming group before I got a new edition of D&D. I don't buy games to admire them on my shelf.

Will it be good?

If so, then yes.

If not, then no.

I'm not a 5e fan, but I don't see 6e coming for 5+ years and even then, it will be a 1e to 2e mostly cosmetic change.

But probably chock full of culture war idiocy.

So far seems they are not gearing for a 6e. It would be the death knell of D&D and possibly WOTC at that point depending on how severe the backlash is. Which could be considerable considering how invested they got people into 5e. A 6e might go over it it was mostly small tweaks like A to 2e.  But if they try to make it another gouging routine the backlash will not be pretty.

But so far they seem to be letting 5e chug along like the little juggernaut that could that it is.

But sadly... NEVER underestimate marketings ability to totally fuck things up.

Hmmm D&D is more a unified brand now with the various board games and all the abilities work basically the same across media.

A 6e would be needed once the podcast programs like Critical Roll get bored with 5e (though the whole thing is an act so they can just act like they aren't tired with the mechanics).

A 6e would also be needed once 5e is no longer the top brand or actually shows signs of not being the top brand. With Paizo busy shooting themselves in the foot, and the idiotic SJWs destroying every other game that tries to pander to them, I do not see anyone that is currently a threat to WotC. In a perfect world, PEG's new Savage Worlds edition (now featuring a pretty book) would be able to make a lot of ground and actually give WotC a reason to compete, but I wouldn't keep hopeful about a sudden Indie explosion.

Lastly, a 6e would be needed if the brand itself stops being profitable or begins to edge that way. In today's economic culture, if you aren't growing, the money you require to operate is a waste. So poor brand growth alone could trigger a 6e.