Besides burn the place down.

I would recreate a basic version of the game that covers levels 1- 10 , stripped of all the clutter and feats and garbage that made it complicated.

I would change modules to be built around tiers of play instead of adventure paths that go from 1-20. I'd package 1e modules into sandboxes to make the whole long enough to justify a hardback. Like Tales of the whatever portal but connected. (B2, T1, N1, B5, others) would make a nice first tier sandbox.

I'd release another campaign world or Three. These would not have every class or every monster but would be subsets to provide examples of how a DM can make a world feel different using existing rules.

Quote from: Ruprecht on October 27, 2024, 04:47:25 PMI would recreate a basic version of the game that covers levels 1- 10 , stripped of all the clutter and feats and garbage that made it complicated.

This is a bad idea. D&D learned long ago not to make two versions of essentially the same game.

Quote from: Ruprecht on October 27, 2024, 04:47:25 PMI would change modules to be built around tiers of play instead of adventure paths that go from 1-20. I'd package 1e modules into sandboxes to make the whole long enough to justify a hardback. Like Tales of the whatever portal but connected. (B2, T1, N1, B5, others) would make a nice first tier sandbox.

Many player groups I've seen lately consider a campaign's identity to be based upon one of the "super-modules" and don't really want a sandbox. What you propose will certainly appeal to old school and hardcore gamers, but I don't really think that is who 5e is trying to appeal to--the money is better found in hordes of more casual players.

Quote from: Ruprecht on October 27, 2024, 04:47:25 PMI'd release another campaign world or Three. These would not have every class or every monster but would be subsets to provide examples of how a DM can make a world feel different using existing rules.

Again, this is old thinking. Don't get me wrong, I would love to see such products, but that isn't how the game is commonly played these days.

Can I release everything to which WotC holds the rights as Community Content, and then burn the place down?

Quote from: HappyDaze on October 27, 2024, 05:34:28 PM

Quote from: Ruprecht on October 27, 2024, 04:47:25 PMI would recreate a basic version of the game that covers levels 1- 10 , stripped of all the clutter and feats and garbage that made it complicated.

This is a bad idea. D&D learned long ago not to make two versions of essentially the same game.

Quote from: Ruprecht on October 27, 2024, 04:47:25 PMI would change modules to be built around tiers of play instead of adventure paths that go from 1-20. I'd package 1e modules into sandboxes to make the whole long enough to justify a hardback. Like Tales of the whatever portal but connected. (B2, T1, N1, B5, others) would make a nice first tier sandbox.

Many player groups I've seen lately consider a campaign's identity to be based upon one of the "super-modules" and don't really want a sandbox. What you propose will certainly appeal to old school and hardcore gamers, but I don't really think that is who 5e is trying to appeal to--the money is better found in hordes of more casual players.

Quote from: Ruprecht on October 27, 2024, 04:47:25 PMI'd release another campaign world or Three. These would not have every class or every monster but would be subsets to provide examples of how a DM can make a world feel different using existing rules.

Again, this is old thinking. Don't get me wrong, I would love to see such products, but that isn't how the game is commonly played these days.

I agree that is what WotC says, and Designers & Dragons says, but I think they also lost a lot of gamers with these moves and it wasn't having two games so  much as the way it was handled.
A basic game from 1-10 would basically be an OSR game that feeds into the normal game but could be played on its own as well. Not a separate system like BEXM. Modules by tiers would ensure you would have sandboxes for levels 1-5 and 6-10 which would then support OSR style play. You have the modules work for both versions of the game so you don't stopping those playing the full game from buying basic modules.
If the modules are designed to be usable in multiple settings you lose the main problem with multiple campaign worlds as well.

If 5e players want railroads start some that go from 5-20 the way Storm King's Thunder does with its disposable first chapter. I have no problem with that. They start with a 1-5 module and then move on to the longer railroad if that's what they want.

Quote from: Armchair Gamer on October 27, 2024, 05:42:52 PMCan I release everything to which WotC holds the rights as Community Content, and then burn the place down?

Releasing the rights is a good idea but stockholders might raise holy hell.

I'd put 1st Edition AD&D Hardcovers, back in print, on store shelves.  Exact reprints, with different print / binding options.

Re-release a greatest hits, of AD&D adventures, in exact replica packaging.

Cash in on nostalgia.

Remove all modern day Seattle politics from every product.  Reissue all 5e (and beyond) books with classic heroic art. Make orcs and drow and other monstrous races evil again.   

Probably get fired, as most of my ideas about what to do with D&D are the opposite of the strategies that have been working for WOTC for over a decade.

For D&D as a game, I'd probably take the stance that it isn't broken, and therefore doesn't need to be fixed. Maybe an occasional new printing of the rulebooks, with errata and minor changes, but I would genuinely try to keep the core rulebooks "evergreen" (at least for the foreseeable future).

I would diversify, but not by resurrecting the Basic line. Instead I'd make another game set in the Forgotten Realms that is designed to be precisely the kind of game D&D is not, kind of like what Heroquest was to Runequest. I might even make it a storygame. I'd probably also put out a sci fi game and maybe a horror one.

But I think I'd direct most of my efforts towards building D&D up as an IP. So first I'd re-release the better D&D novels, possibly with graphic novel adaptations, see who I could get to write some new ones, and then I'd start figuring out which stories to shop to Netflix/Amazon for an animated series. I'd also commission somebody like Larian or Owlcat studios to make a Planescape: Torment 2, and maybe reach out to Creative Assembly to see if I could get Dark Sun: Total War made. In general, I'd be leaning hard on Planescape, Forgotten Realms and Dark Sun. Mystara and Greyhawk are too similar to FR, and Spelljammer is too much of a mess.

The idea would be to build audience investment in the settings themselves, (characters, lore, factions, etc.), before I try to trade on them as RPG products. Faerun would remain the default setting for D&D, and become the canon Prime Material plane for Planescape, which I would eventually publish as an expansion for D&D, probably via a BECMI-style series of gazetteers. Dark Sun I would probably make its own game, with D&D-like rules, but explicitly not compatible with base D&D.

1) Simplify and strip down the 5e game as much as possible and then release a one-book version of the game.

2) Fire everyone working on the TTRPG and focus my energy on board games and video games with the emphasis on creating as much Hasbro-owned IP as possible: named characters, locations, new monsters, etc.

3) Hire 3rd party developers to create TTRPG adventures content using said IP.

Quote from: Man at Arms on October 27, 2024, 07:37:50 PMI'd put 1st Edition AD&D Hardcovers, back in print, on store shelves.  Exact reprints, with different print / binding options.

Re-release a greatest hits, of AD&D adventures, in exact replica packaging.

Cash in on nostalgia.

Is it nostalgia if it's better? I do not wistfully think of AD&D, I play it because it's just better than the current offerings. We can't recreate the early 80s, that ship has sailed, but the play style...I think it's possible. A game, played with friends.

Quote from: Ruprecht on October 27, 2024, 04:39:11 PMBesides burn the place down.

Change the focus of direction so that VTT and in-person gaming is concentrated on while IP use in other projects become secondary until they prove to be profitable.

Don't fire the woke employees, but place a strict non-woke supervisor with common sense over them who has experience in the TTRPG industry to control them.

Open up third party support and monitor the products. Those that are successful or popular will have creators or whole creative teams which can be farmed for potential future employees.

New editon. But have it be a modernized take on BECMI. And bring back Mystara/The Known World.

As ever, release Rolemaster Standard System under the D&D brand name, scuttle all other editions and remove them from Drivethru Rpg.  Watch the fans go to war the "the name D&D makes it sacred/The Company Is Always Right" crowd might even revolt a little.

Get fired on my second day in the job for maddening the Stranger Things tourists, the Holy AD&D1 grognards, and the shareholders of Hasbro at the same time.

Without being in the industry for years, I can't think of any good ideas to make proper products. I can only think as an enthusiast, and my brief tenure would involve:

• retconning lore of the D&D multiverse to clean all the mess of D&D4 and the woke people and restart the publication of all D&D settings;
• republishing a cleaned and fixed version of Basic D&D (Rules Cyclopedia);
• trying again to make AD&D3 out of AD&D2, with the knowledge of the monster that D&D3.x turned into;
• restarting the DragonLance SAGA line and also Alternity.

Three different fantasy role-playing games and a modern/futuristic game nobody remembers. Totally a good business decision.