The Post-D&D Era

AI Art by @nightcafestudio

We are in this strange moment before the release of One D&D, a game many will not return to. That is likely not because of the OGL disaster or anything else; a sequel for something that popular will be an impossible sell. It will likely sell well but nowhere near the level of mania we saw during the heyday of Critical Role and the pandemic. Especially for something so similar to what people have and love.

Some are burned by the OGL mess and will return once the leadership changes at Hasbro and Wizards. I fall into this camp, and it is a fair position to not trash the game while holding people accountable for their actions. Also, D&D needs a creative reset and rest, and I expect more out of Wizards than a "patched 5E" for the next 10 years of the game.

A 5.5 edition will last 5 years before people start getting tired of the same thing. This is also a risk for all clones and highlights the need for innovation in the space. For me, 5E is entering its "classic OSR game" phase of life, so I don't consider commercial success an indicator of quality. 5E will live on in the OGL, and I expect D&D 6E to be here sooner than we expect and for it to be radically different from anything we ever saw before.

This is common sense; look how fast AI is advancing and compare that to a 10-year release cycle of D&D. Some "AI fantasy roleplaying system" will likely come along in 2-3 years, giving us a true virtual world, and then D&D 5.5 will be forgotten as the "could have been." We are not even in the same world we were 5 years ago, and "new books" will not be the next big thing.

Wizards will have invested millions of dollars in an Unreal Engine VTT moving static figures around, and most of the public will be playing an AI-driven "VR Fantasy Realm" on a Facebook or Apple VR headset. Wizards will then be chasing that, and 5.5E will be forgotten. What Wizards is chasing now is an idealized version of the past, vastly different from the next cool thing people will want in the future.

Wizards are not software developers; that is not their core competency or culture. They should be working with partners and licensing. They should create content, support their settings, create novels and stories, and create the IP others will use and license. This whole software development phase is pie-in-the-sky thinking and ultimately unsustainable because they don't have the software and customer support history.

The only future for 5E at this stage of life is in the community as an indie-supported rule system.

This means a clone needs to rise, such as Tales of the Valiant or Advanced 5E.

What matters now for "legacy 5E" is the license for the community to move forward with since every "classic game" will be supported by the community. This made the OGL scandal so toxic that people are abandoning the OGL 1.0a, which doubts all future 5E "classic game" support.

And again, that one move was so destructive to their "Next D&D" plans as well; if they can't support the community, how would we trust them when their altered reality D&D experience comes out?

The community won't be included, so why should we care?

That is what made the OGL disaster so damaging. This isn't about a "what next book will you buy?" but "leadership in the space." They lost that, and the books you see providing alternatives show their leadership has yet to be recovered. The missing scale in the dragon's hide has been found. The Wizards company is not so invulnerable anymore.

They may still have the size and leadership position, but once upon a time, Detroit did too.

People aren't moving on to new versions of 5E because they want to; they have to for the game's ongoing community support to survive. Wizards have shown they can pull "license shenanigans," even the Creative Commons isn't enough protection from a billion-dollar company.

The Tales of the Valiant game is seen by many as trying to capture lightning in a bottle again. Can Kobold Press capture the excitement, and for historical reference, the same way Paizo did with Pathfinder 1e? This project has gotten me interested in what a post-D&D era looks like, what I would like to see in the rules, and what the tone and flavor of a 5E game I would like to see would be.

What Tales of the Valiant has going is excitement and energy. You buy into this game because the buzz is there. That is a powerful thing. The game feels fresh and alive. There are plenty looking forward to this. There is an innocence here that beckons the call to adventure.

Level Up Advanced 5th Edition, terrible name and all, excites the nerd in me as much as playing the old AD&D by the rules did. This set of rules is an excellent mix of OSR pillars of play and the 5E rules and is really one of the first 5E-OSR games out there that maintain compatibility.

Where ToV has the excitement, the systems with fantastic depth in A5E make that OSR nerd in me happy. There is also some D&D 4 DNA here with the environmental combat challenges. The strong linking of character to the world increases player investment, and the destiny system replacing alignment is fantastic. The game's designers learned from the lessons of the OSR revival and the mistakes of 4E, kept the best from both eras and moved forward with a 5E framework.

And A5E cleaned up the math. I love the "dry balance" feeling this game has.

Yes, ToV, you have the excitement. But I hope the ideas explored in A5E are recognized for the incredible additions to the game they are. Strongly supporting the three pillars of play makes this feel like an OSR game, which is very cool.

Note that a massive part of the popularity of the current 5E relies on late-game exploits and power gamers. Those will be fixed in every version of the game coming up. The playing field for exploit builds will end no matter where you go - unless you stay with old 5E (and that hurts Wizards more than it does the other games).

Let the community support Legacy 5E; this is what they do best.

And Wizards is too big to chase a 5.5E and a 2020-era VTT. They shouldn't be playing "license games." They are wasting their time and, honestly, losing their leadership position by looking backward and trying to close the market.

They should be focused on a future coming at us faster than we can imagine.

This is the difference between the leadership of a million-dollar brand and a potentially billion-dollar one.