D&D's New Direction

https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/2027-welcome-back-to-the-table-d-ds-new-direction

I wish them well.

I have seen this sort of community-focused manager in previous jobs, and they come and go. A lot of big community-forward words are spoken, and then reality sets in, and everyone realizes words do not make money. Every time I work for one of these managers, I want them to succeed and win. However, I have seen many fail due to investor impatience, and it's often time for a new manager to take over.

I really do want this to work.

I really want him to turn this around.

Part of the problem is that they have a version of the game filled with culture war debris from an era that many are done fighting and just want to forget that ugly period of history. They let a game that is supposed to be timeless get caught up in the current day, and we lost so much as a result. Honestly, humanoids (orcs, goblins, gnolls, etc.) as monsters were in the game for decades, and they needed to be taken out because of somebody's Twitter post? I can go down lists of terrible choices that were made, firing shots in a pointless battle, trying to own the other side, and that is done and over.

Every time I open a D&D book, I am reminded of how gamers fought each other over trivial matters. D&D 2024 is seriously dated, and as the years go on, this will get worse and worse. Their saying "this doesn't replace the 2014 books" feels like an admission they know these have not gone over well. They could never admit it, though. They have to sell through their books.

At least Tales of the Valiant keeps D&D 2014 intact. My humanoid monsters are there. The game manages to be progressive, but it doesn't slap old-timers in the face. Even if I wanted to stick with 5E, I would play someone else's version of it. Even Level Up A5E is a better version of 5E.

Not to mention 5E is horribly overwritten and massive. Shadowdark is the better game for 10-year-olds to play, and that book is tight, easily understood, plays fast. It doesn't stumble over itself trying to describe resting, action types, what can be done with what, subclasses, or any number of other terrible design choices made all the way back in 2014, and slapped patches on trying to fix ever since.

I doubt the D&D team has the writers or talent to fix this.

I go back to what I said, "Changing a few paragraphs of rules and charging people $200 for it will never get you to where you need to be. Get out of the rules business and get into the D&D business. You have so many versions of the game to sell at this point, making another will never fix the problem. Celebrate every edition and give up trying to tell people how to play the game."

The narrative gamers now have Daggerheart to play. The rules-light crowd has Nimble 5e and Shadowdark. The combat-focused crowd has both Draw Steel and an OGL-free Pathfinder 2. Most of the major OSR clones are thriving, and this is where the old-timers have gone. Old School Essentials, Adventures Dark and Deep, Swords & Wizardry, and Castles and Crusades are fantastic games. Dungeon Crawl Classics took the weird and gonzo crowd from you. The market is severely fractured. The special interest crowds have found better games to play.

D&D is a weaker "do it all" game living in a market of games catering to special interests.

But I also am tired of talking about Wizards and their problems. They showed the community the door during the OGL matter, and so many third-party creators walked away. The OGL is a stain on the hobby, something a few games still have to suffer with because there are no good alternatives. It never should have come to that. Anyone familiar with OGL publishing would have known this.

The rest of the hobby has walked away. We have open licenses galore these days. Thank you for the Creative Commons content. Please consider including previous versions of the game as well, but this is a long road to walk.

I doubt the new people in charge will be given the time or resources they need to navigate it effectively.

They need to make money with what they have.

And what they have today is starting ten steps back, when they should be that many ahead.

Still, I wish them well.