The 5E Market

All the 5E Kickstarter projects are hurting, and we haven't seen many that have broken a million dollars in a long time. Tales of the Valiant is in the same boat, and I am still playing this regardless of how well the last one did. Consumer interest in D&D is dropping like a rock, and there are even reports of DM's Guild sellers seeing revenue one-tenth of what they are used to.

People are moving on from 5E and D&D to other games.

Very few new investments in the game are being made by its players.

There is still a huge 5E audience, and the size of this player base will take time to shift, but collectively, the 5E audience has stopped buying new 5E products. Yes, there may be a lot of players, but no, they aren't buying.

I guess the closest parallel is in the videogame console market, when people feel "a new system is coming," then they slow down or stop buying games for the old one. The very lukewarm response to D&D 2024 has put a stop on people buying stuff for either 2014 or 2024, compatibility fears, I have enough D&D stuff, I don't want to make the wrong choice, this is a good time to do something new, I am happy with what I have, I want to see what the competitors do, or any other number of reasons could be why this is happening, or a combination of them all.

This is not about the players who have moved on to Shadowdark or Pathfinder; we are just talking about those left in the 5E market. Some of them may have stopped buying 5E stuff and are focusing on those two games, but still play 5E, so they may fall into the "I have enough" and "do something new" crowd and are playing out what they have. So there is a "still playing 5E, but only buying for my new game" category in here somewhere, too.

I have five shelves of 5E books. I have enough for a lifetime of gaming. The game I will play them with is ToV, since it is the best-compatible, most similar to 5E, and best-supported version of the game going forward. I am done with Wizards, primarily due to the OGL fiasco. Remember the terms of that deal? Another nice reason is being able to ignore all the drama from the Wizards on YouTube, and all that clickbait garbage.

But ownership of my PDFs is a huge second reason; I am not "renting books" from anyone who can take them away from me. This is different than Shard and paying to access content that is maintained there; if that service disappears, I still have my ToV PDFs. If D&D Beyond disappears, I have nothing, not even my PDF books.

Daggerheart came strong out of the gate, primarily due to its built-in fanbase. This one feels bigger than Shadowdark, and this is more of a Pathfinder-sized shift of players to the narrative banner holder game. I hope this becomes a strong second player to D&D, and it will take a few Pathfinder players away as well. 

Pathfinder 2 is too wargame for me, and there are far too many conditions and map-based actions to slog through. I liked it, but I struggled with the sheer amount of complexity the system introduced. It was not the game I wanted, even though it is more like the tactical D&D 4E game we loved. They also ruined Golarion by sanitizing and censoring it, and the first-edition world is far superior. What was once a Conan-like world of adventure has been transformed into a modern, safe, overly happy, and fashion-centric mishmash, featuring elements of cosplay and steampunk.

I love flipping through these modern fantasy games and counting how many characters have fancy hairstyles but no helmets to protect their heads.

If I were playing any of these characters in a more simulation-based game, such as GURPS, they would get all of it shaved off and a steel pot helmet slapped on there ASAP. Head trauma is a real thing. Even in 5E, where there are sometimes "called shot" rules, I would rule that a character who wears a helm would get the benefit of the doubt far easier than the fighter who just came out of Super Cuts. Even something as simple as rocks falling from the dungeon ceiling could be lethal to a character without a helmet, causing damage to one character, a save-or-die effect to the other.

These are role-playing games, and the ruling is within what a referee can rule. And I know this is supposed to be fantasy. 5E and many games can put your brain in "la-la land," where if it is not in the rules, it can't happen. People expect it to be a video game, and if they want that, there are plenty of those out there. Common sense says otherwise, and this is why we play these games.

The 5E market is in the doldrums. Few are buying into 2024 D&D, a version of the game many feel they don't need, and this is the same issue Tales of the Valiant has, if you are happy with the 2014 books. Many have taken a wait-and-see attitude. Many are jumping ship and moving on to other games or leaving the hobby entirely. We are currently in a transition phase between D&D editions, and 2024 is the patch that people don't really want or need.

And I don't want to say "we need a D&D 6th Edition" because we don't. Wall Street may like the idea, but we don't need it.

I am choosing a sustainable, long-term, open-licensed version of 2014, which is the best-supported one: ToV from Kobold Press. This will continue to have "new stuff" published for it, and it completely supports the older books and adventures. ToV is "D&D in long-term support mode" for me, and it keeps my shelves of books in use and playable for the next 10-20 years.