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Subject: [dicebreaker] Is the next version of Dungeons & Dragons coming too
 late?
Date: Fri, 15 Mar 2024 12:25:23 +0100
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Source: 
https://www.dicebreaker.com/series/dungeons-and-dragons/opinion/dnd-version-coming-too-late

Is the next version of Dungeons & Dragons coming too late?

Slow and steady has not won this race.
  Opinion by Alex Meehan Senior Staff Writer
Published on March 14, 2024

2024 is meant to be a big year for Dungeons & Dragons, as the 50th 
anniversary of the tabletop roleplaying game lines up with the release 
of the next series of core rulebooks.

However, it doesn’t feel especially momentous. Instead, it seems like 
the recent cultural steam for D&D we’ve seen spewing out across the 
mainstream has been dissipating in the last couple of years. To the 
point that it feels like the 2024 edition of the RPG could turn out to 
be a sad flop, rather than the triumphant evolution of Dungeons & 
Dragons 5E into a digitally-focused roleplaying game.

Though it makes a lot of sense to time the release of the new rulebooks 
to coincide with the 50th anniversary of D&D, the buzz surrounding the 
next iteration roleplaying game is a lot quieter than you’d expect it to 
be considering that, 1) it’s been ten years since the release of Fifth 
Edition and 2) this is the newest version of the biggest tabletop RPG in 
the Western world.

This feels partly the fault of Wizards of the Coast itself. Since One 
D&D - now called Dungeons & Dragons 2024 - was first announced in 
mid-2022, there have been regular updates to its work-in-progress 
playtest rules, which could only be found on the Unearthed Arcana 
website. Eventually, announcements for the release dates of the new 
Player’s Handbook, Dungeon Master’s Guide and Monster Manual were made 
earlier this year. However, the company’s overall approach to marketing 
has been decidedly minimal so far. No official documentary, no word on 
the previously announced D&D TV show, no glamorous event celebrating the 
anniversary - which was this February and was acknowledged with a small 
video - and no tie-in with Wizards of the Coast’s other big game, Magic: 
The Gathering. Not even a ridiculously overhyped campaign featured some 
ludicrously overpriced piece of merchandise.


Since the release of D&D 5E, which is easily the game’s most successful 
edition - Wizards claimed that it had over 50 million players by 2020 - 
Dungeons & Dragons has become a lot more accessible, meaning that there 
are more people willing to give it a try. After its initial release in 
2014, there have been no major changes to the 5E formula and it looks 
unlikely there will be in the near future, with the upcoming rulebooks 
looking to refine rather than reinvent. This approach could be leading 
D&D 5E to stagnate, with less loyal players looking elsewhere for new 
experiences.

One factor that aided in Dungeons & Dragons becoming more popular was 
its role in Netflix’s hit 1980s-themed series Stranger Things, with 
aspects of the RPG’s lore appearing, almost wholesale, within multiple 
seasons. Wizards even released an official Stranger Things-themed 
starter set for D&D 5E. However, with critical acclaim for the series 
declining with every subsequent season, a two-year gap since the release 
of its last season, and a fifth and final season yet to be seen, 
Stranger Things and D&D alike don’t have as much of a stranglehold on 
popular culture as they once did.

The rise of actual play series - shows in which the cast are filmed 
playing tabletop roleplaying games, often D&D - have also played a large 
part in the increased interest in Dungeons & Dragons. The most popular 
actual play series is easily Critical Role, reportedly one of the top 
earners on Twitch in October 2021, which was also arguably the show’s 
high point in terms of quality. More recent numbers for Critical Role’s 
Twitch channel reportedly show that their yearly viewership was down 
from around 10 million viewers in 2021 to around five million viewers in 
2023.

Critical Role itself appears to be exploring other tabletop RPGs outside 
of Dungeons & Dragons, both on-screen and via its own publishing label 
Darrington Press, including recent horror RPG Candela Obscura and 
upcoming fantasy RPG Daggerheart. Critical Role’s gradual move away from 
D&D has further added to the feeling that Dungeons & Dragons has crested 
over a hill of cultural relevance in the last year or so.

This feeling was reflected in the performance of last year’s Dungeons & 
Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, the latest attempt from Wizards of the 
Coast to bring the RPG to the big screen after its critically disastrous 
noughties movie. Though Honor Among Thieves was critically 
well-received, it fared a lot worse financially. The film cost $150 
million to make and only brought in $208m worldwide, likely putting it 
under its total production and marketing budget. It’s no surprise that 
Wizards of the Coast owner Hasbro has since offloaded its television and 
movie studio Entertainment One to Lionsgate.

Even the release of video game Baldur’s Gate 3 last year, which has 
turned out to be a surprise hit, both critically and commercially, feels 
like it hasn’t been capitalised on by Wizards of the Coast. Its only 
major tie-ins were a Magic: The Gathering set released in 2022, 
Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur’s Gate, and a prequel D&D 5E 
adventure book released years earlier, 2019’s Baldur’s Gate: Descent 
into Avernus. Despite the D&D video game reaching the kinds of players 
who probably haven’t ever played the original tabletop roleplaying game, 
but might do now they’ve fallen in love with Baldur’s Gate 3, it seems 
Wizards hasn't attempted to court them further.

D&D fans’ loyalty has also been tested by last year’s debacle around the 
Open Game License, which saw Wizards attempting to tighten its grip on 
any supplements and games based on the OGL 5E gameplay system. The OGL 
gives third-party creators the legal right to use gameplay mechanics and 
other elements from Dungeons & Dragons in their own releases, which has 
since led to a thriving community of expansions and spin-offs, as well 
as D&D-descended RPGs such as Pathfinder. Wizards had initially planned 
to scrap all previous versions of the OGL System Reference Document and 
force creators to agree to a new OGL - which could have seen some 
publishers paying a 25% royalty cost if their materials made enough 
money. The outcry from publishers, creators and fans eventually saw 
Wizards pivot away from its plans to change the OGL, but the damage was 
already done.

Which brings us back to this year and the imminent release of the next 
series of core rulebooks for Dungeons & Dragons despite the fires stoked 
by the release of D&D 5E, Stranger Things, Critical Role and Baldur’s 
Gate 3 seeming to have burned out before their arrival - with the OGL 
debacle pouring cold water on the once red-hot RPG.

We can’t yet predict how well these books will sell and how many people 
will come onboard for the digital-first approach Wizards of the Coast is 
pushing for D&D 2024. However, it’s clear that Wizards has already 
rocked the D&D boat with its OGL shenanigans and hasn’t done enough to 
court the interests of people outside its usual fanbase, with much of 
the world remaining completely unaware that a new version of the 
roleplaying game is arriving in the same year as its 50th anniversary. 
Wizards’ apparent lack of enthusiasm towards promoting the next big step 
for its biggest game could be reflective of the tabletop industry’s 
current aversion to costly campaigns and tendency to button down the 
hatches in response to the cost-of-living crisis.

Perhaps if the company had released the new version of D&D a couple of 
years ago, it might have arrived into a better environment - both in 
terms of the global situation and people’s perception of D&D. For now, 
the arrival of Dungeons & Dragons 2024 could be too little, too late.