The End? Really?

This take from Ben Riggs really bothered me on a number of levels, let’s dive into it a bit.

First and foremost, it’s a deeply ahistorical and misrepresents the pre-OGL era. Comparing TSR’s self-competition and self-sabotage by overproducing campaign settings is not the same as competing with other systems. And in the 1990s, the hobby was healthy and experiencing the normal highs and lows of commerce while TSR was busy refusing to evolve and falling into irrelevancy. The biggest issue faced by most companies at the time was poor business practices sinking otherwise viable endeavours. A healthy hobby has variety and diversity in its offerings, not various flavours of the same thing.

Next, the thread takes the position that a single core system is essential to the health of the industry. This isn’t true anywhere else or in any other industry, and it’s a bizarre claim to make. One follower pointed out that people seem to be lamenting the loss of a more or less unified marketplace, and I think this is closer to accurate. The label “5e Compatible” has become shorthand for “all but guaranteed to make money” and the DMs Guild is easily the most active community content hub there is. And I think that it’s accurate to say that the idea that there may be multiple places to go to trying to find content may be daunting initially, it’s no different than normal online shopping or following a few different social media accounts for other interests.

I think the crux of his concern though stems from the idea of the 5e community breaking up. But this was going to happen one way or the other regardless of whether studios or individuals with significant followings made non-D&D games and took their fandoms with them. A simple reality of D&D is that any time the edition advances, and it always will, the community breaks up. Part of it stays back with the last edition; and with the level of coverage and 3rd party support 5e has had, it’s likely that this will be one of the biggest splits since 4e D&D and 3.5e/Pathfinder. So this concern is somewhat founded, but also not an “end of an era” level event.

I have a lot more to say about this, including painting a more (at least to my experience) historically accurate picture of the pre-OGL era of tabletop RPGs, so watch for that!

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