Hiram McDaniels wrote:Is there anything that CAN topple 3E/Pathfinder from the #1 spot? Sure, people can conceptualize a better mechanical approach to a D&D style game, but anything that's lighter and more streamlined than 3E gets shit on here and other online communities.
There is a big shift right now towards 'lite' 'shared storytelling' games. That is not what 3.x and Pathfinder are. In fact it is because they are rules heavy games that they're catering to a section of the market that wants that when everything else isn't.
Perhaps surprisingly, or maybe unsurprisingly, that is apparently a large portion of the market. Until someone is willing to put the work into making a better 'rules heavy' game, nothing will topple the entrenched 3.Pathfinder throne.
5E seems to be doing well where I live, but that's completely anecdotal. As far as I know it could be tanking in every other part of the country. I probably won't know for sure until they announce 6E, or the D&D roleplaying game's discontinuation. I thought 4E was doing fine up until Essentials came out.
Of the 9 people in my gaming group, all know of 5e, but have no interest, haven't looked at the rules, and aren't planning to. I'm the only one that has looked at them in depth, and that's more because I like dissecting design.
What if D&D5 doesn't fail, though? What if it's as big of a success as 3E, and has a 10 year long publishing cycle? This wouldn't fit WotC's planned obsolescence model, which makes a 10 year shelf life pretty much impossible, but I wonder what would happen on the off chance the game reached 3E's level of market saturation.
I don't think 5e has a 10 year life cycle in it (1000 true fans aside). It has mechanical and production issues, and it doesn't have much room to grow in the current market.
3.0 was actually an amazing piece of work. It was basically compatible with 2e stuff allowing it to move the entire player base of basically was the RPG community over to it, actually made the mechanics of play better, had pretty high production values, and was put out at just the right time to take advantage of the waning of 2e and the coming of the internet. It would have been a good solid D&D game just on that, but it brought something else to the table that catapulted it to the most popular ttRPG of all time... the OGL. You cannot imagine how powerful the OGL was for 3.x.
The chances of any game getting the same market share that 3.x had is essentially non-existent.