Anyone else feeling a bit of RPG industry déjà vu?
At this point, there doesn’t seem to be much WotC can do
to put the genie in the bottle. The
whole OGL fiasco has been a self-own of 4e proportions, and now everyone else
in the biz is being pushed by a realization that the OGL is no longer a safe
harbor AND scenting blood in the water of that no-longer-safe harbor.
In short, we should see a flood of new fantasy RPGs out
this year and into next.
Free League Press was already set to release the English
version of Drakar och Demoner (which is being called Dragonbane). Kobold Press has their Black Flag project (be patient; their web site is getting pounded), which
I’m expecting will be as close to 5e as the lawyers will allow, but which I
hope is more Sword & Sorcery than that.
There’s a new version of Sword & Wizardry coming, but that will
simply be the game we know with any actionable trace of D&D language altered.
The one I’m really curious about is Critical Roll. If WotC hasn’t already locked the CR team
into a contract to run 6e next year, they’re bigger fools than I thought. So far CR has only released a fairly anodyne “we standby creators” statement. That could mean
WotC already has them roped in, or it might just mean that lots of their add
space in their streams has already been purchased for D&D Beyond. (I’m hearing that the episodes being released now were filmed last month, so they won’t have pivoted that quickly, nor do I know
how far in advance they’ve sold advertising for.)
If WotC doesn’t have CR locked into a contract already,
Mercer & Co. have a huge opportunity ahead of them. D&D might have the biggest name recognition,
but their outreach is barely existent when compared to Critical Role. Yes, a movie and a TV show will help if they are good, but that’s not really the way to bet based on other popular properties
that have made it to streaming recently.
If CR goes their own way and releases their own RPG (and
it’s good), they’ll be a serious contender against D&D, the same way
Pathfinder was for 4e. If they sign on
to play someone else’s game, that could be even more dangerous for D&D,
wedding CR’s outreach with another company’s publishing experience and team of
creatives.
The big issue here is, which game would they pick? It’s well known that CR started playing
Pathfinder but moved to D&D because it worked better with the streaming
format. That means Pathfinder 2e is not
a likely choice. I think it also knocks
the Cypher System and the AGE System out of contention for similar
reasons. Fate and the Forge games do odd
things with storytelling that I don’t think would work for what CR does. The dice mechanic for Savage Worlds might be
a bit too difficult to follow on a show.
I’d love to see them play an OSR game like NeoclassicalGeek Revival or Old-School Essentials, but I suspect there are folks already
bidding for CR’s attention with lucre that no OSR game could match. If Kobold Press was willing to stray a bit
from the 5e formula and tweak things to better serve a streaming show, they
could have a shot.
Whatever happens, WotC has shown weakness and memories of’08 are still fresh enough that everyone is slavering at the jaws for a chance
in the ring with the king. I fear
most will try to play it safe and come out with something that’s as close
to 5e as possible, but I’m hoping we’re about to see a deluge of creativity and
variety that the RPG industry has never seen before.
It's going to be an exciting year.
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