Can WotC and D&D go home again?

To their credit, it appears that WotC is willing to act after losing the top selling RPG, they've hired back Monte Cook to do future R&D. And that seems to imply that the future is the past, and that we'll see a 5th edition that is far closer to 3rd than to 4th.

Not that bad of move considering that 4th Edition is effectively a failure. But will it work? Yes, 4th edition was a poor design, likely driven by concepts taken  from the worse of the last decade's online game theorists. But it only existed because WotC gave D&D's core IP away to people like Pathfinder. It was in effect a Hail Mary pass to create a new replacement IP, hurled with the hope that the marketing and brand loyalty would turn the tide.

That failed. Will going old school suceeed?

Like anything in the market, hard to say. The brand loyalty is lost and it is now the other guy's club to beat WotC with.

Marketing they may still have-  deep pockets and the return of a well regarded by many (not me BTW, but hey- its D&D. No one could make that a good game IMO) designer. They'll certainly be able to create a lot of noise, and get a lot of people to try a 5th edition if that's where they're heading.

But the old saying is that you can never go home. And the simple truth is that they don't really control the old IP, and thus will in the end need to fight tooth and nail for every sale against an successful company who can offer want is effectively the same product.

If they go this path, they will at best split the D&D style market between them, better a half pie than any, unless the two half pies aren't enough to live on... and that may be the plan. Let Pathfinder die of hunger while living off the fat of the parent company, then everything flows back to WotC.

Can that work? In this age of Print on Demand and low cost market entry? And what about the fact that WotC still wouldn't control the IP and the problems that causes?

I wouldn't go this path. I'll give 5:3 odds WotC won't either in the long run.More likely we'll see WotC try the 4th edition Hail Mary again with a different enough system that's it's different. Maybe a almost good one this time.

But will that even work? I doubt it.

Maybe they'll do a change up. A 5th edition to kill pathfinder, followed by a 6th to stake out new ground. That's a long shot that already failed once.


Either way they go, they have a chance. An uphill against the wind chance. They need to be hit by lightning, but that's business in today's world. So let's give them a cheer for making the attempt.