So the ridiculously-popular D&D 5e campaign “Dungeons of Drakkenheim” is being reworked into a new edition for “Daggerheart” (see the Kickstarter campaign here). This may not seem like a big deal, but I expect this news has some folks over at Wizards of the Coast a wee bit unhappy.
To be frank, this isn’t the beginning of the end for D&D (that happened several years ago), but it is a rather monumental shift. You see, D&D didn’t get as big as it did with 5th edition on its own. Lots of media and influences helped, from “Stranger Things” to “Critical Role”, and much more. But what made a huge difference in D&D’s popularity was third-party content. This added huge amounts of new and exciting content to the game, that kept players happy while WotC could focus on their core content.
3rd party content such as “Dungeons of Drakkenheim”, for example.
Now WotC hoped that 3rd party content creators would naturally follow them, and support the new 2024 edition of D&D… but that support has been tepid, at best. A lot of creators said their current content could easily be adapted to 2024e, and didn’t create new versions of their content specific for 2024. Some went and made their own games to compete directly with 2024e (looking at you, Kobold Press, MCDM, Darrington Press, et al).
But then there were the Dungeon Dudes. They still support 5e (2014), but now they have this Kickstarter project (linked above… and ending this week, by the way!) for adapting “Dungeons of Drakkenheim” to support Darrington Press’ “Daggerheart” TTRPG.
This is where the cookie crumbles. If 3rd party creators refuse to directly support D&D 2024, or support 5e (2014) instead, or support both 5e and other systems like “Daggerheart”, “Draw Steel”, “Tales of the Valiant”, and so on, all of this hurts D&D as a whole. Wizards of the Coast can only put out so much content in a given year, and they need 3rd party creators to help support D&D 2024. Without that new content, fans will slowly move over to games that are receiving more content, such as “Daggerheart”.
In short, where the 3rd party creators go, so do the players… eventually.
Now I’m not saying this is the death knell for D&D 2024, but it is an icy cold blade stuck between the game’s proverbial ribs. If Drakkenheim for Daggerheart does well, as it already appears to be, that will simply encourage more 3rd party creators to move on to other games from D&D 5e, and not bother supporting 2024 at all. Or at the very least support only 5e as well as other systems.
In short, 3rd party support for D&D 2024 is basically dead.
