I was on reddit and saw people wondering why Kobold Press made Tales of the Valiant. It made me realize how people forgot the past. It makes sense if you remember the post 3.5e boom. So, I'll explain what I'm on about.
I don't like rambling so I'll get to the point. After 3.5e and the d20 boom ended, 4e was good. I'll always defend 4e's game design. But, WoTC...yeah, so the SGL, the 4e license, has a clause saying you had to never use the OGL again if you used the SGL. Woof.
WotC wanted control of the market and didn't want their old game fighting them. This turned a lot of their old 3PP against them. Also, it can't be over sold how much market share 3.5e had. Everyone made a d20 game. Even their biggest competitors like White Wolf.
4e was also just as rules heavy as 3.5e and was very different. So, there were some serious ride or die 3.5 people.
You got a bunch of competitors who have experience working on your product who don't want to work with you and ride or die customers for the old game.
It was a feeding frenzy.
So, basically, everyone and their grandma made a 3.5e clone to try to eat D&D's lunch. WoTC moved to 4e and made a new lunch off chargen program subscriptions. Pathfinder 1e won the feeding frenzy, even though Fantasy Craft was more fun.
The OGL bs last year -- which is kind of like the SGL thing -- just started 5e's feeding frenzy early. TOV was made to get in on it and probably lost. There is no hype around it.
Who will win is hard to say. I assume Daggerheart because critical role has wild amounts of social cash to spend. Like no game company in this industry can compare to CR prominence. Which is, frankly, depressing.
Like, I'm not trying to be conceded, but it is depressing how marketing works sometimes. You can't beat a group of charismatic, conventionally attractive actors putting on a show because our games don't speak for themselves like video games do. I'm not mad at CR just naval gazing at the concept.
Anyway, the dust of "who will be the next Pathfinder" won't settle until OneDnD happens. As long as 5e is around and being supported, the adoption of the 5e clones won't happen.
And the reality is that "ride or die" 5e people might react differently than 3.5e people. With 3.5e, WoTC released 40+ official sourcebooks. For 5e, they released half as much and focused on 3PP. That's a big difference.
With 3.5e, the end of official support was seen as the game dying. There was so much first party support that the end of it was a big deal. For 5e, they released the SRD on Creative Commons to smooth things over. WoTC can now never take that back because of how that license works.
So, as long as 5e third party support continues into OneDnD then I am not sure how ride or die 5e fans will react. Their main exposure was the third party stuff so first party ending won't matter.
Well, anyway, I prefer indie games.
