Tell Him It's a Think Piece - Is WotC Missing a Trick?

 Is WotC Missing a Trick?

One of the more common posts I see at OSR haunts be they Reddit, forums, discord, or the like, invariably revolves around a GM or group which wants to transition or just take a break from 5E and dip a figurative toe in OSR waters. Whether they’re seeking advice on which OSR rules they should try, how to run  OSR “Style” games,  or more often than not how to get their players to give up all the character sheet feats, skills, and do-dad of more contemporary versions of the game, it often boils down to the same thing . . . they enjoyed 5E, they like D&D, but they want either a simpler game that’s less prep and less of a headache for the GM, or they want a more immersive experience where players interact with the game world, or as the cool kids call it the game fiction, more than they interact with the mechanics and character sheets. It’s an OSR cliche now I guess to talk about looking for answers on the character sheet instead of coming up with answers, but there it is.

Now, these type of posts are almost daily, sometimes two or three similar posts land at once, and that type of volume though it seems large in my little OSR forum lurking world, I would guess is not even a drop in the mainstream ocean compared to the number of groups perfectly happy staying with 5e, or completely non-plussed at the idea of OSR gaming, not to mention the numbers of new players joining the 5E fold daily, or even just watching other people play on youtube, but from my perspective, it seems like a decent number of people are either heading from 5E to OSR in how they game, or at least wanting to experiment with the genre. And of course, there will be many GMs, and a few groups that are happy to play both D&D 5E and OSR games, not to mention all the other myriad of TTRPGs that are out there, but it does seem to me like Wizards of The Coast are missing a trick here.

Now, I don’t think that numbers flowing from 5E to OSR are in any way a threat to Wizards' bottom line or 5E’s popularity, but I do think that there’s enough of it going on that it might be something WotC might want to engage with a bit more. I know various Wizards designers past and present are aware of the OSR or the pull of simpler older rulesets, and during the D&D NEXT phase this was referenced, hell the intro scenario when NEXT was in testing was a stripped-down version of the old school classic Keep on the Borderlands, and of course, Wizards have made OD&D, AD&D, B/X and BECMI available in a variety of PDF or prestige reprint formats, but it still feels to me that they’re missing a trick when it comes to servicing a percentage of potential customers, even if it’s a stupidly small percentage, or as we OSR peeps like to say, “a niche of a niche within a niche hobby”. It feels like the publisher of the flagship RPG should have their own OSR option ready and available for those that do get an itch for something a little different to the 800lb Gorilla of the Hobby that is D&D(I think I might have OSR/RPG/D&D cliche Bingo licked here ).

I’m aware that having different flavours of D&D bouncing around at the same time can confuse things from a corporate and marketing viewpoint, you don’t want to be competing against yourself or muddling the D&D Brand. Many feel that having too many different settings on the market was detrimental to TSR during the 2nd Ed era. It is also hard to deny that having B/X*, AD&D, and BECMI all slushing around together in the mid-’80s could be confusing for customers. Especially when kids are asking clueless parents or grandparents to get them D&D.

Do I want an official WotC OSR D&D? Me personally? Not really (unless WotC wants to hire me to write it) I mean I still have my B/X books, they are a bit tatty these days, but I also have Basic Fantasy, plus Swords & Wizardy: Whitebox, and eventually I’ll get OSE tome and boxed set just to save my Moldvay book taking more hits. Plus I’m not even sure what a WotC official OSR game would, could, or should even be? It just feels to me like they’re missing a trick by not having something in that arena.