Dungeons & Dragons Looks to Crossover Into Other IPs

Wizards of the Coast is looking to use the Dungeons & Dragons game system for outside brands and IPs. During yesterday's quarterly investors report, Wizards of the Coast president Cynthia Williams spoke about plans to expand Dungeons & Dragons into other worlds, with the newly acquired D&D Beyond acting as a hub for these new tie-ins. Speaking about future plans involving Magic: The Gathering, Williams spoke about the expansion of that game's Universes Beyond program, which focuses on crossovers with other IPs. "You'll see us continue to expand the number of formats and reach new customer segments by expanding our Universes Beyond initiatives, which brings IP from outside of Magic into the Magic play system," said Williams.  "We've talked a lot about universes beyond in Magic, which is this concept of thinking about Magic as a play system and bringing in outside brands or outside IP into that play system.  We see potential for that with D&D as well."

Williams noted that Wizards would use D&D Beyond as a hub for D&D game products set in other worlds, with physical products produced in partnership with the Hasbro Pulse team, which uses a pre-order system that's more similar to crowdfunding campaigns than traditional pre-orders. "We see a lot of e-commerce and direct opportunities working in partnership with our Hasbro Pulse team to have physical digital tie-ins that are unique to the platform," Williams said.

The news that Wizards of the Coast plans to expand Dungeons & Dragons into outside IPs taps into a major debate about licensed RPGs and the dominance of Dungeons & Dragons. For years, publishers have tried to merge various franchises and IPs with Dungeons & Dragons using the game's Open Game License, with mixed results. Many fans do not look kindly on the days where the market was flooded with d20-based RPGs built using D&D's 3.5E ruleset as a foundation. More recently, some publishers have used 5E rules as the foundation for licensed RPGs. One such game – the Dark Souls Roleplaying Game by Steamforged – has come under particular scrutiny for contradictory rules and typographical errors. 

Interestingly, D&D Beyond's previous owner Fandom was already working to expand its gaming platform into other IPs. After a brief partnership with Riot Games to produce D&D content set in League of Legends, Fandom acquired RPG licenses for The Dragon Prince and Masters of the Universe, with games made using the Cortex game engine.