General RPG DiscussionDiscussion of all RPGs and non-system-specific topics. DM/GM/player issues, settings, etc. Rules discussion belongs in one the forums below.
I don't know about 'objective evidence', but my 'Barnes & Nobles Test' (How much space is devoted to RPG's? What percentage of that is D&D?) suggests that D&D is in a weaker position now in the market than it has been in about 10 years.
I don't know what you're talking about. My local B&N within the last year went from locating their RPGs on half a shelf next to the manga and comic books on the second floor to two entire shelves near the entrance with its own section label of "Role Playing Games".
Given what objective evidence we have of 4th Edition's early success and following decline less than a year in, threads like this have little purpose, if any.
You don't have any objective evidence of its decline. Stop pretending that you do.
I barely even played D&D before 4E, the game was simply too unwieldy. I have a huge Planescape collection I read for recreation, but never used in an actual game. I played a little 3E, but it just didn't click for my group. We're a group of smart guys who couldn't stand the stupid rules. The system was convoluted, the classes were grossly imbalanced, and DM'ing was far too time consuming.
During my group's 3E phase, we'd frequently discuss how we would improve D&D if we were in charge. When we got a hold of the 4E preview books it was as if the WotC had tape recorded our conversations! As a former Planescape fan I was thrilled to see the much improved and usable cosmology (especially the Elemental Chaos). My only concern with 4E is that they didn't go far enough! For instance, silly holdovers such as alignment still persist (luckily only in a diminished capacity).
4E is an awesome system. I love that teamwork and tactics now matter. However, the class balance was the selling point for me.
My overall opinion of the game was positive to start with and has remained so. That said, I have begun to notice the flaws in the system more, especially the tendency toward "grindspace" in certain types of combat and the weaknesses of the encounter/daily system. (I think it was a mistake not to include some means of recharging encounter powers, and am considering a house-rule on the subject.)
__________________ Have you ever known a person who always behaved exactly the way you expected? Real people don't stay in character.
Last edited by Dausuul; 27th February 2009 at 01:25 PM..
You don't have any objective evidence of its decline. Stop pretending that you do.
Heh, how about you stop pretending you have a clue what I do or don't have?
__________________ It was one of those nights when you turn out the lights, and everything comes into view
The combat system should be based on the world design. The world design should not be based on the combat system.
My 4 year old ties a towel to her shoulders and pretends to be a superhero. Roleplaying is not between the covers of a book.
As an extension of that, if you tell me that any game is the same just because you roleplay the same, then as far as I am concerned, you don't get the point.
"I just want D&D to run smoothly, palpate my gamer gland, and bring the metal." - A 4E fan
"I've got to have all that, but I require intelligent conversation as well." - Me
Overall opinion: 4e was no steps forward, no steps back. It was two or three steps sideways.
I kind of love that description. 4e is awesome in some ways, is narmtastic in others, but is very much a different kind of game.
In the evolutionary analogy, 4e seems to just be a mutation -- something that has evolved differently all of a sudden. Some of the mutations are beneficial, some are bad, and whether or not overall it is positive is a little sketchy still (won't really know until 5e, I guess ).
I havenīt played a lot 4th edition, and i still have to feel comfortable with damage doesnīt mean damage but exhaustion (a logical step actually, sry) but i can wholehartedly say:
D&D 3.0 introduced many cool things, rules etc... i grew up as DM with 3.0, but all those options I was given with rules for everything which i liked at the beginning has caused me a lot of headaches... It stopped beeing a headacke, when i reinvented DM Fiat, and dismissed most splatbooks...
D&D 3.5 is one of the finest systems out there, and I personally still believe i will like 4th edition... but wth my actual tme constraints and errated PHBs not available (the number of errors supposedly caused by nerdrage and following emergency changes) are still a deal breaker...
... and I actually believe this was WotCīs fault trying to please the wrong people...
so i have to wait a bit still^^ erratad rules seem mostly fine, PHB 2 classes do too... the bard is so cool...
holding vote until next month at least... maybe till end of this year
Look at the poll here: the haters still hating and the lovers still loving doesn't say anything, but 22% of those who were initially excited changed their mind while only 6% of those who initially didn't like it changed their mind. As time goes on, more people decide they don't like it than decide they do. I only hope it doesn't kill the DND franchise all together. The dwindling excitement coupled with a rough economy means there's a real good chance Hasbro will drop the line all together. Best case scenerio is that a company like Paizo or Mongoose will pick buy it, worste case scenerio is that nobody buys it and it just ceases to exist.
(1) As was pointed out several times, a poll on ENWorld cannot be extrapolated to the general population. It will tell you something about the people on ENWorld who feel like taking the time to answer a poll, but it's a self-selecting population in at least these two ways.
(2) I don't know if this is the only interpretation of the poll numbers, even if we allow that it's valid for this population. At what point does someone need to have been Positive to select the "Positive, then Negative" answer? Right when it was announced? While the first previews were coming out? While the latter batch of previews were coming out? (Similar concerns apply to "Negative, then Positive" and, to a lesser extent, the other options.)
So, even if you accept that the poll is a valid sample for ENWorld, it tells you very little due to the ambiguity of the question.
I don't know what you're talking about. My local B&N within the last year went from locating their RPGs on half a shelf next to the manga and comic books on the second floor to two entire shelves near the entrance with its own section label of "Role Playing Games".
Yeah, and my closest B&N never supported RPGs that much - just an individual shelf or two. Now they have one of those revolving book stands with 4e books on them out in the middle of the aisle.
Not much, but have some more anecdotal evidence for the fire.
I don't know about 'objective evidence', but my 'Barnes & Nobles Test' (How much space is devoted to RPG's? What percentage of that is D&D?) suggests that D&D is in a weaker position now in the market than it has been in about 10 years.
Doesn't work with WotC's approach of 'destroy the backlist' (metaphorically speaking) every time a new edition is released. There's only half a year's worth of product for them to shelve now, as compared to 5-8 years last year.
I think it's more indicative of the fact that this site started as a 3e community and so the numbers are skewed here as a matter of system loyalty. I would be surprised if you got the same results if you polled at other places.
A distinct possibility.
But when you figure that the game's largest customer base will also have gotten its start as a community of previous-edition players (including 1e, 2e, etc), I'm not sure the bias is unique to ENWorld but rather applies to the broader D&D community as well.
The other biases in a self-selecting internet poll are far more damaging to the poll's ability to infer characteristics of the population at large.
__________________ Bill D
"There's a fine line between a superpower and a chronic medical condition."
- Doctor Impossible
I was, have been, and am a huge 4e fan. I will admit that lately I've been getting frustrated with it however. Monsters have way too many hitpoints and don't do nearly enough damage in high paragon/epic play. And even in heroic, strictly "by-the-book" encounters are often a waste of everyone's time. I'm still enjoying it, but it takes some tweaking to get the thing to run right. Where's my 4.5?
__________________ Rick Reroll -- Deadly Rickster Utility 26 Daily
Choose one: you reroll one die roll you just made and keep the higher result; or the DM rerolls one die roll he just made and keeps the lower result.
Overall opinion: 4e was no steps forward, no steps back. It was two or three steps sideways.
I can agree with this. I've held, from the release, that 4e isn't descended from 3e. I see 2e as the actual parent of both. 3e and 4e just grew up differently and focus on different things.
Personally, 4e is much, much more my style of game than 3e. It's not perfect, though, and I can already see plenty of things I'm unhappy with. And, no matter how much I want to not play 3e again, it isn't a bad game. It brought me some fun -- just not as much as I had hoped because it didn't mesh with my play style well at all.
I voted 1. Our group pretty much raced each other to get the new core books first. My instinct was to switch, habituated as I was after switching through all of the editions since '78.
We played for a few months but found that 4e wasn't for us. It's all about personal taste but the prevailing feeling was that 4e was a new game rather than new rules for an old game (does that make sense?).
We all admired (in a dispassionate way) the ease with which it plays though and I can see why it is the answer to the prayers of many.
We liked the giant, rambling monstrosity that D&D had become over 30 years though and (understandably) a lot of what defined the game (for us) had to be cut to make it streamlined. Specifically we couldn't get to like the similarity of the classes (both on the page and in play). Nor were powers for us. We just found them a bit repetitive (I know, I know!) and preferred the crazy, erratic breadth of the older edition spell lists. We also didn't find many of the 'encounter' mechanics to our taste (though it's clear why they were introduced - they do address some nasty old issues).
We'll be sticking with 3.x. We're giving Pathfinder a go as playing a 'living' system would be preferable. Let's hope they fix some of the notorious 3.x crunch issues (we can't be bothered, we're lazy).
I think these threads are a guilty pleasure. Sure they stir up strong feelings. It's an argument about the soul of D&D.
My take (probably hopelessly misguided) is that some of those who have stuck with 3x have done so against all their D&D instincts and are hungry for a validation of their choice. Those that have moved on find the idea that many did not (against all expectation) unfathomable. 4e fits their playing style perfectly, or near as dammit, but they find the grumbling from the other room unsettling .
I say good luck to both editions and all those who sail in them.
My take (probably hopelessly misguided) is that some of those who have stuck with 3x have done so against all their D&D instincts and are hungry for a validation of their choice. Those that have moved on find the idea that many did not (against all expectation) unfathomable. 4e fits their playing style perfectly, or near as dammit, but they find the grumbling from the other room unsettling .
I was initially looking forward to 4e. I had had a great time with 3.5e, but there had been enough very handy innovations and advancements that it seemed time to consolidate everything back into a revised core. I was a huge fan of the announced design team. I liked just about everything I had heard about the high level goals of the new edition. I bought Star Wars Saga edition, thinking it would likely be a glimpse into 4e, and loved what I saw.
And then the previews starting coming.
At first, I just thought WotC was just running a suboptimal marketing campaign, and that the actual game would be spectacular.
But weeks, and then months went by, and while I saw several things in 4e that did sound very cool, the general sense I got was that this really wasn't the game I was looking for. And that sense only grew with each new preview. So by the time the books hit the street, I wasn't so much angry or disappointed as I was just . . . indifferent.
I've looked through the 4e books, and I would gladly play in a 4e game if someone were to run one. I'm sure it's a fine game, and much fun could be had with it. But for me, 4e is just too much of a change with too few improvements to justify jumping systems. I'd be going from a perfectly good, if flawed game of dungeoncrawling that I know well and own all the books for to a perfectly good, if flawed game of dungeoncrawling that I don't know well and don't own any of the books. Why bother?
Given my investment in and general contentment with 3e, 4e either needed to be largely compatible with 3e OR a significant improvement, and ideally both. And unfortunately, it doesn't really seem to be either.
Part of trouble, too, may be the old "uncanny valley" effect. From a distance, 4e sure looks a lot like the D&D I've always played. Fighters fight, wizards throw spells, dragons provide gold and XP.
But on closer examination 4e's *just* different enough to really put me off. If it were a game that were a lot less -- or a lot more! -- different from older forms of D&D, I'd probably have an easier time accepting it. But as it is, it's got that weird part real/part fake Polar Express thing going on that, on a visceral level, I just can't shake.
And without a usable GSL, third party publishers can't fill empty 4e niches for me that might have drawn me to the game. Although I love to play with different RPGs, for almost 10 years the OGL kept my interests and my wallet firmly within the d20 family. I mean, an entirely new edition of Ars Magica came and I didn't even give it a look.
Now? Last weekend I ran my first Mongoose Traveller game. And I had a freaking blast.
__________________ Best,
Garnfellow
Last edited by Garnfellow; 2nd March 2009 at 12:24 PM..
Part of trouble, too, may be the old "uncanny valley" effect. From a distance, 4e sure looks a lot like the D&D I've always played. Fighters fight, wizards throw spells, dragons provide gold and XP.
But on closer examination 4e's *just* different enough to really put me off. If it were a game that were a lot more or less different from older forms of D&D, I'd probably have an easier time accepting it. But as it is, it's got that weird part real/part fake Polar Express thing going on that, on a visceral level, I just can't shake.
That is eerily perceptive. It is like you have scried my very mind...
BUT...I have a shelf full of RPGs and I don't need any one game to fulfill all my hopes and dreams 24/7 which seems to be a problem for many people.
My sentiment exactly. There are a lot of RPGs out there that it doesn't make sense for people to have "one rpg to bind them and to rule them all" mentality.
I haven't played 4e so can't really say anything about it.
That is eerily perceptive. It is like you have scried my very mind...
I've been thinking lately that many people experienced a very strong, gut level "Do. Not. Want." from 4e, and it seems to not always be just a reflexive "anything different is bad!" response. The uncanny valley makes some sense -- to me, at least.
4e is awesome in some ways, is narmtastic in others, but is very much a different kind of game. 
).
Linear Mode
And yet another word from our sponsors
