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But yeah, I think we've just seen a scratch of 4E's full potential.
I am of a totally different opinion. I believe the more 4e goes on the harder will be to make new interesting things cause it was designed to be a focused and balanced game around a strictly limited arena of gameplay. I mean gameplay wont change much unless you are so much into mechanics that where you find interest is in the mechanical changes or rather mastering the subtle mechanical changes each new product may provide.
Another thing to consider: if D&D loses strategic value (ie novels sell less and less) and brand power we do not know if Hasbro will justify risks to keep D&D in development or try to find a sweet deal to sell it to someone that may think he could resurrect it in market due. It could be anyone from Microsoft to Nintendo. And this is important because right now some amount of investment is noticeable. I am not sure if it is in the millions Scott is talking about but if people perceive a considerable decline in investment the value of the brand name will suffer a lot.
I don't believe that the success/failure of DnD the game has much effect on the success/failure of DnD the merchandising. I'd expect the majority of the people who read the novels (and potentially even play the associated CRPGs) do not also play the game. I expect WotC could continue turning a pretty nice profit shelving the game entirely and just continuing with just the novels. This would make me a very, very, sad Caliber, but there it is.
I don't believe that the success/failure of DnD the game has much effect on the success/failure of DnD the merchandising. I'd expect the majority of the people who read the novels (and potentially even play the associated CRPGs) do not also play the game. I expect WotC could continue turning a pretty nice profit shelving the game entirely and just continuing with just the novels.
Personally I don't read any D&D novels.
I remember back in high school, some people did read the Dragonlance novels who were not gamers at all. Even to this day, many of these same people I knew from back then, still don't play any tabletop RPGs. The only RPGs they have played over the years, were mostly MMORPGs like Everquest and WoW.
I don't believe that the success/failure of DnD the game has much effect on the success/failure of DnD the merchandising. I'd expect the majority of the people who read the novels (and potentially even play the associated CRPGs) do not also play the game. I expect WotC could continue turning a pretty nice profit shelving the game entirely and just continuing with just the novels. This would make me a very, very, sad Caliber, but there it is.
I am not sure about this. 4e tabletop for example was marketed on the crpg front. Sites like gamespy carried articles on 4e. These people have noted the tabletop. They know about the existence and the fan base of tabletop D&D and thus they make the connection to the D&D merchandise -I would dare say that today through this kind of exposure they do identify the D&D merchandise. Games like Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter Nights helped a lot and help a lot to keep the D&D name relevant. But the more we go to the future, the more things seem harder. 4e has not managed to produce some big video game title. If it totally fails to do so after 5 years D&D awareness will be even less in the target market for example. Also I am of the impression that novels are not what they used to be. And losing their momentum as a series could totally kill them in less time than 3 years. Furthermore a decline like this could be really damaging for a potential resurrection. But I might be doomsaying here. The fact though is that the entertainment market is up for some major shake ups. Someone on a recent thread mentioned the fact that the consumer base is breaking on more fronts, each one a following after a specilized niche. I am not sure how this may condition the overall functionality of the market trends. At times like these making good product for as many people as possible seems imperative for the long term if you want to be a leader. Cattering to a broken front will buy you some time, but if you do not focus in leading you might find yourself squashed by the competitive forces after some time.
If DDi does well enough, 4e won't even need to develop more books to be successful. I will maintain my subscription basically forever, just to have the compendium. Enough people like me, and the business is sustainable without ever putting out another book (and that's a nice cost structure!)
PS
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Someone on a recent thread mentioned the fact that the consumer base is breaking on more fronts, each one a following after a specilized niche. I am not sure how this may condition the overall functionality of the market trends. At times like these making good product for as many people as possible seems imperative for the long term if you want to be a leader. Cattering to a broken front will buy you some time, but if you do not focus in leading you might find yourself squashed by the competitive forces after some time.
I'd expect RPG hobby to end up more like the model train one sooner rather than later. Specialized and not that large in comparison to other hobbies....
As I said, I think it will take time, as in 3-4 years. I don't see 3.5E recruiting enough new players to replace departing ones to maintain its current popularity.
Is this not true of any game (including 4E and 3E as well)?
At the risk of sounding like schoolyard rebuttals, I honestly think the causal gamer base that 4E appeals to will make its decline more pronounced than average. But that aside, all games dwindle over time.
As to recruiting, I truly believe a notable fraction of newly recruited 4E players will use it as a gateway to more detailed games. This fraction will likely be somewhat comparable to the fraction of current players who find 4E not up to their preference. And a brand new player who discovers PF for the first time is no less likely to think it is a great choice than a new player was to 3E 8 years ago.
Both 4E and PF will see declines over time. 4E will continue to benefit from having the D&D name on its cover and will continue to outsell PF by better than an order of magnitude.
As a percentage, PF sales year over year will hold up better than 4E.
__________________ 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
I am of a totally different opinion. I believe the more 4e goes on the harder will be to make new interesting things cause it was designed to be a focused and balanced game around a strictly limited arena of gameplay. I mean gameplay wont change much unless you are so much into mechanics that where you find interest is in the mechanical changes or rather mastering the subtle mechanical changes each new product may provide.
Exactly correct. 4E is designed so that the math works. And everything new must comply with the boundaries of that math.
__________________ 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
If DDi does well enough, 4e won't even need to develop more books to be successful. I will maintain my subscription basically forever, just to have the compendium. Enough people like me, and the business is sustainable without ever putting out another book (and that's a nice cost structure!)
If this is what WotC ends up doing, then it will probably be the end of the line for me.
I only use dead tree books for all my tabletop rpg games. I have no interest in digital services like DDI, nor do I buy any PDF books.
Well, I think 4E wioll stay on top, for the reason it is the face of the hobby for new players. It is in bookstores and gaming shops. A lot of people play it, and it is shiny and new.
I see Pathfinder like I see Iron Kingdoms nad other 4rd party rulesets in 3.X. They will ahve soem dedicated fans, but instead of doing work that is of direct benefit to 3.5 people, it is a bit off toteh side, a bit hard to convert and use. And that will limit them, and there will be a 3.5 rift with WOTC 3.5 on one side and Pathfinder 3.75 on another. That will hurt Pathfinder. Still, it will probably hurt them less than a total new system, which would be an utter failure, in my opinion. The bottom line is Pathfinder is not 3.5.
WOTC has done a good job of driving 3pp from 4E, and will probably continue to do so. Thus ther ewill be fewer places making up stuff for current gamers. Maybe if the current 3.5 crowd gets mroe vocal and supportive of people making product for them, it will change, but I jsut am not seeing it, and have not seen it in the last year. I play 3.5, and I have seen nothing come out that i would seriously consider buying.
Exactly correct. 4E is designed so that the math works. And everything new must comply with the boundaries of that math.
In the long term, that is a design flaw.
3.5 had balance in mind, but it was a lot more open. It was an open-ended framework that designers could add new things to. It meant it was easier to break balance, but it was far easier to expand. It had room for creative new kinds of magic like Incarnum, among many others. It had room for new classes that went in new directions. It was a system but it was meant to be expanded.
4e is much more tightly built, to me in a bad way. Niche protection, very tight class design, very closed-end design from a mechanical end. Yes, you can come up with two dozen new power sources, but in the end it's just fluff and slight variations on what came before, but if 4e ends up being as innovatively expanded as 3.5 I will be utterly amazed.
Niche protection, very tight class design, very closed-end design from a mechanical end. Yes, you can come up with two dozen new power sources, but in the end it's just fluff and slight variations on what came before, but if 4e ends up being as innovatively expanded as 3.5 I will be utterly amazed.
What do you see as "niche protection" in 4e? I mean, 3.x had Trapfinding, which served no purpose except to let everyone know they needed to hire a Guild-certified Rogue, not some cheap imitation (like a Ranger).
I see less of that stuff in 4e.
Cheers, -- N
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3.5 had balance in mind, but it was a lot more open. It was an open-ended framework that designers could add new things to. It meant it was easier to break balance, but it was far easier to expand. It had room for creative new kinds of magic like Incarnum, among many others. It had room for new classes that went in new directions. It was a system but it was meant to be expanded.
4e is much more tightly built, to me in a bad way. Niche protection, very tight class design, very closed-end design from a mechanical end. Yes, you can come up with two dozen new power sources, but in the end it's just fluff and slight variations on what came before, but if 4e ends up being as innovatively expanded as 3.5 I will be utterly amazed.
3.5E had balance in mind when it nerfed melee characters and removed every roadblock to caster dominance compared to AD&D? As for innovative characters, which ones? Incarnum was kind of far fetched, Bo9S and Psionics were controversial favorites, Tome of Magic included the interesting Binder and two failures. For PHB2, Beguiler and Duskblade were solid but hardly on the cutting edge of innovation.
As for 4E:
Niche Protection--Aside from limiting classes to one role and the fact that you'll never be as good at a different role as a class of that role, there is a lot of flexibility here. I'm currently playing an unkillable melee Striker Wizard.
Very Tight Class Design--I see only one limitation here, and the best way to describe this is that if you are a Fighter, you can't build yourself to not be a Fighter. I don't really see the issue. The classes and different build choices for those classes are all plenty distinct.
Closed Ended--PHB2 introduced some interesting subtle variants on the game, as have the Monk preview and the Artificer. Nothing as big a departure as Incarnum, but the differences are distinctive enough to be differences.
4e is much more tightly built, to me in a bad way. Niche protection, very tight class design, very closed-end design from a mechanical end. Yes, you can come up with two dozen new power sources, but in the end it's just fluff and slight variations on what came before, but if 4e ends up being as innovatively expanded as 3.5 I will be utterly amazed.
Gotta disagree. The power mechanic is pretty broad, particularly as far as races go, and we're seeing looser design rules on the DM/monster side, not stricter ones.
And as far as player options go, we're seeing more and more variations rom beast companions to summoning to Dragonmarks to multi-classing/hybrids/spellscarring to monk attack/move powers.
I will say this: powers (and balance concerns) make designing original/homebrew 4e classes a lot more daunting than it ever was in 3e or before...
...comment on your response to the following scenario:
1. 4E is successful, maintains itself as the top selling and most played RPG, and runs 8-10 years in its current direction before being replaced by a 5E even less like previous editions
2. Pathfinder tapers off after a successful launch by 3PP standards, and achieves a stable presence on par with True20 or Mutants and Masterminds.
3. The 3.5E playing community shrinks over time until its on par with people playing previous editions.
4. OGL based gaming begins a slow decline, with the big names soldiering on and fewer and fewer new products being released.
I think it is a likely scenario, with two exceptions.
1.- I think 5th edition will be here in about 6 years, not 8-10
2.- Paizo could reach a level where it reaches a popularity just below White Wolf and become a good business with a confortable level of sales for their company size. Not everybody needs to become "#1" in order to survive in business
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I don't buy the idea that 4th Edition D&D is remotely similar to the New Coke scenario. The people who keep hoping for the "WotC collapse and bankruptcy and Paizo rescuing the D&D hobby" are just living a fantasy.
According to Amazon.com, 4th Edition D&D books hold 7 of the 10 bestselling positions of the category "Roleplaying & Fantasy"
If the OP's scenario happens, I probably end up playing 5e.
I love 4e. Right now. I loved 3e too, though. And then after 8 years I knew all of its flaws, all of its warts, all of its hidden blemishes, and I knew them intimately. And I was ready for something new to come along that fixed as much of those things as possible.
And I knew that it would get other things wrong. And it would try new things, and some of those new things would fall flat. But gaming is a journey and not a destination, so I'm fine with that.
Now I'm playing 4e. And slowly, over time, I'm starting to notice some flaws in the system. They tend not to be the sorts of flaws that get complained about online, because unfortunately a significant amount of the complaining about 4e is driven by trolls and people only vaguely familiar with the system. But eventually that will die out and we'll get to the point we were in during 3e, discussing 3e's flaws and how to solve them. And we'll do the same thing. We'll talk about the problems with 4e, we'll talk about how we get past those problems, and those conversations will enter into the culture and the collective mind of the gaming community, and in some small way effect the development of 5th edition when its time comes.
And 5e will do the same things. Fix some stuff well. Fix some stuff awkwardly. Update the game to match newer fantasy concepts. Try some new experiments, and succeed and really broaden the game. Try some new experiments and fail. And the cycle will continue and if I'm playing rpgs that many years in the future I'll probably be part of it and probably have a great time.
3.5 had balance in mind, but it was a lot more open. It was an open-ended framework that designers could add new things to. It meant it was easier to break balance, but it was far easier to expand. It had room for creative new kinds of magic like Incarnum, among many others. It had room for new classes that went in new directions. It was a system but it was meant to be expanded.
I'm confused about this idea of yours.
Didn't the Core 3.5 rulebook have issues. Codzilla, casters get more power than non-casters, etc.
The game is only balanced if you play the way the designers expected: Cleric as healer, Fighter Tank, Rogue for occasional sneak attack (Lidda is even one handed instead of TWFing), and the Wizard is a blaster.
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