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Sometimes, there's just not much you can do about it. You have to say what you need to say, accept that they don't/won't like it, let them vent for a while (without encouraging the venting) then move on to the good things. Move past the bad and show them why your relationship is worth it.
You certainly can't please all of the people all of the time, but the question (and point of this thread) is, did the marketing make things better or worse for the success of 4E?
IMO, it made it worse, but it doesn't really matter what I think. In the end, all that matters is the bottom line. If the bottom line is healthy (and better than what it was at the end of 3.5), then marketing did a good enough job. We can debate if it could have been better (it could have in my case), but it's more of a thought exercise now, rather than anything that's relevant to 4E's success.
Now it's up to marketing to grow (or at least maintain) the success of the brand/game. It's no longer a 3.5 vs. 4E thing. It's really only a 4E thing (though one could argue it's a 4E vs. all other forms of group entertainment thing since WotC is in such a class by itself).
The challenge now is to keep current players interested in buying more 4E product and (hopefully) attracting new players to buy in.
Mallus, the practical fact is that the rule is simply "might makes right" and the only "person" really enfranchised is a legal fiction. Yesterday's highfalutin' designer is today's ex-employee with no ownership of his or her work.
The new folks have not "paid their money same as me". The premise of their privilege is that instead the money I pay goes into their pockets (by way of the corporation that now owns the work of others as it owns theirs).
That is as it is, and proper enough as far as it goes; Gygax and Arneson sold their legal ownership long ago and Dungeons & Dragons® is a trademark of Wizards of the Coast.
By the same token, each of us is a poop producer; when we were very small, that was our primary product. It does not follow that we must regard ourselves as only that.
That is not all there is. There is no reason that human beings cannot go further. It is fact no more incumbent on us to call whatever WotC sells "real" D&D than it is incumbent on WotC to adhere to any convention regarding the name's referent.
Of course, it is a matter of historical record what was published in 1974-76 and 1977-79, what took hobby gaming by storm and created a new field. In that regard, the scales of judgment are rather heavily weighted -- so that it would be foolish to claim that those classic books are not D&D! They made the name upon which TSR and WotC have counted for sales of later products.
If one's assumption is that all that matters is superficial appearances, then of course the marketing issue involves no more than the right "spin" on whatever course of action is chosen. That is misleading. All one controls is one's own deeds. Wheedle all you like, and people will still see through the Emperor's New Clothes.
What about that section says to you that he was concerned with "HOW" people play D&D, as opposed to what the rules of the game are designed to handle?
If he told you that he wasn't concerned with HOW people play the game, so much as what the rules are designed to handle, would it still be insulting? If so why?
Taken at face value it seems to indicate that D&D has never been designed with social activities being the main focus of the rules. The focus of the D&D rules has been primarily combat, with non combat activities having little to no focus. Is this indicating you are wrong for wanting your personal games to be about social activities over combat? If so, I don't see it.
To me this is no different then when people suggest using say Call of Cuthulu for a horror game over D&D because CoC was designed around the idea of promoting horror. Or the reverse- CoC was not designed around the idea of going toe to toe with horrible monsters from beyond...
You can certainly play the system that way, and it might be tons of fun- There is absolutely nothing wrong with doing so, but the game was never designed with that intention in mind.
I always thought the rules of D&D (at least pre-4e, but even 4e does an ok job) covered exploration of exotic locales? Traps, terrain, inhabitants (including non-evil one's), etc... or am I wrong? I mean traipsing through a fairy ring (depending on the particular inspiration one draws on) can be an exotic, dangerous and beautiful place... for an example check out Changeling the Lost.
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I am of the opinion that people were being "insulted" simply because they were pissed off about 4e and wanted to find something to be insulted about.
That's the party line. As Scot Rouse once put it, there's some negative perceptions surrounding 4E products and their marketing. These perceptions are wrong so we (WotC) have to change them. Apparently people like Scot and yourself have never heard about the causal theory of perception, preferring instead to assume massive perceptual errors in the customer base.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hussar
Heck, a ways back upthread Windjammer mentiones the "cloud watching" blog post. Yet, when that post was re-examined a few months later, nothing insulting was found.
Feel free to link to the re-examination thread. As far as I recall, Dave Noonan made a blunder in that post. He came off as extremely insulting without meaning too, and he apologized for the post a day or two later on these forums. He even owned up to the fact that his blog entry was badly expressed.
And that's the crux, really. A lot of statements that get castigated as bad marketing in this thread boil down, not to outright insulting statements, but to a healthy mix of statements which are expressed far too carelessly to prevent people feeling insulted. Which equates to bad marketing, full stop. I mean, Noonan having to even post an apology reflects the fact that he had made a blunder. 4E's prerelease marketing was replete with such blunders, and that's why people remember them.
As for statements being expressed misleadingly, also take the passage on the fey which some here tell us has nothing in the least insulting about the fey. Well, the way I read it is actually Wyatt saying that fey in D&D sucked pretty hard prior to their 4E overhaul. People complain "how dare he say that about how I handled fey in my games". 4E fans say "he didn't insult fey - he just insulted how prior editions handled them". That's splitting hairs. What people felt got insulted was not fey per se but a way of handling of fey in D&D - namely their own. If you think Wyatt's statement doesn't contain such an insult, I wager that's because the way of handling fey in D&D he degrades isn't your own.
Or that other statement by Perkins "we will make leveling up a meaningful choice at every level" which, 4E fans now tell us, doesn't by implication carry the statement how, prior to 4E, it wasn't a meaningful choice at every level.
The only thing I can see from this sort of rhetoric defense is that 4E fans don't feel insulted by statements which say that X sucked pretty hard, was less than "meaningful", etc. prior to how 4E handled X. What a surprise! Well of course you don't mind these statements, since their negativitiy doesn't effect your preferred edition's handling of these elements.
Last edited by Windjammer; 8th September 2009 at 10:41 PM..
Not if you do as a designer does [EDIT: tends to do] and speak in designer-speak ("un-fun," "sub-optimal," etc., including, arguably, "bullet in the head").
I always thought the rules of D&D (at least pre-4e, but even 4e does an ok job) covered exploration of exotic locales? Traps, terrain, inhabitants (including non-evil one's), etc... or am I wrong? I mean traipsing through a fairy ring (depending on the particular inspiration one draws on) can be an exotic, dangerous and beautiful place... for an example check out Changeling the Lost.
Again this is where the focus is different between what the rules are about, and what you do in game. (And part of what makes TTRGS great.)
You can do anything you want in game at your table, and if it's fun, YOU WIN! For a lot of those activities though, you're not utilizing the D&D rules. (Or if you are you're modifying them to fit your situation.)
Again this is where the focus is different between what the rules are about, and what you do in game. (And part of what makes TTRGS great.)
You can do anything you want in game at your table, and if it's fun, YOU WIN! For a lot of those activities though, you're not utilizing the D&D rules. (Or if you are you're modifying them to fit your situation.)
Yes, and again you're asserting what the focus of the game is... when in fact that may not be it. Using 3.5 as an example...There is more information in the DM Guide about locations, traps, setting, etc. than combat... it would seem then the focus is adventuring as opposed to combat... and "traipsing" through a fairy ring (again dependent upon one's influences for fairies or fey) certainly falls under adventuring
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The position that 4e's marketing failed because of people who didn't like it is a non-argument. While the marketing campaign may, overall, have been successful with many people, it also succeeded in annoying and even offending others.
Certainly, I've never seen a VW commercial I perceived as mocking older Volkswagens.
My problem with 4e's marketing wasn't so much the amount of previous editons-bashing, but the overusing of the word "cool" (heck, I'm not a native English speaker and even I know there are many other ways to say something is good).
If I had made a drinking game out of it, I'd still be drunk
Is it humanly possible to frankly discuss the pros and cons of various design decisions without insulting a significant number of fans?
Again, I find it weird that WOTC gets this grief.
Paizo created new grapple rules because the old rules were too hard. How is this not considered insulting to people who actually didn't have problems with the grapple rules before?
Pretty much every designer that comes up with a modification of the base rule is saying "The original rule sucked...here's a better method".
From my perspective, I was open to the idea of 4th edition and interested in it. The marketing largely annoyed me because so much of it seemed to be focused on, "3rd edition is a bad system," which I disagreed with. From that angle, it made me wonder whether 4th edition would be my thing, since it seemed built by people who had very different perspectives on what a good RPG was than I did.
A few previews flat out said that the way I was playing D&D was not fun. Those were fortunately few and far between, but that's terrible marketing, in my opinion.
Ultimately, though, the marketing didn't make a lick of difference. The game mechanics of 4th edition differ from what I enjoy in an RPG, so I don't play it. Had the marketing been great and the mechanics the same, I still wouldn't play it. Had the marketing been even worse and the system amazing, I would have picked it up. Overall, I think the people who were following the game in the first place probably gave it what they consider to be a fair try, regardless of what they thought about the marketing.
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My problem with 4e's marketing wasn't so much the amount of previous editons-bashing, but the overusing of the word "cool" (heck, I'm not a native English speaker and even I know there are many other ways to say something is good).
If I had made a drinking game out of it, I'd still be drunk
Yeah, you have a point there. That was the major thing I found obnoxious about the 4e marketing: using the same terminology over and over (mostly "cool" and "fun"), until it just became a parody of itself. There are definitely better ways to excite people towards a new product than by using the same catchphrases over and over. In that regard, some of the 4e marketing was clearly subpar.
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While the circumstances you cite certainly happened, so too did the aforementioned "Selling by criticism" by WotC developers. Too often in the Edition Wars, both sides choose to turn a blind eye to the mistakes made by their respective sides.
Even though 4e isn't my cup of tea, I can objectively state that it's a well-developed fantasy RPG.
Objectively speaking, the list of WotC marketing blunders for 4e is pretty damn remarkable.
I this is because we were actually hearing from the designers, without a marketing filter.
It's hard to blame game designers for not being slick and polished marketers.
As for criticizing, I think you're dealing with guys who worked with 3e more than anyone else, and who weren't fans. It wasn't their hobby to write for that system, it was their JOB.
Paizo created new grapple rules because the old rules were too hard. How is this not considered insulting to people who actually didn't have problems with the grapple rules before?
Did Paizo ever actually advertise its grapple rules? I have to ask this because I never actually saw any of the ad copy for Pathfinder because I didn't care.
If not, then who cares? With certain exceptions (countless White Wolf products, The Window, the 4e PHB on Evil characters, etc.), games usually present the rules of the game to you and do not editorialize on whether or not you're playing the game wrong. If I open a book and am presented with a block of rules for how to grapple someone, I'm going to just review them on their merits.
If you say, a month in advance of my seeing the actual rules, that the rules for grappling in (this game) are terrible and you provide reasons why, I'll either agree with you or not, but your presentation of the rules will be in the context of a debate rather than "here's some rules we wrote". If you don't provide any reasons OR rules, I'll just assume you're a jerk.
Like, I don't feel insulted just because Green Ronin presented new grappling rules in Mutants & Masterminds. I'm dismayed because they're worse than 3.5e's in every way. I don't feel insulted just because Paizo presented new grappling rules in Pathfinder. I'm waiting on the bestiary, but slightly saddened because an early (i.e. pre-Bestiary) math analysis seems to show that grappling people is now rather unlikely to succeed at any level. I'm not really even insulted about Wizards of the Coast's new grappling rules, but the fact that they started a debate with their ad copy - 3.5e's grappling rules SUCK and STOP THE GAME whenever they come up - and then presented a set of grappling rules that don't allow you to actually restrain someone annoys me, because I end up thinking "Well, at least 3.5e's worked, you jerks!"
EDIT: For example, if I somehow wiped all memory of the pre-4e flame wars and 4e from my mind, then picked up and read the 4e PHB, I'd still think that 4e's grapple rules were lame because they omit what I feel is the actual point of grappling, but I wouldn't have the idea in my head that they were designed because 3.5e's sucked most foully, just that they apparently tried to streamline things and failed.
Quote:
Pretty much every designer that comes up with a modification of the base rule is saying "The original rule sucked...here's a better method".
For some version of "sucked", sure. But if you just present the rules and what you believe to be their advantages, you tend to get more of a neutral analysis of the rules. Difference between "4e is three times faster because we painted it red!" and "4e is three times faster than 3e, which was often so slow our playtesters fell asleep at the gaming table!" and all.
Last edited by Imban; 9th September 2009 at 05:25 AM..
As for criticizing, I think you're dealing with guys who worked with 3e more than anyone else, and who weren't fans.
I think they all were fans, at some level or another. That doesn't mean they believed the system was perfect. Their job is to improve the areas they either feel need improvement, or that they find others feel need improvement.
In fact, I will argue the feeling that D&D needs improvement goes back to the beginning. Just about every D&D campaign I ever played in wasn't played "by the letter of the rules" completely. Some had lists of house rules, some just ignored and fudged rules without a hard and fast list of changes. None of them played D&D or AD&D with by every rule in the book, or without additions. They all felt D&D needed "improvement." It doesn't mean they weren't fans of D&D.
I think it's perfectly clear that 4E carries a lot over from 3rd edition. If the designers weren't fans of 3E, I think you'd have seen even less carried over.
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I work in account management, and one of the things they emphasize is what I said above. It doesn't matter what the intended message is, when someone is upset they're likely to read negativity into whatever they read.
The message could be: "Hey how are you today? I hope you're doing well!"
If you're upset, you're more then likely to read into it with something like: "Don't tell me how I should be doing! I'm friggin mad! What gives you the right to tell me I should be happy?!?!"
The better example is when you tell your girlfriend that she looks great in that dress. If she hears "You think I'm fat and this dress hides it" you're absolutely out of luck, no matter what you intended with your complement. You fail at girlfriend relations.
If 4e says "This edition makes your game look great" and the customer hears "You hate my game style" the company's out of luck. You fail at customer relations.
Any act of communication includes three parts: the intention, the message, and the reception. Ignore an element at your peril.
__________________ All role playing advice is given without knowledge of you and your group. Only you and your group knows what is fun for you. What you are doing is not badwrongfun. My advice is offered based on what I think might be fun for you to try.
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I this is because we were actually hearing from the designers, without a marketing filter.
It's hard to blame game designers for not being slick and polished marketers.
But you can blame the marketers for letting the game designers open their mouths. I mean, it's great to have the creator of something tell you about that something, but they should have a PR guy read their texts beforehand in case they had to edit a poorly thought of commentary ("Gnomes are Commies!" "Sorcerers are emo suicide kids!" "Shifters are furries!" "Too much work and no fun make Mearls a dull boy!").
Paizo created new grapple rules because the old rules were too hard. How is this not considered insulting to people who actually didn't have problems with the grapple rules before?
Pretty much every designer that comes up with a modification of the base rule is saying "The original rule sucked...here's a better method".
Because they always said that their primary reason for writing PfRPG was to keep 3E in print so that they could keep telling the stories that they and their customers wanted. Every step of the way on their web site and in the design process, they encouraged people to house rule whatever they wanted and that you could play their PfRPG modules with the old rule sets with little problem. Contrast that with the lack of the 3-4E conversion guide and the implicit message that sent.
__________________ All role playing advice is given without knowledge of you and your group. Only you and your group knows what is fun for you. What you are doing is not badwrongfun. My advice is offered based on what I think might be fun for you to try.
"Art is the demonstration that the ordinary is extraordinary." - Amedee Ozenfant, Foundations of Modern Art
"I already have a place where I can get little recognition for my accomplishments, advance at a very slow pace, and have to work hard to eke out minimum rewards for my efforts. It's called work." - toberane.
Last edited by roguerouge; 9th September 2009 at 05:57 AM..
Paizo created new grapple rules because the old rules were too hard. How is this not considered insulting to people who actually didn't have problems with the grapple rules before?
I didn't have any problems with the 3.x grapple rules. I'm about to start using the pathfinder grapple rules. I don't feel like I'm being insulted.
Quote:
Originally Posted by AllisterH
Pretty much every designer that comes up with a modification of the base rule is saying "The original rule sucked...here's a better method".
I think you're really inflating the divide here - something perhaps symptomatic and indicative of the edition-wars-mentality. What's wrong with saying "The original rule was OK... but here's a different angle on that rule that is more streamlined/elegant/robust/clearer/flavourful/indicative." It's kind of like all the people criticizing 3E because they found the rules too cumbersome at higher levels (even though the majority of these player's game experiences are with low to mid-level play and which played/plays fine). It's like the people criticizing 4E because it does not encourage role-playing. Never let a decent point get in the way of overstated hyperbole.
Sorry AllisterH to single you out here but this type of thing just gets my dander up.
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