WotC Seeks Unity with a New Edition

LurkAway · Jan 9, 2012

They're even in Forbes
'Wizards' Announce New Dungeons & Dragons: An Inside Look At The Game - Forbes

Hasbro's and/or WoTC's marketing dept seems to be pulling all the stops

In X-Men First Class, Xavier uses the Cerebro to locate young mutants... I wonder if WoTC has a device to locate geeks in big media companies?

Zaran · Jan 9, 2012

"[We are] extremely committed to tabletop gaming and the face to face experiences that D&D brings."

Why do I feel like they said this because they can't figure out how to do online stuff?

Mercurius · Jan 9, 2012

LurkAway said:
They're even in Forbes
'Wizards' Announce New Dungeons & Dragons: An Inside Look At The Game - Forbes

Hasbro's and/or WoTC's marketing dept seems to be pulling all the stops

In X-Men First Class, Xavier uses the Cerebro to locate young mutants... I wonder if WoTC has a device to locate geeks in big media companies?

LOL. Nerdpro?

Truth Seeker · Jan 9, 2012

If any part of it, is compatiable with a 3.5 conversion. Then maybe...if not. I 'll be watching that carousel spin, and spin, and spin.

Philotomy Jurament said:
I stepped off the carousel some time ago. As it goes around, again, I'll keep an eye on it. I doubt I'll be offered anything worth stepping back onto it, but we'll see.

I'm A Banana · Jan 9, 2012

Umbran said:
If you want to be part of the process, yes, you should expect to have to hand over the ideas you put into that process. It is not reasonable to expect to have your cake and eat it too.

Of course it is. When I'm talking with you about how to improve something you want help improving, you don't then own my ideas. I still have them, and I can still go use them elsewhere, regardless of if you take them or not. I understand that a corporate entity is a little different, but it's still possible to leagal-ese that to protect WotC without this sort of intellectual imperialism. It's lazy lawyering, and it's an unreasonable agreement, and it's potentially unenforceable.

BUT ANYWAY, that's not really relevant to the 5e discussion here.

talok55 · Jan 9, 2012

Asking people what they want is stupid because people don't know what they want. WotC should become more like Apple and less like a socialist republic.[/QUOTE]

Well apparently just making games with little thought to if your customers will enjoy playing them or if they capture the D&D feel didn't work out so hot for them. 4E must have been a commercial failure or they wouldn't be announcing 5E so quickly. Pathfinder sought out input from it's customers, and it's been increasing in popularity and stealing players from 4E since it's inception.

Steel_Wind · Jan 9, 2012

S'mon said:
WoTC has had to swallow a lot of pride. To announce a new edition so soon seems to be openly saying they take the view that 4e is a catastrophic failure. I don't take that view as pertains to the 4e play experience - I love playing 4e - but they must know much better than anyone else how 4e sales have been; apparently very much Not Good, at least as compares to their projections.

<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:TrackMoves/> <w:TrackFormatting/> <w

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oNotPromoteQF/> <w:LidThemeOther>EN-CA</w:LidThemeOther> <w:LidThemeAsian>X-NONE</w:LidThemeAsian> <w:LidThemeComplexScript>X-NONE</w:LidThemeComplexScript> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:SnapToGridInCell/> <w:WrapTextWithPunct/> <w:UseAsianBreakRules/> <w

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ontVertAlignInTxbx/> <w:Word11KerningPairs/> <w:CachedColBalance/> </w:Compatibility> <w:BrowserLevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> <m:mathPr> <m:mathFont m:val="Cambria Math"/> <m:brkBin m:val="before"/> <m:brkBinSub m:val="&#45-"/> <m:smallFrac m:val="off"/> <m:dispDef/> <m:lMargin m:val="0"/> <m:rMargin m:val="0"/> <m:defJc m:val="centerGroup"/> <m:wrapIndent m:val="1440"/> <m:intLim m:val="subSup"/> <m:naryLim m:val="undOvr"/> </m:mathPr></w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--> I don’t think you have to use the words ”catastrophic failure”. 4E made money... initially. We all know that along the road since, things have not gone as well as they would have hoped. WotC gained lots of new fans with 4E – and it lost lots of old ones, too.

To be fairthough, 4E kept lots of old fans as well.

There is no argument that 4E hasn’t unspooled as well as WotC might have hoped, but “catastrophic failure” is a significant overstatement.

I think it is fair to view WotC’s “Hearts and Minds” announcement at face value: WotC would clearly prefer to be in a place where it can keep the new fans it made while enticing many of the old ones back in to the fold. That suits its economic interests and it MIGHT suit the interests of gamers, too. So, I’m willing to hear them out.

I’m not sure how they plan to build a Big Tent rules system for 5E or that it even can be successful in that goal – but I’m sure as hell willing to hear them out and judge the new edition on the quality of its rules and the rest of the material that supports it.

Seeing as I am certainly in the upper strata of “rabid Pathfinder fandom”, then I think that says a lot about WotC's potential for success. I think Monte Cook is a great designer and I am confident that he is well able to come up with a new iteration of the game that appeals to a broad swath of gamers.

So that’s all good and I look forward to buying 5E, reading it and playing it, too.

Now, that said, I’m not so sure that WotC is inclined to provide the ongoing game world and adventure material support that I have come to expect from Paizo and its material published for Golarion, its Adventure Paths and for Pathfinder Society. It isn’t that WotC can’t do it if it wanted to --- but I just don’t see that WotC is going to make that sort of ongoing support part of its core business anytime soon - or ever. Certainly, I have not seen any indication that they want to change their business approach and choose to make those kinds of products as part of their core business for the D&D brand.

On balance, that’s probably a deal breaker for me in terms of my “system of choice” – but it has nothing to do with the rules as such or with WotC.

Point is, I’m quite interested in seeing what Monte Cook has in mind for 5<sup>th</sup> ed and I urge all of you to keep an open mind.

thedungeondelver · Jan 9, 2012

Philotomy Jurament said:
I stepped off the carousel some time ago. As it goes around, again, I'll keep an eye on it. I doubt I'll be offered anything worth stepping back onto it, but we'll see.

I was thrown from the carousel, and even though I was disgusted by the experience, Paizo stuck out a hand to try and help me back on...then they were thrown off, too.

drothgery · Jan 9, 2012

Remathilis said:
I get the impression 4e got rushed out the door to appease Ha's beancounters. I get the impression 5e got quick-listed to make up for 4e's being rushed. If 5e is successful, they might be able to slow down the treadmill again.

Maybe to a small degree. But I've been claiming since as far back as the 3.5 launch that there are really only about three years worth of decent-selling products in any edition of D&D (at a reasonably product release rate), so if gamers would accept a new edition every three years, that would be the thing to do. The only reason 3.5 and 4e (presuming a GenCon 2013 launch of the final 5e) held on for even five years is because gamers won't buy new sets of books every five years.

Vyvyan Basterd · Jan 9, 2012

Steel_Wind said:
Now, that said, I’m not so sure that WotC is inclined to provide the ongoing game world and adventure material support that I have come to expect from Paizo and its material published for Golarion, its Adventure Paths and for Pathfinder Society. It isn’t that WotC can’t do it if it wanted to --- but I just don’t see that WotC is going to make that sort of ongoing support part of its core business anytime soon - or ever. Certainly, I have not seen any indication that they want to change their business approach and choose to make those kinds of products as part of their core business for the D&D brand.

One of my hopes with their inclusiveness is that they will actively try to partner with a company like Paizo that can provide the adventure support needed for the next iteration. Paizo would also provide good feedback for what should and should not be included in the new edition. And it may save Paizo the development costs of a Pathfinder 2E and open up more market share for them as well. It could be a big win for the top two in the industry.