D&D 5E The Next Generation

underfoot007ct said:

Calling 4e a miniatures game has been said too many times. It is just blatant & brazen edition waring. Which needs to stop now, IMHO.

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As far as a lot of people are concerned, it's an honest assessment of the limits 4e put on itself with its scope and presentation. 4e gave up a lot of breadth of experience in its efforts to seek combat mechanical balance. A poor trade, in my opinion.

Doug McCrae said:

You have to bear in mind that D&D was created by young men - Gygax and Arneson - in their early 30s and mid-20s. It was played by adolescents and teenagers. These were all open-minded people, people without much baggage, without preconceived ideas, ready to try something new just because it seemed cool.

Most of D&D is the way it is because a few young guys in the early 70s thought up some stuff, in a very short space of time, that seemed cool. It's a weird mix of wargame, classic fantasy and 70s pop culture.

D&D was successful for two reasons:
1) It was first to market. This has been borne out by WotC's research.
2) Fantasy was big in the 70s because the world was changing fast, times were hard, and people wanted escapism. No more bright future like in the 60s.

D&D could've had a magic system out of Arthurian myth, or from Stormbringer, and it would still have been a big hit. Most elements of its makeup are totally contingent.

Step forward 40 years. The type of people who play D&D are totally different now. They're old. Those same guys who wanted something new in the 70s don't want anything new in 2012. Their attitudes have calcified. They are set in their ways. They want stuff that reminds them of their youth. They want nostalgia, and they're prepared to pay. If these guys had been around in 1974, in their mid-40s to mid-50s, they'd have *hated* D&D. But they'd be all over Frank Sinatra's comeback, and all that 50s nostalgia like Happy Days.

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This post is awesome in so many ways. I wish I could XP it, but at the moment am not allowed to.

billd91 said:

I wouldn't even call 4e's focus vanilla D&D. It's some kind of tabletop miniature action version of D&D.

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Because 4e has no rules for non-combat resolution. Or players becoming Questing Knights. Or Quest XP. Or other forms of non-combat XP. Or utility powers like Ambassador Imp and Disguise Self. Or rituals. Or rules for vehicles. Or a cosmology that deeply permeates the design of most of the games core story elements.

billd91 said:

As far as a lot of people are concerned, it's an honest assessment of the limits 4e put on itself with its scope and presentation. 4e gave up a lot of breadth of experience in its efforts to seek combat mechanical balance.

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Whereas the 3E PHB and DMG are just chock full of these amazing rules for social conflict resolution. And races. And ruling kingdoms. And weathering a storm in one's ship.

Seriously, we've all read all the core rulebooks. It's one thing not to like extended conflict resolution mechanics. Or the ritual mechanics. Or paragon paths as a technique for integrating PC development into the ongoing scope of the campaign world fiction. It's a different thing to talk about a game as if it doesn't include these things.

B.T. said:

What do the people want? Well, they don't want 4e, that's for sure.

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My understanding is that the commmercial audience for 4e is more-or-less on a par with the commercial audience for PF. And that perhaps it is a little greater when DDI subscriptions are factored in.

Are these players no longer part of "the people"? Are they no a relevant target market for D&Dnext?

Morrus said:

I was talking about young teenagers. If they have disposable income compared to an employed 35 year old, then paper routes pay a heck of a lot more than they used to - and I'm quitting this malarkey and getting myself one!

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Apparently paper rounds are worth £18 a week and a £100 tip at christmas nowadays...

Btw, I don't think we have any need to continue any 4e snark, bashing or defending in this thread. Thanks.

Excising the old influences from the future of D&D would be a mistake. Older does not mean irrelevant, and has been pointed out a number of times upthread, you don't want to alienate those people who grew up with the older references. Makes sense to me. Consider that aspect of my argument retracted.

However, you cannot tell me that support for games reflective of newer media and stories and such doesn't belong in D&D, or should be relegated to splats (as someone mentioned upthread, not sure who or where). As players of psionic characters know, having your stuff relegated to a splat is largely analagous to it being among the largely-ignored part of the demographic. Whether that's true or not is irrelevant - that's the perception.

To the idea that the game shouldn't change based on the whims of current culture - ya, I can see that argument. But there is an underlying current to media, general sentiments you can pick up on if you expose yourself to enough of it that are reflective of changes in the next generation's thinking. Arguing that new things like Avatar or Harry Potter are fads that will fade from the cultural conscious in a few years is facetious - undoubtedly a large portion of the works in Appendix N are almost completely unheard of today. Sure, some references are still present (LotR, as probably the most obvious one), but I'd be willing to bet that a large percentage have since faded from public knowledge, because they were - essentially - fads.

If the issue is that D&D has become so self-referential that you can't modify or adapt or even just outright add new things to account for cultural change because it would be disruptive to what D&D is, then... D&D is doomed to failure. Maybe not now, maybe not twenty years from now, but it will die. The question is no longer one of "if," but "when."

There is something to be said for remaining true to your roots. Holding on to the traditions that have made D&D what it is isn't a bad thing, necessarily. But it is if that comes at the expense of growth, of change, of adapting to the cultural environment in which new gamers will be coming to the fore, then the future holds only stagnation, and D&D will be - at some point - forgotten.

I guess this attitude is why we have Vampire as a class, and people clamouring for a Werewolf class, because many seem to want their pet book/show/film/cartoon/comic book/video game etc represented in D&D.

Morrus said:

On the subject of it aiming primarily at the youngsters:

I disagree. Firing your existing customer base in a risky attempt to create a brand new one is the definition of corporate suicide. If I was in a boardroom and someone said to me "Hey, this brand's strength is that over 40 years it has built up a fervent and dedicated customer base! That's awesome; what an advantage! Many busineses would kill for that! Now - I have an idea. Let's get rid of all those customers we built up over 40 years, and just start again from scratch and try to get new ones instead!" then I'd fire them on the spot.

That experiment has been tried with 4E, and it failed. Half the player base went and played Pathfinder instead. Sure, some new blood came in to embrace the brand, but a lot of old blook left; result: Pathfinder now vies with D&D for the top spot. One great definition of insanity s to try the same thing repeatedly and expect different results.

Expansion of the customer base is great and all, but the first priority should be consolidation. Play to the core strengths and get those players back. There's a time and a place for opening up new demographics, but I don't believe right now is the time.

And those lost customers are probably easier to win than brand new customers. Not all of them, but enough will still have a vested interest that winning them back is at least something that has a reasonable probablity of success if they get it right.

D&D is an aging hobby. A large percentage of the customers - the ones with the most money, incidentally, and the ones most able to bring in younger players (their kids) - are older. Ignoring that would be a risky move.

Consolidate, then expand. Losing the older demographic would be more disastrous for the game than not bringing in a bunch of fresh youngsters right now.

I don't disagree that some more modern fictional tropes could be embraced; anime is too far off-track for me by a long way, but certainly there have been great fantasy properties created in the last couple of decades. Classics like Lord of the Rings, though, are also vitally important influences. Heck, there's a new Hobbit movie coming - Hollywood certainly thinks there's an audience for older material!

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Except for the fact that the older fan base is far more volatile, abrasive, and even abusive than the newer fan base. I generally find it hilarious that people will whine and complain about what are generally the most inconsequential of things like Dragonborn.

technoextreme said:

Except for the fact that the older fan base is far more volatile, abrasive, and even abusive than the newer fan base. I generally find it hilarious that people will whine and complain about what are generally the most inconsequential of things like Dragonborn.

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And some, like me, find some of the newer fan-base the most passive-aggressive, with an absurd sense of entitlement (lots of throwing toys out of the pram), but these are just opinions.

One of the the problems I have with Dragonborn is those phallic noses.

pemerton said:

My understanding is that the commmercial audience for 4e is more-or-less on a par with the commercial audience for PF. And that perhaps it is a little greater when DDI subscriptions are factored in.

Are these players no longer part of "the people"? Are they no a relevant target market for D&Dnext?

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i think the numbers are very unclear still but about 50-50 seems a safe working assumption given what we see. You are right that both camp are relevant. That is WOTC's problem. 4E essentially targeted one camp. That lost them it seems about half their customer base. They pretty much ticked off the 3e fansby saying "the edition you like is bad, and we need to reboot the game". They lost people but they did end up making a game that truly catered to the needs of half the base. Now they are basically doing to 4E players, what they did to 3E players (your game isn't working and we need to reboot). This is a very bad pattern for a company that needs customer loyalty to succeed. Now they are telling the 3E and old school crowd, hey we are making an edition to bring you back into the fold. But why shouldI trust them to not turn around and reboot in another three years? I dont want to invest in another line that will die in a few years.

I think the solution is obvious andit isn't a modular system: keep supporting 4e as a live line (maybe with a 4.5 when they really need it) and issue an alternate secondary line that caters to tye 3E base and old school fans (this is not an easy balancing act, i think WOTC lumps these groups together but they are very different).