Forked Thread: [Ryan Dancey's D&D Death Spiral] - D&D doomed to cult status?

[Gentlegamer]

Designed for PCs who want to play a monster (esp the iconic ones in D&D)

Demihumans (elves, dwarves, halflings, gnomes, half-orcs, etc.) are also monsters.

 

[Remathilis]

Demihumans (elves, dwarves, halflings, gnomes, half-orcs, etc.) are also monsters.

So are humans, according to 3 out of 4 monster manuals.

Some are more monstrous than others.

 

[ExploderWizard]

So are humans, according to 3 out of 4 monster manuals.

Some are more monstrous than others.

So true.

30 Helens agree: If its not a PC, then its a monster.

 

[Ariosto]

There were not "whole shelves of supplemental material" published for Metamorphosis Alpha (32 pp.)! The amount published for almost any game (even older D&D and Traveller) is pretty small next to the deluge from 2nd. ed. AD&D on. Moreover, the bulk (apart from magazine articles) was scenarios used to varying degrees (including not at all) -- not rules expansions. At least in my experience, most folks spent more on new games (usually with different subject matter) than on complicating those already in their collections.

 

[Reynard]

There were not "whole shelves of supplemental material" published for Metamorphosis Alpha (32 pp.)! The amount published for almost any game (even older D&D and Traveller) is pretty small next to the deluge from 2nd. ed. AD&D on. Moreover, the bulk (apart from magazine articles) was scenarios used to varying degrees (including not at all) -- not rules expansions. At least in my experience, most folks spent more on new games (usually with different subject matter) than on complicating those already in their collections.

I just want to see a complete version of D&D in 64 or 96 pages. I have often considered distilling the 3.0 SRD to a 10 level set, a sort of Basic plus Expert game focusing on the "best" (totally subjective, I know) part of 3E, mostly to prove it can be done. Alas, I've never mustered the time.

 

[Beginning of the End]

1: Sure, but I've recruited gamers from bulletin board postits, internet forums, usenet, sat in on games at a flgs, and answered ads for the same, and inevitably, better than 90% has been people aged 35 plus. By all means, go after the younger guys, but don't abandon those who've payed your bills for 35 years.

100% of the people I've played with are under 35 years old. I'm 30 myself and have gamed with 20+ people in the past year. Their ages have ranged from 22 to 33.

In 1991, TSR stopped producing an all-in-one introductory version of the game and replaced that product with a pay-to-preview boxed set. When the Rules Cyclopedia went out of a print a few years later, the only true ruleset for D&D became (for the first time ever) a set of three rulebooks clocking in at 700-900 pages and costing in the ballpark of $100.

This is untrue. (...) Actually, if you must know, H1 has a complete copy of basic D&D rules, characters to play with those rules, and gives you everything you need to play up to 3rd level, and a complete adventure to get you there.

I own H1. It's a pay-to-preview product: It contains no character creation rules, no resources for creating additional adventures, and tells you on paragraph 2 of page 1 to go buy the full game if you want to play more than a single adventure.

There's no shame in that: H1 was specifically designed to preview the new edition and it did a very good job of that. But it isn't a full-fledged RPG and it doesn't fill the gateway product niche of the pre-1991 Basic Sets.

The analogy here is Monopoly: Imagine if Hasbro tried to sell a $25 Monopoly Basic Set that included the rules for going around the board once, but didn't tell you what to do when you pass Go and didn't include the rules for buying properties.

Instead the rulebook for the Monopoly Basic Set tells you repeatedly: "If you enjoyed your first time going around the board, you should go out and buy Monopoly." (Monopoly in this hypothetical reality, of course, has a $100 price tag and a 900 page rulebook.)

Hands up everyone who would buy the Monopoly Basic Set.

Hands up everyone who thinks such a marketing strategy might have a negative impact on new players picking up Monopoly.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

If you want to know whether D&D will be shrinking, expanding, or keeping up in a generation, do a serious and methodical poll to determine how many current players have (or soon plan to have) children, how many they have, and whether they intend to involve said children in the game. That is your baseline, right there--cult or more than cult, attracting new blood or not so much, etc.

 

[Aeolius]

...do a serious and methodical poll to determine how many current players have (or soon plan to have) children, how many they have, and whether they intend to involve said children in the game...

Ah, but what if we teach our kids 3e or OGL?

 

[Hereticus]

Computer Games = simulation
Tabletop RPGs = imagination

From one perspective they are close kin; from another they are opposites, even antithetical.

Close kin only in that they are about the same subject matter.

From what I've seen video game players are about power builds and hacking things apart, and there is very little role playing involved. Sentence removed by admin. That's three threads in a row; time for a short break to remind you that threadcrapping and starting edition wars aren't okay. ~ PCat

Table top gaming is more interaction amongst people, and will always have more role playing and personality than video games.

 

[wedgeski]

I own H1. It's a pay-to-preview product: It contains no character creation rules, no resources for creating additional adventures, and tells you on paragraph 2 of page 1 to go buy the full game if you want to play more than a single adventure.

It's nothing of the sort. It's a D&D adventure that doesn't require a PHB, DMG, or MM to play. That doesn't make it a Starter or Basic set, but it does make it a bargain.