Are Gognards killing D&D?

[Wanderer20]

They could release a GHB for 4e, this Gognards Handbook shows how to play 4e with 1e/2e/3e flavourings, depending on your level in the class "Gognard"...

It is a good idea to release a Grognard Handbook, but at that point they could plainly call it "Dung€on$ & Dragon$: 4€"

 

[WayneLigon]

Are the rules for all versions of D&D just that horrible that people only play until they realize the flaws (such as at high levels)? Are gamers some breed that get bored with *mechanics* to the point where not even new and cool stories, settings, and adventures can engage them?

Yes; I wouldn't say 'bored' but that I can only take bad mechanics for so long a time befire I have to play something else.

A sufficently good GM can make you ignore or overlook bad mechanics for quite some time, but those GMs are relatively rare. In the hands of an average GM, the system matters a great deal more because it's more obvious. (Also, I've noticed that the really good GMs also ignore or change parts of the system themselves, in a transparent way that you don't always realize is happening unless you're very familiar with the rules yourself).

For many years, I'll say that I only played D&D because it was everyone's second choice. Everyone, including me, had another game in mind as their first choice of a game system to use but none of us could agree on what that was so we all played D&D as a second or third choice. Campaigns wouldn't last all that long, though, and we'd eventually have to change to some other game when we couldn't take D&D's rules anymore.

The rules were badly dated, and were not getting any better while we had a number of fourth and fifth generation RPGs that were doing well and doing so with very nicely-designed rules systems. They had moved away from being 'alternatives' to D&D to being better than D&D.

Now, 3E solved a lot of those problems. In fact, it solved the majority of them. After 3E came out, our consumption of other RPG systems dropped to virtually nothing. I could, if I needed, play 3E another seven years, easily. There are still a lot of things I'd like to fix, and a lot of things I'd like to change, but I could live with 3E as it is now. I'm excited by 4E, though, because it promises to fix some of those problems (such as high level play).

There are some things I still won't like, I'm sure. One thing I don't like, and one thing I think hurts D&D more and more as time goes on, are the sheer number of rules. I think we're seeing the end of the 'huge books of rules' era of game design simply because a lot of people just are not going to put up with learning that huge pile of text. My druthers would have been a D&D that took up a single 200-page book, myself.

Why are RPGs so flawed in this manner that they need perpetual revision in a way that other games do not?

Because other games have a definate sharp focus, along with a defined beginning, end, and goal. RPGs don't have those things, so they are very open-ended in what you can add. They also have a greater number of rules than any other kind of game. With more rules, you'll eventually come to the realization that there are better ways of doing things, and you implement those things in a new revision.

And going forward, 4e and onward... will this always be the business model? New rulesets, continual tinkering, and so on? Is it destined to be a game that its players ALWAYS look at and say "It's not good enough yet"?

I would say that it always has been like this; almost all other RPGs are (Call of Cthulhu is the only game that comes to mind that has not had - or needed - a significant revision during it's lifespan) like this. Remember that the first 20 years of D&D's life is an abberation brought about by a company that didn't listen to it's customers. People tried for many, many years to tell TSR 'change this, change that', and they might as well have been blowing in the wind.

It's not a 'business model', per se, it's the normal way of doing things: eventually, you come up with better ways of doing what you were doing before, and implement those changes.

 

[Maggan]

Why can't you bring in new gamers to old rules, like chess, Trivial Pursuit, or soccer manage to do?

The rules of most games change and evolve a lot more than what most of us think they do.

E.g., the rules of fotball (or soccer, as it's also known) are constantly changing and evolving to fit the changing circumstances and technology that is developed.

Chess has been severely revised during the course of the game's history, although I don't know enough about the game to know if there have been more recent changes.

Trivial Pursuit ... I don't know if the basic rules are revised, but there are no shortages of special editions with various "enhancements", to bring new gamers to the game.

/M

 

[Riley]

The rules of most games change and evolve a lot more than what most of us think they do.

I have a reproduction of the 50's version of Risk, and the rules are different from those I grew up with and play.

IIRC, the biggest difference was that you had only had one army on each of your territories at the beginning of the game. (For those those know Risk, it should be obvious that that single change would make for a much slower and longer game.)

 

[Spinachcat]

Can somebody please explain to me why this is?

Sure!

It's all about selling new core books to the same people. You can generally only sell one copy of Clue or Monopoly to a family. Rarely do they buy another copy regardless how many "rules flaws" may exist there.

How do you get someone to buy the nearly-same game twice or three times or four times?
How do you get the next generation to buy the nearly-same game? You change the artwork and you do enough tinkering to exclaim "It's Improved!"

Are gamers some breed that get bored with *mechanics* to the point where not even new and cool stories, settings, and adventures can engage them?

Internet Posters are an itsy, bitsy part of the hobby, but they bitch the loudest. Most actual gamers just want a good time with cool stories, settings and adventures and in reality could not give a damn what the mechanics may be. The GM tells them what dice to roll and boom, adventure away!

I say this with 25+ years of convention GM experience meeting thousands of gamers of all kinds for all sorts of games. Only a tiny fraction really give a damn what version they are playing as long as they are having fun.

 

[JohnSnow]

I brought this up in another thread, but this seems like an appropriate place for it.

I think a lot of what's going on now is a natural result of a new edition. Everyone who plays D&D plays it differently. If you have problems with something in the current rules, you would like to see it fixed. If it's never bothered you, you probably have other things that you want to see fixed more.

However, I think the longer you've been playing, the more likely you are to regard "how you play" as "the way everyone plays" (or possibly "the way everyone ought to play" - more on that later). As a result, when you see WotC changing something about the game that you either don't see as broken or that you like, you're more apt to believe they're ignoring their audience than to consider the possibility that "the way you play" might actually be in the minority.

Technically, it's only grognardism the way most people mean it when that attitude becomes, "well even if I AM in the minority, the majority is WRONG!" I think most people here are operating under the assumption that their playstyle IS the norm. Therefore, when they see WotC changing the game in a way they dislike, they assume that WotC is ignoring their audience.

I assume WotC is changing the game to reflect the tastes of the bulk of their market. It is a truism of change that the changes they are making will not appeal to everyone. If it's sufficiently divergent from the way you want to play the game, you don't have to play it. That doesn't mean the new game "isn't D&D," it's just "not your D&D."

We all need to be aware that the way we play D&D isn't the only way to play. We all like to think our playstyle is superior, but the truth is that different playstyles are just that - different. And WotC has to design the game to appeal to as many different styles of play as they can. But inevitably, someone will be left out. There is no way to write a game with ANY rules or ANY story and avoid that.

 

[GVDammerung]

Grognards _ARE_ D&D, which is why a goodly bit of 4e has its head up its rump. Grognards are a disproportionate part of the audience. Abuse your 'Nards and see what you get. Wotc is going to learn this lesson the hard way with 4e. 4e will sell well but not well enough.

 

[AWizardInDallas]

From a D&D Grognard

Respecfully submitted, I find the question this post posses just as inflexible as the group of people it segregates from the general population. There are in fact a very wide range of opinions on the topic of D&D and 4E and they are all quite worth while. I myself would be considered a grognard by the narrow definition here. I have been playing since the age of thirteen and am apparently really old. Hahaha!

But it would appear that applying labels isn't just an old man's game. Is there, after all, a term for supporters of 4E? I've not seen one if there is. I'm not particularly insulted of course, but I do agree that this post is flamebait (as someone eloquently put it) and serves no real purpose. However, this is the proposition I disagree with most:

So, before you start to rant in threads about how this and that are not how they did it back in the day, ask first "is this going to attract new players"? If the answer is yes, then its good for the game. Start looking at you children and nephews, at those punk kids across the street. What would it take to get them to start gaming?

I disagree with the proposition that anything that draws more players to the game or hobby should be added to it. Where do you draw the line? Should they add greys to the available list of races? Why not add androids and dolphins? How about adding a laser pistoleer character class and have magic items that run on rechargable batteries? Yeah, go real "Barrier Peaks" with the whole game. It's what the kids today want so we must give it to them for the good of the game? Really? I'm mean, as Shrek would say, really, really?

Um, no I think such kids would be happier with a different game and there are many, many games out there.

Also, according to many here the mixture of elements is what has made D&D the so-called mish-mash it allegedly is today. I have been playing D&D since 1E. I loved 2E. I've written Dragon magazine articles, I loved it so much! It was a better looking game. This may come as a shock but I was in full support of 3.5. I was fortunate in that I didn't get burned (economically) by playing 3.0. I waited until 3.5; the rules are just better but I am still disappointed with the cartoonish, gothic, punkish artwork in most of its pages.

I've not spent a single word attempting to disuade anyone from purchasing 4E and that even extends to my game group. They just happen to dislike some of the changes, same as me. Oh, and my youngest player is thriteen, same age I was when I started, and he doesn't like the changes either. He can't be a grognard though because he's not old enough. Hahahah!

Do I plan to buy 4E? No, but I do plan to look at the SRD and house rule what I like. I don't think D&D needs a complete reboot because the grapple rules are a little slow or because a sassy little Frenchman says so. I happen to think that doing so is motivated by economics. That's my opinion and I should be welcome to it.

 

[AWizardInDallas]

Grognards _ARE_ D&D, which is why a goodly bit of 4e has its head up its rump. Grognards are a disproportionate part of the audience. Abuse your 'Nards and see what you get. Wotc is going to learn this lesson the hard way with 4e. 4e will sell well but not well enough.

I agree. I also believe they no longer want us in their customer base. We're just bad for business.

 

[nothing to see here]

I'd like to point out the personal aspect, since a lot of people seem to be glossing it over in favor of tsk-tsking people who won't accept random product shoved down their throats on the basis of a brand name.

A lot of us grew up with this game. Before the Internet, community was very much a sense of where you lived and who lived there. Star Wars was brand spanking new. A sense of wonder was evoked largely by books, by dreams, by storytelling, by night games (haunted houses, tag, flashlight wars, etc.) In such a world, the idea of a shared and communal sense of wonder was just coming to the forefront, and it was awesome. I cannot lie to you, it was one of the most awesome things I've experienced in my life, outside of love, family, travel and learning to read. It was a revelation.

People who want to hold onto their 1E are, quite often, holding on to a reverence for their past.

Is that inconvenient for people who want 4E to succeed? Probably. When I want quick-and-dirty, visceral, action-based fantasy action, I play WoW. When I want to relive my past, I play D&D.

That's just the way it is. Yup, I'm one of those proverbial semi-wealthy guys who hasn't bought a Wizards product since 1998 in the Greyhawk renaissance, when it was clear that they were genuinely interested in stoking the old flame.

Surely there will be something in your life that will make you feel the same way 30 years from now, when virtual-goggle MMOs are all the rage and people sneer at you for playing a "book game." You don't understand now, but you will.

That was a beautiful post. I don't post on these boards all that much, but one thing I do chime in about is how much game-system nostalgia, is actually "memories of game-playing nostalgia".

No rule system is able to capture the feeling of being 12 and playing the game at your friends house on rainy Saturday afternoon. The game isystem is not what created the fun, it's what enabled the fun of doing some creative with your friends...and I think, too often, system preference stems from an attempt to recapture those memories.

Of course no system can recapture what it feels like to be twelve. Unless, of course, you play Synnibar.