Convincing 4th Edition players to consider 5th Edition

[Lanefan]

As a player my personal instinct is to lock up instigator PCs and keep them away from anything sharp or with a red button.

Good thing I'm not playing alongside you, you'd have every character I've ever played in jail in a heartbeat.

If nobody instigates, nothing happens*. And if the game rewards those who don't instigate (e.g. they get the same XP as those who do, or get to survive where the instigator always dies) that's gonna end up as a pretty boring game because eventually nobody is going to do anything.

* - unless the DM drags the party around by their collective noses; and that ain't much fun either.

Lan-"two minutes for instigating"-efan

 

[Aenghus]

Good thing I'm not playing alongside you, you'd have every character I've ever played in jail in a heartbeat.

If nobody instigates, nothing happens*.

Lan-"two minutes for instigating"-efan

I suspect it's a deep difference in perceptions. I prefer a smaller amount of "real" danger in my games, rather than constant paranoia over every footstep. Allowing danger to be often detectable beforehand allows me and people like me to play the game without constant 10 foot pole tapping.

From my perspective extreme instigators get PCs killed unnecessarily, often not themselves, place no value on their own PC or any other surviving, lack the patience to follow plans, and generally represent a danger to themselves and everyone around them. Their mere presence sabotages lots of playstyles.

In actual high threat surroundings they bring death often. Their survival rate rises when the referee fudges lethal traps and monsters to be less lethal as due to finding their antics amusing - the Kender syndrome.

 

[Girochen]

DnD 4E

This really is an interesting post. And let me say that I GM 4E exclusively at this time over all other editions. However, you are overlooking a few small points.

1. DnD 4E was a failure. Until the sales of the "board games" based on DnD, it was on the verge of getting shut down completely. There are not enough sales to make it profitable.

2. Pathfinder, technically, Edition 3.75 of DnD, is growing by leaps and bounds. Personally, I don't like it that much. But that is probably because I don't like 3.5 that much either.

3. DnD is not about a stringent ruleset with limitations based on balance and fairness. This is a Role Playing Game. We are supposed to be playing the character from a story. I remember describing it using this comparison:

Have you ever read a book and the main character does something stupid and you think to yourself. Man that was stupid, I would have never done that.

Well, that is what DnD was originally, making the plot decisions with a group of friends. Not shuffling paper to determine what uberness I could bring to the table. Not shuffling through twelve books to determine what class I wanted to multi into this level to give me optimum uber, or which of the 700 feats I was gonna pick next. Those things were all dressing. You know when you buy a chocolate cake at the store? All the little flowers or baseballs or whatever they dress it up with are not needed. They are superfluous. Such was much of 3.5. The problem with DnD is that it moved away from what made it great and into the area of making money on books and books and adventures and books and yada yada.

What we need is a simple system in which we can role play. Okay, have lots of classes, and races, but keep it simple. We already have a dwarf, we don't need another. Let's not get trapped by the marketing schemes that say we have to have the next book or the next adventure. I made my first adventure map on a piece of binder paper and used it for 2 years. It was one of the best campaigns we ran. Then next one ran for almost 5 years and the party ended up taming a major portion of the continent to create a brand new kingdom. That's DnD.

 

[Hussar]

Going to break up a paragraph here. The two are now in counseling.

What we need is a simple system in which we can role play. Okay, have lots of classes, and races, but keep it simple. We already have a dwarf, we don't need another.

But, that in and of itself, is virtually impossible to do. Simple with lots of classes doesn't work. Simple means that there aren't that many differences between X and Y. With less differences, you lose design space. For example, a game without a codified skill system (such as 1e, ignoring for a second the thief) is very simple. But, it becomes much more difficult to differentiate mechanically between two characters of the same class. The only difference between my fighter and your fighter is stats and possible weapon choice. Some players want that level of customization.

Let's not get trapped by the marketing schemes that say we have to have the next book or the next adventure. I made my first adventure map on a piece of binder paper and used it for 2 years. It was one of the best campaigns we ran. Then next one ran for almost 5 years and the party ended up taming a major portion of the continent to create a brand new kingdom. That's DnD.

And this is how RPG companies go out of business. If you're running the same adventure for two years, you're not buying books or modules or whatnot. Without people buying the next book or the next adventure, RPG companies can't stay in business.

 

[Ahnehnois]

And this is how RPG companies go out of business. If you're running the same adventure for two years, you're not buying books or modules or whatnot. Without people buying the next book or the next adventure, RPG companies can't stay in business.

True, but this ignores the larger issue. RPG companies can't stay in business no matter what they do. Producing supplements is not cost-effective; it's no less of a development cost for a smaller niche than the core rulebooks. Producing content is not cost-effective because it's an even smaller niche. Producing endless core rulebooks or revisions thereof isn't sustainable because books stay in use for a while. Producing online material isn't sustainable because the market isn't interested. (at least not interested enough on aggregate).

No one has really cracked rpgs as a business. TSR succeeded for a while and then went bankrupt. WotC succeeded for a while, blew up things and started over, and now are already blowing things up again and are clearly not doing very well.

Rpgs are inherently problematic from a business perspective because the better people become at playing the game, and the more personally invested they are in it, the less likely they are to spend money on it. That's not going to change.

 

[SKyOdin]

True, but this ignores the larger issue. RPG companies can't stay in business no matter what they do. Producing supplements is not cost-effective; it's no less of a development cost for a smaller niche than the core rulebooks. Producing content is not cost-effective because it's an even smaller niche. Producing endless core rulebooks or revisions thereof isn't sustainable because books stay in use for a while. Producing online material isn't sustainable because the market isn't interested. (at least not interested enough on aggregate).

No one has really cracked rpgs as a business. TSR succeeded for a while and then went bankrupt. WotC succeeded for a while, blew up things and started over, and now are already blowing things up again and are clearly not doing very well.

Rpgs are inherently problematic from a business perspective because the better people become at playing the game, and the more personally invested they are in it, the less likely they are to spend money on it. That's not going to change.

Well it is true that a business can't survive on producing RPG books alone. All of the big companies have more reliable income in addition to their RPG business. Most notably, D&D is far and away a secondary product for WotC, who makes a ton of money off of Magic: the Gathering and related card games. Likewise, most other major RPG producers are attached to companies that make their money off of other industries. An unrelated source of regular income is essential considering the cyclical nature of RPG production.

Of course, it is still plenty possible to make money off of RPGs in the long term, as long as a company pays attention to several key factors:
1) Target new players constantly.
New players (i.e. people who have never played an RPG before) are essential to keeping a product successful. That solves the "the better they are, the less they spend" problem you cited. More notably, it is the only way to increase the overall market of a game. Not appealing to new players limits your potential market significantly.

2)Don't stay too attached to a single game.
RPGs have a life-cycle. They will only be highly profitable for a few years, and profitability will be front-loaded in the first several books. Trying to drag out a game for decades is a fool's errand. Instead, create new editions or branch out and create entirely new games to appeal to fresh audiences and reinvigorate existing fans. A developer should treat their game as a product, not a lifestyle.

3)Build up brand identity and brand loyalty.
Quality will produce brand loyalty, which can be leveraged into selling future products. Simple to say, hard to do.

4)When it would be smart, license your properties out.
If done intelligently, a company can make as much or more from licensing a property as from the original product. Strong brand identity is key to this.


It is very important to keep separate the idea of the success of a company with the life of an individual edition of a game. Just because a game has reached the end of its natural life doesn't mean the company is in bad straits. What is important is what the company does next.

 

[Ahnehnois]

Well it is true that a business can't survive on producing RPG books alone. All of the big companies have more reliable income in addition to their RPG business. Most notably, D&D is far and away a secondary product for WotC, who makes a ton of money off of Magic: the Gathering and related card games. Likewise, most other major RPG producers are attached to companies that make their money off of other industries. An unrelated source of regular income is essential considering the cyclical nature of RPG production.

Of course, it is still plenty possible to make money off of RPGs in the long term, as long as a company pays attention to several key factors:
1) Target new players constantly.
New players (i.e. people who have never played an RPG before) are essential to keeping a product successful. That solves the "the better they are, the less they spend" problem you cited. More notably, it is the only way to increase the overall market of a game. Not appealing to new players limits your potential market significantly.

2)Don't stay too attached to a single game.
RPGs have a life-cycle. They will only be highly profitable for a few years, and profitability will be front-loaded in the first several books. Trying to drag out a game for decades is a fool's errand. Instead, create new editions or branch out and create entirely new games to appeal to fresh audiences and reinvigorate existing fans. A developer should treat their game as a product, not a lifestyle.

3)Build up brand identity and brand loyalty.
Quality will produce brand loyalty, which can be leveraged into selling future products. Simple to say, hard to do.

4)When it would be smart, license your properties out.
If done intelligently, a company can make as much or more from licensing a property as from the original product. Strong brand identity is key to this.


It is very important to keep separate the idea of the success of a company with the life of an individual edition of a game. Just because a game has reached the end of its natural life doesn't mean the company is in bad straits. What is important is what the company does next.

It's fair to say that D&D's success is only a subset of WotC's. But saying that Magic will run a profit and pay for D&D as a brand is not sustainable forever; it does have to meet certain financial goals itself.

I don't particularly disagree with any of those points. If d20 Modern had worked out better, the D&D movie had been half decent, and NWN had been done by Bioware, the brand and the company would be better off. As it is, those things did not happen. The recruiting of new players is the biggest issue of course, and not one that really seems to be going all that well for the industry as a whole.

 

[billd91]

Rpgs are inherently problematic from a business perspective because the better people become at playing the game, and the more personally invested they are in it, the less likely they are to spend money on it. That's not going to change.

If that is true, that may be a change. The survey data from before the 3.0 edition that WotC released indicated that people generally spent more on the hobby after being in it for a substantial number of years. That may indicated that they were a harder-core hobbyist than the shorter-term players and thus may have spent more all along than their cohorts. Either way, there was no real evidence that longer term players spent less at the game.

 

[Ahnehnois]

If that is true, that may be a change. The survey data from before the 3.0 edition that WotC released indicated that people generally spent more on the hobby after being in it for a substantial number of years. That may indicated that they were a harder-core hobbyist than the shorter-term players and thus may have spent more all along than their cohorts. Either way, there was no real evidence that longer term players spent less at the game.

I don't have the data in front of me, but I suspect that's talking about gamers expanding to other games or buying accessories like dice or miniatures (i.e. things that they can get from non-WotC, non-D&D sources). To keep spending more money on the same thing seems an unlikely pattern, and one that is inconsistent with the edition treadmill we've seen.

 

[TwoSix]

If that is true, that may be a change. The survey data from before the 3.0 edition that WotC released indicated that people generally spent more on the hobby after being in it for a substantial number of years. That may indicated that they were a harder-core hobbyist than the shorter-term players and thus may have spent more all along than their cohorts. Either way, there was no real evidence that longer term players spent less at the game.

I spent much more money on D&D in my second decade playing because by that point, I had a real job.

But seriously, all WotC has to do is keep publishing new and interesting things, and I'll keep buying. Despite my strong reservations about D&DNext, it would have to be abysmally awful to make me NOT buy it. The power of hardbound RPG crack is quite strong.