D&D on CNN!

[Mephistopheles]

Quite clearly a puff piece, but I say tabletop role playing is well overdue for such treatment.

 

[Hussar]

The boardgame comment could have been a lot worse. But it does carry that boredgame label and RPGs are so far removed from boardgames it has to be revisited almost immediately.

The drama game idea is OK-ish but not quite? Adventure game, where you go exploring. Bit like a solo gamebook with more people and endless choices. But that requires them to know what a solo gamebook like Fighting Fantasy is like.

Nice typo.

The thing is boardgame audiences DWARF RPG audiences. By an order of magnitude. The first run of Trivial Pursuit sold in the tens of MILLIONS of copies. If you were to put all the D&D sales in a bag, for all D&D products ever, you might equal the sales of that one game.

And you want to compare it to things that are even smaller run? Like the Fighting Fantasy books (sales in the tens of thousands)?

It's easier to criticise tabletop RPG players than to simply accept that tabletop RPGs are a more sophisticated medium than boardgames or videogames.

ROTFLMAO!!

Oh, wait... are you actually being serious here? Really?

I am 100% totally cool with this...but why not take the next logical step and say...

Because selling to both of you isn't worth the time and effort?

I know that's harsh, but, at the end of the day, that's what it comes down to. You're not going to sell 2e D&D to a lapsed gamer, because if he played 2e D&D, he wouldn't be lapsed in the first place.

The only real market for OOP versions of D&D are current players. Selling to you isn't growing the market because they already got your money. Nor is selling to me for that matter. They want to sell to that guy who played twenty years ago and got out of the hobby.

Trying to sell him the same product that he abandoned twenty years ago is not a solid business model.

 

[Mishihari Lord]

Why would you read the comments on a news article. Nothing will erode your faith in the collective intelligence of humanity faster.

It's like a train wreck. You know it's going to be horrible, but you just can't look away.

 

[WheresMyD20]

They want to sell to that guy who played twenty years ago and got out of the hobby.

Trying to sell him the same product that he abandoned twenty years ago is not a solid business model.

Other than the D&D brand name and a few superficial similarities, 4e is nothing like the D&D of 20 years ago. It's a totally different game that just happens to have the same name.

Trying to get someone to play 4e based on their love of 1e/2e is a tough sell. A few might be interested, but I'd bet that most lapsed 1e/2e players wouldn't be interested because the game bears little resemblance to what they're familiar with.

It's like trying to sell a British football (soccer) fan on American football just because the two games are both called "football". The two games are so different that being a fan of one probably won't have much bearing on being a fan of the other.

If WotC is serious about getting back lapsed players from 20 years ago, they should make a new version of D&D that resembles old D&D. Since old D&D doesn't require large stacks of expensive rulebooks and large armies of expensive miniatures, I'm not holding my breath.

My best guess is this "lapsed player" effort is probably aimed at getting lapsed 3e players to give 4e another look. The 1e/2e crowd is probably out of reach.

 

[N0Man]

Other than the D&D brand name and a few superficial similarities, 4e is nothing like the D&D of 20 years ago. It's a totally different game that just happens to have the same name.

Trying to get someone to play 4e based on their love of 1e/2e is a tough sell. A few might be interested, but I'd bet that most lapsed 1e/2e players wouldn't be interested because the game bears little resemblance to what they're familiar with.

It's like trying to sell a British football (soccer) fan on American football just because the two games are both called "football". The two games are so different that being a fan of one probably won't have much bearing on being a fan of the other.

If WotC is serious about getting back lapsed players from 20 years ago, they should make a new version of D&D that resembles old D&D. Since old D&D doesn't require large stacks of expensive rulebooks and large armies of expensive miniatures, I'm not holding my breath.

My best guess is this "lapsed player" effort is probably aimed at getting lapsed 3e players to give 4e another look. The 1e/2e crowd is probably out of reach.

The problem is that your opinion here is just that. Just because it's not your preference, and not what you think D&D is like, doesn't mean that it's a universal truth.

I am someone who first saw D&D in the AD&D form, became a regular player during 2nd Ed, and was playing during the release of 3E. My sentiments are entirely the opposite of yours. I felt that 4E more closely resembled the spirit of earlier editions than 3E did, but with a little bit of streamlining and the introduction of more modern game design ideas.

I could also argue some of the other statements are not really in line with my experience or perceptions as well, but it's pointless. The things that bug you may not bother me, and the things I like, you may not care about.

Anyway, I have severe doubts about the success of bringing out a D&D game that resembled old school D&D. I think it would appeal to a niche market, and turn off far more.

In fact, I think stagnation (or regression) is the best way to kill off the franchise. Gaming ideas, designs, and tastes have changed a lot in the last 20 years.

I may not agree with every design decision, but in general, I think it was a good attempt to try to reinvigorate the game and draw in new players. I think that Encounters (the events that this article was basically a press release to get PR for) is an interesting idea also, even though it doesn't really appeal to me.

 

[FireLance]

Other than the D&D brand name and a few superficial similarities, 4e is nothing like the D&D of 20 years ago. It's a totally different game that just happens to have the same name.

I think it depends on what you are looking at.

Certainly, the rules have changed.

However (and IMO) the play experience is still pretty much the same.

 

[wedgeski]

Blah blah blah here we go.

The only difference in our community seems to be that it takes an extra three pages of comments before the edition wars grind into gear.

 

[Rechan]

It's weird.

I'm the world's biggest D&D/4E fan,, but I went through the whole article, and all I could think was "this isn't news, it's an advertisement".

It's not News, it's CNN.

 

[jbear]

I hope not.




Nope. Trying to get former players with fond memories of youthful D&D to pick up the dice again is a good goal. Advertising the latest offering as something akin to a board game is setting out to fail at that goal.

Boardgame familiarity is exactly the type of message you want to communicate to those without any idea what an rpg is. Since the article mentioned that the primary audience for the encounters program was former players the message was aimed at the wrong group.

I live in Spain. Everyone I've told that I play D&D have heard of it. They relate it to something negative, most of them, and already have a biased 'I don't like that kind of thing' attitude towards it. Others, a minority, know of it and are curious about it but have no idea really how it works or what it's about.

Any largescale exposure which can alter, even in a small way, the negative prejudice or mistaken associations people have towards D&D has to be positive.

I'd say even if that means boardgame and D&D are used in the same sentence with a like somewhere in between. Apart from wanting to attract former players back (via the new time convenience of the Encounters design) they want to attract new players as well. Never played D&D? Don't know what its all about? Well its kind of like a board game... you throw dice, you have a game piece which you move around something that likes not too different from a game board... but unlike monopoly the players aren't trying to kill or even bankrupt each other... interested? Let me tell you more...

 

[jbear]

Other than the D&D brand name and a few superficial similarities, 4e is nothing like the D&D of 20 years ago. It's a totally different game that just happens to have the same name.

Trying to get someone to play 4e based on their love of 1e/2e is a tough sell. A few might be interested, but I'd bet that most lapsed 1e/2e players wouldn't be interested because the game bears little resemblance to what they're familiar with.

It's like trying to sell a British football (soccer) fan on American football just because the two games are both called "football". The two games are so different that being a fan of one probably won't have much bearing on being a fan of the other.

If WotC is serious about getting back lapsed players from 20 years ago, they should make a new version of D&D that resembles old D&D. Since old D&D doesn't require large stacks of expensive rulebooks and large armies of expensive miniatures, I'm not holding my breath.

My best guess is this "lapsed player" effort is probably aimed at getting lapsed 3e players to give 4e another look. The 1e/2e crowd is probably out of reach.

I'm going to have to disagree with you. One of my staunchest players has only ever played 1e D&D apart from 4e, which is what we play now. When i put the idea of playing to him he didn't give a flying hoot about what edition/system. In fact he was blissfully unaware that there even existed other systems/editions. Those are just different rules which all guide to the same thing: the game, the fantasy, the fun. All he cared about was the chance to play D&D again.

I'm going to have to disagree with your reference to football and soccer fans as well. I'm a hard core rugby union fan living in spain, the country who are odds on favourites to win the world cup soccer this year in SAfrica. Rugby gets no exposure here. It's all football. So what does a rugby starved sportsfan do in Spain. Well, he starts watching soccer, because that's all there is. It's not rugby. Sure. But it's sport. And it's better than nothing. And it's much much better than curling!