D&D 5E Does WotC suck at selling games?

[ki11erDM]

The two primary reasons players become DMs.

1. Great DMs
2. Horrible DMs

F$*king Truth.

 

[GameDoc]

The two primary reasons players become DMs.

1. Great DMs
2. Horrible DMs

True story.

 

[dogoftheunderworld]

I see what he is saying. Part of the problem is that almost everyone playing D&D right now got started the way he describes. We had someone to teach us and "groom" us into being a DM, if we chose to become one. He's talking about a D&D group springing forth out of nothing-ness. And though, admittedly, this isn't a likely scenario, it is one that WotC/Hasbro should be taking aim at.

I have not bought the 4E or 5E starter boxes yet, so I can't say how they compare; however, the Pathfinder Beginners Box does a decent job at this to my eyes --- but I'm looking through the eyes of an experienced player. It's flashy, in a graphic novel way. It has individual papers for "Do you want to be a rogue?" with basic questions for a player to think about. The DM book has a intro on roleplaying games & being a DM then jumps into the adventure, with sidebars & help text throughout. Then after the adventure it delves into more about creating adventures, being a DM, using the other materials in the box, etc. Granted it is geared toward the 12-13 year old age range -- but does a good job at it's target market.

Target market is another thing to consider. The "tanker of fish" he is talking about isn't just 12 year old kids. It's 12-40 year old kids who are seeing geek culture in a new light and may be open to D&D/RPGs. A starter box will get a different reaction with a group of college students than it will to middle schoolers.


Good Luck & Game on!

 

[Psikerlord#]

I agree with many of Angry DMs points. I think there should definitely be a link for new DMs on the website, with DM tips and tricks. I think the starter set is ok, but I guess I'm not a new player. I agree DnD needs to be advertised more.

Mostly, I'm glad Angry brought this out now while the DMG is still being finalised - it underscores the need for a good tutorial section in DMG.

PS - I trace my dnd beginnings to Choose Your Own Adventure. When moved on to Fighting Fantasy books. Tunnels and Trolls. Then DnD red box set. Then onwards from there. Our group sprang from nothingness, we had no older cousin.

 

[Thank Dog]

I'm curious about the Adventurer's League. That seems like the ideal player-acquisition method (it has a DM there to explain stuff to you, all the materials provided). I can't see how it could reach new people though. I guess someone in the store looking and something else (comics, toys, boardgames) could be interested.

Your wish is my command: https://www.facebook.com/groups/adventurersleague/

I can't actually post the link to the post that I put up but it's there nonetheless.

There's also a particular person on this board from a very similar region to mine who I won't speak for but who is well respected in the community and who has grown the playerbase from (IIRC) around 15 to roughly 40+ since 5e's launch, many of whom are new players.

 

[Jester David]

I think a big problem with the blog is that it equates the popularity of nerd activities with nerds being popular. Nerds aren't becoming more popular; things nerds like are becoming cooler and more mainstream. Nerds themselves are still marginalized. So doing things to draw attention to our nerdiness (such as admitting to playing D&D) is avoided. There's a lot of self shame involved.

 

[Dire Bare]

I think a big problem with the blog is that it equates the popularity of nerd activities with nerds being popular. Nerds aren't becoming more popular; things nerds like are becoming cooler and more mainstream. Nerds themselves are still marginalized. So doing things to draw attention to our nerdiness (such as admitting to playing D&D) is avoided. There's a lot of self shame involved.

Anecdotal experience here to be sure, but I teach middle school. The goalposts of who is the "ostracized nerd" have most certainly moved. Liking "nerdy" things is most definitely cool now, and a better acceptance of nerdy kids is also real, right now. The kids who are on the extreme side of nerdiness, with extreme social awkwardness, anti-social tendencies, spazzy behavior, stinky-kid syndrome . . . those kids still have a hard time, unfortunately (but still better than they did in my day). But the shy, introverted nerd who is more comfortable with his comics and D&D books rather than trying out for the football team . . . they do okay now, in my experience. Leagues different from when I was in middle school in the 80s. Not fond memories. I am truly jealous of many of my nerdy students.

And there is no more "self shame" in expressing love for comic books, D&D, Doctor Who, or other nerdy past-times. None. Every kid in my class can easily sidetrack my lesson by starting conversations about DC vs. Marvel or who is the best superhero . . . the jocks, the cheerleaders, and the "nerds". The lines are too blurred to be meaningful anymore, and they all got mad nerd knowledge from TV shows (animated and live-action) and movies, and almost every kid (still more guys than gals, but plenty of gals) have at least a small comic book collection. And they almost all watch Doctor Who. I'm getting sick of Tardis t-shirts and other Whovian paraphernalia.

It's a good time to be a young nerd. Lots of company and very little hazing or mockery at all. Us old nerds are just still shell-shocked from our formative years.

 

[Jester David]

Anecdotal experience here to be sure, but I teach middle school. The goalposts of who is the "ostracized nerd" have most certainly moved. Liking "nerdy" things is most definitely cool now, and a better acceptance of nerdy kids is also real, right now. The kids who are on the extreme side of nerdiness, with extreme social awkwardness, anti-social tendencies, spazzy behavior, stinky-kid syndrome . . . those kids still have a hard time, unfortunately (but still better than they did in my day). But the shy, introverted nerd who is more comfortable with his comics and D&D books rather than trying out for the football team . . . they do okay now, in my experience. Leagues different from when I was in middle school in the 80s. Not fond memories. I am truly jealous of many of my nerdy students.

And there is no more "self shame" in expressing love for comic books, D&D, Doctor Who, or other nerdy past-times. None. Every kid in my class can easily sidetrack my lesson by starting conversations about DC vs. Marvel or who is the best superhero . . . the jocks, the cheerleaders, and the "nerds". The lines are too blurred to be meaningful anymore, and they all got mad nerd knowledge from TV shows (animated and live-action) and movies, and almost every kid (still more guys than gals, but plenty of gals) have at least a small comic book collection. And they almost all watch Doctor Who. I'm getting sick of Tardis t-shirts and other Whovian paraphernalia.

It's a good time to be a young nerd. Lots of company and very little hazing or mockery at all. Us old nerds are just still shell-shocked from our formative years.

The thing is, nerdiness has always been half related to interests and half related to obsession.

For example, Star Wars. Star Wars has always been mainstream. They were among the top grossing movies. That doesn't happen for something niche. So liking Star Wars was never nerdy. But it became nerdy when you obsessed over it and knew the minutia or watched it all the time, when you collected the toys and read the magazines, knew the secondary characters, and continued to like Star Wars outside of childhood.

Now, comics and Doctor Who and video games have joined Star Wars at the mainstream table. Anyone can like. But when you cross that line from casual fan to obsessive fan you cross the nerdy boundary.
Which makes it easier. Because you can talk about more shared interests so long as you know not to cross the line or demonstrate the overly detailed knowledge.

As for being easier to be a nerd and less bullying, I'd say a fair chunk of that is bullying awareness and teachers cracking down. After fifteen years of regular school shootings from traumatized youths seeking revenge and teachers who remember being bullied themselves, we've become a little more aware of that sort of thing.

But a lot of the blame still rests on gamers in the 25+ mark. Middle-school/jr. high kids might be more open with their nerdity, but young adults and adults are likely still a little wary having grown up being ostracized. They're the ones that need to share the game and be open about the hobby. They're the ones that need to sell the game to middle school kids. Admitting you play and being open about gaming is still a little scary; being judged by co-workers and friends is hard. I'm totally closeted at my job and keep a thin veil between my regular life and my gaming life.

 

[pemerton]

Part of the problem is that almost everyone playing D&D right now got started the way he describes. We had someone to teach us and "groom" us into being a DM, if we chose to become one. He's talking about a D&D group springing forth out of nothing-ness. And though, admittedly, this isn't a likely scenario, it is one that WotC/Hasbro should be taking aim at.

I learned to GM from a standing start, using Moldvay Basic. And I'm absolutely certain that thousands, probably hundreds of thousands, of other kids did the same.

And the explanation for that isn't just that the early 80s was "fad time" for D&D. The explanation includes the fact that Moldvay Basic has excellent GMing advice. It doesn't just present the rules. It tells a GM what s/he is expected to do with them, and walks through simple but very clear and illustrative examples.

So the premise is that WOTC needs to do more to engage with people who haven't played TTRPGs before and convince them to DM. The chicken-and-egg problem here is that this is like asking someone who's never seen a movie to become a director.

In the early 1980s I owned two RPGs: black-box Traveller, and Moldvay Basic. I was given Traveller first, I read the rules, and I had no idea what I was meant to do to play the game. I knew that playing it involved characters who would experience events giving rise to some sort of story, but I literally did not understand how I was meant to do that.

Then I was given Moldvay Basic. It told me how to play. It didn't just present rules, and flavour. It told me what to do with them. Especially, as a GM, it told me how to set up and referee the game. Simply, and with pithy but useful examples. (Such as the lists of possible adventure sites, and possible scenarios. And then the worked exampe of the Haunted Keep.)

I was able to get into D&D straight away. And from that point on I was also able to play Traveller, because I had now been told what was involved in refereeing an RPG.

The lesson I take away from this is that it is possible to GM from a standing start, provided you are told what is actually required.

I'm not seeing the problem with the Skill Challenge example on DMG 77, but maybe I've internalized the Skill Challenge rules too much to notice. It seems to follow the "Running a Skill Challenge" structure described on page 74 just fine. There are checks, DCs, roleplaying, a use of the "DM's best friend." What's the problem?

In the Essentials example, the final (failed) check is a Streetwise check to identify a building. The consequence of that failure is that some thugs, who were earlier scared off with an Intimidate check, turn up again to fight the PCs. The technique in use here is to draw on an earllier element of the challenge (the NPC thugs) to estabishe a consequence for the failure of Streetwise, and of the challenge - even though those thugs weren't themselves part of the framing of the Streetwise check.

That technique is an important one for running skill challengs, or any similar "indie"-style conflict resolution system. But it is not self-evident, and I know from my posting experience on these boards that it is very counter-intuitive to many experienced D&Ders. I am familiar with it, an recognise its use, because I have read advice about in written by Robin Laws in HeroWars/Quest, and by Luke Crane in Burning Wheel. The Essentials rulebook, by contrast, does not call out or explain the technique.

For the DMG example, look at Uldar towards the bottom of p 77. Uldar's player says "Okay, calm down everyone. . . . I empathise with your desire to protect your people, Duke, and I assure you that we want to accomplish the same thing. But to do that, we really need your assistance." And then the mechanical commentary explains that this is resolved as an Insight check. Why Insight? How did the GM and player establish this as an Insight rather than a Diplomacy check? There is no explanation or advice.

Another weakness in the example: look at the opening Diplomacy check - the PC tells the Duke that he and his friends want to help against the goblins. This succeeds. Per the GM's notes for the challenge, this also opens up History. And the GM has to Duke respond "I do remember the Battle of Cantle Hill. Nasty business." What the GM is doing here is having the duke respond in a way that makes fictional sense of the mechanical fact that History has been unlocked as a skill. But there is no explanation that this is what the GM is doing (ie keeping the fiction and the mecahnics in sync.) Nor is there any discussion of how the GM might have had the Duke respond if the PC's Diplomacy attempt had involved a slightly different subject-matter that made it harder to have the Duke respond with a simple download of his past - eg what if the first Diplomacy check made had been an attempt to hose down the conflict resulting from the failed Intimidation? How does a GM respond to that in a way that smoothly unlocks History as a possible skill?

There are GMing techniques at work in these examples, and it is quite feasible to identify them, call them out, discuss them, talk about their scopes and limits, etc. Other RPG authors do this in their rulebooks. I think it is a big weakness that the D&D books tend not to. (And I don't think it's a coincidence that most of the strong advocates of skill challenges on these boards are familiar with similar techniques from other RPGs, where they are better explained!)

*******

I should apologise if this post seems a bit ranty. I'm not hostile to 4e - I think it's one of the best RPGs ever produced and I've GMed it virtually straight for nearly 6 years. (Nor am I hostile to 5e.) I'm just hostile to poor advice - or rather, to a design approach (that Monte Cook called "Ivory Tower") that favours presenting the rules and the flavour as if that's all there is to playing the game, without any attention to explaining the practical details of actually taking those rules, and that flavour, and turning them into a play experience.

I really do think that it's a pity that the quality of advice in thise sense (as opposed to mechanics and flavour) for D&D seems to have peaked over 30 years ago!

 

[Greatwyrm]

So....

has anyone been paying attention to Thornwatch?

Because the stated design goal there of a D&D that's as easy to pick up and put down as Ticket to Ride seems very to the point.

Thornwatch looks neat, but I think it leads to a bigger point. When the Penny Arcade guys basically started evangelizing D&D to their audience, it was the best thing to happen to D&D in a very long time. It was finally a break from the "older cousin" model. It was a genuine in-road to a group of people who should have been "D&D people", because they like a lot of the stuff D&D is generally about, but never had that "older cousin" experience. RPGs will not have robust growth until learning about RPGs is less like joining a secret society.

Coming back around to Thornwatch, I think that project might kill a lot of momentum D&D gained in the PA crowd. Based on the recent clip from PAX, it looks pretty slick. It appears to have nice mechanics and you know it'll be pretty. But the biggest thing is that it takes on the "spending four hours having fifteen minutes of fun*" problem in most RPGs. Pick any edition of D&D, and it will lose on character/adventure prep time to almost any other modern system**.

*I think this is a paraphrased Mearls-ism, but I can't source it at the moment.

**I know it's a work in progress, but have you seen the encounter building guidelines in the basic pdf? They've been working on this how long and that's the first draft they show us?!