No character generation means a "crippled" Basic D&D, and third level is not what it used to be. Considering the demands of the 4E system, I'm sure we're not talking anything remotely on par with Holmes (or even Moldvay) Basic plus Keep on the Borderlands!
The hardbound trilogy is around the same price point (adjusted for inflation) as the (more slender, but more densely packed with monsters and magic) 1st ed. AD&D trilogy, so figure a basic set should be between 1/3 and 1/2 the cost. How appealing it is to a wide demographic makes a difference.
WotC's product is heavy in more than just poundage. It's time-consuming and number-crunching and loaded with geek-pleasing flavor that might not go down so well with people a bit more ... normal. It's sort of turned into the RPG equivalent of Advanced Squad Leader (which may be neater than the old game plus supplements, but is still a LOT more for the hard core than the original best-selling game without "improvements").
But of course that's not the whole of D&D, much less of the RPG industry.
I agree with this post 100%. I think RPGs in general are doing ok, but DnD (which is the 'gateway' drug for RPGs) is flagging badly, and I think that is because it is "
time-consuming and number-crunching and loaded with geek-pleasing flavor that might not go down so well with people a bit more ... normal" as you so aptly put it.
What seems simple and comfortably familiar to DnD players is very complex and alien to most people. What made the game popular in the early days was that it was
1) easy to get into (esp. Basic Set)
2) relatively generic in terms of style*
3) not already closely associated with "Geek culture"
It's points 2 and 3 which are most problematic for DnD right now. I like to bring people into my games who aren't hard core gamers. I find that the idea of DnD is very suspect to people, and this is not without reason. Even though games like WoW have HUGE popularity and mainstream appeal, this doesn't translate to a high comfort level with DnD or other tabletop RPGs (mainly because of DnD). Yes the fantasy genre is more popular, and games like WoW are very mainstream, but the truth is most WoW players deride DnD players, and most people I know are really surprised when I tell them I play tabletop RPGs.
I believe DnD is currently designed to appeal to hard core gamers, and in so doing, captures a large potential audience of people who used to play and stick with it out of a very powerful type of Geek nostalgia, but it's rules force you to play in a manner, with assumptions and logic that are basically part of a certain very deep Geek culture, which pretty much everybody else (including myself) finds very off-putting.
*point 2 means you could play the old game a wide variety of ways. You could play relatively realistic or way out surrealistic fantasy, low or high magic, historical or literary genre etc. The current versoins of the game (3.5 and 4E) are much more tied into one style of playing, kind of an adolescent version of high fantasy. To make the game accessible to normal people again, WoTC or whoever the next owner of the brand is, will have to make something like the old Basic Set, simple, accessible, and something every group can kind of make their own game.
Maybe it's unfair, but I associate the current rules with a DnD fan base I kind of saw crystalized at our local FLGS, which I hadn't darkened the door of for nearly fifteen years. Around the time 3E came out, I started my own houseruled game loosely based on 3E with some friends, some of whom played WoW but none of whom were gamers. The game was going well, and some of my players wanted to know where to get some dice. So my girlfriend and another couple who were in my game went into the nearby store, only to be stared at in lust-stunned awe by the grossly obese, strange, semi-hostile crowd of gamers. It was such a creepy experience none of the girls would ever go in there again, and their enthusiasm for the game faded somewhat.
I think that hard core gamer crowd will adapt to whatever RPG is out there, but DnD should quit catering to them. Design the game not for 47 year old adolescents or actual teenagers, but something anybody relatively smart (including actual grown-ups) can play without having to already know the plot lines of 20 years of bad fantasy novels, comic books, and Star Trek episodes. You might lose some of the 47 year old adolescents, but you'll inject new life into the game. It's the failure to do this due to classic US Corporate short term thinking that has DnD in a Death Spiral.
The baggage of the cultural assumptions the current versions of the game are based on are too much for most people to pick up on. That is why other board games frankly do so much better among normal people - they don't require so much of a buy-in to hard core Geek culture. Until they change that mindset DnD is going to remain in a dwindling fringe.
G.
). This is a fun experience but to me does not in any way replace the kind of enjoyment I get from a real PnP/FTF roleplaying game. 
