The Escapist on D&D Past, Present, and Future

[Aberzanzorax]

Not if you're the parent buying the books for a kid. Parent walks into a store, asks what they have to spend to get a kid without a group yet into D&D, the store owner will point to the PHB, MM and DMG. That's $90. That's a lot to drop on a "We don't know if he'll like/do it".

And if you're a kid, $90 is a large drop in the bucket.

Hell, I want to give the new books to a kid and I feel $90 is a lot.

Well, yes and no.

I wouldn't spend that kind of money on my son's friend at a birthday party.



But if my son wanted to learn to play the guitar or trumpet, I'd go for it at that price. (or even up to $200 if he was serious).


If he wanted a season of sports lessons at that price, fine.


If he wanted to engage in my very favorite hobby with me at that price...hells yeah!



$90 is both a prohibitive and trivial amount of money...and that distinction is made by the priority of the object the money is spent upon.



My son (age 6) already has inherited one of my 2e monstrous manuals, my 3.0 monster manual, and the WotC book of dragons and book of monsters (can't remember full titles and I'm not waking him up to find out).

That's approximately $30, $30, $20, and $20, if I'm estimating correctly ($100 for NOT EVEN PLAYING THE GAME). I'm not rich. I'm sharing my own hobby and it's history with my son (he also has my old MASK and Transformers toys...none of which are in Ebay condition).


He knows the types, breath weapons, and ecologies of the dragons (chromatic, metallic, and gem). He has favorite dragons (mercury and crystal). He has favorite other monsters (medusa, hydra, catoblepas-lol-, thokka/thoqqua--for some reason, and more).


I dunno...I guess I'm rebutting that gamer dads are unwilling to drop $90 on a game to share with their sons (where sports dads might drop $500 on lessons, practices, equipment, et. al. for their own sons).

 

[Rechan]

Well, yes and no.

...

I dunno...I guess I'm rebutting that gamer dads are unwilling to drop $90 on a game to share with their sons (where sports dads might drop $500 on lessons, practices, equipment, et. al. for their own sons).

A gamer parent is a whole hell of a lot different than a non-gaming parent. My comment was aimed primarily at non-gaming parents. I know someone who works in a game store. This was a recent conversation:

Parents: "HI we were thinking our son might like D&D, so we're looking for books for Christmas; what do we need to get him started?"
Clerk: "Does he have a group?"
Parents: "No."
Clerk points to the three books.

The parents went with a Munchkin card set instead.

 

[bhandelman]

(I am also a bit perplexed at the decision to make the Neverwinter game an MMO. Sounds like something a bean counter would decide after reading a news story about WoW. D&D has a very high reputation for single player games with added multiplayer, but non as MMOs. Also the MMO market is very unforgiving and imo oversated. A good single player 4E game with added toolbox and DDI connectivity would have served the D&D brand better)

Neverwinter Nights, back in the old school AOL pay by the hour days, was the first graphical MMO I ever heard of. At the time, all we ever played were MUDs, Neverwinter Nights was this amazing concept of playing an RPG on the computer with other people. People would waste hours online (paying for every single one of them) hoping for a spot to open up so they could jump into the game. To say that DnD, and specifically Neverwinter, are not names associated with MMOs isn't true at all. Granted, this was 20 years ago, but they were the only decent game in town for years.

 

[bhandelman]

Did you actually play d&d back in the mid 70's? Because I did, and despite all the times I see people nowadays saying "oh, the rules tell you to use chainmail for combat", i don't think anybody did. Certainly none of the people I gamed with, heard about or knew via APAs.

The significance of the chainmail meme astonishes me. It is almost as if people read this on the Internet over the last couple of years and accept it as gospel. It wasn't and it isn't. Really.

My point wasn't that everyone was using Chainmail to play the game. My point was that 4e is not the first edition to use miniature combat rules. Originally, the game recommended you use Chainmail. Soon after, the alternate system became the norm. I didn't get this from a meme, I have a copy sitting right next to me. There are points throughout the original rulebooks where it says things like "noted in the CHAINMAIL rules" or "as detailed in CHAINMAIL". One of the spells, Conjure Elemental, required CHAINMAIL. Goblins and other monsters have the statement "as described in CHAINMAIL" attached to them. Whether you guys like it or not, DnD is descended from a wargame and originally used miniatures. The game didn't stay that way, but to argue that it wasn't played that way until 2008 is false, as is the argument that combat was not the focus of the game until 4th edition.

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

New players don't need to drop $90, though. Most of the time they just need to drop $20 (which was the introductory price of the 3E PHB). If they do a starter set of some kind, the introductory price goes down as well - I was introduced via one of the D&D boxed sets which only went up to 3rd level, but hooked me until I was able to find a AD&D PHB.

Also, if you're learning with experienced players, oftentimes you don't need to spend anything; you borrow books until you decide if its worth it or not.

 

[the Jester]

Before a new group can get started, someone has to read the better part of 1,000 pages of core rules...

I beg to differ. My first 4e experience came out of the 16 page startup rules, or however long they were, in Keep on the Shadowfell. Heck, the first boxed set I played out of didn't have 1000 pages of rules if you includes the module.

The problem is that there is a lack of easily-accessible condensation of the rules for a first-time player. The Red Box should have a 30-page basic ruleset, including enough to make and play pcs up to level 3 (at least) and a basic overview of roleplaying, in it, but the current version... fails.

It doesn't require 1000 pages of reading, it just requires knowing which 16 or 30 pages you really need to read to get started.

 

[Hussar]

Of course, many of those in their original market research are now in the 30's or older, and we don't know what proportion stayed, jumped ship, came on board, introduced their children etc.

That would be my point though. Fifteen years ago, the hobby was dominated by late teens and early 20 somethings. What evidence do we have that the demographic now is any younger than that?

 

[Hussar]

Are we actually debating whether or not D&D is a combat focused game? Really? Still? What is it? 1989 again?

Is 4e heavily dependent on minis? Oh sure. It's taken the 3e presumption that you're going to use minis and extrapolated rules around that presumption. Which does make it a more mini-centric game. Trying to play 4e without minis would be... difficult. Certainly more difficult than any other edition.

However, I'm still really bewildered why this would suddenly make D&D more focused on combat than other editions.

Look, when the rules for determining who goes first in combat are longer than the rules for determining whether or not someone likes you? That means you have a game that is focused on combat. And in every edition of D&D, the rules surrounding initiative are longer and more complex than the rules for diplomacy.

 

[William Ronald]

I found the last article interesting mostly for what it said about WotC's positions -- admitting that 4E made some mistakes and that the market is deeply divided. I honestly doubt that Mearls could say anything else, as it would not seem credible.

Still, I doubt that the market can be reunified. People have gone their separate ways. A new edition may generate some sales, but I don't think that it is easy to rebuild lost trust or brand loyalty. I want to see good products come out of WotC as it is good for our hobby. However, we will manage.

This week I picked up a few things at a local game store and the owner told me that a young man who stopped in a few weeks back for a Pathfinder Society game (I helped him play one of the pregenerated iconics) came back and brought the Pathfinder Core Rulebook. I think that perhaps products around the price of the Beginners Box to the Basic Set to a PHB or PF Core Rulebook will work as an introduction. So, I expect to see one more local gamer -- and I hope that he will meet as many good people and make as many friends as I have through this hobby. At the end of the day, I hold firm to the conviction that all of us have more in common than we might think. Perhaps what unites us as gamers is ultimately more powerful and important than what divides us. My hope is that the teen who came in may one day be teaching his kids how to play RPGs.

 

[Mark CMG]

Are we actually debating whether or not D&D is a combat focused game?

Nope. I explained that 4E is more focused than any previous edition on tactical miniatures combat and then a debate was begun to shift the argument away from the level of focus to whether there always had been a focus at all.

The idea that DnD shouldn't focus on combat or didn't before 2008 is silly to me, considering one of the three main books has been dedicated just to monsters you would encounter in combat since the beginning.