The Future of D&D

[TerraDave]

This is a tough one.

Very interesting.

Its been obvious for several months that things aren't really working out for the Wotcies, and they are under pressure to do something. But what? I don't think fortune cards, or the red box, have flown off the shelves, and there is clearly a limit to gimicks like those. A core rework will not be easy. Thats one of the lessons of 4E. Whats "easier". Older material, in some form, back in print? An ultimate or advanced or corrected 4E? Just releasing board games and some limited DM oriented supplements for 4E?

One actual fact, Mearls got his job in May 2010 or so. I know in some podcast, he mentioned something about "years to have an impact". Its clear from his column he has something in mind.

We might find that out sooner rather then later.

 

[Herschel]

Its been obvious for several months that things aren't really working out for the Wotcies, and they are under pressure to do something.

Actually, this is not obvious if you watch how businesses are operating these days, not just game companies. When the market goes down, companies go lean. They look at the numbers and try to go even leaner because they can make more money that way. If they get too lean they can hire back but they are trying to get as lean as possible.

I work for one of the largest corporations in the world. When business for my division was hit by the recession, numerous people were laid off, their jobs were eliminated or moved. It started on teh front-end and later changes kept moving farther back. Now that we've gotten really lean and business has not only stabilized but started picking up again, we've started expanding the front end again. In most cases, people I already know are occupying their old chairs once again.

The "product" is still the same (with minor tweaks, not major overhauls), but corporate wants its profit margin and people won't get in their way.

 

[TerraDave]

I mean, sure, but thats pretty obvious.

You are just confirming that they are under sustained financial pressure? Right?

As for WotC, they have done the firing thing for years, and except maybe Kim Mohan, like 20 years ago under TSR, have never hired anyone back.

And they have never really acknowledged that the "market goes down". They have hardly mentioned the downturn, and we don't know how procyclical these things are. (the great growth spurt for D&D occured in the previously deepest recession...Paizo has been doing well...).

But we are agreeing on financial pressure, right?

 

[Dice4Hire]

DDI makes it less likely there will be a new edition, not more likely.

Nah, I do not think so. DDI needs new content just like the paper book RPG industry does. Sooner or later, there will need to be a rewrite or revamp just like there has been before.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I mean, sure, but thats pretty obvious.

You are just confirming that they are under sustained financial pressure? Right?

As for WotC, they have done the firing thing for years, and except maybe Kim Mohan, like 20 years ago under TSR, have never hired anyone back.

And they have never really acknowledged that the "market goes down". They have hardly mentioned the downturn, and we don't know how procyclical these things are. (the great growth spurt for D&D occured in the previously deepest recession...Paizo has been doing well...).

But we are agreeing on financial pressure, right?

Well, ups and downs don't always match the general economy, but it is hard to imagine there's no connection between the two. I know when my business is running tight my gaming budget inevitably has to shrink. I expect with the degree people are hurting right now toys and games are not exactly the highest thing on people's lists. Hasbro in general is certainly tight. One could as easily interpret things as "D&D is doing fine, it will be OK if we cut back a bit there, that product line is doing OK and doesn't need much investment, lets cut them back a bit and put that cash into G.I. Joe, he's hurting!"

I mean, we just don't know squat really. We might conjecture with some degree of business sense that Hasbro figures the ROI for a guy working on D&D is less than that for someone doing something else. That seems like a sensible conclusion, but it could be only part or none of the real story.

Of course we also don't know relative to other products in the same market where D&D is. That would be a more useful thing to know, but despite all the speculation that goes on we just don't know. It is said that PF is doing as well as 4e or at least competitively but both games could be doing downright terribly too.

 

[TerraDave]

I am pretty confident that PF is not doing terribly. Its gotten into the bookstores. Retailers say its overtaking 4E. They have been hirring (or were pretty recently), and Paizo is not a big company, so must have a tight budget constraint. (Of course, who knows if they will be able to sustain it).

Back to WotC. We don't know. We do know they have been steadily firing people, including now most of the senior people associated with 4E, while throwing out one thing after another: red box, essentials, board games, online CB, new VT, dropping a bunch of products, fortune cards, those legend and lore columns...

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I am pretty confident that PF is not doing terribly. Its gotten into the bookstores. Retailers say its overtaking 4E. They have been hirring (or were pretty recently), and Paizo is not a big company, so must have a tight budget constraint. (Of course, who knows if they will be able to sustain it).

Well, sure, in one sense it doesn't matter what PF or any other RPG is doing, but I'm still quite skeptical. You hear people say this or say that, none of it amounts to much. Humorously the FLGS near me seems to hate 4e, the employees dis it left and right and they have never done Encounters etc. Yet they keep selling it. 4e has quite a lot of shelf space and the books move. I see people buying them. I see all the newest stuff there whenever it comes out. It seems like even if they TRY not to sell it they still do. Means nothing in the overall scheme of things, but it sure seems to be a popular enough game.

Back to WotC. We don't know. We do know they have been steadily firing people, including now most of the senior people associated with 4E, while throwing out one thing after another: red box, essentials, board games, online CB, new VT, dropping a bunch of products, fortune cards, those legend and lore columns...

Yeah, they've been tossing out products left and right. I dunno man. I don't see that as a product that is going down the tubes. They cranked out a lot of books and there sure are plenty of people buying the stuff. Doesn't mean it conforms to whatever Hasborg wants for a successful product, but if you're number 1 in a market and still can't make money there's something wrong with the business you're in...

 

[Mithreinmaethor]

I was looking through the Origins tweets and found the winners of this years Best of Awards.

Best Roleplaying Game
The Dresden Files RPG: Your Story
by Evil Hat Productions


Best Roleplaying Supplement
The Dresden Files RPG: Our World
By Evil Hat Productions


Best Board Game
Castle Ravenloft
By Wizards of the Coast


Best Traditional Card Game
Back to the Future: The Card Game
By Looney Labs, Inc.


Best Family, Party or Children’s Game
Zombie Dice
By Steve Jackson Games


Best Gaming Accessory
Cthulhu Dice Bag
By Steve Jackson Games


Best Miniatures Rules
DC HeroClix Blackest Night Starter Game
By WizKids/NECA


Best Historical Board Game
Catan Histories – Settlers of America: Trails to Rails
By Mayfair Games


Best Game-Related Publication
Shadowrun: Spells and Chrome
By Catalyst Game Labs


Best Play-By-Mail
Legends: The One Ring
By Game Systems International Limited

The original article can be found HERE. And HERE is a list of all the Nominees.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

Some interesting points.

General bonus progression (to hit particularly, but others are relevant as well) is a big one. Right now 4e assumes it will come from a number of sources, half level, ability score, and enhancement at the very least. Several questions beg to be answered here:

Is it necessary to have an ever increasing to-hit bonus at all? In many respects I don't see that this actually works very well. It forces the game into a 'treadmill' format for one thing. This was primarily intended to provide a sense of progression, but is it really doing that very well? Is it necessary or are there already other good ways to accomplish this? In other words what if you just blew away all progressing to-hit bonuses? Monsters would still have increasing damage output and hit points. Low level PCs would have SOME increased effectiveness against higher level monsters, but you'd still have plenty of scope for increased threat level. Defenses would obviously no longer progress either, but higher level monsters could still certainly have somewhat increased defenses (and to-hit as well for that matter). You would now be free to provide things like enhancement, feat, etc bonuses as genuine rewards to the character. A +1 sword would forever be an advantage of the same degree throughout the character's lifetime for instance.

Honestly I do not see the problem here. I know people have issues with plussed items and feat enhancements but the arguments i have seen seem more concerned with perceived pressure to optimise and class balance issues.

The same issues arise with ability score bumps. They channelize characters into narrow specializations in a rather artificial way. The fighter cannot be a decent bowman because his crappy dexterity (even if it starts good it will soon be crap compared to his ever increasing STR) means it isn't a viable path. There are work arounds like some feat patch or alternate sets of STR based powers to use with a bow, but they have their own disadvantages.

Here I will go along with you but is the next edition goes with a zero power curve (ie no level based enhancement) then I would be in favour of keeping level bumps if only to make epic character more badass than herioc tier ones.

Again this rears its ugly head with skills. If skill bonuses were simply absolute values that didn't increase with level then certain issues people have had with the skill system go away. Again it allows characters a broader range of abilities that remain relevant throughout their careers. It also kills off the vast majority of the growing gulf between the best and worst skill bonuses as levels go up. It would open up skills working vs defenses in a much more equivalent way to attacks, which again fixes several awkward little problems and opens up more design space.

I agree wit the first part but what growing gulf. The only source of growth would be the growing ability scores, or from feat investment. The latter is I think fair enough and the former stems from the ability boosts.

Many other issues suddenly go away as well, such as the dichotomy between heavy and light armor and all the subsidiary issues with non-dex light armor classes and the need for various feats and class features that patch up that mess. The armor system is also simplified with no more need for 'masterwork armor' or the uneven armor bonus increases of Essentials (which is basically the same thing). Again an enhancement bonus becomes something that remains relatively advantageous throughout the character's lifetime.

Combat is nicely tactical and in many ways elegant, but the system is overcomplex in ways which haven't really panned out. There's no need for the level of complexity of immediate action types and OAs for instance. This stuff could be substantially streamlined. It would impact a lot of powers and whatnot but presumably the power system would evolve to match.

Powers themselves are a large mess IMHO. The level of distinctions were too fine-grained. This has led to a plethora of powers which deploy a vast array of very similar but not identical effects. In play they really aren't all that distinct except in terms of fluff. A lesser number of power choices with greater distinctiveness between powers and specific types of effects more restricted to specific power types would make more sense, be vastly simpler on the players, provide the same degree of tactical flexibility, and move a lot of build distinctiveness that is now forced into other elements back into powers. This would make it easier to build out specific concepts as they would be much closer to just 'pick this and this power' vs the need to plan which 5 feats etc you have to juggle into place to make your concept work. This would be a great easing of the design burden on developers too and lower the bar to new content.

I could go on. None of these things are really serious issues with the 4e engine CONCEPTUALLY as a straight d20 based roll-high combat system or the basic concept of defenses, saves, conditions, structure of the tactical game, etc. They are simply issues that arose organically out of the details of how that engine was implemented and which have had negative impacts on the rest of the game. I think this is basically due to the fact that the game was a fairly new design and the developers couldn't easily see what the impact of each decision would be until they implemented it, at which point it was very hard to go back and change those decisions since it meant reworking everything else on top of that. So the core engine design froze pretty early on, and everything else had to work around the lumps.

Notice too, EVERYTHING I propose is almost entirely subtractive. Subtractive changes to the game are not really possible using an exception based system of extension design. 4e is great, but it does a few too many things. Simplifying the core engine by 30% could turn a very good game into the RPG of the century.

One of the things that strikes me is that issues of this sort are very likely over the lifetime of any crunch heavy game with the slpat output of D&D.

 

[MerricB]

The last set of ICV2 figures for Q1, 2011 had Pathfinder back in #2 behind D&D.