The Supplement Treadmill vs. The Alternatives

[MoogleEmpMog]

But the supplements don't generally make the game more complicated; they typically just make more options available. More spells, more feats, more classes, more monsters. I also think you could argue, based on the hypothetical newbie we're talking about, that a three-foot-high stack of pure setting material is going to seem just as daunting.

I would actually argue that setting material - even if it's not 'pure,' but rather mixed with crunch - is actually MORE daunting to a typical new player.

To take an example from another thread, a new player who isn't familiar with Divine Metamagic is in no way impaired in playing a campaign, playing an effective cleric, or even playing an effective warrior-priest cleric. Should he later incorporate Divine Metamagic because he decides to purchase Complete Divine, he'll become more powerful, but prior to doing so he was not deficient. Unless the GM is running a very intense meatgrinder where only the most elite optimizers have even a chance of winning through, he has no reason to point this out to the newbie.

On the flip side, a new player who isn't familiar with the Forgotten Realms will lack information his character really ought to have - the basic geography of his local region, for example, or the more prominent Lords of Waterdeep if he's a citizen of that 'burg, or that Red Wizards of Thay and Zhentarim are generally not to be trusted. The GM will need to explain to the newbie such basic 'facts of life.'

In other words, setting information usually includes stuff players need to know, or at least would benefit from knowing, from the outset, whereas crunch is usually something that can be added piecemeal as the player acquires more.

 

[mhacdebhandia]

Nope, that's not what I mean. I'm not talking about errata or "fixes," at all, but rather keeping the rules, tone, and feel or the game largely backwards-compatible over the years.

I admit, I'm not sympathetic, because I think previous editions of D&D - to pick a not at all random example, because everyone knows what you're talking about - are, frankly, mired in conservative, ultra-traditional forms of and ideas about fantasy, with a very few exceptions (Planescape, for instance).

I don't consider it a bad thing at all that Third Edition D&D has broadened its horizons beyond the original playstyles - which are still 100% supported if a DM is choosy about his game materials and players. I'm really unsympathetic to any argument that Third Edition shouldn't have broadened itself to something more than Greyhawk-style pseudomedievalism with a dash of Tolkien.

However, you've either missed or ignored my point: you praise Chaosium's approach to releases and new editions, but they haven't produced a new edition, with any meaningful changes whatsoever - and I'm talking about simple errata and system fixes, not a radical shift in tone or horizons - in about fifteen years. They've just reprinted the same stuff, over and over, incrementing the edition number each time.

 

[Ron]

But the supplements don't generally make the game more complicated; they typically just make more options available. More spells, more feats, more classes, more monsters. I also think you could argue, based on the hypothetical newbie we're talking about, that a three-foot-high stack of pure setting material is going to seem just as daunting.
[...]

No, they don't. However, they give the false impression that you need to master the supplements to play the game properly. Thus, D&D is very intimidating to a new players that browse all the rulebooks and supplements at a book or game shop.

 

[Ron]

[...]
However, you've either missed or ignored my point: you praise Chaosium's approach to releases and new editions, but they haven't produced a new edition, with any meaningful changes whatsoever - and I'm talking about simple errata and system fixes, not a radical shift in tone or horizons - in about fifteen years. They've just reprinted the same stuff, over and over, incrementing the edition number each time.

Chaosium don't follow roleplaying game standards in this regard. Their edition numbers are divorced from the rules. However, Chaosium follow the book publishing standard, as they call a new edition every time they change the book contents significantly, independent of any rules changes.

 

[buzz]

No, they don't. However, they give the false impression that you need to master the supplements to play the game properly. Thus, D&D is very intimidating to a new players that browse all the rulebooks and supplements at a book or game shop.

You can't single out D&D in this regard, then. Every major RPG line puts out supplements. Many of them, unlike D&D, don't even have an intro product.

Also, I think there's a point where the intimidation factor ceases to matter. Most of the major RPGs are already asking people to stare down hundreds of pages of rules in multiple books. I think the point at which those who are daunted by such amounts are indeed daunted is early enough that D&D, and most other major RPGs, lost them a long time ago.

 

[Raven Crowking]

You can't single out D&D in this regard, then. Every major RPG line puts out supplements. Many of them, unlike D&D, don't even have an intro product.

I can't think of any other RPG with a wall of supplements like D&D has.

Which ones are you thinking of?

 

[buzz]

Which ones are you thinking of?

Uh...

GURPS, HERO, Palladium/RIFTS, and WoD/nWoD/Exalted stand out as the primary ones. You can probably look at just about any other game line and achieve a stack imposing enough to scare off the hypothetical newbie being talked about. E.g., one guy in my D&D group has a three-foot wide shelf that is all Shadowrun 3e.

Regardless, I think the argument is kind of moot, and veering dangerously into the old "Would D&D sell better if it were 'lite'?" argument. The simple fact is that supplement-itis doesn't seem to have stopped any game-line from finding an audience, much less kept D&D from being the behemoth it is. Not to mention, for every consumer you potentially gain by being "less daunting," you likely lose another by being "unsupported" or whatever.

And, remember, WotC's release schedule is downright glacial compared to TSR in the 2e days.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Not to mention, for every consumer you potentially gain by being "less daunting," you likely lose another by being "unsupported" or whatever.

That is certainly true.

 

[Faraer]

Of all media, RPGs, a medium which you do yourself rather than consume, perhaps least require additional books inherently. And indeed, most D&Ders don't buy them. The nature of what is published is severely twisted by the (perceived) commercial needs of publishers, such as the selling of supplements to players which is largely an innovation of the early 1990s.

IMO, putting out lots of fluff-heavy setting material would be far more of a cop-out, as there's really no design and development effort required, and are much more obviously "supplements you buy to read" than useful tools.

If I'm running a campaign in a published setting, nothing is more useful to me than information about that setting (including adventures set there), despite the one-time insistence of certain Wizards people that only 'crunch' is 'useful'.

Similarly, SKR posted a fairly high-profile rant in the 3.0 days about how the bean-counters at WotC wanted the company to focus on crunch-heavy supplements over fluff, as the former simply sold better.

Because they thought they did, in reference to their dogmatic interpretation of the sales of Lords of Darkness. Their understanding is more nuanced now, as seen in the range of products and the spectrum of player types most products try to cater to.

I think the point at which those who are daunted by such amounts are indeed daunted is early enough that D&D, and most other major RPGs, lost them a long time ago.

These people being the majority of those who would enjoy RPGing, which is what makes necessary the 'sell lots of books to a few people then do it again with a new edition' practice in the first place, and can only be overcome with seriously advertising, and probably changing, the game.

On the flip side, a new player who isn't familiar with the Forgotten Realms will lack information his character really ought to have - the basic geography of his local region, for example, or the more prominent Lords of Waterdeep if he's a citizen of that 'burg, or that Red Wizards of Thay and Zhentarim are generally not to be trusted. The GM will need to explain to the newbie such basic 'facts of life.'

On the other hand, Wizards could, though for whatever reason neither they or TSR ever tried, publish a real player's guide (rather than things like the nothing-of-the-kind Player's Guide to Faerûn) containing what people in the setting would know, minus DM's secrets -- much as Ed Greenwood did 25+ years ago for the players in the Knights of Myth Drannor campaign. (The Lords of Waterdeep are secret except for the Open Lord.)

 

[Chiaroscuro23]

Has any company ever been successful doing this? This seems a much harder sell than supplements. You basically need to generate a new fanbase from scratch each time. And developing a new game each month has got to be a bigger investment than supporting a single one.

Part of the problem with RPGs is that customer demand is so low--it takes forever to play a game and want a new one. Assuming you don't just start another campaign of the same RPG. As noted, video games don't have this problem.

There seem to be two primary ways to deal with this issue and keeping selling more stuff: 1) sell rules-based supplements which can be slotted into existing games (a la D&D); and 2) sell short-run games and fluff-based supplements which are intended to be read. This latter approach is what White Wolf has been doing forever. Their games feature extensive metaplot, iconic NPCs, reams of fiction, and so on. Lots of customers buy Promethean, Scion, and the like to read the book, even if they never get worked into a specific campaign. There are a lot of gamers who spend much more time reading game books than playing with them. A company can tap into that market.

Nor are these the only companies doing this. It seems to me that SR 3 and CP 2020 both took the crunch-heavy road while GURPS takes the other road--you can have a whole bookcase dedicated to GURPS books covering different topics. I'd bet that most of them are never played, because once you have GURPS Voodoo going on, GURPS Bunnies and Burrows is going to sit on the shelf for a good long time. And once you get to B&B, you won't be using your copy of GURPS cyberpunk.

It seems to me that the new wave of gamery-boardgames is sort of the same. I own every supplement for Descent but have only played the game maybe 5 times. Same for Arkham Horror, which I've only played 3 or 4 times. Runebound I've played a bunch, but not even every supplement I own. My wife wants to buy Shadows Over Camelot, but I bet we'll rarely play it (especially as it requires 3+ players so we can't play it without guests.) By comparison, of course, that's a good deal, since I bought but haven't read M&M 2e and new Mage, based on liking the last editions of each. Not only am I not playing those even once, I haven't read them!

This is because I have a bigger budget than gaming time, and I snatch up RPG books when I see them in used book stores. Of course, at this rate I would have been better off investing the money so the time value of money worked for me...