Can we go back to smaller books?

[Ariosto]

New players don't need to know the rules. Heck, players - new or old - don't need to know the rules at all.

Yes! That is the way it ought to be, in my opinion!

Ideally, everyone would learn to play by playing, and Dungeon Masters would learn most of the rules that way and the rest of their trade by apprenticeship. People would never be stuck trying to teach themselves by picking up books and starting at page 1.

In our less than ideal reality, a less imposing presentation of material may be desirable. One problem with the current scheme is the catch that someone with experience can gauge what is really fundamental and needs to be gotten down pat, and what can be looked up (or even purchased in the first place) if and when it's actually useful -- but the absolute beginner lacks the context to take any such measure of the mass.

A more general problem lies in the different demands of (1) a tutorial program; and (2) a reference work.

The Powers and Feats system in 4e -- especially in the forms of cards for players and "stat blocks" for DMs -- can (in my experience) be very helpful for learning "just enough to play". However, I (lacking a DDI subscription) find the presentation in books extremely inconvenient for reference.

When someone online talks about following Hie to the Vanguard with Throw Down the Gauntlet or Myrmidon's Repose, it can call for a lot of hunting to find the items.

 

[ExploderWizard]

Except there is going to be a rules compendium for 4e.

I don't see a published compendium for a rules set that lives and is constantly being updated online as having any value.

 

[Umbran]

I don't see a published compendium for a rules set that lives and is constantly being updated online as having any value.

I dunno. Not everyone subscribes to the online content. For them, a compendium could be useful.

 

[Hussar]

That works if there's an experienced DM on hand to help ease them in. It doesn't help completely new gamers come to the hobby. I came in to the hobby via the Red Box with almost no prior gaming experience - I had to assimilate the rules and make a lot of things up as I went.

If I'd been presented the 832 pages of the 4e core rules as an 11-year-old, there is no way I would now be gaming. And back then D&D didn't have to compete with all the distractions we have now - computer gaming was laughable compared with what we have now, and there were a grand total of 4 channels on TV.

I got into the hobby the same way as well.

However, I think the vast majority of players who've gotten into the hobby in the past, say, twenty years, 1990 onwards, likely got introduced by existing players. I've seen numerous rumblings from both WOTC and in Dragon over the years that stated precisely that.

The idea that someone is going to get into the hobby cold, find four or five other people to join in and play with him or her hasn't been true for a very long time.

 

[Reynard]

The idea that someone is going to get into the hobby cold, find four or five other people to join in and play with him or her hasn't been true for a very long time.

I think this is only true because D&D, and RPGs in general, do not have the same retail presence they had back when the vast majority of players entered the hobby -- the early to mid 80s. Then, D&D was on toy store shelves in game like boxes -- not confined to specialty shops in massive volumes. The only place i see D&D outside of my games store is one shelf at the local Borders, and again it is all big books.

It's not just D&D, though. Today I bought a copy of Green Ronin's Dragon Age boxed set. Very nice product. It reminds me of the Red Box. But I still bought it at a specialty shop. I haven't seen it at the Borders or -- in the place that makes most sense -- the Gamestop or Best Buy.

RPGs need to be accessible -- not just in a play sense, but a buying sense. They need to be on the shelves at the places that people who might want them can find them. Relying primarily on an existing, dwindling market is slow suicide.

As much as I don't like 4E and wish it were different, I hope that WotC can leverage its connection to Hasbro to get its new Red Box out there where people other than existing players can find it. Like right next to the newest D&D video game. Oh, wait, we don't have one of those...

 

[delericho]

The idea that someone is going to get into the hobby cold, find four or five other people to join in and play with him or her hasn't been true for a very long time.

Coincidentally, we haven't had a good starter box for years. They've all used an incompatible or "dumbed down" ruleset, been designed to be used twice and then thrown away, lacked character creation, or had a "big jump" to graduate to the 'real' rules.

Indeed, since the demise of that same Red Box I started with, we've had:

The Black Box: Actually, a very nice set. But graduation was either to the not-easily-available Rules Cyclopedia (big jump) or to 2nd Edition (big jump; incompatible rules).

The 3.0e Basic Set. No character creation; dumbed down rules; big jump to the 'full' 3.0e rulebooks; and this one looks and feels like cheap rubbish. (Of course, it was cheap...)

Two 3.5e Basic Sets. Again, no character creation; dumbed down rules; big jump to the 960 pages of 3.5e core rules. At least these looked and felt like 'real' games.

The first 4.0e set. This seemed to be intent on repeating all the mistakes of th 3.0e set, with the 'big jump' to the 832 pages of the core rules, the lack of character creaion, and in looking and feeling like cheap rubbish. It also suffered from coming out months after the core rules, and so was immediately lost in an intimidating array of "must have" supplements.

With the new Red Box and the Essentials line, it finally looks like WotC have a chance of actually getting it 'right' - a basic set using the 'real' rules and including character creation, then a small step to the next box, and no assumption that you're not just going to throw out the box you've just paid for.

 

[Hussar]

Coincidentally, we haven't had a good starter box for years. They've all used an incompatible or "dumbed down" ruleset, been designed to be used twice and then thrown away, lacked character creation, or had a "big jump" to graduate to the 'real' rules.

But, the number of gamers has not fallen in the past twenty years, it's actually continually risen, to the point where there are more gamers now than at any other point in time other than the couple of "fad" years in the 1980's.

If we require a "Basic" set to get people into the hobby, why haven't the number of gamers plumeted over the past couple of decades?

I know people keep talking about the time when we had D&D in toy stores, but, that's not going to happen ever again. It's just not. The distribution models won't allow it. I was in Toys R Us a couple of weeks ago. Even the traditional board game section was one very small aisle, and I'm pretty sure that games like Monopoly still do a pretty brisk business.

Yes, we'd all love it if it was 1981 again. But, that's not going to happen. Wishing it to be true is just ignoring the realities of the market.

 

[Windjammer]

I know people keep talking about the time when we had D&D in toy stores, but, that's not going to happen ever again. It's just not. The distribution models won't allow it. I was in Toys R Us a couple of weeks ago. Even the traditional board game section was one very small aisle, and I'm pretty sure that games like Monopoly still do a pretty brisk business.

Yes, we'd all love it if it was 1981 again. But, that's not going to happen. Wishing it to be true is just ignoring the realities of the market.

Picture taken at a Toys'R'Us in September 2009:

 

[AllisterH]

Picture taken at a Toys'R'Us in September 2009:

The power of HASBRO?

I see D&D surrounded by 4 hasbro properties (and 1 mattel).

 

[delericho]

But, the number of gamers has not fallen in the past twenty years, it's actually continually risen, to the point where there are more gamers now than at any other point in time other than the couple of "fad" years in the 1980's.

1. The population of the US has grown by about a third since 1981, and the rest of the world is now much more accessible than it was. Given that, having almost as many players as back then is a decline - the game really should be aiming to have about a third more players than back then at a minimum.

2. The volume of sales D&D requires to be a 'success' for a company the size of Hasbro is much higher than it was to be a 'success' for a company the size of TSR. Indeed, those expectations are likely to go up year on year. Staying stable isn't enough.

3. The cost of producing all of these books is going up year on year. The ever-increasing price tags and ever-decreasing page counts aren't a naked money grab by WotC - they're almost certainly a consequence of painfully thin sales (especially later in the line) for products that are costing more and more to make. Expanding the player base may be the only way to combat this.