What would WotC need to do to win back the disenchanted?

[I'm A Banana]

So your saying that buying PDFs of older editions of D&D is a low priority on many people's lists?

I'm just saying that not everybody has the dough to spend on all the PDFs they want at once.

My point is that even at dirt cheep prices, PDFs of older editions of D&D are a very low priority to many many people.

Sure. But some is bigger than none, and the piracy reasoning doesn't hold much water. Which is really the point that's made here.

 

[Imaro]

I've run two campaigns that reached 16th level in 3e and one that reached 21st level, so yes, I've probably more experience of the higher levels than you. Even so, at lower levels there are still a lot of areas of preparation concern. New Monster? New NPC? Urgh.

No argument here, but I think you missed my point... for many... the high level issues were a non-issue. As far as preperation goes, once one gets the rules down it's easy enough to fudge the rules to customize a monster or NPC when necessary... yet use a robust system when desired. I am a firm believer in learning the rules so that you can break them. It's probably easier than having to learn a whole set of new rules.

No, it doesn't assume that. It's what they did, but the reason doesn't assume that. Note that SW SE has some serious mathematical flaws in it - Use the Force and healing - which cause great problems with ongoing campaigns

So are you saying WotC went against the assumptions they had on whether people wanted a new system and new fluff... and did it anyway? Doesn't seem a smart way to run a business. Yes Use the Force and healing have issues... but every game has issues. However, I was useing SWSE as a general example not a specifc iteration that should have been 4e. And I have seen both of those issues houseruled into a workable state in various ways quite easily on the Star Wars boards.

I say intended to, not does; although I think it definitely succeeds on the DM count. I have a different opinion on some of the new mechanics, of which I've written about elsewhere. (Combat Superiority and Combat Challenge. Urgh!)

Cheers!

And again, I say for your theory on 4e retaining more DM's to be true you assume there is only one type of DM, the one who runs long continuous campaigns in the same world with the same characters, which I just don't buy as the only type.

 

[ggroy]

And the Brand is where the REAL money is- merch, merch merch. Gene Simmons didn't become as wealthy as he is by selling KISS albums or going on tour, he got it by putting the brand's name on EVERYTHING. That helped get him a TV deal.

If I was younger, I probably would have wanted that "KISS Alive I gold record award".

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

If I weren't Catholic, I might have bought some of those KISS condoms.

 

[ggroy]

I don't think that will happen for some time.

Even as the least profitable segment of the brand, my guess is that the books are still profitable, and the market for them is still quite large.

Plus the jury is still out on when the average consumer will be comfortable with 100% digital content for entertainment. Many- myself included- still prefer the physical stuff for a variety of reasons, seeing digital stuff as a backup and a convenience...but not a viable substitute.

I can see the core books, or at least a "rules compendium" and DM screen still being published in future editions.

On the other hand, the content of crunch heavy splatbooks may very well end up as all digital in future editions.

For the more DM oriented books like Manual of the Planes, Plane Above, Plane Below, Demonomicon, etc ... they could go either way, or maybe even the print-on-demand route.

 

[MerricB]

No argument here, but I think you missed my point... for many... the high level issues were a non-issue. As far as preperation goes, once one gets the rules down it's easy enough to fudge the rules to customize a monster or NPC when necessary... yet use a robust system when desired. I am a firm believer in learning the rules so that you can break them. It's probably easier than having to learn a whole set of new rules.

Unfortunately, "robust" doesn't describe for me the monster customisation rules in 3e. It worked very well for some (simple) monsters, then fell apart dreadfully when faced with other challenges, such as a grappling monster.

There were a lot of traps in 3e for the newer player: elements that looked fine but didn't work as advertised.

If a system requires you to fudge the rules as a matter of course, then I'm not such a big fan of the system.

So are you saying WotC went against the assumptions they had on whether people wanted a new system and new fluff... and did it anyway?

Not really. The assumptions were correct, but they took it further than strictly necessary, and perhaps further than they should have gone. I think the new Forgotten Realms was a mistake, although I fully understand what they were trying to do. Meanwhile, the new cosmology is not really that different to what Planescape inflicted on us over a decade ago. Because I like the new cosmology greatly, I think it's fantastic and one of the best things Wizards have done.

And again, I say for your theory on 4e retaining more DM's to be true you assume there is only one type of DM, the one who runs long continuous campaigns in the same world with the same characters, which I just don't buy as the only type.

Problem is, I don't think that Wizards can do a game for *only* people who run levels 1-8, which is what you seem to be suggesting. 4E is intended to retain DMs longer (and have better handling of high-level play), but with one exception it does this by making the play experience good at all levels, so I can't see how it discriminates against groups: you should be able to play any type of D&D campaign you like and have the 4E rules back you up.

The one major exception is this: 1st level characters don't die at the drop of a hat any more. You don't have the clueless newbie so much any more. I know there are people who miss this, but I don't. I will say that even if the 1st level character is no longer so fragile, when you compare him to his higher level incarnations, he's certainly still a newbie. I've run one 4e campaign so far from 1st to 20th level (and we should continue next year into Epic levels), and there is definitely a difference in how characters feel between Heroic and Paragon tiers.

Cheers!

 

[Shemeska]

I think the new Forgotten Realms was a mistake, although I fully understand what they were trying to do. Meanwhile, the new cosmology is not really that different to what Planescape inflicted on us over a decade ago.

Bit of a different situation though, in that while the 4e FR buried two decades of detail and rewrote major portions of the setting to conform to 4e tropes, what Planescape did back in 2e was to develop something that really didn't have anywhere near that level of detail or development previously. Most of the former was destructive change, while most of the latter was additive IMO.

 

[pemerton]

Not everyone is of the same mind about everything in larger organisations. <snip rest of discussion of actual and hypothesised disagreements among WotC management>

OK, that makes sense. In any big organisation, people disagree and directions can change.

 

[pemerton]

Most of what I see in this thread is pretty reasonable people who want to give WotC money for things they enjoy playing and reading, but some of WotC's practices (namely, not selling books from older editions) lead to them not wanting to spend money on WotC products. One practice in particular -- not selling PDF's of older edition materials -- seems, as an outsider, to be something they did for really poor reasons (assuming their stated intent was honest), and something they could easily change.

KM, most of what you're posting in this thread I've found pretty interesting - especially the back-and-forth with Umbran and others about piracy.

But the passage I've quoted struck me as a little odd.

You refer to "people who want to give WotC money for things they enjoy playing and reading, but some of WotC's practices (namely, not selling books from older editions) lead to them not wanting to spend money on WotC products." But isn't this just a slightly convoluted way of describing "people who are in the market for RPG stuff but aren't interested in buying WotC's RPG stuff"? And that's a pretty unremarkable state of affairs in any commercial market.

It's the dressing up of this unremarkable state of affairs in the language of "practices", "suspicions" and "disenchantment" that I don't get. It would be different if WotC's ink and paper were grossly polluting, and these were the practices that produced disenchantment. That would be a bit like the Shell boycott in the 1980s for investing in South Africa, or more recent Nike boycotts. But as far as I can see nothing like that is going on. All we have is a company offering stuff for sale that some people don't want to buy. Fair enough. Don't buy it. Why isn't that the end of the story?

 

[pemerton]

I am a firm believer in learning the rules so that you can break them.

If a system requires you to fudge the rules as a matter of course, then I'm not such a big fan of the system.

I'm with MerricB on this one.

For better or worse, there's a movement in the contemporary RPG scene which takes the view that RPGs are games, and that playing the game by the rules should deliver the promised experience. That's fundamentally at odds with some more traditional ways of designing RPGs, which are all about having the rules of the game model the ingame world, and then relying on the GM to judiciously suspend the rules in order to deliver the desired play experience (fudging death results against low-level PCs being the most notorious example of this).

Thus, I agree with BryonD when he says:

A game that is about making the character be as realistic as possible first is different than a game that is about mechanical equity first.

WotC have decided that the best way to secure the future of D&D is to move from the traditional to the contemporary paradigm of RPG design. Now maybe that's a mistake for all sorts of reasons - it puts heavy demands on the integrity of design and development, it produces a steady flow of errata/updates, and it produces a game which at least some fans of the traditional approach don't like. At least some of those fans see it as changing the game from an RPG to a real (video, board, whatever) game.

But I think it's a big call to say for sure that it's a mistake. The contemporary approach is not without fans. And it's not without success - some non-traditional games are pretty highly regarded: Dogs in the Vineyard, My Life With Master, Burning Wheel, Sorcerer, HeroWars/Quest.

Maybe WotC will turn out to be wrong. Maybe it will turn out that most people interested in buying RPG books like the traditional approach, and that the much larger number of people who like games of some sort or other really aren't interested in the RPG variant of games. That's certainly conceivable, because immersion in the gameworld is a big part of an RPG, and there seems to be a non-arbitrary connection between immersion in a gameworld and having mechanics that model that world.

But maybe WotC will turn out to be right. Because there also seems to be a non-arbitrary connection between wanting to have fun playing a game, and designing the rules of the game so that they (more or less, within the limits of what a small number of people on what I assume are fairly modest salaries can do) do deliver the promised fun.

I've said before that I see 4e as a bet by WotC that Ron Edwards is right in his view that the way to significantly increase the popularity of RPGs is to design them as games from the ground up, dropping whatever elements of world-simulating mechanics are necessary to achieve this. Presumably WotC have some market research to support their bet, but some aspects of what's coming out about Essentials and other downstream developments make me (as a 4e fan) worry that the bet may not have gone as well as they hope.

To steal a line from Raven Crowking, time will tell . . . it always does!