Excellent point on WotC mishandling

[MerricB]

If you want a fight, you can attack my contention that 4E did "fire" a lot of D&D's existing customer base, probably knowingly and intentionally, as a lot of the rest of this thread implies (i.e. turfing the hardcore audience for a theoretical mainstream one, or going for the two birds in the bush rather than the bird in hand).

By my interpretation of what happened to make 4E: D&D 3E was itself firing a lot of its players. Experienced DMs were getting burnt out and weren't getting replaced by new players.

Cheers!

 

[renau1g]

So what did WotC lose from these types of customers when they "switched" to Pathfinder?

Wizards lost their revenue from Dungeon magazine.

Oh, BTW it seems like we're getting a nice little edition warring going on. I've grabbed my lawn chair and popcorn. Uh... "4e isn't D&D, fighters have daily powers, they're not wizards" "No way it is, 4e is teh best, all you grognards can eat Thac0" or something...

 

[renau1g]

Second assumption: The movie rights is where the real money is.

Then they should leverage their best-selling author, Salvatore, and make a Drizzt movie. I'd rather see one of those than an Elminster one. Heck, a dragonlance one would rock too. The don't need new authors for that. They just need some studio to take a chance... maybe if they got Peter Jackson at the helm...

 

[kitsuneymg]

Heck, a dragonlance one would rock too.

I take it you don't pay much attention then?

[ame=http://www.amazon.com/Dragonlance-Dragons-Twilight-Lucy-Lawless/dp/B000Y7U996/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1289285265&sr=1-1]Amazon.com: Dragonlance - Dragons Of The Autumn Twilight: Lucy Lawless, Kiefer Sutherland, Michael Rosenbaum, Fred Tatasciore, Michelle Trachtenberg, Rino Romano, Jason Marsden, Neil Ross, Marc Worden, Phil LaMarr, Will Meugniot: Movies & TV[/ame]

 

[evilref]

Removed argumentative and rude post. Keep it civil and on-topic, please.

- Eridanis

 

[BryonD]

By my interpretation of what happened to make 4E: D&D 3E was itself firing a lot of its players. Experienced DMs were getting burnt out and weren't getting replaced by new players.

Cheers!

I think you are very significantly misinterpreting the data, and the fact that these debates continue is evidence of that.

Yes, 3E had run it's course. I was ready and eager for a new game. But it was not at all the 3E system that had burned me out. If WotC had built a completely new system that still engaged me to the level 3E did I would be there. But the fact remains that it was an old game by that time.

Now certainly 4E has brought in a significant number of people who were not 3E players. But, you are specifically talking about "fired" 3E players, so lets just look at that group for a moment.

In my personal experience, if we took names of people who were playing 3E before 4E came along and listed them under either "switched to 4E" or "didn't switch to 4E", the "didn't list would be longer. That isn't a claim that all the "didn't" people are still playing 3E, many just went on to something else. The circumstantial and anecdotal evidence we keep seeing are universally consistent with my experience. So there certainly may be a distinct fog around the hard numbers, but my experience is in the right ballpark. So, was this the result of burned out experienced DMs?

Well, lets go back to that list again, but this time only list "experienced DMs". "Switched to 4E" gets trounced by this analysis. Admittedly, this doesn't disprove the potential that every one of those DMs were on the verge of burnout and would have walked away within a year. But even against this hypothetical, getting a bunch of experienced DMs to leave faster is no accomplishment.

It is certainly encouraging that market perception has reached the point that we are debating the cause of so many people leaving D&D. But 3E pushing away experienced DMs doesn't hold up as the reason.

 

[renau1g]

I take it you don't pay much attention then?

Amazon.com: Dragonlance - Dragons Of The Autumn Twilight: Lucy Lawless, Kiefer Sutherland, Michael Rosenbaum, Fred Tatasciore, Michelle Trachtenberg, Rino Romano, Jason Marsden, Neil Ross, Marc Worden, Phil LaMarr, Will Meugniot: Movies & TV

I'm talking about a real movie, not a straight-to-video release. A full-on LOTR treatment of the game. Again, Drizzt books sell boatloads of copies so there's at least some element of "safety" for a studio there.

 

[renau1g]

In my personal experience, if we took names of people who were playing 3E before 4E came along and listed them under either "switched to 4E" or "didn't switch to 4E", the "didn't list would be longer.

And my experience is the opposite. Of the circle I game with 4 DM's (incl myself) got "burned out" with 3e. We all "switched" over to 4e and haven't looked back. Small sample size, but all our personal experiences will be a small sample size.

 

[Raven Crowking]

By my interpretation of what happened to make 4E: D&D 3E was itself firing a lot of its players. Experienced DMs were getting burnt out and weren't getting replaced by new players.

I very much agree with this. 3e, especially as it evolved, has a serious prep time problem IMHO. However (and I think it is a big however)....

I think you are very significantly misinterpreting the data, and the fact that these debates continue is evidence of that.

Yes, 3E had run it's course. I was ready and eager for a new game. But it was not at all the 3E system that had burned me out. If WotC had built a completely new system that still engaged me to the level 3E did I would be there. But the fact remains that it was an old game by that time.

.....I also agree with this.

There is probably a maximum of complexity that a game can have and still remain playable to a wide audience. The difference between various games, IMHO, is not only how this complexity is used, but where.

The 3e model (like 1e and 2e before it) allow that "where" to be "anywhere". However, unlike 1e and 2e, the tight integration of complex systems in 3e can make players and DMs hesitate to make changes to the level of complexity of a system. If X becomes easier, Feat Y becomes useless, or Skill Z is nerfed. (The DM can simply allow characters to be adjusted for these changes, of course.) This leads to a great deal of complexity that many people, apparently, simply felt that they had to use.

I mean, really, does it matter if a set of core rules contains information about how long a belt buckle takes to manufacture? I like the existence of skills like Craft and Profession; I do not believe that they need to be micro-managed to the level they are in 3e.

Conversely, 4e maintains IMHO the same degree of complexity as 3e, or close to, but focuses that complexity into a few single "where"s -- character development and combat. And, if you do not like the systems for those you are in the same boat as the players who want to make some subsystem in 3e less complex -- you deal with cascading effects. Moreover, though, if you dislike 4e's take on those specific "where"s, the game has precious little else to offer you.

(It should be equally obvious that, if you like 4e's take on those specific "where"s, the game also has precious little to detract from it.)

As a result, I begin to think that a loosely integrated system with modular subsystems is probably the route to the widest appeal. But, then, 2e went the farthest along this route, and I stopped playing during the 2e era. So I could be wrong.

Let me try again: A loosely integrated system with modular subsystems, a strong baseline experience, and focus on the actions/decisions of the players/PCs, is probably the route to the widest appeal.

IMHO. YMMV.


RC

 

[Vyvyan Basterd]

Certainly, but WotC has gone from being the foundation of a big boom that was actually criticized for being so successful that OGL clones were hurting other development to being, as you out it, a "niche".

I 100% agree that they serve their niche REAL well. 4E is awesome at being what it set out to be. But, it is still just a niche now.

I contend that OGL support for 3E forced future editions to become niches. Of course I also believe this could have been mitigated by WotC understanding who their #1 competitor was and worked with them to continue their relationship. How many Paizo fans would have made the switch to 4E if Paizo had supported 4E?

No. I'll reword it so you can understand a little better. The gist of it was that the 3E designers were tempted to do more of a complete overhaul with 3E than they did (perhaps on the scale of 4E), but they didn't know whether such a dramatic departure would be accepted so they erred on the side of caution. That came from some designer or brand manager or other, I'm not making it up, although I'm sure you'll continue to deny it for whatever reason.

You're talking risk. 3E designers decided to play it safer. 4E designers believed taking a risk was a better move at that juncture. Neither set out to alienate or fire any customers. Many customers quit because they didn't like the results, but no one was remotely "fired."

Wizards lost their revenue from Dungeon magazine.

Yes, licensing revenue from Paizo. Which they made up (to what extent, we'll never know) with direct subscription revenue from DDi. Dragon and Dungeon weren't their main revenue stream. The splatbooks were and still are. If a customer is content playing your game without new options and only subscribes to a side stream of revenue, you're not really losing much when they decide not to follow you to a new edition.

Oh, BTW it seems like we're getting a nice little edition warring going on. I've grabbed my lawn chair and popcorn. Uh... "4e isn't D&D, fighters have daily powers, they're not wizards" "No way it is, 4e is teh best, all you grognards can eat Thac0" or something...

Why are you trying to instigate? I've seen very little uncivil discussion in this thread.