The fragmentation of the D&D community... was it inevitable?

[Beginning of the End]

Classic D&D is kinda like The Beatles. Everybody liked The Beatles in 1965 because... what was the alternative? They were pretty much the only thing going in rock n' roll.

Wait... what?

Rolling Stones
Beach Boys
The Righteous Brothers
Herman's Hermits
The Byrds
Sonny and Cher
Bob Dylan
Dave Clark Five

With that being said: D&D was once a big tent. I don't believe it can't be a big tent again.

End of line.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Once the SRD and OGL were out the door, forking the game was inevitable, because there would always be someone unhappy with something that happened in the future. The major changes in 4E and the trainwreck that was the GSL made the fork more dramatic, but we always would have had the OSR folks striking out in their own direction (and they did so even before 4E came along, although they've certainly picked up a lot more members of their tribe since then), along with other splinter groups.

There have always been people unhappy with D&D's direction, even back to the Eldritch Wizardry days, when the later supplements ruined the game for some players. Unless a new version came with a hypno-toad in every box, it stands little chance of pleasing 90 percent of the total D&D audience, no matter how amazing said new version might be.

 

[Diamond Cross]

Yep it's inevitable.

I can remember complaining that the Enterprise in TMP was not the true Enterprise because of how they changed it.

When TNG came along people complained about a French dude being Captain when it should be Kirk.

Then when DS9 came along people complained that it was on a station.

When Voyager came along people complained it was a woman as captain.

When Trek 2k9 came along people complained about the Enterprise being changed again and William Shatner can only be Kirk, not this new guy Pine, and that if he must be Kirk he must sound like Kirk in every way or there'll be Armageddon and the earth will split in twain.

So of course the same kinds of things happened with D&D.

Why?

Because of the tribal nature of humanity. We must all be the same. What must be true for one person must be true for all people and if not must be made to be true.

And better ded than red.

 

[lutecius]

1) Is it possible to create an edition of D&D that could largely satisfy 90% of the player base?
2) If it's not possible now, was it possible in 2007, before 4e was released?

before 4e, the vast majority of dnd players I knew online or IRL played the latest edition. sometimes it took them a year or so to switch but I don't see this happening now.

I think a 4e that fixed 3e issues without drastically changing the design philosophy could have appealed to current 4e players. but now they've embraced the new paradigm I don't see them coming back to a game that would also satisfy 3e players.

3) If it's not possible (now or then), what should Wizards, or whoever owns the D&D IP in the future, do about it?

not sure. they probably should do serious market research (not the kind they've done up until now) and try to please the majority even though it probably won't be "90% of the player base".

 

[billd91]

Regarding this question:

3) If it's not possible (now or then), what should Wizards, or whoever owns the D&D IP in the future, do about it?

I've seen a few proposing that WotC support all editions. In the days of e-publishing and print on demand, that's not as outlandish as it would sound as long as the fans of the older editions are satisfied with PDFs of out-of-print products. It's not so simple with new print products due to economies of scale. But in order to do things in a rational way, Lutecius has the right idea.

not sure. they probably should do serious market research (not the kind they've done up until now) and try to please the majority even though it probably won't be "90% of the player base".

It may not be possible for WotC to come up with an edition to satisfy 90% of the D&D crowd. But can they find ways to sell to 90% of the D&D crowd including supporting older editions? It would take some pretty serious market research to determine if this is possible or worthwhile to try.

 

[DaveMage]

I think it was Monte Cook who said, a while back, that the real way for D&D to thrive is for a single company to come along and do nothing except D&D.

To me this means to support D&D in all forms (produce products that support multiple editions).

If I were running it, I'd make all versions OGC and license the brand name to interested companies that have shown care and/or passion for the brand (Necromancer, Green Ronin, Goodman, Malhavoc, Paizo, etc.) to do the different editions.

And make the licenses perpetual/flexible/broad enough so that companies don't have to worry about the rug being pulled from under their feet.

I mean, how cool would it be for Erik Mona/Paizo to oversee development of Greyhawk, etc.? How cool would it be for MWP to be responsible for all things Dragonlance - regardless of edition?

Etc....

 

[Dungeoneer]

Listen nerds, I know there were other bands besides The Beatles in 1965. It's called an analogy. You are missing the larger point about media/cultural fragmentation in the 21st century.

If you prefer a less distracting analogy, try this one on for size: in 1939 Gone With The Wind sold over 200 million tickets. The population of the US at the time was 130 million. So basically, the entire country saw the same movie, and then a third of them went back and saw it again.

Ask yourself if this could happen today.

Thank you, that is all.

 

[GreyLord]

Listen nerds, I know there were other bands besides The Beatles in 1965. It's called an analogy. You are missing the larger point about media/cultural fragmentation in the 21st century.

If you prefer a less distracting analogy, try this one on for size: in 1939 Gone With The Wind sold over 200 million tickets. The population of the US at the time was 130 million. So basically, the entire country saw the same movie, and then a third of them went back and saw it again.

Ask yourself if this could happen today.

Thank you, that is all.

Wikipedia (notorious for being grossly inaccurate at times) here

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avatar_(2009_film)

Lists the most current tally of total gross sales for Avatar worldwide at

Gross revenue $2,780,969,137

To make it simply...divide that by an average cost of 10 per ticket (my theater is cheaper, costing only $9) which is 278 million tickets...which is actually more than Gone with the Winds 200 million (actually I think its 202 million sold).

From here also

Avatar (2009) - Box Office Mojo

$760,507,625 27.3%
+ Foreign: $2,020,624,407 72.7%

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

= Worldwide: $2,781,132,032

You get the total.

So it's possible to sell more tickets than 202 million.

Of course you are also absolutely correct...even if that had all come from the US...that still isn't the total amount of people in the US, much less 130%.

Further more...it says domestic gross didn't even equal a billion, but did equal 760 Million, which is only actually 760 thousand tickets.

Just thought it would be interesting for actual number comparisons...

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Who is to blame? Is it the reactionaries who refused to switch to a more modern game system? Or the designers who came along and tried to cram a radically different system down everyone's throats?

Or was it just inevitable that the community would fragment no matter what?

IMHO, you can't blame those who opted for status quo for the schism...and "reactionary" is a rather poor word to describe those people.

The schism- ANY schism- is caused by those who are not satisfied with the status quo and therefore move to implement change, for good or for ill.

But that said, I also think that the schism was inevitable because even in RPGs, change is pretty much inevitable.

 

[shadzar]

Just thought it would be interesting for actual number comparisons...

Sadly you have to adjust for inflation in prices, and such since tickets didn't cost $10 back them to figure out how much and what all that really means. IMDB at one time had those figures and Gone with the Wind was still the highest grossing film of all time (at about a quarter a ticket compared to $8 per today domestic), it may be behind their pro service right now so maybe boxofficemojo or somewhere else might have those adjusted figures without a paywall if you are interested.

Also you are already looking at worldwide box office, so that price would be a LOT lower than $10 per ticket since it includes extended runs on $1 theatres, other countries it was released in.

AHA! Adjusted gross for ticket price inflation.....

All Time Box Office Adjusted for Ticket Price Inflation

1 Gone with the Wind MGM $1,606,254,800
14 Avatar Fox $773,179,400

This can only be for domestic, as ticket prices all over the world aren't exactly tracked that closely not is their currency....

D&D might reach an Avatar status sometime, but will NEVER be the Gone With the Wind of hobby entertainment.

The numbers are fun to see and play with though.