What is good for D&D as a game vs. what is good for the company that makes it

[wingsandsword]

In the various threads talking about the "edition treadmill" or "planned obsolescence" or a "monopoly model" and similar terms, I've seen a recurring point come up that as a business model that D&D must produce a new edition on a regular basis.

That may be true, but perhaps we should re-think what is good for D&D as a game, and is this different from what is good business practice for whatever produces the company?

In the 1e era, a new hardcover book was released about once per year, and that was the Golden Age of D&D. Now there is no way on Earth that WotC would settle for one book per year for D&D. However, one well playtested, copyedited, and generally well produced book a year on top of a trio of ideal core books could be more useful than the steady stream books that have been produced for far more than a decade now.

By "good for D&D as a game" I mean a model of D&D production that:
1. Promotes a stable rule base. Even if the rules change over time, with inevitable new editions, changing them every few years means players have to buy new rulebooks, and re-learn the rules, constantly. If a player doesn't have the money to upgrade, or is just fatigued with the constant new rules/editions, they stop buying.

2. Promotes a steady and unified player base. A steady stream of new editions fractures the player base as every new edition includes the decision to stay or go. Over a long period of time, a consensus can build in the player base that some kind of overhaul or change can be needed, but the top-down secret agendas that are mandated by the fact that WotC is an arm of a publicly traded company and the rules that go with product announcements from publicly traded companies mean R&D and edition changeover decisions happen in a black box for legal reasons. A case where being produced by a publicly traded company is bad for the game.

3. Creates a balanced and flexible rule system adaptable to a wide variety of campaigns, from low-magic pseudo-historic games to high magic/high fantasy. D&D campaigns run from quasi-historic games set anywhere from the ancient world to the golden age of piracy, to utterly fantastic worlds of pure imagination. A good edition of D&D should be flexible enough to play out an adventure in any part of human history before industrialization, play out most popular fantasy novels and movies (especially ones that deeply influenced the genre and D&D legacy like the works of Howard, Tolkien, Lieber, and Vance).

Am I proposing some kind of solution somehow? No, not really. I can't think of a practical one. In a perfect world, like if I won the Powerball, I would buy the rights to D&D from WotC and set up a non-profit organization to administer it as an open-source game, but that's not exactly likely to ever happen. Right now I would just like to open up the discussion of how the needs of a company to produce a profitable product differ from what makes for the best possible game and fosters a strong and vibrant gaming community.

 

[Stormonu]

In the 1e era, a new hardcover book was released about once per year, and that was the Golden Age of D&D. Now there is no way on Earth that WotC would settle for one book per year for D&D.

It's not just WotC - the fans would be screaming at the tops of their lungs about the "lack of support".

I agree on this: a base rulebook, that is maybe repackaged every 5 years (i.e., new cover, interior art and review of the text), containing only updated errata and perhaps a few rules tweaks, should be the way to go. Of course, this may mean breaking the rulebooks out a bit more along the lines we see done with essentials (A rules compendium for the basic rules, then add-ons such as Heros of... for class/race rules, Monster books for the enemies, and modules for the adventures). Games Workshop seems to do this with their Rulebook/Codex revisions they roll out in a 5 year cycle, and I think D&D would benefit from this.

New editions primarily cause fractures when there's a major overhaul - either to the rules or to the fluff. When WotC tried to "fix" D&D with 4E, they essentially created a new game with a new fanbase. While the new version fixed lots of old outstanding issues and generated them new revenue from a brand that was beginning to putter out under 3E, I think they did substantial harm to the D&D community due to way they made changes.

To me, to keep D&D alive and strong two things need to happen:

1) Interest must be maintained. You have to entice new people to come into the hobby and play. This generally means getting young people into the game - whether in their teens or early twenties. Unfortunately, I've seen a lot of D&Der's who cringe at the thought of a 13 year old at their table - even though back in the heydays of the 80's with the Moldvay/Mentzer set, that was when D&D was a booming hobby as it picked up kids in that age demographic.

2) It's got to be fun (and quick) to play. In this day and age there is all kind of entertainment competing for our time. If D&D is difficult to learn, takes forever to play out and leaves the DM bald from pulling out his hair putting together adventures, this pastime is going to go nowhere quick. The wealth of options is great in both 3E/Pathfinder/4E for those who've been playing for a while and want to get deep into the system. But for a starting player, the size and thickness of the rulebooks is pretty daunting. There really needs to be an introductory product that gets you up and in the game in as little as 15 minutes - not two days later after you've sat down and weeded through even just the PHB.

 

[Jan van Leyden]

In the various threads talking about the "edition treadmill" or "planned obsolescence" or a "monopoly model" and similar terms, I've seen a recurring point come up that as a business model that D&D must produce a new edition on a regular basis.

You don't have to produce a new edition on a regular basis anymore. This has been true, as you'll have problems finding a lot of buyers for the Complete Book of Domestic Dogs, which you'd have to publish if you don't want to re-publish old material. So you had to produce a bestseller
every now and then: a new edition of the core books.

But today you can go another way: DDI. You don't have to convince prospective buyers that each single item you produce is a worthwhile purchase, you have to convince them that the material and services delivered are worth the subscription price. With a continuous revenue stream the need to do best sellers diminishes.

Concerning the other statement ("good for D&D as a game"), this quality is a matter of subjective perception. The ultra-grognards want plotless dungeons with the text run through a Gygaxifying program, while the ultra-progressivists are busy waiting for a D&D version designed to fully run on a MS Surface device.

Do you really think such heterogeneous groups can find a unified answer for the good-for-the-game question?

 

[Ultimatecalibur]

You don't have to produce a new edition on a regular basis anymore. This has been true, as you'll have problems finding a lot of buyers for the Complete Book of Domestic Dogs, which you'd have to publish if you don't want to re-publish old material. So you had to produce a bestseller
every now and then: a new edition of the core books.

But today you can go another way: DDI. You don't have to convince prospective buyers that each single item you produce is a worthwhile purchase, you have to convince them that the material and services delivered are worth the subscription price. With a continuous revenue stream the need to do best sellers diminishes.

I do not think that DDI and other digital distribution systems are the godsend you think they are. They are good, they are effective, but they are simply an alternate distribution system to physical books. They will not stop designers from needing to create a new edition every so often because they do not remove the root cause of designers putting out new editions, lack of unused design space. Lack of design space is what creates "Complete Book of Domestic Dogs" style product.

 

[Vascant]

I am fairly certain if you ask 10 gamers this question you will get at least 10 different answers, maybe as many as 15 answers.

In my opinion, even if you did win lotto you will still run into a very big problem.. the lack of decent writers/designers. Some find a reason to produce that extra little bit that sends content into greatness and others find an excuse as to why they only did what they did.

Your world already exists though, 3rd edition is open to the world now. You are free to do with it as pretty much please. No fear of WotC coming along in a few months and releasing something that screws with your plans, freedom as far as the eye can see. It even has far better electronic support then 4e ever dreamed of.

 

[DaveMage]

As long as D&D is in the hands of a publicly traded company, it will always be more about the brand then the game.

But thanks to the OGL, it no longer matters.

 

[Alzrius]

It's nice to see someone talk about the difference between what's good for the game itself, and what's good for the company that releases it.

Ironically, while I agree that it's good to keep a separate view of the two, I think they can be synergistic, even to the point of not needing new editions to keep the game vibrant. As I've said before:

Whether true or not, there's something of an ideal people have about businesses in the marketplace. This ideal is that companies that focus on doing the best that they can in providing a product/service will rise to success, and the money will follow as a natural consequence - in other words, that cream rises to the top.

To put it another way, if the company that releases D&D focused solely on what's best for the game, and not on what's best for them, they'd find themselves doing well as a natural consequence of their efforts.

Maybe that's unrealistic, but I like to think that's how things would go.

 

[Fanaelialae]

It's rather difficult to say whether or not what is good for the game is any good for the business.

In order to even begin to address a definitive answer of what is good for the game ("versus" the business) you need to consider all the factors. Do more people quit D&D due to system burnout or new editions (system fracturing), and how many new players does a new edition draw in? Those are, of course, only three of a myriad of factors to consider, and I doubt whether anyone other than maybe WotC has good data on the subject.

The main issue I object to is that "versus" (from this thread's title) implies opposition. That what is good for D&D is quite different from what is good for the business. However, it dismisses out of hand the idea that what is good for the business could also be good for the game. Your responses may be skewed as a result.

From my own experience, my group had started to burn out on 3.5 about two years before the release of 4th. We were enjoying the game less and less, and were having to house rule more and more just to obtain that level of enjoyment. (That was simply my group's experience; YMMV of course.) For us, 4th refreshed and renewed our interest in the game. Without it, I expect we would have either quit TTRPGs completely or played a system other than D&D. Is my group typical of the average D&D group? Perhaps, perhaps not.

Meaning no offense, but there's nothing to say that your ideal model of the game wouldn't be its death knell. You can't turn the clock back, what's done is done, and this isn't 1980 anymore. An edition would have to be very, VERY good (and by that I mean well designed as well as appealing strongly to my tastes) for me to accept only one new book of material a year. I like new books; they help to keep the game fresh and interesting. That isn't to say that I don't enjoy creating my own material, but at present it's hard to find time between work, school, and some semblance of a social life. I'm not at all confident that I would want to play D&D for the rest of my life under the paradigm you've outlined. How many others like me are there? It may also be that I am an exception and that most people would love your ideal D&D; that D&D would flourish as never before. Who can say?

In the end, I think it might be up to us to us to be what's good for D&D, and leave WotC to be a business (for better or worse). WotC can't be united in our love for a great pastime, rather than fractured across editions. They can't teach the hobby to a new generation. They design material and (more or less) that's all they do. It's my belief that the rest is up to us.

 

[MINI]

As far as any product is concerned, and gaming books are no different, anything designed needs to be a quality product. This means there should not be errata and immediate reprints within a year after designing a new set of core books where a paying customer buys his DMG and players only to realize he needs to buy the new revised ones to play the game well. For gaming books this means play testing and it does take time so tossing out new editions every couple years is a bad idea even though it helps book sales.

Another major issue that has been touched on is getting new gamers involved. Gaming needs to be refreshed to be interesting for the next generation of gamers and I believe that this is something lost to Dungeons and Dragons, they are not bringing in enough new gamers with the attraction of their product. Perhaps that means gaming dies or turns into DDO or some video game version of a role playing game. I don't have a good answer there but teh steady stream of bnew people coming in needs to be addressed.

 

[Dausuul]

In the 1e era, a new hardcover book was released about once per year, and that was the Golden Age of D&D. Now there is no way on Earth that WotC would settle for one book per year for D&D.

Emphasis mine. TSR put out a lot more than one book per year; it's just that most were softcover. The "all glossy hardcover, all the time" thing didn't start until 3.5E. Before that, hardcovers were for core books and big compendium-type things.

I do think there is enormous benefit to the game in being produced and supported by a thriving business. It makes it possible to attract and pay highly talented people to work all day on improving the game and creating content. It makes it possible to fund events and cons that bring gamers together. It makes it possible to do cross-marketing stuff like the new board games (which are excellent, by the way).

The other side of the equation, though, is that "professional" corporate management has a poor track record with D&D. The first episode of that was Lorraine Williams, who ran TSR into the ground in the '90s. The second has been Hasbro. Because Hasbro is still in charge, it's more difficult to get a clear picture of what's going on, but yearly layoffs are almost never a sign of good management. Rick Marshall's posts here imply he thinks Hasbro makes a lot of decisions to boost its quarterly bottom line without much thought to the long term, and I would not be surprised if that's the case. It's a common issue with big public companies.

I think the best thing for D&D would be if Hasbro sold or spun off Wizards into a separate company again, and Wizards got someone to run the show who was both a gamer and a competent business executive.