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

[Bedrockgames]

I don't understand exactly how you can discuss what's good for the game without talking about what's good for individual groups and players.

As far as I can tell, the most relevant data we have is people's buying/playing habits.

Currently, people are buying, in varying perentages, 4e, 3e/Pathfinder, and older D&D/retroclones, which represent at least 3, if not more, different rules frameworks for creating the D&D experience.

So that's what's good for D&D. That's what's meeting the audience's needs.

I can't help but think the phrase "what's good for D&D" really means is "what's good for me and way I like to play D&D".

It's an implied call not for a change in the official rules, but for a change in what the D&D audience wants from the rules (which at this point includes several fairly divergent, if not contradictory, things).

We already know what's good for the game, using the only meaningful metric; it's what we're purchasing, supporting and most importantly, playing right now.

I would broaden this to say the health of the table top RPG hobby as a whole is what matters. Even if the brand D&D completely dies the hobby can continue. Even if fantasy RPGs go extinct for some reason (or just pass out of fasion), so long as people are still playing games like Traveller and Call of Cthulu, that is all that matters.

But I also think it is fair to ponder whether a more broadly popular game (one that cut across the pathfinder/4e divide bringing everyone to the table) would make the hobby healthier. Personally I don't know. I think it can definitely be good for the hobby for the majority of players to share a common set of mechanics and assumptions, but this can also drive away potential players who want something different.

Obviously in terms of profit, the people making D&D want the biggest share of the market possible. I think there is plenty of room for niche products. But if I own D&D, I probably don't want it to appeal to a narrow band of gamers. I want it to appeal to as many fantasy table top rpg fans as possible. But I am not sure whether you can expand the band now that the hobby has been fragmented between 4E, 3E, Pathfinder, retro-clones etc. And I tend to think the fragmenting is better for the hobby even if it hurts companies trying to be the major player. It kind of reminds me of the pre-d20 days, when you actually had gaming options.

 

[Pentius]

What seems odd to me in this conversation is that when discussing subscription models, there seems to be an assumption that when your subscription to the online tools runs out, you won't have the rules anymore and will be unable to play. This would seem to ignore the idea that you could just copy the info while you have access to it.

 

[Steel_Wind]

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.

This is 100% correct.

It is also one of the reasons why there was an OGL in the first place.

Ryan Dancey knew the peril for the game in the longterm; after all, he had been brought into the management of the brand in order to resurrect the patient in the first place. He knew all too well that the patient could easily be killed again by the marketplace. The problem of D&D's potential death in the marketplace was one of the elements in support of the entire reasoning behind the OGL from the very start.

With the OGL, Peter Adkinson, Ryan Dancey, Lisa Stevens et al cast "Clone" of D&D in Plain Sight and deliberately made that selfless act something that could not be cancelled or undone for the benefit not of WotC, but for the benefit of all gamers.

It worked.

 

[billd91]

What seems odd to me in this conversation is that when discussing subscription models, there seems to be an assumption that when your subscription to the online tools runs out, you won't have the rules anymore and will be unable to play. This would seem to ignore the idea that you could just copy the info while you have access to it.

There are quite a few questions of format and usability bound up here. How many of you have found interesting game stuff on the internet, downloaded it, maybe even printed if off, and then let it kind of sit stashed away in a corner somewhere or found it was a hassle to actually use or maintain? I can think of several things I've done that with.

Add to that the hassle of using the rules to begin with. I know more than a few people who find 4e cumbersome for building characters outside of using the character builder tools they got with DDI. Don't get me wrong, the character builder (at least the last stand alone version I tinkered with) was a pretty good tool. But how many people really relish building 4e characters without it?

Now imagine the format of whatever info dump you're able to get off the online system. Is it a well formatted, bookmarked, easy to use PDF? Or is it some other hodge-podgy info dump in some other format that will require a few hours to punch into usable shape?

It doesn't take much effort to think of several barriers to easy use of a subscription model table-top RPG that no longer has its main access tool. And the more barriers that exist, the fewer fans will continue on with the game, and the harder it will be to recruit new players. A few barriers can certainly be ameliorated by a company interested in providing good customer service, but can we be sure that's the company WotC will be when the day comes to pull the plug on 4e's online support? That's an unknown and I don't envy 4e fans who prefer to use the online tools. They'll eventually face an answer to these issues and it may not be satisfactory.

 

[Mallus]

But I also think it is fair to ponder whether a more broadly popular game (one that cut across the pathfinder/4e divide bringing everyone to the table) would make the hobby healthier.

The question is: what would that game look like? The current market for D&D products is pretty clearly showing us the hobby wants some significantly different things out of D&D. How do you reconcile the people who want an AD&D-like experience and those you want 3e/Pathfinder?

I don't see a clear path to this.

I think it can definitely be good for the hobby for the majority of players to share a common set of mechanics and assumptions, but this can also drive away potential players who want something different.

My observation is D&D players never really wanted a common set of mechanics. Back when I started, the big game was AD&D, and everyone was busy house-ruling it to high heaven, importing mechanics (and charts!) from other systems, and otherwise customizing it to taste. And the result was very different play experiences from table to table, without any concern over 'compatibility', or the effect on the overall health of the hobby.

Campaigns were very different depending on the group, despite ostensibly using a "common" set of rules.

I think the idea that we were "all playing the same game" back then has been, from a practical perspective, grossly exaggerated.

 

[billd91]

My observation is D&D players never really wanted a common set of mechanics. Back when I started, the big game was AD&D, and everyone was busy house-ruling it to high heaven, importing mechanics (and charts!) from other systems, and otherwise customizing it to taste. And the result was very different play experiences from table to table, without any concern over 'compatibility', or the effect on the overall health of the hobby.

Campaigns were very different depending on the group, despite ostensibly using a "common" set of rules.

I think the idea that we were "all playing the same game" back then has been, from a practical perspective, grossly exaggerated.

I think it's also possible to overstate the differences between campaigns and the rules used even with house rules applied. How many people house rule more than a relatively small proportion of the rules? I strongly suspect most people playing AD&D had more experiences in common with each other than AD&D players had with players of RuneQuest, Warhammer, or RoleMaster. I think of it a bit like playing football at rec league, high school, college, and professional levels. There are differences in rules at every level. The game is played a bit different at each level. But there's more in common between levels of football than there is with rugby or soccer.

 

[Mallus]

I think it's also possible to overstate the differences between campaigns and the rules used even with house rules applied.

Granted.

How many people house rule more than a relatively small proportion of the rules?

The important thing is the impact on play, and the kinds of modifications I was thinking of had a big impact; ditching spell memorization in favor of various spell point systems, ahem... idiosyncratic spell interpretations with significant consequences, critical hit/fumble rules, quest experience in lieu of XP for gold/killing, etc.

 

[Bedrockgames]

The question is: what would that game look like? The current market for D&D products is pretty clearly showing us the hobby wants some significantly different things out of D&D. How do you reconcile the people who want an AD&D-like experience and those you want 3e/Pathfinder?

I don't see a clear path to this.

Well, I don't think it is easy. I definitely don't envy being a guy like Monte Cook right now. The only way I can think of is to take the approach film and television shows take when they want to appeal to a broad audience: don't offend anyone. That is make a game with mechanics that don't make pathfinder or 4E people bristle. But the game also has to be fun and playable. So it is tricky.

At this stage it may be too late, because the people are playing pathfinder and 4E already and seem to be satisfied with those products.

My observation is D&D players never really wanted a common set of mechanics. Back when I started, the big game was AD&D, and everyone was busy house-ruling it to high heaven, importing mechanics (and charts!) from other systems, and otherwise customizing it to taste. And the result was very different play experiences from table to table, without any concern over 'compatibility', or the effect on the overall health of the hobby.

I wasn't thinking about people customizing the game or not to taste, so much as having a common system that everyone refers to as a common ground. But I think it is easier to grow D&D when D&D is one thing.

I think the idea that we were "all playing the same game" back then has been, from a practical perspective, grossly exaggerated.

Yeah, I believe this depends on the place and time. When I started just before 2E came out, I do think people were playing very different games, but after 2E, all the games I played in pretty much used the same rules. By 3E this was even more the case in my experience (perhaps due in part to the internet).

 

[tomBitonti]

This thought occurred to me independent of the current thread, but I think it is relevant.

The focus on 3.5E vs 4E vs 5E vs PathFinder vs whatever else seems to be a very narrow view. Just as no single programming language can satisfy the software market, no single game system will satisfy the gaming market.

While Microsoft pushes C-sharp and Visual Basic, and Sun/Oracle pushes Java, the market is diverse enough to support both.

Then, for roleplaying, can a single organization have the breadth to promote a suite of gaming products? Or, does this force an unnatural "noncompetive" posture, requiring then that the gaming market as a whole to create the broad organizations that have a view on all of the products?

As a shorter presentation: Does D&D need a 5E so much as it needs a more inclusive outlook that promotes several concrete variations at the same time?

That would allow the discussion of the features of each particular game system to be made a more public issue, and would make the game system provider more of a partner to the gaming community, rather than a defacto arbiter of the one-true system.

TomB

 

[Hussar]

4e may be in DDI, but what happens when the code needs maintenance? I can assure you it will. I expect it will require more maintenance in the long term than keeping a few directories of e-books/PDFs from past editions for sale. How long will they do it when they can expect the return on investment to decline over time?



Hey, they found a reason to not continue to sell 3e materials despite low maintenance costs, didn't they? And, no, I don't believe for an instant that the primary reason was piracy. I can't see why the logic behind pulling previous edition PDFs would really change.

As I mentioned in the other thread, you've got about 30 free modules, several hundred maps, dozens of supplementary articles, and I'm sure a whole boatload more 3e material sitting on the WOTC site right now for free.

How is that not supporting a legacy edition?

If they really were doing what you are claiming, why would they leave up enough 3e material, including errata and whatnot, to play the game for the next five or six years?