Why the thought of D&D 5e makes me sad...

[Bedrockgames]

There's a strange contradition about PDFs and how many people will use them (on screen or print them out). On the one hand, some folks will say that WotC can't make money on them, yet when they were available WotC was constantly atop the best sellers list on the top ePub sites (and acceptance of electronic products just keeps exponentially growing, if things like tablets and readers, and the demise of so many B&M stores, are anything to judge by) and on the other hand apparently piracy of current edition books at the time was enough to cause WotC to completely reverse their policy on all PDF products, even older edition (but if nobody wants them or will use them, how can they damage the profits?).

So, lines like "The pdf's never sold in numbers to actually matter all that much" really doesn't track for me.


As for 4E support once 5E is out, and compatibility of 4E with 5E? I think those situation will be in line with 3.XE support once 4E was out and 3.XE compatibility with 4E. It's a matter of bolstering the value of the most recent edition.

I think it was definitely not a bad revenue stream for WOTC. And PDFs, when priced right, are a great way for companies to make money (some RPG publishers are striclty PDF because of the lower production costs). In WOTC's case I think they simply crunched the numbers and decided the risk of piracy outweighed the financial benefits. Since then PDFs have only grown. I don't know if they would reverse the decision or not though if they had a chance. I think from WOTC's point of view I think they were spooked by the large number of free copies of their books available online.

 

[Mark CMG]

In WOTC's case I think they simply crunched the numbers and decided the risk of piracy outweighed the financial benefits. Since then PDFs have only grown. I don't know if they would reverse the decision or not though if they had a chance. I think from WOTC's point of view I think they were spooked by the large number of free copies of their books available online.

I think piracy has rather limited influence on actual sales. I think WotC knows this, too, but wanted to avoid the accusations that they were not interested in competing with or supporting their previous editions. They wanted all D&D oars pulling in the same direction.


I think piracy, despite my previous watery metaphor, was a convenient excuse and that pulling the PDFs was a part of a much larger policy of isolationism from most of the rest of the game publishing industry, the very industry that they helped foster during the 3.XE era. They wanted much tighter control over licensing (they all expired or needed renewal roughly to coincide with the new edition, if you ever get the idea they don't plan ahead), tighter control over online concerns (they pulled back from all ePublishing and switched to DDI), tighter control over third party D&D-related publishing (switch to the more restrictive GSL), tighter control over D&D IP (re: naming conventions of powers, lots of new nomenclature), etc. And they now have that tighter control.


What I don't think they foresaw was that not everyone would fall in line (or perhaps didn't care) nor that the tabletop rpg industry outside of D&D could flourish in the way it has. I doubt whoever suggested the isolationist policy (codified or in effect) is still with WotC.

 

[Umbran]

Four Five editions of D&D, and not one of them ever got anyone laid.

Factually incorrect. I met the lady who is now my wife when she showed up to make a character for my D&D game. Though we didn't start dating for years after that, I probably wouldn't have gotten to know her if not for that game.

So, an entire marriage worth of... liaisons... can be chalked up to 2e.

 

[Umbran]

What I don't think they foresaw was that not everyone would fall in line (or perhaps didn't care) nor that the tabletop rpg industry outside of D&D could flourish in the way it has.

The latter would be a fundamental failure in learning from history. D&D has seen other periods of the industry outside of D&D flourishing - White Wolf's World of Darkness comes readily to mind.

Humans fail to learn form history all the time, though, so nothing strange there.

 

[Mallus]

It is? Fighters had more non-weapon proficiencies than casters, better saves and could use the most common magic items. And casting times was sometimes multiple rounds.

I think so. Fighter saving throws pre-3e were a big deal, and a big advantage that got inexplicable nerfed in 3e for some reason I can't quite figure out.

But that doesn't change the fact casters, especially magic-users, simply had a much large number of significant, game-changing abilities in the form of spells, starting around mid-level and getting rapidly worse from there, than non-casting classes.

In virtually every campaign I played in back then, problem-solving eventually became a matter of spell/magic use. Which meant the most important decisions were put in the hands of the casters.

 

[billd91]

I think so. Fighter saving throws pre-3e were a big deal, and a big advantage that got inexplicable nerfed in 3e for some reason I can't quite figure out.

It's true. There's a point where fighter saves are the best... mostly in pretty high levels like 14-18. But at low levels, they kind of suck. At mid-levels, they're part of the pack. The supposed advantage of the fighter saving throws is actually not that great.

EDIT: It's huge compared to the thief whose saves were far and away the worst of 1e. But the fighter is only marginally better than the wizard - having the best save 50 times over 21 levels compared to the wizard's 46. He also comes out with 31 worst saves (heavily concentrated in the first 8 character levels across multiple saves) compared to the wizard's 30 (heavily concentrated in paralyze, poison, and death magic across the whole career).

 

[JamesonCourage]

Is the quote from here?:

Timmy, Johnny, and Spike Revisited : Daily MTG : Magic: The Gathering

It is even a bad understanding how to compare TCG and RPG.

No, the quote is not from that article. It's from an article that, you know, Monte Cook wrote

Ivory Tower Game Design

 

[wingsandsword]

WotC's Business model - new edition and re-publish your books, nothing new. what I find hard to take is the shear number of gamers that will not jump ship and try another game, it is WotC or not (note this is not as bad as it use to be).

Why, is it wrong that gamers refuse to buy new gaming products because they see no need for them?

I am one of those people who won't even give 5e a look, it's DOA as far as I am concerned (unless, maybe, it's backwards compatible with 3.x like 2e was with 1e). WotC lost me, pretty much permanently, when they "fired" me as a customer with 4e. It would be pretty hard to get me back, and it would take a lot of word-of-mouth from fans (including my IRL friends, who have universally rejected 4e, and some of those were playtesters). They are competing against their prior editions, and those editions have the advantage of already being purchased, known and understood, and well liked from a decade of experience.

I have a bookcase full of gaming books, with a whole shelf of 3.5 materials where I prefer that system of mechanics to any other edition before or since, and a separate shelf of 1e and 2e books I can mine for "fluff". Why would I need to buy yet another edition, in 3 core books, and the inevitable splatbooks and repackaging of the same old stuff (new version of Forgotten Realms, new book of deities, new book of planes, new fighter book, ect.), and KNOW that the books will be obsolete in a few years with 6e comes out.

My IRL gaming friends play 3.5 or PF (or mix-and-match between them). Why should they go out and spend $100+ on 3 new core books and have to re-learn the whole game just to keep playing what they have been playing?

Why convert a long-running campaign and try to shoehorn and retcon the campaign world to the new edition or house-rule it to fit the campaign? Why essentially commit to buying more and more gaming books, and making the ones you have de-facto obsolete, when you can keep on using what works for you and your group?

WotC seems to have a business model of producing a new core edition of D&D every 3 to 5 years, with new PHB, DMG, and MM, and the same old splatbooks recycled and repackaged. When I was a teenager, 3 to 5 years was quite a while, and now that I'm in my 30's it's not that long at all. By the time I learn a new edition, wait for the splatbooks that flesh the system out fully, and switch campaigns over to it we'll play one or maybe two full campaigns in that system before another edition. . .or we could just keep playing what we are playing.

This is why people don't switch to new editions of D&D, and it is not a bad thing.

 

[Shemeska]

Four Five editions of D&D, and not one of them ever got anyone laid.

Not true

(Would have given you XP to say that, but I can't give you XP again for a while)

 

[Nagol]

Why, is it wrong that gamers refuse to buy new gaming products because they see no need for them?

I am one of those people who won't even give 5e a look, it's DOA as far as I am concerned (unless, maybe, it's backwards compatible with 3.x like 2e was with 1e). WotC lost me, pretty much permanently, when they "fired" me as a customer with 4e. It would be pretty hard to get me back, and it would take a lot of word-of-mouth from fans (including my IRL friends, who have universally rejected 4e, and some of those were playtesters). They are competing against their prior editions, and those editions have the advantage of already being purchased, known and understood, and well liked from a decade of experience.

I have a bookcase full of gaming books, with a whole shelf of 3.5 materials where I prefer that system of mechanics to any other edition before or since, and a separate shelf of 1e and 2e books I can mine for "fluff". Why would I need to buy yet another edition, in 3 core books, and the inevitable splatbooks and repackaging of the same old stuff (new version of Forgotten Realms, new book of deities, new book of planes, new fighter book, ect.), and KNOW that the books will be obsolete in a few years with 6e comes out.

My IRL gaming friends play 3.5 or PF (or mix-and-match between them). Why should they go out and spend $100+ on 3 new core books and have to re-learn the whole game just to keep playing what they have been playing?

Why convert a long-running campaign and try to shoehorn and retcon the campaign world to the new edition or house-rule it to fit the campaign? Why essentially commit to buying more and more gaming books, and making the ones you have de-facto obsolete, when you can keep on using what works for you and your group?

WotC seems to have a business model of producing a new core edition of D&D every 3 to 5 years, with new PHB, DMG, and MM, and the same old splatbooks recycled and repackaged. When I was a teenager, 3 to 5 years was quite a while, and now that I'm in my 30's it's not that long at all. By the time I learn a new edition, wait for the splatbooks that flesh the system out fully, and switch campaigns over to it we'll play one or maybe two full campaigns in that system before another edition. . .or we could just keep playing what we are playing.

This is why people don't switch to new editions of D&D, and it is not a bad thing.

I think his point was many gamers won't try non-WotC games like Castles and Crusades, Runequest, Ars Magica, Savage Worlds, or any of the other dozens of games in the RPG universe.

They'll stick with one manufacturer -- possibly buy the new shiny possibly not, but won't look for a game better suited to their preferred style and preferences if they aren't satisfied.