D&D 5E (2014) Who really IS the target audience of D&D Next?

[Rechan]

All in all i dont see very many 4e players sticking with it after its no longer supported so their dollars are a virtual lock.

The more I read about 5e the more I am planning to stick with 4e.

 

[Melkor]

Me.

 

[Jawsh]

Who is the target audience of D&D Next?

I really do believe that WotC is attempting to be as broad as possible. They want everybody and their dog to play D&D. In the entire world. Whether they can do that is another question, and I think it's impossible.

However, what we're seeing at ENWorld, Wizards.com, and industry-specific outlets, like Gen-Con, is the PR material specifically targeted at us. In this way, WotC is doing at least one small thing right. They might not necessarily be making the game for the (existing) fans, but they are talking to the fans. That counts for something.

WotC may have big plans to win over converts from other segments, but we are not in a position to see what they're doing. They do seem to be targeting "people who play board games" among some others at the moment. I don't see a lot of focus on going after WoW, or other online RPGs, but that could be because they don't see a way forward. And they don't want to touch MTG, because it's their own brand.

The other thing to mention though, is that D&D as an experience already exists. There's only so much tweaking you can do to make it the best game ever, and the best match for all gamers out there. And if you do too much tweaking, then the game might as well not be D&D anymore, and might as well just turn into a subset of MTG.



And of course, the D&D community is unlike any other in that we have a lot of homebrewers among us. Many, if not all, of the people working on D&D were fans and tweakers long before they got hired to make a living at it. And part of the motivation of looking toward the fan base is that it's culturally ingrained in the kind of people that get hired by WotC. They got into the game because of its social elements. It might not even turn out to be the best marketing strategy to sell to existing fans over and over and over again. But the people making the product are saying things like "I just want to make a game that I, as an RPG hobbyist, would want to play."

 

[boredgremlin]

The more I read about 5e the more I am planning to stick with 4e.

Thats just silly. The only thing they have said so far is " we want to make everyone happy, guys, poll time, what makes you happy"?

Actually, i see your point now. Those insidious bastards. Declaring that their goal is to please me. Screw them. I'll show them. Where can I pick up an old red box?

 

[boredgremlin]

Good lord, i just realized we are actually going to have a few 4e grognards.........

 

[BryonD]

3e struggled to bring in non-rpg people, especially late in its run, and 4e has failed pretty dramatically at that. The whole open playtest thing is great, but pretty clearly aimed at people who already play.

I don't agree that either edition had issues with bringing new people in.

I do think that there are unreasonable expectations in some quarters regarding the very idea of "bringing in new players".

The reality is that the great majority of the population is NEVER going to be a TTRPG player and actively working to convert them is a waste of effort. There will be potential new players ever day. Ninty percent are simply described as kids coming into the hobby. It is critical to remain focused on bringing new blood into the game. But trying to move the demographic out of the very small percentage of the overall population won't work.

If you are measuring any edition of D&D against that standard, it will look bad, but not fairly so.

(For the record, my wife is a "convert". I converted her. I know they are out there. But she was in the percentage, she was just in the subset of that percentage that had never really been exposed to gaming. There should be a lot of effort to target those people.)

There is also the issue that the percentage is fixed, but the alternatives available constantly grow.


As to who is the target, I don't think anyone at WotC could give a straight and clear answer to that.

I think new gamers are critical.
I think 4E fans are critical.

I don't think anyone else is critical. But I don't think those two groups come close to "enough fans". "Enough fans" is critical.

So you turn to "everyone else who is a potential fan and can be gained without costing 1.01 fans in return." 3E fans are probably the easiest target. Not to say that is "easy", but they were recent fans and they left mostly over 4E. Fix those issues and you have a fair shot at getting them back.

Compare that to fans of older editions who never went to 3E or 4E. By definition that are happy with what they have and are stable in that choice. You are trying to convert a group who are defined by the fact that they haven't converted.

Of course, by that same definition, converting those fans would produce the most loyal of new fans. And I think the olive branches being held out to those groups are highly sincere.

Everyone truly is a target. And, to the extent that WotC can successfully read the group mind of gamers, there is really only one way to NOT be the target. That way is to make the price of gaining you cost more fans than it adds.

 

[Rechan]

Thats just silly. The only thing they have said so far is " we want to make everyone happy, guys, poll time, what makes you happy"?

Click on the 5e Info link at the top of the page - they've said a whole hell of a lot more than that. My objections are based on the actual rules that have been discussed. Ability scores as saves. Instead of spell DCs or flat attacks with spells, casters roll a check to set the DC for the attack, and then the target saves. The excessive lethality of the playtests so far.

An opposing roll system like that is clunky and slow as hell, going back to saving throws instead of attacking defenses is a step backwards, and six saves instead of three is just dumb IMO. And I just dislike fragile PCs.

And even if these rules can be glossed with extra layers of rules, I'd rather not try to build a pretty house of 4e-like rules on top of what I see as a shoddy foundation, or put lots of effort in tearing out the rules I dislike, when I already have an edition I like.

So far, there are only 4 things I have liked about the stated features of the 5e mechanics: significantly slowing down the increase of attack/defense bonuses (so when you gain a level, you get more options, not constant higher numbers), the removal of magical items as necessary to the math of the system, Themes being the third pillar of character creation (with some classes simply represented by themes), and splitting the cleric into a cleric and priest class. That's it.

I like the sound of them dropping Keeps/et all on high levels, and providing rules for say, running a kingdom, but those can simply be mined and used for 4e.

I couldn't give a flump about the essence of the D&D experience - which 5e is all about - I just care about a good RPG. If I don't like the rules, then I'm not going to play the game.

But no, the only reason I could be objecting to is that they're trying to please everyone.

 

[pauljathome]

Thats just silly. The only thing they have said so far is " we want to make everyone happy, guys, poll time, what makes you happy"?

They've said a lot more than that.

It is currently early in the process (how early is unclear) and we haven't actually seen even these early rules yet so irrevocably making ANY decision at this point is arguably silly. Its certainly premature.

But there are definite trends and tendencies that they are currently showing. It is not even remotely silly to believe something like "If the game is reasonably similar to what it currently appears that it will be, then it is not a game that I will be interested in playing".

That is definitely my current (provisional) opinion. The ONLY thing that I've heard about that appeals to me is the idea of flattening the power curve from 3.0. Everything else is just not to my taste, some things very much so.

I've signed up for the playtest and I'm reserving judgement until I see the final rules. But at the moment I'm definitely not optimistic.

 

[hanez]

I think the more the game focuses on interesting archetypes, engaging ideas mystery, secrecy, imagination, depth and legend the more it will be appealing. In my experience D&D is often whispered about and people are interested to find out exactly what it is because it is so hard to define.

On the other hand the more it focuses on simple unified mechanics, balance, equal choices, the more it resembles what people already know (a big board game) and the less appealing it is.

 

[Ahnehnois]

I don't agree that either edition had issues with bringing new people in.

I do think that there are unreasonable expectations in some quarters regarding the very idea of "bringing in new players".

The reality is that the great majority of the population is NEVER going to be a TTRPG player and actively working to convert them is a waste of effort. There will be potential new players ever day. Ninty percent are simply described as kids coming into the hobby. It is critical to remain focused on bringing new blood into the game. But trying to move the demographic out of the very small percentage of the overall population won't work.

If you are measuring any edition of D&D against that standard, it will look bad, but not fairly so.

(For the record, my wife is a "convert". I converted her. I know they are out there. But she was in the percentage, she was just in the subset of that percentage that had never really been exposed to gaming. There should be a lot of effort to target those people.)

There is also the issue that the percentage is fixed, but the alternatives available constantly grow.

I really don't agree. I'm not saying that meeting up for D&D after school will ever be as popular as pickup basketball or Jersey Shore, but I think there's a lot of room for D&D to break out of its niche.

On a broad level, we've seen the growth of many forms of entertainment that were previously considered the sole province of a small group of devoted fans. Huge comic book-based blockblusters are beloved by people who would never read a comic book. Fantasy has become mainstream with the LotR movies, Harry Potter, and GoT. Huge numbers of normal people are playing computer rpgs in fantasy settings and otherwise. Heck, they even made Star Trek cool. Over the past decade or two, popular culture has become significantly more "nerdified".

Thus, I think D&D could appeal to all kinds of people and could grow pretty profoundly. Even the surprising mainstream news coverage of the 5e announcement suggests that. Moreover, there's a need to get people off of computers in a room together, and to engage them in creative activity as schools and communities stop supporting the arts. So I think the mentality in WotC should be that D&D can and should break out of its very limited traditional demographic.