D&D 5E Are DMs the Swing Vote?

[Dannyalcatraz]

Here's the thing - every communication has an intended/expected audience, right? His current audience are people who are interested in 5e, right?

Well, yes and no.

If all he's doing is talking to those interested in 5Ed, he's not doing his job of selling the game. He's just preaching to the metaphorical choir. From a marketing perspective, he is (or should be) addressing gamers who may be on the fence about the new edition (like me), and even bringing new (casual or even non-) players into the hobby via his particular gateway.

Preaching to the choir just reinforces the message. Its important, but not crucial. Ditto the casual and non-gamers- they are where you can grow your business, but they won't necessarily keep you afloat.

The fence sitters, though, are who can make or break your game. Even if they number less than the "choir", their satisfaction- or more accurately their lack of it-will be a huge factor in the word of mouth PR battle for sales.

To use my current group as an example, they were just as curious about 4Ed as they were about previous editions. However, the more they heard, the less they liked. By the time I bought it and brought it to the table, 4Ed faced a HUGE challenge in winning any of them over.

Whereas with prior editions, all of the group had the core rulebooks and some had a few of their most used expansion books, 4Ed only got one DDI subscription and me buying only he most player-centric books (IOW, stuff with classes & powers).

As of right now, most of the group seems to have tuned out the 5Ed chatter. I personally follow it somewhat, and remain unconvinced either way. It isn't discussed, except in the sense of "When is it coming out?" ...and that, mostly from the ones who disliked 4Ed the most.

 

[Morrus]

Preaching to the choir is important because it creates evangelists. Well, that's the theory. Word of mouth off-the-Internet is surely a goal there.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Preaching to the choir is important because it creates evangelists. Well, that's the theory. Word of mouth off-the-Internet is surely a goal there.

Evangelists matter, yes, but those driven away from a given product are statistically 10x more likely to discuss their opinion than those who are happy.

 

[Wicht]

How likely is his audience to be edition warriors?

Do the readers of this thread count as part of the audience?

 

[Raith5]

It's an interesting idea. DMs drive the hobby despite being outnumbered 4:1. But they're the ones that have to actually run the games, so if they're not having fun or don't enjoy the edition then it is going to be very hard for everyone else to enjoy themselves.
This actually explains some of the blowback from 4th Edition.

Interesting question. I think RPGs really have to been seen a collaborative activity rather than DM or player led one.

I agree that the one of the more radical elements of 4th ed was the way it changed the role of the DM and gave mechanical and (thus) narrative power to the players. But I have to say for my group's demographic (40+) who have been playing for decades, this is a welcome change. I want to have game and world changing options (dare I say powers?) not just explore a prepackaged world.

While so much of 4th ed was underdone, it really shared responsibility for the game more broadly away from the DM, and DM fiat/ "mother may I" gaming etc which underpinned our early D&D experiences. As a result my group is not following the development of DDN.

 

[adamc]

Curiously, 4e was touted as being easier to DM. So how does this theory mesh with that claim?
I often found 4e's claimed easier DMing not to be the case. Building encounters was trickier as I couldn't just pull a single monster from a book but had to pull 4-8 and see if their powers synergized and also think of the terrain in the encounter area and provide a map for the encounter and each fight had to be a big setpiece fight. You couldn't just have a quick filler encounter to act as a break between long stretches of roleplaying, or small mood building encounter.
Monster building was somewhat easier. Kinda. While there was far, far less math involved making a 4e monster also involved writing two to five unique powers. The math was annoying and slow, but brainstorming unique snowflake power could be even slower. Having designed quite a few monsters, eventually your brain just starts to shut down.
Often DMing was easier, often it was not. So at best I'd call this a tie.

Your description strikes me as curious... "pull a single monster from a book"? I use the monster builder (online Adventure Tools). If you are talking about DMing 4e but aren't using the online tools, I think your opinion, while valid for your case, might not be representative.

I don't think 4e is nearly as attractive without the online tools; they are a key element of the mix.

 

[Jester David]

Your description strikes me as curious... "pull a single monster from a book"? I use the monster builder (online Adventure Tools). If you are talking about DMing 4e but aren't using the online tools, I think your opinion, while valid for your case, might not be representative.

I don't think 4e is nearly as attractive without the online tools; they are a key element of the mix.

I was referring to 3e when I pulled single monsters from books. For 4e I always used a wide assortment of monsters.

 

[dd.stevenson]

In a Legend & Lore column a few weeks back Mike Mearls made the claim of players:
You aren't edition warriors. You want the game to support a variety play styles in equal measure. You're not attached to any specific ways of doing things as long as the game works.

Now, this doesn't match the forums, but it does suggest we're a curious minority here.

I don't know of any research on this topic, but I'd be prepared to bet that forum posters are a curious minority in general. Internet message boards are a highly specific format that requires a certain mentality to enjoy.

 

[Umbran]

If all he's doing is talking to those interested in 5Ed, he's not doing his job of selling the game. He's just preaching to the metaphorical choir. From a marketing perspective, he is (or should be) addressing gamers who may be on the fence about the new edition (like me), and even bringing new (casual or even non-) players into the hobby via his particular gateway.

Okay, you've taken the statement out of its original context (talking about edition warriors, specifically) and now moved the goalposts to include fence-sitters. You end up with a strawman, Danny.

Each communication has its intended audience. No communication is good for all audiences simultaneously. The warriors are *NOT COMING TO THIS GATEWAY*. Period. Full stop. There is no chance of getting the hardnoses with those articles. They are in exactly the wrong place (the WotC site), coming from the wrong people (WotC insiders), to be convincing to an edition warrior.

Preaching to the choir just reinforces the message. Its important, but not crucial.

Horsehockey. Does the phrase "energize the base" mean nothing to you? Keeping your strongest advocates in the zone is terribly important for success. You *also* have to reach out to new people, sure. But that probably calls for different communication, in a different place, and a different style.

The fence sitters, though, are who can make or break your game.

Maybe - that's a demographic question, and I don't have data to say. Be that as it may, edition warriors are not fence sitters. They are staunchly on one side of the fence, and put up barbed wire land mines to defend their side.

To use my current group as an example, they were just as curious about 4Ed as they were about previous editions. However, the more they heard, the less they liked. By the time I bought it and brought it to the table, 4Ed faced a HUGE challenge in winning any of them over.

Here's the question, though. Knowing your players - was the problem that the communications were wrong, or that the game just wasn't suited for them? Even with the best communications, would they have ended up liking 4e?

As of right now, most of the group seems to have tuned out the 5Ed chatter.

Right. So, not reading L&L. My point is made, I think.

Evangelists matter, yes, but those driven away from a given product are statistically 10x more likely to discuss their opinion than those who are happy.

Yes, but they are probably about 20x less likely to come to your site to read about your product. Folks who are coming to your site for news - the audience for L&L articles, need nudges to keep them focused. They don't need heavy mind-changing. They don't need outreach.

There is a whole separate question as to whether WotC is doing proper outreach (or will do it - I can see an argument that it is still too early for outreach). There's a whole separate question as to whether WotC *can* do proper outreach - is there a budget for the kind of advertising that makes outreach work?

 

[Dwimmerlied]

I don't think it's that hard to reconcile the statement at all. And the answer is... many players just didn't think 4E worked for their particular playstyle and game.

If you had a campaign that was working fine in 3.5 and found that adapting it to 4E when it was released would not give you the same experience... then you didn't switch. It didn't work for you. You might not have anything against the game as a whole (and in other situations, sure you might play it)... but if there was no reason to switch, then you didn't. Nor should anyone have expected you to. But HAD 4E worked for your campaign (and on fact gained you something you felt was missing)... you would easily have switched the campaign over to it. Just like many people switched their 3.5 game to a Pathfinder game.

Most players aren't "edition warriors" in that if a game works... they will play it. Probably not for every type of campaign, but they aren't going to forsake a game "just because". Now some players definitely will. A few players still play only AD&D and will insist that every edition since then is a bad game and shouldn't be played (even if the other 99.9% of roleplayers think they're insane)... but that's why Mearls was talking about the predominant results from the surveys. Most players think there is something good to be said about every past edition of the game... and thus will be fine to play it is that's the game and campaign available at the time.

Defcon articulated everything I wanted to say quite nicely. I'm not an edition warrior. I've stuck with 3.5 so far because I think its given me the best tools for expressing my gaming vision. When I read here on this site some of the rumours for how the game was going to change with 4th ed, a lot of things caught my attention, as has 5th so far, but right now I play 3.5. If it manages to provide me with better tools, I'll support the product, for sure. I thought what Mike was referring to was that noone's just sticking to any one system for the sake of defending their honour on the boards as well as across the battlemat.