D&D 5E We're Getting Old - and is WotC Accounting For That?

[gweinel]

Well, we saw at 2008 what happened when Wizard ignored their current gamers...

And this thread pretty much sums up why they should ignore current gamers. It's not age, it's obsitnance. All the passive-aggressive edition war garbage so thinly veiled in this thread alone makes one wonder why the design crew should care one lick what this "community" wants. In a perfect world, they need to make a good game to appeal to new players while finding a way to make the current crew just STFU because they can only hurt their goal to grow the game.

Of course the internet makes things much tougher because motivated minorities spamming review sites all too much of a reality.

 

[Herschel]

...and even further proof, thanks.

WotC's issue isn't that the player base is getting older, their issue is that the grognards aren't getting older fast enough.

 

[Halivar]

Well, we saw at 2008 what happened when Wizard ignored their current gamers...

4E was marketed to players of 3E. This was a mistake. 3E players liked 3E. They needed to make deeper in-roads with the board-game and video-game crowd, which is where new players are more likely to come from.

 

[gweinel]

But i think they did exactly what you say: they made a game to please the players that enjoy the video-gaming tradition. IMHO that was their mistake.

4E was marketed to players of 3E. This was a mistake. 3E players liked 3E. They needed to make deeper in-roads with the board-game and video-game crowd, which is where new players are more likely to come from.

 

[Starfox]

Hasbro/WotC had a ready-made audience for 4E - Magic players. They might not be used to the rpg mindset, but they would find 4E's rule paradigms familiar. If 5% of all Magic players had adopted 4E, I think it would have been considered a success. Seems the branches of Hasbro didn't work together on this tough.

Then again, hobbies that look closely related from a distance might be very secterist when you take a closer look, so I could be wrong. The people who played Magic in 2008 did so because they enjoyed Magic, not because Magic was close to D&D. But they did share the fantasy mindset.

Personally, my opinion of 5E has improved from reading the passionate case for the game some people have made in the will you bye 5E thread.

 

[delericho]

...and even further proof, thanks.

WotC's issue isn't that the player base is getting older, their issue is that the grognards aren't getting older fast enough.

Charming.

 

[Halivar]

But i think they did exactly what you say: they made a game to please the players that enjoy the video-gaming tradition. IMHO that was their mistake.

This has all been hashed out ad naseum. Suffice it to say there is significant disagreement on this point, and I direct you to ye olde Edition Wars threads.

Regardless of any of that, though, WotC did not market to the video game crowd. They marketed to us. And I think this was a mistake. We didn't need to be marketed to. We know all about it already. They should have taken out ads in places non-ttrpg gamers are likely to see.

EDIT: One place they should have looked first was in the tabletop wargaming crowd. 4E was about tactical combat and this would have been right up their alley.

 

[Herschel]

The best term isn't grognard, it's baggage.

The same, wrong-headed arguments come out every time they make a new edition, TSR or WotC. That makes it extremely difficult to make the best game possible to draw new players when such a big chunk of the customer base is at opposition with it.

 

[Weather Report]

The best term isn't grognard, it's baggage.

The same, wrong-headed arguments come out every time they make a new edition, TSR or WotC. That makes it extremely difficult to make the best game possible to draw new players when such a big chunk of the customer base is at opposition with it.

Your posts on this thread reek of wah, wah, 5th Ed is not 4.5.

 

[Halivar]

Well, that escalated quickly.</anchor-man>