Would Paizo Make a Better Steward for Our Hobby?

[Jester David]

Questions

We've discussed the issue for 18 pages and seeing many people agree with the statement that Paizo would be the better steward that WotC, if it has not already become the steward.

With that in mind, a follow-up question:
What does WotC have to do to become the steward again?
Or, alternatively
How does WotC retain stewardship and become a better steward for the hobby?

 

[Zardnaar]

Make a D&D that doesn't suck. Also stop redesigning D&D drastically every 3-5 years.

 

[GreyLord]

Also stop redesigning D&D drastically every 3-5 years.

Ignoring the first part...

THIS!!!!!

At least that's a start...

It's still an uphill battle to become noted as the biggest boy without any doubts at all...once more...but at least stop friggen redesigning a new game so often. They have at least SEVEN DIFFERENT editions that they can choose from at this point without even including NEXT. Pick one of the more popular ones and embellish on that, build political capital with others again, and play nice once more!!!

 

[mlund]

The Open Gaming License was as terrible for Dungeons and Dragons as it was good for Hobby Gaming overall. The OGL allowed for the massive fragmentation of the d20 market while eliminating the core change-over incentive that made it possible to cleanly sunset one edition of D&D while releasing another. The snake eats its own tail now, so to speak.

The real question is: "What do you mean by 'the hobby'?"

Do you mean the D&D Brand?

Do you mean d20-based gaming?

Do you mean Swords & Sorcery role-playing?

Do you mean stupid, over-powered Mage-wankery masquerading as "simulationist gaming" to blatantly pander to bookworm nerds who constantly got their heads dunked in toilets by jocks in school?

D&D was originally the be-all, end-all of these things back in "The Day" (TM). That gradually eroded for various attributes, first with the expansion of the RPG market, then with the fragmentation of the OGL, and then with leaving the OGL behind.

To a very real extent there will never be a "steward of the hobby" for D20 fantasy swords-and-sorcery ever again. The diversification of the market it too great. Someone may be the flagship for it in the pop culture. There will be champions of particular play-styles. But there will probably never be a "steward of the hobby" like that ever again.

I'm not say that's a bad thing either.

- Marty Lund

 

[Halivar]

The Open Gaming License was as terrible for Dungeons and Dragons as it was good for Hobby Gaming overall. The OGL allowed for the massive fragmentation of the d20 market while eliminating the core change-over incentive that made it possible to cleanly sunset one edition of D&D while releasing another. The snake eats its own tail now, so to speak.

I think an earlier poster was spot on when he remarked that the OGL wasn't good for the TTRPG market... it was good for the d20 market. And that market darn near killed everything else. Everything had a d20 version, or conversion, even games that did not really jive with d20.

If 4E did anything, it killed the all-encompassing uniformity of the RPG market. A lot of those d20 conversions went back to their roots (most happily for me, Savage Worlds bringing Deadlands back to the old system), or went in a new, more interesting direction (Iron Kingdoms, in particular, just never felt right as d20).

 

[Emerikol]

Do you mean stupid, over-powered Mage-wankery masquerading as "simulationist gaming" to blatantly pander to bookworm nerds who constantly got their heads dunked in toilets by jocks in school?

There has never been a greater lie told than this one in the annuals of roleplaying games.

I've yet to meet this cabal of wizards intent on keeping the fighter down. I have met tons of fighter and rogue players outraged that their classes have been polluted with narrativist garbage. When I play I almost exclusively play martial types with rogue being dominant. So stop this insinuation. The rest of your post was reasonable. This point though is dead wrong. In fact if I could take bets I'd bet heavily that there is little correlation between class preference and edition preference. It is just your disrespect for the simulationist viewpoint (as you so obviously revealed above) that leads you to assume an alternative theory. You should get out more. Lots of people care about simulationist concerns in their games. So get over it.

/end rant

I just hear this stuff way too much

 

[Bluenose]

How can you fake simulation?
Again, it's not a binary situation. A game is not either all simulation or not simulation. There can be places the game leans to simulation or has nods to reality or designs a rule to complement realism.
It's never been perfectly simulationist but the number of instance of mechanics breaking suspension of disbelief might be fewer.

It's very easy to fake simulation. Make something that looks plausible, and most people either will not know enough to object or will prefer not to think too hard about it. This is admittedly more of a problem in games that attempt Process-Sim, because their larger number of "moving parts", many of which are only superficially correct, interact in some very odd ways.

Whatever the Forge people might say, Gamers have agendas. Games are tools we can use to fulfill agendas.

I know some folks say that a given gamer only ever has one agenda. I think that's silly. Gamers have a variety of desires, some of them mutually exclusive.

Some games, therefore, are designed to fulfill multiple agendas.

Designers apply their agenda to the rules as much as gamers. And when every time there's a decision point they choose to follow a Gamist agenda rather than a Simulationist or Narrativist one....

Of course if those decision points aren't consistent, then you end up with a game that elements that are Gamist, some that are Simulationist, and some that are Narrativist. And that sort of game gets house-ruled to remove some of those elements, but those house rules vary so much from place to place in such a way that people end up in long, drawn-out arguments about how their rule interpretation is obviously the right one - it's consistent with these mechanics over here - while other people argue that it is clearly wrong - because those mechanics there contradict it. To use an example unlikely to cause much current aggravation, I know people for whom the "Weapon against Armour" and "Weapon Speed" tables were an essential part of the game in AD&D 1st edtion, and others who disregarded them entirely.

 

[Ahnehnois]

[MENTION=6698278]Emerikol[/MENTION]
True. Simulation occurs on a pretty basic level; one doesn't have to talk about advanced science or minute details to see that some basic notion of reality is reflected in the game.

And in actual play, I've rarely ever had issues with balance between different character types, and no one has ever, ever come to me saying that a spellcaster was overpowering the nonmagical characters. Conversely, I see the complaints about "that doesn't make sense" and "that's not how it would work" all the time from all types of people.

 

[Emerikol]

@Emerikol
True. Simulation occurs on a pretty basic level; one doesn't have to talk about advanced science or minute details to see that some basic notion of reality is reflected in the game.

And in actual play, I've rarely ever had issues with balance between different character types, and no one has ever, ever come to me saying that a spellcaster was overpowering the nonmagical characters. Conversely, I see the complaints about "that doesn't make sense" and "that's not how it would work" all the time from all types of people.

You sir likely run a simulationist table as do I. I mean no disrespect to the narrativist tables but I do dislike their insinuations that my view point is intellectually dishonest and that my real agenda is keeping OTHER players down who play martial classes.

I appreciate a lot of what you write Ahnehnois.

 

[Umbran]

Designers apply their agenda to the rules as much as gamers. And when every time there's a decision point they choose to follow a Gamist agenda rather than a Simulationist or Narrativist one....

Of course if those decision points aren't consistent, then you end up with a game that elements that are Gamist, some that are Simulationist, and some that are Narrativist.

That was the real point - while some RPGs may be designed for a single agenda, I don't think you'll find many such any more. Heck, I personally think you'd have a hard time proving that Gygaxian D&D was created to serve only one agenda. And these days where the internet gives designers a great deal of feedback on what the market wants (which is decidedly mixed), and games are often built by teams, rather than by individuals with a focused bias, games are even less focused on just one aspect.

And, by the way, I think that's a good thing. For pretty much any Forgist agenda, if you really wanted to serve just one, an RPG would not be the best way to serve it. I think RPGs are, by their nature, mixed.