D&D 5E Reasons Why My Interest in 5e is Waning

[MerricB]

But if D&D disappeared from stores, would they still carry other RPG lines? I think that is [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION]'s question. I don't know the answer.

Stores that already carry other RPGs would likely continue to carry them, but there needs to be strong communites of players buying their books from the stores for that to occur.

I think a new store would likely not carry RPGs, unless there was an existing player population that wanted to buy their books in-store... which is made tricky by the internet.

Cheers!

 

[bmfrosty]

Stores that already carry other RPGs would likely continue to carry them, but there needs to be strong communites of players buying their books from the stores for that to occur.

I think a new store would likely not carry RPGs, unless there was an existing player population that wanted to buy their books in-store... which is made tricky by the internet.

Cheers!

Personal experience - my wife has been interviewing for a job out of state. I looked up the local game stores in the college town we might be moving to, and they are all MTG focused with no mention of D&D or even PFS. I may be SOL on this hobby.

 

[Wicht]

You say this as if no fans of D&D enjoyed 4e.

For some fans of D&D - of which I'm one - 4e led to more purchases from WotC than anything else they might have published. "The fans" is not some monolithic horde that WotC betrayed!

"Turning its back on" is not necessarily analogous to betrayal. Betrayal is obviously far too strong a word for anything WotC did with 4e. But Goldomark did not use that word in that post.

There is perhaps also a tendency for some to project the words of fans onto the motives of the designers and that may not be fair. There were plenty of 4e fans who declared that non-4e adherents should just get with the program or get left behind and that WotC did not care about the feelings of "grognards." I am not sure that this was entirely true of WotC's opinion on the matter, at least not as it pertains to the designers. But it is easy for some to assume that the fans are speaking for the company in these debates. We should guard against that.

There is no doubt that 4e did turn its back on the sensibilities of a percentage of the player base. I think that is true. But it was not a betrayal. A bad business decision perhaps, but not one done with animus. And as you point out, there was a subset of the player base who most certainly liked 4e.

 

[Wicht]

Personal experience - my wife has been interviewing for a job out of state. I looked up the local game stores in the college town we might be moving to, and they are all MTG focused with no mention of D&D or even PFS. I may be SOL on this hobby.

Two points on this tangent.

Magic the Gathering singlehandedly keeps most game stores in business. Board Games are growing in popularity. RPG sales are but a fraction of the total sales. And as noted there are some stores that manage to do well without ever having any RPGs.

But, if WotC folded the DnD brand, both Paizo and FFG have the distributor base and the customer base (and the design chops) to keep RPGs alive.

 

[pemerton]

There is no doubt that 4e did turn its back on the sensibilities of a percentage of the player base.

A lover can turn her or his back on you. A friend or family member can do the same. In some circumstances, a stranger who might be expected to help you, or a pubic official, can turn her back on you.

But I don't think a game can do that. And it's not just that "turning its back" is a metaphor -it's a misleading metaphor. A game doesn't owe anyone anything. It can't fail to do what it ought to have done. It can't "turn its back".

All that actually happened is that 4e was a game that some people didn't like. To which the solution is easy - don't buy it, and don't play it. (As I said upthread, this is what I'm doing with Pathfinder, and what I did with 3E before it.)

I have a near-complete run of the X-Men (some original, some reprints) from Giant-Sized number 1 through to the late 90s. I stopped buying the X-Men my free time to read comics and my spare money to afford them dipped lower at the same time the comics became (at least to my sensibilities) increasingly crappy in the post-Claremont era.

But it would be absurd for me to complain that Marvel, or the X-Men, "turned their back on me". All that happened was they published some comics I didn't like. So I didn't buy them and didn't read them.

There is no normative or moral dimension to this. That's why language of "turning the back" misfires just as badly as would language of "betrayal" or "abandoning".

(And that's before we even get to the point that some non-negligible number of continuing and new D&D fans liked the game!)

 

[Wicht]

A lover can turn her or his back on you. A friend or family member can do the same. In some circumstances, a stranger who might be expected to help you, or a pubic official, can turn her back on you.

But I don't think a game can do that.)

Language disconnect. 4e in this instance is shorthand for WotC which is shorthand for the people who decided to cater to one set of gaming desires and knowingly putting out a product which failed to fulfill the desires of a part of their customer base. Which was completely their right to do.

A better analogy than your comic one would be if Coke decided to stop producing soft-drinks with sugar (or syrup) and only produce diet drinks with artificial sweeteners. Coke (a shorthand for the company not the product) would be turning its back on a percentage of their customer base and abandoning them as customers. But it would not be betrayal and it would be their right to do so. I personally think it would be a daft decision, but it would be their decision to make, not mine.

Its not a "moral" thing at all, I agree, but the language is not over the top and I don't think it completely misfires like you do. It is possible to turn your back on customers and abandon them without doing them any actual harm, or having any real malice because it is a business decision, not a moral decision about a non-necessary luxury item.

As I said, "turn the back on" is not necessarily synonymous with betrayal. Thus it is unfair in debate to assume the former is analogous to the latter.

 

[Kramodlog]

[...] much of what players were already doing. It turned out not to be the evolution a good percentage wanted [...]

Those two statements are contradictory. If much people were already doing they would have embrassed the change.

And if people took 4E as a personal affront, that's on them.

It isn't a personal affront. It just is that WotC didn't listen to its customers, thinking it new better. The podcasts were very revealing. Heck, they didn't even listen to their playtesters. It was a edition made for designers. All the changes to the Forgotten Realms and teh great Wheel were explained that way. To make it easier for their writers and designers.

 

[Kramodlog]

You say this as if no fans of D&D enjoyed 4e.

For some fans of D&D - of which I'm one - 4e led to more purchases from WotC than anything else they might have published. "The fans" is not some monolithic horde that WotC betrayed!

This reminds me of how many people were saying that they hated D&D or the Forgotten Realms and how 4e made them like D&D. WotC cattered to people who didn't like its product and let go those who liked it. The release strategy for 5e seems similar. You have people who say they only need the core books and are happy that they do not have to buy stuff, while the people who say they want to gve WotC their money are disappointed.

How is turning off your customers a good idea?

 

[BryonD]

You say this as if no fans of D&D enjoyed 4e.

For some fans of D&D - of which I'm one - 4e led to more purchases from WotC than anything else they might have published. "The fans" is not some monolithic horde that WotC betrayed!

For the record, this is clearly true.

This is why I always try to talk about the "market" which includes a vast range of tastes.


Of course, I also made this point multiple times before 5E was announced and stated that 4E had the same problem of expecting the fanbase to be "monolithic" to use your word, and "not throwing a wide enough net" to use mine. Back then I was frequently taken to task by 4E fans for taking this position, and I don't recall any 4E fans ever coming to my aid to say this was a fair point or anything. So there is certainly an element of "what goes around, comes around" here.

 

[BryonD]

I don't doubt that's why you play it. But, with the huge amount of material that was already out for 3.5, did you really need to buy everything Paizo put out for Pathfinder?

It is actually pretty amazing how far from true this is.
It is quite easy to use 3E stuff. But people tend to not do so.
Remember that 3.5 was a major starting point of the D20 crash. Both 3PPs and stores had a ton of 3.0 stuff that players suddenly would not buy. It was very easy to use, with little (often zero) changes. But people wouldn't do it.

And the same thing happened with 3.5 to Pathfinder.

But, 'validation' aside, you must agree that the point of Pathfinder was to continue 3.5? I mean, it had "3.5 is back" right on the cover. I can't imagine that over a year of vicious edition warring, and a long participatory playtest, capped by that sort of image didn't build some esprit de corps.

It was "3.5 Thrives" (another one of those points that 4E fans scoffed over at the time and now cling to)

As to "esprit de corps", if you take away the narcissism you will realize this is silly. It was not about Tony. It was not about 4E fans. It was not about 4E.
Those people stood in line at Gencon because they were thrilled to have a game they wanted to play.
They were not playing 4E.
They were not playing GURPS.
They were not playing Heroes.
There were hundreds of game they were not playing.

Love of PF was not about sticking it to a game they didn't like, it was about a game system they loved being actively supported.
Edition waring has NOTHING to do with that.
the playtest and build-up of community did, sure. But these factors again have ZERO to do with 4E.

It was not about you or your game of choice.
the love of 3.5 / PF was about people really liking the system. period.
Take out the narcissism. It ain't got nothing to do with you.