Confirm or Deny: D&D4e would be going strong had it not been titled D&D

[Umbran]

I thought that happened, right here, years ago?

Not that I recall, which is why I'd like to see a citation. I don't doubt that a few folks here have claimed that D&D was expected to become a core brand, but I'd like to see citation that someone from WotC said so before I believe it.

Isn't it moot at this point, anyway, as they're no longer using the same strategy?

In one sense, it is moot, yes. However, lingering suspicion that Hasbro directly meddles in, or passively influences, the development of D&D persist, and some continue to interpret what we observe on that basis. If we had direct evidence, that'd be helpful. It we have to admit that we don't have direct evidence, that would also be helpful.

 

[jayoungr]

Not that I recall, which is why I'd like to see a citation.

This may be what people are thinking of:

http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?315975-WotC-DDI-4E-and-Hasbro-Some-History

 

[pemerton]

Ryan makes a few detailed replies throughout the thread. Since it's such a long thread, I've pulled this particularly interesting one out (see below).

<snip>

There's no way that the D&D business circa 2006 could have supported the kind of staff and overhead that it was used to. Best case would have been a very small staff dedicated to just managing the brand and maybe handling some freelance pool doing minimal adventure content. So this was an existential issue (like "do we exist or not") for the part of Wizards that was connected to D&D. That's something between 50 and 75 people.​

Does this remind anyone of anything?

 

[Bedrockgames]

I know where you are coming from - I like both gritty and high powered D&D - but likewise one does have to make 4e gaming synonymous with a supers or wuxia style game. It has always struck me as strange (but I dont mean "incorrect") that people can imagine a fireball racing from a wizards hand but cannot believe a person can be revived by the inspirational shout from a grizzled warlord. So I agree there are significantly different cultures of imagination at play that get supported or ignored by the rules and mechanics. The new mechanics in 4e were something I really liked and saw as the logical extension of tropes long built into D&D rather than something that got in the way. So I quite liked the fact that 4e shook the traditionally narrow conception of imagination in D&D rules/mechanics and added something new to the lineage of D&D.

I actually really like wuxia but not for a standard D&D game. If they had put out a wuxia variation using something like 4E that would have been cool.

 

[Tony Vargas]

However, lingering suspicion that Hasbro directly meddles in, or passively influences, the development of D&D persist, and some continue to interpret what we observe on that basis.

Directly meddles? Seems unlikely, it's such a small part of the business, though you never know when some executive might start micromanaging.

Passively influences? Well, the staff working on D&D is apparently really small, that indicates a low investment in the line, which is the kind of decision that could have come from fairly high up.

But, again, what does it really matter? 4e got a great deal of investment and failed to meet the lofty goals required to justify that investment. Even in failure it probably constituted a high water mark in the development of D&D. 5e is getting a lot less investment, thus has a smaller staff, slower pace of publication, and is a more typical of the development of the line in decades past. What difference does it make if the executives who made those investment decisions technically worked for Hasbro directly or worked for Hasbro unit, WotC? Is it some sort of 'our people' thing on the theory that some WotC businessfolk are gamers, while Hasbro execs can't possibly be?

 

[innerdude]

Does this remind anyone of anything?

Pretty much spot on where D&D is right now........

The difference is, they went through 1.5 editions of 4e, gave up the crown of #1 RPG (since recaptured, obviously), before giving in to the inevitable.

The question I might pose is, if the rules of D&D 5e were the rules for D&D 4e, would the current state of D&D be any different?

 

[Bluenose]

4e was (is!) the best edition of D&D so far. Unfortunately, it strayed too far from previous editions for the tastes of most D&D players.

I think it would be truer to say that it strayed too far from the previous couple of editions - 2e AD&D and 3e D&D - for the tastes of most people who were still interested in D&D.

I actually really like wuxia but not for a standard D&D game. If they had put out a wuxia variation using something like 4E that would have been cool.

I don't see much that's wuxia about 4e. Certainly if you're not going to follow the extremely abstract D&D tradition established by AD&D/BD&D then it's vastly more plausible than anything 3e attempted to provide.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I don't see much that's wuxia about 4e. Certainly if you're not going to follow the extremely abstract D&D tradition established by AD&D/BD&D then it's vastly more plausible than anything 3e attempted to provide.

What I meant was I could see the power system being used very well for a wuxia style rulebook. Just make those individual techniques (i.e. Stinging Dragon Saber Strike) and you are good to go. Wuxia has its own internal logic which 4E obviously doesn't share, but it would be pretty easy to build a system on the 4E engine that does share it.

 

[gamerprinter]

Although I voted deny, I'm not saying that 4e wasn't a solid game, it was just a game that wasn't for me. The fact that D&D brand on it couldn't make it success says to me, that it probably would have been even less successful if it wasn't branded D&D, being branded D&D was the only real chance of it succeeding (big) - and that didn't work. Just because the vast majority of D&D fans had a different set of expectations, that wasn't achieved - instead they got something different. And that version wasn't D&D enough to be more successful. There are many NOT D&D games out there that are also solid games, but due lack of a huge customer base only as a modicum of success (generally speaking, there are exceptions). I think 4e wouldn't have been more successful any other way. It had the best chance as a version of D&D (versus anything else) and that was not enough.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Best case would have been a very small staff dedicated to just managing the brand and maybe handling some freelance pool doing minimal adventure content. So this was an existential issue (like "do we exist or not") for the part of Wizards that was connected to D&D. That's something between 50 and 75 people.

The question I might pose is, if the rules of D&D 5e were the rules for D&D 4e, would the current state of D&D be any different?

If WotC hadn't pitched D&D as a core brand, and gone straight into the current 'sustaining' mode, with minimal investment and slow publication, and laid off 90% of their staff, producing a ruleset like 5e? If they still used the same restrictive GSL, Pathfinder might still exist and be a contender for #1 RPG, maybe trading the top spot for the last 7 years, maybe having held that top spot for years now, depending on how little D&D product was produced each year. If they'd gone with an updated OGL, Paizo might have been content to keep producing adventures rather than a competing game (regardless of the form the D&D rules took, in all likelihood), leaving D&D the leader in a small, possibly even smaller & stodgier, industry. Either way, the key question is would they have gotten someone on board to bring the D&D IP to other markets. If they did, maybe they could have piggybacked on the success of things like Game of Thrones and WoW. Or maybe not. Markets are fickle.

The biggest difference would probably have been felt in some other line. By divesting from the RPG side of the D&D IP some 2-4 years early, they'd've freed up capital for some other product. Maybe some idea that Hasbro never quite launched might be a hit, right now, if not for the capital put into D&D as a TTRPG - or, conversely, maybe the investment would have been on some untried line that failed spectacularly. Or maybe some other existing line would have a few more products, or better on-line support or something.