So what exactly is the root cause of the D&D rules' staying power?

[Celebrim]

There is neither need for snark nor posturing, Celebrim, especially not for a cordial conversation.

The conversation had ceased to be cordial before I responded as a I did. It's not worth responding at length because the conversation isn't cordial, and I'm only responding now to make it clear that I hardly think my response unjustified considering the uncharitable comment I was responded to.

I don't actually subscribe to Forge's grand unified theory, and I consider it a flawed theory on multiple levels - there is never only one aesthetic of play at work at a time, a game can support multiple aesthetics of play, and there are not just 3 aesthetics of play (simulation is a Forge catch-all term for several different aesthetics IMO). The language of Forge is only useful to me in that it provides something of a shared framework without having to communicate my own theories about where the fun comes from in games. Unfortunately, even it's utility even then is suspect because of the vagueness of the terms and the various ways that different people will employ the terms.

I know what FATE purports to accomplish. I have some idea why people who say that they enjoy FATE say that they enjoy it. It's not the first time I've been in this conversation about the merits of FATE.

I just find that the transcript of play belies most of the stated reasons for enjoyment (fortune rituals in FATE in practice tend to be much heavier in terms of time and calculation burden than in 3e D&D, for example), and at the risk of sounding like Ron Edwards (*shudder*) I think that everything I've seen of FATE very much resembles my own early experience with 1e AD&D where I was often as not enjoying the game despite the rules whether than because of them.

As just one example of that, in Wil Wheaton's video log of play, observe the conflicted emotions he's experiencing with the system after having set out to create a character that would get combat spotlight and struggling with his inability to actually achieve that despite having prioritized that in his character description. Further, by contrast and comparison, observe in podcast how and why aspects are actually manipulated and called out in play. In Forge terms, what aesthetic of play is being prioritized by this ritual of play, and why - in context - is that aesthetic of play dysfunctional in Forge terms?

But in general I'm done. This conversation ended with, "There are many other simulationist-oriented games out there, and 3.X had already been out for a number of years before Fate Core came out. If you want others to understand why Fate doesn't scratch your simulationist itch and 3.0 does, it would probably be beneficial for you to reciprocate that by bothering to learn and appreciate why others get a lot out of the Fate system."

 

[Aldarc]

The conversation had ceased to be cordial before I responded as a I did. It's not worth responding at length because the conversation isn't cordial, and I'm only responding now to make it clear that I hardly think my response unjustified considering the uncharitable comment I was responded to.

I disagree, as I do think that it has been cordial, though perhaps you have been eager to jump the gun to hostility. If you have read hostility or a cessation of cordiality, then I apologize if my tone was not transparent enough.

Unfortunately, even it's utility even then is suspect because of the vagueness of the terms and the various ways that different people will employ the terms.

Oh, most definitely. And it does not help that there is often a misuse of terms due to a lot of system relativism.

I just find that the transcript of play belies most of the stated reasons for enjoyment (fortune rituals in FATE in practice tend to be much heavier in terms of time and calculation burden than in 3e D&D, for example), and at the risk of sounding like Ron Edwards (*shudder*) I think that everything I've seen of FATE very much resembles my own early experience with 1e AD&D where I was often as not enjoying the game despite the rules whether than because of them.

And see, I have found an incredibly different experience where my time/calculation burden feels much less than what I had to deal with in 3E. I think this demonstrates that different systems sometimes works at different speeds for different peoples. We even see a similar phenomenon at play when people talk about their different experiences and combat speeds - sometimes slower, sometimes faster - when implementing Mearls' Greyhawk initiative.

As just one example of that, in Wil Wheaton's video log of play, observe the conflicted emotions he's experiencing with the system after having set out to create a character that would get combat spotlight and struggling with his inability to actually achieve that despite having prioritized that in his character description.

Really? I observed that he did that much better job at this desired role than he did during the Fantasy AGE play where he was a Dwarf Warrior who flubbed every attack roll. But I also observed in this combat role during Fate. I observed that he enjoyed himself in his role. I enjoyed that he had a clear grasp of his role.

Further, by contrast and comparison, observe in podcast how and why aspects are actually manipulated and called out in play. In Forge terms, what aesthetic of play is being prioritized by this ritual of play, and why - in context - is that aesthetic of play dysfunctional in Forge terms?

Oh, my experiences have been different, and I think that this is also sometimes a difference between novice and veteran, similar as one would expect to novices to D&D.

This conversation ended with, "There are many other simulationist-oriented games out there, and 3.X had already been out for a number of years before Fate Core came out. If you want others to understand why Fate doesn't scratch your simulationist itch and 3.0 does, it would probably be beneficial for you to reciprocate that by bothering to learn and appreciate why others get a lot out of the Fate system."

You asked me to appreciate your own preferences, while dismissing my own and those who like Fate. So yeah, I could see how that could kill the conversation, but I declared an intent for cordial conversation. But if you have already determined that Fate has no merit, then this conversation was already dead upon initiation.

 

[innerdude]

So here's the follow-up question to all of this:

What would it take for a roleplaying system to completely, fully supplant D&D as the clear market leader?

It's a curious question to me, because I completely understand the position that for many (most?) groups, D&D may not be their preferred system, but it's "good enough."

Using technology as a metaphor----When the D&D "tech" is "good enough" and has widespread adoption, even something dramatically superior from a technology standpoint may fail to make enough inroads to succeed.

At this point, I don't think there's a whole lot that hasn't been tried to make RPG play "better" from a mechanical standpoint. No one's going to come up with some brand new rules system that's so dramatically, overwhelmingly superior that the player base is going to suddenly switch to it.

I think it would take a really heavy confluence of events---something like a new, massively popular intellectual property coming on to the scene (think on the scale of Harry Potter, but rooted in more traditional fantasy) that a shrewd, established RPG business group uses to build a new RPG system that's a smash hit with the RPG player base, combined with effective, strategic, long-term marketing.

When I look at it that way, it's not completely out of the realm of possibility, but it's a longshot at best. And even if it were to happen, there's really only two companies in the RPG space that are even remotely positioned well enough to make it happen on a large enough scale---A) Wizards of the Coast, who, along with their parent company, Hasbro, are unlikely to want to create a competing product against their own flagship RPG, and B) Fantasy Flight Games.

There's lots of really great "boutique" companies in the RPG space---Cubicle 7, Green Ronin, Goodman Games, Steve Jackson, Pinnacle Entertainment, etc.---but they lack the corporate backing that WotC and FFG could potentially bring to the table.

 

[billd91]

So here's the follow-up question to all of this:

What would it take for a roleplaying system to completely, fully supplant D&D as the clear market leader?

It would take:

1) D&D to come out with a new edition that doesn't mesh with the previous one and doesn't take over most of its market
2) For there to be a credible rival
3) For D&D to not jump back in the market with an edition more in-line with the market's demand

We have, of course, seen this in action already.

The toughest part here is probably #2) For there to be a credible rival. When 4e turned out to be so controversial, it might have been able to stay on top had there not been Paizo with a revised edition of 3e to undercut them. But that's in no small part because their competition... was basically another edition of D&D! Had their rival been Hero or Warhammer, I don't think D&D's dominance would have been threatened.
But D&D competing with itself will only go so far, because once 5e came around as an edition that was more back in line with the market's demand, dominance was pretty much immediately and credibly reasserted.

 

[prosfilaes]

What would it take for a roleplaying system to completely, fully supplant D&D as the clear market leader?

I see several possibilities:

1) Something happens to Hasbro: right now the executives are racing for international waters with a yacht full of gold, while the SEC guys are digging through papers stunned by the depth of the fraud, and in the multiyear fallout, D&D disappears. Worse, the trademark D&D and Forgotten Realms and the game itself all go to different buyers, in which case after it's been off the market for five years, I'm pretty sure the last buyer just overpaid. At which point, Pathfinder or some other D*D would take over.

2) To get rid of D&D altogether, a cultural shift away from fantasy happens. I don't know how plausible it is, but if fantasy even vaguely in the D&D thread collapsed as a market force, a science fiction game or modern fantasy-horror-mythos game or pulp game or superhero game could dominate.

3) Over a period of decades, Pathfinder or Savage Worlds or Fate or something displaced D&D. I'm thinking the New Coke marketing failure/success; if Coca-Cola hadn't done anything special, Pepsi would have taken the lead in the Cola Wars. This could go hand in hand with a lighter version of 2); if fantasy isn't the big thing, D&D may have to work hard to stay popular.

4) D&D along with the RPG market sort of fade out, played by old people. Suddenly a new game appears on the market and sweeps a younger generation by storm, eclipsing D&D by not even really being part of the same market, by adding millions of players who, if they've heard of D&D, think of it like most of us think of bridge.

 

[Tony Vargas]

What would it take for a roleplaying system to completely, fully supplant D&D as the clear market leader?.

In a sense it's already happened, all it takes is an RPG that gains enough mainstream awareness to pull new players directly rather than sell itself to market already selected for at least being able to stand D&D.

Each time it's happened, we've narrowed our definition of RPG to exclude the interloper, spawning a 'new hobby.'

CRPGs
LARPs
MMORPGs

 

[amerigoV]

So here's the follow-up question to all of this:

What would it take for a roleplaying system to completely, fully supplant D&D as the clear market leader?

...

Using technology as a metaphor----When the D&D "tech" is "good enough" and has widespread adoption, even something dramatically superior from a technology standpoint may fail to make enough inroads to succeed.

I personally think it one of two things:

1) The industry just dies on the vine. Ie, Hasbro just decides the brand does not have value and cannot get someone else to buy it for what they want. The put it on ice and someone else rises to the top of the niche. I think this unlikely - D&D tried to commit suicide a couple of times, but recovered strongly.

2) Presuming the hobby continues, I think it will take a technology disruption to truly supplant them. That the marriage of technology and the game become so seamless that we all just play in the "gaming app" and it somehow surpassed the current format. I really do not know what that is, but consider 10 years ago people still bought CDs for music. That just does not happen now (at least not for the primary market) yet we have access to music in so many ways now that was unfathomable 10-15 years ago.

Right now there are tons of ways to "game" with technology (mobile games, RPGs, MMOs) but it cannot quite capture the traditional table top feel. But if someone else figures it out and its hits big ala Pokemon Go, then there could be a new leader.

 

[Thomas Bowman]

Walmart sells music CDs, I bought a few recently, right next to the video DVDs. Some of us don't trust the internet for making purchases, as we don' want hackers getting a hold of our information and draining our accounts. I would probably buy more software, If I didn't have to download it!. Also over time, the internet tends to "crap out" my computer, it gets slower and slower on its downloads. The exact cause of D&D's staying power is this, it was the fist to achieve market saturation, the term "playing Dungeons & Dragons" has become a synonym for playing any role playing game to many people. First people played Dungeons & Dragons, and then they played other role playing games. Gary Gygax and his D&D was the first. So long as someone has some D&D books on his shelf, that game will exist. As for technology replacing traditional D&D, not yet. The three D&D books cost $150 I believe, a set of dice costs $10 I believe, you can buy them used and second hand for much less however. The difference is books stay on the shelf, you can play D&D 1st edition, D&D 2nd edition. You can play D&D 3rd edition, you can play Pathfinder. You can play 4th edition and you can play 5th edition, and the games always play the same as when you first bought them. You can make new material for old editions of the game, all you really need is a pen, pencil, a set of dice, paper, and the three books. Technology on the other hand comes and goes. Some people have old software but no platform to play it on anymore, since their new computer doesn't have a floppy disk drive, and their are many new platforms which segment the market. An RPG designer has to produce his game for each platform. Computer games come and go just like the platforms they run on. Usually the Computer takes the role of the DM, so you can't do you own adventures on them, only the published ones for which software was written. You can have multi-user games over the internet, problem is people can appear and disappear, everyone's schedule is not the same. When you invite your friends over to play a game, you can all agree when to start and when to stop, but a multi-user game is always on. So how do you deal with players logging off in the middle of an adventure, because its time to eat, go to work, or do one's homework? People have their own real lives they have to attend to, with a table top game the group can set aside time to play their game, but for a multi-user game, that is not the case.

One possible exception would be if you could set up a virtual table top, with a limited number of players, and they all agree on when to start and stop their game just as if they were all sitting in the same room. So there could be a videoconferencing mode where the players get to talk to each other before and after the game, and gaming mode, where the players interact with each other and NPCs as player characters. Computer AIs take care of most of the DM stuff. I don't know if such a game exists, as I don't play online games.

 

[Emirikol]

Like many of you, Ive been gaming since the 80s. I started on dnd, chill, top secret and cthulhu. Ive played many games since then both at cons and home.
Nowadays I just want a good theme to a game. I run dnd, starfinder and colonial gotgic for my son and group. Ive been fortunate to have players step up to run tor, wfrp, and 40k.
I just tried The Dark Eye and love the mecganics of the system and the world, but Ill admit, my #1 turnoff nowadays is hit point bloat..and dnd is full of it.
Just like prev editions, it turns to a swamp at level 10.
Like most people..I come back to it bc its what my son and his friends want to play. So be it.

 

[Caliburn101]

Simplicity, the fame of the name, the fact many PC/Console games use levelling and tropes developed from D&D so it has a sustained familiarity, and of course it is generally well supported.