D&D 4E Ben Riggs' "What the Heck Happened with 4th Edition?" seminar at Gen Con 2023

[Parmandur]

But DCC breaks with your philosophy, in that its a fantasy RPG that isn't 5e, and therefore, according to your theory, is bad design. The folks at Goodman Games (and everyone else who makes non-5e fantasy games) should abandon those projects and re-focus all their efforts on 5e-compatible material, right? What's the difference?

Goodman Games all-tike best-selling products are 5E books, and they make those actively, so you may have a point.

Serving genre-accurate pulp Sword & Sorcerynis a much more narrow window, but it is a distinct one, and DCC does it very well. Better than Ye Oldde Skool D&D ever seems to have done, really, while providing a very fun experience. 5E is a much more successful design overall, but for the goals Goodman set for himself DCC is quite successful, and it has been quite successful all around.

 

[Parmandur]

So, basically a game that serves a subset much better is just inferior because its not targeting the majority?

Thanks for making that clear.

Serving fewer people is more limited. And thr best is to serve more people more deeply, because again being popular and deeply satisfying are not.l mutually invompatible goals, as 5E has consistently shown.

 

[Parmandur]

As I mentioned above, do all those people know about other fantasy RPGs and choose to play 5e instead, because it's their favorite and serves them best? If not, then yes they are playing it "begrudgingly" to some degree. Or they're playing in ignorance of other options.

I do. Many other people seem to. Preference for 6E is not due to mere ignorance.om the part of the Hoi Polloi.

 

[Parmandur]

This dodged my point.

People in some cases want things that are actively oppositional. By serving some better you serve others worse, and in some cases by serving some at all you do not serve others at all.

This makes it fundamentally impossible for one size to fit all.

No size will fit all: but it is possible to serve most, and to do so deeply.

And this dodged it too. "By and large." By and large intrinsically discards some people. Possibly a large number. It pursues the majority as the overriding virtue.

Yes? And?

 

[Micah Sweet]

Goodman Games all-tike best-selling products are 5E books, and they make those actively, so you may have a point.

Serving genre-accurate pulp Sword & Sorcerynis a much more narrow window, but it is a distinct one, and DCC does it very well. Better than Ye Oldde Skool D&D ever seems to have done, really, while providing a very fun experience. 5E is a much more successful design overall, but for the goals Goodman set for himself DCC is quite successful, and it has been quite successful all around.

Then it's a matter of best serving the audience you've chosen to serve and not just the most people, which is not what you've been saying this whole time. You have essentially been equating popularity with quality, without actually using those words.

 

[Parmandur]

That seems a bit rich.

I'm no fan of 5e as written, nor of WotC who I think have all along been rather poor custodians of the game as a whole; but I'm quite willing to admit that with 5e they've stumbled on to something that works well enough for a lot of people. Good for them.

That's my observation: 5E is not a problem thst most people putnupnwith, but actively delightful.

WotC is what they have always been: a corporation seeking the bottom line. Same as TSR, except with less cochise (maybe) and more comptence.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I do. Many other people seem to. Preference for 6E is not due to mere ignorance.om the part of the Hoi Polloi.

Unfortunately there's really no way to know.

 

[Thomas Shey]

No size will fit all: but it is possible to serve most, and to do so deeply.

Yes? And?

And I think at this point I'm done here.

 

[Parmandur]

Then it's a matter of best serving the audience you've chosen to serve and not just the most people, which is not what you've been saying this whole time. You have essentially been equating popularity with quality, without actually using those words.

Sure. The first is what I meant all alogn, I will attribute thwt lack of sleep and communicationlack on my part. But serving the bulk of the audience well is doable, not an impossibility. WotC have been doing thst for years.

 

[Micah Sweet]

That's my observation: 5E is not a problem thst most people putnupnwith, but actively delightful.

WotC is what they have always been: a corporation seeking the bottom line. Same as TSR, except with less cochise (maybe) and more comptence.

More competence in business acumen, perhaps, but I still hold TSR on the whole made better stuff.