D&D General [rant]The conservatism of D&D fans is exhausting.

[Lanefan]

I'll try and find the studies to back this up, but apparently even the most highly educated appreciate plain language, especially for instructional content (eg tax forms, operation manuals, websites etc...).

There's a time and place for more technical language, of course, depending on the context and audience. But if you're writing a game book with the intention of making a profit, you may want to consider using plainer language where possible.

As I recall, one of the points repeatedly made against 4e was that its books read like tax forms or instruction manuals. That's why they went toward "natural language" in 5e, for both better and worse at the same time from what I can gather.

One can have all three of technical language, complex concepts, and straightforward text at the same time. 3e kinda got there; 1e could have had Gygax not written in circles.

Some folks want Stop signs in College campuses to be written in Ancient Greek, I guess.

It's not a question of ancient Greek stop signs, it's a question of whether - as an example - the game design limits its arithmetic to addition only or allows itself to include subtraction, multiplication, and division. My take is that it should do the latter, which is a long way from saying it should include calculus and other higher-math; those are words-concepts others seem to want to put in my mouth-head.

 

[kayakingpoodle]

Didn't they try 2 rulesets way back, I believe it was D&D and Advanced D&D?

If memory servs AD&D significantly out sold the simpler offering.

That said i don't think that would be the case now. Maybe they should try 2 options again since the user base is much broader now, especially considering they want more wallets to siphon cash from than ever.

 

[Lanefan]

Considering that in the entire history of the hobby, the primary target market has NEVER (except maybe, maybe in the very early OD&D days) been college age people but rather much younger, I have no idea why people keep banging this drum.

The primary hot-bed of the 1e craze was colleges and universities. Seems like an ongoing error not to continue to focus on that age group as the editions go by.

 

[Lanefan]

Because a lot of the standards that get thrown around are gatekeeping. That's why.

When you say "designed for and marketed to educated adults" in context (AC where you have to add vs subtract) you are literally saying "people who don't want to do the sort of math I prefer shouldn't, or don't deserve, to play this game."

It would be like me saying that there should be a minimum of a life path system in every game, because there should be some standards as to how much effort people are willing to put in before they play. Clearly people who just roll their dice to determine stats and then pick their race and class aren't good enough to play.

Whether this or another, some form of demonstrated commitment to the game before starting play would have, in years past, been a bloody useful system to have had in place.

And Gygax's writing is actually not useful.

When I went through the 1e books looking for actual combat rules, they were next to impossible to find. There's no handy section. The parts actually labeled Combat have length examples of play but don't actually state the rules clearly. The combat matrices ended up being in the DMG; I'm guessing Gygax felt that the players didn't actually need to know the rules and it should be the GM who has all the knowledge.

Exactly - in the Gygax game, most of the combat mechanics are kept DM-side: the player says what the character is trying to do and makes whatever rolls are called for, and the DM sorts out the math and mechanics and narrates the result. Which means yes, you're not going to find most of the combat rules in the 1e PH. They're in the DMG, and you do have to dig for them as that book is widely known for its lack of organization (though in fairness there's so much info packed in there that organizing it in any manner would be a difficult task).

Personally, both as player and DM I like the mechanics being DM-side. As player, I don't want thinking about math and mechanics to interrupt my attempts to think in character; and as DM I see it as my job to take that load off the players.

Now, I don't mind that Gygax used Big Words. I like Big Words (and I cannot lie). But his actual prose made for a terrible book of rules.

His prose can be convoluted, yes. The fact that he kept contradicting himself has always been the bigger nuisance for me.

 

[The Soloist]

The primary hot-bed of the 1e craze was colleges and universities. Seems like an ongoing error not to continue to focus on that age group as the editons go by.

The D&D Basic set, gateway into D&D for most people up until 1998, says 'Age 10 and up'. That is probably the age most parents teach RPGs to there children today.

D&D 5.5 is not for that age group but the new starter set certainly is. Should sell like hot cakes.

 

[TiQuinn]

Yeah. Someone is gonna pelt me with tomatoes for this....

Writing down rules is a form of what is often called "technical writing", and it is a different skillset than writing fiction prose, or essays, or the like.

Gygax's writing leaned to the essay form, so like editorials in Dragon he was good at. I was never a fan of his fiction prose, and his technical writing skills do not seem to have been up to par at all...

Yeah, I can enjoy Gygax’s writing as a historical document or essay but not as a set of rules.

 

[Zardnaar]

Didn't they try 2 rulesets way back, I believe it was D&D and Advanced D&D?

If memory servs AD&D significantly out sold the simpler offering.

That said i don't think that would be the case now. Maybe they should try 2 options again since the user base is much broader now, especially considering they want more wallets to siphon cash from than ever.

They had 3 at one point.

Basic sales were split over several products. 2 boxed sets of basic outsold 1E phb combined though. Several basic sets outsold some editions.

 

[Staffan]

Didn't they try 2 rulesets way back, I believe it was D&D and Advanced D&D?

Sort of. At one point there was a Basic D&D where the point was that you'd "graduate" into Advanced D&D. Eventually, Basic/Expert and later Basic/Expert/Companion/Master/Immortal D&D would morph into a game that was technically separate, partially because that allowed TSR to maintain the fiction that AD&D and D&D were different games so they didn't have to pay royalties to Dave Arneson.

 

[mamba]

If memory servs AD&D significantly out sold the simpler offering

it didn’t, 1e sold less than BX / BECMI

 

[Zardnaar]

it didn’t, 1e sold less than BX / BECMI

Sort of. Sales were split over multiple items. I think 1E phb outsold B/X big sellers- the two basic sets.

This sets outsold pretty much every other edition.

Sone of Basics tertiary sets outsold D&D worst sellers (probably 3.5 and 4E).
OD&D worst selling iirc but kind of gets a pass due to the when and it primed the pump.