D&D General Ben Riggs interviews Fred Hicks and Cam Banks, then shares WotC sales data.

[mamba]

Ok, let's say you're right. Fair enough. 4e is a big change. Totally accepted by the fandom wasn't it? Oh, wait, no it wasn't. The fandom to this day have noped so hard on it that we still cannot talk about 4e without edition warriors coming out of the woodwork.

agreed, but the question was does D&D innovate

And, let's not forget, 4e came out in 2008. If you're going to point to the innovation of D&D and your example is almost twenty years ago... I'm going to say that innovation isn't real high on the list of priorities of D&D players.

I pointed to what imo was the biggest / most obvious innovation as I assumed that you could not dispute it, not the only or most recent one

You do have a point that the fanbase is reluctant to allow changes for whatever reason(s), but that is not the same as there being zero innovation.

Esp. with the 2024 version it also was WotC that hobbled any attempt at innovation, not just the fans. It started with the compatibility mandate which limits what is possible and continued with WotC’s decision to throw away changes that made it past the polls but they suddenly considered not compatible enough, probably because they got cold feet about doing anything to upset even a single person after they just upset a lot of people with their OGL stunt…

I agree that WotC is slow to innovate, I disagree that they haven’t done anything innovative for decades. Market leaders basically never are particularly innovative, too risky, let everyone else innovate and then incorporate whatever turned out to work.

The consequence of that lack of innovation in 2024 is that I decided to not wait for WotC to improve things and instead look for games I like better to begin with. If enough people move on from D&D, WotC will innovate again, just like every other time that happened, until then they won’t

 

[Hussar]

agreed, but the question was does D&D innovate

No. That was your question maybe, but, that was never the actual point of discussion.

But, seriously, do you honestly believe that D&D is innovative? Really? This is a system that took nearly 30 years to answer the question, "How far can my character jump?" Do you really look to D&D for innovative game design?

See, the question that started all this was @Reynard bemoaning the fact that D&D isn't innovating. My response to that was that D&D has never been innovative particularly. That if you want innovative game design, D&D would be the last place to look. To which he replied that D&D, as market leader, should be leading innovation. Which was rebutted with the idea that the market leaders in many different fields generally aren't the leaders in innovation.

Which has somehow morphed into this bizarre argument that D&D is a very innovative game that is innovating all the time.

IOW, most of this discussion is based on points that I was never making, arguments that I never said, and people fabricating all sorts of things to be jumping on me about that, frankly, have absolutely nothing to do with the actual conversation.

But, I do have to ask those who are reading this. Do you honestly see D&D as a leader of innovation in RPG's? Really?

Oh, and just because I do actually have the receipts, here's @Reynard's post that started all of this:

I am not sure how a complete lack of innovation in the industry leader could be good.

From post 135 D&D General - Ben Riggs interviews Fred Hicks and Cam Banks, then shares WotC sales data.

 

[mamba]

No. That was your question maybe, but, that was never the actual point of discussion.

well, you were the one saying it does not at all and I replied to that, so yeah, that was the topic at hand, not the OP

But, seriously, do you honestly believe that D&D is innovative? Really?

did you read more than the first line of my reply? That would have answered this…

Which has somehow morphed into this bizarre argument that D&D is a very innovative game that is innovating all the time.

no, but into a rebuttal of your ‘D&D has not had a single innovation in 40 years’ claim / insistence

We are both in agreement that D&D is not particularly innovative and that the fanbase is at a minimum not clamoring for a lot of innovation (I’d argue they agreed to more than WotC actually gave them, so this slow pace is mostly on WotC however…), we just disagree that there hasn’t been any for decades (your claim)

 

[Parmandur]

Esp. with the 2024 version it also was WotC that hobbled any attempt at innovation, not just the fans. It started with the compatibility mandate which limits what is possible and continued with WotC’s decision to throw away changes that made it past the polls but they suddenly considered not compatible enough, probably because they got cold feet about doing anything to upset even a single person after they just upset a lot of people with their OGL stunt…

It was more about avoid8ng a 4E-style reception situation as a number one priority. Which, I mean, as a business learning from mistakes and not repeating them is growth, too.

 

[mamba]

It was more about avoid8ng a 4E-style reception situation as a number one priority. Which, I mean, as a business learning from mistakes and not repeating them is growth, too.

they said that anything they presented in the playtests were things that could make it into the new game, not just some wild test balloons, and that they were looking for feedback / popularity.

They then later said they dropped some features that made it past the poll threshold because they were not sure / concerned that they were compatible enough for their by then (apparently) even more strict compatibility requirements.

If the idea of the poll was to check for popularity, they were popular enough to not be a repeat of 4e, and they were dropped regardless. So what changed and why? I am pretty sure the OGL sabotaged the 2024 playtest. There were fewer cycles than needed / planned and WotC got cold feet about rocking the boat a second time. The end result is this sorry excuse for an updated edition

 

[Parmandur]

concerned that they were compatible enough for their by then even more strict compatibility requirements.

...

So what changed and why?

I mean, I think you answered the question. Strict backwards compatibility was central to their plans, as part of avoiding a bad reception.

Breaking backwards compatibility is not something that WotC will ever want to do if it impacts Beyond user numbers even slightly.

 

[mamba]

I mean, I think you answered the question. Strict backwards compatibility was central to their plans, as part of avoiding a bad reception.

yes, but every option they presented was already compatible enough or it would not have been included in the playtest, and yet they dropped options that the playtest identified as popular enough to make it past the threshold over concerns with compatibility. So the level of compatibility required by WotC changed along the way, my question was why did it change

 

[Parmandur]

yes, but every option they presented was already compatible enough or it would not have been included in the playtest, and yet they dropped options that the playtest identified as popular enough to make it past the threshold over concerns with compatibility. So the level of compatibility required by WotC changed along the way, my question was why did it change

Do you recall which options, specifically?

The UA provided a popular veto, it wasn't a guarantee thst the idea would fit with their overall goals in the end.

 

[Alzrius]

I mean, @Alzrius points to a 30 year old source book that was reprinted as an example of amazing innovation in D&D.

You're the one who suggested that being able to ride a dragon was innovative, and that's why the Purple Dragon Knight got shouted down by the community. Don't blame me for pointing out that being a dragonrider was not only an innovation that D&D had hit upon much earlier in its life than you gave it credit for, but was so welcomed by the community that it was published not once, but twice.

 

[mamba]

Do you recall which options, specifically?

no, they did not say which ones, only that some made it but were dropped regardless

The UA provided a popular veto, it wasn't a guarantee thst the idea would fit with their overall goals in the end.

if it made it past the UA threshold, it was not a popular veto, was it? How was that veto determined if not by the 70% approval threshold, was there like a 10% ‘hate it’ threshold too?

Given that they said that they passed the UA, I assume that WotC vetoed them, not the playtest.

I believe the OGL basically sabotaged the playtest. For one it took resources and focus away and what was supposed to be (and started out) as a monthly UA schedule soon became a new UA every two or three months, resulting in fewer options to iterate and us only getting one DMG and zero MM UAs (and probably fewer PHB ones than originally planned). For another WotC got paranoid about upsetting fans a second time / with 2024 changes, so they played it more safe than they initially had intended