Let's Talk About Metacurrency

[Umbran]

We're just not their target customer anymore. They've moved on.

Well, the "we" here is not well-defined, but that's a bit stronger than what I am saying.

My point is that it would be more accurate to say "we" are not the ONLY target customer, for most values of "we" you care to consider. D&D does not have a single, well-defined, target demographic it aims for, so of course you aren't it.

You think 5e is still catering to the same core demographic they did 20-30 years ago? I think they moved on to newer (larger) markets.

I think In that sense, the market they have moved on to isn't "newer". It is less specific. I think 5e pretty clearly casts a broad net, not a focused one. The game is not designed to provide deep support for any particular playstyle. If you have very specific desires of any sort, D&D probably won't provide them. D&D makes some compromises to do this, and if you are uncompromising, again, it won't meet your needs.

But, that seems to be a winning strategy - back since the 1999 WotC segmentation study, there's been suggestion that the bulk of gamers aren't really looking for a tightly focused playstyle. They want a bit of everything, and they don't want getting that bit of everything to be too much of a hassle.

 

[Eric V]

Egads. I know that there are almost 40 more pages of discussion ahead of this that I still need to chew through, but this reminded me of the first metacurrency I remember seeing.

In some early 90s version of what was probably DC Heroes, one of Batman's super powers was that the player could, X number of times, just say that Batman had planned ahead and was packing the exact right gadget needed for the problem at hand. Boomerang gun? Check. Mirror covered mask? Got it. Shark repellent? He's got two.

That's not taking anything away from the sim. A human player, pretending to be Batman, is not Batman. There is no amount of realistic, simulative planning ahead that a normal human being could do to prepare for the unexpected the way that Batman does. You don't have to fly in real life to pretend to be Superman. You don't have to be able to read other people's minds to pretend to be Professor X. You don't need to be strong enough to lift a tank to pretend to be the Hulk. That's a metacurrency that is LETTING you play the game as a simulation.

Yeah, the omni-gadget rules.

I miss that game. Hopefully they ship the reprint soon.

 

[VHawkwinter]

What RPGs do you prefer? Sounds like we have a lot in common.

In no particular order, GURPS 4e, Rolemaster 4e, Shadowrun 4e, The Dark Eye, Mythras / RQ6, And a hodgepodge of D&D 3.x books used with 2e and 3e setting books.

And some day I want to try Ars Magica and HARNMaster and EABA and L5R, and Wandering Heroes of Ogre Gate, but I haven't yet.

 

[VHawkwinter]

Well, the "we" here is not well-defined, but that's a bit stronger than what I am saying.

The "We" there was a response to MichaelSomething's comment about the "Traditional" gamer demographic, which skewed more Simulationist, which more games catered to in the 2000s.

D&D does not have a single, well-defined, target demographic it aims for, so of course you aren't it.

Fair.

If you have very specific desires of any sort, D&D probably won't provide them. D&D makes some compromises to do this, and if you are uncompromising, again, it won't meet your needs.

Right. 5e didn't really provide any of the experiences I am looking for from a TTRPG or from a D&D Product. (And I've not played 5.5 but from what I've seen of it that doesn't appear to have changed in that regard - I haven't looked at the new FR books yet, but I won't be buying them unless I've confirmed I won't regret it). 3.0 came the closest to meeting my "specific desires" from a D&D TTRPG; 3.5 was generally worse, and it's been downhill for me from there.

But, that seems to be a winning strategy - back since the 1999 WotC segmentation study, there's been suggestion that the bulk of gamers aren't really looking for a tightly focused playstyle. They want a bit of everything, and they don't want getting that bit of everything to be too much of a hassle.

Sure. I wasn't saying it was a bad business move. Simply observing that they don't make products that do anything to appeal to me anymore, and that for me to have fun I avoid their products. That doesn't make them evil (though I have some stronger opinions regarding them apparently telling people Ed Greenwood is dead, when people try to contact him about Forgotten Realms stuff; and the decision to neither involve him as a consultant on the film nor list him in the credits even though the film was full of characters and locations he made; and what seems like a continual disregard for their license with Greenwood to use the Realms, because he doesn't have the money to fight them in court (Greenwood touches on it a bit in this one with a lot of tact), and everything they did back in 2023... etc - so I do think Hasbro is an evil organisation (in the manner typical for a publicly traded LLC), but they're not evil for stopping making products for me).

The three 5e books I didn't regret buying before I stopped playing it, one was a limited GenCon printrun (Lost Tales of Myth Drannor); One I use for entirely offlabel applications (Dragon Heist, I just grab characters, maps, and locations, for waterdeep games, and drop the plot); and the third was outsourced to Wolfgang Baur (Out of the Abyss). I liked Elminster's Forgotten Realms, and the Audible Audiobooks, but those were way back in 2012, before 5e.

 

[Artamo]

The Hulk, Superman, and Professor X have measurable super powers. Batman just having whatever is needed is a narrative conceits. Do you not see the difference?

None of them have measurable superpowers. Different comic book writers have demonstrated time and again that each one of those characters is as powerful as needed for the story at the time they write it. If that were not the case, Superman would still be jumping from building to building rather than flying (just a single example.)

 

[Micah Sweet]

Protip: when you're glazing a TTRPG product, you should share its name, and ideally, a link to where others can buy it. That'll translate into the people making the stuff you want getting more sales and will therefore be more incentivised to make more of it.

Fair enough. Ultramodern5 Armoury.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/557155/ultramodern5-armoury-5e?src=hottest_filtered

 

[VHawkwinter]

Fair enough. Ultramodern5 Armoury.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/557155/ultramodern5-armoury-5e?src=hottest_filtered

I suspected it might be Chris Dias' stuff. I met him once and chatted with him for like 40 minutes one time until my kid got bored and mad at me because they wanted to go do something fun not sit and talk (whoops). He seemed like a nice guy. We talked about 5e and its math. IIRC I was griping about 5e's skill check mechanics and compared it vs GURPS and 3.5's. He had a good grasp on the math involved from our discussion - I've not used his books though. I had already stopped running 5e-based games when we had that chat.

 

[Micah Sweet]

None of them have measurable superpowers. Different comic book writers have demonstrated time and again that each one of those characters is as powerful as needed for the story at the time they write it. If that were not the case, Superman would still be jumping from building to building rather than flying (just a single example.)

No. All of them have been measured, multiple times, by multiple parties. This is demonstrably false.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I suspected it might be Chris Dias' stuff. I met him once and chatted with him for like 40 minutes one time until my kid got bored and mad at me because they wanted to go do something fun not sit and talk (whoops). He seemed like a nice guy. We talked about 5e and its math. IIRC I was griping about 5e's skill check mechanics and compared it vs GURPS and 3.5's.

I'm envious. He's one of a handful of designers whose mechanics work I really appreciate.

 

[pemerton]

Sure. But our lot have never quite bought into this.

OK? I'm not sure how that is relevant to me setting out what Gygax says in his DMG.