D&D 3E/3.5 3e/4e as Operating Systems: An Argument for Grognardism

[SSquirrel]

oh no doubt about it. if your online guild is not about leveling (solely), then you are the first!! hahaha.

Heh you should have seen my guild in Star Wars Galaxies. I was playing a Mon Calamari (think Admiral Ackbar) Musician and I was in an Entertainers guild. All Musicians and Dancers, we hung out in cantinas all day long and made macros to keep our hands free so we could chat w/each other and our customers easier. We were trying to improve our skills true, but we were mostly just hanging out all day.

conversely, we have turned away many would be players due to a lack of patience. many of them make constant reference to warcraft everquest or final fantasy because this is what they know.

Ya know, I started video games in '79 w/my atari 2600 when I was 3 and played a lot of the early RPGs like some of teh Kings QUest series, the first Final Fanatsy on the NES etc, but many of those series still have huge epic stories going for them, but the gameplay has been streamlined away from delays and such. I still prefer the original FF on the NES to any of teh recent Final Fantasy's, but the dynamics of a lot of it has changed.

 

[woodelf]

With a computer, the only real reason to upgrade the OS is because
A. the new OS offers features and support that your current one doesn't
B. There are some great new applications/games on the new OS that your current one doesn't support
C. You're getting a new computer anyway and might as well get the new OS as the old one.

Within the analogy, C won't apply unless your collection of books is lost, stolen, or destroyed--and perhaps the rest of your gaming groups' books as well.
A. Only applies if 4e actually turns out to be significantly better than 3.5
B. Only applies if some incredible module is released for 4e, all the commercial offerings switch to 4e, or your gaming group as a whole decides to switch to 4e.

My own take is that from 2e to 3.x, there was an extremely strong motivation A to switch. My own experience and those of others from the boards seems to be that no-one was running 2e without tons of house rules, most of which were rendered unnecessary by 3.x. Thus it was that most people appear to have made the switch quite quickly and created a very strong motivation B for adopting the third edition ruleset for the remainder of the gaming populace.

My impression of the current situation, however, is that there is not really too much of a motivation A for the switch. Other than the epic 6 houserule set (which will still be a houserule set under 4e since designer comments indicate that 4e is still going to retain the features of 3.x that epic 6 is designed to eliminate), I don't see extensive lists of houserules in peoples' 3.x games. (I have used a number of houserules in my own campaign, but they are for flavor rather than balance and gameplay reasons and I don't forsee 4e eliminating the need for them, unlike 3e which I saw and thought "wow, it's like it's got all my houserules built in and done better). Thus my impression is that, unless 4e is even better than the considerable hype and marketing-speak suggests, there won't be much of a motivation A for the switch. Some people will switch early, but I expect there to be a substantial community of 3.x players for some time; the community will probably persist long enough to still be strong when WotC decides to release 5th edition.

As a general analogy, i think you're right. However, don't forget thgat, even moreso than with computer software, there is no one clear-cut universal definition of "better"--one person's feature is another's bug [in many cases; some things are always bugs]. So, frex, i looked at D&D3E, and saw that (1) none of the 40pp of houserules i'd used when i last played AD&D2 had made it into the rules [nor even dissimilar fixes, but for the same problems], (2) several things i'd liked about AD&D2 had been changed, and (3) the rules had overall gotten more complex, but without an increase in the detail of results [frex, despite all the new combat rules, the end result of an attack was still just some hitpoints of damage]. Yes, I could've adapted houserules, and/or written new ones, but it actually would've taken me *more* houserules to turn D&D3[.5]E into the game for me, than it took me with AD&D2. So when i want to play D&D, D&D3[.5]E isn't the ruleset for me--Arcana Unearthed or Iron Heroes, or maybe Everquest D20, is. (and with each of those, my "necessary" houserules [would] consist of "replace all instances of 'roll d20' with 'roll mid20'" or "replace all instances of 'roll d20' with 'take 10 or roll d20'".)

Obviously, tastes will vary. Case in point:

Another issue further comments have made me realize is that 4e as currently described actually removes a number of popular features from the OS:

4. Psionics

Since i can't stand the D&D3[.5]E psionics system, that's no great loss. Mind you, i *do* want psionics a part of my D&D games, but it should look more like the Psychic's Handbook system, or in some other appropriate way be much less similar to how magic operates [than the D&D3E psionics], so a whole new system isn't necessarily a problem. And i'm not likely to be an early adopter, so waiting a few months for a psionics supplement isn't a problem--and why should it be any *more* of a problem than in the transition from AD&D2 to D&D3E?

All in all, while i've taken a complete pass on D&D3E, it looks like D&D4E is being designed to fix almost exactly the reasons i've skipped D&D3E, and i may well end up buying it.

 

[woodelf]

Note that "don't care what 'OS' they're using" means that 3E, 4E, 1E, and so forth are all EQUAL in value in the eyes of such players. It ISN'T a point in specific FAVOR of 3E.

Well, Ryan Dancey's been acting like "don't care what system they use" means "they would prefer to stick with what they are already using" or "they prefer D20 System" for years, so it's an understandable mistake.

 

[trollwad]

I'd bet there are more IT sophisticates reading this thread than MBA types but I'll throw this slightly broader analogy out there as well. D&D 4e is running the risk of being a Clayton Christiansen sort of an "overshoot." Christensen basically argues in books like The Innovator's Dilemna that companies succeed by serving their customers with an innovative product. Over time, they listen very closely to their customers (or more likely as in the case of D&D, their most verbal leading edge customers) but in doing so, over time they tend to "overshoot" the needs of their average customers or new customers (how many kids have you seen playing d&d vs. the 70s) -- ie they keep tacking on a bunch of "crap" functionality that no one wants which clutters up the game or change for change sake.

Microsoft Vista is a perfect example of this larger trend. Many people need a good browser upgraded frequently, plus desktop search, plus word/excel/outlook/power point. Fine, except for desktop search, we had all of those five years ago. What does Vista truly offer vis a vis windows five years ago? Except for security, it clearly is going beyond the needs of its AVERAGE customer. Is it a shocker that Linux and Mozilla are starting to appear?

Return the analogy to D&D. The leading edge loved 3.0 and 3.5 and probably will love 4.0. However, with each transition, is it just me or do you hear more about C&C, OSRIC, 1e, and all of this slew of OD&D type product, people who don't want to lose backward compatibility and dont want to go the trouble of adding leading edge functionality? Are C&C, OSRIC, etc the Linux to 4.0's Vista? If they aren't that today, will they be the Linux to 4.5's Vista?

I've argued before that WOTC has the wrong business model. Its amazing to me that smaller companies like Monte's business, Troll Lords, Paizo and Goodman can produce so much product apart from the core rules. I don't have WOTC's p&l, but I'd bet a lot of money that apart from sales of the core rule books (and a spurt of splat books every time they change editions), WOTC probably loses money. The point is that if the core fan starts to balk at the transition from 3.5 to 4.0 to 4.5 etc, WOTC's massive corporate overhead will eat them alive. For an illustration of the latter, why is it that Gygax and an editor could produce all of the core rules basically by himself, but WOTC needs this dubious-sounding "R&D team" (sounds like overhead to me) at least if the core fan ever balks at planned obsolescence. I think WOTC needs to cultivate the online market (they are taking baby steps here now, good idea) and it needs a simple low overhead basic business selling a stable heavily playtested 4.0 for a decade or more.

 

[WizarDru]

With a computer, the only real reason to upgrade the OS is because
A. the new OS offers features and support that your current one doesn't
B. There are some great new applications/games on the new OS that your current one doesn't support
C. You're getting a new computer anyway and might as well get the new OS as the old one.

To carry that analogy forward, you've missed one other compelling reason:

D. Continued Support is only available for the new OS

Ask anyone who tried to get a fix for the Daylight Savings changes to Windows 2000 Server earlier in the last year how that worked out. Microsoft graduates support for older versions of their OS over time. Windows NT is unsupported. Windows 2000 is not actively supported. Windows 2003 has full-time active support.

When 3.5 came out, 3.0 material stopped being compelling in the marketplace. WotC stopped producing materials that were meant for 3.0 and any future material (including material in Dungeon and Dragon, which were in Paizo's hands) was in 3.5 format. 'Lame Duck' releases like Savage Species and Fiend Folio were half-a-loaf...not quite 3.0 and not quite 3.5.

And we should also be clear here that sales and actively playing a game are not the same thing. Many players may not adopt 4e for some time or at all...but if they purchase the 4e rulebook, it's no different to WotC. They cannot tell how those books are being used, if at all...merely that they were purchased.

Over time, they listen very closely to their customers (or more likely as in the case of D&D, their most verbal leading edge customers) but in doing so, over time they tend to "overshoot" the needs of their average customers or new customers (how many kids have you seen playing d&d vs. the 70s) -- ie they keep tacking on a bunch of "crap" functionality that no one wants which clutters up the game or change for change sake.

There's a lot of assumption in there that's hard to quantify, because we don't have any data about D&D players other than the limited numbers WotC has and has chosen to share. D&D, as a game, didn't truly catch fire until the early 1980s, when it was a cultural fad. Most of the people who picked up the game at that time didn't really stay with it for any real length of time. While we know that TSR was extremely profitable at that time, we don't really know (and apparently TSR didn't really know) exactly how profitable. We don't even really know how many active D&D players have existed at any time in the game's history (though we have estimates for the total number who've played the game over it's entire life).

The issue with overshooting the needs of it's customers is the assumption that the customers are entirely aware of all of their own needs (and with the majority of OS consumers, this clearly isn't the case, vis a vis Security) and that an RPG can be guilty of this, which is hard to establish because of the nature of RPGs. Unlike an OS, an RPG can be readily and completely gutted or retooled to a purpose that it was not designed for by even the most amateur of enthusiasts and with far fewer repercussions.

As for playtesting a version for 10 years....when has this ever been done for ANY RPG, ever? The gap between OD&D and AD&D was what, 3 years (74-77)? Then 2e came 12 years later...but it certainly didn't feature 10 years of playtesting. 3e came 11 years after that, but while it, afaik, was one of the most formally playtested versions of the game ever done, it still had no more than a couple of years playtesting while the game was in development. 3.5 came 4 years later and now 4e is coming 5 years after that. I have my concerns that there won't be enough playtesting for 4e myself, but I think the ideal playtest period is much shorter than 10 years. What gives me hope is that so many of the mechanics and concepts have been culled from supplemental material released in the last two years, meaning that some of it has been playtested and real world tested in piecemeal.