D&D 4E 4e's Equivalent to Pathfinder

[AbdulAlhazred]

Frankly, I think their mistake is that they keep publishing new games under the old Dungeons & Dragons trade mark. This makes sense with computer games, because computer tech advances. It does not make sense with tabletop games - Hasbro don't publish "Monopoly 5e" with all the rules different. RPGs are a lot more like monopoly IMO - they work best as evergreen products with full backwards compatibility:

Call of Cthulu
Traveller (except New Era to some extent, and that failed).
Runequest
Dungeons & Dragons, 0e through 2e AD&D.

3e D&D maintained a degree of backwards compatibility, though not enough IMO. 4e did not do this at all; in 2008 it almost aggressively rejected the previous 34 years of play. I like 4e a lot, it does quite a few things in un-D&D ways that I personally like better than the D&D way (magic, for instance). The game, however, clearly does not 'remain the same', and that IMO was a mistake for the larger market. If they want an evergreen product, they need to maintain continuity with the past. If they want a new product, brand it accordingly. And promote it in Dragon magazine, which should be a general RPG magazine again, not the sad thing it has become. Dragon isn't there to make money in itself, it's advertising - it's there to promote your product, promote the hobby, and grow the market. It needs to be (a) cheap and (b) on store shelves of games shops and larger newsagents. Heck, give it a computer games section again, sell it to the computer gamer crossover crowd.

Eh, 20th Century thinking IMHO. Consider, Traveller is basically dead, certainly isn't making Marc Miller or anyone else any significant money. RQ is likewise dead. CoC staggers on, but ToC is eating its lunch at this point (and is IMHO a far better and more modern game), etc.

Store shelves are just not where you get eyeballs anymore, and Dragon was always nothing but a TSR/WotC house organ. While in the VERY early issues there was now and then some minor nod to the existence of RPGs and gaming outside of D&D it was always basically nothing but a D&D magazine (and I say this as someone who's subscription goes back to issue #11). Dropping the D&D branding from your FRPG would be ludicrously bad for WotC. There's no reason for them to do that, and no real reason for it to matter. If they can't change the game in any really meaningful way then there's no point putting it out at all, and no point in anyone buying it vs just playing the 1e or 2e or whatever that they already own.

In this day and age you need a presence online, you need your entertainment product to be accessible online, and you really ultimately want to be able to charge incremental service charges for access to it. That's just the business reality that exists today.

 

[S'mon]

If they can't change the game in any really meaningful way then there's no point putting it out at all, and no point in anyone buying it vs just playing the 1e or 2e or whatever that they already own.

You assume that the only market for 'D&D' is people who already own and play D&D?

Yes, if they need to keep going back to the same well of lifestyle hobby gamers, then constantly reinventing D&D as The New Shiny would seem the best approach. But those guys - us - aren't going to be around forever.

 

[S'mon]

Store shelves are just not where you get eyeballs anymore.

Where do you think the eyeballs are? The new eyeballs, that is.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

You assume that the only market for 'D&D' is people who already own and play D&D?

Yes, if they need to keep going back to the same well of lifestyle hobby gamers, then constantly reinventing D&D as The New Shiny would seem the best approach. But those guys - us - aren't going to be around forever.

No, not at all. In fact the REAL market is new gamers. Otherwise why would WotC have bothered to make a more modern style RPG? They could have simply made PF basically. No doubt it would sell well enough, for now...

Where do you think the eyeballs are? The new eyeballs, that is.

Isn't that the big question? Well, it surely isn't going to be in physical brick-n-mortar for long. That won't ever disappear, but small retail is deader than dead for the most part.

Clearly you need something that has high online visibility and enough cashflow to sustain real advertising and an online element that can drag people in and keep them, almost regardless of the TT RPG. I mean how does anything online get eyeballs? It has to be placed. Apps go in app stores, web services advertise and use word-of-mouth, etc. D&D also has books, parlor type games, and online/CCRPG/MMO type games, etc.

 

[S'mon]

No, not at all. In fact the REAL market is new gamers. Otherwise why would WotC have bothered to make a more modern style RPG?

I see this said on rpgnet a lot. To me it's a complete non-sequitur. Maybe art and presentation need to be modern to appeal to 12 year olds (which is who they should be appealing to if they want to grow the market), and maybe BAB is easier than THAC0. But the non-gamer by definition has no concept of modern game mechanics. IME the non-gamer really struggles with 4e's rules-heavy combat system. The simpler, more GM-loaded approach of the past seems a lot better for newbies, to me.

 

[SkidAce]

I see this said on rpgnet a lot. To me it's a complete non-sequitur. Maybe art and presentation need to be modern to appeal to 12 year olds (which is who they should be appealing to if they want to grow the market), and maybe BAB is easier than THAC0. But the non-gamer by definition has no concept of modern game mechanics. IME the non-gamer really struggles with 4e's rules-heavy combat system. The simpler, more GM-loaded approach of the past seems a lot better for newbies, to me.

I agree.

Sometimes with all our years of gaming perspective, I worry about being distanced from the newbies.

They want to kill things and take their stuff....at first...

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I see this said on rpgnet a lot. To me it's a complete non-sequitur. Maybe art and presentation need to be modern to appeal to 12 year olds (which is who they should be appealing to if they want to grow the market), and maybe BAB is easier than THAC0. But the non-gamer by definition has no concept of modern game mechanics. IME the non-gamer really struggles with 4e's rules-heavy combat system. The simpler, more GM-loaded approach of the past seems a lot better for newbies, to me.

Well, it isn't about a game that is stripped down and lightweight, though of course it could be a better choice for a more popular system. Yes, the non-gamer has no concept of game mechanics (modern or otherwise).

There are other ways in which a game might be suitable to modern times. One would be lower DM prep time. Another would be easy incremental updating and modularity. A third would be ability for most material to be presented online and stored in a database, etc. These are all features of 4e. By direct statement of WotC these features were intentionally built into 4e for this very reason. There were some other things as well, but you get the gist of it. The aim wasn't necessarily to make a lightweight game. In fact, while such a game might be better for new players, in the long run it might not really be the most ideal game for WotC. For example a game with a lot of player-facing content increases the reasons to buy in to a service like DDI. Lots of modern gamers who aren't playing TT RPGs are perfectly fine with tons of options etc (they are certainly there in spades in things like WoW).

 

[Incenjucar]

Following up on what Abdul is saying, a modern (really, contemporary) game is one that has been adjusted to incorporate lessons learned over the past decades and to work within the average contemporary lifestyles, attitudes, infrastructure, and available equipment.

People have more stuff to do, more places they can do it, more exposure to gaming in general, and more awareness of their options and what other people are doing. Conventions for all sorts of things are all over the place, volunteer work is on the rise, economic and social troubles are in the back of everyone's mind, cultural division is in a strange flux, sub-cultures are being rearranged and incorporated into the larger culture (Halo bros, etc), memes have taken over, etc etc etc. Magic: The Gathering and Harry Potter are often the first exposure to fantasy, greater exposure to international art (manga/anime, video games, etc) is changing Western art, and so on.

The players of today live differently than the players of yesteryear, on average. I'm not quite 30 and I see a completely different world around me from the one I was born into, especially when hanging out with my younger friends. Adjustments need to be made, if carefully.

 

[darkwing]

I figure most will continue to keep playing 4e. Some rpg fans who liked 4e because it advanced rpg game design will probably move to Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. Fantasy Flight Games has created a rather innovative RPG there in terms of game mechanics but the game is different than any of the D&D editions.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

...greater exposure to international art (manga/anime, video games, etc) is changing Western art...

I'm not thinking clearly.

I agree with this, but my currently fogged mind misunderstood at first: I had pictured sweeping, mesa-filled landscapes and a corral full of cowboys with purple hair, big eyes and oversized guns trying to bust multi-tailed broncos with flaming hooves and "power readings greater than any they had ever seen before!!!!!!"*

Of course, any student of art history will know the influence goes both ways.














* somebody e-mail that to weem