A reason why 4E is not as popular as it could have been

[BryonD]

Well, as a bit of a 4e partisan, I would say that 4e doesn't render your conversation a non-starter. The (in?)famous page 42 gives some fairly detailed mechanical advice for how to handle it - at least, detailed by the standards of D&D.

Heh, I really dislike "page 42". For me it is because it smacks far too much of "one size fits all".

BUT, you are right that it addresses this particular concern.

 

[Nikosandros]

And again, this really pre-dates 3E. One day the character can do something. The next day a new NWP is published and the character DOESN'T have it. Suddenly by a poorly thought through plan to "give characters a new option" the players are forced to choose which things they can do, at the expense of other things.

Indeed. With the introduction of NWP in AD&D, suddenly a "standard" adventurer was assumed to be unable to ride, swim, start a fire, skin a rabbit and bandage a wounded comrade. As a kid I immediately embraced NWP because they "gave more options", but I have long since removed them from my AD&D games.

 

[Mercurius]

The popularity of 4e. The title of the thread is where I had to stop and read closely the contents within the post. Where is the data that supports the popularity (or lack thereof) regarding the edition? What assumptions are being applied to start the conversation this way? I need solid metrics. Anything otherwise is a clear cheap shot at the organization and those who choose to support the game (via buying their products).

This is simply wrong. Saying something is not as popular as it could be has absolutely nothing to do with its merits or lack thereof, nor is it in any way an insult towards those that support the game. I am not sure where the "cheap shot" is by saying what I'm saying.

I don't even see it as a "quaternary" or "quinary" factor. How many persons in this thread have said it was important to them? Two?

I'm not saying its not a factor at all- those two clearly feel it was- but for most non-adopters, it was issues of marketing and mechanical/fluff changes they didn't like that kept them away from day one...IOW, LONG before lack of setting support could even be considered to be a factor.

I think you're missing what I am saying, Danny. It is not the setting support itself as a sales driver that I am talking about, and in a sense it doesn't matter whether people in this thread say that setting support is or is not a factor in their interest in 4E. I'm talking about something else, something a bit more subtle than the degree to which setting support is important to someone.

To try another angle at expressing what I'm trying to get at, let's look at Dragonmagazine. Dragon was almost certainly not very profitable (which is likely why they shelved it), yet it had what I am calling a secondary or tertiary impact on sales, as well as the health and vitality of the game. The idea being that you produce a product that doesn't in itself generate much profit, but supports the rest of the line in making more profit.

I'm saying that setting support is much the same. Having an ongoing, supported setting gives the game a place where its ideas and concepts can become embodied. It is an opportunity for WotC to say, "This is how we envision 4E."

What I hear people disagreeing with is not really what I'm talking about. I am not talking about the direct and obvious impact of setting support on sales and the game's popularity (this is what I'd call "primary" impact), but the in-direct and subtle impact that setting support has on the game by making it come alive, which in turn influences the game's popularity and overall sales.

A counterpoint is that original D&D and AD&D didn't have an ongoing, supported setting until after 1987, by which time I believe they were already in decline from their sales peak. (1982-5)

Interesting point. I think of all of the adventures that TSR published at this time, that served a similar purpose to what I'm talking about - making the game come alive through story. Early D&D and AD&D didn't have much in the way of setting support, but they did have tons of adventures. Later on in 2E it was both adventures but especially settings, and then in 3E the adventures waned but there were a few settings that were strongly supported. 4E has neither - there are few adventures and weak setting support, and thus no real way to bring the game to life in the way that I'm talking about.

The idea of having a well-selling campaign setting is a good one, but what campaign setting are we talking about? Forgotten Realms is played out, and I'm guessing Eberron - for all its merits - doesn't come close either.

From my perspective, they have actually produced a new campaign setting: Nentir Vale. In a lot of ways, it is more developed than Greyhawk was in 1985. I know that a key component of my enjoyment of 4E derives from the mythology of the Nentir Vale setting, as expressed through the adventure and later 4E supplements.

Yes, exactly - and in some sense what I am saying is that we need more Nentir Vale. Pemerton mentioned Worlds & Monsters which, strangely enough, is the closest thing to a 4E default setting book. My opinion is that they should have gone further with this. Actually, it may have been much wiser to have shelved the Forgotten Realms treatment and just gone with Nentir Vale from the get-go. They would have avoided the collateral damage from glutting a well-loved classic fantasy setting and they could have explicated similar themes in a new setting more clearly, and without the distraction of the Simbul's corpse.

If we look at Pathfinder, how much of their sales are due to Golarion? How many people are buying their products mainly due to the setting? While I don't buy Pathfinder RPG products, I have been getting the Adventure Paths, and now I'm in my fifth AP with them, I have a hard time believing they're all in the same setting: they're just too diverse.

A popular setting is a welcome bonus, but I don't think it is (a) essential or (b) easy to manufacture.

As I've been saying, my view is that the impact of a setting like Golarion is subtle and hard to track. It isn't just how many books the Chronicles series sells - I can't imagine that City of Strangers was a big cash-cow for Paizo, but I don't think that's the point. I think the point of having and supporting a setting like Golarion is to bring a kind of life and vitality to the game, to bring it alive. Even if the APs seem like they could be in any setting they all still arise within the same world; Golarion provides a living, breathing back-drop for not only the APs but the elements of the core game itself, whether the monster fluff of the Bestiary or the classes of the Advanced Player's Guide or the GM advice in the Gamemastery Guide.

In some sense I'm talking about something similar to cross-training. Going for a walk is good for you, it has a positive impact on your physical health, but it also impacts other aspects of your life. This, again, is the difference between "primary" and "secondary" impact. The primary impact is the benefit to one's cardiovascular health. The secondary impact might be the benefit one's psychological health, or the creative inspiration that many get from going for walks. Or it might impact other aspects of one's life; let's say you go for a walk with your significant other - it has a positive impact on your relationship.

So my view is that if we only look at the primary impact of carrying a given product, we lose sight of the big picture and we limit ourselves to the "bottom line" - how much profit this product generates on its own. With both setting support and Dragon magazine, WotC has really missed the boat, imo.

In this respect 4e resembles a game like The Dying Earth....

....Unfortunately, though, the rulebooks don't do much to support GMing this sort of game. A contrast is provided by The Dying Earth rulebook, which does offer tools to help the GM with this sort of situation-based preparation and play.

For 4e, this is really provided by Worlds and Monsters....

For better or worse, this is the type of play that 4e does not seem to have been designed to support (although later books like The Plane Above, MM3 and Monster Vault are heading in a somewhat different direction).

Interesting points - I like what you say here. In some ways it seems that 4E advocates a sandbox approach to the game, yet doesn't offer enough tools and support for running a sandbox-style game. So in the end 4E has been in a kind of in-between state, between its original "points of light" sandbox approach and its half-baked settings.

See, I don't see why they can't do both - advocate a sandbox approach, provide support for running a sandbox game, but also create and support and ongoing setting (like Nentir Vale). Now what might have been really interesting is if they had developed and published the Nentir Vale in a similar fashion as a sandbox setting is developed. There wouldn't have been a world map and a general outline of the world, at least not at first, but instead it would have been developed piecemeal. Maybe first a Nentir Vale Gazetteer, then further gazetteers on the bordering lands and a gradual exploration of the world outward.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

[quoteI'm saying that setting support is much the same. Having an ongoing, supported setting gives the game a place where its ideas and concepts can become embodied. It is an opportunity for WotC to say, "This is how we envision 4E."][/quote]

No, I got your argument.

IMHO, settings don't make or break a game, but they may make or break a company. I come to this conclusion by looking at the 60+ RPGs on my shelf, purchased over 34 years in the hobby.

For some, I buy setting materials, for some I don't. For game's like D&D, which supports multiple settings, I pick & choose. Heck, I know gamers with nearly as many systems on their shelves as mine who have NO settings books. A buddy of mine had some space issues and gave me his 1Ed-2Ed collection to safeguard- he had a Greyhawk box and a FR box as his sole settings purchases (and yes, he is a long-time DM). He's nearly as big a 3.5Ed nut as I am, yet owns only a few settings books (FR).

So to my way of thinking, based on my observations, RPG settings may affect the quantity and quality of a company's revenue streams, but they don't affect the popularity of the game itself in a significant fashion.

In fact, I'd argue the driver works the other way: popular games can drive sales of settings, but if a game is unpopular, even a great setting won't save it.

 

[1Mac]

I hope you are right about that 1Mac, but it takes a lot less than that to start an edition war in the forums.

The apparent history of this thread has largely vindicated this position!

Let's just say that I wish we could discuss the OP's point without edition wars, and that I don't blame the OP for trying.

 

[1Mac]

As I've been saying, my view is that the impact of a setting like Golarion is subtle and hard to track. It isn't just how many books the Chronicles series sells - I can't imagine that City of Strangers was a big cash-cow for Paizo, but I don't think that's the point. I think the point of having and supporting a setting like Golarion is to bring a kind of life and vitality to the game, to bring it alive.

As I understand it, Paizo is really in the business of selling Adventure Paths, and the Pathfinder RPG is just a way to make sure people are buying and playing APs. So to reframe what you said above:

1.) Paizo enriches the world with setting books,
2.) which only a few GMs buy,
3.) which they use to create a more enriched experience for players in their Pathfinder campaigns,
4.) which makes more people want to play Pathfinder,
5.) which increases the sale of Pathfinder Adventure Paths.

Something like that?

Basically you are losing money or breaking even in one area to make money in another more targeted area. This sort of reminds me of the Apple Store: I'm pretty sure any one Apple Store isn't very profitable, but it enriches the experience of being an Apple customer, so more people want to become Apple customers.

Come to think of it, that seems to be their approach to rules as well: make everything open content to hook more players to sell more APs. It's giving away Barbie dolls to sell accessories.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Except the heavy lifting was already done by WotC in creating the 3.XEd ruleset. Paizo didn't have to popularize the game with it's setting because the game already had a built-in, built-up market to grab.

WotC's vinyard was planted and harvested fruitfully for many years, then abandoned it; Paizo merely came onto the property and resumed harvesting after doing a little pruning.

Or to continue the Barbie analogy, Paizo merely picked up the keys to the factory WotC left behind- they can afford to give away dolls to sell accessories because the market for the dolls was pre-established. The availability of the accessories isn't making the dolls popular, they were popular beforehand.

 

[Nikosandros]

Basically you are losing money or breaking even in one area to make money in another more targeted area. This sort of reminds me of the Apple Store: I'm pretty sure any one Apple Store isn't very profitable, but it enriches the experience of being an Apple customer, so more people want to become Apple customers.

Losing money or breaking even? The Core Book for the RPG is in its 4th printing and several other books are in the 2nd printing. I believe that the RPG line is doing very well indeed for Paizo...

 

[Mallus]

IMHO, settings don't make or break a game, but they may make or break a company.

This sounds right to me. It also leads (again) to the question: is WotC/Hasbro the right size company for the D&D brand in the current market?

Personally, 4e is right for my group, for the time being (which is currently being over 2 years). We use a homebrew setting and all our adventures are custom written, save for the occasional swiped map.

What interests me more is why Pathfinder is selling so well. Paizo's core products are their AP's, correct? Are there really that many Pathfinder DM's out their running that many Pathfinder campaigns? What's driving their sales?

It seems what Paizo's done --and more power to them for doing so-- is to successfully steal a big portion of the "D&D completist" segment away from WotC. People who are now buying adventures they won't get to run instead of books of class crunch for PC's they won't get to play.

 

[1Mac]

Losing money or breaking even? The Core Book for the RPG is in its 4th printing and several other books are in the 2nd printing. I believe that the RPG line is doing very well indeed for Paizo.

There I was referring to books like City of Strangers, which Mercurius mentioned above. I'm only assuming it was a weak seller because Mercurius did.

Except the heavy lifting was already done by WotC in creating the 3.XEd ruleset. Paizo didn't have to popularize the game with it's setting because the game already had a built-in, built-up market to grab.

Good point. With the Advanced Player's Guide they've certainly moved beyond it that base, however.

I don't recall that other OGL games have embraced open content the way Paizo does with, for example, it's cooperation with the Pathfinder SRD site. The closest thing I can think of is the Grand OGL Wiki, and those are for rules that are officially out of print.

The availability of the accessories isn't making the dolls popular, they were popular beforehand.

This gets my point backwards: I'm saying that the popular dolls are making the accessories popular, and that selling the accessories is the business model.