Are Gognards killing D&D?

[Geron Raveneye]

...and why is it presumed that it won't keep them?

Because of the assumption that given time they'll "grow out of" the tastes that drew them to 4e, while previous editions feed tastes that are appropriate for "mature" gamers.

Context, and the poster in question, are important.


To which I say bollocks, let me hit something with a mountain already.

Not before you finished your gamma-ray treatment, grow to 3 meters, green skin, and wear ripped purple shorts.

Nah, seriously..I guess there's some generalization going on in that post, going from

I love the look of anime. But I find I have a hard time retaining my enthusiasm as a I age. So it is with the style of gaming 4e seems to promote.

It sounds to me like he's saying that he doesn't believe the motifs they use for 4E will be usable to keep the "kids" for the 20+ years after they were drawn in because they are, in his opinion, not enduring enough for somebody over the decades, while the underlying motifs for older editions came from a hobby that already demanded a high investment of time and money to actually get into (tabletop wargaming), and hence had a much higher percentage of hobbyists that would stay in the hobby.

Personally, I don't quite agree, seeing as I'm still watching anime after 17 years, and still enjoy most flavours of it, but I wouldn't want to accuse Celebrim of calling people who will enjoy 4E "juvenile" or "underdeveloped"...I think he's making a judgement call based on personal opinion on the style of 4E design rather than its players, saying that it looks to him like it is being designed to draw in the "kids who want to be cool", but not to keep them for the long run. On the other hand, he ISN'T saying that you cannot choose to like 4E without being exactly that kind of player. And we all know that perfectly rational and refined adults can be deeply into the most silly and seemingly juvenile hobbies...like pretending to be elves, dragon-men or wizards. And I predict that many of those who WILL be drawn in by 4E are NOT the "kids who want to be cool"..at least not anymore for the last 15-20 years or so. They simply will be those players who are in it for the long run already, and just check out the new incarnation, to see if it's a good game or not. Most of us can make that decision despite all the emotionally heated debates here.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Like the guy in this thread who said he hadn't bought a WotC product since 1998? Or the 1e boosters on ENWorld with usernames like 'GBarrelhouse' or 'TrampierFan99'? They don't make money for WotC. They never have. The only grognards that do are the 3e grognards. And despite the gnashing of teeth they are most likely to take the 4e plunge.

The GBarrelhouses are unsalvageable. They're too old, too set in their ways, for the most part. 3e grognards are more prepared to make a change, they may even have switched up with every previous edition from 1-3, as I did, which is strong evidence they'll do the same again.

I understand that Diaglo, for one, has an impressive collection of WotC books. And his "Only True Game" predates 1e.

RC

 

[Mallus]

D&D has been successful because it was an adult game written by adults for adults...

...that allows adults to participate in a version of the childhood game "let's pretend". Albeit, one with more dice and charts.

Read the 1st edition DMG and you see not just a 30+ year old writer, but a 30+ year old writer whose fondness for military, mythological, and historical esoteria makes him seem even older than that.

There is a kind of crazy brilliance evident in the 1st edition DMG. Then again, the same can be said of William S. Burroughs' Naked Lunch. Come to think of it, there's a certain similarity in the way both books are structured.

You don't out grow military, mythological, and historical esoteria easily.

If you want to get invited to parties you do.

Naruto? I suspect you out grow that as painfully and easily (and all the more painfully because it is easy) as you outgrow 'Gatchaman', GI Joe, 'Land of the Lost' and all the rest of the stuff I thought was cool as a kid.

I know of lot anime fans who are pushing or exceeding 40. The appreciate the character development and plotting (usually). A surprising amount of anime gets the storytelling fundamentals right, if you can overlook the spiky hair and shouting-out of move names...

It remains to be seen if the next incarnation of 4e will age as well as The Beatles or Bon Jovi Bruce Springsteen...

As a proud son of New Jersey, I couldn't let that slide.

It appears as if I'm being forced to buy into someone's homebrew setting. There is nothing wrong with homebrew settings - many are better than some officially supported settings that won't be named and this seems like a good one - but I don't like being forced to by offbeat setting material as part of the core rules.

So there Tenser, how is this different from 1st ed?

 

[sjmiller]

Well I would be happy to put a gentleman's bet together. I'd wager that at least 75% of the posters in the thread saying that they won't go to 4E, and weren't created in the last three months, (i.e., are posters with some standing on the board) will be posting about buying ot playing 4E within a month of launch, if not both.

Wow, if you were betting on me and my gaming group, of which I am the only one who posts here, you would be losing that bet. Out of the 8 players and the DM (that's me) not a single one has any desire to switch, and 5 of them specifically said they don't want to even think about switching game systems until the current campaign is done (sometime in 2009 or 2010, if the gaming schedule works as it has). Heck, I still have the whole Pathfinder Rise of the Runelords campaign to run! Of the three other gaming groups I associate with, one just switched to 3.5 from 3.0 this year, one is switching to 3.0 from 2e after the new year, and one is still playing OD&D and has no plans to switch to anything.

 

[Umbran]

Fixed that for you.

I am going to ask folks to stop using that "FIFY" stuff in this thread. If you have something to say, you can say it yourself in clear language, rather than trying to proxy it. The minor humor value is far outweighed by the confusion and annoyance generated. Thank you.

 

[Son_of_Thunder]

First, let me say that I deeply respect the opinions of our most veteran players and DMs. A recent poll of ENworld showed that over 80% of members played 1st edition. This seems really bad for the hobby as a whole. If you started playing the game when it first came out, this means you would be in your forties by now. Why is this bad? Well, I can tell you as someone who is 22, forty seems really old. There is a generational gap (or two) between the majority of players and people who are just now playing the game for the first time. Since it seems that have the greatest numbers, and greatest disposable income to spend on the game, they have the most say within the gaming community on how the game advances (or doesn’t). If the hobby is going to survive as a whole, then it needs to attract new, young players and DMs.

There has been a lot of hate concerning 4E. I would say that the sides stand at about 50/50. Why has this divided our community? Because WOC is changing things to appeal to new gamers? Guess what? If you want there to be a game in 20 years, then they have to attract new gamers.

So, before you start to rant in threads about how this and that are not how they did it back in the day, ask first "is this going to attract new players"? If the answer is yes, then its good for the game. Start looking at you children and nephews, at those punk kids across the street. What would it take to get them to start gaming?

Yup, you're absolutely correct. I'm killing it, single handedly, a slow debilitating demise. That's why two editions have managed to come out that I don't want to play. I also imagine there'll be many more come out that I don't want to play. So give yourself a cigar.

 

[Hussar]

Originally Posted by Celebrim
D&D has been successful because it was an adult game written by adults for adults...

How does that jive with the immense popularity of Basic/Expert D&D? IIRC, it said for 12 years old on up on the box.

Or, how does that jive with the fact that other than a couple of fad years, 3e has at least as many players as 1e did?

If obscure, wordy writing made for good games, why did it take clear and consise writing to rescue the game from the extinction it was headed toward? Why do no other RPG's emulate obscure writing? What benefit is there to using unclear writing in a rulebook?

 

[Delta]

Are Gognards killing D&D?

Look, Grognards are what made D&D a running business. To my understanding, there was a whole order of magnitude more people playing D&D during 1E than any version since. It sounds like you're irritated that D&D publishers may have to keep their customers happy to maintain their business. It's an odd perspective from where I sit.

From a business perspective, I don't believe that new versions of D&D really help draw new players. Every iteration gets more complicated, which (when I've tried to introdce new people) has turned new players off faster and faster. There's a smaller and smaller hard-core fanbase of D&D'ers who are up for the enormous complexity and collectible-like aspects to the game in the WOTC era, and I think that's who the new editions are really selling to. I think that this is going to kill off D&D as an RPG faster than a sustainable, alternative business plan.

There are plenty of "new" versions of products that have wound up hurting a business instead of helping it. My amateur analysis is that 4E D&D is more like those business products than ones that really grow a customer base.

 

[Drammattex]

How does that jive with the immense popularity of Basic/Expert D&D? IIRC, it said for 12 years old on up on the box.

Red box with Elmore art was 10 and up.
I know because it was the first one I was actually allowed to OWN, even though I'd been playing it clandestine with my cousin for a couple years before that (the white/blue box first, and then the one with the viking dude & sexy sorceress in the water... the one with my beloved Morgan Ironwolf inside!).

 

[HP Dreadnought]

How are you defining grognard?

I started playing D&D w/ 1st Edition back in 1980. Since that time I've played once a week or every couple weeks with only limited periods of interruption.

I also happen to be 31 years old. My dad got me started on D&D at the age of 4.

So, am I a grognard, or not? I certainly have been playing long enough. . . but I'm not even close to my 40s.

Personally, I'm looking forward to 4E. I have hopes that it will reduce or eliminate my D&D fatigue that has afflicted me of late.