Are Gognards killing D&D?

[Raven Crowking]

The thinking behind 4e is twofold I think:

1 - A perceived need to clean up 3.0 / 3.5 which has grown into an unwieldy beast with a mountain of supplements and new rules over the past 8 years.

2 - A financial need to sell more core books.

If all they were doing was (1) to perform (2), then I would probably be goshdarn happy with 4e. However, there's more to it than that. Indeed, they could perform this operation without damaging the basics, or product identity, at all.

RC

 

[tenkar]

If all they were doing was (1) to perform (2), then I would probably be goshdarn happy with 4e. However, there's more to it than that. Indeed, they could perform this operation without damaging the basics, or product identity, at all.

RC

I'd hazard a guess that the major revamp has much to do with a desire to distance 4e from the 3.5 OGL. A major reason for the success of 3.5 is also a leading cause of it's demise.

Don't be surprised if the 4e OGL is a lot less "bendable" then the 3.5 OGL.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Don't be surprised if the 4e OGL is a lot less "bendable" then the 3.5 OGL.

Don't be surprised if that is a deal breaker for customers who like the concept of the OGL.

 

[Brother MacLaren]

If all they were doing was (1) to perform (2), then I would probably be goshdarn happy with 4e. However, there's more to it than that. Indeed, they could perform this operation without damaging the basics, or product identity, at all.

They can't just clean it up for the sake of streamlining it, because everybody knows they'll once again bog it down with splatbook power creep. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

D&D has already had a massive revamp that was conducted in large part to clean up 2.0/2.5, which had "grown into an unwieldy beast with a mountain of supplements and new rules." Power creep and increased complexity had led me away from 2E; I had flipped through Skills & Powers but never bought it.

3E comes along and it is much streamlined. A simplified mechanical system and a more elegant multiclassing system were good enough that I could tolerate the return of the half-orc, monk, and barbarian, none of which I really welcomed. I loved MANY of the mechanical changes that made 3E simpler and/or more like the BD&D I grew up on. No more weapon speed, modifiers vs. armors, or different damage vs. large opponents; ability score charts much more like BD&D; no exceptional strength. But then the same thing happened again, the splatbook power creep and increasing complexity.

If WotC were now to admit "Yeah, 3E made the same mistake that 2E did with splatbook power creep and increasing complexity, so we have 4E to clean all that up," you KNOW the response would be "But you're just going to do it again in 4E." Splatbooks sell.

 

[Counterspin]

Brother Maclaren : I don't think the splats really increased the power level, at least not within the party. Primary casters rule the roost with or without them. But I don't understand why people view the splats so negatively. I personally enjoy the splats, because while I don't feel like I need any help producing settings, I do like big chunks of new mechanics to sink my teeth into.
What would you suggest as an alternative business model for D&D? TSR is in many circles viewed as collapsing because it over fractured its market with too many settings, and it seems like setting books are the only other real option.
And then, as a separate question, what is it that you would like to see replace splats?

 

[Ifurita'sFan]

IF it is true that the reason that D&D is the brand leader is because "everyone knows how to play it" THEN it follows that making sweeping changes to the way the game is played is likely to damage the new edition's following in favour of the old. Especially, if you accept the reasoning from WotC previously quoted, if non-baseline material acts mainly to advertise baseline material and make it more popular.

RC

I pointed out that exact thing.

The VP at WotC, in an interview, specifically STATED that the reason D&D is #1 is because over time there has been a buildup of gamers who know how to play it, that know the rules of the game.

It's a ubiquitous gaming system... like windows is a ubiquitous OS for computers in the workplace.

But that therefore implies than any major changes to the game system actually HURT their standing as #1. That's because if they change it, they no longer have a core group that can play the game because the rules will no longer be familiar to them.

This is the reason that Grognards (the well established fan base that pours money into the game system buying new supplements and has the disposable income now to do so) ARE important to D&D. That and a single grognard has two or three times the spending power of a single new young player. Young players = cash strapped usually. And thus contribute less to the bottom line.

Will 4e bring in more new blood than old it loses? I don't know... it'll be interesting to see what happens.

 

[Carnivorous_Bean]

Are grognards killing D&D? No, the strange market is.

To actually reply to the topic title -- specifically, are Grognards killing D&D, my opinion is, no.

If D&D is dying, and I'm not sure that it is (despite my and my gaming group's defection to FUDGE ), it's because of the very nature of the RPG industry itself. The publishers -- WOTC included -- are IMO in a cleft stick.

On the one hand, the only thing that sells are systems. Typical RPG consumers don't buy adventures, campaign settings, campaign setting supplements, and similar products.

On the other hand, how many times can you revamp a system which does pretty much the same thing? And since the only books that sell significantly enough to pay the rent and keep the place running are system books, the only supplements which make economic sense to print are splatbooks that expand the system. Yet at the same time, you can only add so many rules before the system becomes a cumbersome, confusing mess that disgusts the customer base, drives some of them away, and makes the others frustrated and suspicious when you finally sweep away the mess with a new edition (which then repeats the process).

In other words, the books whose printing would allow infinite fresh material without expanding on the original, streamlined system (campaign settings, adventures, etc.), while giving the company what it needs to continue on with, don't sell. So they're not made.

The RPG industry is sort of upside-down. There's an endless proliferation of system, and almost no material to use the system with -- precisely because people will buy so-called 'crunch' even if it's stifling the game, and eschew so-called 'fluff' even though it's what would allow the RPG industry to flourish without making endless iterations of increasingly cumbersome systems.

To use a somewhat imprecise analogy, it's like people would buy DVD players but would NOT buy DVDs to play in them. In that case, you'd see all the companies coming out with revisions and add-ons for the players, and couldn't find a DVD anywhere, because there would be no money in them.

If people would buy 'fluff,' then a more-or less definitive ruleset would emerge, capping the amount of 'crunch' and removing the need for new editions. That way, they could concentrate on -- "here's our new, innovative, exciting game world where you can have fascinating adventures" -- instead of on "here's how we're handling Armor Class and non-combat skill synergies in version 388.45 of the bureaucratically maddening rules system."

I believe it's a fundamentally self-destructive business model forced on the companies by the upside-down buying habits of the people they have to sell to, who are fixated on 'crunch' and eschew 'fluff.' It remains to be seen how long they can keep the impossible juggling act going, that's all.

If anything kills D&D, in short, it'll be the customers losing patience with a flawed business model which their buying habits have imposed on those who make products for them.

 

[Brother MacLaren]

Brother Maclaren : I don't think the splats really increased the power level, at least not within the party. Primary casters rule the roost with or without them.

That wasn't my experience in the campaign I ran from levels 2-12, for several reasons due to my group of players, the PC builds, and the monsters the party faced. The barbarian dominated in damage output, the ranger was second, and the casters were left in the dust. The ClericZilla never happened in my game; the long setup time made it unfeasible in most circumstances (fortunately, the wizard had foresaken conjuration, so this party never did the scry-buff-teleport routine).

But regardless, the splats DID increase the power level of the PCs relative to the monsters. This means you need tougher CRX monsters, which means new players can't expect to thrive with core-only PCs because the new CRX monsters are so much tougher than they used to be. So they need to buy the splats, and then new and improved splats come out to push the arms race further along. In the first round of 3.5 splats, the caster splats were certainly the worst, with Divine Metamagic and those awful orb spells.

But I don't understand why people view the splats so negatively. I personally enjoy the splats, because while I don't feel like I need any help producing settings, I do like big chunks of new mechanics to sink my teeth into.
What would you suggest as an alternative business model for D&D? TSR is in many circles viewed as collapsing because it over fractured its market with too many settings, and it seems like setting books are the only other real option.
And then, as a separate question, what is it that you would like to see replace splats?

There might not be a business model for D&D that would allow them to get the kind of revenues they want and would keep me as part of their customer base.

I, as a customer, will probably just hop off the edition treadmill and go back to playing by the BECMI rules forever, house-ruled as individual DMs see fit. I'd like there to be new places to explore and new adventures to have, not new classes or spells or feats. If WotC were to re-publish the old Gazetteers and modules, I'd buy them if I was running a campaign, but that business model would leave their revenues below what they would like (since there are many gamers who are just players, never DMs). I like the Mystara setting and am always glad to see more of it; I like modules because, believe it or not, some professional writers have skill at adventure design and plotting that exceeds my own. And some just have crazy ideas that I'd never have come up with. Oh, I suppose I might buy some dice or software tools from time to time. Software tools could be a much stronger business line, such as 3-D dungeon visualizations -- I input my map, the tool converts it to a "PCs' point of view", and I hook that up to the TV for the players to look at as we play. Visually convey dark and narrow tunnels with flickering torches, grand ballrooms of demented wizard aristocracy -- yeah, I'd pay $50 for a "Virtual Castle Amber". But I neither need nor want any new mechanics.

I don't want to ever again buy a book because it will allow me to have a more powerful PC. I think the game could thrive with less focus on special abilities gained at each level; I know that thinking back to the B/X and early 2e games we played in junior high and high school, the memorable things are the quests and adventures, not the abilities.

 

[WayneLigon]

To use a somewhat imprecise analogy, it's like people would buy DVD players but would NOT buy DVDs to play in them. In that case, you'd see all the companies coming out with revisions and add-ons for the players, and couldn't find a DVD anywhere, because there would be no money in them.

If the DVD player allowed me to create my own movies and music, I would have little need to buy DVDs. Same thing with RPGs. More people buy crunch than fluff specifically because they can come up with their own fluff much more easily than they can come up with their own crunch.

Give me two hours and enough inspiration and I'll write up a campaign world outline that will serve my group for a year or more. It's unlikely I could come up with a comprehensive RPG engine if you gave me a year.

Give me the tools and I can make my own worlds that fit my gaming style. It's very unlikely someone will ever come up with a setting so compelling that it makes me not care about the rules and crunch underneath when I'm the GM.

 

[Ty]

Two observations, probably not all that relevant though:

1. I bought the adventures back in the old days. Rahasia, Against the Gianst, Slavelords series, etc. I bought them because they saved me time as a DM. My friend bought them because we switched off DM'ing. There weren't splatbooks per se other than the Monster Manual II, Field Folio, and Unearthed Arcana. Splat came from Dragon or other campaign settings.

2. Starting with 2nd Edition, D&D seems to have suffered from the "Jump the Shark" syndrome. I think Skills and Powers was the peak of the optional rules for AD&D 2nd edition where Vancian Magic was finally offered an alternative. It also marked the real end of TSR. Frankly, the "Complete X" series Part Deux marks the point where 3.5 jumped the shark. When is a company going to identify the point where they jump the shark and sink themselves?