AWizardInDallas
First Post
JohnSnow said:
Probably a topic for a technology forum at this point...
Are Gognards killing D&D?
- Thread starter Antonlowe
- Start date
Probably a topic for a technology forum at this point...
SteveC
Doing the best imitation of myself
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.Brother MacLaren said:
There are some sock puppet accounts and people who aren't really ENWorlders, just people from other sites who are angry that are posting, but I'd say of actual ENWorld accounts 75% is a good number...heck it's probably too low.
I'm not trying to denigrate any of the folks who say "no way!" at this moment, by the way, I'm just that confident that 4E will be something good.
--Steve
Brother MacLaren
Explorer
I'm not interested. I'm specifically referring to the posters who claim that "everyone" will be playing 4E.SteveC said:
I'm sorry if that sounds harsh, but I do feel that I have significant disagreements with the fundamental game design principles behind 4E, at least as far as the designers have communicated them.
For example, "No more dead levels" is EXACTLY OPPOSITE to what I want. "Your wizard should never have to fall back on a crossbow" is also antithetical to what I'd want in playing a wizard.
I have thought a lot about what I want in a gaming system, and my opposition is not some reflexive dislike of something new.
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GVDammerung
First Post
mhensley said:
Thank you but such was wholly unnecssary.
You are positing that Grognards dominate the message boards but not actual sales, personally or via their groups. This supposes that newer, shall we say younger, gamers, who grew up with these "computers" more intimately than any 'Nard, are somehow not represented on the dominate medium (the internet) of their generation as it concerns the sales of the game you would have them dominate. A Nixonian "silent majority" of young computer savy gamers that don't frequent message boards but dominate actual sales of D&D? And these are the same computer message board avoiders that Gleemax and DDI are intended to reach? How's that going to work? It doesn's add up.
Your hardcore are your Grognards; its how they got to be Grognards after all. Sure, a good game can grab some initial number of new players that outnumber the 'Nards but when the novelty wears off or the new hotness lures the newbies away, it is the Gorgnards who pay Wotc's bills, the Grognards who have the steady groups running for years. Grognards are the rock upon which D&D rests and the rock upon which 4e will, by one degree or another, flounder or succeed.
Wotc is going to put your "silent majority" theory to the test the more 4e kicks the Grognards to the curb. All prior editions have added to the number of Grognards, per force. 4e - the new edition - can either play to these dedicated, established players or go looking for newer ones in greater numbers. Nice idea but risky that last. 4e could try to split the difference but has chosen to go all in with the non-backwards compatible changes. The jury is out and won't be in until likely 18 months after 4e's release but if we see 5e in short order it will be the Grognards you will hear laughing. It will be Wotc who got kicked in the, well, their nards.
Doug McCrae
Legend
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.GVDammerung said:
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.
4e is playing to grognards - 3e grognards. After all 4e with its at will spells, per encounter powers, fighters that don't suck and video game monsters is a small step mechanically from late period 3e products which have all these things too.
Celebrim
Legend
Salt and pepper beard here.
The thing to keep in mind is that the designers of the game are almost always on average older than there player base. Those designers have one of two choices. Either they can design a game which appeals to themselves as older players, or else they can design a game which appeals to people younger than themselves.
The latter seems like the best option, but its not. The best option is to make a game as mature and sophisticated as you can tolerate. That way your player base never out grows the game.
Games which are written down to the percieved maturity level of the fan base always fail in the long run. 'Junior' versions of anything are never as enduring. Lasting children's literature always works at multiple levels, else very quickly the reader reaches a point that they are embarassed by thier former tastes and abandon them. Hense, the problem with music pitched to junior high kids. It's good for a quick sale, but its not a lasting phenomenom unless it grows up in a hurry. Even Harry Potter achieves its success by not only working on several maturity levels, but by growing up with its primary fan base.
I think there would be a temptation to write down to whatever is popular amongst 12 year olds currently. This is a temptation to be avoided IMO. Instead, ideas should be gathered I think from whatever is currently above the 12 year olds heads. RPG's always work on the level of 'killing and taking thier stuff'. That's a universal thrill. But you need more than that to endure.
D&D has been successful because it was an adult game written by adults for adults. 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. EGG was a grognard in both the old and new senses of the term write from the time he published the game. You don't out grow military, mythological, and historical esoteria easily. You grow into it and with it. Getting the kids on board is the easy part. Keeping them more than a few years or a few sessions is the hard part. 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.
Naruta? 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. It might not seem like it at 20 or even 25, but come back and talk when you are 30.
It remains to be seen if the next incarnation of 4e will age as well as The Beatles or Bon Jovi or if it is New Kids on the Block or even New Coke. Anything is possible. Most likely the answer is somewhere in the middle. That's were I'd bet. My objections have never been that it is new. My objections remain the same:
1) I don't appear to be in the target audience.
2) The game doesn't appear to actually solve any of the problems I have.
3) The game doesn't go in the direction I find desirable.
4) 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.
Those are personal objections. They apply to me. They might not apply to you. If so, have fun.
The thing to keep in mind is that the designers of the game are almost always on average older than there player base. Those designers have one of two choices. Either they can design a game which appeals to themselves as older players, or else they can design a game which appeals to people younger than themselves.
The latter seems like the best option, but its not. The best option is to make a game as mature and sophisticated as you can tolerate. That way your player base never out grows the game.
Games which are written down to the percieved maturity level of the fan base always fail in the long run. 'Junior' versions of anything are never as enduring. Lasting children's literature always works at multiple levels, else very quickly the reader reaches a point that they are embarassed by thier former tastes and abandon them. Hense, the problem with music pitched to junior high kids. It's good for a quick sale, but its not a lasting phenomenom unless it grows up in a hurry. Even Harry Potter achieves its success by not only working on several maturity levels, but by growing up with its primary fan base.
I think there would be a temptation to write down to whatever is popular amongst 12 year olds currently. This is a temptation to be avoided IMO. Instead, ideas should be gathered I think from whatever is currently above the 12 year olds heads. RPG's always work on the level of 'killing and taking thier stuff'. That's a universal thrill. But you need more than that to endure.
D&D has been successful because it was an adult game written by adults for adults. 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. EGG was a grognard in both the old and new senses of the term write from the time he published the game. You don't out grow military, mythological, and historical esoteria easily. You grow into it and with it. Getting the kids on board is the easy part. Keeping them more than a few years or a few sessions is the hard part. 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.
Naruta? 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. It might not seem like it at 20 or even 25, but come back and talk when you are 30.
It remains to be seen if the next incarnation of 4e will age as well as The Beatles or Bon Jovi or if it is New Kids on the Block or even New Coke. Anything is possible. Most likely the answer is somewhere in the middle. That's were I'd bet. My objections have never been that it is new. My objections remain the same:
1) I don't appear to be in the target audience.
2) The game doesn't appear to actually solve any of the problems I have.
3) The game doesn't go in the direction I find desirable.
4) 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.
Those are personal objections. They apply to me. They might not apply to you. If so, have fun.
So being in your forites is bad because that seems really old to people who are 22.Antonlowe said:
It's "gRognards," by the way. With two "R"s.
Very true.Antonlowe said:
WotC is changing things, yes. It's a bit of a leap on your part to say that they are changing it to appeal to new players, or that the changes will appeal to new players.Antonlowe said:
It has divided the community because WotC is changing the flavor of the game wholesale. Looking back on 3E, it changed the mechanics in a big way but left pretty much all the D&D flavor intact (aside from halflings). A 3E wizard isn't really that different from a 1E magic-user, for example. From everything we've seen, a wizard in 4e will be a radical departure from what has come before... really, it seems that a 4e anything will be completely unlike what has existed in any previous version of the game.
If it was so easy to know what attracted new gamers... RPGs would be a lot more popular than they currently are.Antonlowe said:
Epic Meepo
Explorer
QFT. In fact, I'm a second generation gamer, myself.Plane Sailing said:
So before anyone out there writes off grognards as irrelevant, consider this: those grognards might not be buying any new D&D products for themselves, but what are they buying for their children? And what will their children be buying over the next few decades?
Spinachcat
First Post
A) Playing RPGs is a hobby.
B) Selling RPGs is a business.
A does not equal B
A can exist without B (especially with the internet)
A can not grow substantially without B
A depends on grognards (all hobbies exist because of the hardcore)
B does not depend on grognards
B) Selling RPGs is a business.
A does not equal B
A can exist without B (especially with the internet)
A can not grow substantially without B
A depends on grognards (all hobbies exist because of the hardcore)
B does not depend on grognards
Brennin Magalus
First Post
Drammattex said:Yes, but we're getting XP for it.
You win!
SteveC
Doing the best imitation of myself
No problem. Anyone who says that everyone will be doing anything six months from now is speaking with a fair bit of hyperbole. I certainly wasn't saying that people don't have deep profound dislikes for what they've heard about 4E (which, quite honestly, isn't much yet). I'm simply saying, as I've said many times before, that most of them will be overcome by the shiny of the game and pick it up. I also trust the designers (especially Mike Mearls) to make a quality product. Will you do that? Well, I'll take you at your word and say, "no."Brother MacLaren said:
Frankly, if the complaints you list above (no dead levels and wizards always being able to do some magic) are at the core to what you want in D&D, I hope the designers do disappoint you, since I'm looking for a very different game than you are. I hope that both of us get what we want.
--Steve
Lanefan
Victoria Rules
Something that's occurred to me while catching up on the stupendous amount of reading this thread has generated since yesterday:
It wouldn't bother me in the slightest if WotC decided to release 4e this year, 5e next year, and 6e the year after IF they would provide official support* to all the various editions, past and present, side by side. That way everyone gets something approximating the game they want; it's all still D+D, and WotC sells more material overall.
* - this could include sanctioning the RPGA to run any published edition, offering Sage Advice support for any edition, publishing modules/expansions/settings for all the various editions, etc.
Where they lose my vote is in the hard change...one month they only support 3e, the next month 3e is kicked to the curb and they only support 4e. Why not support both?
Oh, and for clarity: I represent most if not all of the quasi-established definition of a grognard - mid-40's, still play 1e (and 3e), dont like change unless it makes sense to me. I'll probably pick up the 4e PH and DMG not long after release, just to see what's there, but at this point I rather doubt I'll be playing or running it. (though it *could* still blow my socks off to the point where I convert on the spot...)
Lanefan
It wouldn't bother me in the slightest if WotC decided to release 4e this year, 5e next year, and 6e the year after IF they would provide official support* to all the various editions, past and present, side by side. That way everyone gets something approximating the game they want; it's all still D+D, and WotC sells more material overall.
* - this could include sanctioning the RPGA to run any published edition, offering Sage Advice support for any edition, publishing modules/expansions/settings for all the various editions, etc.
Where they lose my vote is in the hard change...one month they only support 3e, the next month 3e is kicked to the curb and they only support 4e. Why not support both?
Oh, and for clarity: I represent most if not all of the quasi-established definition of a grognard - mid-40's, still play 1e (and 3e), dont like change unless it makes sense to me. I'll probably pick up the 4e PH and DMG not long after release, just to see what's there, but at this point I rather doubt I'll be playing or running it. (though it *could* still blow my socks off to the point where I convert on the spot...)
Lanefan
EvilPheemy
First Post
GET OFF MY LAWN!!!
(shakes fist menacingly).
Lousy kids... gots no respec'. No respec' at all...
Maggan
Writer for CY_BORG, Forbidden Lands and Dragonbane
Epic Meepo said:
Well, my bet would be that the children will buy the most recent version. I have a hard time seeing any kind of snowball effect where the new gamers hunt down old copies of AD&D or pdf versions of the game, when they have a new and shiny version on the shelves.
Sure, some will hand down the old AD&D books, and the kids will love them, but I think the majority will go with the latest edition. Whichever that is.
/M
Simia Saturnalia
First Post
Never happen; Hasbro has a long-standing history of clutching their IP, even those they're not currently marketing, like grim death. You're saying "I want D&D to be locked away in a filing cabinet until it dies completely".Ifurita'sFan said:
Have fun with WoW!
I'm sorry, is there some way this doesn't say "My tastes, honed on 1e, are enduring. Your tastes, should 4e appeal to you, are juvenile and you just need some more time to realize that"?Celebrim said:
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RPG_Tweaker
Explorer
Nah.
There are some long-time players that are misliking the proposed changes, but age isn't much of a factor here... considered opinions are.
I started with BD&D in '79, skipped 2E, and came back for 3E. I am cautiously optimistic about 4E.
I have some grognardy opinons about what classes and races should be included in the PHB and am a bit hesitant about the power-creep that seems to be invading the rules, but these aren't cranky-old-man cliché rants. I have genuine concerns that the new rules must allow me to continue my play-style preference and preserve my campaign without massive retcons.
Even teens, new to 3E, are angered they won't be able to play their gnome druid right out of the gate, and think tiefling warlocks are too emo.
And no matter what your age... anyone can despise Golden Wyvern Adept as a feat name.
It doesn't take a Grognard to have a conservative opinon regarding how extravagant changes "should" happen in the next ruleset, it just takes someone to like the "way" they are playing right now. But no matter how slow or fast the game changes over time whether for good or ill... change is inevitable.
Since, RPGs are primarily a hobby of comraderie and creativity, whether the game sticks close to its roots or becomes a WoD&D wuxia mutant... grognards are not killing D&D... it simply will not die.
There are some long-time players that are misliking the proposed changes, but age isn't much of a factor here... considered opinions are.
I started with BD&D in '79, skipped 2E, and came back for 3E. I am cautiously optimistic about 4E.
I have some grognardy opinons about what classes and races should be included in the PHB and am a bit hesitant about the power-creep that seems to be invading the rules, but these aren't cranky-old-man cliché rants. I have genuine concerns that the new rules must allow me to continue my play-style preference and preserve my campaign without massive retcons.
Even teens, new to 3E, are angered they won't be able to play their gnome druid right out of the gate, and think tiefling warlocks are too emo.
And no matter what your age... anyone can despise Golden Wyvern Adept as a feat name.
It doesn't take a Grognard to have a conservative opinon regarding how extravagant changes "should" happen in the next ruleset, it just takes someone to like the "way" they are playing right now. But no matter how slow or fast the game changes over time whether for good or ill... change is inevitable.
Since, RPGs are primarily a hobby of comraderie and creativity, whether the game sticks close to its roots or becomes a WoD&D wuxia mutant... grognards are not killing D&D... it simply will not die.
Geron Raveneye
Explorer
Simia Saturnalia said:
Looking for a way to read this in a better light? Want some help?
Try reading it like this..."From my point of view, the way 4E is promoted serves to easily bring kids on board as new gamers, but doesn't look like it is made with keeping them in the game for the next 20+ years as well."
Which, considering there will most likely be a 5th edition in under 10 years, is maybe not TOO far from the truth either if you think about it. Gary Gygax probably didn't think there would be a need for a 2nd Edition of AD&D when he put together AD&D 1E, after all...it was the first BIG RPG project in the world of tabletop games, and there wasn't quite as much experience on how the market works as there is today.
See, it's not that hard to NOT read personal insults into the posts of others.
Simia Saturnalia
First Post
...and why is it presumed that it won't keep them?Geron Raveneye said:Looking for a way to read this in a better light? Want some help?
"From my point of view, the way 4E is promoted serves to easily bring kids on board as new gamers, but doesn't look like it is made with keeping them in the game for the next 20+ years as well."
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.
National Acrobat
First Post
tenkar said:
The Windows OS analogy isn't a good one at this time, as Microsoft keeps pushing back the date to stop supporting XP because businesses are not buying Vista, mine included. The latest survey placed on 13% of US Businesses as having adopted Vista. XP still remains very popular with purchasers of computers, and Microsoft has acknowledged that they misjudged the reaction of the consumer to Vista.
Now, back to topic. I don't think dislike of a certain edition has anything to do with age. I've been playing dnd since the mid 70's, and I play 3.5. I think it has to do with comfort level, expectations and simply whether or not something appeals to you.
I like 1e and 3.5, and I have materials for both, but since I don't get to play regularly anymore due to time constraints, there isn't any incentive for my group to purchase all new rules and books when we can only get together once every 2 months to role play. Plus, we don't want to have to totally change our characters, which I have been told, won't convert, since we are in a 17th level game that has lasted for a long time.
