Are we fair to WotC?

[I'm A Banana]

WotC wasn't really interested in a "good conversation" when 4e came out. (I'm still watching those clouds. Heh.)

I don't think I agree. I think they were listening quite closely to the criticisms of 3e, and envisioned a bold new way of addressing those issues. Christmas trees, wonky CR's, dominating save-or-suck spellcasters, bland non-magical characters, twink-friendly mutliclassing, knotty lore, deep DM prep time...all totally legit concerns that 4e absolutely blasted out of the water, with a lot of outside-the-box thinking.

I think one of the missteps with 4e was in what Mearls referred to as "telling you that this is the best way to play guitar" (or something like that), or what we might call Badwrongfun-ing, or what is demonstrated nicely in James Wyatt's infamous DMG quote about what D&D is "about," or a GSL that didn't let you redefine your game. It tried to be THE solution. The only one. There was One True Way, and deviation was unthinkable. Of course everyone wanted to play an action-packed game of goblin-slaying with minis and a grid and who actually cared about the mating habits of the boggle anyway, and why not enable DM flexibility by having free-form rules outside of combat and this is clearly an improvement in all ways?

The other factor at work seemed to be a vastly unreasonable time constraint that meant that the feedback for their proposal had to wait until the books were published to be heard. There wasn't TIME to question or second-guess or do much market research (4e's playtest was infamously short and pretty un-responsive). There was no going back to the drawing board.

I think they're doing a much better job of identifying what people like and giving breathing room for rules to be tested this time around. And I think it shows that they realize that these were missteps in 4e's run-up. Because they are good at responding to criticisms. As long as they become experts at identifying the value that is already in their product, and delivering a game that capitalizes on those values, they might do OK, or at least release a fairly "non-controversial" edition of D&D. Which would be a step up.

So I think they're interested in the conversation, and they were then, too. The missteps to me seem to have more to do with false confidence and a tight deadline and a lack of understanding of the non-critics. Seems like they heard the critics loud and clear to me!

 

[Azgulor]

If someone is telling you "this is the best way to play the guitar" they are not interested in a "good conversation". At best, they're "instructing" in a heavy-handed fashion. If you're the head coach of a sports team, that's your job. If you're the marketing a product that you're trying to sell, it's probably not the a strategy that engenders a feeling of inclusiveness.

I agree with most of your post and while WotC may have listened to criticisms of 3e and sought to correct them, they communicated the features and design intent of the new edition in one of the most tone-deaf & ham-fisted ways I've seen. IMO, it was only recently superceded by Microsoft's initial push for Xbox One that I cited in my post.

 

[BlueBlackRed]

I feel I've judged WotC/Hasbro extremely fairly.
From every positive nod to every acidic, hate-filled rant, they've earned it.

 

[dmccoy1693]

And yet I could name some really concrete examples of things done by other companies that very closely mirror decisions WotC made that proved to be VERY unpopular.

As a small company that has made missteps, I can say that not alot of people hate/dislike/gripe about something I do when I make a misstep. Mostly people just ignore me. They forget I exist. Frankly, I'm not sure which I would rather have. Sometimes I want someone to complain about something I did because that means they loved something I did enough in the past to get upset in the present. For whatever reason, I don't seem to inspire that level of passion.

 

[DaveMage]

I don't think I agree. I think they were listening quite closely to the criticisms of 3e, and envisioned a bold new way of addressing those issues. Christmas trees, wonky CR's, dominating save-or-suck spellcasters, bland non-magical characters, twink-friendly mutliclassing, knotty lore, deep DM prep time...all totally legit concerns that 4e absolutely blasted out of the water, with a lot of outside-the-box thinking.

They may have been listening to the criticisms, but they (IMO) threw the baby out with the bathwater, so to speak. And it cost them big time.

I still maintain that the biggest mistake they made was changing the fluff along with the crunch. The 2e fluff was still usable in 3E, making the transition from 2E to 3E easier. So, in addition to deleting so much of what people liked about 3E flavor wise (you mentioned Wyatt's idiodic claim), 4E also discarded too much of the traditional setting(s) that made D&D what it was to many people. To me, the game essentially was completely new with only the name D&D remaining. (Obviously not everyone agrees with this, but apparently enough people did to cause 4E's failure.)

Of course, as we've learned since, the team was under tremendous pressure to perform from a revenue standpoint that was simply not realistic. (Hence the problem with WotC/Hasbro having the brand.)

 

[warriorprince24]

any one here?

 

[Balesir]

I still maintain that the biggest mistake they made was changing the fluff along with the crunch. The 2e fluff was still usable in 3E, making the transition from 2E to 3E easier.

I think, far more than that, the biggest mistake was not releasing under something similar to the OGL. Then third parties could have produced conversion material for the older fluff (as well as add-ons based on broken system concepts for those wedded to them).

Of course, this is all part and parcel of the thing most folk are miffed about - the corporation trying to control the brand. Roleplayers, as a breed, don't take well to attempts to control them - and damn right, too, IMO

 

[I'm A Banana]

I still maintain that the biggest mistake they made was changing the fluff along with the crunch.

Of course, this is all part and parcel of the thing most folk are miffed about - the corporation trying to control the brand. Roleplayers, as a breed, don't take well to attempts to control them - and damn right, too, IMO

I think it has a LOT to do with the brand. Not just that (one of the complaints leveled against D&D: a mountain of lore to sort through; Solution: We don't need no stinkin' old lore.), but I think in a large part. There's some really interesting articles written by/about some Ex-WotC employees about how The Brand was, at least for a time, of crucial importance. I don't imagine that refrain has died down much -- even 5e is currently skewing toward One Cosmology To Rule Them All and Only One Type Of Orc in an effort to have a "consistent brand experience." And there's clear signals that this kind of thing is friendly to fantasy gaming (WoW's branding is quite solid!). Of course, D&D isn't really like that, IMO, and benefits much more from containing multitudes, Whitman-style.

 

[billd91]

Except I wasn't quibbling with your assertion that people have no real relationship with WotC. I was quibbling with your statement regarding RPG companies in general.

And that's not even the important relationship when discussing whether or not we're treating WotC fairly. What I'm talking about is the relationship we have with anything we interact with, how we use it, how we feel about it, what it does for us. Scott may find that that worth berating people over for some reason, but this is a hobby site where people talk about their hobby. We are here because we want to talk about our hobby and how we relate to various aspects of it, positive and negative.

 

[Derren]

all totally legit concerns that 4e absolutely blasted out of the water, with a lot of outside-the-box thinking.

Together with all the sea life people were so fond off.
Thats the problem 4E had. In order to fix some flaws they destroyed the whole system and rebuild it. But a lot of people liked the old system and rather wanted it improved instead of having everything not perfect removed. And thus they turned the back on 4E.

I wasn't (just) marketing which made many 3E people dislike 4E, it was that 4E removed a lot of what they liked from the game thus making it a huge downgrade for them.