D&D 4E Ben Riggs' "What the Heck Happened with 4th Edition?" seminar at Gen Con 2023

[Alzrius]

true but IMO they had to try this new thing. While there were risks the potential rewards were too great. Besides how do you spin to shareholders that you didn’t even try to implement a WOW like cash cow revenue model.

There's probably some truth to that, but I recall Riggs being less sanguine about it during the seminar.

I forgot to mention this in my list of bullet points, but one of his takes about Gleemax was that WotC was a company that had always dealt in cards (e.g. M:tG, Pokemon, etc.) and books (e.g. D&D), which is to say, they were a company which made paper products. "For them to just decide that they were going to reinvent themselves as a tech company," I recall Riggs saying, "was hubris."

 

[SJB]

If you're referring to my second paragraph, I put that there because I'd made those points in some recent threads regarding Riggs' book, and I thought it'd be conspicuous if I brought up his seminar without taking my previous statements into account.

That said, I don't think it's controversial to say that works of history where the historians openly present their opinions about the people they're covering create the appearance of partisanship. Riggs' book is a definitely a valuable read, and is absolutely the best coverage to date of the Lorraine Williams years of TSR's history. And of course, he's a gifted writer with a talent for creating entertaining reading, as well as presenting a lot of valuable research (though I wish he'd stop having certain things appear only in his Twitter feed (or X feed, or whatever it's called now); seriously, Ben, put those charts in the book!).

But every time Riggs refers to Gary Gygax as "Saint Gary," it weakens his credibility as a historian. I know a lot of people like to say that "objectivity" doesn't exist, since everything is filtered through the lens of perception, but that doesn't mean that it's not valuable to at least try to check our own biases (at least when writing a history book), rather than openly indulging in them.

Riggs does not claim to be a trained historian. His MA was in education and he works as a schoolteacher. He writes popular hobbyist books - rather amusingly in my view.

 

[FrogReaver]

Riggs does not claim to be a trained historian. His MA was in education and he works as a schoolteacher. He writes popular hobbyist books - rather amusingly in my view.

Meh. What is a historian other than someone that researched historical facts and writes about them?

 

[FrogReaver]

There's probably some truth to that, but I recall Riggs being less sanguine about it during the seminar.

Thanks.

I forgot to mention this in my list of bullet points, but one of his takes about Gleemax was that WotC was a company that had always dealt in cards (e.g. M:tG, Pokemon, etc.) and books (e.g. D&D), which is to say, they were a company which made paper products. "For them to just decide that they were going to reinvent themselves as a tech company," I recall Riggs saying, "was hubris."

To me it goes back to - they felt they were losing market share to mmos like WOW that were going to eventually completely supplant their product.

In some sense the idea they can make such a shift may have been hubris, but given some of the prevailing beliefs I think there’s a strong case that meant they had to try. Now I do agree that those beliefs about MMOs taking over their market were mistaken but I can understand how at that time they came to be thought.

 

[Alzrius]

Riggs does not claim to be a trained historian. His MA was in education and he works as a schoolteacher. He writes popular hobbyist books - rather amusingly in my view.

I can understand that point of view, but when I look up Riggs' book in the Library of Congress, it notes the following:

Likewise, my understanding (based on the answer given by a history professor) is that you don't need a history degree to write a history book.

 

[FrogReaver]

Perhaps but WoW also wasn't the first fantasy mmo. It would not shock me if "WoW" is serving as a placeholder for the generalized mmo genre that was entering a boom period in those years as broadband internet was becoming more readily available in the US for the first time.

Seems like the "Xerox" effect.

I don’t think the magnitude of success that WOW had over its predecessor MMOs can be overstated. After WOW there was WOW and then everything else - and I didn’t even really play or like WOW. Was poor and could never justify any monthly sub.

 

[Retreater]

That era was a sad mismanagement of a valuable IP and beloved hobby by people who didn't understand their audience. I loved 4E, but I can't deny that it was very mishandled.
Just one example were the collectible card booster packs to give you advantages to your character were like physical microtransactions.
It certainly felt that D&D lost its "soul" in that period. I think it has again, probably for the past 5 years or so.

 

[Mannahnin]

As someone who loves 4e to the centre of his dark little heart this is very interesting. It also sadly highlights on of the issues with the whole RPG space which is that people really need to chill a bit. So magic missile can miss... okay, fine, whatever. Either change it for your table or accept it. (Also, and I'd have to dig around, but I have a feeling I saw an auto hit magic missile in official 4e paperwork. Maybe the starter set but I could be wrong.)

Anyway, if the fans, i.e. all of us, could be less reactionary, maybe we'd have more nice things. It's a thought.

Anyway, I came on to say thanks for posting the above. I wasn't at GenCon so great to get this info.

BitD, everyone I knew in gaming (online and in person) thought 3e was a massive hit, massive resurgence, massive revitalization of the brand, etc. After all, it brought D&D back to prominence after a decade of 2e slowly dying and White Wolf being the hot thing in gaming and so on. And look at all this space in the FLGS that used to be devoted to the #3-12 placing RPGs like Shadowrun or GURPS or RIFTS or whatever now dedicated to these 3pp D20 products! Why it must be a new era of gaming with D&D at the helm!

And I think it was a proportion of the pie rather than actual size of the slice issue. A big portion of the people actively and publicly gaming took another look at D&D, but that population in total wasn't at a particular high point* -- not the fad era that boosted 1E and BX, nor that time when non-traditional gamers came for WoD. Maybe even a nadir*, given that many of the white wolfers didn't continue and MtG and computer games had been eating into peoples' attention and so on. 3E made D&D a big fish in the pond again, but 1E (/basic) and 5e brought in new pondwater, which certainly helps explain the difference.
*I do not have numbers for people-in-gaming at given times, if anyone does, feel free to interject them.

Perhaps but WoW also wasn't the first fantasy mmo. It would not shock me if "WoW" is serving as a placeholder for the generalized mmo genre that was entering a boom period in those years as broadband internet was becoming more readily available in the US for the first time.

Seems like the "Xerox" effect.

MTG and computer games (especially MMOs) were the things I remember cutting into the tabletop gaming pie in the 90s.

I remember a hit to the tabletop RPG market when Magic first came out and gave people a fast-playing fantasy game which had great art and addictive gameplay. It didn't require anyone to take on the responsibility and labor of DMing. My D&D & Vampire group (all mostly college age or a little older) still played RPGs, but we'd also get together multiple nights a week to play cards, and we knew some gamers who just didn't bother putting in the effort for RPGs anymore. Magic was a phenom and it kept the lights on at a lot of gaming stores which weren't making enough money from RPGs.

Then I remember another hit a few years later when a number of people I knew drifted off into games like Diablo, Warcraft and Quake, and then once MMOs hit into Ultima Online and then EverQuest. MMOs were addictive as well, and time-intensive. People got a lot of their RPG experience there, only with animated graphics and a computer to do the math for them. It was a truism that it was harder to get groups together for tabletop play because a lot of folks who used to be up for it were now just staying home and playing online. WoW was just more of that, though IIRC cheaper and with better graphics.

 

[darjr]

4e was rushed to market as an incomplete flawed product because the suits were pressuring and chasing profit above all else.

5e was pretty much a loss leader so the suites let the creators do what they wanted. It was a huge success in no small part because if it, yes there were other factors but many of them didn’t come till later.

That initial huge sale run interrupted the DMG and my guess is the suites saw dollar signs and rushed it out to market, it’s now seen as not good, flawed, and needing to be largely rewritten from scratch.

Lessons were not learned.

Now we have the 5e revisions and again it’s got a hard deadline and the suits seem to be rushing it.

Lessons STILL not learned.

Edit to add: I LIKED 4e and ran a lot of it. Several days a week for a while.

 

[FrogReaver]

MTG and computer games (especially MMOs) were the things I remember cutting into the tabletop gaming pie in the 90s.

I remember a hit to the tabletop RPG market when Magic first came out and gave people a fast-playing fantasy game which had great art and addictive gameplay. It didn't require anyone to take on the responsibility and labor of DMing. My D&D & Vampire group (all mostly college age or a little older) still played RPGs, but we'd also get together multiple nights a week to play cards, and we knew some gamers who just didn't bother putting in the effort for RPGs anymore. Magic was a phenom and it kept the lights on at a lot of gaming stores which weren't making enough money from RPGs.

Then I remember another hit a few years later when a number of people I knew drifted off into games like Diablo, Warcraft and Quake, and then once MMOs hit into Ultima Online and then EverQuest. MMOs were addictive as well, and time-intensive. People got a lot of their RPG experience there, only with animated graphics and a computer to do the math for them. It was a truism that it was harder to get groups together for tabletop play because a lot of folks who used to be up for it were now just staying home and playing online. WoW was just more of that, though IIRC cheaper and with better graphics.

In some sense I think especially now post Covid but even pre Covid that pendulum started swinging away from MMOs and more into personal connections. The decline of WOW without a new 100lb gorilla in that space. Etc.