Broken Base Lookback: Editions

[pemerton]

If the group I currently played with decided to move to 4e, I would essentially be out of a group, because I have enough fundamental problems with the system to never want to play it.

<snip>

The value of a "unified" player base/edition is that it gives players more overall opportunities for successful play.

I'll make it really simple, sans analogy - you like only one game? That restriction is inside you, not outside in the rest of the world. It is your challenge. There's only so much the rest of the world can be expected to do to accommodate you. The world is not going to sit still and not look for new things because your tastes are inflexible.

I'm inclined to agree with Umbran on this issue.

Let's assume that a RPG group has two sorts of members: when a new edition is released the As want to shift to it, whereas the Bs want to stay with the old edition. Changing editions means that the As are burdening the Bs. Staying with it means that the Bs are burdening the As. Neither situation strikes me as inherently better than the other (and [MENTION=11300]Herremann the Wise[/MENTION] has explained how his group has reached a turn-and-turn-about compromise).

Now suppose that the new edition never comes out, because the game is "unified" around the old edition. Now the Bs have what they want, but presumably the As could be having a better time then they are - namely, if the new edition were released they could play that instead. Is this sort of burdening of the As by the Bs any less problematic simply because the As haven't yet had their preferences fully satisfied by the release of what is (for them) a better game? Are the As, in this situation, really enjoying "successful" play?

I guess it's possible that some players could be Cs - they are indifferent as to editions, but prefer the current edition - whatever it happens to be - over the previous edition - whatever it happens to be. In the "unification" scenario, the Cs are as happy as the Bs, but once a new edition is released, they jump ship and join with the As.

If the RPG market had comparatively few As, and lots of Cs, then I think [MENTION=85870]innerdude[/MENTION]'s point would be stronger, because releasing new editions really would destabilise what otherwise was successful roleplaying. But how many Cs are out there? And from my purely personal point of view, why should I think it's a good thing that game design is frozen just so that those who can't help being victims of marketing can be satisfied?

 

[GSHamster]

I think that a lot of the edition issues come down to simple timing. I believe the 2E to 3E transition worked because it was simply time for a new edition. We had played 2E to death, and the majority of the base was ready for something new.

I think the 3E to 4E transition really came about 3 years too early. People weren't "done" with 3E yet. There still was a lot to explore, a lot to chew on.

Then you add on the more different nature, and the killing of the OGL, etc. and that gave everyone more reason to refuse to transition.

 

[Desdichado]

The 90s may have lost people for D&D, but it didn't break the base. Looking at the 1999 WotC RPG survey, 66% of the people played D&D; of the other RPGs, only 16% for Palladium and 3% for GURPS indicated possible competing non-modern fantasy games, and (assuming Rifts is included in Palladium) neither are primarily fantasy games. It took work for WotC to actually break the set of D&D players with D&D 4, to make D&D players find a non-D&D-brand game.

Do you have some more recent numbers, other than highly questionable and dubiously applicable Amazon rankings to suggest that things are significantly different now? I haven't seen any. As far as I'm concerned, the most likely scenario is that WotC is still the 800 lbs gorilla of the RPG world, no matter how much you may or may not like 4e.

Without D&D 4, they would have lost some people who went to D&D 4, maybe from roleplaying completely, maybe to some other game (which?). But a lot of them would have stayed. Could they have restarted the system and kept the D&D 3 players and would-be RW D&D 4 players? I suspect so, though any new edition loses some players.

In my experience, and based on lots of claims here and elsewhere, a lot of gamers had already drifted away from D&D before 4e was announced; and many of them were in fact drawn back into the fold with 4e. Unless you've got access to confidential sales data that WotC has not shared with the public, I'm not sure you can make the claim that 4e "broke the base"--it could be just as likely that it shored up an already broken base.

Fault lines only indicate where things will break when stress is put on them. They can stand a lot of give and take in real life and not break.

Yes, but YMMV. Even in the earlier days of D&D lots of people went off in different directions, homebrewing, looking for alternatives, or wandering away early because D&D didn't give them what they wanted (myself included.) As 3e started getting a bit long in the tooth, it cracked an awful of fault lines and sent people scurrying for other games.

Also, the presence of the OGL substantially weakened those fault lines, in my opinion. It's just so freakin' easy to wander off and do something else these days by building off the SRD. Add to that the completely unrelated (though coincidentally timed) OSRIC "challenge" to what the SRD can be used for, i.e. using it to "back-engineer" 1e and make it an open game again, and the whole OSR movement became a possibility. That portion of the broken base largely has nothing whatsoever to do with the release of 4e.

 

[Aberzanzorax]

Do you have some more recent numbers, other than highly questionable and dubiously applicable Amazon rankings to suggest that things are significantly different now? I haven't seen any. As far as I'm concerned, the most likely scenario is that WotC is still the 800 lbs gorilla of the RPG world, no matter how much you may or may not like 4e.

WotC is NOT the 800 lbs gorilla. D&D still is, though (if you consider Pathfinder D&D, and especially if you combine Pathfinder and WotC).

According to Lisa Stevens at Paizo, ICV2, and semi-longitudinal amazon rankings (we're at 2 months now), Paizo and WotC are tied (basically) with Paizo edging WotC book sales out by a hair.

http://www.enworld.org/forum/news/313573-top-5-sales-q3-2011-analysis.html

http://www.enworld.org/forum/press-releases-announcements/310522-tracking-sales.html


I'm still working on longitudinal data from Amazon for the other top sellers reported by ICV2.

 

[Desdichado]

Huh. Really interesting stuff on the ICv2 article. I mean, they kinda said that there's a lot that they don't know which could throw off the analysis, but it's still something else anyway.

I guess I was pretty out of the loop. I never would have guessed Pathfinder was anywhere near D&D in terms of numbers. Clearly we have to admit the possibility that it's at least a Vampire: the Masquerade at its height in terms of challenging D&D.

 

[prosfilaes]

Do you have some more recent numbers, other than highly questionable and dubiously applicable Amazon rankings to suggest that things are significantly different now? I haven't seen any. As far as I'm concerned, the most likely scenario is that WotC is still the 800 lbs gorilla of the RPG world, no matter how much you may or may not like 4e.

I gotta say, "let's throw out the data because it's not good enough, and then since we have no data my assumptions must be true" really, really annoys me. Any data is better then pure assumptions. I've spent a lot of time on a couple occasions collecting data, and it really doesn't encourage me to do so for people who would rather believe in their assumptions than look at the data.

That portion of the broken base largely has nothing whatsoever to do with the release of 4e.

I don't see any evidence that the OSR make a significant part of the base. LibraryThing numbers give Castles & Crusades PHB (not really OSR) 1/3 the books held as the PF Core Rulebook, and Labyrinth Lord 1/2 that; on RPGGeek, LL and C&C are roughly tied, and both individually less than 1/5 the PF Core Rulebook.

 

[Aberzanzorax]

[MENTION=40166]prosfilaes[/MENTION]

He's already recanted his position, given actual information.

 

[Umbran]

I don't give a hoot about the relative positions of WotC and Paizo in sales ranking. I do, however, have a bee in my bonnet about critical thinking...

Any data is better then pure assumptions.

That's not true as a generalization. This becomes a bit more obvious when you put back (what I sure hope is) the missing phrase, and say it in full: Any data is better than pure assumptions for getting an accurate picture of what's actually happening.

I'll use an example that's far from gaming, to illustrate the point.

Say you are interested in the average temperature in the month of August. You take two measurements, one on August 1st, and on on the 30th, and average them. This, of course, is crappy, incomplete data. It is by no means guaranteed to lead you to a more accurate idea of the temperature in August than your assumption.

"Some data," does not equate to, "a more accurate view of reality".

 

[BenBrown]

I think that a lot of the edition issues come down to simple timing. I believe the 2E to 3E transition worked because it was simply time for a new edition. We had played 2E to death, and the majority of the base was ready for something new.

I think the 3E to 4E transition really came about 3 years too early. People weren't "done" with 3E yet. There still was a lot to explore, a lot to chew on.

Then you add on the more different nature, and the killing of the OGL, etc. and that gave everyone more reason to refuse to transition.

There may have been more to explore, but there wasn't any more to sell. WotC as a business had to do something. You can argue that 4E should have been more like Pathfinder, i.e. a revision rather than a rebuild from the ground up, but as far as having things to sell for the existing game line, WotC was up against the wall.

It may be that 2e lasted "long enough" because of TSR's troubles. There were a few fallow years where not much was being produced.

 

[prosfilaes]

I'll use an example that's far from gaming, to illustrate the point.

Say you are interested in the average temperature in the month of August. You take two measurements, one on August 1st, and on on the 30th, and average them. This, of course, is crappy, incomplete data. It is by no means guaranteed to lead you to a more accurate idea of the temperature in August than your assumption.

"Some data," does not equate to, "a more accurate view of reality".

There's no amount of data that is guaranteed to lead you to a more accurate idea of the temperature in August. But let's get more specific:

Let's say you want the average temperature on Imdr Regio in August. I can go with my Ray Bradbury-guided assumptions and call it 35 °C. Or I can take the one sample measurement taken October 18, 1967 somewhere on the same planet and say that the average temperature on Imdr Regio in August is somewhere near 500 °C (sample measurement taken by Venera 4 on Venus.) Do you argue that I should stick with my assumption?

Let's say you want the average high temperature in Yaroslavl in November. Go ahead, make your assumptions. I heard -20°C from one corner, and 15 °C from another. I'd much rather take the one data point, that the high temperature in Yaroslavl yesterday was 2 °C and extrapolate from there. And what do you know; my randomly chosen city averages −0.2 °C in November. Maybe if I lived in Yaroslavl, maybe if I knew where it was, I could have done as well with the data I knew already.

I randomly picked another city, Bakersfield. High temperature yesterday of 23 °C and an average Nov high temp of 18.5. Izmir; 14 and 19. Can't find data for Hannau or San Marino. Lisbon; 22 and 18. Lima; 21 and 21.9. Brisbane; 27 and 27.7. Kampala; 28 and 27. Provo, 10 and 9. With just yesterday's weather, we've got a standard deviation of 3.1°C , which is a lot better than I'd expect from someone's assumptions about world weather.

Back to the subject at hand, one of the thing that motivates my assumption that Pathfinder is doing about as well as D&D is the data that Neoncon had more Pathfinder Society games than Living Forgotten Realms. As data, I'm sure people will tear into it, but I don't understand how it suddenly becomes less valuable when it stops being part of my assumptions and I lay it out on the table.