D&D General D&D's Utter Dominance Is Good or Bad Because...

[Irlo]

Take a set of cups.

Have 5 of them be various colors, and 50 of them be red.

Have 5 of them be various colors, and 10 of them be red.

Have some in a hurry toss a marble in a cup.

See how many marbles land in the varied colored cups in each case.

If you don't see the parallel I'm suggesting, you don't.

I see what you're suggesting. I don't think that's good representation of how people find and chose games to play. Those five variously colored mugs are inside five different cabinets in five different kitchens in five diferent houses, and the people who own them don't necessarily want you to drink out of them.

 

[Thomas Shey]

1) This was true long before pdfs were invented, to the point that in the 90s, they more or less openly admitted that their published adventures were written to be read, not played. (And they don't admit it now, but I rather strongly feel like it's still true, otherwise a lot of the glaring problems with a number of their adventures wouldn't exist.)
2) WotC is not selling pdfs currently, but they do make all of their books available digitally at a significant discount, so even if you were entirely correct about it not being very much of a thing with physical books, it would still apply perfectly well to modern D&D anyway.

Sure, but remember this came up in the context of DTRPG sales, and my claim that it made accumulating non-played games much more painless.

(And I don't consider non-persistent digital sources the same as that; people are all too aware these are ephemeral now.)

 

[Thomas Shey]

D&D is about 50% of the market from my understanding, not 95, so it should be as easy to find players for something else as for D&D. Of course if you insist on playing with your friends or a specific other game, things become more difficult…

Its a fair call-out to me, but I have to state that I don't think the sales and the play percentage match up. It also ignores the question of self-contained groups (ones that rarely or ever bring in new players) as compared to games that cycle people at some frequency.

Either way, that is just anecdotal


No, the question is would more people have picked up that other TTRPG if D&D did not exist, or not. Unless it were more, D&D bringing people in is helping

It doesn't matter how many people pick it up. At all. I pick up games galore I'll never play. The question is, once someone is trying to find players for a game, how easy or hard is it. I see little sign more D&D players makes it easier.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I see what you're suggesting. I don't think that's good representation of how people find and chose games to play. Those five variously colored mugs are inside five different cabinets in five different kitchens in five diferent houses, and the people who own them don't necessarily want you to drink out of them.

Its not a perfect analogy, but it still isn't unrepresentative of the fact people who are looking around for another game have to sort through an awful lot of D&D games to get to something else.

 

[Thomas Shey]

that does not mean they could not produce it without KS, only that it is smarter to do so with it

Yeah, honestly the benefit to having up-front cash that won't tank your own finances is hard to overstate.

 

[Thomas Shey]

overhead as in shelf space? Because it is not more expensive... I can regularly find the D&D printed books for less than they cost on Beyond (and if I am ok with reading a PDF, Beyond might do as well...)

Shelf space is a lot of it, but with a lot of games, PDFs are notably less expensive than physical books are, so collecting them is a lot more financially practical. As I noted, the problem with Beyond depends on how you feel about similar "access but don't own" digital products.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I feel the same way, which is why I am dismissing yours

Feel free. I'm explaining my attitude and that of people with a similar view. You don't have to accept it, but at least you can not treat it as a mystery, which some people have done.

 

[Eric V]

It would be great if just once you would actually argue my point instead of what you thought my point was.

To put it plainly: WotC relying on whatever small subset of fans respond to surveys to make design decisions is a bad way to design a game, and they would be better off just designing the thing, doing internal playtesting, and then putting it out there like almost every other game, including every previous version of D&D. It's marketing that actually gets in the way of design innovation.

The bolded part is probably true if the goal is to make a really well-designed game.

That is not the first priority of WotC as far as D&D is concerned; the first priority is to make a very popular game.

And, ya gotta admit, it's working.

 

[Hussar]

Stop saying "cabal." No one has used that term and weaponized it's implications but you.

80K is what percent of 30 million?

All I am saying is that the people most likely to engage in the playtest and surveys are the ones most likely to hold strong opinions about the design of D&D. I'm saying, quite directly, that the designers should ignore these people. They should the design the game the way they intend and then sell it.

Half assed playtests that don't actually present complete rules don't produce useful feedback. It invites loud minority opinions to shape the game. It's a bad idea.

But, you have no evidence of this.

You have zero evidence to suggest that people "most likely to engage in the playtests" hold stronger or weaker opinions about the design of D&D. That's an interpretation you've created in order to justify why they should not listen to the feedback they are getting from the fandom.

Unfortunately, that ship has LONG sailed. From Paizo doing it's playtest for Pathfinder on forward, there is zero chance that you are going to see major changes in D&D without directly engaging the fandom in as broad a method as possible. The fact that you insist that the playtests are "half-assed" and "don'T actually produce useful feedback" are entirely your own inventions. You have no proof of this. You have no evidence to support this. It's just your opinion.

Which is fine. You can hold whatever opinion you like. But, you are presenting it as a fact. Which is why I keep referring to it as the "cabal". Because you have already weaponized your opinion before you even started. You don't like the results of the playtests and thus need to find some way to justify why the playtests should be ignored.

 

[Reynard]

Unfortunately, that ship has LONG sailed. From Paizo doing it's playtest for Pathfinder on forward,

You know there is a notable difference with Paizo and their playtests, right? They put out complete games and give the engaged people a large amount of time to explore it in full campaigns, not just piece meal integration of some small subset of ideas.

Even so -- yes,I recognize that public playtests are now a thing. It still doesn't make it a good idea.