DDM & 4ed

[Jhaelen]

No, I don't think so. I used to buy a lot of DDM products, but mostly for the monsters.

This. I really liked the monster sets with the visibles.

What I didn't like were the pc sets. What player wants to buy three minis to get a single mini fitting his or her character?

It was a pretty half-baked idea. The repaints and often suboptimal choice of minis did the rest.

 

[TerraDave]

To the OP: as someone with some of those new races in his group who uses minis, also no.

As touched on above, I also feel that DDM early success (and for a long time it was considered a success and almost certainly made a bunch of money) was its later undoing. People bought cases and cases of those things, they eventually made there way to the secondary market, and now I can go online to several retailers and pick from a bunch of minis. Its almost perfect as far as I am concerned.

This is the pattern for 30 years. Something is found to be successfull. It is way, way overdone, the market is overwhelmed, and it collapses and is sometimes even labeled a failure, when for a long time it was a great success. (And in most cases it will later make a comeback).

See: adventure modules, basic boxed sets, D&D inspired novels, player oriented softback books, (and "faction" books for other games), heavily supported campaing settings, crunchy rules hardbacks, and more recently player oriented hardbacks.

 

[Herschel]

I could have bought more?!?!?!?!

I generally detest "collectors" who mistakenly look at nabbing game pieces as some sort of appreciating "investment". It's a sucker's game. But selling to them is part of a historically working business model.

Random packaging was also a way to have a wider variety of minis. Not every mini was one that every person loved, but every person loved minis, often ones hated by others.

I certainly would love to have more Genasi, some Devas and Shardminds, for example. Yes, I would be buying them, as I'll also be buying the new set most likely. I liked the PC minis for skirmish as well as the RPG, so they were great.

But I wasn't the issue. Their issue, besides numerous internal problems and saturation, were whiny, fickle, RPG-only people who want exactly what they want, dirt cheap. Too many have/had unrealistic expectations of the line. Merric's Laws of Minis is a great example, but too many demanded all three, which isn't a viable business model.

The goal is to leverage all three markets properly, but they couldn't do it in this market.

 

[Jdvn1]

Now if WotC had made "player packs" that included a deck of power cards, 3 minis (heroic version, paragon version, epic version) and a card-sized "combat sheet" to hold all your combat-relevant stats, I'd been more inclined to buy into it if I'd continued playing 4E.

Great idea.

 

[Herschel]

I don't play 4E, so no.

What does edition bias have to do with it though? Unless you had one of the three games where players weren't cheesing the half-dragon template and never used elementals, Dragonborn and Shardmind minis were definitely useful.

And besides that, the thread title was ABOUT 4E. Why come spew your vitriol if it doesn't pertain to you anyway?

That's not vitriol. If you think someone's threadcrapping, report the post -- but trying to accuse them just drags down the thread. Don't do it, please. ~ PCat

 

[Herschel]

Now if WotC had made "player packs" that included a deck of power cards, 3 minis (heroic version, paragon version, epic version) and a card-sized "combat sheet" to hold all your combat-relevant stats

This is an absolutely TERRIBLE product idea from a company standpoint though. When dealing with a fickle market you have individual sku numbers that are eliminated by purchasers for even more reasons. Not only do you have to target the people that play a character close enough to that, but ones that want three different sculpts for that character. It creates a sub-niche product within the niche product.

The only ones that would possibly sell enough are the very generic race/class combos that the fickle market would complain about being 'too limited' anyway.

 

[Jeff Wilder]

I'd have actually purchased fewer.

 

[Uder]

Was the distribution of atypical (i.e. non-Dwarf, Elf, Human, etc.) "PC race" minis in DDM OK, or would you rather the sets included more Dragonborn, Tieflings, Shardminds, Wildren, Goliaths, Changelings, Devas, Shifters and Warforged?

I don't have any stats for most of those things in the books I own, so no. Getting lower and lower quality figures of things I don't use in my game has been a pretty big sticking point when it comes to buying DDM.

Like Steel Wind, I prefer lots of monsters anyway, but having older school "generic fantasy" PHB races didn't annoy me as much as getting too many robots, dragonboyz, and angels (and when that's ALL you get? That was my final booster).

 

[Steel_Wind]

What does edition bias have to do with it though? Unless you had one of the three games where players weren't cheesing the half-dragon template and never used elementals, Dragonborn and Shardmind minis were definitely useful.

And besides that, the thread title was ABOUT 4E. Why come spew your vitriol if it doesn't pertain to you anyway?

His response wasn't vitriolic at all. It was quite reasonable, imo. It was not posted as a threadcrap in the least.

I also think perhaps you're projecting that all 3.xx games featured players that used half-dragon, dragonborn, and Shardmind templates is also an exagerration by more than just a little.

In any event, Stormonu's post wasn't an invitation to an edition war. No need to turn it into one.

This is an absolutely TERRIBLE product idea from a company standpoint though. When dealing with a fickle market you have individual sku numbers that are eliminated by purchasers for even more reasons. Not only do you have to target the people that play a character close enough to that, but ones that want three different sculpts for that character. It creates a sub-niche product within the niche product.

Assuming, without deciding, that tracking 6 or 12 SKUS of that kind is somehow prohibitive...

Looks to me that this is, in fact a variant of EXACTLY what Gale Force Nine, WotC's licensee for 4E is doing right now

Whether it is a terrible idea or not, it is only SLIGHTLY different than a forthcoming product that will be introduced imminently into the marketplace.

The only ones that would possibly sell enough are the very generic race/class combos that the fickle market would complain about being 'too limited' anyway.

Perhaps. Or it might be that you are confusing your own personal tastes with objective quality. A tendency of humans on the Internet which is pretty much universal.

Don't project motives on other people. It's here that this post goes from reasonable to condescending. A "I disagree" would have served the same purpose without seeming like you were patting him on the head -- that wasn't your intention, I suspect, but that's how it reads. ~ PCat

 

[mmaranda]

D&D minis always seemed like a moderate way to get a bunch of different minis fast.

They were painted light, and could sub in for many things. I never really liked them for PCs but if I want a PC I'll spend a few dollars more to buy a specific figure from Reaper, Dark Sword, Weird, etc... and get something that is almost exactly what I want and is easier to mod if I find my self so inclined.

I hope the new DDM keeps up with lots of variation among the minis in a set and they stay cheap enough to let DMs get a lot of different toys fast.