Does D&D Need to Appeal to the Mainstream?

[Reynard]

OK, I think I see where Reynard is trying to go with this - maybe. The reference to music is making me think Reynard missed his intent a little by saying "produce what people like."

A majority of musicians and other artists concern themselves less with what will sell or what people like. They instead creatively express themselves through their medium. Some people will like the way the artist expressed themselves and will seek out their material.

I think Reynard is suggesting that D&D would be better served by passionate creative artists who produce game material following their passions and creative drive, rather than a corporate plan based upon marketing research as to what might sell well. A better analogy might be live improvisational jazz, versus an album that is produced and engineered.

My answer to this idea is, sure it would be great if D&D was done purely out of passion and creativity, rather than business concerns. The reality is that there are a lot of starving artists out there, some produce junk, others produce amazing works, and two people might disagree about which is which. I would like to think that D&D actually blends the two sides - the creative and the business aspects: new ideas for releases come from inspriation, not corporate directive, but the creative process is balanced by the business sense so that the chances are good the product will have a market.

Thank you for helping distill my intent into words that actually made sense when put next to one another. You're pretty much on the money on what I meant.

I understand that even a small company needs to stay afloat and that is going to have an impact on what's produced. However, I don't think that WotC's acquisition by Hasbro has had a positive impact on the development of D&D at all. I think you can trace a lot of the changes in the general tone of the game, as well as the changes in product types, to the point at which the bottom line took precedence. And for D&D to make big money, it needs to appeal to a big audience. In reality, it is a game for "freaks and geeks" and it -- and the gamer --is much better served being produced as such.

 

[Stalker0]

While it doesn't need to appeal to a huge general group, it does need to appeal to some new group of young people.

If the game is to continue for many years it needs new blood, or for one gamer to become so rich he can just pay people to keep making gaming stuff So while the game doesn't have to be mainstream, it does need to appeal to the new younger audience.

 

[Hussar]

I understand that even a small company needs to stay afloat and that is going to have an impact on what's produced. However, I don't think that WotC's acquisition by Hasbro has had a positive impact on the development of D&D at all. I think you can trace a lot of the changes in the general tone of the game, as well as the changes in product types, to the point at which the bottom line took precedence.

Umm, if you think TSR wasn't looking at the bottom line, particularly in some of the latter days, I think you might be somewhat uninformed of the history of the game.

Also, it has been repeatedly stated, both by industry insiders and by WOTC people themselves that Hasbro couldn't really give a damn about D&D, so long as it doesn't LOSE money. D&D is such incredibly small potatoes that it barely shows up on any accounting lists. No one at Hasbro gives the slightest damn whether or not the game grows or stagnates. They bought WOTC for various reasons, none of them had much to do with D&D.

I know, as D&D players, we like to think the corporate world of RPG's revolves around us, but, the sad truth is, we're not even a consideration.

Sorry, the changes you've seen in D&D have had little or nothing to do with Hasbro and everything to do with the people who are actually making the game.

 

[T. Foster]

IMO D&D needs to be comprehensible and accessible to the mainstream, so that those who are curious can pick it up and have a chance of understanding it, but shouldn't pander and risk losing/changing its essential D&D-ness in trying to appeal to the mainstream. D&D should try to draw the mainstream towards it, rather than trying to draw itself towards the mainstream (which, I suspect, would actually make the mainstream less interested in it, as they wouldn't see it as anything new or distinctive or unique). D&D should identify and play to its own strengths, rather than subsuming it own identity by trying to copy something else's strengths.

 

[Glyfair]

No. D&D needs to appeal to those people we were back then when we started to BECOME D&D players. That is, mainstream kids. Not the D&D experts today.

I'd suggest the answer is both. Without the "new player" market the game will die as people stop playing for various reasons. Without the "old player" market the game won't be popular enough to continue, either,

D&D didn't really attract "masses" until the 1980s - something like 5 to 10 years after its initial release, with revisions happening in that time (OD&D, 1e, 2e).

Thinking back, D&D had a lot of visibility in the late 70s, early 80s. In the late 70s it was new and different. It would get a lot of newspaper articles about this new "craze" that was catching on/

With the 80s it was visible to the public. We had ads such as the regularly appearing ones in comics books and a TV Commerical. The kids in a blockbuster movie were, E.T. shown playing D&D, and it wasn't to show they were any sort of "type."

We even got all that free press from the "D&D is Satanic group." We had some of the same sort of press has Harry Potter gets now (even if not at the same intensity).

Today, if you don't play it or aren't close to someone who plays it, it's mostly used to stereotype. "Ah, he's the sort that plays Dungeons & Dragons in his parents basement."

 

[Glyfair]

I think Reynard is suggesting that D&D would be better served by passionate creative artists who produce game material following their passions and creative drive, rather than a corporate plan based upon marketing research as to what might sell well. A better analogy might be live improvisational jazz, versus an album that is produced and engineered.

I think we have some of that now. Sure, there is some intentional marketing about the game needs going on. However, one of the comments from one of the designers caught my attention. It said basically that after all the playtesting, they knew they were on the right track when they disliked playing 3.5. When they sat down for their 3.5 games they wished they were using 4E instead.

That's not marketing. That's someone who likes to play D&D expressing a passion about the game.

 

[WayneLigon]

I think you can trace a lot of the changes in the general tone of the game, as well as the changes in product types, to the point at which the bottom line took precedence.

OK, now I get what you're saying.

I think that many more changes can be traced to the fact that for the first time, WOTC did marketing research and found out what gamers were like and what they wanted. TSR never did that and it led to an increasing disconnect between what they produced and what fans wanted. I think that the majority of changes that D&D has undergone and will undergo are much more in accord with the will and wish of the fans than it was in the TSR days.

Some of that is bottom-line-oriented. If you find out that only a small percentage of the people buying your products purchase adventures, then you cut back on adventure production. But you do it because you find these things out. It may have seemed like things were cooler back when we had hobbyists selling to other hobbyists, but you know? More than a few times, someone would produce a really cool product and it would just die. Then because they had no other products out bringing in cash to the business, the business would die. Movies are the same way. Knock the latest Michael Bay Blowed Up Real Good Movie, but it brings in a lot of money, and that allows the studio to take risks like spinning off an independent films incubator for young filmmakers. Without the Bay money, they'd never be able to take such a risk.

It was a lot like comics in the seventies. You had a large entrenched set of writers and editors. Some were very good and produced superior and forward-looking product. Most were 40 - 50-year-old men trying to write 'relevant' stories and create images for an age group they barely remembered. You got some truly bizarre stories out of that, and long streaks of what today is almost painful to read.

 

[Umbran]

I think you can trace a lot of the changes in the general tone of the game, as well as the changes in product types, to the point at which the bottom line took precedence.

Well, a bit of history for you - the current pattern of core and "splatbook", and the topics of those books, is far older than 3e. You can certainly see the pattern back in 2e, which came out in 1989 - before Hasbro, before WotC. That structure was also successfully copied by White Wolf.

In reality, it is a game for "freaks and geeks" and it -- and the gamer --is much better served being produced as such.

You've yet to demonstrate that the "freaks and geeks" don't like what is currently being produced.

Nor, really, have you demonstrated that the sort of gamers being targeted aren't really geeks themselves. 'Cause, you know, however "mainstream" it may be, playing WoW for hours on end seems pretty darned geeky to me.

I say that lovingly - Geek is Good.

 

[Imp]

Look – and this came up in the "ideal new D&D cartoon" discussion – the mainstream is much closer to D&D tropes in this day and age than it was in the early 1980s, which appears to be most people's frame of reference around here. What is less mainstream about D&D than ever is that it is a pencil and paper game people physically get together in groups to play for hours at a time. If anything, that's the subcultural aspect now. Dungeons, dragons, you get that in top-grossing movies these days.

 

[freebfrost]

Sorry, the changes you've seen in D&D have had little or nothing to do with Hasbro and everything to do with the people who are actually making the game.

If you think that the bottom line (i.e. losing revenue on evergreen products that are no longer selling enough to sustain their margin), doesn't have anything to do with 4E, then you are kidding yourself.