Game Fundamentals - The Illusion of Accomplishment

[Doug McCrae]

I'm increasingly of the opinion that D&D's historical dominance is D&D's association with the lowly and sometimes deprecated art of module writing.

I can't cite a source for this (I looked today and couldn't find anything to back it up) but I'm pretty sure I've seen a WotC employee or ex-employee saying their market research shows that D&D's dominance is 100% based on being first to market. D&D was the first rpg and people really, really don't like to learn new rpg systems. Apparently even many from WotC found this hard to believe, thinking there must surely be more to it than that, or perhaps being influenced by their strong positive feelings toward D&D.

 

[ggroy]

I can't cite a source for this (I looked today and couldn't find anything to back it up) but I'm pretty sure I've seen a WotC employee or ex-employee saying their market research shows that D&D's dominance is 100% based on being first to market. D&D was the first rpg and people really, really don't like to learn new rpg systems. Apparently even many from WotC found this hard to believe, thinking there must surely be more to it than that, or perhaps being influenced by their strong positive feelings toward D&D.

One could speculate that if SPI's DragonQuest was created and released back in 1970 (instead of 1980), would DragonQuest have become the market dominating rpg over the last 40 years?

I thought the first edition of DragonQuest looked sort of like a fantasy game designed by some hardcore wargamers.

 

[Doug McCrae]

While you see 4e giving people 'the awesome' at 1st level

Imo, 4e 1st lvl PCs are only awesome if the DM uses minions. If he doesn't then the party can be defeated by kobolds just as easily, in fact probably more easily, than in previous editions.

 

[Celebrim]

So even before 4e codified the culture shift against long-term negative effects into the default monster manual monsters, that cultural shift existed in at least some groups.

So, let's just assume for the moment that I've completely mischaracterized 4e. Even with that as a given, you've just spent a whole lot of time disagreeing with the details while conceding in an rather offhanded way something far more central to my thesis.

 

[MichaelSomething]

Yes, you hate diamonds (players who play with the goal of achievement) and would rather play with hearts (people who play in order to socialize), spades (players who like to explore content) and maybe clubs (players who play to compete with others).

Now if only I could remember where those terms came from.

hate to quote myself but I finally found out the source of those types...

It's the Bartle Test for figuring out people's preferences in MMORPGs. That was bugging me a bit. Might we worth checking out since its related to the subject at hand.

 

[Celebrim]

I can't cite a source for this (I looked today and couldn't find anything to back it up) but I'm pretty sure I've seen a WotC employee or ex-employee saying their market research shows that D&D's dominance is 100% based on being first to market. D&D was the first rpg and people really, really don't like to learn new rpg systems. Apparently even many from WotC found this hard to believe, thinking there must surely be more to it than that, or perhaps being influenced by their strong positive feelings toward D&D.

That was my theory for the longest time as well, and the less positively I thought of D&D, the more strongly I was attracted to that theory.

But I also now have a hard time believing that theory, and not just because being first to market is only occassionally a path to market dominance and even morely leads to market dominance over decades while competing products are offered. Over the last 10 years, I've had a oppurtunity to reassess my one time hatred toward 1e AD&D, and I've come almost full circle around from thinking I was a whole lot smarter than the guys who created D&D and thinking that there was almost nothing that they got wrong, to being absolutely amazed at how much they got right and how easy it is to miss the basics.

I've played quite a few RPGs over the years. Many of them are quite fun. But I have relatively desire to go back and create Star Wars capaigns, or Chill campaigns, or any of the other games which I have enjoyed participating in equally to D&D. I'm certainly not still playing 'D&D' in a recognizable form because of my lack of desire to teach new systems or tinker with the rules or try new systems.

 

[renau1g]

Imo, 4e 1st lvl PCs are only awesome if the DM uses minions. If he doesn't then the party can be defeated by kobolds just as easily, in fact probably more easily, than in previous editions.

I agree with this, I've never had my PC's at the brink of a TPK with 4 kobolds in the past...

 

[Celebrim]

Imo, 4e 1st lvl PCs are only awesome if the DM uses minions. If he doesn't then the party can be defeated by kobolds just as easily, in fact probably more easily, than in previous editions.

This sorta misses the point in that you've defined up 'kobolds', and created a special case (its 1st lvl, but normal minion kobolds will be used).

In 'earlier' editions, 1st level PC's could be sent up against 1st level non-commoner 'kobolds' to the exact same effect. So you are comparing the minions of one edition to the non-minions of another edition, and saying in effect, "In 4e a 1st level character is relatively more threatened by a 4e non-minion than a 3rd edition character was threatened by a 3e minion."

Similarly, I could have painted a 1HD monster as a kobold in 1e and achieved the same thing that creating non-minion kobolds gets you in 4e.

But we don't have to do this sort of comparison. Taken on its own, 4e 1st level characters bring more of 'the awesome' than 1st level characters of previous editions. They have more than one effective HD, they have more abilities out of the gate, they have higher average ability scores. In another context, I doubt that would even be contriversial. People would be arguing how that was a feature rather than trying to deny its existance.

And for the record, I don't even necessarily consider all of that a bug. I adopted a portion of that (with different mechanics) into my own rules.

 

[Chrono22]

I find it ironic that the same people who consistently admonish others for creating edition wars seem intent on turning this thread into an edition war.
If you make your claims in loose terms, you are accused of lacking evidence. If you define your terms, you are accused of edition warring.
You can't win, Celebrim.

 

[Obryn]

I'm not seeing anything edition-warry from either Celebrim or anyone else right now. Am I missing it?

Generalized trends don't exist independent of their specifics. You can't say there's a trend towards something without also showing specific examples which showcase it - or at least a few data points. (And if it's supposedly a new trend, you probably should make sure the trendline doesn't trace back even further!) I don't think it's unreasonable to ask for some of those examples.

What's more, if it's a trend in gaming overall, there should probably also be other games than 4e used for evidence.

-O