I don't want 5E, I want a definitive D&D (the Monopoly model)

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Sure, you could use AD&D stuff in 3E... as long as you didn't mind calculating Fort/Ref/Will saves from scratch, adjusting hit points and damage to a radically different scale, figuring up touch and flat-footed AC, making up ability scores for monsters, assigning skill points and feats, figuring iterative attacks, converting multiclass characters, and a billion other details.

Have you actually tried it? Because skills for NPCs don't matter unless you're doing some sort of strange "and now Acerak and I will engage in competitive magical research" thing. Not knowing what item creation feats Eclavdra has will not affect play at the table at all -- and if you get into a situation where you decide some 1E NPC's feats do matter, just give them those feats.

Converting saving throws just means choosing which ones map to which different versions in 3E (the conversion booklet actually does that for you as I recall) and the rest of it doesn't matter other than armor class.

In actual practice, it's dead easy and can (and is) done on the fly.

 

[Dausuul]

Have you actually tried it? Because skills for NPCs don't matter unless you're doing some sort of strange "and now Acerak and I will engage in competitive magical research" thing. Not knowing what item creation feats Eclavdra has will not affect play at the table at all -- and if you get into a situation where you decide some 1E NPC's feats do matter, just give them those feats.

Converting saving throws just means choosing which ones map to which different versions in 3E (the conversion booklet actually does that for you as I recall) and the rest of it doesn't matter other than armor class.

In actual practice, it's dead easy and can (and is) done on the fly.

Then what stops you doing the same with 3E --> 4E? Just add 11 to each saving throw and go. You don't even have to worry about numbers that go one way in one edition and the other in a different edition; attack bonus can be carried straight over, as can skill bonuses. If something has a spell-like ability, you can use the 4E equivalent if there is one, or the 3E version if not.

Of course this will create problems if you try to do it with a whole adventure, but I should think you'd have similar issues with 2E --> 3E. Looking at MerricB's post below, you can see that (for example) a 3E orc is far more dangerous than a 2E orc; it has a net +3 to hit and does double the damage. An encounter with a bunch of 2E orcs converted direct would be far too easy for a 3E party.

 

[MerricB]

Have you actually tried it?

Yes, I have, and it's not quite as trivial as you say. The mathematics behind the two systems is quite different. You really need to look at the effects of stat bonuses on HP and attacks.

Orc, 1E: HP 4; AC 14, Atk +1, D 1-8
Orc, 2E: HP 4; AC 14, Atk +1, D 1-8
Orc, 3E: HP 5; AC 13, Atk +4, D 6-12

Ogre, 1E: HP 19; AC 15, Atk +5, D 3-12
Ogre, 2E: HP 19; AC 15, Atk +3, D 7-16
Ogre, 3E: HP 29; AC 16, Atk +8, D 9-25

Troll, 1E: HP 33; AC 16, Atk +7, D 5-8/5-8/2-12
Troll, 2E: HP 33; AC 16, Atk +7, D 5-8/5-8/2-12
Troll, 3E: HP 63; AC 16, Atk +9, D 7-12/7-12/4-9

Iron Golem. 1E: HP 80, AC 17, Atk +13, D 4-40
Iron Golem, 2E: HP 80, AC 17, Atk +17, D 4-40
Iron Golem, 4E: HP 107, AC 26, Atk +18, D 11-29/11-29

Fire Giant, 1E: HP 64, AC 17, Atk +10, D 5-30
Fire Giant, 2E: HP 88, AC 21, Atk +15, D 12-30
Fire Giant, 3E: HP 142, AC 21, Atk +20, D 18-33/18-33/18-33

Fighter 10, 1E: HP 50, AC 21, Atk +11, D 3-10/3-10
Fighter 10, 2E: HP 50, AC 21, Atk +12, D 5-13/5-13
Fighter 10, 3E: HP 79, AC 24, Atk +15, D 7-16/7-16
(assume +2 plate, +1 shield, +1 weapon, Str 17, Dex 13, Con 14)

Above 10th level, the values get even more divergent. 1E really wasn't built for above 10th level play in any case, and 2E just ignored that (and discovered marvellous new ways of breaking the system). 3E paid slightly more attention to high-level play, but the maths managed to break down entirely at those levels, especially when player optimisation was taken into account. The 3E fighter above is from the 3E DMG; it's a lot less powerful than the 10th level fighters in my campaigns).

 

[prosfilaes]

I never said anything like that about D&D, now you're just misquoting me.

I didn't misquote; I may have misread you.

I was trying to say, before my words were twisted, that of the various kinds of non-electronic games that kids (children & teenagers) play, only RPGs change so much over so little time and can be totally unrecognizable within a generation. The colossal wargames with intricate rules and hundreds of little cardboard chits that make for hefty boxes put on bookshelves are not for kids and teenagers, or even most adults, so I really didn't think of them.

D&D's not for kids or teenagers; I'd bet the median age of players is at least 25. I know several gamers in their 50s. Marginalize boardgames as you will, but in the game store I go to, one of the two in Vegas, Twilight Imperium sits on top of the Pathfinder bookcase, and there's more space devoted to board games then RPGs, especially considering the sparseness of the RPG bookshelves. Oh yeah, the average age of the board gamers I play with is lower then the average age of the D&Ders I play with.

Maybe most games being played by hardcore boardgamers, the kind who go to boardgamegeek.com and collect board games, are less than 10 years old, but I would be amazed if that die-hard market is more than a small fraction of the whole boardgame market.

I'd bet it's about half, personally. You have to sell to a lot of people, if they're buying only two or three games at $20 a piece, to counterbalance the people who are buying dozens of games at $50 a piece.

In any case, those aren't hardcore boardgamers; those are the only people who can be defined by their playing of board games, instead of doing it occasionally to have something to do with the kids.

I also pointed out that some of the more popular games enjoyed by that subculture, such as Catan and Arkham Horror, are more than 10 years old

So one and one disputed.

(yes, Arkham Horror has changed, but nothing on the scale of the sweeping changes of the 3e/4e D&D schism).

I invite anyone who wants to know the truth to look at Arkham Horror - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia ; look at the boards, look at the investigator cards that went from two attributes to six.

But the point is, D&D is not in the Monopoly side of the market. It's in the Puerto Rico side of the market. It's not an evergreen selling to middle America; it's a product selling to gamers.

My understanding is the early efforts to get books in book stores and toy stores wasn't TSR's major issue. TSR had a lot of issues. But they went bust in 97-98 or so, long after they had tried to break into mainstream markets.

TSR, Inc. - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Despite total sales of $40 million, TSR ended 1996 with few cash reserves. When Random House returned an unexpectedly high percentage the year's inventory of unsold novels and Dragon Dice for a fee of several million dollars, TSR found itself in a cash crunch. With no cash, TSR was unable to pay their printing and shipping bills...

 

[Bedrockgames]

TSR, Inc. - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I don't think that changes my opinion. That was 96, well after their attempts to get into mainstream outlets. Most accounts I've read about the dragon dice situation blame an inability to understand the market. The initial sales of Dragon dice did very well. It was the second wave of releases that hung on shelves. Generally my impression is mismanagement, a failure to listen and serious competition from White Wolf and WOTC are what ultimately did them in. Not overstepping into mainstream markets.

 

[Hussar]

Sure, the first one was a B movie. By the third that wasn't the case at all.

Think you are being a little dismissive of Connery. What about Laurence Olivier?



Again, how many fantasy films this year that aren't straight to DVD or made-for TV?

I think a lot of this is people just remember the successes or the movies that achieved cult status. The films that came and went fade from memory.



Sure, I don't disagree. But the early 80s was a much better time to be a fantasy fan in terms of volume.

Did you actually click through the link I provided? All those movies were theater releases. I didn't even count direct to DVD. That would likely put the number of releases somewhere in the low hundreds for this year alone.

I'm sorry, but, you're wrong here. In terms of volume, the 80's aren't even competing with this year alone, let alone this decade. It's like the SF genre print fans who keep claiming that things were better in the past. There's been more SF and fantasy published in the last ten years than was published in the last CENTURY. And that doesn't even count media tie ins like Star Trek books and whatnot.

SF and Fantasy are finally mainstream.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Did you actually click through the link I provided? All those movies were theater releases. I didn't even count direct to DVD. That would likely put the number of releases somewhere in the low hundreds for this year alone.

I'm sorry, but, you're wrong here. In terms of volume, the 80's aren't even competing with this year alone, let alone this decade. It's like the SF genre print fans who keep claiming that things were better in the past. There's been more SF and fantasy published in the last ten years than was published in the last CENTURY. And that doesn't even count media tie ins like Star Trek books and whatnot.

SF and Fantasy are finally mainstream.

Yes I did, and I didn't see that many fantasy films.

 

[prosfilaes]

Why not? And I'm honestly curious about this. Like I said, you've got healthy, strong growing online communities. You've got one company that's growing like gangbusters (Paizo) producing a version of D&D. The other big one is still doing pretty well from appearances - the DDI seems to be pretty successful. Convention attendance is up to record numbers. We have Facebook apps for D&D coming. Outside of D&D, the Underworld movies seem to have done pretty well. D&D and other gaming fiction seems to be healthy and easy to find.

Heck, I see Forgotten Realms fiction translated into Japanese at the local bookstore (R A Salvatore stuff mostly) and I live in the back end of nowhere in Japan.

So, why do you think the hobby is shrinking?

Most of that I don't find relevant. I don't know that the genre size has a direct impact on the number of gamers. On LibraryThing, there's at least a dozen works of RPG fiction that have more copies held then the most held RPG book (PHB, 3.5). Facebook apps are for everything, and it's hard to separate out various effects on various Internet forums. (They certainly aren't comparable to the 1980s.) Paizo cutting into WotC's market share doesn't prove much to me--especially as it goes along with White Wolf basically disappearing from the market and GURPS shrinking a lot. DDI, to me, looks like it's profitable because it cuts out the printers and retailers, but not necessarily indicative of a large audience. Estimates of even 200,000 subscribers seem to indicate the small size of RPG market more than anything.

The only thing I find really interesting is growing conventions. I can come up with several other reasons--an aging player base has more money, people coming for reasons other than RPGs, better marketing--but it is interesting. My biggest problem with the GenCon numbers is, well look at File:Gen-Con-Attendance.svg - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia ; do you really think that the 5-fold rise between 1980 and 1995 is indicative of an increase in RPGs? It's a pretty steady rise, and I think says more about Gen Con then RPGs. Can we really explain the 20% increase between 2010 and 2011 by a change in RPGs?

 

[Hussar]

I honestly don't know if it's growing or shrinking. My gut feeling is that it isn't shrinking. But, that's just a gut feeling. And, it's totally voodoo math, agreed.

But, by the same token, what evidence is there that gaming populations are shrinking? Companies going out of business? Well, companies go out of business all the time. I mean, FASA went under in the 90's, lots of other RPG companies have come and gone over the years. That's just the nature of business.

Bedrock Games, I looked at this list: http://www.movieweb.com/movies/2011/fantasy and I see 10 straight up, theater release fantasy movies on the first page.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I honestly don't know if it's growing or shrinking. My gut feeling is that it isn't shrinking. But, that's just a gut feeling. And, it's totally voodoo math, agreed.

But, by the same token, what evidence is there that gaming populations are shrinking? Companies going out of business? Well, companies go out of business all the time. I mean, FASA went under in the 90's, lots of other RPG companies have come and gone over the years. That's just the nature of business.

I think all we have to go on is what we see in our gaming circles, which is a very limited frame of reference. Personally I sense a decline. But I expect to see another surge in popularity down the road. It is very hard to see through the clutter though since there are so many things that can confound this sort of reckoning (the internet for one).