D&D 5E Interview with Wolfgang Baur and Steve Winter about their 5E adventures.

[Mistwell]

Given that D&D peaked in those years, and people fell away from the game in very large numbers, it might be a reasonable conjecture to suggest that, yes, a lot of groups eventually crashed and burned, in part because the DMs didn't know how to run a good game that everyone enjoyed. Perhaps if more people had understood how to keep things going, RPGs would be a bigger hobby today.

It's all conjecture, though, either way.

Not all conjecture is equal, and yours is not sound. We have a lot of data from those years, and "bad DMing" didn't even make the top 50 reasons people left. They had strong sales for many years, they did surveys, and they know a big part was the rise of video games and the changes in society that led away from tabeltop gaming in general. If you're going to just hand waive all that and pretend it was something else about bad DMing (which would imply that could be the reason 4e crashed as well, if we're going that route) you better have a scintilla of objective data to back it up.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

EDITED as agreed - <3 RC D&D 4ever.

But yes, Mistwell, it is pretty bad conjecture on my part , I was just pointing out that the fact that D&D collapsed post-1984 might mean some things about it could have been improved. Hindsight is 20/20 etc. of course.

One thing I do note is that a lot of DM advice (not from BD&D, I feel, but from Dragon, Gary Gygax book etc.) from that era was godawful, and usually went along the lines of "Be an adversarial jerk, pull mean tricks on the PCs, and generally lord it over them!", which like, if that was my experience of D&D, I wouldn't have gone back. I know some people took it to heart, because the first group of established D&D players I played with (I DM'd for them) were ex-1E, and it was clear they'd been scarred for life by that kind of DMing. Not that all 1E groups were like that - the person who taught me played 1E, of course, but she was from a very different strand - I guess she didn't get or rejected the memos about being a jerk and killing the PCs and laughing and so on. Again, not saying that's BD&D's advice. Pretty sure it wasn't. But somehow that advice seemed to get pretty disseminated in the '80s. I know I read some pretty "why would you do that..." stuff in Dragon at the end of the '80s/very early '90s.

 

[Mistwell]

If you want to go ahead and edit that whole end bit out, I'll edit this, btw.

Done, sorry for the bad guess on my part.

 

[Hussar]

Not all conjecture is equal, and yours is not sound. We have a lot of data from those years, and "bad DMing" didn't even make the top 50 reasons people left. They had strong sales for many years, they did surveys, and they know a big part was the rise of video games and the changes in society that led away from tabeltop gaming in general. If you're going to just hand waive all that and pretend it was something else about bad DMing (which would imply that could be the reason 4e crashed as well, if we're going that route) you better have a scintilla of objective data to back it up.

I'd point out that TSR did NO market research. None. Anything prior to Wotc is pure conjecture based on TSR numbers which were notoriously unreliable.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Thank God the Expert set had wilderness rules then! I mean, compare those restricted and artificial dungeons to the brilliance of Keep on the Shadowfell. Oh. Wait.

Everyone accepts Keep on the Shadowfell was a terrible adventure. I mean, at least The Forest Oracle is funny.

But you said it yourself: the best way to become a good DM is to learn from a good DM. DMing is best when its a mentored position; no amount of rules or rulebooks can replace a learning the tricks from watching a master.

That's one way, the other is by doing. The effect of good books is to bring you closer to the thought processes of a master.

Woah now hold on a second. You don't get to casually imply there is some roughly equal share of people who simply didn't play D&D on buying and reading it back then, to those who did go on to play it. That's a ridiculous and unsubstantiated claim. Sales of the initial set were followed by very strong sales of other associated materials later, so we know people bought it and played it. Surveys were done at the time and we know people went on to play it.

No I don't get to imply that. You are claiming I implied it and I don't understand where you get that from. In a group of four two people burning out on GMing still leaves two.

And find me these surveys please? As I understand it TSR did literally no market research.

I was granted unprecedented access to those records. I read the TSR corporate log book from the first page penned in haste by Gary Gygax to the most recent terse minutes dictated to a lawyer with no connection to hobby gaming. I was able to trace the meteoric rise of D&D as a business, the terrible failure to control costs that eventually allowed a total outsider to take control away from the founders, the slow and steady progress to rebuild the financial solvency of the company, and the sudden and dramatic failure of that business model.
...
In all my research into TSR's business, across all the ledgers, notebooks, computer files, and other sources of data, there was one thing I never found - one gaping hole in the mass of data we had available. No customer profiling information. No feedback. No surveys. No "voice of the customer". TSR, it seems, knew nothing about the people who kept it alive. The management of the company made decisions based on instinct and gut feelings; not data. They didn't know how to listen - as an institution, listening to customers was considered something that other companies had to do - TSR lead, everyone else followed.

 

[Mistwell]

I'd point out that TSR did NO market research. None. Anything prior to Wotc is pure conjecture based on TSR numbers which were notoriously unreliable.

Quit nit picking, WOTC did it, using the lists from TSR, concerning TSR products.

And find me these surveys please? As I understand it

You too. You bloody well knew what surveys I meant. And NOTHING substantiates the claim that rules-lite systems caused games to crash and burn thus causing material numbers of DMs to quit DMing. If you have even a shred of evidence to support that, please post it.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Quit nit picking, WOTC did it, using the lists from TSR, concerning TSR products.

The claim you made is that we have evidence from those years. The years being the early 80s. Surveys taken more than ten years later are not evidence from those years. Not even close.

And NOTHING substantiates the claim that rules-lite systems caused games to crash and burn thus causing material numbers of DMs to quit DMing. If you have even a shred of evidence to support that, please post it.

I have seen with my own eyes a new DM quit because they didn't have a clue how to handle things as there were no rules.

 

[Remathilis]

I have seen with my own eyes a new DM quit because they didn't have a clue how to handle things as there were no rules.

I've seen more DMs burn out during the 3e/4e era than during the AD&D era.

I counter your anecdotal evidence with my own.

 

[Hussar]

I've seen more DMs burn out during the 3e/4e era than during the AD&D era.

I counter your anecdotal evidence with my own.

But, that's the point Rem. There is no evidence either way. Trying to claim that there was, in any direction, doesn't actually prove anything. All we have is anecdote. I mean, if we want to pull up experience, of the 20 or 30 people I gamed with regularly in the 80's (not at the same time obviously - different groups), I'm the only one who is still in the hobby. So, it's not like losing large numbers of gamers hasn't been a thing all the way along.

Mistwell claimed, "Not all conjecture is equal, and yours is not sound. We have a lot of data from those years, and "bad DMing" didn't even make the top 50 reasons people left. They had strong sales for many years, they did surveys, and they know a big part was the rise of video games and the changes in society that led away from tabeltop gaming in general.

Read more: http://www.enworld.org/forum/newreply.php?do=newreply&p=6309691#ixzz33deDMwq3"

which is simply not true. Not for B/X D&D anyway. The rise of video games? In 1983? I highly doubt it. Console games were just getting started and computer games were in their infancy. Hardly something that was going to come up and crush the D&D juggernaut at the height of the fad. In the 90's, when those studies were done? Sure, I'd buy that.

But I really don't think you can point to Pac Man as the reason people stopped playing B/X back in the day.

 

[Uchawi]

I believe a game should strive to be consistent and flexible to make it easy to learn and allow for the widest experience. That is possible with 5E if they continue to evolve the game by taking what is good from every edition. Areas that often break down is when sub-systems do not play well together or place to many constraints. But other areas that any game will benefit from is a universal action economy, resolution mechanics (attacks, saves, skills), so the use of those system is always reliable with expected behavior and any new rule added to the game always considers the baseline. And I hope basic, standard and advance versions of the game build on top of each other.

I also hope that monster creation and adventure design follows some type of formula, including the introduction of magic items, so the task of the DM or adventure creatures is reliable. I guess will we will find out when giving some of the new adventures a test drive.