D&D 5E Is 5e's Success Actually Bad for Other Games?

[tetrasodium]

Yes, exactly.


Default 5e sits between extreme "Tactical combat" games and not-at-all "Tactical combat" games. With or without the rules in the DMG there are games that are more or less about "Tactical combat". You already agreed to this with examples but now say they don't count so that I am "wrong" lol. I very clearly never claimed it was at some "golden mean" or magical point between the two, that was a strawman you set up all by yourself.

So, any ballpark on how many games are less about "Tactical combat" and what sort of number you would consider "many"? Probably more fun to tell people how wrong they are when you don't address what they are actually saying but still.

5e's tactical components do not rise far enough above not at all tactical ttrpgs in order for it to be between those two extremes you note, it's still firmly on par with games like fate. Your spectrum is flawed in that you are trying to claim appreciable differentiation

'If that greyscale gradient represents max tactical to not at all tactical games with the two red arrows representing the extremes , only the blue one is between them. The green one is still firmly in one extreme. Alternately you could say that the violence in hockey is between rugby & golf , it might be right on some extree technical level but not to any measurable degree because the scale is absurd

 

[Campbell]

Here's the thing : I don't view roleplaying games as commodities. Even if that were the case in order to make an economic argument that a product is more popular based purely on quality you have to take it another step - you have to show that is a substitute for that other product. That it can provide users with the same benefits. I think it's trivial to show that D&D is not a substitute for say Masks or Monsterhearts. The games are clearly not substitutes because they are oriented around phenomenally different play experiences. You cannot make a case for relative quality of one in comparison to the other just as making a comparison between It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia and Breaking Bad would be utterly pointless.

 

[darjr]

Again, it was D&D. And the "return to norm" to a lot of players who were not happy with 4e and had not made the jump to Pathfinder (or in the case of whatever OSR folks came on board, even 3e).

To a great number of people, what 5e was selling was indeed what they wanted to be buying.

But to ignore the other factors--including, as I noted, the fact that D&D is virtually the only RPG many people have ever played--is to be hearing what you want to hear.

No, you’re wrong. What they expected was a normal sales curve and a return to norm. What they got were sales numbers so huge it scared and worried them, they said they thought something was terribly wrong.

amd I’m NOT ignoring other factors. I think you need to think I am to fit your flawed narrative and timeline.

Look at my other posts, I even worry about the mono culture issue of D&D.

I agree with you about its success being multi variant, and several other things you said in that post. Where I took issue is your confusion about the timeline of when it was launched and CR became popular. 5e was a huge mind blowing hit BEFORE CR even started.

 

[Thomas Shey]

No, you’re wrong. What they expected was a normal sales curve and a return to norm. What they got were sales numbers so huge it scared and worried them, they said they thought something was terribly wrong.

The fact they were unaware of just how the zeitgeist was going at the time just demonstrates that as usual, the gaming industry--even the top of it--doesn't know how to marketing research worth a damn.

amd I’m NOT ignoring other factors. I think you need to think I am to fit your flawed narrative and timeline.

Think what you want. I'm pretty confident that all D&D needed to be at that time to do what it did was A) Be D&D, B) Not be 4e, and C) Not be a complete trainwreck. Just like when D&D first came out, it didn't need to be all that great a game, it just needed to be in the right place at the right time and be functional.

I agree with you about its success being multi variant, and several other things you said in that post. Where I took issue is your confusion about the timeline of when it was launched and CR became popular. 5e was a huge mind blowing hit BEFORE CR even started.

The fact it was a contributor to its success was never me saying it was the only factor. The biggest things it needed was a return from the 4e period, and getting a lot of people back on board who'd fallen off during 4e (and in some cases even 3e), and the fact it was riding a wave of the rise of nerd culture. CR just gave it an extra push. But let's not act like it didn't do it fairly early in process too; D&D 5e dropped in the second half of 2014, CR started in March 2015.

 

[darjr]

@Thomas Shey man what?!?

You said “given 5e came out when a lot of well-received video let's play's were landing (Critical Role being the obvious one”

You didn’t say “fairly early in the process”.

all I did was point out D&D was hella popular before CR even existed.

that’s it.

 

[Dausuul]

Other RPGs have had almost 50 years to knock D&D off its throne. Not one of them has ever managed it except for Pathfinder (and that only briefly, in the waning years of 4E). And Pathfinder is a D&D clone.

The excuses wear pretty thin in 50 years.

 

[Don Durito]

Sure, but I don't think that someone who only tried one thing can really make an informed decision about their tastes.

I can't help but notice that virtually every "how to be a good DM" video or article is basically a naughty word retelling of DW (or AW) game mastering section, and the reasons many people name for what like 5e are Dungeon World's selling points.

People who have experience with other games are surely big boys enough to pick their own poison. People who have only played D&D or want to get into D&D? No, they aren't.

A lot of the same could be said about 13th Age.

The way a lot of people describe playing or running 5e (which is clearly designed for dungeon exploration) on this site leaves me scratching my head and thinking this is exactly the type of thing 13th Age was designed to do.

 

[darjr]

Other RPGs have had almost 50 years to knock D&D off its throne. Not one of them has ever managed it except for Pathfinder (and that only briefly, in the waning years of 4E). And Pathfinder is a D&D clone.

The excuses wear pretty thin in 50 years.

Point taken, but vampire may have done so late in TSRs existence.

 

[Dausuul]

Point taken, but vampire may have done so late in TSRs existence.

Fair; we don't have the sales data from that period to say for sure.

 

[billd91]

Fair; we don't have the sales data from that period to say for sure.

And that may have been at a time when TSR couldn't pay its printers.