Is D&D 4E too "far out" to expand the market easily?

[mmadsen]

But Tolkien's half man, half orc creatures, the Uruk-Hai, were far smarter, stronger, and far more ruthless than either orcs or men, and towered over them. Where did half-orcs in D&D even come from?

Orcs and half-orcs are both odd in D&D, because goblins better reflect Tolkien's orcs and hobgoblins his Uruk-hai.

Tolkien does mention some unfriendly humans who have an orc-like look to them and hints that they're half-orc, but they are in no way Uruk-hai.

 

[GreatLemur]

Seems like if everybody at the table goes "Ugh, no Star Trek alien lookin races" and the group wants to dump dragonborn or tieflings, that isn't that hard a change to make, though.

It's elves, dwarves, and halflings that are the Star Trek races: humans with minor prosthetics added. Tieflings and dragonborn are more Farscape.

 

[SteveC]

I have to step in for a moment here and defend Rounser here, because I think a lot of you are missing his point. If we're looking at a game designed to bring in new people, how good a job does 4E do at that?

When I look at the cover to the 4E PHB, I shake my head: exactly who is this cover designed to appeal to? The original cover had a Dragonborn and a Tiefling on it front and center, and that was scrapped because several of the markets thought it was too demonic looking. As a result we have a human sorceress, I imagine. What market is this cover going to appeal to that isn't already playing D&D?

The names Dragonborn, Tiefling, and Eladrin are not particularly evocative (although, in the case of the Dragonborn, you're likely to know what kind of a creature it is from the name) and they're likely to be somewhat confusing to someone who doesn't already game.

Now what everyone seems to be saying is "who cares what the names are and what these new races are," and so I'll respond: WotC cares! They spent a lot of time and effort to rebrand 4E as something different from what had come before it, so they must care about it quite a bit.

I question who this new branding is going to appeal to, and I think that's the point of this entire thread: are people who don't currently play RPGs going to see 4E and become interested? Are people going to react better to the art and overall look of this new edition as opposed to the Dungeon Punk of 3E or the high fantasy of 2E?

I honestly don't know, but I do know that I think the cover of the new PHB is one of the ugliest pieces of art I've seen in a long time, and that's from someone who enjoys the interior art quite a bit! In case it's not obvious, that's my opinion on the matter, and YMMV.

So let's let off rounser on this a bit, mkay? To say "a rose by any other name" is an insult to WotC's marketing and branding group: they chose to make some serious changes to the look and image of the game, and that's not something they did trivially. Will it work? Your guess is as good as mine.

--Steve

 

[Leontodon]

Really? I think that games like Drakar och Demoner, Das Schwarze Auge, Gemini, and In Nomine* demonstrate that Europe has a pretty high tolerance for non-Tolkienesque fantasy and, more specifically, very dark fantasy with numerous references to demonology and other supposedly verboten topics. In fact, I'd say they were much more accepting of such things than the US populace, based on the persistent popularity of most of the games mentioned above.

*Originally published in France by Sirdoz, and much more graphic than the SJG translation.

Woh I did not mean todays Europe. Fantasy in general is deeply inspired by mostly european myths, folkstory etc.. Examples include: fairy-tales, the Edda, the whole arthur story, the french Roland story, Beowulf, what we germans call the Nibelungenlied, ... . Even in the pagan stories I just named there are no good dragons (let alone a weird construction of humanoid dragonborn) or good devilspawn creatures. D and D used to be about heroes. Heroes like the ones from legend. I never read about a heroe-like knight-slaying dragon. Core races like that just do not fit into our common hystorical background. Even the good aligned dragons of D and D were only introduced because you could trace them somehow to an asian background. Nevertheless IMO it stretches the core concept of the game.

Don't get me wrong I too played campaigns with a rather dark tone and evil characters and players races. Its just a bad choice to make races, that everybody connects with evil, core races.

 

[almagest]

Huh... well, I'm 25, and I like 4e. Most of my friends who game are around my age, and they like it too. I guess 4e *does* appeal to younger players, if we're going to base it on a statistically negligible sample size.

I'm really not sure why people are complaining so hard about 4e's fluff. How many of you use the gods from 3e core? How many of you haven't modified the alignment system in some way? How many of you haven't otherwise houseruled the crap out of it?

I also think there's a pretty big misinterpretation of healing surges in a few posts I've seen in this thread. It's a second wind. Something's been beating on you, so you step back and refocus. The bloodied state pretty obviously represents a hit finally breaking through your defenses and drawing blood. I'd say 4e is much better at abstracting damage than before.

 

[Umbran]

I don't think the level of fantasy is much of a barrier.

At least, not compared to how opaque the rulebooks make the classes.

 

[The Little Raven]

Everyone does know what a gnome is though...

Yeah, a lawn ornament.

 

[The Little Raven]

It's elves, dwarves, and halflings that are the Star Trek races: humans with minor prosthetics added. Tieflings and dragonborn are more Farscape.

Indeed.

"Live long and prosper, Mister Underhill."

 

[pawsplay]

Gnomes:
Wish-gnomes and Gnomekin (Talislanta)
That gnome in the The Neverending Story
The gnomes in The Deed of Paksenarrion
The Nome King (Oz)
David the Gnome
World of Warcraft
Gnomes on Harry Potter

 

[AllisterH]

Gnomes:
Wish-gnomes and Gnomekin (Talislanta)
That gnome in the The Neverending Story
The gnomes in The Deed of Paksenarrion
The Nome King (Oz)
David the Gnome
World of Warcraft
Gnomes on Harry Potter

Isn't the question though, which of these match the D&D gnome? Only two and thats the gnomes from Deeds of Paks and the WoW gnomes. Of course, given that these two sources are directly lifted from D&D kinda discounts them.

Still, it's easy to see why gnomes have not had great press. When David the gnome and the nome King are the most well known representations among the non-D&D players, it affects even how D&D players ee the gnomes.