Is it WotC’s responsibility to bring people to the hobby?

[Herschel]

4E tried to be a bit of middle ground between 2E and 3E splats, but ended up closer to 3E. The racial supplements never took off, even though a Dragonborn and Tiefling hit the market but the individual x Power books were an interesting idea where all the Martial classes had a book (then a second), Arcane, Primal and Psionic, etc. But they were still really crunchy.

I LOVED the 2E handbooks (mechanical horrors that they were) but honestly, as far as "racial" handbooks there's human/elf/dwarf/halfling stuff already to teh saturation point and I want to see them for Genasi, Deva/Aasimar, Eladrin, Shardminds, etc. However, those are also more niche.

 

[Guest 85555]

I LOVED the 2E handbooks (mechanical horrors that they were) but honestly, as far as "racial" handbooks there's human/elf/dwarf/halfling stuff already to teh saturation point and I want to see them for Genasi, Deva/Aasimar, Eladrin, Shardminds, etc. However, those are also more niche.

i rather liked the mechanics (except a couple of the broken kits). For the most part they served the flavor well without overwhelming the game.

I was thinking more in terms of scope and style than specifics. I imagine whatever races they offer will get some books if they go that direction.

 

[Desdichado]

So generally when I compare today with 15 or even 10 or 5 years ago the hobby is more widespread and more 'mainstream' than it used to be. From gaming into one's mothers basement we now have DEDICATED CAFFEES where people go to play RPGs.

But if you go back to the early 80s, you'll see a different pattern. You'll have seen a HUGE spike in mainstream recognition, ubiquitousness and whatnot. You could see RPGs in department stores. Everyone had heard of D&D.

It might be improved in some regions, and growing even from a trough of earlier, but it's still a far cry from what it was during the glory days.

I don't know that I believe that the hobby is actively shrinking, though. I think that those glory days are best explained by being temporarily faddish, and we've now settled into a more stable-sized, mature industry. A greater problem than shrinking is the graying and aging of the fanbase, I suspect.

As a side note even in wargaming you have edition wars... There are large WH40k communities still stuck to 3rd edition despite the fact that there is 6th just out.

Blood Bowl Third edition, with the houserules Jervis Johnson posted on the old bbowl-l listserve is still by far superior to anything that's come out since!

Er... yeah.

Sorry but no. Sure its a recognisable name but I do not consider DnD the Flagship of my Hobby.

Sorry, but yeah. At least in North America, you can't even talk about RPGs with non-gamers without mentioning D&D. To most people, D&D is the hobby. If you try to describe it, you'll get, "you mean like D&D?" If you can't relate it to D&D, all you get are blank stares.

DnD might not even be the best selling game anymore; certainly there's some evidence to suggest that maybe Pathfinder has passed it up. D&D might not be the game you play anymore (if it were up to me, Call of Cthulhu would probably be our flagship game.) But D&D is essentially equivalent to the hobby of playing RPGs to anyone who's not already a gamer. And to most of those who are.

I do think online communities are great as opposed to Console Cowboy. I am currently in a couple of RPG online communities and I am actively DMing 4-5 Play by Posts and playing in another 3... sure the pace is slow and they are not 'face to face' but they are still fun and interesting.

I think that they've got a ways to go before it really is the same in terms of a quality gaming experience as playing face to face. But it's a promising development. And heck, one of the best games I ever ran was play-by-post. I wish I could play face-to-face with those guys all the time!

 

[Greg K]

I liked most of the 2e Complete class handbooks (mostly for fluff and ideas. I still use the Thief and Druid book for inspiration) and preferred the format to both the 3e Complete books and 4e Power books . The majority of my issues with the 2e Complete Handbooks, in my opinion, were rooted in the patchwork mechanics of AD&D.

 

[Greg K]

The picture now is quite different. There are now plenty of companies producing materials, but relatively fewer gamers. As a result, even successful products sell in the low-hundreds of copies. .

And some third party companies sell a thousand or more depending upon the system.

 

[Argyle King]

Sorry, but yeah. At least in North America, you can't even talk about RPGs with non-gamers without mentioning D&D. To most people, D&D is the hobby. If you try to describe it, you'll get, "you mean like D&D?" If you can't relate it to D&D, all you get are blank stares.

DnD might not even be the best selling game anymore; certainly there's some evidence to suggest that maybe Pathfinder has passed it up. D&D might not be the game you play anymore (if it were up to me, Call of Cthulhu would probably be our flagship game.) But D&D is essentially equivalent to the hobby of playing RPGs to anyone who's not already a gamer. And to most of those who are.

Perhaps where I live is an exception to the rule, but that is not the case at all here. I do not believe D&D has been synonymous with RPG around here in 4 (maybe 5) years.

 

[pming]

Hiya

So committing business suicide is the solution?

Umm...yes? WotC needs to stop trying to rely on high-priced art, cartography, advertising and materials and start relying on crafting stuff that cators to the core of RPGs: DM's and players using their imaginations to create their own stories and campaigns.

Reduce the $$$ wasted on eye-candy will free up time and $$$ to put out more "easily purchasable" stuff for their customers. Give me a 24 page 1e-style adventure module for $15 every other week and I'd be giving them $30/mo for YEARS. Try giving me a 128 page hard back, glossy page, high-color art-stuffed Book of (insert race/class) for $50 every other week and they'll pretty much get nothing. Paying $15 out of every pay check isn't painful at all...paying $50 per pay check means I give up food, bills, etc. That may be fine for the 'younger crowd', but, again, IMHO, WotC shouldn't be trying to get the 12 to 20 year olds $$$ at the expense of the 30 to 50 year olds $$$. Youngsters are more unpredicable and chaotic...it's the old farts like me that are stable and consistent with our $$$. They need to strike a balance between both demographics if they want 5e to have any chance in hell of making an impact.

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[delericho]

Umm...yes? WotC needs to stop trying to rely on high-priced art, cartography, advertising and materials and start relying on crafting stuff that cators to the core of RPGs: DM's and players using their imaginations to create their own stories and campaigns.

I would certainly like WotC to do more by way of "DM support" and "toolkit" products. But...

Reduce the $$$ wasted on eye-candy will free up time and $$$ to put out more "easily purchasable" stuff for their customers. Give me a 24 page 1e-style adventure module for $15 every other week and I'd be giving them $30/mo for YEARS.

Unfortunately, while you will give them that, not a lot of players will. Adventures have always been low-margin products, and every D&D product needs to justify its existence against the very significant demands of Hasbro. We'll never see more than a trickle of them from WotC because they just don't raise enough money to justify the expense of creating them.

Try giving me a 128 page hard back, glossy page, high-color art-stuffed Book of (insert race/class) for $50 every other week and they'll pretty much get nothing.

Problem is that splatbooks sell. Okay, they can't put one out every couple of weeks, but then they haven't attempted that in some years (indeed, not since WotC bought TSR). But the reason they produce splatbooks early in the edition is because players buy them.

(And it's worth noting that even splatbooks are marginal products - there's an anecdote from just after Hasbro bought WotC where the team were celebrating the relatively huge pre-orders for the "Psionics Handbook", or perhaps the "Expanded Psionics Handbook", I forget which. Anyway, the Hasbro rep present, having heard the numbers, proceeded to ask why they were producing that book at all. And that's one of the biggest sellers in the entire supplement line!)

Alas, I don't think they *can* do that now that they are owned by Hasbro.

I think you're right about this. The best thing for D&D as an RPG would be to be spun out to a smaller company. I don't ever expect that to happen, though - the other parts of the D&D license are too valuable for Hasbro to give up, barring an eccentric billionaire gamer willing to pay well over the odds.

Thus...they're screwed. Paizo's Pathfinder has, IMHO, started to suck by seemingly focusing on the WotC model of "splatbooks first, modules second".

Paizo have said that adventures (and especially Adventure Paths) remain the core of their business. And 2-3 hardbacks per year (versus 12 AP volumes) is hardly focussing on splatbooks!

(But, despite that, I do have some sympathy for your position. I'm finding that as they go the APs are becoming less and less relevant to me, because they keep referencing materials I not only don't possess, but don't really want to introduce to the game even though they're available for free on the PSRD.)

 

[Guest 85555]

I think it is shortsighted to focus on player heavy products like splat books. I my experience it takes energized GMs to attract new players, grow and sustain the hobby. Nothing drained my energy more than the 3E splat book line. Not only did it expand the system to the point of making it harder to run, but the books had very little in them to inspire my work behind the GM screen. Modules, setting books, gm books (such as the ad&d blue book line) and well crafted handbooks serve to inspire. If you want to make player books then take a page from the Van Richten guides. These were written for players and GMs. They were not just a bunch of must have mechanics wrapped in uninsipred flavor text, they were the kind of product that charged up the GM and gave him all kinds of ideas.

 

[Arcona]

I largely disagree with this...

Though splatbooks are okay (in my book... heh) and give many options I rarely buy them.

What I NEVER buy is published adventures... because with the exception of 2 maybe 3 throughout my gaming history they all share one common thing... THEY SUCK.

From the 1st/2nd edition -crappy- dungeon crawlers to the 3rd/3.5/pathfinder uninspired plotlines.

Seriously I have not ONCE run a pregenerated campaign and not thought I could have done it so much better... I do not need pre-drawn maps and random rooms filled with monsters, crazy loot and random traps...

The 2 shining exceptions (there to confirm the rule) are the Crown of Shadows (for Midnight campaign setting) and the Red Hand of Doom.

Sure, I hear you preparing to say 'but adventure books can just serve to give you ideas, you dont have to follow all the adventure it describes or you can make it better yourself. Sure, but the same then applies for splatbooks! I once run an epic game solely focused on the entry of the super secret society on the Epic level handbook... we had a 6 month campaign inspired from 1 thing in a single -splatbook-. Same applies for other books... the 'Completes' and 'Races of' series had alot of info at the end of the books with ideas of how to use them and how to structure plots based on that!

Often enough I introduced a plotline via an NPC having a fancy class or prestige class given that in my group we were mostly doing core.

There is ONE category that I would like companies to make more off...

CAMPAIGN SETTINGs and Material.

The one thing I do buy is stuff like Forgotten Realms campaign setting stuff for example. Because I like to have a fully developed world in which to put my adventures... so I have bought quite a few of the setting books (and had done so also in 2nd where the boxed sets were really cool) set in different areas of Faerun.

I would do the same if they did a 3.5 Birthright and 3.5 Planescape for example but NOT that horrible Manual of Planes stuff...

So yea, campaign settings = yes, splatbooks = maybe, published adventures = never!

PS>

To those that have not tried it, seek out Midnight Campaign Setting... its truly a revolutionary concept (imagine a Lord of The Ring World if Sauron had won!)