Is the D&D brand name really that important?

[hanez]

Feel free to consider why we seem to have escaped the equivalent of an edition war on say GURPS vs Hero.

Well, you are choosing two seperate games.......But since we loved D&D and had faith in the brand we tried it the next thing. And played it. And abandoned our previous games because of brand loyalty. And because of brand loyalty, when it didn't feel like D&D, WE KEPT PLAYING, thinking oh itll come, well finally get to that sweet spot, and we were made fun of by the designers for not finding that sweet spot! We were grognards, and we werent hip to change, blah blah blah.

And now the designers are subtly aplogising and may soon do it all over again to 4th player (more likely theyll do it all over again to 2nd, 3rd AND 4th players lol.)

And the reason they can do it, is brand loyalty.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

But there was a war between GURPS and Hero System fans. OK, maybe it was the edition war equivalent of a war between two undeveloped countries, out of sight, out of mind, that 75% of the developed world population never heard of. And maybe while it was going on there was a lot of people on both sides saying, "Hey, whatever, let's get back to gaming. Which one are we running this week?" But there was some heavy ordinance being lobbed.

 

[Anselyn]

It's pretty obvious - GURPS and Hero were never part of the same brand, nor even the same family. One didn't shift the trappings and features of the other while trying to maintain the same identity.

I agree - but noting I assume they were competing for customers with a similar point-build bottom-up design system.

But - between GURPS/Hero or /3e vs /4e - what those guys are playing around their table doesn't affect the game at yours. So - why do people care so much? I assume that's because some people want to be at the table that's officially blessed by the brand identity.

 

[hanez]

So - why do people care so much? I assume that's because some people want to be at the table that's officially blessed by the brand identity.

Of course! Brand is huuuge. And I want my players/friends to be excited about our next campaign. D&D is a lot more exciting then "I found some new rpg book at the bookstore.... looks good wanna play it?"

I play pathfinder, but it needs an upgrade. 3.5 needed an upgrade just like AD&D did. When the company that owns D&D decides to do it, Ill be at my bookstore reading it over on the very day its released.

 

[Tallifer]

For a long time I thought that D&D were magical words which could enable me to find more players than just saying roleplaying. Certainly almost everyone in North America has heard of D&D and knows that it involves pretending to be characters, doing fantastic adventures and rolling dice around a table.

However if I want to find people who actually want to play, the word roleplaying is better. It introduces me to groups of people who love games and roleplaying, who are eager to play any interesting thing, including D&D.

If I just say D&D, all the narrowminded conformists in the forum, workplace, bar or room go out of their way to mock nerds and gamers, the majority of people say something like "D&D, yeah, cool, I never did play that..."

It is true that if I find some gamers, the majority have had some exposure to D&D. But the vast majority of gamers are willing to try any system and enjoy any good game master and party.

 

[DEFCON 1]

If the D&D name wasn't important, we wouldn't have so many Pathfinder players coming into 4E threads talking about the rules they hated so much that they had to start playing Pathfinder. So even on a basic level they want to be engaged in a discussion regarding the game that bears the name.

I can say that in all honestly I do not believe I have ever once gone and even LOOKED at a Pathfinder thread, let alone posted in it... because I care so little about the game that I have no reason to. Obviously, the inverse for a lot of players is not also true.

 

[was]

yes

 

[billd91]

I agree - but noting I assume they were competing for customers with a similar point-build bottom-up design system.

But - between GURPS/Hero or /3e vs /4e - what those guys are playing around their table doesn't affect the game at yours. So - why do people care so much? I assume that's because some people want to be at the table that's officially blessed by the brand identity.

A lot of it comes down to identity - not any aspect of being blessed by the official brand identity - but in the self-made identification of the players. And I'm sure we'll see this in any edition wars that erupt between 4e players and 5e too.

People who join the D&D community as a hobbyist, who say "I'm a D&D player" when asked, take on an identity. Play long and enthusiastically enough and that identity will become pretty strong. Now change what that identity means on them and you'll see how pissed off they can get. Suddenly, the commonalities they had with their D&D identity are no longer so common. Different people will tolerate different amounts of this change in different ways. But you always run a significant risk tinkering with past success.

This is fundamentally different from the conflict you get between people playing different products. There may be rancor in either, but many of the worst fights tend to be within the same broad community because identity is at stake. If GURPS-identifying players square off against Hero-identifying players, neither players have their own identity at stake in the conflict, just the market success of the game they favor. In D&D edition wars, we could recognize that our identity is tied to the brand name and follow it wherever it goes or maybe we have to reassess and limit our identification to D&D 1974-2007, or maybe just AD&D. Either way, that may mean leaving a community to form another one. The psychological cost of doing so isn't always negligible.

Seriously, identity - particularly of the individual - is a huge issue. It may seem petty when the stakes are small like favored games, but it's not that psychologically different from having a political identity. And people shoot at each other over those.

 

[SlyDoubt]

Of course it matters. There are all kinds of assumptions that come with it. At this point for most people one of those assumptions is that the company has enough money to produce very high-end products.

Why don't I play the myriad other games that exist out there? In most cases because they look like crap. Bad illustrations, bad graphic design/typography, poor writing, etc.

The D&D name at this point is synonymous with high production values and lots of material being made by people who have years of experience. They can afford some of the best illustrators in the business and make perfect bound hardcover full color books.

Maybe I'm shallow but I stick to tsr/wotc and paizo because they give me what I want (except for 4e basically): a nice BOOK. a good reading experience. So yes, the name is hugely important because being the biggest and wealthiest also means you can afford to be the best looking and most interesting. This excludes 4E which overall looks like an undergrads GD I assignment from freshman year.

 

[Anselyn]

Seriously, identity - particularly of the individual - is a huge issue. It may seem petty when the stakes are small like favored games, but it's not that psychologically different from having a political identity. And people shoot at each other over those.

Or even nationality which is most frequently an accident of birth! You're quite right.