D&D General Mike Mearls' blog post about RPG generations

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

The majority of play and design is still centered squarely on 5e.

By that metric, though, nothing has ever changed in RPG land since, other than maybe the 4E era, D&D has always dwarfed every other RPG.

But we know that RPGs have changed and evolved over time, so "is D&D the dominant game" can't be the measure we use.

 

[Gradine]

5E was popular amongst gamers because it was a near complete rejection of 4E...except all the little design elements that crept in...but shh...we don't talk about Bruno. But it would have stopped there. 5E would only have regained D&D's dominance within the industry if not for massive help from outside. It's not the design of 5E that made it a global phenomenon, as Mearls and others so desperately wish it were. Stanger Things and Critical Role and later COVID are far more responsible for the rise of 5E as a fad than the design of 5E itself.

While it is true that you can place a lot of the popularity of D&D (and particularly the fantastic rise of 5e) can be placed squarely on the shoulders of Critical Role (the number of people who ever even tried 4e is a fraction of the 5e fanbase, so I doubt any rejection of that edition played any kind of major role in it). But it's important to note that Critical Role was only as big as it was because it was using D&D; before they went public with it it was home game using Pathfinder. They had to make the deliberate choice to switch to 5e in order to attract people to watch their game in the first place. They stick with PF and there's a strong chance it's never as big as it becomes. So that's a bit of a two-way street itself.

The Six Cultures of Play is a better model than GNS or whatever Mearls is putting out there but it's focused on the same kind of classification as GNS and thus subject to many of its same flaws. For my money the 8 Aesthetics of Play is the best model out there because it's about classifying players rather than styles of games or some nebulous concepts of semi-deliberate "movements".

 

[Minigiant]

There were almost no purely player facing BD&D or 1E materials. It was 99% sold to DMs, except for hapless stuff like the players screens.

I never said purely player facing.

You'd sell stuff to DMs and add stuff in the books so DMs could convince Players to come to the table and return next week.

If the Player content is boring, they aren't hook to come back and it becomes purely DM skill and camaraderie that keeps everyone on schedule.

D&D was sold to DMs but D&D was "sold" to Players.

Splatbooks being sold to players were a thing starting in 2E. And even then, it was almost certainly part of the "publish at a loss; we'll make it up in volume" strategy, and not about selling specifically to players. Even in 2E, most of what they were selling was DM-focused

2e was still trying to "sell the game" to Players by actually selling the game to DMs and using them as an intermediary.

Which we learned in hindsight was idiotic. Trying to get DMs to buy multiple setting books when you can only run one at a time is not smart.

Compare to 3E, where there was a steady and aggressive flow of books sold to players that DMs -- often on these boards -- said they felt forced to use, since their whole table showed up with books the DMs didn't purchase and didn't want. WotC wasn't doing that out of a desire to do players a solid, per Mearls, but because it was what was best for WotC.

And Mearls was wrong.

Selling to both DMs and Players purposely is the best financial strategy if you have the money to do so. Period.

And in contrast, the fifth generation -- which is not 5E -- fantasy RPGs are often one-and-done books sold to the DM, with supplemental books also being aimed at DMs, not at players

The one-and-done model is only a good strategy if you have the visibility but not the financials. It was a failing strategy in the past and births fantasy heartbreakers.

It wasn't rely a viable tactic until you had real Crowdfunding platforms to build the initial funding and strong Social Media platforms to feed the buzz.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I never said purely player facing.

You'd sell stuff to DMs and add stuff in the books so DMs could convince Players to come to the table and return next week.

If the Player content is boring, they aren't hook to come back and it becomes purely DM skill and camaraderie that keeps everyone on schedule.

D&D was sold to DMs but D&D was "sold" to Players.

The reason you're confused about Mearls is saying, per your previous statement, is you're deciding to interpret everything he's saying in a way that he's clearly not intending. It's not the best written blog post ever, but he's clearly discussing players vs. DMs as separate customers with separate product categories.

The one-and-done model is only a good strategy if you have the visibility but not the financials. It was a failing strategy in the past and births fantasy heartbreakers.

So what?

You know what else is a fantasy heartbreaker? Pathfinder, Daggerheart and Draw Steel. A fantasy heartbreaker is just someone's fantasy RPG that makes less money than D&D, which is all fantasy RPGs.

It wasn't rely a viable tactic until you had real Crowdfunding platforms to build the initial funding and strong Social Media platforms to feed the buzz.

Again, so what?

Mike Mearls isn't coming to take away your game, nor does he say that anyone else is coming to do so. His blog post is a D&D-centric discussion about how design trends change over time.

He's arguing -- and you're disagreeing, it seems -- that recent trends have been to sell books specifically for players, not DMs, as the focus of WotC's business model and that he finds it noteworthy that so many hot games are focusing on what's best for a DM (a single product that is easy to generate more content for) instead.

 

[Divine2021]

The idea that just because WotC’s 5e is the billion dollar corporation backed market tested gorilla in the room DOES NOT mean that underlying design trends and game dynamics aren’t shifting and evolving.

Read that again. And then tell me that Shadowdark, OSE, DCC, and borgs don’t matter.

 

[soviet]

You know what else is a fantasy heartbreaker? Pathfinder, Daggerheart and Draw Steel. A fantasy heartbreaker is just someone's fantasy RPG that makes less money than D&D, which is all fantasy RPGs.

Not correct.

The Forge :: Fantasy Heartbreakers

 

[Minigiant]

The reason you're confused about Mearls is saying, per your previous statement, is you're deciding to interpret everything he's saying in a way that he's clearly not intending. It's not the best written blog post ever, but he's clearly discussing players vs. DMs as separate customers with separate product categories

And what I'm saying is it doesn't make sense because according to him the First 3 gens are DM customer based and then there is 1 Player customer based Gen, then it returns to a DM based generation.

Which is a silly way to categorize since the first 3 gens share an alignment THEN the first generation with a different alignment contains 3 completely different editions.

That's like saying burger generations are

1. Hamburger
2. Cheeseburger
3. Bacon Cheeseburger
4. Pizza
5. Cheeseburger with Mushrooms

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Not correct.

The Forge :: Fantasy Heartbreakers

3,500 words! That is hilarious. No, thank you.

 

[Micah Sweet]

That’s been a fairly consistent point of contention since the inception of Forge theorizing.

Well, you know what side I'm on.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

And what I'm saying is it doesn't make sense because according to him the First 3 gens are DM customer based and then there is 1 Player customer based Gen, then it returns to a DM based generation.

Which is a silly way to categorize since the first 3 gens share an alignment THEN the first generation with a different alignment contains 3 completely different editions.

That's like saying burger generations are

1. Hamburger
2. Cheeseburger
3. Bacon Cheeseburger
4. Pizza
5. Cheeseburger with Mushrooms

I think everyone pretty much agrees that the blog post could be better written.

Do you disagree with his point -- which seems to be mostly about the "4th and 5th generations" -- that WotC focused on selling players lots of books for the good of the bottom line, and now new games (often from indie creators) are going strongly in the opposite direction?