Mike Mearls Talks (er, Tweets) About the Industry

I think history has proven Mike wrong. The problem is that D&D isn't a game. D&D is a framework that allows 5 players to make a game.

So if you like boardgames, you got lots of different games to choose from. If you like RPGs, you got lots of games to choose from. But those games are the things GMs do with D&D. My campaign is my own game I've developed. Your campaign is yours.

I think there's a market for lots of different RPGs in that sense. Because each gaming group playing D&D is running its own unique game, in their own homebrew setting with their own house rules.

But I don't think there's a market for different *frameworks*. I think there's demand for *a* framework, that players use to develop lots of different games.

 

[Stacie GmrGrl]

Shadows of the Demon Lord.. that's the name I could remember.

This is the perfect game almost. It's designed for the short campaign around ten to fifteen game sessions. I wish I would have been able to back it. Makes me sad.

 

[Stacie GmrGrl]

When it comes to sci-fi and fantasy...

Why is sci-fi so much more dominant in other media entertainments, especially in tv shows and movies... yet it can't gain near the traction that most fantasy rpgs seem to get? Is it really a sci-fi vs. fantasy thing, or is it a D&D vs. all other rpgs thing, and the reason that fantasy rpgs seem to much more popular is simply because so many people play D&D (and Pathfinder) and have that history that regardless of how well other games are designed and how cool they are, its just that people will tend to stick with something they have previously known?

I find it odd.

 

[Stacie GmrGrl]

Gurps might have gotten other game lines to an extent, but it was all done in house, within their own company as far as I could tell. I might be wrong though. I don't know if they worked with White Wolf at the time to do their versions of the World of Darkness game lines, but if not than I wonder how they got to do it in the first place without any trouble.

And if they could do that, than why can't other game companies do the same?

 

[MerricB]

Just a lot of examples of opening up systems and game brands to appeal to a wider audience while also making these different entities possibly compatible with each other. Instead of thinking that they have to keep to themselves, and doing their own separate work... coming together and working together could be of greater benefit for all.

It's not new, and it has been tried before. See the OGL and the SRD. And the collaborations between companies such as Wizards and Chaosium for Call of Cthulhu d20.

The problem is that the feel of a game world is significantly tied to its system. There are a few cases where the world can transcend the system, but in most cases it can't. (The experience of SAGA edition Dragonlance comes to mind). This is as opposed to a system which is built to run an existing world - but I would say the system has a significant impact in that instance as well. Someone who likes FASERIP may not be so enamoured of Cortex+.

One System To Rule Them All doesn't work.

And using different systems *at the same time* to model a game world is extremely problematic. Doing a book with stats for two systems is significantly more expensive than having them only for one system. And if players choose to abandon one system for the other, what then is the benefit for the publisher of the original system? "We spent all our time building up L5R, only to find that people now buy it from another company and not us?"

 

[Tony Vargas]

When it comes to sci-fi and fantasy...

Why is sci-fi so much more dominant in other media entertainments, especially in tv shows and movies... yet it can't gain near the traction that most fantasy rpgs seem to get? Is it really a sci-fi vs. fantasy thing, or is it a D&D vs. all other rpgs thing, and the reason that fantasy rpgs seem to much more popular is simply because so many people play D&D (and Pathfinder) and have that history that regardless of how well other games are designed and how cool they are, its just that people will tend to stick with something they have previously known?

Um... Yes.

Sci-fi and fantasy are different, they've been perceived differently at different times, with sci-fi often coming out more 'legitimate' than fantasy. But they're also different in some basic ways. In fantasy, you can have a story or setting with a peculiar type of magic and explore the implications of it, but, most of the time, magic is just something that's assumed because it's fantasy, and there's no particular foundation laid for it, nor any deep examination of what it implies about the world beyond just enabling part of the story. In sci-fi, that's called a "throwaway detail." The real focus of sci-fi is details that aren't thrown away, but are explored - the social consequences of cloning, the moral implications of thinking robots, a humanity croweded on an overpopulated earth, or spread thin over a million worlds by efficient FTL, etc, etc. Fantasy is all throwaway details. You have magic that can flatten mountains, and monsters that can fly, but people still build castles and fight with swords.
Fantasy worlds thus mostly look the same, while sci-fi settings don't.

There can be 'generic fantasy' - and that's what D&D is, by virtue of mashing together every fantasy trope available in the 70s.

There is no 'generic sci-fi.'

So a fantasy FRPG can have broader appeal than a sci-fi RPG.


There's also the history of RPGs. D&D was the first RPG. It's the only TTRPG most people who have never played RPGs have ever heard of. Thus, most of us start with D&D, and those who didn't like it don't stick with the hobby. So D&D has a staying power that no other TTRPG can come close to.

 

[Stacie GmrGrl]

I am not advocating the idea of 'One System to Rule Them All' or to promote 'dual stat books'... not at all.

My suggestion was literally this. Two different companies coming together to produce a brand new game using already established brands.

A D&D Dresden Files would be a Dresden Files game in and of itself using the D&D system.
A Spelljammer AGE game would be a fully set up Spelljammer game with a customized AGE system.
A Eberron Savage Worlds would be a fully set up Savage Worlds Eberron game.

All these ideas with their own rules sets, their own books, their own game line. Not needing any other books.

If they want to somehow bring in the idea of board games and how board games do expansions... than we need more of these combinations of separate games that are in and of their own, their own rpg game. And if those separate games sell well, than do an expansion book or two.

I am also saying that these different companies come together, and not work against each other with these. That a D&D Dresden Files IS both a WotC and a Evil Hat game. Not one or the other.

That a Spelljammer AGE game is both a WotC game and a Green Ronin game.

Yes it's actually different, and it would actually require these different companies to come together more... or, well, that's the idea. And I am not saying these are like the SRD/OGL either, because they are not. These are games that would have both companies logos on the back, not just one. Advertised as such, things like that.

If something like this actually happened, it'd be pretty cool. This is how Savage Worlds Rifts is doing it. It's a Rifts game that is also a Savage Worlds game. It won't be dual stats, it won't be designed for both systems. It's literally Rifts using a different system. And it's going to be really cool. This is what we need more of in our game industry.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I guess it depends on what you consider the 'hardcore' roleplayers. I think of them as the devoted hobbyists who are familiar with and try out many systems, are deep into game theory (both real and psuedo), and are always on top of the latest or most innovative RPGs.
While D&D is certainly the most-played of RPGs, I think that has more to do with it's status as first RPG, and RPG with mainstream name-recognition: most of us in the hobby start with D&D, many never move on from it, we often cycle back to it because it's comparatively available.

I feel like my experience shows it to be very hard to get people to consistently volunteer to play things besides D&D. That is, you'll find that there are 100 other systems out there that some people like, but if you get 6 random gamers together, they'll all probably play D&D. Its the Lingua Franca of RPGs and nothing has changed on that score in 30+ years. No other system has ever really challenged it in that sense.

I think its because fantasy is the central genre, all the other genre of RPG still contain some element of fantasy, but D&D just IS fantasy. And its a pretty broad generic fantasy that's hard to completely differentiate from. The system has a very steep power curve too, which is really still quite rare in RPGs.

As far as Eurogames go, I think its the design and play conventions that make those games. This has NOT happened in RPGs. 4e was informed BY Eurogames in its design, but there's very little consistency in that sense across other games. You cannot define a genre of RPGs that group together based on a physical design sensibility, which is ALL that defines Eurogames.

 

[DM Howard]

I'm in the minority I feel like, but I just don't want the limited offerings that WotC is handing out. I don't want story campaigns. I don't want branded products. I don't care about the newest threat that must be faced in the Forgotten Realms. This is coming from someone who really likes the Realms too. I want gazetteers, I want more tools to create my own adventures not the play by numbers, follow along as we go stuff we are getting now. My enthusiasm for D&D 5E is at an all time low. So low that I have stopped advocating for it in my group and continued with Pathfinder and given away my 5E books in the process. What a bummer.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Class-level systems, man. To choose every major character option for yourself from level 1 on means that you aren't looking for new character options until you're done with the current one. Currently, if you don't use feats, the only option for non-spellcasters as they level up is magic items, which aren't in player control in 5e (RIP, the concept of a fighter who forged their own magic items!).

IMO, the idea of a class should probably be broken up into more, smaller pieces, that encapsulate smaller loops. But then it arguably "wouldn't be D&D anymore," which is fair enough.

Like, what if a class only covered one tier? You could be a fighter or apprentice or acolyte or rogue up to level 5, and then at level 6 you have to take a brand new class (paladin, ranger, assassin, or mage, lets say). Now you have a smaller loop and a natural break-point: you can sell people four 5-level classes in the same space that it takes to give a 20-level class, you wouldn't have to sweat each individual class as hard, and each class is a smaller decision point. It's not very "D&D," but it'd be a better way to turn development dollars into usable game material.

This is potentially upped complexity, but I think clever design can make it so that these are exciting and natural decision-points.

I turned it on its head in my hack. I just took the 4e DMG2 concept of boons to its logical conclusion. You get a boon, you level. Its as simple as that. So all advancement is narrative, and boons form the extensions to your character beyond his basic core class progression.

So, I wonder how that would work in terms of 'modules' of content. I mean there could be a whole set of boons for the 'War Against the Dead' story, holy items, devotions to the god of light, a stack of necromancy boons for the 'fight fire with fire' guy, etc. The narrative modular nature also makes things like Vampirism particularly easy to do.

 

[Shasarak]

It served the same purpose: bring attention back to the game, sell some new lower-cost higher-demand books, and provide a sales spike. Just like 3.5e (which was originally planned as a reprint with errata and minor corrections) and Essentials (which tried to tweak while being completely additive and backwards compatible).

If that is your criteria then the Players Options books do not fit. They never replaced the core books. They did not serve as a way to get errata in print. They never claimed to be an evergreen product or a tweek to the rules.

The best comparison is the Pathfinder Unchained where they give you the optional rules from which you can choose to use or not. I have a friend who loved the critical hit tables but I did not use them in the games that I ran.

However, in all three cases, the fans called it for what it was: a cash grab. It didn't serve the game or fill the needs of the fans or give anyone content that they didn't have before. It existed solely to make the company money.

Everyone knows it is a cash grab but that does not stop the fans from buying it anyway. I mean 3.5 more then doubled the run of the official 3e and I am sure that Essentials sold just as well as 4e as well as doubling the life of the edition so obviously it works.

We've seen three very different methods of reprints. There's the art & formatting redux of 2e, there's the heavy rules revision of 3e, and there's the repackaging and refocusing of 4e. None have really extended the life of the game in a meaningful way, especially the 2e and 4e attempts (it's hard to say how much of 3e's continuation was the shot-in-the-arm of 3.5 and how much was people just liking 3e).

A rules revision seems the least popular implementation. Not everyone will make the transition so sales will always seem lesser compared to the original. (Sales of 3.0 were 1 1/2 times that of 3.5e) Because it feels mandatory it chafes people. New books work best when people want to buy them not have to buy them. I'm sure lots of gamers decided that 3e was no longer for them - since they'd have to convert everything back to 3.0 - and stopped buying books. And the continued unpopularity of the .5 edition likely hurt Essentials, as people saw it as a similar revision. So the benefits of the mid-edition revision are debatable.

In contrast, I like what Paizo did and WotC is currently doing. Where they keep the books in print but incorporate errata into the later printings. I don't need to buy the books - the errata is free on the website - but I gain a benefit if I buy a second copy of the rules. If they continue this with a second or third round of errata, they can have sustained sales of the core rulebooks to returning buyers and newcomers.


That said, when the edition does start to flag, a revision might be preferable to a brand new edition. Especially if the designers are open and explain that. But I certainly hope that's more than 5 years away.

I dont really like stealth errata where we can both be playing from what looks like the same book but my rules are different to your rules. After the debacle with Veterans Armour I do not think "official" errata is appropriate for my table except in a case by case basis.