Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="M.L. Martin" data-source="post: 5610688" data-attributes="member: 4086">Actually, it appears that BECMI appealed more to older gamers in some respects. "The players who wanted simplified rules with less structure (like those in D&D Basic) were not the beginners who hadn't yet mastered the intricacies of RPGs but rather the veteran players who had the experience and inclination to 'wing it.' The fact that D&D was filled wit holes and abstractions made it attractive to experienced players who enjoyed coming up with their own field expedients. Conversely, AD&D's wealth of rules covering every situation gave rookies a sense of security; when the game moved into unfamiliar territory, somewhere in those books would be a rule to cover the situation."--Thirty Years of Adventure, p. 190  I imagine something similar is responsible for the success of Savage Worlds among experienced gamers.   This, I think, is why this kind of scheme will never happen--but it has, IMO, less to do with the fans than with WotC's corporate culture.   WotC places a very heavy emphasis on branding and uniformity--it's why we never got the oft-requested, oft-considered Magic/D&D crossover, because the folks in charge of Magic thought it would dilute the brand. And WotC's foundational success comes from a product that, AFAIK, really shines and makes most of its money in organized play environments based on standardized, uniform rules that are governed from the control center in Renton. (Would any Magic fans care to correct me on this point? Is the game actually a more casual, decentralized experience nowadays?) I think that culture has had a profound impact on their approach to D&D, along with Peter Adkison's decision that the game should be complex. ("D&D has always been complicated, and that never stopped it from becoming popular. Complexity wasn't the issue . . . I believed that what D&D players wanted was a great set of rules. Rules that made sense, while retaining the 'feel' of the original works by Gygax and Arneson."--Adkison, 30YoA, 258)   According to numerous posts by Matt Colville, back when WotC was trying to adopt a multi-level approach to roleplaying, they never considered multiple versions of D&D--instead, they'd produce multiple different roleplaying games, with D&D as the most complex game for the most advanced players. (Only one other game in this grand scheme--the Pokemon Jr. Adventure Game--saw release.)</blockquote>

Verification