D&D General New Interview with Rob Heinsoo About 4E

[Staffan]

The release schedule for 4e was fast (though people also get upset about it not being fast enough...again, gotta love the catch-22s),

I mean, that dissonance makes perfect sense. You want a moderate (whatever that is) release schedule in order to be sustainable, sure. But you want them to get to That One Thing you want, like, yesterday.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I mean, that dissonance makes perfect sense. You want a moderate (whatever that is) release schedule in order to be sustainable, sure. But you want them to get to That One Thing you want, like, yesterday.

Yep. The good ol' "My department needs tons of extra funding STAT, you can just skim a bit off the top of all the other departments with their bloated budgets" switcheroo.

 

[Oofta]

I firmly believe that if 4e

1. Gave every class 2 role and let you choose between them at level 1
2. Have all powers shared between power source

There'd be more acceptance on 4e.

Like you choose fighter and choose Slayer (Striker) or Guardian (defender).
Paladin chooses Defender or Leader.
Wizard choose Controller or Blaster.
Etc etc.

I think the less people had to accept to fix what was broken in the past, the more they'd accept change

That doesn't change the basic structure or approach of the game. While I would have appreciated a bit of simplification it wouldn't have made a difference for me.

 

[Oofta]

Thats still not bombing.

4e was ended because it didn't make the numbers WOTC wanted and it was on a downturn due to a bad schedule.

4e still sold crazy numbers despite being presented so horribly.

It sold well at first, as time went on it sold less and less. Which honestly had been the pattern for a while until 5E. It may not have bombed (depending on how you define it) but it wasn't successful.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

It sold well at first, as time went on it sold less and less. Which honestly had been the pattern for a while until 5E. It may not have bombed (depending on how you define it) but it wasn't successful.

"It did comparably to everything that came before, but not as well as the two ludicrously, unbelievably massive hits, therefore it wasn't successful" is just about peak moving the goalposts.

By any comparison other than the 80s boom and now, 4e WAS successful. EVERY edition, half-edition, debatable-edition, spinoff, knockoff, "We have D&D at home kids" etc. has experienced what you describe here, "as time went on it sold less and less."

By that standard, nearly every edition of D&D has failed.

 

[Oofta]

I don't think so. I don't think the specific character of 4e, aside from it being rather different from previous editions, mattered much at all. I mean, 70% of its detractors are clueless about the game, so that tells you a lot.

Multiple roles would just muddle class design. Role is useful to players, but it is PRIMARILY a tool which keeps designers honest and made them actually create classes that both worked, and didn't turn out to be one man bands.

I think pretty much everyone on this thread that has opinions on 4E played it. I know I did, for years. Saying that people don't know what they're talking about is just more deflection. Some people simply didn't like the game. Just like some people don't like 5E, no game can be for everyone.

 

[mamba]

By any comparison other than the 80s boom and now, 4e WAS successful.

it sold less than any other edition, including 3e

EVERY edition, half-edition, debatable-edition, spinoff, knockoff, "We have D&D at home kids" etc. has experienced what you describe here, "as time went on it sold less and less."

the difference is the timeline, not the trajectory

 

[Oofta]

"It did comparably to everything that came before, but not as well as the two ludicrously, unbelievably massive hits, therefore it wasn't successful" is just about peak moving the goalposts.

By any comparison other than the 80s boom and now, 4e WAS successful. EVERY edition, half-edition, debatable-edition, spinoff, knockoff, "We have D&D at home kids" etc. has experienced what you describe here, "as time went on it sold less and less."

By that standard, nearly every edition of D&D has failed.

What moving goalposts? I specifically stated that previous editions had the same issue. You seem to want to spin everything and anything I say into an attack when it isn't. I don't know enough about 2E sales to comment on the that but 3 and 3.5 had the same issue as 4E; initial sales were good and then dropped off so they came out with a new edition.

Does that make 4E a success? A failure? I never said anything one way or another. My opinion is that until 5E, no WotC version of D&D was particularly successful which is why they thought 5E was going to be the D&D swan song and last version ever published.

Look at it from the point of view of HASBRO. They've been selling Monopoly sets forever and they still have decent sales with relatively minimal investment. MtG may have it's issues but it's still a cash cow. Then comes this D&D brand that sells well at first and then sales drop off quickly. From a business perspective it's not a great investment, at least not until 5E.

 

[Oofta]

it sold less than any other edition, including 3e


the difference is the timeline, not the trajectory

I believe you are correct, but do we have actual numbers or quotation?

 

[mamba]

I believe you are correct, but do we have actual numbers or quotation?

would have to look for them, this is based on the Ben Riggs presentation which has a thread here. He does admit that his numbers for 3.0 and 3.5 are incomplete / too low because he does not have their total sales, but that does not help 4e if he has those

EDIT

• According to a chart he put up, the AD&D 1st Edition Players Handbook sold 1.5 million copies. The AD&D 2nd Edition Player's Handbook (including the revised version, which he says sold almost nothing) sold 1 million copies. The D&D 3.0 Player's Handbook sold just shy of 370,000 copies, while the 3.5 PHB sold a little over 300,000 copies.
• Here, Riggs stressed that the 3.0 and 3.5 numbers were particularly unreliable, because they only covered January of 2001 through December of 2006. That left off not only the initial sales of 3.0 (which was released in the summer of 2000, and here Riggs noted that Ryan Dancey had told him that if that time period was included, it would have almost doubled the sales numbers for the 3.0 PHB) but also any lingering sales of the 3.5 PHB.

At that point, Riggs noted that the 4E PHB sold far less than the 3E PHBs.

I believe he also said somewhere that every edition sold less than the one before it and had 3e and 3.5 as different editions in that (so 4e sold less than 3.5 alone), but did not find that now