On the marketing of 4E

[DaveMage]

I've always found this to be a case of: If you're looking for the insult in a statement, you will find it, no matter if it was intended or not.

True, but if someone approaches a marketing statement with neutrality and comes away insulted, the marketing has failed for that person.

 

[Scribble]

True, but if someone approaches a marketing statement with neutrality and comes away insulted, the marketing has failed for that person.

Possibly? I'm not sure if I agree though.

I work in account management, and one of the things they emphasize is what I said above. It doesn't matter what the intended message is, when someone is upset they're likely to read negativity into whatever they read.

The message could be: "Hey how are you today? I hope you're doing well!"

If you're upset, you're more then likely to read into it with something like: "Don't tell me how I should be doing! I'm friggin mad! What gives you the right to tell me I should be happy?!?!"

It goes back to the idea that the written word lacks many of the subtle visual, and tonal cues we normally use to communicate.

Could the marketing have been done better? I don't know- maybe? I'm not a marketing guy.

Do I think a lot of the negativity was overblown because a lot of people were just upset about the edition shift to begin with?

Definitely.

 

[Ariosto]

The trouble with "the marketing" is that it's accurate; the problem is the attitude expressed in the game design itself.

If Hasbro decides to slap the Diplomacy trademark on a quite different game with the quite different concerns of Axis & Allies, well -- if that's what I want, then I can just play A&A (another Hasbro product) instead.

What's offensive is people coming into "our house" as it were -- the D&D game we've been playing in some cases since before some of those people were born -- and tearing it down to build whatever the hell they happen to prefer. They're just passing through, and they're acting like landlords rather than custodians.

Whatever one's appraisal of the epic fantasies of Terry Brooks, David Eddings, Dennis L. McKiernan, etc., they did not take the title The Lord of the Rings.

The prevailing attitude, both at the corporate level and apparently among "D&D fans", seems now to be either that D&D deserves no such respect because it's not "literary" -- or that Tolkien's and others' is due none either.

Fortunately, not only has Tolkien's work not been put out of print in favor of a "new edition" of Peter Jackson's devising, but an actual new prose edition of The Children of Hurin has been released to solid sales. Nor has the Sci-Fi Channel's abomination replaced Le Guin's classic Earthsea books.

 

[Mallus]

As a designer,by that statement, he is, by implication, telling several groups that I know and all those participants in a poll here that don't have combat every session and/or whose games encompass more than killing monsters that they are playing wrong

This is just nonsense. There was no value judgment involved. No 'wrong'.

A designer noting that most people, traditionally, take a 'kill things and take their stuff' approach to D&D should be about as controversial as observing the sky is frequently blue and rain is often wet. People who play differently are exactly that; people who play differently. You have to do a lot of reading into that statement before you arrive at 'they are playing D&D wrong'.

Look, I'm one of those people who play D&D differently (as anyone who's read the Story Hour based on the campaign I run can tell you). Stating that most people don't play the way I do is in no way an insult to me. It's simply factual.

 

[DaveMage]

Do I think a lot of the negativity was overblown because a lot of people were just upset about the edition shift to begin with?

Definitely.

Sure - if people are in a bad mood, they will see the bad.

But knowing that people are upset about the edition shift to begin with - shouldn't the marketing attempt to compensate for that? (Or maybe WotC simply failed their Diplomacy check. )

 

[Mallus]

What's offensive is people coming into "our house" as it were -- the D&D game we've been playing in some cases since before some of those people were born -- and tearing it down to build whatever the hell they happen to prefer. They're just passing through, and they're acting like landlords rather than custodians.

Following your analogy...

... D&D is more like a housing development. You have a house there, which you've decorated to your liking. In fact, you and your immediate neighbors have rather similar tastes, so your house look quite a bit alike.

However, you were never the owners of the whole development. In fact, some people you don't much like, who live on the other side, decorated their homes completely differently. Tastelessly, in your eyes. Why they practically defaced the whole community. But what can you do, except complain? Because while you and your like-minded neighbors might feel a great deal of ownership over the whole development, you are, truth be told, only a few owners among many.

Over the years, new people moved in. Older houses were torn down and new ones erected. You don't much like the new designs. You feel them to be inferior to the originals. A few of them look too newfangled for your tastes. Worse, a few resembled those houses from across the way you didn't like to begin with.

Now you have every right to prefer things the way they were. But it's a fact of life things change. Neighborhoods change. But it's just not right to go around suggesting that the new folks don't belong. They paid their money same as you. The own their property same as you. They probably even like the community same as you (I hear it's a good place to raise a family). They are, in fact, pretty much the same as you, except you think their new-style windows are awful and the colors painted their house are gauche.

 

[Greg K]

This is just nonsense. There was no value judgment involved. No 'wrong'.

Mallus,
Stating that he agrees with the point of detractors that DND is emphatically not about traipsing in fairy circles and is about killing things is agreeing with a one way view of how the game is to be played. It may may be the way many people (probably most) play the game, but it only entails one way the game is played and is not the end all be all of how to play DND.

 

[Greg K]

But knowing that people are upset about the edition shift to begin with - shouldn't the marketing attempt to compensate for that? (Or maybe WotC simply failed their Diplomacy check. )

What is funny, is that, while a few instances in the marketing, irked me, there was nothing in the marketing that affected my decision regarding 4e. I was actually looking forward to 4e even before Mearls was hired (and hoped that his being hired by WOTC meant that 4e was secretly in the works) . I agreed with many, but not all of the complaints leveled against 3e (which I like provided that I am, primarily, using the core along with Unearthed Arcana and select third party products).

My decison to skip 4e had to do with the mechanical changes, other design implementations, and leaving out certain elements for later books. I think 4e has some really good elements/changes in certain areas, but others changes/implementations are just a turn off for my own preferences. However, I don't rule out that a UA sourcebook of optional rules could bring me into 4e just UA did with 3e .

 

[Scribble]

Sure - if people are in a bad mood, they will see the bad.

But knowing that people are upset about the edition shift to begin with - shouldn't the marketing attempt to compensate for that? (Or maybe WotC simply failed their Diplomacy check. )

Maybe? Like I said, I'm not a marketing guy.

I think in this case, part of the problem was that they didn't expect/predict that various elements would feed into each other as much as they did and sort of create an ouroboros of negativity.

IE people were upset about the edition change, which caused them to see the GSL in a much more negative light then it deserved (in my opinion) which caused them to be more upset about the edition change, which then caused them to be even more upset about the GSL... Combine that with the DDI? Yeesh.

Is all that marketings fault? Again, I don't know, but isn't there only so much marketing can do?

Sometimes, there's just not much you can do about it. You have to say what you need to say, accept that they don't/won't like it, let them vent for a while (without encouraging the venting) then move on to the good things. Move past the bad and show them why your relationship is worth it.

 

[Scribble]

Mallus,
Stating that he agrees with the point of detractors that DND is emphatically not about traipsing in fairy circles and is about killing things is agreeing with a one way view of how the game is to be played. It may may be the way many people (probably most) play the game, but it only entails one way the game is played and is not the end all be all of how to play DND.

What about that section says to you that he was concerned with "HOW" people play D&D, as opposed to what the rules of the game are designed to handle?

If he told you that he wasn't concerned with HOW people play the game, so much as what the rules are designed to handle, would it still be insulting? If so why?

Taken at face value it seems to indicate that D&D has never been designed with social activities being the main focus of the rules. The focus of the D&D rules has been primarily combat, with non combat activities having little to no focus. Is this indicating you are wrong for wanting your personal games to be about social activities over combat? If so, I don't see it.

To me this is no different then when people suggest using say Call of Cuthulu for a horror game over D&D because CoC was designed around the idea of promoting horror. Or the reverse- CoC was not designed around the idea of going toe to toe with horrible monsters from beyond...

You can certainly play the system that way, and it might be tons of fun- There is absolutely nothing wrong with doing so, but the game was never designed with that intention in mind.