Pondering RE: Monte Cook / Long-term roadmaps for both Wizards and Paizo

[JeffB]

I'm wary, but willing to give Monte a shot. I've never been thrilled with his work, but it's also been a few years since I've played with any of his work. .

This is my feeling as well. Some of his stuff absolutely bothered the crap out of me, like his re-write/sequel of ToEE, and the fairly worthless 3.0 DMG, and its no secret I am not a big fan of 3.X period. The other few modules (Banewarrens for example), AU products, etc that I bought did not do anything for me in the least, though I did not find them necc bad. Just not to my tastes. Monte gives me the impression of being like a few of the guys I grew up with playing who really did not like O/A D&D and always were looking to re-write it, come up with uber-power gamer classes and items, or those who had to move on to some other "realistic more mature" game.

That said, I really enjoy his interviews and such.Seems like a really cool guy, who is certainly insightful, and loves what he is doing. I respect the guy for his accomplishments, and I'd like to see if he can come up with something I'd like this time around. Since Mearls is more along the lines of my way of thinking most of the time, this could be a great "partnership" to filter out the BS of 3E and 4e and come up with something great that also remains true to it's D&D roots.

 

[S'mon]

I don't have a horse in the race, so to speak, since I think I've made it pretty well known in the past that I'm not particularly interested in playing or DM-ing 4e. But if you're a 4e enthusiast, based on what you know of 4e's long-term roadmap, are you excited about it?

My main emotion is dread, actually. I wish they would focus on making the game an evergreen product. While I had serious issues with 3e, it took me over a year to go to 4e. I do not have anything like the same issues with 4e, and while it would be nice if they'd officially halve monster hp as I do (following a suggestion from Mearls back in 2008), and bring back Rituals, I really don't want the game to change significantly. I have at least 6 years or so of gaming 4e to do, maybe more. I feel I've barely started.

 

[S'mon]

Does the lack of clear direction for the 4e product line make you wary of what's coming, or is there enough material already out there that any additions to the 4e line are largely unimportant in your decision to keep playing?

I feel I have a huge amount of material already, much of it recently acquired & barely read (just got Open Grave) and that there is also tons of great 3e stuff I can use for 4e, like my new Wilderlands of High Fantasy 4e campaign with the Necromancer black box.

 

[Umbran]

Does the lack of clear direction for the 4e product line make you wary of what's coming, or is there enough material already out there that any additions to the 4e line are largely unimportant in your decision to keep playing?

I'm not running a 4e game, currently. I'm running classic Deadlands, for which there's no new product being produced at all! This doesn't bother me or my players in the least, and barring players moving away or somesuch, I expect the campaign to continue for a good long time.

So, clearly, the existence of new product in the pipeline is not a concern for me. My choice to play a game is not determined by how much product is in the pipeline, but on whether the people in the game are fun to play with, whether the GM runs the game well, and so on.

Honestly, if the core rules of the game don't give me enough to play the game nigh indefinitely, then I probably won't pick the game up in the first place. Supplements are gravy, not a necessity, for me.

 

[jeffh]

Edit: Theoretically, there is a place for a 4E rewrite that deliberately kills power and feat bloat cold--and then replaces that page content with something new. The trick is coming up with that something new.

Compelling adventures and an interesting setting.

Hey, it seems to work for Paizo.

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Beyond that one point I specifically wanted to respond to, a few other comments (not directed at Jerome specifically).

First of all, there's an important difference between what system I use and what, if any, RPG products I spend money on. The latter is obviously very important to WotC, Paizo and their various peers in a way the former isn't, but to most of us the former is what we think about and the latter is an incidental byproduct of that, if the two are related at all. So there's a disconnect there between the companies' interests and ours.

By (among other things) producing a lot of world and adventure material that has at least a measure of portability to other systems, it seems to me Paizo is far more skillfully positioning itself to grab a part of the latter for non-Pathfinder players than WotC is for non-4E players. There are a few good 4E books that are largely system-neutral (e.g. The Plane Above and The Plane Below), but even if you think their quality compares well to Paizo's offerings, a subjective matter I won't opine on here, their relative paucity puts an upper bound on how much of the non-4E dollar they can attract.

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I'm not sure to what extent the slow release schedule is cause for concern for those into 4E. The amount of 4E crunch coming out now is still at least comparable to, and when Dragon is factored in probably greater than, that for Pathfinder - it just looks sparse because WotC publishes so little else, compared to Paizo. If the individual products are good - and while I am disappointed with HoS, Neverwinter is good and MME is very good - I'm fine with the sparse schedule. I'd rather have a few good products and less feat bloat. The previous rate at which the rules and character options were expanding probably wasn't sustainable, and the recent changes can be seen as pulling it back to the level it always should have been at, precisely to sustain the brand for the long(er) term.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

Compelling adventures and an interesting setting.

Hey, it seems to work for Paizo.

I meant specifically in books that are the system, but I take your point. I do think that Paizo writes its adventures and setting material for a specific audience, and that it doesn't overlap very well with people who enjoy a system like 4E. There is a sense in which certain systems are best handled by writing your own material. To the extent that a game realizes that goal, then it is automatically handicapped in using adventures and setting material as things to sell.

That said, I can see setting material working where adventures will not, even in core rules. If stuff about races, cultures, society, etc. is put into fun, useful, flexible rules--then you can fill a lot of core content in ways that will be useful to a lot of people, belong in core rules, and encourage that same writing of your own material.

Or put another way, the 4E team intended to be evocative rather than exhaustive in their treatment of such material. I think they made a good first effort, but I don't think they have pushed that idea as far as it can be pushed.

It should also be noted that one of the reasons that I don't like some of Pazio's material is that I consider a lot of it bloat. Albeit a different kind of bloat than crunch bloat, but still bloat. So what I'm really looking for is the answer for when: Good game system means no bloat, but more page count means more money. I don't have the answer. The first gaming company that needs the page count but solves it, wins that decade.

 

[Dice4Hire]

I really think that people who are looking at 5E as only a mishmash of 4E and 3.5 or Pathfinder are looking at things in a limited way.

Yes, there are good elements to all the systems, but I would like to see 5E as something different. Yes, it would probably have its own problems.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

I have more 4e material than I can currently use and the existance or non-enistance of more is irrelevant to my use of the system. I have never bothered my with other systems. There is also plenty of stuff on WoTC's current catalogue that I would pick up finances permitting that would keep me going for years.

I am interested in what Monte comes up with bu there is no guarantee that I will follow Wizards in any particulatly direction.

I find that I have great reservations about planting down a $100 or so for a new system. I have quite a few systems already and would more likely stick them for a while.

May be around 2020, if I am still alive I may be in the mood for something completely new.

 

[Mattrex]

Whenever I see a company--any company--start talking about "looking to the future" while simultaneously being very secretive about exactly what it is they're planning, I get a little suspicious. This combined with 4E's reduced product schedule and slipping in the sales charts suggests to me that some men in suits at Wizards (or Hasbro) are starting to get very worried. The question I have--and one which won't be answered for a while, I suspect--is whether they're formulating a masterstroke which will seize the market, or whether they're fumbling in the dark and trying to keep anyone from finding out.

If the first, their relative secrecy combined with the rehiring of Monte Cook would mean to me that they're working on something like 4.5 for D&D, something to revamp the existing game, reinvigorate the base, spike product sales of revised core rulebooks, and give the game a new lease, the same as what happened with Third Edition back in 2003 (which was also three years after 3E's release).

If the second, then I'd think they were starting to panic at being overtaken by their once-marginal competitor, Paizo, and the rehiring of Cook would suggest that they're going to try to recapture the market or stymie Paizo's runaway growth by essentially beating them at their own game and trying to inject or revise 4E toward some sort of 3.5/4E hybrid (or even make 4.5 much closer to 3.5 than it is currently).

There will always be some reason for vagueness and secrecy, but when it comes to a company that releases a product like an ongoing RPG, I think the biggest ones boil down to

(a) wanting to catch competitors unawares, not giving them time to react strategically to moves in the market; or

(b) not wanting to let customers know beforehand that the books they're about to buy will soon be obsolete (because of a new edition, a significant revision, etc.).

One thing I've come to understand by following Paizo's rationalizations for why it does or doesn't do certain things is that market forces play a huge role in determining what a company like Paizo or Wizards does, when they do it, and how they do it. These aren't starry-eyed idealists slaving away in their basements on a labor of love that will be perfectly crafted masterpieces (though some of them may also be that). They're corporations worth millions of dollars which rely on a steady revenue stream for their survival. Everything has to be weighed against the question of "will this move more product?" So in the end, while I think that everyone involved in writing material for D&D has only the best motives and expectations and good faith, the people who cut their paychecks (and hence, the strategic decision makers) are more concerned about the market.

 

[SteveC]

I definitely think this is an interesting development. Unless Monte has been working with Wizards for longer than WotC is saying, it will be several months before we see something from him, which leads me to think this may have been in the works for some time.

Monte definitely has the pedigree as a designer, and he's known for his work with magic using classes, so this may be an interesting development for those who don't like 4E's "balanced" spellcasters.

I think it is notable that WotC has returned one of the "name" designers to their stable of talent, since so much of the industry seems to be ignoring D&D these days. I'm cautiously optimistic!