Presentation and Rules Are Different Things

It can, and again, D&D being the big fish in the pond maybe needs to be more generic and plain in its presentation.

Not just in its presentation, I suspect - being broad is a business decision.

I think specialization has benefits and drawbacks. Specialization probably gets you deeper penetration into a smaller market - the specialization may make it easier to be stable among the fans of that specialization, but difficult to grow beyond that, making it harder to become a Big Fish.
 

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Many people would agree that the rules weren’t bad. If anything they were excellent. But the presentation turned many people off (including me).
I really liked 4e's presentation. It was really clear and legible, vastly superior to 3e. But the rules and ideas were for a game I didn't want to play. I'd bought the slipcased three-volume bundle unseen. I gave it away without ever trying to play it.
 

Not just in its presentation, I suspect - being broad is a business decision.

I think specialization has benefits and drawbacks. Specialization probably gets you deeper penetration into a smaller market - the specialization may make it easier to be stable among the fans of that specialization, but difficult to grow beyond that, making it harder to become a Big Fish.
Should the goal of every RPG publisher be to be a big fish?
 

I fully agree.

I'll add that you can also like the resulting dynamics from a set of mechanics, but dislike the mechanics or the design approach used to achieve it. Some mechanics achieve exactly what they're meant to, but are overly complex in their way to achieve it.
 


Which is fine - it's been this way since 2nd edition, so most of the life of the entire game. I'm just saying that vis a vis other TTRPGs which I can read and derive entertainment from reading the rules as well as learning the rules, D&D falls behind on this, probably because it needs to maintain a broad, generic appeal. It just comes at a cost, so when someone says "Did you read the DMG or the PHB cover to cover?", I feel like, well...no, most people won't do that. They'll look up or refer to sections when it is necessary, and that's because of the way the book is written.

I can't say I routinely read a rules set from cover to cover anyway. I focus on what I consider the core elements and learn others as-needed.
 


This seems so weird to me, but you are not the first to say this. Maybe I'm the weird one...
I've met people who read RPG books cover to cover. I simply can't: I always eventually get tremendously bored.

I read what I need to so I can learn to play, and use it as reference later.

Now... some books are so pretty that they also double as coffee table books. Free League comes to mind (Aliens, Tales from the Loop and Vaesen in particular).
 

This seems so weird to me, but you are not the first to say this. Maybe I'm the weird one...

I'll usually skim all of it, and there are exceptions to my general rule there; some rules medium games doing interesting things will focus me enough I read at least all of the rules elements.

But to my POV, most games are not all rules elements anyway; there's tons of GMing advice, process description and other material that I either don't need or don't agree with, so I won't give it much attention. Some of the actual rules are also going to not really gel until I've read other parts (and I'm not of the opinion that on the whole games are particularly great about presenting them in what, to me, is the right order, though sometimes there's some no-win elements there).
 

I've met people who read RPG books cover to cover. I simply can't: I always eventually get tremendously bored.

I read what I need to so I can learn to play, and use it as reference later.

Now... some books are so pretty that they also double as coffee table books. Free League comes to mind (Aliens, Tales from the Loop and Vaesen in particular).
I am afraid that people that don't read cover to cover end up missing important bits, and often end up blaming the game for being "incomplete" or "poorly designed." I don't really trust people who think they just know everything they might need to know. Game design is hard and designed invest a lot of time and energy getting it right, and usually they put stuff in because it matters.

But then, often it seems like no one cares less about game design than half of RPG players. (The other half care, but don't actually understand it.)
 

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