Re-booting D&D with a new edition - how necessary is it?

[Man in the Funny Hat]

Right, exactly. The same was true of 3.5E of course, but the key difference is that A) WotC has more control over what is produced for 4E, and B) 4E is less "top heavy" than 3.5E was, and thus may be able to handle more alterations.

Top-heavyness was not so much an issue with the ruleset in and of itself but with DM's failing to put sensible limits on their own games regarding sheer VOLUME of rules. Of course WotC is never gonna tell anyone, "use less of what we sell you," but there it is.

I do think that it would behoove them, however, to clarify a core rules set, even an SRD type document for 4E that would form the core of games to come. They could do away with editions and merely adjust and revise the core rules, with an infinite number of possible add-ons and options.

This fails to acknowledge that different editions simply have different approaches (both intended and unintended) to the game. Basic/Original D&D, for example, is VERY rules lite and thus promotes and works better with play styles that are more improvisational. Players do - over time - tend to gravitate toward the edition that best supports their preferred play/gaming style rather than what happens to simply be the newest edition.

4E CANNOT be all things to all players. Neither can 1E, or OD&D. When D&D was the ONLY RPG this wasn't an issue. When D&D dominated other available RPG's 50:1 it wasn't an issue. Now that there are 4 distinct edition of D&D, each with substantially different approaches to play and different "philosophies" behind the creation of their rules, and there are GOBS of other RPG's out there - many of them clones of, or inspired directly by various versions of D&D - I think it would foolish in the extreme to assume that you could make a version of D&D that will never again need wholesale, substantial revision in favor of only minor adjustments or a few add-ons.

To the last, yes, I agree. To the first, what was their reasoning for taking down all the old PDFs? I remember them not wanting to put new PDFs up because of piracy but that doesn't explain the old. If they wanted to discourage people from playing earlier versions of D&D I don't think taking down the PDFs would make much of a difference, considering the prevalence of used books out there, not to mention "free" torrents.

Which rather invalidates the excuse that the PDF's were taken down for reasons of piracy doesn't it? It seems apparant to me that (whether they were correct or not in their thinking) they wanted to eliminate as many sources as possible for players to use anything but 4E.

WotC--and even more so TSR before them--has a pretty much undeniable history of bad PR. Why this is, I don't know. Maybe it has something to with snarky and/or awkward gamer social skills.

While there's more than a grain of truth to that, I believe it is more the unusual nature of RPG's as a business, given the relationship that the publisher has with the reader and that any given publication they sell you is NOT self-contained but relies on the customer having purchased several others as well as continuing to purchase additonal products... as opposed to customers doing what they did in the earlier days of RPGs - which is to take the basic rules and then make everything else up themselves.

D&D has changed from a teeny-tiny business that supported a hobby that it created - to ongoing attempts at changing the hobby game itself into something that better supports a much bigger business (albeit in the grand scheme of things still VERY small). The thing that WotC doesn't want you to realize and embrace is that you don't need to buy a thing from them once you have the core rules. You can ALWAYS come up with "content" for a game from your own imagination as well as any rules changes you want/need. If they can drive you to playing 4E because you aren't able to readily find rules for past versions, so much the better (they believe). 4E is available in bookstores and FLGS's everywhere. If any other version of D&D takes even one extra step or degree of effort to obtain they're that much closer to their goal.

'Course this is all stuff that we will NEVER see WotC discussing openly and honestly because that would simply be bad business. I seem to recall that a long time ago when they did research prior to releasing 3E they gave up SOME of what they learned, but by and large that became VALUABLE information that is NOT something you just announce to the world. When they tell us things about what direction they see the game going and where they WANT it to go it's because they've pretty well determined that releasing that information will either do them more good than harm, or that it won't make much difference to tell because the information ISN'T business sensitive.

JMHO

 

[Mournblade94]

What percentage of the population has seen Shakespeare performed more than once? Traditionally, classical stuff counts as "niche".

Really it doesn't matter. Shakespeare is not a niche market because it has been adopted by the academy as what is studied. Many people have not EVER seen a performance yet MANY MANY more people can name Shakespeare characters than Drizzt do urden. Maybe more people can name comic book characters over shakespeare characters.

I know where you are going with this, but I do not think the classical can be considered niche do its nature as being iconic.

 

[Diamond Cross]

Except that people will often know about characters and quotes without actually having seen the produce they came from.

For example, "Soylent green is people". How many people say that without actually having seen the movie?

The best way to know if a person has really actually seen it is to quiz them on certain parts. For example, what was used to handle the rioters in the movie?

So in truth, they don't really know, they're just repeating what somebody else has said about it.

And thus not truly part of the people who would support such a product.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Originally Posted by Dannyalcatraz
OTOH, simple revisions may be sufficient to keep a market leader in position, generating a steady stream of revenue. (See M:tG, most video game or movie series.)

Do you think that a company the size of WotC, let alone Hasbro, is content with simply remaining "in position, generating a steady stream of revenue?" The game designers themselves are probably fine with this, but not the bigwigs, and certainlly not Hasbro. I am not a business type, but I imagine that most medium to large businesses want to find new ways to make profit; in the case of a company like WotC, this is in fits and starts. You come out with a new edition and you make tons of money, then the profits start dwindling until you come out with a new idea like Essentials. But in order to get those big spikes in money you either have to come out with a new edition or a major innovation; I'm sure WotC is trying to come up with innovations, probably in relation to DDI, but the clock is ticking and at some point they have to show their hand to Hasbro and if they don't have anything, a new edition will probably be called for.

That's the business side. In terms of the game itself, of "game evolution," you are probably right that revisions every five years or so would be enough considering that RPGs aren't changing substantially in terms of game mechanics. Most of the innovations happened in the 90s; until someone comes out with a clever new mechanic that revolutionizes the game, the core of D&D will remain unchanged and as I and others have said, 4E's core is simple and modular enough that no major changes are necessary for the foreseeable future.

While status quo isn't desirable, in the game business, its acceptable, especially if you're king of the hill. Consider how many decades it took for there to be commercial Monopoly, Risk and Stratego variants- there's very much a "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" mentality going on.

Are they LOOKING for new revenue streams? Undoubtedly. But until they have a surefire winner (in their opinion), you won't see big changes.

Originally Posted by Dannyalcatraz
As I said, though, I'm sure there are other ways to keep a RPG company afloat, such as having a diverse product line of settings or even other RPGs to offer.

But is WotC and Hasbro content to merely remain "afloat"? Smaller, more gamer-run companies might be, but I doubt WotC is. Mike Mearls probably is, but what about the CEO of Hasbro?

I suspect that pressures drove the release date of both 3Ed- with development continuing behind the scenes to make 3.5Ed (the game they intended to release) and 4Ed.

But lessons got learned over that time so that I don't think that Hasbro will pressure WotC to release a revision or new edition (unless Essentials is it...I'm willing to admit I'm just speculating and could be far, far from the mark).

Originally Posted by Dannyalcatraz
With their current financial health, they probably could diversify their RPG line.

Well one thing that still remains a kind of Holy Grail of RPGs is a science fiction equivalent of D&D. I know, you've got Traveller, Star Wars, GURPs, etc, but none of them come close to D&D in terms of popularity. Why is this? SF is as popular as fantasy, so why not a SF RPG? I honestly don't know, but it may relate to the question of why D&D is far and away the most popular RPG with no one even close, and the answer is probably simply name-brand recognition and the fact that most of us grew up with it and were imprinted in those crucial age 10-14 "Golden Age" of blossoming imagination.

While Sci-Fi is as popular (if not moreso) as Fantasy in the mainstream, IME, Fantasy is far and away more popular than Sci-Fi among gamers. In the 33 years I've had in the hobby, in 3 states and 5 different cities, nearly every gamer I've met read Fantasy. To date, I've only gamed with 4 or 5 who have any real love of Sci-Fi beyond a couple of licensed products- usually Star Wars, Star Trek or Doctor Who, with a mix of everyone else (Dune, Firefly, etc.). Sure, I've met and gamed with dozens who will play Sci-Fi boardgames, but they tend not to read the books, to play the games. Not only that, I've noticed that Sci-Fi fandom- true, rabid fandom- tends to be more divisive than in Fantasy circles. (Check out Stardestroyer.net sometime...)

Which means, for all of its popularity, the Sci-Fi RPG market is far more fragmented than the Fantasy RPG market, and that makes for hard sales.

And since the background assumptions of the various Sci-Fi settings can vary so widely, its the rare game system that has rules to support them all- IOW, there may not be a RPG system that is capable of running a game set in the universes of Star Wars, Jericho, Star Trek, Dune, Firefly, Ringworld, Starship Troopers and so on.

Without going to a toolbox game like GURPS, HERO or M&M, that is.