Repeating the Mistakes of the Past

[Henry]

Even more importantly, one thing I can't say is that WotC has been "customer deaf" with 4E, despite what people may think. One thing they have consistently done, from 2005 onward, is perform online customer surveys, convention surveys, and listen to their web forums, no matter how poorly 4E met their or customer expectations. If I look right now, I see a survey connected to Legends and Lore.


Now, if I can argue whether they drew the wrong conclusions from the survey data, or whether the segment their survey contacted was representative of their customer base, is a different story. Based on their success vs. their hopes for it, I would speculate they needed to interpret that customer data differently, because they lost their D&D "proselytizers" in droves to Pathfinder or the OSR clones.

 

[DaveMage]

I think the relevant part of the quote is the bit about supporting "your worlds and your stories". A lot of people on this board have been complaining that 5e is more interesting in promoting the D&D brand than the individual DM's ability to world-build.

Yep.

But, to make D&D a viable endeavor for WotC/Hasbro, they really have no choice.

It's going to be about the multi-platform brand rather than what may be in the best interest for the D&D PnP RPG player only.

That's why, IMO, for the PnP RPG to ever really thrive again, it needs to be in the hands of someone other than WotC/Hasbro - which ain't happening. Frankly, I think this will be the last iteration of the RPG. Long term support for the PnP RPG will likely be minimal (though maybe not in the first few months), but support for the brand (other related products) will likely be strong in the short term so that WotC can really test the long term viability (and profit potential) of the brand.

I'd guess that part of the reason for a more simpler base RPG is so that the rules can translate well to other platforms - board games, computer games, facebook games, etc.

 

[Hussar]

I'd call monthly hardcovers a "glut".
While not the same as the disgusting volumes that came from TSR, much of that was spread out over several different lines. There was monthly content but not all of it was being aimed at everyone to the same extent. The 3.5e and early 4e release schedule was crammed with material being produced far faster than it could be tested or consumed.

Really? What massively overpowered options came out for 4e? What in 4e could compare to the Complete Elves Handbook or the original Unearthed Arcana in terms of broken mechanics?

 

[Hussar]

What 'entire slate' do you speak of?

The retread of the PHB book after essentials? Which got posted a class at a time because they didn't think a retread book would sell.

DMG3? Really? Between Mike Shea at SlyFlourish and Chris Perkin's articles I think we got enough material to give Epic a boost. No need to compile it and sell content we already had for a $40 book.

I'm going to disagree with the notion that being a 'successful' edition means we need PHB 4, DMG 4, Martial Power 3, Arcane Power 3, etc.

Pathfinder is fine with a 'slow' release schedule because your entire 3.5 library is supposed to be compatible. With the Advanced Advanced Players Handbook coming out at only the 5 year mark.

Umm, you realise that Paizo's release schedule is pretty close to TSR's of the 90's right? If you do a side by side comparison, I believe that Paizo is actually producing more gaming materials per month than TSR did. The idea that Paizo has a "slow" release schedule hasn't been true for a couple of years now.

 

[Jester David]

Really? What massively overpowered options came out for 4e? What in 4e could compare to the Complete Elves Handbook or the original Unearthed Arcana in terms of broken mechanics?

The amount if errata for the PHB1 makes that the most broken book.
But I think it was around Martial Power 2 that I put a delay on new books being used by my party until the errata was issued. The problem wasn't a single book but the regularity of updates. They couldn't catch all the errors in the books because they were being written too fast.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Really? What massively overpowered options came out for 4e? What in 4e could compare to the Complete Elves Handbook or the original Unearthed Arcana in terms of broken mechanics?

Broken means "does not work". It does not have to mean overpowered. I would consider the monk, and 3.0's psion broken, even though they were both generally weak, plus that class (binder?) that used ridiculous skill DCs for spellcasting. I know it was possible to have an overpowered 3.0 psion too, so that class was basically broken in both directions. I'd say the same thing about the summoner and gunslinger for Pathfinder, although both of those are broken in the overpowered direction.

Given 4e's emphasis on numerical balance, it's rather difficult to put out ridiculously overpowered material in 4e. At least you're not likely to have the equivalent of unstoppable save DCs. (Well, see Orb of Imposition, pre-errata...) But the math is tight, so anything that gives a substantial bonus is already pushing in the overpowered direction. (See avenger or monk, taking Unarmored Agility feat because they forgot to prevent that.)

A lot of the books had weak options instead. The bladesinger, which I regard as actually broken (can't fill it's role, doesn't seem to know what it's role is) and the broken vampire class (you have a PC who only gets 2 healing surges, or 4 with the now required feat, and must use their blood-draining ability each fight, and also cannot walk around in the day due to the whole being a vampire thing), plus numerous classes (runepriest, seeker).

Weak class variants (example grappling fighter) that are weak in their role and often miss out on the basics. (The grappling fighter doesn't seem to have an ability to stop an enemy from being slid out of your grasp, or anything to prevent the fighter from being slid away from whoever is being grappled, plus the calculations to give them an effective unarmed attack bonus don't make sense. I had one for a couple of sessions, and found I had to throw out their whole attack bonus system and come up with a sensible one.)

The amount if errata for the PHB1 makes that the most broken book.

Do you mean it was broken because it needed errata, or that the errata broke it?

 

[Jeff Carlsen]

Umm, you realise that Paizo's release schedule is pretty close to TSR's of the 90's right? If you do a side by side comparison, I believe that Paizo is actually producing more gaming materials per month than TSR did. The idea that Paizo has a "slow" release schedule hasn't been true for a couple of years now.

That's mostly true, but with an important difference. Most of what Paizo publishes are adventures and setting material for Golarion. It's a much more focused set of product lines.

The hardcover books are released at a rather slow rate. The combination reduces the feeling of glut.

 

[Mercurius]

In bits and pieces of various posts in this thread my thoughts have already been expressed, but there are a couple things I'd like to add.

First of all, with regards to "glut" its all relative (no need to get hostile to the OP for use of the word in a way that you disagree with). 2e might have had the worst glut, but 3e was pretty bad, and 4e was "gluttonous" compared to Pathfinder. Paizo seems to have stumbled upon the perfect formula: a nice big meaty hardcover once every few months. Even if WotC increases that to 1/2 months, I think the ongoing trend of "less is more" will continue into 5e.

That said, sometime was lost for me with 4e's supplemental hardcovers. Most of them - especially the Power books, the PHBs, and Player Options - mainly seemed like filler, the useful bits of which ended upon Character Builder anyhow. 4e didn't really see the publication of interesting variants like Magic of Incarnum or Weapons of Legacy.

Not every feat, power, spell, or magic item needs to be published, especially with a good online suite of tools. In fact, if I was WotC I'd hold off on Adventurer's Vault type books for a few years until you've got a ton of good material, and then publish one giant book rather than three hardcovers over four years (AV 1 and 2 plus Mordenkainen's Magnificient Emporium).

The same with powers, classes, races, feats, etc. Put that stuff online and then compile the best of it when it seems necessary.

But key to this approach is making the core books more comprehensive. If I remember correctly, one of the biggest beefs with the 4e PHB as the lack of "second string" classes and races like druids and gnomes. These should be in the first 5e PHB.

The other thing I wanted to bring up is to echo the point that no matter what WotC does, they're going to alienate some folks. I think its pretty clear they realize it, but also that they're committed to trying to please as many folks as they reasonably can. I'd like to take their expressed design goals at face value and remind everyone that D&D is, still, a game produced by fans for fans - even though WotC is owned by Hasbro. Mike Mearls and the supporting cast are D&D players. They aren't Wallstreet stock brokers who are trying to pull one over on us.

This also means that as much as they should have their ear to the ground, so to speak, to see what lives in the community, they should also pour themselves into making the type of game that they themselves want to play. I've always loved that advice for writers that could be applied to any creative endeavor: write the book that you'd want to read. That's how great art comes about.

 

[delericho]

Thoughts?

WotC is a fully-owned subsidiary of Hasbro. It is almost unthinkable that Hasbro would go under, and it certainly won't have anything to do with WotC or D&D.

As for whether WotC are making bad decisions with D&D... I'll leave that to others to call. There have been some things that I've thought are brilliant, there have been some that have been just short of literal facepalm moments. I really hope, though, that 5e does spectacularly well - I think we're all better off if it does than not (and that even includes Paizo, who are WotC's biggest competitors).

Finally: D&D is at far more risk from Hasbro than from any other danger. And not even, necessarily, out of malice - all it would take is one sales contraction, one exec declaring "anything not making $50m a year gets canned..." and it's done. But there's no great indication that that's likely... of course, I doubt we'd actually see it coming.

 

[ExploderWizard]

So long as D&D is marketed and managed as a "brand" first and foremost, there will be issues with the rpg that will never be resolved.