RSDancey replies to Goodman article (Forked Thread: Goodman rebuttal)

[xechnao]

How much of the casual gamer audience should they attempt to reach out to?

100%
This does not mean that they should make an inferior or less fun game. If this is what you are afraid of I would say that the game could absolutely be even better and more fun than what there is now.

From the design of 4E, whether explicitly or implicitly, WotC may have possibly been trying to reach out to the MMORPG crowd. Though how successful they have been so far, is unknown.

I would say they have been trying to reach as many a pocket of the hardcore gamer crowd. Optimized board-minis game, digitally enhancable through a subscription service and still running on the most familiar old fashioned style of rulebooks and setting books.

If I was a kid today and went straight to MMORPGs like WoW, I don't know if I would even be attracted to pen and paper rpgs. Pen-and-paper rpgs may seem quite quaint in comparison to WoW, especially for kids with very short (or zero) attention spans.

I believe you. This is why the game should be build for short or let me say casual attention spans. Rules that are build to make creativity come out as naturally as possible in the tabletop environment.

 

[ggroy]

I believe you. This is why the game should be build for short or let me say casual attention spans. Rules that are build to make creativity come out as naturally as possible in the tabletop environment.

In that case, would the D&D miniatures games be viable as an rpg-lite game for casual gamers?

It would be interesting to see how well the D&D miniatures games sold, relative to the core D&D books.

 

[Mallus]

If that were the case, we'd expect to see declining league sports as well. Anybody got information on that?

You mean participatory league sports like softball and ultimate? All I've got is anecdotes , but yes, for the majority of my friends and co-workers, time spent on group/team hobby pursuits decreased throughout their 20s and 30s as career and family responsibilities increased.

Solitary hobby pursuits, or at least ones that don't require the coordination of several people's crowded schedules, saw less of a decrease.

 

[Alikar]

Reading this post and some others makes me think that Wotc has failed strategically with D&D on the tabletop arena. It has failed to make a product that helps and inspires people to closely live fantastic adventures with their friends.

Well darn I guess I'll have to tell my party of a Vampiric Genie who rides a giant lizard and seeks dark knowledge in hopes of a brighter future, a sea born artificier whose on a quest to survive a group of assassins and revenge his fathers death, a middle aged elf who is still searching for his fallen lost love after 200 years of failed attempts, and the savage dark elf who is looking for the truth behind the destruction of her home city, that they can't infiltrate the one of the cities highest connected dancers in the search for a stolen statue, which was promised for a Merchant daughter's wedding. After all Wotc failed to make a game that inspired people...

 

[thecasualoblivion]

Anybody else think large portions of this conversation sound like the old criticisms of D&D during the 2E era by indie RPG people, with 4E representing D&D and anti-4E representing the indie RPG community of the 90's?

The more things change the more things stay the same.

 

[coyote6]

It would be interesting to see how well the D&D miniatures games sold, relative to the core D&D books.

DDM the game is dead, but the RPG is still going, and now DDM the minis are sold solely* as support for the RPG. To me, that implies that the minis game didn't sell well, or at least the profit margin wasn't as good, when compared to the RPG.

*Though I believe there are efforts to provide DDM stats for new figures; but I think that's pretty much a fan-based continuation of the game, and thus not much different than people posting new stuff for Star Frontiers or Deadlands Classic.

It's possible that the RPG sells worse/has a worse profit margin than the minis, but WotC keeps it around simply because they like the game, and want it to continue.

 

[Mallus]

This is why the game should not try to appeal to its traditional fandom but try to be an attraction for everyone, in other words the casual gamer.

Who is a casual gamer in the context of role-playing games? The only meaningful definition I can come up with is a spouse and/or friend who plays RPG's for purely social reasons (ie, they like the people, not the game).

Also, I'm suspicious of calls to ignore the traditional fan base. Should operas be more like Broadway musicals?

 

[thecasualoblivion]

DDM the game is dead, but the RPG is still going, and now DDM the minis are sold solely* as support for the RPG. To me, that implies that the minis game didn't sell well, or at least the profit margin wasn't as good, when compared to the RPG.

*Though I believe there are efforts to provide DDM stats for new figures; but I think that's pretty much a fan-based continuation of the game, and thus not much different than people posting new stuff for Star Frontiers or Deadlands Classic.

It's possible that the RPG sells worse/has a worse profit margin than the minis, but WotC keeps it around simply because they like the game, and want it to continue.

The problem with DDM was on the production end. Costs for producing the line were increasing beyond what the line could sustain in its previous form. They are charging a lot more per mini now, but they've changed the model to serve the RPG people better. People were buying DDM for RPG use at an order of magnitude greater than people buying them to play the skirmish game.

 

[Mallus]

The problem I see with 4e's combat philosophy -which is built around a board game environment: rpgames should be dynamic games. Everchanging games. 4e combat philosophy is totally different. It is build on the encounter idea. Each combat is one full encounter.

If the game world --and the fictional people in it-- reacts to the player's actions, if there's some degree of narrative cause and effect, the game is 'dynamic'. The mechanical framework used for combat has nothing to with it.

I'm not clear on how you're using the word 'dynamic'.

 

[xechnao]

In that case, would the D&D miniatures games be viable as an rpg-lite game for casual gamers?

It would be interesting to see how well the D&D miniatures games sold, relative to the core D&D books.

The DDminiatures is not a rpgame. It is a miniatures game. The D&D rpgame should stop being a minis game and see how it can focus on fantasy roleplaying period. Not fantasy roleplaying using miniatures. Today things are so competitive, time runs so fast that more than ever an industry really has to focus on its primary element and reach excelency if it wants to survive in the mass market.