D&D 5E Should D&D be marketed like Coke, Ketchup, or Spaghetti Sauce?

[Hussar]

The existence of D&D Encounters and the other increased organized play options that came with 4e -- and that were pushed in a Big Way -- lends some credence to the idea that this was the RPGA Edition.

And yeah, color me shocked that what worked for Organized Play didn't work for Jimbo's Home Game, and that things that were issues in Organized Play weren't even issues for Jimbo and his table.

But a lot of folks who aren't RPGA members also embraced the changes in 4e, so sometimes it seems that what's good for one is good for another. Maybe just not good for enough folks, in the long run....hmm...

Yeah, I think that's the long and the short of it. For me, it did fit. I liked the solutions that they proposed. But, then again, I've been so long without a stable group (the current one is probably the longest running I've had since high school and it's still around 4 years old) that a number of the 4e solutions to issues worked for me. I've had to stay so close to rules as written for so long because it would be such a PITA to constantly have to go through a shopping list of house rules for the new guy at my table almost every single month.

Never mind that most groups evolve a lot of those house rules more or less unconsciously. They're never written down because it just isn't an issue.

You may be right that this was the intent.

Certainly a philosophy that I would never accept.

I dunno. For groups that aren't that stable, it's not a bad philosophy. When you have a new player at your table every fourth session, having to explain for the ten thousandth time that you do things this way becomes really, really frustrating. Also, there are a ton of failed games out there and failed groups. The idea behind standardising the experience to some degree is to reduce the number of more egregious games out there. Following the 4e DMG might not result in the greatest game ever, but, it will result in a good, fun game. Which hopefully keeps players coming back.

And, let's not forget, that there was supposed to be a 3d virtual gaming table available over Xbox Live which never materialised. Again, if the online play option had gotten off the ground, then you'd see a LOT more groups playing in a more Organized Play vein. The murder of the lead on the virtual tabletop project really threw a spanner in the works. Plus a legal battle with Atari over rights to develop the VTT didn't help either.

There were a lot more things contributing to 4e's problems than the mechanics.

 

[delericho]

Also, there are a ton of failed games out there and failed groups. The idea behind standardising the experience to some degree is to reduce the number of more egregious games out there. Following the 4e DMG might not result in the greatest game ever, but, it will result in a good, fun game.

Lots of good points in that post. In addition to the above, standardising the game also makes it easier for new DMs to run a good, fun game. Sure, we probably don't need that help, since so many of us have been running games since forever, but a new kid who's never run a game before probably has a better chance with 4e (especially if he sticks to the DMG as you suggest) than with many other editions - and certainly than with either 3.5e or Pathfinder.

 

[Hussar]

Lots of good points in that post. In addition to the above, standardising the game also makes it easier for new DMs to run a good, fun game. Sure, we probably don't need that help, since so many of us have been running games since forever, but a new kid who's never run a game before probably has a better chance with 4e (especially if he sticks to the DMG as you suggest) than with many other editions - and certainly than with either 3.5e or Pathfinder.

And that's totally not meant as a knock on 3e. But, if you actually sat down with the 3e DMG and tried to follow the advice in there to create a campaign, you'd be spending a LOT of hours doing a bunch of work that you probably don't need to be doing as a new DM. It's not exactly the friendliest guide to DMing out there.

Like I said, you might not run the world's bestest game following the advice in the 4e DMG, but, it will be a fun game. And, really, I think that's the best you can hope for from a new DM.

 

[delericho]

And that's totally not meant as a knock on 3e.

Absolutely. I considered saying something to that effect in my post, but assumed my pro-3e biases are well known by now.

But, if you actually sat down with the 3e DMG and tried to follow the advice in there to create a campaign, you'd be spending a LOT of hours doing a bunch of work that you probably don't need to be doing as a new DM. It's not exactly the friendliest guide to DMing out there.

Agreed. There's a lot I like about the 3.5e DMG, but it's from the standpoint of an experienced DM. For a new DM, it's significantly worse than the 4e version, that the 3.5e DMGII, and probably than the DM's booklet in the BECMI Red Box.

I'm not the biggest fan of the 4e DMG. In fact, it had virtually nothing of use to me. But you're absolutely right that it is almost ideal for new DMs, and certainly provides enough guidance to run an at-least-competent game - a foundation from which new DMs can readily build from. In that regard, it is excellent.

 

[Ahnehnois]

I dunno. For groups that aren't that stable, it's not a bad philosophy. When you have a new player at your table every fourth session, having to explain for the ten thousandth time that you do things this way becomes really, really frustrating.

Not saying that it isn't a pain to introduce new people, but I find that it's really important to be clear and talking about how you run the rules really helps get everyone's expectations on the same level. To me, a DM's houserule package is the first way I have of evaluating that DM. If he just says "I run D&D, the way it is in the books" that is not helpful. All of us do that. And none of us do.

Nor would I want to try and kill off the diversity in gaming styles that makes this necessary.

Also, there are a ton of failed games out there and failed groups. The idea behind standardising the experience to some degree is to reduce the number of more egregious games out there. Following the 4e DMG might not result in the greatest game ever, but, it will result in a good, fun game. Which hopefully keeps players coming back.

I always thought that what kept players coming back was the sense of autonomy and self-determination that one not only rarely gets in life, we rarely even get in our entertainment. If I want the best story or the most tactical gameplay, tabletop rpgs are pretty much always going to lose to novels and films or wargames and FPS's. What makes D&D special is precisely that it isn't standardized.

 

[Thaumaturge]

But, since almost all the play testing for 4e was done through the RPGA, I hazard a guess that that had a huge impact. Also, if you look at how 4e resolves a number of issues - removing a lot of the problematic elements that require DM intervention for example, like removing long term charm effects, illusion effects, summoning and polymorph - these are all big issues in Organized Play that can be resolved at a table many times simply through gentlemen's agreement.

I wholeheartedly agree. Since the beginning of 4e, this has been my perspective. It even matches my enjoyment of the edition—I struggled to enjoy 4e in home campaigns, and really enjoyed the Dark Sun and LFR stuff I played.

There were a lot of weaknesses for 3e in an organized play environment that 4e fixed. Character flexibility, for instance. A pick up group has to worry about the guy who made the mostly ineffective bard/druid/monk (a real thing I've really seen) not pulling his own weight in 3e. In 4e every character is very similarly effective, more or less.

In home campaigns "every class feels the same" is a bug. In organized play, it's a feature.

Thaumaturge.

 

[Jester David]

D&D isn't a food. It's an IP based franchise like TV or movies.

Said much of this before but I'll repeat.
You can do a whole lot of different things to Bond, making him more or less comedic, more or less sociopathic, more or less womanizing, more or less grounded in reality, and more or less dark haired. MGM owns the rights, they can do whatever they want with Bond. If they want Bond to be an effete black man or an overweight hispanic woman then that will officially be the new Bond. And it could work. But if you change one element that much, to sell it has a Bond movie everything else has to be that much more Bond.
But if you drift too much away from the core elements of "Bond" the harder it will be to recognise the character. You can cast a blond thug, or make the movies science fiction, or drift away from the source books. But if you go too far the franchise becomes indistinct, too much like another spy movie franchise, which there are no shortage of.

At best this is like New Coke. Because if you change D&D too much it just becomes a generic RPG with a familiar name. And there's plenty of other Colas on the market. Although, this is more complicated as there are established varieties of "Coke" out there. You have the Cherry Coke of 3e and the New Coke of 4e. There is some diversity. But each vending machine will only stock one or two, to leave room for non-Coke beverages for people who hate cola.

 

[billd91]

Even if that were true, it would also reflect that organized games aren't being played by the rules of D&D so much as the rules of the RPGA. There are a lot of limitations in play and the characters and campaigns are standardized in a way that normal play is not. That type of play could hardly be considered representative of what happens outside that setting.

It's not that they're not (or weren't) playing by the rules of D&D. They certainly were - in more of a literal sense than most home games will play because that's the common standard between all tables. The additional rules laid down by Living Greyhawk and other organized play groups are primarily the specific house rules that the average campaign will use writ large and codified so that the campaign standards can be applied at multiple tables by multiple DMs instead of at a single table by a single DM. As far as being representative of what kinds of play occur outside the organized play settings - it is and it isn't. There are plenty of campaigns that, I'm sure, follow similar guidelines of what to ban or restrict. Yet DMs in the organized play system aren't given as much freedom as they have outside the system in order to facilitate a common style of play across numerous scratch-built tables.

There were aspects of organized play that can deviate substantially from other home campaigns. The format really pushes certain types of encounters over others. With a 4-5 hour duration, no idea who is going to come to the table, and varying strengths of numerous DMs, the adventures tend toward relatively easy to run, short, and non-complex encounters that need to focus more heavily on rules and set situations than on on-the-fly creativity and improv. And that means... combat encounters rule the roost, as do combat powers and abilities. Combat may take a while, it may even grind if the dice are cold and players indecisive. But rules are relatively clear to adjudicate and everyone can move about and try to do stuff. Role playing the bluff of the derro slaver so he thinks you're a representative of his superiors and he should turn his slaves over to you (so you can rescue them) - that may take time and a clever tongue on the part of the player and DM to keep the encounter from being a pointless die roll. And, let's face it, not every player-DM combo is up to that. So, of course, those encounters are generally fewer and farther between than the encounters where you beat up a monster or two in weird terrain (just to spice things up).

To hit on the New Coke analogy in a slightly different way - when the scope of your survey is a taste test, you come up with different conclusions about what is the successful strategy for the future than if you do a more thorough examination of what you've got going for you. Coca Cola's taste tests showed New Coke beating Pepsi... and the previous Coke formula. But that little slice of success ignored how people feel about drinking a whole can rather than a small sip. It ignored other aspects of the Coke brand like Coke being explicitly different from Pepsi, having a long history of being the way it was, and the whole brand identity of its customers. If WotC did, in fact, rely too heavily on RPGA and organized play to inform its strategy for 4e, it falls into a similar trap - focus on a particular style of play built around combat encounters, spicing up combat encounters, balancing PCs for combat encounters, relying on rules for adjudication of events, sweeping away the messy aspects of DMing things that are ambiguous like charms and illusions, and so on.

 

[Ahnehnois]

It's not that they're not (or weren't) playing by the rules of D&D. They certainly were - in more of a literal sense than most home games will play because that's the common standard between all tables.

Yes. That is what I meant. The rules of D&D are certainly part of OP.

To hit on the New Coke analogy in a slightly different way - when the scope of your survey is a taste test, you come up with different conclusions about what is the successful strategy for the future than if you do a more thorough examination of what you've got going for you.

A good analogy. The thought in my head was (predictably) medical. Drugs and other treatments sometimes fare differently in clinical trials than in real life because the patients and the practice are standardized in a way that most medical care is not. Same deal.

 

[Celebrim]

Well, I fully agree with 4e was the RPGA edition of the game theory.

I'd note if it hasn't been mentioned before is that the 'Skill Challenge' rules are clearly intended to standardize play in noncombat situations, particular in standardizing how DMs communicate noncombat situations to players so that 'standard designs' could be included in a module with the expectation that every table would play somewhat similarly - at least as similarly as any two tables approach the same combat.

My take on the above otherwise (I think) spot on discussion is that the simplications demanded by people steeped in organized play weren't necessarily the things which would have made the game more accessible to new DMs.

If they were, then it would argue that skirmished based minature war gaming is just right about to break out into the mainstream - something that it didn't do even before D&D, computers, etc.

Needing a tight set of skirmish rules is something that the RPGA needs and which is highly attractive to the RPGA and a certain slice of the grognard community. It's not in my opinion something that drags new groups into gaming, or inspires young GMs. For one thing, all those minatures add a lot of overhead to the cost of getting into a game. It's not clear to me what you do to bring new people into the hobby much less a particular game, but it is clear to me that PnP RPGs primarily spread by what is called in other contexts discipleship or mentoring. People start playing RPGs because someone they know is playing RPGs and invites them into the game - not because of game marketing. RPG hobbyists multiply when that new person starts their own game and invites friends into it. I'm fairly sure the boom in the late 70's is largely a game experience transferred from older to young sibling and family. It may well be that as much as anything what stiffled the PnP hobby beyond the occult scare (which beyond killing it as a mainstream movement would have disrupted transmission of the hobby to new younger players) was the end of the baby boom itself. The social connections between older and younger players withered not just in the hobby, but across society generally.

Whatever method you use to sell your game IMO must involve convincing players to become Game Masters. Reducing the cost of becoming a GM - whether in monatary costs or preperation costs - is only part of that equation. You must also increase the rewards of being a GM in some fashion. I coudln't help by feel that 3.5e and 4e tended to be GM hostile rather than encouraging.

I also wonder if by the same theory, the fact that we may now be reaching a point where the communication of the hobby between parents and children might partially replace cousin/sibling to younger cousin/sibling transmission. The children of the 80's are now increasingly parents themselves might create a mini-boom in the hobby quite irrespective of the marketing or rules sets.