Rumors of this has circulated a number of years back, especially when WotC first acquired D&D. We thought it'd never happened and lashed at those who prophesied it would happen.
And it has. What's with D&D reduced to using cards like MtG? And now all these board games being released...BOARD GAMES!? Have we dumbed things down that much? Has D&D really lost its entire base and embraced the Mountain Dew/WoW crowd?
I fear for D&D as a whole. How do we get it sold to a more proper company (and not corporation) that will make the game for the sake of the game and not uber-profit?
Someone like...TSR was...minus the bankruptcy and random splat books issue.
WotC...I didn't want to believe you'd run this game into the ground, but I am seeing the signs myself. Please, sell it off. You're not going to make Blizzard's money with D&D. Ever. I mean, come on, rookie Paizo tied with you in sales. And, yet, you have the all-time famous TTRPG in the world to compete with and still nearly got wiped.
Sad times indeed.
1. I love card and board games. There is nothing to this claim that board games represent the dumbing down of a hobby. Have you played any of the Warhammer board games? How about any of the wave of German board games that have come out over the last 15 years? These are complex and interesting and fun. Importantly, they can be played in 30 minute to 3 hour blocks, don't require much prep time, and don't require any sort of player continuity over sessions. They scratch a different itch than a d&d campaign or serve as a substitute for people who can't run/play in d&d games regularly.
2. I like WoW. There is nothing wrong with liking WoW. I don't understand the need to use WoW as an invective. It is a silly, self-defeating proclivity of "nerds" to scorn those who have other, equally "nerdy" hobbies. Star Trek fans bash Star Wars. Tabletop role players look down on LARPers. Video game enthusiasts look down on board game enthusiasts. War gamers look down on role players. Whatever. We have so much in common yet we squabble like sectarians. How about a unified front?
3. It isn't even a good argument to claim d&d has become just like WoW since the advent of 4e. Roles are pretty much the only thing that 4e in particular has in common with WoW and those were present in MMOs before WoW. Pretty much every other similarity is the result of WoW consciously drawing on previous versions of D&D for class abilities and styles. Furthermore, asking what a class (or adventurer) contributes to an adventuring party is quite reasonable. Clerics were always, "leaders," even if we hadn't articulated the category yet. Likewise, rogues were always, "strikers." A lot of other classes had more ambiguous purpose. The people behind 4e set about to make sure that each class had something to add in combat and that that class could not render the rest of the party redundant. Then they gave each contribution type an easy to understand label. It is certainly reasonable to debate whether classes should be nested within roles (as in early 4e) or vice versa (as in the essentials line).That is a different topic though.
4. I am sorry you don't like the direction d&d is headed (I have worries as well) but it is not right to argue that those who work at WotC are therefore motivated by nothing but destructive greed. Some of the developers/designers post here. They are good guys and they clearly love this game. You have to love gaming to work in the gaming industry; it is not glamorous or high paying and there is very high turn-over. You might not like what they created but don't impugn their motives.
5. That said, the search for profit is always going to be part of the gaming industry. We'd all love it if we had designer slaves working in our basements to construct gaming systems to our idiosyncratic specifications. I'd love it if out of sheer joy and magnanimity Mike Mearls came to my house one day to construct D&D the ppaladin123 edition. But gaming companies need to pay printers and artists and game designers, and these people need food, clothing and shelter. Less profit means less money for releases, less money to hire talent, fewer maps, few pictures, less support. The market for tabletop rpgs isn't particularly large. WotC needs to capture as much of that market as it can and do what it can to expand the market as well. That means creating things they believe most gamers will like (even if you in particular don't like them). In that regard 4e may have been a miscalculation; I don't have data to assess that claim. Even if you dislike the 4e ruleset, you should root for its success. Anything that grows the base of gamers is a good thing. Anything that helps keep the term, "dungeons and dragons" fresh in public consciousness is a good thing.
6. Luckily even in this tiny market there is some room for niche games/systems. You may not be able to find a system that is exactly to your liking but I bet you can find something that you can house rule into acceptability. You want a game built purely out of love? Build it using the enormous selection of parts with which you have been provided.
