D&D 4E The Business of 4ed Part I: The Problem

[Psion]

I hope it all works out. I really do. The success of the industry depends upon the success of D&D. While I only plan on buying the PHB, MM1 and DMG, I hope I am joined by gazillions of others.

(shrug)

I hope it fails. Not because I'm not particularly fond of what I am hearing (but I'm not), nor because I think it will fail (I don't), but because if it fails, that makes it much more likely that the IP will be more likely to pass on to someone who will treat is with a bit more respect than Hasbro.

I don't think a faltering D&D edition will kill the industry. It would give competitors a chance to shine and grow. That's what happened in the late 2e era.

 

[Stormtower]

Which touches upon another question I've been wondering about.

I've been playing D&D for 22 years. Long enough for some "grognard" cred, I think. I've spent tons of money on D&D over the years; D&D BECM, AD&D 1st, AD&D 2nd, D&D3e and even other TSR games.

I'm ready to embrace 4e as yet another option to run at the table. WotC aint losing my 22 years of GMing experience, and neither will it lose that of my friends, some who have been playing for close to 30 years.

Which leads up to my question; is a grognard automatically hostile to the game? And if so, what do we call those GMs who have spend a fortune on the game, who have been playing for for than 20 years, and who are positive to the development of the game?

And perhaps more importantly; how many of us are there, compared to what is normally characterised as a grognard?

/M

To my mind, a grognard is NOT automatically hostile to the game. I'm in that middle space of wanting to see D&D grow and succeed, but feeling personally like WotC is moving in a different direction than I am comfortable with. I am neither hostile to D&D (I started in '83 with B/X) nor to WotC as a company. Rather, I have surveyed the landscape and found it a good moment - for me - to step off the planned obsolescence treadmill.

Which, incidentally, Cadfan makes a good point about. Planned obsolescence isn't going away. 5e will be here in 7-8 years or less. 6e after that, etc. The folks embracing 4e probably understand and welcome this cycle, viewing it as a natural evolution of the game.

Why not just play both? Play 4e for RPGA and learn the system to help spread the game's culture while keeping a nice houseruled 3.5/OGL game for the hope campaign in perpetuity. Good question... here's my answer. For myself, I disagree with the direction of the fluff and the departure from a pure "buy it once" PnP model with the DI. It's the DI that really is the dealbreaker for me, coupled with the departure from what my players and I consider some sacred D&D tropes. Add the fact that we have literally years of good 3.5/OGL stuff to play through, and it's a simple decision.

So Maggan, to put it in your terms, WotC is losing my 20+ years of DM skills, but I'll still be an ambassador for tabletop RPGs and the D&D game as we (my players and I) define it. That seems to be one defining attribute of "grognards": we insist on defining the D&D game for ourselves regardless of current industry trends, or sometimes in spite of them. One becomes a grognard - player or DM - when the current game changes enough to create the perception that the gaming experience one wants is no longer available through the latest version.

Now, I'm a lucky rat-bastard DM in that three of my players are also extended family/tribe and we all live under the same roof... so I'm guaranteed to always have three eager players. Grognard DMs need grognard players to survive in their edition of choice... were I lacking such players, you know I'd be switching because DMs eventually always go where the players are, and that's mostly to the edition du jour.

 

[Daztur]

I was one of the "buy to support the game" people. I bought plenty of books which I thought were crap even before opening the cover. For the sake of a complete collection, and because I was hurt badly when TSR went under. Somehow, I still thought I was benefitting from these books.

Now, since the game is made hostile to me even before anything is published by a small coterie of unfriendly fanatics, who will spit on us whatever we do or say, why should I go on supporting THEIR game by spending MY hard-won money on THEIR fun ?

Seems like you're taking things a bit personally. At some point you've got to get away from all the idiocy on the internet. If the rules would be fun for your gaming group buy them, if they're not don't.

the fact none of their snippets or releases has has been in the least exciting

None? In the least? Wow.

The impression I get is they are dumbing down the game to get more players

Well personally I play mostly melee characters and anything that is a move away from roll to hit roll for damage repeat is something that makes my personal gameplay more complex. *shrugs*

I don't think a faltering D&D edition will kill the industry

Well financially the industry is already in serious trouble and its getting worse, its already in a bit of a death spiral as it is...

Why not just play both? Play 4e for RPGA and learn the system to help spread the game's culture while keeping a nice houseruled 3.5/OGL game for the hope campaign in perpetuity.

Personally I just don't like 3.5 mechanics. I'd take OD&D over 1-3ed at this point and think that using it for the simplier stuff and 4ed for the flashier stuff will be a good balance for me (with some indie stuff thrown in as well).

 

[pemerton]

The impression I get is they are dumbing down the game to get more players.

Obviously the designers think the changes to the game will attract more players. But I don't understand why anyone would describe them as "dumbing down". The character build mechanics will be, if anything, more intricate, and the action resolution mechanics definitely so (because of the introduction of per-encounter and per-day abilities for all classes).

They are making it easier to be a GM (via "points of light" to lighten the load of world-building, and by changing the monster-build rules so the GM does not have to intereact with the character build mechanics a dozen times per session) but that strikes me as intelligent design rather than dumbing down.

 

[Anti-Sean]

To be honest, I would have bought the new edition if only for collecting, but since I have an issue with the behaviour of some 4e fans, I won't.

So I really, really like this band, The Decemberists. When I went to see them in concert, there was a really annoying fan who kept drunkenly shouting for them to play one particular song. Should I stop buying their albums and seeing them in concert because of her behavior?

"Our way or no way" is hardly the means to make friends and influence people. But I suspect this attitude goes farther than just on the boards and it extends to the gaming table as well.

I keep hearing that 4e will have nicer rules for instance, which'll be easier to learn. I am willing to believe this. But if I have to stand again two hours of rules discussion in the middle a swordstrike as two rule lawyers argue to no end over the book as they want to see THEIR vision of 4e prevail in the game, I am not interested.

I keep remembering that at a time DRAGON was publishing a lot of stuff like PRCs, and I remember some gamers angrily rebuking the players wanting to use them, and insulting the DM on the way when he agreed to. They then adopted the same classes without a thought as soon as they were republished in hardback and refused to acknowledge their previous behaviour.

Judging from what I read daily, I have the feeling that 4e is the next excuse to generate more of the same, and I will not support this "I am the only one in charge" power trip by adhering to this new edition.

I don't stand around being bossed in real life, even in work, so why should I in my gaming life ?

Why should I spend any amount of my precious limited leisure time with that kind of people ?.

Behavior like this has existed throughout all editions of D&D, and will persist throughout any and all editions of D&D in the future. Poor social skills are neither created nor enabled by any particular game, but by the behavior of the individual and the reactions of those around them. If you don't like how someone behaves in your game, you can bring it to their attention and attempt to get them to change their behavior, or you can play with someone else. I fail to see how this has anything to do with 4E in particular.

Otherwise, "Grognard" is not a term that I think anybody voluntariy chose at first, unless I'm mistaken, it's more something of a label that people put on you. Kinda racist slang.

Are you honestly trying to equate the term 'grognard' with racial slurs? That sort of over the top hyperbole renders any valid point you might be trying to make completely null and void.

 

[Varianor Abroad]

Well financially the industry is already in serious trouble and its getting worse, its already in a bit of a death spiral as it is...

Can you point to a source with hard numbers on this please?

The industry as defined as third party publishers is struggling yes. The industry as defined as Wizards? Appears to be doing just fine. Roleplaying now is stronger than ever. Just look at the numbers of conventions out there. It was a desert a few years ago.

 

[Mark Hope]

Which leads up to my question; is a grognard automatically hostile to the game?

Not automatically, no. At least, not where I am concerned. I've been playing for 25 years now - not as long as some, but long enough to class myself as a grognard. I'm happy to stick with 3e (or earlier editions, if there's a game going). I'm not convinced that I need to switch to 4e and there's little in the previews that interests me (not nothing, just little). But I don't wish 4e ill. I hope it sells like hotcakes and folks have plenty fun playing it. I'm just able to recognise that I am not one of them. Good luck to those who want to go for it. I'll be here on my porch to swap tall tales of the tarrasque at the end of play, whatever the game.

 

[JamesM]

Are you honestly trying to equate the term 'grognard' with racial slurs? That sort of over the top hyperbole renders any valid point you might be trying to make completely null and void.

I can't speak for the original poster's intent, but I suspect what he meant is that the term "grognard" gets thrown around unthinkingly a lot as a way to label people whose ideas about D&D one does not like or agree with. It's a term of derision and scorn, much like racial epithets. I doubt his intention was to equate them in some moral calculus, but the point remains: when discussion reaches the point where derogatory terms are being thrown about, you're reaching an impasse. A lot of old schoolers may have, as they say, appropriated the term grognard and made it their own, but most people who use it intend it to have a negative connotation -- a close-minded Old Believer who's not hip to these modern times.

 

[JamesM]

Roleplaying now is stronger than ever. Just look at the numbers of conventions out there. It was a desert a few years ago.

I think it's probably fair to say that roleplaying, as a hobby, is stronger than it's been in some time, which is a good thing, but it's certainly not stronger than ever. If one compares it to its true heyday in the late 70s through mid-80s, this is nothing. 3E initiated a revival in roleplaying, bringing a lot of people who'd fallen away from the hobby back into it, but I suspect it's hyperbole to suggest it introduced many new people to gaming, at least not enough to staunch the flow of blood on a permanent basis.

This is not a mass market hobby anymore and no new edition of the game, no matter how genuinely good it is, will change that reality. Short of some unexpected fad, as we've seen several times, there's no way to bring about a true rebirth for roleplaying. It'd be folly to build a business on the presumption that one can catch lightning in a bottle on command.

 

[Glyfair]

Roleplaying now is stronger than ever. Just look at the numbers of conventions out there. It was a desert a few years ago.

I'll submit a theory on this.

We know that hobby gaming stores have been dropping like flies. From comments here, it also seems that there seem to be more of them that aren't even bothering with RPGs at all, or at a very token level.

Given that loss, it might be that some of these conventions have sprung up to replace the gaming stores as a place to meet gamers.