The Escapist on D&D Past, Present, and Future

[GreyLord]

The problem with the article is it seems to be written by a 3e hardcore...maybe a 3e hardcore turned Pathfinder fanatic.

It's not a bad article, but definately flavored against everything but the 3.X series of games.

In the first article I can find many things the old gamers who didn't care for 3e could take issue with. It takes many liberties by accepting gossip and falsehoods, normally spread by people who could gain from such falsehoods (for example often ignored by these people is that core 2e made money till the day it ended overall from it's lifespan from start to end...at least the core books. Other items...such as certain dice products...and other misc. sucked the money right out of the company though...things like that don't seem to be considered by those who like to try to say 2e was a losing proposition).

It could be argued 2e lost a majority of the RPG audience...I'd argue that it was simply that the FAD died by the end of the 80s. 2e failed to recapture the nostalgia of all those people.

3e DID AS WELL. All 3e did was gain the disenchanted roleplayers who were still roleplaying, and gather them back into one fold. It did nothing to really gather the relapsed RPG'ers from the early and mid 80s.

And that is why I'd say the article is looking at 3e through rose tinted glasses...it has the boxing gloves off for 3e...and has them on for 4e.

It does mention those who are playing Video games today would be the audience it would have appealed to previously...but many of those gamers aren't just the WoW kids...and there in lies the problem. A majority of those who would have been the key audience in the early to mid eighties ARE playing video games...but they are playing Madden, Call of Duty, and games not seen as typical "RPG types" games. They are playing Facebook games and Fantasy Football. Though those playing WoW could be those who would be involved, a majority of those of the original audience would be involved in OTHER things other than WoW or even MMORPGs.

And this is where I take the biggest issue with the article. Gygax actually turned out to be a MUCH better CEO than I ever anticipated he would, or could be. I attribute (or blame...however you want to see it) that he was the cause of D&D gaining such fame/notoriety in the the early 80s. It was his ideas. I think he was perhaps a CEO on par with Jobs, or Gates, but in the RPG world in relation to brand management and popularizing the game.

On the otherhand, I don't see him all that great in the actual economic political arena. I don't think he was prepared with how brutal and savage business politics can be. IN fact, even though he did a work of genius at getting D&D popular and creating a fad around it...at the same time he was being uprooted and basically devastated in the politics of his own company.

That's where he differs from the above Jobs and Gates...I don't think he even had a fathom of how ruthless people can be to those they formally call friends when money is involved. He basically got his legs cut out from under him and then hounded till he was out completely.

I also think when he was gone, that was where you see the absolute turn of D&D from Western sensational fad...to a niche game...albeit still a popular one...but still a niche game.

I haven't seen a single CEO that has been in charge of D&D since Gygax that has been able to capture that sensationalism about D&D...ever.

But no one wants to admit that in relation to how the game basically covered the Western world in the early, is something they can't compete with...especially after the 3e release. These guys wanted to have D&D as THEIR game...not Gary's...they'd use Gygax as a lever to their own popularity...and even attribute his name in the books...but overall...just like a few who held the game's name before them...when push came to shove...it was ALL about themselves...and how they fixed some broken game...when in truth their "fixed" game never even came close to the sensationalistic fad that Gygax started with his upstart game long before they came into the business.

Okay...I think I'm done now.

 

[Cergorach]

I've probably played more 2E then 3(.5)E in the last 25 years. 3E was a great improvement rules wise and WotC provided high levels of 'fluff' and art, started playing before it was even released (thanks to Eric Noah). 3(.5)E wasn't perfect, certainly at higher levels things broke down. 4E is mechanically a big improvement over 3.5E, but there are other great detractors: WotC didn't support 'fluff', one campaign per year, and that only consisted of a Campaign book, a monster book, and an adventure. Presentation was lacking, I've seen better presented technical manuals that invited the reader to read more (and not less). The core setting became to magical and 'alien' at the same time through the addition of new races and every class having 'magical' abilities. Even the art wasn't all that inspiring compared to 2E/3(.5)E. I tried DMing 4E, it just couldn't grab/motivate me.

It's not just the 3.5E and Pathfinder fans that say that 4E failed, it's the sales numbers that support those views. The D&D brand has always been the strongest seller in the RPG market, now it's about as big as Pathfinder (a very new kid on the block) and on it's heels are the WFRP/40kRPGs. Sure those figures don't include everything like the D&D electronic subscriptions or the Paizo direct sales, but it gives a neat view that supports the current opinions.

D&D 4E was marketed and designed with the MMO crowd in mind, I doubt that was the only crowd they were aiming at. And the MMO games did something right, they made fantasy RPG mainstream, they did that by using pretty simple rules designs. That is something WotC wanted to hook into and rules wise they succeeded imho, the problem is that they forget to give it a heart. And comparing the move from 2E to 3E to 3.5E to 4E is comparing apples with oranges. 3(.5)E was huge and 4E fizzled (when you look at sales figures). Even the folks that initially went for 4E eventually gave up and went back to 3.5E or Pathfinder. I'm sure the reverse is also true, but if the internet is any indication, that happens far, far less.

If you think that a 'short attention span' is an indication of stupid or immature, you either feel like you belong in that group or you have absolutely no idea how people work in relation to products. I even have a shorter attention span then 20 years ago (now 35), it's not like I've become stupid or even less immature, it's other factors. One of those is the incredible amount of entertainment we've got access to. More entertainment generally means more high quality entertainment, so we can become more critical on what forms of entertainment we spent our time on. 20 years ago I was willing to spent an evening of mediocre gaming for a few great kicks, now I expect and want a whole evening of great kicks and find mediocre gaming not worth my time. Part of that is getting older, we have less time to waste on silly things like gaming and want our free time to be filled with quality entertainment. Folks have families, kids, work, etc.

We have more movies and tv series that have high quality visuals that 'wow' folks, that doesn't mean a great story, but it tends to be better then your average RPG plot. Techniques and graphics have become cheaper and more easily accessible, that also becomes apparent in video games. I currently have a backlog of 200 Steam games with an average price of $5 and includes games such as Mass Effect and Civilization, great titles for peanuts. MMOs are getting F2P, thus also getting cheaper to play. Publishing books is getting cheaper due to digital distribution. All is more easily accessible through the internet. Heck, if I compare Mass Effect 1 to my average RPG gaming night, I prefer ME1 over that average RPG gaming night. RPGs have two big advantages, it's a social event (having a 'fun' evening with friends) and it's more flexible then any computer game currently can be. The problem is that the RPGs big advantage only becomes an advantage if you have a good DM and players that take advantage of the flexibility, if you don't your better off playing a good co-op computer game in the living room.

There are also far more boardgames out there that are high quality and attract the same kind of people that like RPGs. Games such as Descent are relatively cheap, don't require huge amounts of preparation and are still a lot of fun.

I haven't played a pnp RPG in years, busy with work, friends who've started families, difficulty syncing schedules, etc. Not to mention that as a DM I want to provide an exceptional experience, things like equipment card, 3D terrain (Hirst Arts), painted miniatures, good adventure, etc. That takes a lot of prep and often feels more like work then a fun hobby...

I've got 2-3 feet of 4E books that are pretty much unused, the only thing that WotC has released since 3.5E that I've found useful is their prepainted miniatures, that saves me a lot of work. But games like Pathfinder and WFRP2E and the whole 40k series of RPGs give me so much more inspiration the D&D 4E has ever done.

And let's not get started on D&D computer games, the last great D&D RPG was imho NWN1 (2002-2006), NWN2 was decent but less so then NWN1. Daggerdale is just bad. DDO can be a fun MMO, but imho does not really feel like D&D. I shudder to think what the Heroes of Neverwinter Facebook game will become. And the Neverwinter MMO by Cryptic is going to be a crapshoot with really bad odds.

I haven't read a D&D novel in years and I read a lot... If I were to read D&D novels I would probably start with some of the older ones I didn't read at the time.

Campaign settings: What little WotC produced under 4E has been painful, another enormous shakeup in Forgotten Realms (imho they could have better just made a new setting). What they did with Darksun wasn't all that great either. I've always found Ebberon a bit 'Meh!', so I can't really comment on the treatment of that setting...

 

[ShinHakkaider]

The problem with the article is it seems to be written by a 3e hardcore...maybe a 3e hardcore turned Pathfinder fanatic.

For the record I've actually run a few games for the author more than a few years ago he was part of a short lived D&D 3.5 game I ran in midtown manhattan. I saw him again a few years ago at a few of the NY D&D Meetups and he was deep into 4E. In fact I'm pretty certain that his name is on the credits of a few 4E 3rd Party books.

Now I dont know if he fell off the 4E bandwagon later but at the time he seemed to be loving 4E. So no I dont think that he's a 3.5 die hard AT ALL. He might be a bigger fan of the OSR movement but he was definitely a 4E guy.

NOTE: Yup he's in the credits for 2 Goodman Games 4E products: FORGOTTEN HEROES - FANG, FIST and SONG & FORGOTTEN HEROES - SCYTHE and SHROUD.

 

[ShinHakkaider]

Man either people in this thread we'rent around here for the 4E transition or they have really short memories. I could have sworn there was a contingent of folks around here who were applauding the fact that the D&D 4E were going after the younger, MMORPG crowd (citing that getting new blood in hobby was more valuable than appealing to the old stawarts who have been supportting and playing in the hobby) and kind of took pleasure in the fact that the older gamers were being somewhat displaced by this new game.

A lot of accusations of "people who dont like 4E just dont like change" were thrown around just as much as "4E is just an MMORPG" was thrown around. Both statements are pretty wrongheaded. But now people are trying to say that's NOT what was going on with the D&D 4E launch? That they were not effectively saying that if you were an older player who likes 4E great hang around but we're really trying to go after a younger/different demographic?

 

[Hussar]

Just noticed a big error in the article:

Coinciding with the release of 4th edition D&D in 2008, Wizards of the Coast launched an advertising campaign that reached out to MMO players. "If you're going to sit in your basement pretending to be an elf, you should at least have some friends over to help," the text of one ad read over a shot of a bored young man in front of a computer.

Umm, those ads ran in Dragon and Dungeon long before 2008. I did a bit of Googling, and Boing Boing commented on this in 2005.

I also notice that while he does quote Collins just below with,

"the design took inspiration from many contemporary sources. "As professional game designers, we look at all games for lessons," he said last year. "Certainly, the lessons we learn from online games are going to be the most obvious ones because they have a lot of people familiar with the sources, but there's also lessons about turn management from European board games, interface ideas from card games."​

his next line is:

Pulling from so many different sources, especially videogames, may have worked against the reception of 4th edition D&D. "I think the mistake people sometimes make is to think that we can attract more players if we ape the experience of videogames. I think a better approach is to emphasize what makes pen and paper RPGs unique and fun," said Pramas​

Nice way to be unbiased there. Hrm, the primary source is telling you that while they did draw from one source, they drew from many others, but, the competitors are saying that they "ape" video games, so, that's the conclusion we're going to draw. Really?

I have to go with the comments above that this was written by a pretty strong 3e/Pathfinder bias inherent. The three main people quoted are two competitors and the guy who got sacked because of issues with the launch of 4e. Ummm, anyone else having a problem with that?

 

[Vyvyan Basterd]

But be it as it may, nothing you said changes the fact that 4e was designed with specific goals in mind. And I have already quoted Andy Collins on what those goals are. Nothing more to say, really.

WTF? Generalization? How much in denial can you be?
Even Andy Collins, the head of development at WotC during the development of the 4e, admits that it has been designed with MMO-Players and their "attention span" in mind.
Generalization or not, these are the facts.

Collins believed players have a short attention span, and were, perhaps, "less likely [to be] interested in reading the rules of the game before playing." "I'm not just talking about younger players now, but anybody. We've been working to adapt to that, the changing expectations of the new gamer."

The Escapist : The State of D&D: Present

Except what you quoted does not match your claim. The part I bolded in Andy's quote clarifies his position. Modern gamers, not just the younger players, have a shorter attention span for PnP RPGs thatn they did in prior editions of the game. I don't believe "shorter attention span" is code for "stupid and immature" as claimed by another poster above. I think he and the rest of the design team realized that players of all experience levels, ages, maturities, et al, have various reasons for their attention span towards a PnP RPG being diminished. I know the amount of attention I can spare for the game has been greatly reduced by other forms of entertainment (not video games of any kind), family, and work. I appreciate any modern game to lessen the amount of focus I need to devote to it and still provide an evening of fun.

 

[Umbran]

I think the Escapist article shows a certain amount of bias as well. While it's hard to not have any bias in a news story, they seemed to have forgotten one key ingredient in news - getting both points of view.

Ah. You see, when I read them, I didn't think, "news". I thought, "Op-ed piece".

 

[MrMyth]

I think there is a very large difference between: "4E was designed with awareness of MMOs, and was aimed at appealing to that crowd and to drawing in new players" and "4E's audience primarily consists of a new, younger generation, while those who grew up with original D&D have been alienated by it."

Similarly, I also think there is a huge difference between, "Awesome! If 4E can bring in new gamers, that is good for the hobby as a whole!" and "Woohoo! I take pleasure in having existing players leave the game!" Feel free to dig up some posts as proof, but I'm doubtful there was any widespread attitude that involved folks actively cheering anyone leaving the hobby.

In any case, yes, there were certainly gamers who were alienated by 4E. But also many others who stayed with it. I think the core of the fanbase for it remains players who have played D&D for years, rather than consisting of entirely new players - even though it has, hopefully, picked those up too.

I think WotC's goal was a game that would remain appealing to existing gamers, address many problems folks had with the system, and also draw in new players and revitalize the hobby. Now, you can feel that they failed on any - or all - of those counts, and you can feel that the problems they may have addressed were not ones that you, personally, thought needed fixing. But I am confident they were attempting all three of those goals, with the best of intentions, rather than somehow believing that 'new players' was in some way incompatible with 'retaining existing players'.

The truth is, insisting that they fired all 'true fans' of D&D is an argument that was old the second it was made, and just an indirect way of trying to undermine those who do support 4E. You can absolutely explain that you do not like 4E, or that you felt abandoned by it. But trying to speak for all old-school gamers, or trying to make generalizations about them - or about any group of gamers - is just going to be inaccurate.

 

[Mark CMG]

I think there is a very large difference between: "4E was designed with awareness of MMOs, and was aimed at appealing to that crowd and to drawing in new players" and "4E's audience primarily consists of a new, younger generation, while those who grew up with original D&D have been alienated by it."

Similarly, I also think there is a huge difference between, "Awesome! If 4E can bring in new gamers, that is good for the hobby as a whole!" and "Woohoo! I take pleasure in having existing players leave the game!" Feel free to dig up some posts as proof, but I'm doubtful there was any widespread attitude that involved folks actively cheering anyone leaving the hobby.

In any case, yes, there were certainly gamers who were alienated by 4E. But also many others who stayed with it. I think the core of the fanbase for it remains players who have played D&D for years, rather than consisting of entirely new players - even though it has, hopefully, picked those up too.

It probably won't surprise you to know there is a huge distance between "the core of the fanbase for it remains players who have played D&D for years" and "consisting of entirely new players." If by "who have played D&D for years" you mean since at least 2000, you might be missing the point the writer of the article means to convey. I'm fairly confident that D&D 4E skews younger than any version since 1E was released, that is to say younger than 2E and younger than 3.XE. I think most people feel it is good to bring new and more people into tabletop roleplaying but I think many of them also wonder if the 4E experience is one of tabletop roleplaying as we all know it. This, I believe, is why there are so many alternate systems and retroclones and the like available on the market, and why since the advent of 4E there seems to be a great divide between many who have played D&D for years (but won't play 4E) and those who play 4E (whether they started playing D&D in the last few years or have even played for some time).

 

[Dragonhelm]

Ah. You see, when I read them, I didn't think, "news". I thought, "Op-ed piece".

Fair enough, I guess. Still, I would think that even in an op-ed piece, they would try to get WotC’s current POV.

I know that’s what they were aiming for with Andy Collins, but that’s like asking a retired general about the current state of a war. The general knows of the situation a while back and can give that perspective, but he is not involved in the current state of affairs.