The Myth of the Bo9S's Popularity

[Felix]

In fact, it's generally a good principle to question an authority's pronouncements, independent of your belief in the authority's veracity.

Ayup.

Check. Your. Sources.

Regardless of what standard of "popularity" you're using for the Book of 9 Swords, and regardless of the truth value of if it was "popular" or not, there is no incentive for WotC to call the book anything but "popular".

As I was reading this thread I thought to myself, "Self, I remember thumbing through the book and being underwhelmed and uninterested by it. I also remember lots of buzz on the boards about particulars that folks didn't like, and agreeing with them. But in this thread WotC said it was popular, and it seems they'll be basing 4e on some of its ideas and mechanics, so maybe I was wrong about the Book of 9 Swords."

I had this thought as a person who doesn't expect to buy 4e, and who wasn't enamored by the Bo9S. I'm not saying that somewhere there creeps a marketing exec giggling and twirling his mustache because he's doing this on purpose; I'm just saying that if WotC is trying to shake things up a bit and revive the game's popularity by offering a different game with shiny new mechanics, then "popular" is one of the words I'd use as a marketer to describe the beta testing. It suggests that while the new game is different, some of the fundaments were well received by folks who loved the game that you, yes you, loved: and you'll love it too!

So there's no reason to call the book anything but popular. It follows the adage: When In Doubt, Declare Success!

A response to this, of course, would be that there is little incentive for WotC to base a new edition on something unpopular. If WotC wanted to stay with the same old formula for D&D, you'd be right. But something tells me that WotC is taking a risk here: something tells me they're not basing a new edition on something that was popular, but rather basing it on something that will be popular, even if it grew from something that wasn't. The relationship between roses and compost heaps comes to mind.

So whatever the Bo9S was, WotC thinks (hopes? prays?) 4e will be popular. Maybe it was a popular book. Maybe it's a marketer's gimmick. Maybe because 4e *will be popular*, a previous expression of its game design philosophy should also have been popular: and so it necessarily was.

*shrug*

Meh. I wouldn't put too much store in WotC calling one of its products "popular"; coming from their lips the word is meaningless.

 

[kennew142]

I was reluctant to buy Bo9S. I heard a lot of positive buzz about it at conventions, but I wasn't looking for an alternate system to graft onto the rules. Furthermore, I kept hearing about how it gave fighters spells. I think even WotC may have made this statement at one time or another. Is it on the back of the book? I'm at work now and don't have my books with me.

I bought the book after the 4e announcement to read a significant preview of 4e. I was surprised that the martial powers in the book (for the most part) resembled maneuvers, rather than spells. After building a few characters with the book, I fell in love. [Please don't tell my wife - okay, she already knows. ]

No one else in my group has bought the book (AFAIK), because we are waiting for the 4e to come out and aren't buying 3e rulebooks anymore. Nonetheless, our one copy is seeing quite a bit of use in the time remaining.

IMO, this was an example of bad marketing. All the positive comments I'd heard (and there were quite a few at the FLGS and conventions) couldn't overcome the fighters have spells line that I'd heard. Sometimes I think that is the problem with the marketing of the upcoming edition. The designers, or someone posting scoops (like the first poster about R&C), will make a statement that isn't supported by actual preview materials, but that misleading statement will get stuck in the ENWorld noosphere and provide a major sticking point for those who react negatively to it.

 

[Mistwell]

I don't know who William Senn is over at the Paizo boards, but he wrote:
"Tome of Battle is one of the most popular books WotC has ever published. It's more popular by sales figures than most of the Complete series combined."

I think WOTC knows what they are doing when they indicate that Tome of Battle sold well.

 

[Stormtalon]

There's also the possibility that Bo9S is one of those books that gets bought far more frequently in person than over the 'net, after someone's picked it up and thumbed thru it at ye olde FLGS. It's really a difficult book to judge based solely on an Amazon description/excerpt.

 

[JohnSnow]

Even more importantly, they're not going to put all their eggs in the 4e basket if it didn't.

The following did not happen:

4e Designer 1: Hey guys, you know that book that tanked?
4e Designer 2 and 3: Yeah.
1: Let's base our entire class system around that.
2 & 3: BRILLIANT!

Bottom line, 4e has to sell books. And I don't think they're going to do that by filling it with a ruleset that won't sell. I'm willing to bet money that they have been looking at market research and had bean counters crawling all up in their business.

Not to mention that Book of Nine Swords didn't come about like that in the slightest. Those who own Races and Classes can confirm this, but here's the timeline:

Early 2005: Design work begins on 4e.
Summer 2005: Design Work on Orcus I.
September 2005: Design team delivers a document than includes eight classes for the first Player's Handbook or other early supplements, powers for all the classes, monsters and rules.
October 2005 thru February 2006: Development team tears apart Orcus 1 and rebuilds it.

At the same time, the WotC team is also designing Tome of Battle: The Book of Nine Swords. At this point, there was a discussion about like this between some WotC designers. For the sake of discussion let's call them "Rich" and "Mike."

Rich: "So I've been working on this 'powers for fighters' project for 3e. It's kinda funny, but that's pretty similar to what we've come up with for Orcus I."
Mike: "Yeah. Maybe if we reverse engineer the Orcus stuff, we can see how it works in actual play."
Rich: "It'll be pretty hard to make them the mechanics work for 3e, but we might learn something. Let's get on that."

You'll notice that the development credit on Book of Nine Swords reads Mike Mearls (Lead). And the publication was August 2006.

So, they didn't base 4e on Nine Swords. Rather, the mechanics for Nine Swords were reverse engineered from early stage 4e development. Just like, no doubt, that the mechanics (including force powers) in SWSE were probably influenced by the state of 4e development at that point.

 

[JohnSnow]

They never denied any such thing. This is a rumor that's been bruited about for a while, but as far as I know, nobody has yet produced any actual examples of WotC saying they weren't working on 4E.

The quote that gets bandied about is half a sentence. A conversation roughly like this supposedly took place at a convention.

Question: I hear that WotC is planning to make 4th Edition D&D more dependent on miniatures.
WotC Spokesman: We are not working on a new edition that depends on miniatures.

Someone gets on the internet and reports that a WotC rep said "We are not working on a new edition." Thus are rumors born.

 

[Mercule]

Some of the throw attacks in Setting Sun were what struck me as particularly "non-western," though I don't really view that as a bad thing.

I could see that. As I said, it didn't really draw my attention much. I guess I chalked it up to a combination of Pankrenton (sp?) and not to over-the-top.

I think a lot of the feel ends up from a combination of the flavor and how the flavor gets played.

Agreed. In that way, if nothing else, Bo9S shows how the D&D game can be made to effectively serve a broader audience without alienating fans of the existing genres.

 

[Piratecat]

I don't know who William Senn is over at the Paizo boards, but he wrote:
"Tome of Battle is one of the most popular books WotC has ever published. It's more popular by sales figures than most of the Complete series combined."

He doesn't have any official capacity or knowledge that I can ferret out. I'd take his statement with the traditional grain of salt.

 

[kennew142]

The quote that gets bandied about is half a sentence. A conversation roughly like this supposedly took place at a convention.

Question: I hear that WotC is planning to make 4th Edition D&D more dependent on miniatures.
WotC Spokesman: We are not working on a new edition that depends on miniatures.

Someone gets on the internet and reports that a WotC rep said "We are not working on a new edition." Thus are rumors born.

Thanks for looking up the info. This is one of the posts I remember. I'm pretty sure that there was also one denying that there would be a 4e in 2007, but I can't find any reference to it.

 

[BryonD]

One thing that needs to be kept in mind is I recall a lot of people who really liked the idea, but didn't feel it was done real well or fit 3X all that well. My experience in 3X was that it was wildly overpowered. However, I still thought the concept was great.

I think the acceptance of the approach for 4E will be somewhere greater than the usage of Bo9S in 3X. Regardless of what that usage may have been.