The Nature of Change (or, Understanding Edition Wars)

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I find 4E quite recognizable as D&D, and so does my entire gaming group.

Feel free to insult me now

You son of a Up-Quark and an Electron! You wouldn't know the difference between a pre-ganglionic fiber and a post-ganglionic nerve if it was handed to you on a silver plate!

 

[Herschel]

Originally Posted by Herschel
What is this CD, MP3 and "Zune" of which you speak? A pair of Technics 1200s and vinyl is all a man needs for audio perfection.

Except while jogging...

Bah! Haul that rig around for a while and you won't need to jog.

 

[Scribble]

Originally Posted by Herschel
What is this CD, MP3 and "Zune" of which you speak? A pair of Technics 1200s and vinyl is all a man needs for audio perfection.




Bah! Haul that rig around for a while and you won't need to jog.

Bah to you! Haul that rig around and you'll also have less cash! (from buying so many needles and rekkids after the damn thing skips so many times!)

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

I think the reason that 4E is having a hard time gaining acceptance, particularly among the core audience, is because the majority of the people wanted refinement, not reinvention. Had you given them that, there wouldn't be as much discontent right now.

That only holds if retaining the existing core was a consideration. Since before the launch of 4e, I have assumed that it was not.

Really? Didn't you write Grim Tales? Did you do no advertisement for that?

Advertising? Sure. A little bit. Within my non-existent budget, I showed people what I had to offer (Low magic, high adventure).

At no point did I suggest that folks who did not want what I was offering simply needed to be properly re-educated into wanting something they did not want.

But my business model was predicated on serving a perceived need, not on convincing people that they needed my product. Just that it existed.

That is the way the world works bro.

Sometimes marketing is about identifying the consumers wants/needs and then making the product. "It sells itself!" they say of such things.

There's some give and take between the two approaches.

I mean, you have to admit that you have a bit of wiggle room, as a marketer, between the task of selling me on the next edition of D&D and, for example, a handy-dandy device that can scramble an egg while it is still inside the shell. One of those tasks is just slightly more uphill. If I had my choice of which product to market, I am more inclined to go with the product that actually addresses a market demand.

So no, the marketing world doesn't entirely revolve around the task of convincing people that they want to buy something they don't want.

You pick the hill, you pick the slope.

I have yet to meet the marketer who can convince me that I want something that I don't actually want, although Mr. ShamWow is making a serious run for the money.

And what does the customer want? If I ask 10 of you what you want in a RPG I'll likely get 5 different answers. If I take those answers, measure them, and apply the results, I bet we start to get a RPG that is different enough that suddenly the edition wars begin.

I assume this question was addressed at the beginning of 4e development and you've produced the product that you want to sell, targeted at the market you want to sell it to. If that's not the case... What do you think went wrong?

 

[Brown Jenkin]

It is the sentiment in your analogy that is at the heart of the edition wars and it is the belief that we are selling turtles that perpetuates them.

Whether you believe you are selling cats or turtles is only partly relevant. The fact that there does seem to be a significant portion of the market that thinks you are selling turtles should concern you. While I understand WotC and you not wanting to discuss it publicly, I sure hope you are discussing it amongst yourselves.

Or New Coke.

This meme is tired.

You may think it is tired, and I understand the need for you to try and squash it, but it is still relevant. New Coke died in part because a significant portion of the market rebelled and thought it was a turtle and not a cat. It was a statistically small portion of the taste testers that rejected it, but they were able convince enough of the market to believe them and to complain loudly enough that New Coke died.

Just like there can be resistance to change by consumers to a new product, there can also be a resistance to change from the provider of a new product that what they believed that they knew what the market wanted may not have been as accurate as what they believed.

 

[JohnnyQuest]

You wouldn't know the difference between a pre-ganglionic fiber and a post-ganglionic nerve if it was handed to you on a silver plate!

Actually, that's completely true

 

[Scott_Rouse]

But D&D isn't wargaming, if anything it could be considered an offshoot of wargamming which in turn is an offshoot of the larger category of gaming itself. So not necessarily any evolution, just new sub-branches created.

Back in the day D&D was war gaming for sure but it was a big enough change that it spawned a hole new category. Just like Magic The Gathering. When Peter asked Richard to make a game like D&D that could be carried in your pocket and played in coffeshops or in line at GenCon Richard took a month and came back with the Trading Card Game M:TG. It was unique and grew big enough to be it's own category but it also could have just been a D&D card game.

As an example using your music example... Where would live concerts vs. and MP3 file be? Is either an "evoluton" of music? Not really, though they are sub-branches of ways one can enjoy music and the MP3 file could even be considered an evolution of music storage devices... but it is not an evolution of music.

I was talking about the consumptive act ofpeople listening to music and the not the act of making music.

Uhm, I may be the wrong person to ask this... as my gaming is in no way limited to D&D (in fact with 4e D&D has fallen pretty low on the gaming ladder with me)... but White Wolf did a mighty nice job stepping up to the plate when TSR dropped the ball with AD&D 2e, and I've been a fan ever since. I don't believe the hobby or even the industry dies or necessarily gets worst with the failure of D&D, in fact I hate this type of thinking as it promotes buying a product, not because it is good, but because you don't want your beloved hobby to collapse. Truth be told I would love for some of the people who play D&D exclusively to seek out and try new games, support them if they are more to their likng and realize diversification is a good thing in our hobby. Sometimes I feel the position and detrimental effects of D&D failing are highly exaggerated, especially since...



1. The FLGS is dying...more and more people are ordering online, so the large sales of D&D become less and less of a necesity in keeping these shops open for convenience... I mean were halfway there already.

I for one would love to see an industry with lots of competeion and many popular sytems. The TCG industry was never bigger for anyone than when Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh were giving M:TG a serious run for it's money. It would be great to see that type of vigor for the RPG category

Amazon, video games, the lack of a massive kids TCG, or any other single effect is killing the FLGS. The FLGS is dying the death of a hundred cuts including a bad economy, shift in consumer buying habbits, and preference for entertainment.

2. I don't necessarily feel the direction D&D is heading in (incorporating more and more aspects of boardgaming, wargaming, collectible games, etc.) is where I want my roleplaying to go. Especially when a company seems determined to make it a headache to ignore these aspects.

Then I guess you'rr getting off the train and that's is your choice. If I were a joe avergae gamer staying on the train, I for one would not want to jump on the internet and make you feel bad for that choice but others seem to enjoy that. I don't get it

 

[cwhs01]

There was really no need for such a huge departure from the previous editions, people still would have bought it because it's D&D.

And it still is... IMO and all that.

A lot of people seem to argue that 4e is not a level based, high fantasy, kill-stuff/grab-the-loot, type of game anymore. I'd argue that it is.

This brings me to the point that the true reason for making the game so different was to eliminate backwards compatability. If people can no longer use their old stuff, they're forced to buy new stuff, which is where we come back to selling the people what you have rather than giving them what they want.

And I've heard that the global financial crisis is actually all part of WoTC's master plan to rule the world. Step 1 was 3e; to recruit geeks for their army. Step 2 was 4e; to get them angry. step 3 will come soon... and involve swallows and coconuts.
or so i've heard.

Paranoia is all well and good. very healthy.
But claims of 4e just being a money grabbing scheme, might have to be backed up by some evidence before i believe it. Just saying.

IMO 4e mostly seems to have been produced by people who like, play and understand roleplaying games.
Critizising the game is okay, very cool and even better if the critique is valid. But i can't really accept that critizing the team behind the game is cool and justified.

 

[Umbran]

I assume this question was addressed at the beginning of 4e development and you've produced the product that you want to sell, targeted at the market you want to sell it to. If that's not the case... What do you think went wrong?

I think the point was that even if you ask the customers, you end up with products that don't satisfy everyone, and you get edition wars. That's not something "going wrong". That's the nature of the beast - you cannot please everyone all the time.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Actually, that's completely true

Dang, I hoped I could trick you into explaining it to me without admitting my own incompetence!

Whether you believe you are selling cats or turtles is only partly relevant. The fact that there does seem to be a significant portion of the market that thinks you are selling turtles should concern you.

Don't Scotts post not imply he is concerned about it? Why are people think we are selling turtles? Isn't our product not also a cat? Maybe we should show to them how it can be a cat! Of course, the example of cat and turtle only goes so far... Maybe WotC actually sells you a shapechanger whose natural form is a turtle or something.

The example complaint of "skill DCs grow with your level" - "that makes the game world inconsistent" is something that I keep thinking about -
it was obvious to me that I could easily turn this into "skill DCs grow with the level of the challenge" and just like that I would be empowered to create an internally consistent world.

If this is so easy, wouldn't this be a reason for the marketing or the next DMG to contain this description? Or is this painting my turtle black and putting pointed ears on its head and then trying to sell it to you as a cat?