What direction will D&D head in?

[Fifth Element]

When I played 3e people said it was badwrongfun non-roleplaying because Crafting/Profession were a constraint to my imagination and you could just roll a Diplomacy check instead of speaking in character.

When I play 4e people tell me it is badwrongfun non-roleplaying because it doesn't have Craft/Profession and classes have mostly combat abilities in their Powers.

Lesson: Don't listen to people.

In the right context, that's very good advice.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Back on topic to the original post, I think the direction D&D is going will depend on who owns the trademark. If it remains with Hasbro then future editions will consist of a single rulebook, miniatures, and packs of cards for encounters, powers, and treasures. This model will generate more revenue (collectable cards and physical components that every player needs is more profitable than a book that a group can share) Modules are a dead end in this model because marketing a product to a subset of a niche market is losing money.

If this happens then it will be a huge financial success or they will alienate the community and it will flop.

If it flops then they will likely dump the brand by killing it or selling it to another company. If that happens then the future is very fuzzy.

I think as long as gamers are part of the decision-making process, a "no-adventure" policy seems unlikely to me.

The collectible stuff I can believe. (Though they haven't even announced any collectible power cards yet, have they? What are they waiting for?)

I don't think they would ever sell the entire license, but they might license out the role-playing component, and try to make money with the rest of the brand (D&D card game, D&D Minigame, D&D video games, D&D movies, D&D novels). But that assumes that they can actually make more money with the card game, mini-games, video games or movies then with the RPG. And I am not sure they can.

 

[redcard]

Back on topic to the original post, I think the direction D&D is going will depend on who owns the trademark. If it remains with Hasbro then future editions will consist of a single rulebook, miniatures, and packs of cards for encounters, powers, and treasures. This model will generate more revenue (collectable cards and physical components that every player needs is more profitable than a book that a group can share) Modules are a dead end in this model because marketing a product to a subset of a niche market is losing money.

I hear this so many times from the "Wizards/Hasbro is turning D&D into Magic" crowd, but I don't understand why you think it to be true.

Why would they compete against another product of theirs? Look, they're going to get the sales if they keep it as is. This company is not a stupid company. They bought Wizards, and Wizards bought TSR. TSR was a stupid company.

You're telling people that you believe that Wizards would risk diluting their M:TG players AND their D&D players just to somehow combine the two? Hasbro is a big company. What's next, do you think they'll turn Acquire into a CCG? Perhaps you see a Diplomacy CCG?

Not everything is going to turn into Magic just because Hasbro owns them. No more than it's going to turn into Monopoly, or Life, or Trivial Pursuit.

They're not going to take their paying customers who just sold out a printing and change their world dramatically just to line it up with some other product they have. That's just hyperbole.

 

[ExploderWizard]

I hear this so many times from the "Wizards/Hasbro is turning D&D into Magic" crowd, but I don't understand why you think it to be true.

Why would they compete against another product of theirs? Look, they're going to get the sales if they keep it as is. This company is not a stupid company. They bought Wizards, and Wizards bought TSR. TSR was a stupid company.

You're telling people that you believe that Wizards would risk diluting their M:TG players AND their D&D players just to somehow combine the two? Hasbro is a big company. What's next, do you think they'll turn Acquire into a CCG? Perhaps you see a Diplomacy CCG?

Not everything is going to turn into Magic just because Hasbro owns them. No more than it's going to turn into Monopoly, or Life, or Trivial Pursuit.

They're not going to take their paying customers who just sold out a printing and change their world dramatically just to line it up with some other product they have. That's just hyperbole.

It totally depends on the revenue and if Hasbro thinks that the game as it stands is making enough. WOTC staff includes roleplaying gamers but WOTC no longer decides what is profitable enough. I think that a lot of the crap WOTC gets blamed for is Hasbro's fault and the designers can't talk about it if they want to remain employed ( Which is why I don't put down the designers even if I complain about the game). The WOTC crew "gets" roleplaying games but the Hasbro marketing guys don't.

 

[redcard]

I just think it's silly to act as though they're GOING to do it because they're "a big business." The question isn't "is the game making enough", it's is the market cap being realized. If you turn D&D into a CCG, then you're going to lose M:TG players AND D&D players. The M:TG players will either go to D&D CCG or will see some pullback on the M:TG product and back off it.

You talk about marketing. Let's talk marketing. The only way D&D becomes a CCG is if there is evidence that CCG players want to be RPG players and RPG players want to be CCG players.

This move would constrain the target market, not expand it. It's not business sense. You have to understand for as evil as people think Hasbro is, they ARE successful, and they got successful by making GOOD decisions. NOT like TSR. TSR failed because they made BAD decisions.

They're not going to constrain a perfectly good market. They're market leaders right now. Why would they throw that away? Really?

 

[Fifth Element]

Thank you, redcard, for inserting some business acumen into the strained hyperbole.

 

[ExploderWizard]

I just think it's silly to act as though they're GOING to do it because they're "a big business." The question isn't "is the game making enough", it's is the market cap being realized. If you turn D&D into a CCG, then you're going to lose M:TG players AND D&D players. The M:TG players will either go to D&D CCG or will see some pullback on the M:TG product and back off it.

You talk about marketing. Let's talk marketing. The only way D&D becomes a CCG is if there is evidence that CCG players want to be RPG players and RPG players want to be CCG players.

This move would constrain the target market, not expand it. It's not business sense. You have to understand for as evil as people think Hasbro is, they ARE successful, and they got successful by making GOOD decisions. NOT like TSR. TSR failed because they made BAD decisions.

They're not going to constrain a perfectly good market. They're market leaders right now. Why would they throw that away? Really?

Who says making rpg components collectable makes it a CCG? Miniatures for 3E were collectable components for an rpg and they still sold well. As long as the RP rules are in the rulebook then its an rpg. The content of books would be delivered on cards to increase profit. Dice would still be used to resolve actions so you wouldn't "play" cards against each other like MTG. If people are willing to buy random minis to get the one they want then its plausible to sell them the stats for that mini in the same way.

 

[redcard]

You said "collectible cards."

That works in scenarios where there is competition.. but not in scenarios where there is not. Hasbro already has a competitive collectible D&D . It's called D&D Minis. What you're talking about is, again, diluting and constricting a market.

Avalon Hill tried a Collectible game in a non-competitive environment using Stratego Legends. It failed. TSR themselves tried to market a collectible dice game, and it failed.

Now you think, really, that the market leader in RPG, the market leader in board games, and the market leader in CCG .. are somehow going to constrict their RPG market, constrict their CCG market.. over a non-competitive game?

Let me ask you a question. What would stop a group of players from simply using Proxies in the case of the "collectible cards?" Because what stops Magic players from doing that now is tournament rules.

 

[Shadeydm]

I would expect that 4E will follow the same path as its preceeding editions. Eventually there is a finite number of splat books, players handbooks, power books, monster books and fluff books etc that the market will bear. Eventually WotC will recognize when this time approaches and begin designing a new, better, brighter, now packed with more awsome per page, version of the game. Hopefully next time around they manage to alienate fewer people along the way.

 

[ExploderWizard]

You said "collectible cards."

That works in scenarios where there is competition.. but not in scenarios where there is not. Hasbro already has a competitive collectible D&D . It's called D&D Minis. What you're talking about is, again, diluting and constricting a market.

Avalon Hill tried a Collectible game in a non-competitive environment using Stratego Legends. It failed. TSR themselves tried to market a collectible dice game, and it failed.

Now you think, really, that the market leader in RPG, the market leader in board games, and the market leader in CCG .. are somehow going to constrict their RPG market, constrict their CCG market.. over a non-competitive game?

Let me ask you a question. What would stop a group of players from simply using Proxies in the case of the "collectible cards?" Because what stops Magic players from doing that now is tournament rules.

Nothing stops magic players at home or private games. Same with D&D. Pirates can play in the basement with bootleg stuff from any game. Why did the D&D minis sell so well to the rpg crowd? Colllectable minis sold to the rpg crowd just fine, so why not other components? Some people get a real thrill from discovering whats in a closed package. I could see packaging minis with both D&D and D&D mini cards included so you could use the minis for both games.