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D&D General What Does New Coke Tell Us About Designing for D&D
- Thread starter Snarf Zagyg
- Start date
Paul Farquhar
Legend
Mannahnin
Scion of Murgen (He/Him)
Half a gram of sugar a year is pretty hardcore. An Oreo has 14. A 3" diameter apple averages 19. One can of Coke is about as much sugar as two apples.
Bedrockgames
I post in the voice of Christopher Walken
I am pretty sure this analogy started from something Jim Butcher said about the playtest. But I don't think people are thinking in terms of the sip test factor, as much as it was a big enough change to the recipe to upset a lot of longtime customers and make them want a return to something closer to previous editions
Bedrockgames
I post in the voice of Christopher Walken
I stopped drinking soda ages ago and it tastes like candy if I try to drink it again (once every year or so I have a coke at a restaurant). If I can give any advice to young gamers: consume way, way less sugar and salt. That stuff will impact your longterm health as you get older
Micah Sweet
Level Up & OSR Enthusiast
We were always a Diet Coke household.
Paul Farquhar
Legend
You wouldn’t want to look up aspartame then.
As analogies go, this is probably better than "She grew on him like she was a colony of E. coli and he was room-temperature Canadian beef."* Both surprisingly specific analogies that do indeed provide evocative and specific imagery that doesn't necessarily apply but can still spark conversation.
I think it's impossible to talk about this topic without discussing the history of D&D. I've been with D&D since it's earliest days when men were fighting men, halflings were hobbits and the rules were just barely coherent enough to play a game. From those early days we saw multiple iterations (and multiple versions for a while), which had some innovations, more cohesive rules and of course questionable changes to burnish the games image in the sight of a Satanic Panic afflicted public. Eventually TSR went bankrupt and the game may have landed in the dustheap of forgotten games except for a white knight that came along and saved the game. They knew the mechanics needed an update and they kind of missed the target with 3 and 4 (this despite the fact that I'd rank 3.5 as my secondish favorite version of D&D) .
Change, for a game like D&D, is an odd thing. Is it change for change sake to boost sales? Is it just an evolution of the game as the target market shifts and changes while the issues with the old become more and more apparent? Because some editions (3.5, 4) didn't really seem to have been done because they were necessary from an evolution of the rules POV but because management wasn't happy with the sales.
Then along game 5E, that took a new approach to development using broad based public feedback but was still the Hail Mary version that had low expectations. Then it succeeded far beyond expectations** and just continued to be successful where most versions had seen a quick boom and bust cycle. But with the 50th anniversary and a decade of real world feedback ... it hardly came as a surprise we were due for a tune-up. Whether that tune-up worked or not is of course and always will be personal opinion. From a business POV we'll see in a few years.
In the long evolution of D&D the only time they really upset the apple cart to me was with 4E. It is not a slight against 4E to say that the nature of the game simply changed in the way that didn't result in the same gameplay feel as traditional D&D for many people. It's not that it was inherently bad design (although it was obviously rushed), it just didn't hit the same notes. Meanwhile I also understand why people can't stand soft drinks that use high fructose corn syrup instead of sugar (I can't drink Mountain Dew any more) even when most people don't care where their sweetness come from.
I guess my takeaway if there is one to my rambling is that the game has been evolving over the past half century and will continue to do so if it is going to survive as a commercial product. I can't point to a single thing that says "this feels like D&D", but the new versions for the most part do still evoke the same feel for me.
*From "56 worst analogies in high school papers". Thank you internet.
** No, I don't think Stranger Things or Critical Role were solely responsible for 5E's success. There have been allusions to D&D in popular media for quite some time. I watched a 4E stream introducing the game that never gained popularity. But that's a complex topic for which no one has answers.
I think it's impossible to talk about this topic without discussing the history of D&D. I've been with D&D since it's earliest days when men were fighting men, halflings were hobbits and the rules were just barely coherent enough to play a game. From those early days we saw multiple iterations (and multiple versions for a while), which had some innovations, more cohesive rules and of course questionable changes to burnish the games image in the sight of a Satanic Panic afflicted public. Eventually TSR went bankrupt and the game may have landed in the dustheap of forgotten games except for a white knight that came along and saved the game. They knew the mechanics needed an update and they kind of missed the target with 3 and 4 (this despite the fact that I'd rank 3.5 as my secondish favorite version of D&D) .
Change, for a game like D&D, is an odd thing. Is it change for change sake to boost sales? Is it just an evolution of the game as the target market shifts and changes while the issues with the old become more and more apparent? Because some editions (3.5, 4) didn't really seem to have been done because they were necessary from an evolution of the rules POV but because management wasn't happy with the sales.
Then along game 5E, that took a new approach to development using broad based public feedback but was still the Hail Mary version that had low expectations. Then it succeeded far beyond expectations** and just continued to be successful where most versions had seen a quick boom and bust cycle. But with the 50th anniversary and a decade of real world feedback ... it hardly came as a surprise we were due for a tune-up. Whether that tune-up worked or not is of course and always will be personal opinion. From a business POV we'll see in a few years.
In the long evolution of D&D the only time they really upset the apple cart to me was with 4E. It is not a slight against 4E to say that the nature of the game simply changed in the way that didn't result in the same gameplay feel as traditional D&D for many people. It's not that it was inherently bad design (although it was obviously rushed), it just didn't hit the same notes. Meanwhile I also understand why people can't stand soft drinks that use high fructose corn syrup instead of sugar (I can't drink Mountain Dew any more) even when most people don't care where their sweetness come from.
I guess my takeaway if there is one to my rambling is that the game has been evolving over the past half century and will continue to do so if it is going to survive as a commercial product. I can't point to a single thing that says "this feels like D&D", but the new versions for the most part do still evoke the same feel for me.
*From "56 worst analogies in high school papers". Thank you internet.
** No, I don't think Stranger Things or Critical Role were solely responsible for 5E's success. There have been allusions to D&D in popular media for quite some time. I watched a 4E stream introducing the game that never gained popularity. But that's a complex topic for which no one has answers.
From what i'we seen, US Coke (or any other soda i tried from USA) doesn't even have real sugar in it. Just that awful high fructose corn syrup. Our european at least has good old regular sugar
It's probably a good thing I can't get Mountain Dew with real sugar in the US ... when I was in Norway a few years ago I made the mistake of buying some. It was amazing but I'm better off sticking with tea.
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