What is good for D&D as a game vs. what is good for the company that makes it

[Jan van Leyden]

Haha, but no.

Ultra-grognard here, and plotless dungeons suck.

Compare "When A Star Falls" or "Death on the Reik" with most of the recent modules.

Ummh, you're calling yourself an ultra-grognard and use these adventures as examples of what you like? Both were published in the mid-eighties and written by Brits! "When a Star Falls" used this pesky ThAC0 to remove the true to-hit matrices from the equation. These things are as ungrognardy as it gets!

Compare the amount of flavor mixed throughout many of the Pathfinder modules to the 4E modules.

Why would this be an objective quality? If I want to use the Kingmaker AP in a different world, many, many pages of the books are completely unusable.

Compare the fine quality papar of the Pathfinder Adventure path, and the high quality art with the often very thin 4E paper (for modules).

Or, not sure what to compare with, but say the 4E main books, or the Pathfinder main books, or generally the Fantasy Flight latest edition Warhammer FRP or several 40K RP systems with anything.

Quality, in many cases, can be objective.

But this are matters of production quality. I was discussing product quality as far as content is concerned.

An objective quality can be measured. You can measure the paper quality of a book, you could even measure the quality of the binding or the durability of the color prints. But you can't reproducibly measure the quality of images used in a book or its text.

 

[Hussar]

On the idea of an "evergreen" D&D.

How happy would everyone in this thread be if the "evergreen" D&D was 4e?

Additionally, what is the problem people have with errata? I mean, 4e is probably the most officially errata'd version of D&D, and you're still talking about 1% of the actual content being changed. If you take a word count and look at what is actually changed, as I said, you're looking at about 1% of the rules seeing any change at all, and a fair chunk of that is simply clarification, either due to unclear description or outright editing error.

I think people have a very strange idea of what is possible for a company to produce error free.

Then again, maybe people wouldn't mind paying 2-3 hundred dollars a book for the error free level that the level of playtesting required would make it. I mean, look at any similarly sized hard cover, full color book in any genre. I mean those coffee table books that they sell. Look at the price of them. They're not cheaper than a D&D book and often they're a heck of a lot more expensive.

Now you want to make producing a D&D book three or four times more expensive by having all this playtesting? Are you willing to pay for that? Even if you are, I really, REALLY doubt most people are.

 

[Stormonu]

Additionally, what is the problem people have with errata?

errata = moving the 10-yard-line in the middle of a play.

At least, that's the impression I get from listening to other folks. For the most part, I've always ignored errata unless I was having a problem with a rule, and often my own solution to such a rule was as good or better than anything "official". I mean, one of the duties of the DM is to arbitrate rules, right?

Still when WotC changes the DC's for skill challenges twice within a month's release of the DM's screen, that's a bit annoying.

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Back on the subject of "evergreen" D&D; you do have a point that I don't think most people would be satisfied if the D&D rules never evolved. From my observations, many people in the 90's were abandoning D&D because it's architecture was weighing it down. Many I knew (including myself, who began playing VtM at the time) saw late D&D 2E as antiquated, "stuck in the 70's" and beholden to long-dismissed notions of what an RPG should be, ruleswise - XP primarily by killing monsters, power gain through acquired items, level-based system locking your advancement into a particular niche instead of a skill-based system, and other issues (which, while appearing in 3E had been addressed in various ways, not always successfully). Had 3E continued for another 3-4 years, it probably would have been suffering the same issues with people abandoning the system in droves because it was "stuck in the 90's"

 

[ExploderWizard]

IMO, there needs to be an entry point into RPGs that's light enough you don't have to start out with an experienced group - something you can sit down and read in about 15-20 minutes to get started playing, and then graduate to the thicker books.

Yes. Lets also not forget about people who might enjoy playing an rpg but might not ever be interested in plowing through 300+ pages of material.

A basic/ advanced model that are compatible could help with this.

 

[prosfilaes]

Yes. Lets also not forget about people who might enjoy playing an rpg but might not ever be interested in plowing through 300+ pages of material.

A basic/ advanced model that are compatible could help with this.

Then they can play a game that doesn't have 300+ pages of material--I bet more RPGs have been under 300 pages than have been over, historically--or skip the parts they don't care about and let someone else summarize what they need to know.

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

Then they can play a game that doesn't have 300+ pages of material--I bet more RPGs have been under 300 pages than have been over, historically--or skip the parts they don't care about and let someone else summarize what they need to know.

Interesting that at various times in its history D&D has been both basic and breezily simple, as well as advanced and wallowing in options. Sometimes a little of both at the same time - but always by way of different editions.

People want significantly different experiences from their RPG's - from D&D. It seems they can only get it by way of different editions which take significantly different approaches to handling and designing the rules and support.

I think if there is ONE thing that applies to both what's best for the game and what's best for the game company it is finally embracing the obvious fact that one size does not fit all.

 

[Umbran]

In the 1e era, a new hardcover book was released about once per year, and that was the Golden Age of D&D.

Was it, really? And what does "Golden Age" really mean, anyway?

Now there is no way on Earth that WotC would settle for one book per year for D&D.

Nor would the players. Do remember that times have changed, and the players with them. The 1e era was a time when there was no electronic distribution of content, no video games competition to speak of, and widespread cable TV was still in the future.

D&D now sits in a world of ever-faster delivery of your choice of content. One book a year simply won't compete.

However, one well playtested, copyedited, and generally well produced book a year on top of a trio of ideal core books could be more useful than the steady stream books that have been produced for far more than a decade now.

The 1e era didn't have one well playtested, copyedited, and produced book a year. The game of that time was poorly playtested, haphazardly designed, and had uneven editing and production values*. But still it was your "Golden Age"?

Setting that aside... such a thing might be more useful to you. But are you sure you speak for the rest of RPG players with that statement? One book a year means that if my personal preferences don't get addressed in that book, they don't get addressed at all that year. How is it more useful if I don't get any content I want for a whole year?


*Let it be noted, however, that I still like the game - I think that good ideas and style usually trumps solid playtesting and design.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

On the idea of an "evergreen" D&D.

How happy would everyone in this thread be if the "evergreen" D&D was 4e?

Well I would be happy enough but I reckon many would not.

QUOTE=Hussar;5702483]
Additionally, what is the problem people have with errata? I mean, 4e is probably the most officially errata'd version of D&D, and you're still talking about 1% of the actual content being changed. If you take a word count and look at what is actually changed, as I said, you're looking at about 1% of the rules seeing any change at all, and a fair chunk of that is simply clarification, either due to unclear description or outright editing error.

I think people have a very strange idea of what is possible for a company to produce error free.

Then again, maybe people wouldn't mind paying 2-3 hundred dollars a book for the error free level that the level of playtesting required would make it. I mean, look at any similarly sized hard cover, full color book in any genre. I mean those coffee table books that they sell. Look at the price of them. They're not cheaper than a D&D book and often they're a heck of a lot more expensive.

Now you want to make producing a D&D book three or four times more expensive by having all this playtesting? Are you willing to pay for that? Even if you are, I really, REALLY doubt most people are.[/QUOTE]

We are playing for playtesting. Just like most modern software purchasers the online delivery of errata is as a result of feed back from players and forum members that have reported issues with elements in the game.

It is like the patch cycle in retail software. Ya get a low cost but buggy game out of the door and it gets updated over time.

The problem is that with printed books the material does not update on the page as the patches are released.

The Compendium is uptodate and I suppose that in theory versioning could be introduced to electronic future editions of D&D where the ebook would upfdate to the latest version when the patches are issued.

 

[billd91]

See, to me, the idea of "stable plateform" means "stagnant and constant mired in concepts of yore".

How about "tried and true"? It's all a question of spin. Call of Cthulhu has changed over the years, but remains quite recognizable from its first edition to its sixth. The same is true of Champions. I don't think I'd say either is stagnant or mired in concepts of yore.

D&D has never, ever had a stable platform.
<snip>

We had 10 years of 1e and then 10 years of 2e.

That sounds like 20 years of a largely stable platform, to me.

As we continually develop new games and new ways of playing, those things should be incorporated into D&D or we'll see D&D fade off into the sunset as someone comes along with a system that does things better.

That depends on a lot of different factors. How many people can say that the system they favored, with mechanics better than D&D's, outlasted even 1e/2e? The industry is littered with games that didn't outcompete the stable, or as you put it stagnant, platform despite their quality.

None of this is to say that all new ideas or innovations are bad, but you have to balance what you think you can gain against what you think you will lose when you make a substantial shift. Can you minimize the damage and still grow by making the shifts more incremental? Does every edition change need to be a substantial leap in a new direction?

 

[TheAuldGrump]

On the idea of an "evergreen" D&D.

How happy would everyone in this thread be if the "evergreen" D&D was 4e?

I'd be happy, but I would be playing Pathfinder....

More seriously, I doubt that it would be 4e if WotC ever decided to do an 'evergreen' edition - by some accounts it is already struggling against a revamped older edition.

More likely 5e, whatever direction it might take, would be the evergreen product, but only if it can rise unquestionably above the competition. (Even if you think 4e is still top seller, the fact that there is some doubt makes it an unlikely evergreen choice.)

Trying to make 3.5 the evergreen product faces the opposite problem - competing against a revamped version of those same rules. So, 3.5 won't work either.

And, in my opinion, making 5e 3.85 would suffer from the loss of the 4e players.

I don't have much hope for 5e.... But right now I am sleepy and grumpy, not happy....

The Auld Grump, comprising two of the 7 Dwarfs....