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

[GregoryOatmeal]

Almost every class in 2e is a little different. Combat mechanics are a little different. Initiative rules and surprise rules are a little different. Monster rules are a little different. Modules were usable between editions with minimal changes. Yes, I'd say about 20 years of stability. An evolutionary path, transition between editions - very easy.

As far as fracturing the hobby, I didn't see a lot of it, in part, because people used their 1e resources right with their 2e ones. It didn't matter much if people were still using the 1e ranger or their 1e PH alongside someone using the 2e one. It certainly didn't matter adventure to adventure. The editions were so close, many resources could be used with either or both at the same time. If someone didn't get the 2e PH, they may still have been using the 2e adventures and campaign settings. That doesn't make for a particularly dramatic schism.

You nailed it. I used 1E material frequently when playing 2E. This wasn't an edition change that made you throw out and replace all of your existing materials. I know 2E alienated some of the 1E fanbase, but in my mind 2E was stretching the 1E base game as far as it could possibly go. It really was 23 years of steady evolution.

People claim a stable gaming system stagnates after time. 2E as a continuation of 1E seems to indicate otherwise, particularly with regards to settings. 3E and 4E with their short cycles seem to resell the same existing content from the TSR era without totally exhausting the backlog of content and being forced to make anything new. They just reprint the Forgotten Realms gazetteers, books on the undead and demons and dragons, splat books for warrior and wizard PCs, and occasionally revisit old modules like Ravenloft or the Tomb of Horrors. Clearly 2E did that too (every one of those things). But 2E also saw the creation of Dark Sun, Planescape, Ravenloft, and Al-Qadim, some of the most unique and flavorful settings in D&D history. That was fifteen years into the AD&D cycle when things should start to stagnate. Afterall I see no reason why Dark Sun or Planescape would be incompatible with the AD&D 1E rules system, or why kits couldn't be implemented into 1E through a modular "Arcana" style book. 3E and 4E have in their short cycles barely scratched the surface of the content previously produced and utterly failed to produce anything new that's as iconic and different as their 2E work (with the exception of Eberron).

Again, we're not talking about company profits. We're talking about a gaming atmosphere that unifies the community and allows for a wide range of ideas to be developed and explored. I personally consider 2E to be the golden age of D&D but we all know it drove TSR to bankruptcy...
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[GregoryOatmeal]

Apparently I'm not the only one that freely mixed 1E and 2E stuff...

Without discussing the merits of the editions themselves - I feel that continuity and the utility value of products is very important to keeping the gaming community unified. Having thirty-one flavors of ice-cream is great, but if everyone at the table has to eat the same ice-cream things become problematic. Also ordering the flavor of ice-cream requires a significant one-time buy-in fee and significant knowledge of said flavor of ice-cream is required to enjoy it with your company. But anyway, back to utility.

Going from 1E to 2E didn't entirely diminish the value of 1E gaming products. 1E monsters and modules were largely compatible with 2E. Character conversion was obvious. Rules were refined but not entirely rewritten. New campaign flavors were available. BECMI products were largely compatible with this other AD&D 1E and 2E products. In most cases 2E expanded on 1E so many 1E products continued to be useful in 2E.

Going from 2E to 3E was a tougher pill to swallow. Crunch was entirely incompatible so lots of old products lost much of their utility value. On the other hand the OGL and D20 system added utility value to the base 3E rules system. A host of third party products flooded the market providing gamers with a lot of options for 3E. Also the D20 system was compatible with different games, allowing players to get outside the realm of fantasy gaming. The d20 system ensured a continuity of rules that could be directly applied to modern, sci-fi, and historical settings, reducing barriers of entry to new gaming experience. Also 3E monsters could be used in other d20 games - d20 modern characters can fight dragons from the monster manual if the DM wishes to mix and match. So 3E products had a lot of utility value across the d20 spectrum.

I'm not talking about mechanics or gameplay innovations and I'm not trying to start an edition war here. All of my products from previous editions have no value besides fluff in 4E. 4E does not feature any new innovation like the d20 system that adds value to its products in terms of allowing for inter-compatibility with 3pp products or previous editions. The game has no mechanical continuity with any previous D&D so all of the crunch from previous editions loses value. Also the crunch hardly has any value outside of WOTC D&D 4E products (the new Gamma World is the exception and it's tons of fun...). 3rd party support is almost non-existent. If 4E is replaced before 2016 with a 5E that is incompatible with 4E then 4E products will be the least versatile products of any D&D edition yet.

From the seventies through 2008 gaming was largely unified around the D&D brand. During this time TSR/WOTC produced products that were compatible with an extensive catalog of other products and had a lot of utility across different gaming scenarios. Their products had a lot of value in being at least somewhat continuous and compatible with previous editions and other games. I want that company back.

 

[Eric Tolle]

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.

Call of Cthulhu is actually a hideously botched revision of Runequest. But the thing is, if you get a core group of producers and fans who argue that it is the best version, and if you churn out enough product for a decade or so, then it gets to the point where not only do you not have to correct the flaws, but people think that the bungled attempt at a game is the proper and definitive version. In fact, players will actively resist attempts to make corrections. It worked for CoC, it works for 3.X.

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.

True. In general, while major revisions of a system can open up interesting new play opportunities (ex: Fate 3rd Edition to Strands of Fate), discarding an old system should really only be undertaken when the system is too limited to do what you want (such asD&D 1st ed.), or when the old system ods aso fundamentally flawed that a full ground-up reworking is needed (as in 3.X).

 

[tomBitonti]

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!

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.

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.

Well, mid-80's is twenty-five years ago.

I could go back to Keep on the Borderlands (which I played) or Chainmail (which I read over). Or the original Village of Hommlet, which was excellent, or the old tournament modules, such as the Slavers modules (mostly meh, except for the very creative last one).

I still think that "grognard" and "plot" (or "story", if you prefer) are independent. My impression is that the more grognard-y folks prefer better stories, and conversely find the 4E style of dense and unconnected encounters to be a turn-off.

But I do think there are object measures to quality: Definitely in terms of the physical artifact (I think we agree on this). There are a few grey areas: Organization and Writing Quality are important, but factorable in the sense that any product that is largely written need these, independent of the gaming content.

There are qualities to Art as well, some of which are taste driven, but some are Objective. Since the game is about imagination, there has been a wide range of Art Quality which is acceptable, so while this is measurable, it is important only to a limited degree.

After all of that, one starts looking at issues of the presence (or lack) of detail, including consistency, and whether the detail illuminates and highlights the game. Or, whether the game "pulls together" or is a rambling jumble of mostly independent encounters.

Then there are issues of mechanical fit, cf: monster hit points and grind; broken math in social encounters; incorrect attack bonus scaling, or: blasphemy DC's, wimpy fighters at high level, strange multi-classing rules in 1E.

While such issues are hard to put on a scale, they are still Objective measures.

My sense of what is Subjective is more the focus or weight which a particular person places in one or another area.

TomB

 

[Umbran]

I think that he is commenting on layout, page setting, and error checking, not the physical properties of the AD&D books, which were sturdy enough to withstand pretty much anything.

Yes, exactly that. I have absolutely no complaints about the physical tomes - mine are still quite solid. In terms of layout, organization, and some of the artwork, though? Meh.

 

[ExploderWizard]

Why not? What's wrong with a subscription model for rpg material? Honestly, I'd think it's a very good model. You get a constantly updating system at a relatively low cost and the producer gets a healthy and stable income stream.

I'd think subscription based production is a better model than the boom/bust model of edition churn.

For electronic media, subscription is just fine. I can't login to WOW and play with whatever rules happen to suit me. The servers on the other end dictate the rules of play at any given time (which are subject to change frequently). The advantage is I can play anytime without needing anyone to run the game.

Tabletop games are a different animal entirely. A game company doesn't get to decide what options or rules are in play at the table. I buy products that interest me and the people playing decide what gets used and how.

If subscriptions are relied upon for tabletop content then the subscriber is effectively given up control of game content for the sake of convenience.
When 5E hits the street subscribers will either convert thier games or do without everything that makes a sub handy such as CB,MB, rules compendium, etc.

This why Machete don't rent tabletop games.

 

[Jan van Leyden]

While such issues are hard to put on a scale, they are still Objective measures.

My sense of what is Subjective is more the focus or weight which a particular person places in one or another area.

Objective facts weighted subjectively for a subjective result, then? That may be the best way to put it.

 

[Hussar]

For electronic media, subscription is just fine. I can't login to WOW and play with whatever rules happen to suit me. The servers on the other end dictate the rules of play at any given time (which are subject to change frequently). The advantage is I can play anytime without needing anyone to run the game.

Tabletop games are a different animal entirely. A game company doesn't get to decide what options or rules are in play at the table. I buy products that interest me and the people playing decide what gets used and how.

If subscriptions are relied upon for tabletop content then the subscriber is effectively given up control of game content for the sake of convenience.
When 5E hits the street subscribers will either convert thier games or do without everything that makes a sub handy such as CB,MB, rules compendium, etc.

This why Machete don't rent tabletop games.

This confuses me though. Setting aside the edition change for a bit, since it's still hypothetical at the moment, how does the electronic delivery method decide what rules are in play at your table?

Isn't that like saying if I buy every book for a system, the company is deciding what rules I use?

I guess I'm just not really seeing it. I'm playing in a Dark Sun campaign right now. So, when I load up the CB, I click the Dark Sun tab and I get all the Dark Sun options. If I want to run a custom game, I simply don't use the options that are presented.

What difference does it make if the group is getting the rules from a website or from the books at the table. They are the same rules?

And, before you talk about homebrew rules, we've currently added a Wounding system to the game based on the disease rules. Yup, we have to track it ourselves. But, so what? That's no different than it ever was. If I'm using Arduin Grimoire critical hits tables in D&D, I still need that book on the table and the D&D books aren't going to help me in the slightest.

 

[Ahnehnois]

Why not? What's wrong with a subscription model for rpg material? Honestly, I'd think it's a very good model. You get a constantly updating system at a relatively low cost and the producer gets a healthy and stable income stream.

I'd think subscription based production is a better model than the boom/bust model of edition churn.

Given that D&D involves planning a character for the future, "constant updating" isn't necessarily a good thing. The other problem with subscriptions (for a consumer) is that you're paying for something before you get it. I do not buy D&D books (or most things) without thoroughly evaluating them first. It puts pressure on a company to constantly produce a high volume of quality products, while a subscription model encourages them to do things to attract subscribers, who will then likely remain subscribers even if they are later charged a higher price or given lower quality (or quantity of) material.

The OGL has simply raised the standard, making it more difficult for rpg companies. I now expect free, high-quality material to be available online at any time in a user-friendly format. I expect to pay money only for something that I have already determined is worth buying due to its usefulness at the table. This is how 3.X worked (and now PF, which releases most of its stuff open and still sells books pretty well). Similarly, I would quit watching anything on Hulu if they charged for it (regardless of how much), and I would not watch the same material in other formats. When I can have free, quality, material in any arena, why would I settle for less? Subscriptions are less, because nothing is free.

Subscriptions are good for some things, but not for rpgs. Keep in mind that I was never saying that the edition cycle was great, I was saying that rpgs are a young hobby and that the ideal business model for them (if such a thing even exists) has not yet been found.

 

[wingsandsword]

This confuses me though. Setting aside the edition change for a bit, since it's still hypothetical at the moment, how does the electronic delivery method decide what rules are in play at your table?

I think he is thinking of the same thing that I am thinking of with a subscription model, that when you stop paying, it goes away.

Like how some subscription-based internet music services work, unlimited use while you pay, but it's all over if you stop paying.

An online, subscription based D&D where the rules were no longer accessible once you stopped paying, that's the sort of thing some of us hear when you say "subscription".