When did I stop being WotC's target audience?

[smdmcl]

I am 40 years old, have played the red box, 1st, 2nd and 3rd editions of D&D since the early 80's and I am in WoTC's target audience with 4th edition. In fact, by Christmas, I will have purchased more WoTC product than I did through the entire 3rd edition era.

Why? I never fell in love with 3rd edition. It was playable but, very quickly, I grew tired of the over-complicated rules that led to bickering and rules-lawyering at the game table. IMHO, 4th edition has retained the options I need (greater than the first 2 editions) while making the rules simple and streamlined (more user friendly than 3rd) so that we rarely even need to look up the rules at the table any longer. Do I love 4th edition? No, so far it's shown itself to be a great game for my group but there are always things I think they could have done differently but, I think I may have a little crush.

For the record:
3rd edition purchases: 3.0 PHB, 3.5 PHB, DMG, MM, Complete Martial, No modules (not that WoTC did many) or other supplements
4th edition purchases: PHB, DMG, MM, AV, Martial Power (on order), H1, H2, H3, P1 (on order) and the DM screen, plus looking forward to the PHB2, Divine and Arcane Power books when they're released.

I'm no trying to say I'm right and anyone else is wrong. I'm just trying to point out that some people have increased their spending with the release of 4th edition.

Shane

 

[Psion]

I bought every 3.5 book WotC ever released. I bought multiple cases of most of the miniatures sets. I bought the dungeon tiles.

Now I buy almost nothing from WotC. I'm not interested in 4E. The 4E cross-pollination with DDM means I dropped the skirmish game and cut way, way back on buying the minis. (I am still buying the dungeon tiles.)

I'm right there with you. WotC could expect me to buy at least one major release per month under 4e, sometimes more.

My thought as to why: They decided to trade a bird in hand in hopes for 2 in the bush that is WoW.

My other cynical thought as to why: the decisions that informed the game design were less informed by perception of what the market "really wants" than what defensive 4e fans (and WotC employees) like to put forth.

 

[MeepoTheMighty]

edit* fwiw, they lost me when they made all these crazy splats (imho, the early attempts at WoW- type munchkinism).

Splats have been around since 2nd edition, and the first splats for 3E were out within a couple months of the core books. WoW didn't come out until late 2004. I'm not quite sure how WoW invented munchkinism, but I'm glad you were able to use it a scapegoat nonetheless.

 

[xechnao]

My other cynical thought as to why: the decisions that informed the game design were less informed by perception of what the market "really wants" than what defensive 4e fans (and WotC employees) like to put forth.

Wotc believes it has the marketing prereequisites needed for its model to work.

 

[Aeolius]

i'm not quite sure how wow invented munchkinism, but i'm glad you were able to use it a scapegoat nonetheless.

"stop poking meeeeeeee!!!!"

 

[ExploderWizard]

Splats have been around since 2nd edition, and the first splats for 3E were out within a couple months of the core books. WoW didn't come out until late 2004. I'm not quite sure how WoW invented munchkinism, but I'm glad you were able to use it a scapegoat nonetheless.

2nd Edition!!! How bout Greyhawk, Eldritch Wizardry, Blackmoor?

Splats and supplements are as old as the game itself.

 

[Campbell]

I think the notion that 4e was designed primarily on the basis of market research is largely flawed. While I'm sure the designers of 4e took the feedback they received seriously, I'll posit they did exactly what most game designers do: when given an assignment they made a game they thought would be more enjoyable using their creative muscles. That's right - they just made a game that they liked better. Nefarious bastards.

 

[JDJblatherings]

I have a question about the "D&D must evolve or go out of business" argument. Why isn't D&D like Scrabble, Chess or Monopoly? They don't evolve, and they don't go out of business either. (And the different "versions" of Monopoly don't really count - they're the exact same game with a different color scheme and names). Companies still make a profit selling those games, and people keep buying those games (either new gamers or gamers replacing a worn out set). In theory, couldn't TSR still be around selling the Basic Set to the new generation of gamers on the same basis that Hasbro is still selling Monopoly, Life and Clue?

Games change, even the classics. Chess has undergone a 1000 years of change, monopoly came from a small family of similar games that evolved for a couple of decades before becoming the classic version, it's been spitting out spin-off versions and imitators for decades. Scrabble went through a period of evolution as well it didn't even have a board in it's earliest incarnation and it was known as Lexiko, It and Criss-Cross before becomign scrabble, Scrabble has also spawned many varitions and imitators.

RPGs being the open games they are invite even more change then these classic games by having a wider range of options and a built in "do it yourself" nature. Does this mean the games have to be radically different from edition to edition...nah, but many are going to be.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I'm right there with you. WotC could expect me to buy at least one major release per month under 4e, sometimes more.

My thought as to why: They decided to trade a bird in hand in hopes for 2 in the bush that is WoW.

Maybe the bird was growing old or dying? While they loved and cherished him, they knew it would only last them so long?

My other cynical thought as to why: the decisions that informed the game design were less informed by perception of what the market "really wants" than what defensive 4e fans (and WotC employees) like to put forth.

I doubt that. 4E came pretty "stealthy" to all of us. Sure, rumours of 4E have been around since at least 3.5 (4E is coming 200x), but they weren't founded. There were no 4E fans until it was announced, and at that point, the game was already too far into development to see any major changes. It saw changes, sure, but the major design goals where already fulfilled, and the rest was mostly tweaking the details. The question wasn't anymore. "Should Fighters have powers" it was "Is Tide of Iron too strong?".

 

[SteveC]

So here's my $.02. What changed with 4E is the business model that WotC is using to sell books and develop the product line. In 4E WotC adopted the "White Wolf" product line method, which is a fundamentally different way of doing things than they had ever used before. By White Wolf, I mean the idea of giving you a small number of powers for each class/clan/whathaveyou and then expanding them dramatically in splats.

In the core PHB you get a "taste" of each character class, and you also have much more narrowly defined classes than what we've seen previously. In the case of the martial characters this can be hard to see, because they've gone from being 1-2 page descriptions to filling a dozen pages each. Even so, you rule out a lot of martial characters in the core rules: you can't make a fighter that effectively uses two weapons, for example, because that's a ranger. I know this has been argued to death, that you can take a fighter, multiclass as a ranger and replace powers, but the fact remains that it is far more difficult, and your character will be a lot less effective than a fighter who plays to the basic defender role.

What you get is a "starter edition" for characters that can do some very basic things, but you end up missing out on a lot of different options, and those options will be presented to you in later supplements.

This is most obvious with magical characters, as you no longer have illusionists, conjurers, and enchanters to name a few. Again, it may be argued that you can kludge together these characters, but they aren't going to be nearly as effective as the splat based classes that are designed to perform those roles by default. Those classes will be back, but they'll be in splats.

So if you want to play the kind of character you could play using only the 3X Core books (PHB/MM/DMG), you're going to be buying the core plus one or more splats.

When Martial Power comes out, the number of core powers and options for those characters is going to triple, and we're going to see two-weapon fighters, ranged rogues, and rangers with animal companions for just a start. The thing is, we had all of that in the core rules for 3X.

To me, that's the difference in the different in the product line strategy for 4E, and I can see where that would not sit well with some of the previous audience. Frankly, it doesn't with me, but I find that there's so much good about the edition that I overlook a lot of it.

Please note: this is my opinion, I know a lot of you believe that the multiclass system is a lot more robust than I do, for example. That's all okay in the end, it's just one guy's opinion.

EDIT: In case it isn't obvious (and it wasn't when I reread what I just wrote!) I believe it's this change in product line philosophy that has made many folks feel they're no longer in WotC's target audience.

--Steve