When did I stop being WotC's target audience?

[MrMyth]

Why do you assume they're mutually exclusive, when -- since I wrote both of them -- you should be assuming they're not?

I'm not interested in 4E, because 4E was designed by people who weren't listening to me (or people like me). I am not saying 4E was designed while listening to nobody ... I'm saying 4E was designed without listening to me. And I'm wondering why, and when, WotC decided to stop listening to people like me.

Why, and when, did WotC decide I wasn't their target audience?

They did and they didn't.

Look, every single gamer is going to have a different idea of what makes the perfect game. Fourth Edition IS designed entirely around gamer feedback and what many of their customer base wanted. But it simply isn't possible for it to satisfy everyone, just as Third Edition couldn't, or GURPS couldn't, or World of Darkness couldn't - every RPG has those who like it and those who don't.

They weren't specifically out to alienate you. They'd love to still have you as a customer - the entire goal of the company is to sell product! And I don't know if the issues, for you, are with every decision they have made - or if they have simply made some specific change so frustrating that you have turned away from all their other product in response.

Whatever the case, they can't please everyone at the same time. Every time they make a decision - make a choice of any kind - there will be some fans grateful for it and others who dislike it.

You don't find 4E to your taste. That's fine. This isn't because they designed a game to specifically drive you away - it is because they designed a game that they felt was what their audience was looking for, and it didn't end up being what you wanted in a game.

That's fine. There is no malevolent plan here, no conspiracy. People simply aren't a hive mind, and that's a good thing. And there is no one single target group that the game is 'for', or 'not for' - I've seen gamers who have been around since D&D started who think 4E is the best thing ever, and others who have loathed it. I've seen those who feel it is a callback to Second Edition after a Third Edition they despised; I've seen others who feel it only continues a trend that takes the game away from its roots. I've seen younger gamers who hate the changes it has made to the only edition they've experienced (3rd Ed), and others who have enjoyed the chance to see a new edition happening.

Why did WotC decide to stop listening to you specifically? I can't answer that. I'm not sure what the elements are that you specifically take umbrage with. The answer might be that they felt there were more fans who had an opposing viewpoint as to yours. Maybe they simply weren't getting the right feedback from people in your category. Maybe they were only hearing complaints about certain elements of the game, and it wasn't until they changed those elements that those who enjoyed them spoke up.

It is even harder to answer because each decision, each change, is seperate from the last. Some people love 4E but are upset with what they did with the Realms. Some are ok with that, but upset about the way they are going to be handling miniatures. Others might not like 4E, but love the changes they are making to the miniatures lines.

In the end, the only thing you can do is vote with your wallet, and give feedback where you can. And maybe there will be enough others who do the same for them to take note, and make changes to what you are looking for. Honestly, that is probably how many of these changes - with the game, with the miniatures - came to happen.

Or maybe that won't be the case. Many people felt just as alienated when Third Edition came around. Some were lured back to the game nonetheless, others are returning with 4E - and others still continue to stay away.

Like I said. The game can't be written for everyone. I don't think that WotC as a whole has gone in some strange new direction that has resulted in every single decision they make being anathema to your ideals. I think it far more likely that a few specific issues have cropped up to drive you away - or that, having decided 4E wasn't to your taste, there simply wasn't any specific need to grab any other material from WotC.

But really, the only one who can answer your question - regarding what it is that is driving you away from WotC's products - is yourself. And whatever the answer is, I honestly don't think it the result of any corporate conspiracy or because they specifically set out to target one part of the audience over another.

I think they set out to make a quality game, and feel they succeeded. Whether you disagree with that or not - whether or not you feel the game is for you - is your own decision to make, just as has been the case for every gamer with every edition of every game.

 

[Greylock]

Everyone keeps saying that 4E is a sales success... I don't see it. I just don't. The bookstores in my area, from mom and pop comic/rpg shops to major retailers like Borders and Barnes & Noble seem to be letting D&D vanish from the shelves. I see beat up cardboard shippers with the same five or so books in them for months at a time. I see the books sitting well browsed and mostly unsold while White Wolf and video game books refill what space is left when books are sold or returned. My local Borders, for instance, had two four foot sections of RPGs, four shelves high, last year. Now it's two shelves period, half full and buried. The comic shops that heavily supported RPGs barely even bother to order new releases now. All publishers seem to have suffered from the 4E back catalog wipe even if they weren't 3.x D&D.

I'm seeing this all over my city, and all my friends are concerned about it as well. No retailers here seem to give a damn about RPGs anymore.

 

[MrMyth]

I don't think anyone's arguing that 4E impedes roleplaying -- just that there is an underlying tone implying that roleplaying should be met with a held nose and a refrain of "Oh, if you must, but get it over with so we can get back to combat!"

...

In other words, 3E wasn't built with the intent of being a role-player's paradise, but it still supported role-players in a way that 4E's "choose from column A or B" class system doesn't seem to.

That's how it strikes me, anyhow.

I don't know about that - it really is a highly subjective matter.

For myself, I've found roleplaying significantly more supported by 4E - between the much better advice on running games in the DMG, the encouragement to allow player creativity, putting greater narrative control in player's hands, the presence of genuine mechanics for dealing with non-combat encounters, and the ability to embrace character concept and build characters in a way that feels natural instead of having to be forced into absurd optimized builds in order to be viable playing the game. 3rd Edition, in my experience, was the game that dismissed RP in return for more combat time.

But... that is just my opinion. I know others who loved the greater simulationism, the thoroughness of the details in character construction and world-building, the greater diversity of skills and features, the greater distinction between melee and spell systems and the flavor that brought - and for them, 3rd Edition was far more useful for RP.

Both systems have their advantages and disadvantages for roleplaying. Some will prefer one over the other, and that's ok.

That said, I do think you are very mistaken to state that 4E in any way implies that RP should take a backseat to combat, or discourages it in any fashion. Both games provide plenty of support for roleplaying... which, in the end, is something entirely driven by the players and the DM.

You can certainly feel free to prefer the RP strengths of 3rd Edition over those of 4E - but if you genuinely think it somehow looks down on roleplaying, I really think you are viewing it through a biased lens and giving an extraordinarily incorrect description of the game.

 

[MrMyth]

Everyone keeps saying that 4E is a sales success... I don't see it. I just don't.

...

I'm seeing this all over my city, and all my friends are concerned about it as well. No retailers here seem to give a damn about RPGs anymore.

It really does seem to vary from area to area. For every story I hear about 4E books rotting on the shelves, I hear from someone else whose retailers can't get new copies in fast enough.

Thus far, every report from WotC themselves has been that 4E has been quite successful. Whether that will remain the case in the long run is simply something folks will need to wait and see - but I think looking at any isolated areas isn't going to give the big picture.

 

[Shroomy]

Everyone keeps saying that 4E is a sales success... I don't see it. I just don't. The bookstores in my area, from mom and pop comic/rpg shops to major retailers like Borders and Barnes & Noble seem to be letting D&D vanish from the shelves. I see beat up cardboard shippers with the same five or so books in them for months at a time. I see the books sitting well browsed and mostly unsold while White Wolf and video game books refill what space is left when books are sold or returned. My local Borders, for instance, had two four foot sections of RPGs, four shelves high, last year. Now it's two shelves period, half full and buried. The comic shops that heavily supported RPGs barely even bother to order new releases now. All publishers seem to have suffered from the 4E back catalog wipe even if they weren't 3.x D&D.

I'm seeing this all over my city, and all my friends are concerned about it as well. No retailers here seem to give a damn about RPGs anymore.

If most gamers are anything like me (and I'm not saying that they are), then they're buying mostly through the online outlets. At this point, with the exception of modules, tiles, and the occassional 3PP product, I'm buying exclusively through Amazon.com. I feel bad for our local LGSs, but I'm not giving up that kind of discount, especially with an upcoming wedding I have to pay for.

 

[Mark]

(. . .) with an upcoming wedding I have to pay for.

Congrats!


How many of the wedding party are gamers?

 

[Fifth Element]

I'm seeing this all over my city, and all my friends are concerned about it as well. No retailers here seem to give a damn about RPGs anymore.

This is very similar to the complaints about the game itself.

"Me and my friends don't like 4E, therefore it must not be successful."

and

"4E may not be selling well in my area, therefore it must not be successful."

Neither are valid arguments. 4E's success as a whole does not depend on you buying it, or people who frequent the stores you do buying it. You haven't even based you conclusion of the actual number of copies actually sold by your local retailers, just the number you perceive (or assume, or guess) to have been sold.

 

[Mallus]

I don't think anyone's arguing that 4E impedes roleplaying...

My impression is that they were saying:

"4e does not provide me with the adequate tools to role-play the character of my choice".

It's not a position I agree with, but I can understand it.

... just that there is an underlying tone implying that roleplaying should be met with a held nose and a refrain of "Oh, if you must, but get it over with so we can get back to combat!"

I didn't think people were saying this. Because this basically says:

"4e does provide me with the tools I need to role-play the character of my choice, but for other, ancillary reasons, such as comments made by some of the designers, or what I perceive to be their attitude toward the game, I don't want to use them."

And that's either petty, oversensitive, or both.

Certainly as long as I can remember, in the larger RPG community, D&D was held up as "the bad example" as far as roleplaying is concerned.

I'm mostly a D&D player and I've never subscribed to that load of rot. My experience of D&D is that people play it in so many different ways it's hard to say anything about the game "as a whole".

3E wasn't built with the intent of being a role-player's paradise, but it still supported role-players in a way that 4E's "choose from column A or B" class system doesn't seem to.

3e supports a certain kind of role-playing better; one pegged to the mechanical modeling of character abilities, so you're certainly right in that sense.

 

[Greylock]

...You haven't even based you conclusion of the actual number of copies actually sold by your local retailers, just the number you perceive (or assume, or guess) to have been sold.

You are jumping to conclusions as well. I talk to the shopkeepers and have friends at some of the big box stores, Hastings and Borders both, but my anecdote was based only on what I see, and I've been a retailer and retail buyer my whole life. I'm not going to expect you to trust my judgment, but I have a practiced eye.

I'm not sure why everyone around here would bail on the primary local comic/RPG shop and go online buying when, as I routinely reported when the box sets came out, it undercut Amazon in pricing.

 

[The Little Raven]

I must be different, since I used to read all of the books from front to back and then re-read the parts I needed.

You chose to read them, but had no reason to actually do so besides the desire to read something other than your own class. That is no different in 1e, 2e, 3e, or 4e.

The color-coded verbal vomit of the class section of 4E does not really work well with that.

It doesn't kill my eyes or my desire to read like the tightly cramped, brown-drenched, overly busy of 3e's books. To each their own.