D&D 5E Who really IS the target audience of D&D Next?

[enrious]

I want to sit down with other people and have fun playing D&D.

I think I'm in the target audience.

5e seems like they are trying to walk things back a bit, but given the design staff (I mean, Monte Cook comes from Rolemaster, often derided as RulesMaster) I don't think it's too likely.

Given that Monte has already written about some of the design decisions made on 3e and the lesson learned from it, I'm quite happy that he's involved.

Sure beats someone making the same mistakes twice.

 

[KarinsDad]

If they really cared about all inclusiveness they'd let things be and focus on making the best game that they can without starting up the nostalgia train.

How can it be the both the best game and not include the best elements from all editions (plus whatever other good ideas the designers can come up with).

By definition, aren't you limiting how good a game it could be by indicating that older mechanics and ideas shouldn't be included?

 

[Ahnehnois]

And it makes me wonder just who, exactly, is WotC targeting with D&D Next?

In some ways, I think I'm definitely part of the equation--someone who completely skipped over 4th edition, but has a history with the game, and is looking for an elegant rules system that fits my particular GM / group's style.

But--

I've never been to a gaming convention in my life.

I've played a grand total of 2 RPG sessions ever, in 25 years, at an FLGS, and didn't particularly like it either time.

I have almost zero interest in "living" campaigns.

I have a miniscule collection of maybe 2-dozen minis (if that), that I only really use half the time anyway.

There's a self-critical tone here that I think is unwarranted. Personally, I've never been to a gaming convention (or any entertainment-related convention), never played in a FLGS (only bought a small percentage of my books there a long time ago), never even considered any kind of organized play or living campaigns, and never had any miniatures. Nor have I ever run a published adventure, a published campaign setting, or paid for any online subscription service related to gaming. None of those things are required or even preferential elements of being a D&D player. Frankly, I am actively disinterested in most of those things.

The core game is a group of friends sitting in a room together with some books and dice. Anything else is optional. In many cases, I'd argue that anything else detracts from the game itself. My point is that there's nothing wrong with playing D&D in its purest form.

You might want to check out some of Ryan Dancey's pre-5e analysis posts. His view is that the core books are the main seller for rpgs, and that most of the other stuff is not profitable. Perhaps WotC has realized that producing high-quality, universal, and accessible core book(s) is the way to go, and has lost its interest in trying to monetize and evangelize optional aspects of the game.

What I'm really asking is, are the concerns and needs for a ruleset of someone who plays twice a month (at most) with friends going to be significantly different than someone playing twice a week, often with people they've never met at a game store?

Perhaps, but I sincerely hope WotC is thinking in terms of the former.

 

[KarinsDad]

More and more I think they should have just decided to support past editions. Put out a D&D Classics - a blend of the best parts of AD&D and BD&D. Then D&D d20, then just keep up 4e.

People have different tastes. It's why Coke makes Sprite, or why 7 up makes Dr. Pepper (and distributes RC)

An interesting analogy, but it has a major flaw.

D&D material isn't bottled, consumed, and the same material re-bottled again. It takes significant time, effort, and money to come up with new ideas for the same old stuff. And the new material by definition is a slightly different flavor (because it is new and hence, different).

In order to sell product, Coke can fire off hundreds of millions of bottles of the same thing and never has to change it. D&D fires off hundreds of thousands of copies of one thing, but then has to switch over to hundreds of thousands of copies of something else. Every time. A splat book is different than the predecessor material.

There is no way that WotC is going to have the resources to support 2 or 3 editions of the game system. There just isn't enough market support because there are people who have fled to Pathfinder or other game systems that might never come back to D&D. So, WotC has to do what it has always done. Put out new product line until that product line sales start slumping, then put out a new edition with a new way to look at D&D in order to invigorate the market. They have no real choice in the matter. Whether a new edition is ever good, bad, or ugly, WotC has to try to convince as many people as possible that it is good.


I do think that the recession is a major reason why 5E is coming out so quickly on the heels of 4E. WotC is even more incentivized to sell more product. The economy is weak, so they have to invent interest.

 

[SteveC]

I think this is the million dollar question. Fourth edition made it's major changes in large part to attract a new audience, with different attitudes about what makes a game.

From what I have seen D&D Next is trying to bring back the people who were disenfranchised by those changes, and that seems to be about it. So at it's core, it is likely to not be about miniatures, or detailed combat, and the magic system will be something out of 3X at the latest. Modules will be where the attempt is made to bring those ideas back, but certainly not in the core game.

I don't see any attempt to cater to a new audience, as the core game of D&D back in the day is very different than what we're seeing in the media and entertainment these days. I read Leiber, Vance, Moorcock and Howard when I was starting to learn about D&D, so a lot of what the game was about to me made sense. Do those authors speak to today's youth? Amazon sales put Harry Potter lightyears ahead of all those authors.

The interesting thing is that if this succeeds, and we bring back the old guard, WotC will be right back where they were at the end of the 3X days... looking to bring in a new audience to the game. Where do we go from there?

 

[Tallifer]

I am starting to convert to the Fifth Edition already in my mind after some initial reluctance and with much continuing distaste for certain revelations.

The Fifth Edition will work terrifically for playing groups such as mine in Korea. We have about a dozen active members, and we represent a wide variety of tastes and backgrounds. We are all very happy to meet and play with roleplayers while we are here in exile from the hot spots of gaming in the big Western cities, so we are all willing to compromise and play in each others' editions. Nonetheless it is a bit of a hassle to keep learning new rules or to deliberate before each campaign as to its system.

The Fifth Edition should allow each of us to meet our desires while all playing together at the same table. This is also extremely important because players keep coming and going because of the transitory nature of most foreigners in Korea (and the fact that almost no Koreans play tabletop and simultaneously have enough English).

Lest this example seem too esoteric, I know that my good friend back in the country in Canada has a similar problem. There are very few roleplayers in that part of Canada, which is very rural and small town: an edition which bridges the most egregious chasms between gamers will make for more ease of starting and maintaining D&D groups.

 

[pauljathome]

Its very unclear to me.

The snarky part of me says that it is clearly NOT the people who love 4th edition and it is clearly NOT the people who love Pathfinder, because nobody could miss these targets so egregiously if they were TRYING to hit them

Which leaves the 10% of the market playing something else .

I suspect that WOTC thinks that it is targeting 90+% of current 4th ed players, 90+% of Pathfinder players, and 90+% of various old style D&D like games.

Or maybe its trying to target new players. Keeping the entry game very simple probably appeals more to new players than most of us reading Enworld

 

[boredgremlin]

I think they are probably targeting the people who left D&D for pathfinder or stuck with 3X.

Theres plenty of people who will just buy and play whatever has D&D on the cover. Those people are now playing 4e. They arent the only ones playing it but they definitely ARE playing it.

Those people will buy and play 5e too, because its what they do.

A lot of the other 4e audience is people who were open minded to addition changes instead of invested in something older. A fair amount of those people are STILL open minded and as long as 5e doesnt completely suck they will probably buy that too.

All in all i dont see very many 4e players sticking with it after its no longer supported so their dollars are a virtual lock.

However if their dollars were enough.... well we wouldnt be talking about a 5e would we?

People who play warhammer, storyteller or savage worlds or something along those lines prefer a system too different to baseling D&D expectations to reasonably expect to get many of them without alienating existing customers. So they are out as a target audience.

Attracting totally new players is good but they went that way before and it bit them in the butt. New players dont usually buy a lot of books. they may play the game but they dont spend a ton of money on it until the hobby really gets in their blood. So targeting them is good but a long term proposition. They cant really be the focus either.

People still playing 1e or 2e. They arent changing. WoTC should accept it and move on. Dont even try.

All thats really left as a good target is 3X lovers. So that has to be their focus.

 

[Ahnehnois]

I don't see any attempt to cater to a new audience, as the core game of D&D back in the day is very different than what we're seeing in the media and entertainment these days. I read Leiber, Vance, Moorcock and Howard when I was starting to learn about D&D, so a lot of what the game was about to me made sense. Do those authors speak to today's youth? Amazon sales put Harry Potter lightyears ahead of all those authors.

The interesting thing is that if this succeeds, and we bring back the old guard, WotC will be right back where they were at the end of the 3X days... looking to bring in a new audience to the game. Where do we go from there?

Now there's an interesting question. 3e struggled to bring in non-rpg people, especially late in its run, and 4e has failed pretty dramatically at that. The whole open playtest thing is great, but pretty clearly aimed at people who already play.

Will the rules be more beginner-friendly, and more importantly, more inclusive? How will it be marketed? And, perhaps most importantly, will they actively target people who are not already MMO or cRPG gamers (i.e. geeks)?

It seems to me that with the Hobbit movies around the corner and Game of Thrones very much in the public eye, there's a great opportunity to take the game to a much broader audience.

I do, however, disagree with the implicit idea that new players equals children. Children are very important, but there are also plenty of lapsed gamers, and plenty of creatively minded adults who are gamers waiting to happen. This is important from a design perspective because I think it's a lot easier to get young people to play a game made for adults than it is to get adults to play a game made for children.

 

[Kynn]

I think WotC are paying a lot of lip service right now to the earliest gamers ever crowd, the BECMI folks, the OSR guys. They're trying to get them on board with this new edition.

I suspect a lot of it is just lip service, to be honest. I think they're going to promise a lot to old-time gamers but they're not going to build an OSR retroclone after all, and a lot of the old school will just shrug when 5e comes out, like they did with 3.x, 4e, and Pathfinder, and go back to what they're comfortable with already.

It seems to me like WotC are playing the PR game first, and the game-building game comes later. I hope I'm wrong, but they're making a lot of vague promises at this point.