D&D 5E With Respect to the Door and Expectations....The REAL Reason 5e Can't Unite the Base

[Neonchameleon]

They know they can keep a certain percentage of current 4e players no matter what they produce. Those people play D&D. If you can't own the market when you start with that group in the bag you are doing poorly. I expect 5e if it returns to something close to traditional D&D will go gangbusters. Half the 4e playerbase, Pathfinder, 3.5e, 1e,2e. The market is wide open.

I don't understand this view. You might get half the 4e playerbase but I doubt it. Why do you think you're going to even make serious inroads into the PF playerbase? They are mostly happy with Paizo rather than switching to a new system. They've switched away from D&D and tend to IME dislike WotC - D&D Next will have to produce a better Pathfinder than Pathfinder to have a chance. And do it without upsetting any of the other audiences. And players of older editions have, by and large, hacked their preferred game into something they want and have many years of familiarity with and mastery of (3.5, the newest older edition, will be more than a decade old when D&D Next comes out). Which means that D&D Next needs to compete not just head to head but as a fresh game against people that have mastered their favourite game. And haven't given WotC any regular money in at least five years - it needs to be that much better that they are going to spend money to learn a new system.

So using expected rather than maximum values you're looking at roughly: A quarter of the 4e playerbase, a tenth of Pathfinder, a quarter of the 3.5 player base (i.e. a subset of those that tried 4e and switched back), and a fraction of older editions.

Or: something about half the size of the 4e or Pathfinder current playerbase. That's my expectation assuming that D&D Next is actually a good game. Your proposal is the jackpot they are hoping for.

However there is one group that is wide open. Disgruntled 4e players who want continuing support - the same way PF moved in on 3.5 fans. I'm looking at a pitch to Cubicle 7 games - or possibly one to Evil Hat/One Bad Egg based on re-writing the 4e rules while keeping the maths, the way OSRIC has.

 

[billd91]

They've switched away from D&D and tend to IME dislike WotC - D&D Next will have to produce a better Pathfinder than Pathfinder to have a chance. And do it without upsetting any of the other audiences. And players of older editions have, by and large, hacked their preferred game into something they want and have many years of familiarity with and mastery of (3.5, the newest older edition, will be more than a decade old when D&D Next comes out). Which means that D&D Next needs to compete not just head to head but as a fresh game against people that have mastered their favourite game. And haven't given WotC any regular money in at least five years - it needs to be that much better that they are going to spend money to learn a new system.

So using expected rather than maximum values you're looking at roughly: A quarter of the 4e playerbase, a tenth of Pathfinder, a quarter of the 3.5 player base (i.e. a subset of those that tried 4e and switched back), and a fraction of older editions.

Or, depending your perspective on 4e, you could say that there are PF players who felt they were sticking with the soul or traditions of D&D as it moved to another company - who never left the game though they left the trademark. I expect many of them could be fairly easily wooed back to WotC with the right D&D Next, particularly if that D&D Next really does feel like a "back to basics" version of D&D. That would fill a slightly different niche than PF itself and would probably be a welcome addition to a lot of people's game rotation. For that matter, there are plenty of PF players who also play 4e - so it's never been that PF players were a zero-sum prospect for WotC.

Your comments about people being disgruntled with WotC does ring pretty true. They'll have to significantly atone for 4e stumbles and I think they've been moving significantly in that direction. They certainly seemed to be interested in what people felt were the core elements of D&D - an extremely positive move, in my opinion. Their orientation toward digital releases will almost certainly have to be adjusted as well. And for some, their attitude toward licensing has to change as well, though I expect a lot less out of WotC in this area.

 

[Emerikol]

I don't understand this view. You might get half the 4e playerbase but I doubt it. Why do you think you're going to even make serious inroads into the PF playerbase? They are mostly happy with Paizo rather than switching to a new system. They've switched away from D&D and tend to IME dislike WotC - D&D Next will have to produce a better Pathfinder than Pathfinder to have a chance. And do it without upsetting any of the other audiences. And players of older editions have, by and large, hacked their preferred game into something they want and have many years of familiarity with and mastery of (3.5, the newest older edition, will be more than a decade old when D&D Next comes out). Which means that D&D Next needs to compete not just head to head but as a fresh game against people that have mastered their favourite game. And haven't given WotC any regular money in at least five years - it needs to be that much better that they are going to spend money to learn a new system.

I accept you believe that. Only time will prove one of us right. I feel comfortable that I'm right. I feel that even in the bastion of 4e over on the 4e boards there are lots of 4e players who acknowledge they aren't wed to 4e style mechanics. There are all those people who just go with the flow. They are a bigger group than you think. Since the 4e playerbase is half the size of the original 1e,2e,3e playerbase prior to the civil war split, your 25% is accurate for the entire group just not for the smaller 4e group.

So using expected rather than maximum values you're looking at roughly: A quarter of the 4e playerbase, a tenth of Pathfinder, a quarter of the 3.5 player base (i.e. a subset of those that tried 4e and switched back), and a fraction of older editions.

I believe that if D&D is a traditional D&D game most of the Pathfinder players will buy it. D&D is their home. It doesn't mean they won't buy Pathfinder stuff either. But I believe they will be active customers of 5e. And there are plenty of people who prefer Pathfinder over 4e who don't think Pathfinder is it. They are open to a new edition that doesn't abandon all that they love.

However there is one group that is wide open. Disgruntled 4e players who want continuing support - the same way PF moved in on 3.5 fans. I'm looking at a pitch to Cubicle 7 games - or possibly one to Evil Hat/One Bad Egg based on re-writing the 4e rules while keeping the maths, the way OSRIC has.

I am hoping that someone does just that. Because it would make D&D much easier if those people migrated out. Personally I think if 4e got released under any name other than D&D at it's inception, it wouldn't have gotten anywhere. I think the brand name carries 4e mostly. I admit there are some 4vengers but I also honestly think most of them are here on these boards. Meaning back home at the local game stores there aren't that many 4vengers.

 

[Neonchameleon]

I accept you believe that. Only time will prove one of us right. I feel comfortable that I'm right. I feel that even in the bastion of 4e over on the 4e boards there are lots of 4e players who acknowledge they aren't wed to 4e style mechanics.

Please! This place is a 3.X centric site (unsurprising given when and why it was founded) with a very light detente but has almost no problems with people trying to throw 4e off the boat by calling it either a tactical skirmish game or not an RPG or not D&D. If you want actual 4e bastions, try the rpg.net forums or Something Awful's Traditional Games forum. (Or whatever the hell the Wizards boards are doing these days).

 

[Herschel]

It's a description of a style of gamplay that I do not like.

There's nothing wrong with liking or disliking certian mechanics and no one is taking issue with that part of it. THIS is where you fall apart:

I do not like plot coupons/dissociative mechanics/metagame dissonance. Whatever you want to call it. The fact you can't separate this even though it is clearly defined from abstract or realism really is a comprehension problem on your part. The concepts are distinct.

Right here you show your bias and your inability to understand the core of the debate.

1. EVERY mechanic fits the description of "diassocblahblahblah.."

2. The only difference in them being there are ones you've chosen to accept or reject. You're choosing to apply a pejorative to the ones you've rejected while claiming the ones you've accepted aren't within that same group.

 

[Herschel]

I am hoping that someone does just that. Because it would make D&D much easier if those people migrated out. Personally I think if 4e got released under any name other than D&D at it's inception, it wouldn't have gotten anywhere. I think the brand name carries 4e mostly. I admit there are some 4vengers but I also honestly think most of them are here on these boards. Meaning back home at the local game stores there aren't that many 4vengers.

Ah yes, the Gamer version of Ethnic Cleansing, the perfect way to unify the market. I left the rest of your post alone because it was so ridiculous I couldn't write anything remotely nice about its lack of logic.

 

[D'karr]

I accept you believe that. Only time will prove one of us right. I feel comfortable that I'm right.

I looked at my Magic 8 Ball and it said I was right.

Speculating one way, or the other at this time is simply looking at a Magic 8 Ball because we have NO FACTS.

Speculating will keep people busily fighting about their particular prediction, but in the end I'm only interested in playing a fun game not in speculating of the how's or why's with NO FACTS.

What I have seen to this point does not particularly excite me, but only time will tell.

 

[Emerikol]

2. The only difference in them being there are ones you've chosen to accept or reject. You're choosing to apply a pejorative to the ones you've rejected while claiming the ones you've accepted aren't within that same group.

And this is what torques me off and infuriates me. You are wrong. Because you can't comprehend it doesn't make it not exist. The examples you and others have given who don't understand reveal you don't understand. But you make yourself look like a fool when you say the concept doesn't exist. If you really can't see that hit points are an abstraction but not a dissociative mechanic then you really need to think about it some more. There is a vast difference.

Any time you want to do a blind study on this and want to give me money go ahead. Instead of being foolish you should just say you like X instead of denying X exists.

It is a characteristic of 4vengers that they must deny any and all reasons other than "I don't like it" from others. So mysteriously at the advent of 4e a magic miasma fell upon the world and all those players that hate 4e were hypnotized into hating it.

If this is all you've got then I suggest we drop it.

 

[Herschel]

And this is what torques me off and infuriates me. You are wrong. Because you can't comprehend it doesn't make it not exist. The examples you and others have given who don't understand reveal you don't understand. But you make yourself look like a fool when you say the concept doesn't exist. If you really can't see that hit points are an abstraction but not a dissociative mechanic then you really need to think about it some more. There is a vast difference.

There is no difference, heck, HP are so "disassociated" people can't even agree on what they actually mean. They are also an abstraction but this isn't an "if one then not the other scenario", in fact the amount of abstraction they represent varies from person to person, as this board shows.

 

[thecasualoblivion]

And this is what torques me off and infuriates me. You are wrong. Because you can't comprehend it doesn't make it not exist. The examples you and others have given who don't understand reveal you don't understand. But you make yourself look like a fool when you say the concept doesn't exist. If you really can't see that hit points are an abstraction but not a dissociative mechanic then you really need to think about it some more. There is a vast difference.

Any time you want to do a blind study on this and want to give me money go ahead. Instead of being foolish you should just say you like X instead of denying X exists.

It is a characteristic of 4vengers that they must deny any and all reasons other than "I don't like it" from others. So mysteriously at the advent of 4e a magic miasma fell upon the world and all those players that hate 4e were hypnotized into hating it.

If this is all you've got then I suggest we drop it.

What you describe are your personal opinions and tastes, but you then act as if they were objective facts, held by the majority, are the true definition of ad&D, and superior/correct compared to other philosophies and tastes.