WotC didn't necessarily save D&D

[Sepulchrave II]

I can only speak personally, but WOTC definitely did save D&D for me.

Had it not been for 3E, I wouldn't have come back to the game the way I did; nor would I have revisited older editions with a renewed sense of wonder and appreciation.

Thank-you, Messrs. Tweet, Cook and Williams.

 

[Vascant]

Yeah in some ways WotC did save Dungeons and Dragons, in other ways .. who knows.

These are all my opinions....

Before WotC took on the mantle of ownership, AD&D was like an overweight child. So heavy with splat books it couldn't take its own weight.

Mr Cook came along and gave us a smarter D&D, this isn't the childhood version and probably should of had a warning label stating such. It ran much smoother then the bloated system of before but yeah when you cut off weight you do lose a little too. What can't be overlooked is during this era that WotC started with D&D did something different, it had friends. If you grew up playing during the 70's and onward playing D&D you had become very familiar with only one company was pretty much supplying your D&D fix, sure there were a few upstarts every once in a while but nothing matched the true source of D&D goodness. Suddenly you could get D&D from everywhere, you would go visit your grandmother for the holidays and find out she was running a d20 publishing shop in her basement. Of course quality was hit and miss, some publishers and names survived this.. most did not.
Back to this version though, WotC made a critical mistake with this edition though.. they thought adding software support would be cool but failed to realize it wasn't just cool but rather needed and required. They also made another mistake which clearly shows just how little thought the company gave concerning long term, the unique license they provided with this edition would go on forever.

Along comes Mr Mearls, I actually had hopes for this edition but all hopes were merely based on assumptions and I would soon pay for the dream in spades. After all, he had worked with Mr Cook so the new edition should have kind of the same feel right? He wrote Iron Heroes, not a bad product and a good direction for giving low magic some justice but looking beyond he also gave home for details being fleshed out perhaps.
All dreams crushed....
The era of needing to be a math genius to be in love with D&D was over, anyone could play this game. One of the players at my table labeled it the short bus of gaming. I do view some of this was needed, ever try and get a new person who never played a RPG before into Mr Cook's version... wow! I compare it to talking someone through deactivating a bomb over the phone, one wrong move and you lose the person. But this wasn't the mistake really, how they packages and marketed it to the current customer base was a disaster. They should of understood anyone still playing D&D was a math geek, eye for details, etc etc etc. So when they started rolling out the 3e rehashed marketing plan someone should of realized, these math geeks would check because it sounded familiar. Scary part it was word for word, an echo to years past. There was also a new bubble they still had not learned to handle, internet news. These sharks are fierce, news every hour.. something new to sink their teeth into and you have to be able to respond to it as well. You do it right and you are gold, sad thing is it is like the holy grail.. impossible to get right and appease even a majority of the people involved.

Onward.....
Mr Cook has been hired back into the WotC fold, have to admit my first thoughts were yeah back to the golden days!! Then common sense settled in, the lawyers would never allow this to happen. I know there is a 5e coming down now, why else hire Mr Cook.. I don't dare compare him to Mr Gygax but as far as living goes, he's really the closest thing. WotC has to be at least a little concerned over that blip in the rear view mirror, Paizo should of died when they stopped the magazines but thrive they have. They are pretty much the voice of OGL. The market share is shrinking, granted still safely the largest beast on the playground but is that share enough to this massive beast moving? We truly will never know the numbers to confirm or deny but another edition of D&D that doesn't become a rock star won't go over well, might see a new president of WotC if that happens. While I have nothing invested in this success, I do respect those that do because I was once in that fold. I seriously hope that everyone finds the edition that was meant for them and their playing style, yet wise enough to realize they found it.

Most seem to be worried about what a game isn't, stepping on and forgetting what a game is...

WotC didn't save D&D.. We did


Note: Before someone starts an argument or flame because my opinion does not match their own, keep in mind.. this is just my opinion from someone who has played D&D since 1975. I enjoy this game and so do you, enough said.

 

[doctorhook]

In the end, no one killed anything. Things evolved, and i think that objectively, PF is a "service pack" for 3.5, and each edition added something and created better rules. 4E is a bit of black sheep, as many people really don't like it (as it actually has removed some features from 3.5). I have no idea if this happened when 3e came out, as i wasn't really in the roleplaying scene just yet. I'd like to know, though.

4E didn't aim to remove things from 3.5E, but some of the stuff it added washed out the D&D flavour. The 4E movement today is to push for changes that preserve the innovations of 4E while making it taste more like D&D (especially AD&D).

Speaking as somebody who started with D&D in 1999, there was definitely a major edition war between AD&D and 3E fans, and the rhetoric was almost identical: "3E is too much like a video game! 3E is a 'dumbing-down' of D&D! 3E is a board game all about combat!" (If I can find the link when I get home, I'll post.) There were definitely some differences, but they weren't in the rhetoric.

The answer, at least from my view back in 97-2000, was sort of.

[sblock=Aside]
AD&D had been an mostly-dead horse for a while by the time 3e came out. The people who were still buying books were not buying very many. TSR had big fat ugly political and financial problems eating it alive, aside from middling sales. The existing fanbase was on the slim side.

3e was a pretty big change from AD&D, but by that point, there hadn't been a new "edition" for quite some time, and the age of the game was clear to most anyone who was playing. Very few people were playing the RAW, and while that was something of an advantage, WotC saw a game that would fix the problems of D&D's mechanics, and keep the important game elements of D&D.

So there was fury at the changes, but the fury wasn't quite as vehement or long lived. A lot of folks had problems with AD&D 2e -- it's hard to find many folks who prefer that edition. Most are 1e fans who were still playing 1e. A revision, bringing back some 1e elements, and keeping the same core game, was pretty broadly welcomed.

Not everyone liked 3e, because there were some radical changes, but more people liked it than liked 2e in 2000 at any rate, and the game grew.

4e exists in a different time -- the internet hate machine is more efficient now than it was in 2000. 3e had more fans than late 2e did. WotC had made such a good system that it was hard to see 4e as an improvement for some. It is likely that those people who had serious problems with 3e were a smaller crowd than those who didn't. The OGL allowed 3e (and other e's) to compete directly with 4e, rather than being forced to change. Given the PATHFINDER book sales, I think we can say that 3e is at least AS popular as 4e is right about now. 4e was in many ways a much bigger gamble than 3e was. Depending on the ultimate success of 4e, 5e may be an equally big gamble. Or it may be more like 3e was: coming into a less popular edition, restoring lost things, and picking up steam.

But 4e is (and 5e will be) dealing with different problems. The 2e -> 3e transition was shaky, but not quite as toxic. It could be any one of a thousand reasons, though. It could just be that 4e's improvements are harder to see. It could just be that a worldwide economic clusterflub puts everyone in the mood to be angry at something (in which case, WotC should go on a hiring spree so that people can afford its books ). It's not really a fair comparison.
[/sblock]

Good summary! I mostly agree with your assessment, except that my experience was that the kinds of comments on message boards at the time (both at Eric Noah's and on the Bioware forum, which are the two places I trolled back then) were remarkably similar to the stuff we saw about 4E in 2007-2008.

My guess is that the worst of the backlash against 4E is rooted in the fact that 3E was, frankly, a more popular game than was 2E, and that too many fans weren't ready to have a new edition in 2007 (WotC did a great job of making sure there would be 3E material to play for years).

 

[rogueattorney]

WotC didn't burn the village down to save it.

WotC built a new village on top of the one that burned down.

 

[Janx]

Isn't this like trying to claim the life guard didn't really save that kid from drowning, because maybe the kid could have made it if the life guard hadn't been there.

TSR was drowning in problems. If they didn't need the help, they would not have taken the offer that WotC made.

Ergo, WotC saved TSR and thus saved D&D.

If you're mincing words that they didn't save AD&D as whatever prior edition you might prefer, bear in mind, only 2E was actually in print at the time. The other editions were supposed to be dead because they were older editions. That's the point of a new edition.

 

[JediSoth]

I can't really say whether or not I think any of WotC's decisions are financially sound without knowing details of the company's finances.

I can say, however, that the latter developments of 3.X and my experiences with 4E actually revived my interest in older editions of D&D, particularly BECMI (or Rules Cyclopedia if you prefer) and AD&D 2nd Edition. I ran 3.X games from its release up past the announcement of 4E (and possibly after 4E was released) and I play in PFS games. But if I were to start a new campaign with my choice of D&D system right now, I would choose either BECMI or AD&D 2E.

There are a variety of reasons for that, none of which I'll get into here. But to me, WotC didn't kill AD&D. They're responsible for my renewed interest in it.

And if they re-print/re-release old material, as some recent rumors suggest they might, I'd be more than willing to give them some money to pick up products I don't already have (or are in poor shape).

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

AD&D probably would have gone out of print. It would no longer be printed if TSR had gone bankrupt.

It DID go out of print. TSR WAS bankrupt, could not pay the printers, had no money to do anything. IIRC it was something between 9 months and 1 year before WotC had purchased TSR and resumed shipment/printing of anything that retailers hadn't simply had left over in their stock. They resumed production using stuff that TSR had had in the works before shutting down. D&D was dead. The fact that it was fortunate enough to be revived before it left the operating table doesn't change that.

The same would apply to D&D of all editions, that's 1st (OD&D), 2nd (debatable, you could say Greyhawk...but most will agree it was more the B/X), 3rd (BECMI...and hence why the moniker...3e is actually sort of confusing...especially if you count prints as editions in which case BECMI was FAR more than 3rd edition, it was further along the line), and 2e AD&D.

It's not that confusing. When what we NOW call 1E was released it was simply titled "Advanced Dungeons and Dragons", and that was more to simply differentiate it from previous editions than as an effort to impugn them. When they undertook to revise Advanced Dungeons & Dragons rather than go the route of calling it Even More Advanced Dungeons & Dragons or Ultimate D&D they simply and logically called it the Second Edition of Advanced D&D, not meaning to suggest that the was only the second edition of the game EVER (not even 1E would be considered the second edition ever). Only then did the previous edition become known as "1st Edition."

IF WotC hadn't made 3e I would wager AD&D WOULD be in print today. Why do I say that, because it was the biggest system of the time, and nostalgia does strange things to people.

Well we can speculate until the cows come home about what TSR would have done had they not gone bankrupt. However, assuming that their downward corporate slide would have still taken place and that even if they had survived the cost of having the novels and dragon dice returned they would still have been in a serious cash crisis and needed to find SOMETHING to sell beyond the largely dull materials they had in the pipeline. I think they'd have been FORCED by their situation to quickly work up a Third Edition to sell. They had put out feelers about it through a survey taken at Gencon in 1996. http://www.enworld.org/forum/4e-discussion/208680-1996-d-d-3rd-edition-survey.html They went under shortly after that but even before then there was naturally discussion of a new edition - just as we currently see discussion of 5E.

Books that have not seen print in ages are now being reprinted.

Which would those be? The only D&D books from any edition I see WotC printing are from 4th. They don't even sell PDF's of the old stuff anymore. Am I missing something?

I would wager the AD&D books would be picked up by a publisher, or would have been, in the past 5 years to be published.

Oh no doubt. Even if WotC had not swooped in to pick up the pieces it isn't as if D&D would have disappeared entirely. It just would have taken a decade or so for someone to be able to pull it out of the wreckage to do something with it. I've no doubt that in that time some other game, probably VERY like D&D... SUSPICIOUSLY like D&D would have been published by someone if the name of Dungeons & Dragons itself could not have been extricated.

Furthermore I'd say that it would be on the Kindle and Ebook format, and probably be available in hardcopy.

I think you misunderestimate the utility of physical, paper books at a game table. You just have it reversed - it would be hardcopy, but might be as likely to be available in ebook format in addition.

It's not that hard to see it being picked up and published in both hardcopy print on demand and via the Kindle/ebook format, probably on sale for something like $20 USD.

POD is not the same thing as being "in print". Just saying...

If those are reprinted, I'd be willing to be it a surefire count that someone would have wanted to reprint AD&D.

But they can't. The rights aren't released by WotC.

Someone DOES want to have them reprinted and we have for years now. OSRIC would not exist if some printed form of the 1E core books were being sold off game store shelves rather than ebay. Same for other retroclones. But times change. I think that WotC is smart enough as a company that if they ever see a decent ability to profit from their publication without doing what they currently see as threatening their OTHER sales, their PRIMARY sales, then they'll do it.

Some would say OSRIC is AD&D...but is it really? Or is it more just a collection so that you can use the facade of AD&D for modules and adventures?

Um... OSRIC itself was indeed created for that very purpose - to enable publication and use of AD&D-compatible materials without having to reference AD&D core books. Just ask the people who created it. They're around.

You could view that WotC basically not only killed AD&D, but then after 4e buried it as well.

Only if you adhere to the very narrow and elitist view that only the TSR-produced versions of D&D were of any merit. It is undeniable that 3E (in the continued form of Pathfinder) and 4E both very popular and viable variations of D&D. Editions of D&D previous to that are no less viable just because they are out of print. No version of D&D has ever had an expiration date.

While WotC certainly is being quite UNaccommodating to fans of older, OOP editions of the game by refusing to even sell PDF's of the stuff they have not "killed" it because they CANNOT stop people from playing it and creating retroclone rulesets to facilitate their use.

3e/D20 Fantasy, the system that they replaced D&D with got all those who had discarded AD&D and brought them back to the fold...enthusiastically in many cases. I'd say it was FAR more successful than any reprint of AD&D would have done.

Quite so. But as I said TIMES CHANGE.

An interest in retrogaming has come about in recent years, but I'm not so certain it's as strong as the internet makes it appear.

While internet polls are hopelessly biased I have to say that there is a poll here on ENworld right now which suggests that there are more people here who own 1E AD&D core rules than own the 4E rules. I'm not so certain that the interest in 4E is as strong as the internet makes it appear.

 

[TerraDave]

Yes, TSR was destroying (A)D&D. WotC saved what it could.

Others have saved the rest, and then some.

 

[wingsandsword]

Okay, I honestly think that if D&D 3e had not been released, AD&D would have not lasted.

Here's why: Of all the gaming groups I knew, they all had to house rule AD&D 2e beyond recognition to use it. Not just one group, but every gaming group I met had it's own heavily house ruled, heavily modified version. No two were close to the same, and very few groups were close to happy with the standard rules.

We all played D&D, but nobody was happy with it. We played it because it was the most common game, what we'd always played, but we hacked it to make it usable.

So many things needed changes: multiclassing/dual-classing restrictions, race/class/alignment restrictions (why couldn't elves be Druids? why did Rangers have to be Good? Why couldn't Bards be Chaotic Good? ect.), level limits, different XP tables per class, clerical magic going to 7th level but wizard magic going to 9th level, the confusing THAC0 system, a hapless mish-mash of saving throws, awkward NWP's (or the much worse Secondary Skills), the Thief Skill system, ridiculously inconsistent rules about ability scores and their benefit. . .

Compared to so many other games on the market, AD&D was badly designed and a hopelessly confusing mish-mash. Any other game being released to the market by the late 1990's with that many arbitrary and nonsensical design elements would have been dead on arrival. D&D lasted because of name recognition and familiarity of ~20 years of regular play.

3e took the AD&D game and refitted the look, feel, and play style into more consistent and coherent mathematics and game elements, and removed arbitrary restrictions that didn't even make internal sense (Elves are more magical and vastly longer-lived than humans. . .but will never be high enough level as a Wizard to cast Wish, for example),

Even if TSR didn't fold and tried to keep AD&D in print, do you really think that people would be lining up to scratch their heads and figure out THAC0 and such now if there were other options? I'll never forget buying the "Black Box" Basic set in '91 and sitting around with my friends never being able to figure out THAC0 (and wondering why only Humans could be clerics, did Elves and Dwarves not have priests?).

AD&D, as compared to other games on the market, was REALLY showing its age by the late '90's and even if TSR had stayed solvent it was ripe for another game to come along and steal it's thunder, much like White Wolf did in the early 90's (albeit another genre, but proving that games other than D&D could be big movers & shakers in the industry).

 

[Viking Bastard]

Well, when I got into RPG in the mid-to-late 90s, AD&D was the lamest thing on the block. A lot of people liked D&D-like fantasy, but the common wisdom was that AD&D was mechanically awful (unplayable unless house ruled into pieces), horribly out-dated and too inconsistent. More streamlined systems were in. Nobody seemed to play D&D, even though a lot of people still bought it (officially, it was usually for inspiration). WoD was the big seller.

3e made D&D seem fresh and modern. Heck, it kinda made it cool.