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Saph
2013-02-11, 09:19 AM
Advance Note: This post assumes you've read this Escapist Bonus Column on EN World by Ryan Dancey (http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?315800-4-Hours-w-RSD-Escapist-Bonus-Column). If you're at all interested in D&D/RPGs and you haven't read it, go do it now. It has loads of insider info about D&D 3e/4e and the RPG market. I'm going to be referring to the article throughout this post.

RPGs as Network Products

Out of all the stuff Dancey covers, one part that stood out to me as particularly interesting was the market research data. Here's the summary:

Tabletop RPGS are network products. The true value of a tabletop RPG isn't the book/box/PDF you buy, it's the network of social connections you share that let you play the game.
The less commonality between these social connections and the more segmented the community, the weaker the social network becomes.
This means that having lots of different competing game systems can be harmful. If your group can't all agree on a single system to play, there's no game.
(Aside: this is a lot like languages. If one guy in your group speaks French and another Spanish and another Chinese and another Russian but they all speak a common language like English, then they can all communicate. If they don't have a common language, you've got a problem.)

Looked at from this perspective, this explains why D&D has been so dominant in the TRPG market for so long: it's the system everyone knows how to play. One guy wants to play Shadowrun, another wants WEG Star Wars, another likes White Wolf, a fourth prefers FATE, but they all know D&D. (Looking at D&D this way isn't exactly a compliment – it's the game everyone plays, but not because they want to – but it's great for market share). Just as with language, there's a natural tendency for one to become the lingua franca: the unifying system that everyone plays.

And that was how things were with D&D, until 4e.

The Edition Wars

With 4e, WotC managed to do what every competing RPG company had been trying and failing to do for decades: they fractured the market. Edition wars are nothing new, but over the years since 4e's release it's become clear that WotC has lost a lot of their customer base.

Most of the edition wars have been focused on whether 4e was a better game than 3.5: one side insisting it was objectively better, the other side convinced that it was clearly worse. Looking at it through the lens of the Dancey article, though, I'm starting to think that 4e's biggest problem wasn't mechanics, or presentation, or marketing. 4e's problem was that it was too specialised.

Generalist vs Specialist

One of the stated design goals of 4e was to focus on the "sweet spot" covering levels 5-10 or so in 3.5, the idea being that that was the part most players enjoyed. However, 4e went further than that: it focused on a very specific type of game within that level range, where you had 4-6 PCs running through a combat-heavy adventure flowchart with occasional breaks for out-of-combat abilities and skills.

The advantages of specialising like this are obvious: you get a much greater level of focus on what the game's intended to be about. The downside is that you exclude or minimise everything else. As a result 4e wasn't particularly good at dealing with anything that didn't involve a series of medium-powered party-based sequential combat encounters: simulation of monsters/NPCs, PvP, nonstandard characters, noncombat characters, noncombat activities, very low-power PCs, very high-power PCs, economy-based stuff, and so on. The price of specialisation is versatility.

Traditionally, the supporters of 4e have made one of two counterarguments to this point:

1) 4e is versatile and can do just as much as any other D&D edition.

2) 4e isn't versatile, but it's good at what it does and most people don't care about the things it doesn't deal with anyway.

I'm not going to deal with 1), except to point out that from a sales perspective there's little practical difference between a system that isn't versatile and a system which is versatile but which the people who want versatility can play for months and still not find what they're looking for. 2), however, is more interesting.

Argument 2) is interesting because it's right. Most people aren't interested in using the D&D rules to make noncombat characters, or to fight PvP battles, or to try to build an economic empire, or to play low-level rocket tag. For any of those things, there's probably only 5%-10% of the player base who genuinely cares about them.

However . . . add up six or a dozen of those 5% groups, then all of a sudden you're starting to get a sizeable number, aren't you?

Now, none of this changes the fact that 4e was successful as a game. It sold plenty and can currently be found spread all over the place. However, WotC wanted more than that: they wanted a unifying system that would become the TRPG standard. They might have succeeded if they hadn't had any competition – but as things turned out, they did.

Pathfinder and Paizo

Right out of the gate, Pathfinder had several major advantages over 4e. For one thing they had a ready-made customer base in the form of all the disaffected 3.5 players. Paizo also made the smart decision to put practically everything online for free on their PRD, in contrast to WotC's pay-to-play D&D Insider.

Most of all, though, Pathfinder was more of a generalist system, having the versatility that 4e had chosen to move away from. Not only did it have the full range of the 3.5 engine to draw upon, you could import the vast existing library of 3.5 material into PF with minimal work.

Now, none of this would have mattered if Pathfinder had remained a niche game – but sometime in 2010, the first reports started leaking out of Pathfinder actually outselling D&D, and as 2011 wore on those reports got more and more numerous. As far as I know WotC still hasn't released any sales figures, making hard numbers difficult to compare – but it's pretty obvious that WotC has decided that trying to match Pathfinder with 4e isn't working, because they're now bringing out a new edition of D&D instead.

D&D Next

Like a lot of members of these boards, I've taken part in the D&D 5e Playtest. And one of the things that WotC seems to keep asking in the questionnaires is whether things "feel like D&D" or are "integral to D&D". Like (I suspect) most people, I've found these questions a bit weird. Why are they asking whether something "feels like D&D"? Shouldn't they be focused on making a good game?

Looking at it from the perspective of the Dancey article, though, it makes sense. WotC's priority isn't to improve D&D's mechanics – their priority is to create a unifying system. They want to make D&D Next the new standard tabletop RPG that everyone knows and everyone plays, and so they're trying to appeal to as broad a range of people as possible.

The thing about unifying systems, though, is that it only works if there's only one of them. Lots of people like to say that it doesn't matter which system sells better, because more good games is good for the hobby, right? But that's not how it works for Paizo and WotC. They're both (willingly or not) in a competition for the top spot.

There Can Be Only One!

So what does this mean?

At present the D20 market is split between 4e and Pathfinder, with a sizeable fraction playing versions of 3.5 and a small minority playing older editions. Having a minority playing older editions is normal; having the majority split between two competing systems is not.
Under the unifying system theory, there's a natural push towards having one system that everyone plays. Two systems can't share the top spot: one is going to cannibalise the customer base of the other.
4e, having been discontinued, is out of the race. WotC are going to try to transfer the remaining 4e customer base over to 5e.
This means that over the coming years, D&D 5e and Pathfinder are going to fight it out. Whoever wins will get to be the "standard" RPG system. There can be only one!
Which raises the question: who's going to win?

D&D 5e has the enormous power of the D&D brand behind it. Dungeons and Dragons is still a household name, and that carries a huge amount of weight. People will buy 5e no matter how bad or good it is, just because it's D&D.

Pathfinder, on the other hand, has momentum on their side. Their market share has been steadily increasing for years, and most importantly they currently have an open market. D&D Next not only isn't out, it doesn't even have a release date. By the time it does hit the shelves Pathfinder will have had a huge head start.

So what'll happen? I don't know, but it'll be interesting to watch.

EccentricCircle
2013-02-11, 01:05 PM
The other thing Wizards and D&D next have in their favour of course is all of the associated IP that surrounds D&D. Each edition may reinvent the system but things like the Forgotten realms, Planescape, Beholders etc carry over from one edition to another. Wizards seem to be putting a lot of emphasis recently on making the Forgotten realms central to D&D while simultaneously starting to support all of their past editions. Does this suggest that they are putting in place a contingency for the case that they cannot retake their position as the author of the primary system? If their game isn't the lingua franca of RPGs mechanically speaking then can it be the definitive game in terms of setting lore. You may want to play pathfinder, but the latest book about the forgotten realms will still be published by Wizards of the Coast.

NoldorForce
2013-02-11, 02:41 PM
Wow, Dancey's got some balls given his involvement in the situation.

Lessee...

D&D has always been more specialized than you think. It's never really been about more than heroic, combative, adventuring. Sure, there were rules to do other stuff but they were generally an afterthought to make things run just smoothly enough to get back to the adventure. If they were more complicated than "roll a few checks for me" (which just about any TRPG can and has done) they were often impenetrable to anyone who wasn't an accountant (amateur or professional) and could of course be broken open by said accountants.

Simulation of monsters/NPCs: From what I've seen 3E wasn't good about this either. (I'm not nearly as familiar with earlier editions.) Thing is that any NPC only matters to the degree that it interacts with the PCs, directly or otherwise. 3E tries to simulate things and just ends up getting bogged down in minutiae.
Noncombat characters: As above, D&D has always been a combat-focused game. Its roots were in wargaming and a significant amount of character options are still combat-only.
Very low/high-power PCs: Problem was that low levels were always rather swingy - weapon damage had a not-insignificant chance of turning your lovingly crafted character into so much meat. High levels ended up getting really complicated - if you're going to play something on the order of gods or their immediate lessers Scion, even with its balance issues, does cut out a lot of the bookkeeping that D&D ended up needing.
Economy-based stuff: See what I said above - it ended up being either "I'm lost here and I've probably shot myself in the foot" or "another day, another duchy for me to purchase". (This is why I ban item crafting in my games and just peg people to WBL they've chosen.)

4E wasn't actually the edition that fractured D&D - that was 3E. They released the OGL and it did the exact opposite of what they wanted it to. It was intended to be sort of a loss leader, to drive out other products on the market so that D&D would be standing alone at the top. There wasn't any sort of high-minded "we must protect D&D from the corporations!" rubbish, it was a rather naked profit grab that blew up in their face.

Don't believe me? Look here (http://www.wizards.com/dnd/article.asp?x=dnd/md/md20020228e). Dancey's own words, mind you. (Paizo also started poisoning the well as early as 2007 (http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2hnth?40-PAIZO-IS-STILL-UNDECIDED).)

Has Pathfinder actually surpassed D&D? Unlikely, given which one's had NYT bestsellers among its products. (To its credit, Pathfinder makes a lot of long-tail money from selling adventure paths.) From all indications WotC is releasing a new edition for the same reason they released 4E - it reached the end of its product line. Sure, they may try making a "unified system", but that's a venture doomed to failure when you consider:
The varied elements to unify. Aim for a scope too large and you start to have to marry wildly different game concepts together. (I'm looking at you, d20 Modern and d20 World of Darkness.)
The unification process is highly sensitive to the methods and persons involved. One person's sacred cow is another's antiquation.
Given all of that, I'd still say that the OGL was good for the industry as a whole. Dancey talks about the diminishment of the "TRPG hobby" but I've seen and played a lot of games that were fun and yet not D&D. Many of them were published as a direct result of the OGL failing to make D&D generic. Some of them are even legally (http://www.crackmonkey.org/~nick/loyhargil/fate3/fate3.html) free (http://robboyle.wordpress.com/eclipse-phase-pdfs/). I may be disappointed by Next (current reports do not excite me) but if I have something else to fill the void, does it matter so much?

Saph
2013-02-11, 03:10 PM
The other thing Wizards and D&D next have in their favour of course is all of the associated IP that surrounds D&D. Each edition may reinvent the system but things like the Forgotten realms, Planescape, Beholders etc carry over from one edition to another. Wizards seem to be putting a lot of emphasis recently on making the Forgotten realms central to D&D while simultaneously starting to support all of their past editions.

That's a good point – Forgotten Realms especially has a vast amount of history and presence due to the Drizz't books, Baldur's Gate, and so on. I've gotten the impression, though, that much of the old FR fanbase jumped ship when WotC did that hatchet job with the Spellplague. Is there any way they can appeal to the older FR fans without ret-conning all of the 4e FR stuff?


D&D has always been more specialized than you think.

Sure, compared to something like GURPS, it absolutely was. That doesn't change the fact that for D&D 1e, 2e, 3e, and 3.5, D&D was the default tabletop RPG. It might have been specialised, but it appealed to a broad enough range of players to be the default system and the conversion rate of older players to new editions was very high. It wasn't until 4e that the base broke.

NoldorForce
2013-02-11, 04:09 PM
Sure, compared to something like GURPS, it absolutely was. That doesn't change the fact that for D&D 1e, 2e, 3e, and 3.5, D&D was the default tabletop RPG. It might have been specialised, but it appealed to a broad enough range of players to be the default system and the conversion rate of older players to new editions was very high. It wasn't until 4e that the base broke.But (for all that I loathe him Dancey's right on this point) it was the default TRPG primarily for network reasons, because the base hadn't yet split. (A subtle point: it split around the arrival of 4E, but 4E wasn't as I noted above actually why this happened.) And now that this has happened, you've got a lot of specialist TRPGs that do better at some of the side things D&D did only passably. To its credit, at the time the whole field was untested so a bunch of mechanics were founded on the principle of "maybe this will work?".

I don't believe D&D really can go back to attempting to generalize. There are other games - relatively well-known ones - that will do much better at the things D&D tried to do. They've already begun encroaching on those various niches you mentioned, and they're not going away. Pathfinder isn't successful because it tries (and like 3E fails) to be a generalist system, but instead because it has the customer base and a whole bunch of marketing fiends at Paizo. (See my comment on poisoning the well early.) If Next wants to do something besides just becoming a backwater like RIFTS it'll have to figure out precisely what it wants to do, and do it well.

TL/DR: Pandora's box is already open; good luck shutting it.

Friv
2013-02-11, 04:52 PM
Hm.

I'm not sure how much I trust that article, if only because coming at it from the White Wolf side suggests that he's not as clear on the externals of the setting as he thinks he is.

White Wolf isn't in decline right now - quite the opposite. It's in the process of a massive explosion of new books and game lines. They're re-starting every game that ended in the last fifteen years, when things were declining, and completely restructuring their business model to be competitive and functional in a way that doesn't demand full-time hobby stores. They laid off full-time staff because they'd spent years moving increasingly to a freelance model, which frankly (if sadly) makes more sense for any publishing industry.

Similarly, Indie RPG companies aren't in decline, they're just shifting business models. Look at the results of the FATE RPG Kickstarter (http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/evilhat/fate-core). They raised over $400,000 towards a game book - ten thousand people decided that they were going to spend money towards this game. Given that significantly fewer people play a given game than buy it, due to the social networking issues that he did discuss, that implies a very strong player base for a game which isn't even one of the main industry stalwarts (although, yes, it's growing fast). The industry is moving to a more community-driven funding model, where they use fans to spread the word and then use the Internet to spread it farther. Wizards hasn't done this yet, and I think that's going to be a bigger problem than a theoretically contracting market.

obryn
2013-02-11, 04:58 PM
4E wasn't actually the edition that fractured D&D - that was 3E. They released the OGL and it did the exact opposite of what they wanted it to. It was intended to be sort of a loss leader, to drive out other products on the market so that D&D would be standing alone at the top. There wasn't any sort of high-minded "we must protect D&D from the corporations!" rubbish, it was a rather naked profit grab that blew up in their face.
Also, keep in mind - when writing this, Dancey had a vested interest in the OGL. While a WotC employee, though, his reasons were basically, "Let's get everyone to play D&D" which is downright chilling, IMO, but probably appealing to his superiors.

Whether or not you think the OGL was good for the hobby as a whole (I for one am incredibly glad non-d20 games are making a vibrant comeback), it has been downright disastrous for WotC. By creating the OGL they ended up in a unique position - competing with their own deprecated product line, with no incoming licensing fees, when another company took over publication. When 4e was in development, WotC had stopped making enough money on 3.5 to continue with it. Despite making high-quality products, the edition was saturated, and people weren't buying enough to maintain the edition.

Paizo took the years of development cost, re-packaged it with some rules changes, then started re-releasing the product line. So Dancey basically created WotC's biggest competitor while he was an employee, and now earns a paycheck from it. Completely legal, mind you.

This is why I'm 99% convinced we'll never see another full OGL game out of WotC. Their business model relies on forced obsolescence and the cessation of new products for a deprecated edition. Because RPGs never really die - they just stop getting new material. And the situation will be interesting indeed whenever Pathfinder 2.0 comes along. :smallsmile:

-O

Kurald Galain
2013-02-11, 05:35 PM
What this all means, in practice, is this:

http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/standards.png

I don't at all believe that the market will consolidate towards one product. For comparison, there is room for both basketball players and football players; as long as the player base is big enough, it's just not likely that all players will gravitate towards one game and abandon the other.

Kurald Galain
2013-02-11, 05:43 PM
Very low/high-power PCs: Problem was that low levels were always rather swingy - weapon damage had a not-insignificant chance of turning your lovingly crafted character into so much meat. High levels ended up getting really complicated - if you're going to play something on the order of gods or their immediate lessers Scion, even with its balance issues, does cut out a lot of the bookkeeping that D&D ended up needing.

The point is that for people that want this option, it is preferable to have a game that has the option even in flawed forrm, to a game that does not.

In other words, if people have criticism of Game A, then pointing out that Game B sucks isn't much of a counterargument.


I've gotten the impression, though, that much of the old FR fanbase jumped ship when WotC did that hatchet job with the Spellplague. Is there any way they can appeal to the older FR fans without ret-conning all of the 4e FR stuff?

Kind of. What they're planning, I believe, is set up a history line and suggest that DMs just play in a time period before the Spellplague. I'm skeptical if this actually works, though; it essentially is a discontinuity effect.

Saph
2013-02-11, 06:10 PM
I don't believe D&D really can go back to attempting to generalize. There are other games - relatively well-known ones - that will do much better at the things D&D tried to do. They've already begun encroaching on those various niches you mentioned, and they're not going away. Pathfinder isn't successful because it tries (and like 3E fails) to be a generalist system, but instead because it has the customer base and a whole bunch of marketing fiends at Paizo.

Yeah, I'm not buying it. When Pathfinder came out there was a vocal minority on these forums who claimed exactly the same thing – that Pathfinder was based on a crappy system, that it was too generalist, that the more specialist systems were the way to go, that it was just an inferior set of houserules, etc etc. They predicted that Pathfinder was going to be a failure.

They've been proven spectacularly wrong. Paizo went from nowhere to market leader in an incredibly short space of time. So I'm not very impressed by the "unified generalist systems can't work" arguments, because Pathfinder is succeeding at it just fine.


Whether or not you think the OGL was good for the hobby as a whole (I for one am incredibly glad non-d20 games are making a vibrant comeback), it has been downright disastrous for WotC. By creating the OGL they ended up in a unique position - competing with their own deprecated product line, with no incoming licensing fees, when another company took over publication.

Thing is, though, this was an avoidable mistake on WotC's part. All they had to do was create the equivalent of Pathfinder themselves, instead of committing to 4e. The OGL ended up biting them in the rear, but only when they abandoned it.

Acanous
2013-02-11, 06:20 PM
Pathfinder sold INCREDIBLY well. There's market reports and statistics to back this up. It DID outsell 4e.
This is because there are more people who WANT 3e to continue. They WANT the generalist system.

D&D had been getting more expansive in scope since 2e's non-weapon proficiencies. People wanted a system that allowed them to create and populate worlds, to modify monsters, to create the character they wanted to play.
3.5 did that in a way that 4th doesn't have the ability to. Yes, that means there's trap choices, non-optimal builds, and that you can overspecialize or overgeneralize... but you don't have to be good at "Killing things" in order to contribute.

Heck, there are folk that think Artificer is underpowered and that Warlocks are broken cheese.
There are folk who never want to leave town, and would much rather RP how their character feels and thinks going about fantasy life like some kind of sim.

Pathfinder is STILL selling well. That should tell you something.
It should tell you that the run on 3.5 wasn't even CLOSE to over when Wizards decided to drop that ball and make 4e.
Think about it. If 3e was dying or dead, why then does Paizo rake in the lion's share of the market, when Pathfinder is, as stated before, just a repackaging of 3.5 with a few rules tweaks?

I do agree that 3.5 broke the base. It broke the base because it was the general, lingua franca system that people wanted.
When Wizards made 4e, the staying power of 3.5 *Shattered* the base and made them pay for their assumptions that they could continue on a planned obsolescence model.

They're trying to get the market share back with 5e, but honestly coming out of a recession, people don't have money to buy a new system. If they're gonna pick up a book, it's going to be *A* book every couple of months, that adds to an existing system that they already have. Because that's less of a hit to the wallet, and a solid bet.
Think about it. If Paizo comes out with a book, let's call it "Tieflings of Golaron", and it sucks. That's one book that sucks, and you can still play the rest of the system and ignore it like Star Wars episode 1.

If a *Whole new system* comes out, you have to buy (By the Wizards model) 3 books, with no gueruntee that they don't suck, and if they DO suck- even if only ONE of the books sucks, that's automatically 1/3rd of the system and no, you can't play around it.

Add that all up with the way Wizards treated their respective fanbases (Remember the 4e ads that basically called 3e fans retarded grognards?) (Remember how Wizards treated 4e players like criminals?)
and no, they aren't getting the top spot back, not when they haven't learned their friggin' lesson.

D&D is *Not* a specialized game. It is not *Supposed* to be a specialized game. They want to know what FEELS like D&D? A game world where I can do *Anything*, and be good at it, with rules to support it.

For now? That means Paizo keeps the top spot, even if they are just reprinting stuff from 3.5 with some tweaks.

navar100
2013-02-11, 07:00 PM
Pathfinder succeeds because WOTC and many people here are/were in the minority.

3E is not horribly broken. Players don't give a damn about tiers. Cleric players will heal in combat. Wizard players will cast Fireball. Fighter players take Improved Trip and are happy without worrying about the occasional any iteration of a large four-legged flying creature with 10 ft reach. Spellcasters enjoy buffing the non-spellcasters, and the non-spellcasters enjoy when the spellcasters occasionally save the day with a spell or two. Natural Spell and Gate do not cause hissy fits. If they find some feat or spell or combination of abilities just doesn't work for their taste because it's too weak or too powerful, they house rule to their taste and don't resent doing it.

For those people who really don't like 3E/Pathfinder, that's fine. They don't have to. For everyone else, we like it. Whatever your issues are with the games, they are not ours. They do not bother us, we do not resent them, or perhaps we consider it a feature instead of a bug.

obryn
2013-02-11, 07:31 PM
Thing is, though, this was an avoidable mistake on WotC's part. All they had to do was create the equivalent of Pathfinder themselves, instead of committing to 4e. The OGL ended up biting them in the rear, but only when they abandoned it.
That's not really an enviable position to be in. "Keep doing stuff almost exactly like you are right now or pay the piper" is not where you want to be. It's basically a guarantee against innovation. And like it or hate it, 4e was innovative.

Also - remember the Mongoose Pocket PHB? I'll bet WotC does...

This just reinforces that the OGL was a terrible business decision.

-O

Saph
2013-02-11, 07:39 PM
This just reinforces that the OGL was a terrible business decision.

Maybe, maybe not (I'm leaning towards 'not') but it's a moot point now. The more interesting question (to me) is whether WotC's new edition will be able to successfully compete with Paizo's spin-off of their own system.

NoldorForce
2013-02-11, 07:59 PM
D&D really is a a specialized game when you look at it.
High fantasy
High magic
Heroic action
Combat-focused
Now let's change three of those descriptors and see what we get.

High fantasy Steampunk
High magic Medium magic
Heroic action Gritty action
Combat-focused
...and we've got Iron Kingdoms. Sure, it's got an attached setting, but D&D's always assumed a setting (Greyhawk or Points of Light) and Pathfinder certainly didn't change this with Golarion. When you think about it there are a lot of assumptions in playstyle and tone involved in D&D - they're just hidden because it was and still is the public face of gaming.

D&D tried being generic with the OGL, and look where that got it and WotC. Regardless of merits or shortcomings 3E got to be really big largely because it was the first edition that had come out when the Internet was widespread and it was being managed by a corporation with a lot of money to use on marketing. (The entire TRPG industry probably makes less money than WotC does on its own with Magic.) If what we know as 4E were released instead in 2000, and the OGL were published several years afterwards...we'd probably have the exact same edition split with Pathfinder existing as a clone of that instead. Businesses make various decisions because they believe that they'll get money back by doing so. WotC, Paizo, whoever.


Maybe, maybe not (I'm leaning towards 'not') but it's a moot point now. The more interesting question (to me) is whether WotC's new edition will be able to successfully compete with Paizo's spin-off of their own system.Dunno. Eventually Pathfinder's product cycle will end and they'll have to make a new edition or otherwise do something to get the money train rolling again. It's a normal part of business. When that is, however, I can't forecast. Probably not before 2014, at least, when Next releases, which means they'll have an uphill battle. Then again, like I said D&D is basically funded by the juggernaut of Magic, so as a brand name it's not going to die any time soon.

obryn
2013-02-11, 08:12 PM
It should tell you that the run on 3.5 wasn't even CLOSE to over when Wizards decided to drop that ball and make 4e.
Think about it. If 3e was dying or dead, why then does Paizo rake in the lion's share of the market, when Pathfinder is, as stated before, just a repackaging of 3.5 with a few rules tweaks?
3.5 was well into the long tail of its edition when every book starts selling fewer and fewer copies. Do you think the wonderful "Christmas Layoffs" started post-4e? Nope. The edition was well past stale, and by the marketing numbers, it was time for a new one. As evidence, look at the prices Monster Manual V and Magic Item Compendium fetch. This is because of their small print runs and limited release.

I'm not disagreeing that a lot of people don't care for 4th; that much is obvious. But Paizo started out in a good spot - they got a well-developed, mature system for free, with zero licensing costs. They started with fan sympathy because of their run with Dungeon and Dragon, and the perceived slight of WotC discontinuing the licenses. Their development cash could be spent on stuff other than rule development - that's huge. Also, they have Lisa Stevens, who's a business genius; probably the smartest person in the whole damn hobby. It's not too hard to say, "You don't like that new stuff, how about coming home to the stuff you already know."

-O

Saph
2013-02-11, 08:16 PM
It's not too hard to say, "You don't like that new stuff, how about coming home to the stuff you already know."

You would have thought, wouldn't you? But apparently it was too hard for WotC to say, because they didn't.

Paizo did start out in a good spot. But WotC had everything Paizo had and more (the D&D brand, the D&D settings, the D&D trademarked monsters). There was nothing stopping them from doing the same thing and raking in the same cash that Paizo did.

AttilaTheGeek
2013-02-11, 08:25 PM
One small thing I've noticed is that 4e has a lot more stuff to it. It may even be referred to as bloat. It's more substantial, and less malleable from a homebrewer's point of view in that a base class can't be created without a significant time investment. Just look at the homebrew section of these very boards- there's no 4e homebrew. None. In a stark contrast, the plethora of 3.5/PF homebrew keeps people talking and thinking about the system regardless of what is or is not published.

Hiro Protagonest
2013-02-11, 08:30 PM
You would have thought, wouldn't you? But apparently it was too hard for WotC to say, because they didn't.

This is the same thing that happens whenever a game company tries to take a risk. This is the same reason that triple-AAA titles pretty much always are sequels that use the same formula as the rest of the series, that there's rarely more than "just enough" innovation in an MMO, and that indie games are made for PC and cost ten dollars. Because risks are gambles, gambles that corporate giants don't need and possibly can't afford to take.

4e took a risk. 4e lost the gamble. Game devs don't read minds.

obryn
2013-02-11, 08:37 PM
You would have thought, wouldn't you? But apparently it was too hard for WotC to say, because they didn't.

Paizo did start out in a good spot. But WotC had everything Paizo had and more (the D&D brand, the D&D settings, the D&D trademarked monsters). There was nothing stopping them from doing the same thing and raking in the same cash that Paizo did.
Sure there was - the OGL itself. WotC needed to get away from the OGL, because otherwise the competitors they already empowered could repackage and re-sell all their core rules, as had been demonstrated by the Mongoose Pocket PHB.

-O

NoldorForce
2013-02-11, 08:41 PM
This is the same thing that happens whenever a game company tries to take a risk. This is the same reason that triple-AAA titles pretty much always are sequels that use the same formula as the rest of the series, that there's rarely more than "just enough" innovation in an MMO, and that indie games are made for PC and cost ten dollars. Because risks are gambles, gambles that corporate giants don't need and possibly can't afford to take.

4e took a risk. 4e lost the gamble. Game devs don't read minds.If 4E were to have "lost" WotC would have cut its losses, folded up its D&D department, and sold off the license to Paizo for a pretty penny. 4E may not have brought in as much as they would have liked but it still "won" in whatever sense the accounting staff chose to measure things.

Plus, like I said, D&D is chump change next to Magic. It's not a big risk to them like a triple-A title would be to a game developer.

Acanous
2013-02-11, 08:51 PM
3.5 was well into the long tail of its edition when every book starts selling fewer and fewer copies. Do you think the wonderful "Christmas Layoffs" started post-4e? Nope.
If this is so, then why did Pathfinder outsell 4e? Why are they still publishing new moduals, books and adventure paths, and making sales? Wizards could have done the exact same thing here- they ALSO had the resources, the system was theirs, and they had the brand name. Wouldn't have been difficult for them to pull this off.


The edition was well past stale, and by the marketing numbers, it was time for a new one. As evidence, look at the prices Monster Manual V and Magic Item Compendium fetch. This is because of their small print runs and limited release.
If you have two companies that sell the same product with different packaging, and one succeeds while the other failed, it is not the product that is not in demand. You've got a marketing failure on the business end-Wizards' business model was crap, and their marketing was poor.


I'm not disagreeing that a lot of people don't care for 4th; that much is obvious. But Paizo started out in a good spot - they got a well-developed, mature system for free, with zero licensing costs. They started with fan sympathy because of their run with Dungeon and Dragon, and the perceived slight of WotC discontinuing the licenses. Their development cash could be spent on stuff other than rule development - that's huge. Also, they have Lisa Stevens, who's a business genius; probably the smartest person in the whole damn hobby. It's not too hard to say, "You don't like that new stuff, how about coming home to the stuff you already know."

-O

Well, firstly, I never said I don't like 4th, or that it was crappy or badly designed. It does what it does well, and has some good game balance going for it. What it doesn't have, is user-mod ability. You don't get to create worlds and tinker with things in 4e, they made homebrew more difficult, and monsters and PCs don't even use the same rules. So you've got more work to put in for a similar result.

Secondly, Sunk Cost Fallacy. WoTC had everything Paizo did, and did not have to get off the ground or compete with the D&D franchise.
So... yeah. Lisa Stevens could have saved WoTC this whole hassle and made them more money with 3.5 had they asked her, but they carried on with the Hasbro method, pulling limited runs of stuff. Which works fine for kids that outgrow the stuff, but not as well with adults, who still remember the merits of the old system.

The failing was not in 3.5, or in the system. The failure was, objectively and demonstratably, in the business end of WoTC.

Saph
2013-02-11, 08:55 PM
Sure there was - the OGL itself. WotC needed to get away from the OGL, because otherwise the competitors they already empowered could repackage and re-sell all their core rules, as had been demonstrated by the Mongoose Pocket PHB.

. . . You're not making any sense. If it was possible for Paizo to make money off an OGL product, it was possible for WotC to do the same. In fact, WotC were in a much better position than Paizo, because they had the brand, the settings, the experience, and much more money.

WotC had everything stacked in their favour, which is why it's really quite amazing that Paizo have managed to beat them at their own game.

NoldorForce
2013-02-11, 08:58 PM
If this is so, then why did Pathfinder outsell 4e? Why are they still publishing new moduals, books and adventure paths, and making sales? Wizards could have done the exact same thing here- they ALSO had the resources, the system was theirs, and they had the brand name. Wouldn't have been difficult for them to pull this off.Do we actually know this one way or the other? (I've muddied the waters with my NYT Bestseller comment, to be fair.) I've looked, but all the reports that say one thing outsells the other have one of the following flaws:
Unsubstantiated.
Not a representative sample.
Guesswork.
Neither Paizo nor WotC have ever released actual sales figures, to my knowledge.

obryn
2013-02-11, 09:07 PM
If this is so, then why did Pathfinder outsell 4e? Why are they still publishing new moduals, books and adventure paths, and making sales? Wizards could have done the exact same thing here- they ALSO had the resources, the system was theirs, and they had the brand name. Wouldn't have been difficult for them to pull this off.

If you have two companies that sell the same product with different packaging, and one succeeds while the other failed, it is not the product that is not in demand. You've got a marketing failure on the business end-Wizards' business model was crap, and their marketing was poor.
It's outselling 4e now because there are no new 4e books. But I can guarantee, early in the edition - probably the first 2 years or so - PF did not outsell 4e. And not taken into profitability discussion is the DDI business model.


Well, firstly, I never said I don't like 4th, or that it was crappy or badly designed. It does what it does well, and has some good game balance going for it. What it doesn't have, is user-mod ability. You don't get to create worlds and tinker with things in 4e, they made homebrew more difficult, and monsters and PCs don't even use the same rules. So you've got more work to put in for a similar result.

Secondly, Sunk Cost Fallacy. WoTC had everything Paizo did, and did not have to get off the ground or compete with the D&D franchise.
So... yeah. Lisa Stevens could have saved WoTC this whole hassle and made them more money with 3.5 had they asked her, but they carried on with the Hasbro method, pulling limited runs of stuff. Which works fine for kids that outgrow the stuff, but not as well with adults, who still remember the merits of the old system.

The failing was not in 3.5, or in the system. The failure was, objectively and demonstratably, in the business end of WoTC.
I never said you disliked it. :smallsmile: I said people - those being the people who went to play other games, which clearly exist.


. . . You're not making any sense. If it was possible for Paizo to make money off an OGL product, it was possible for WotC to do the same. In fact, WotC were in a much better position than Paizo, because they had the brand, the settings, the experience, and much more money.

WotC had everything stacked in their favour, which is why it's really quite amazing that Paizo have managed to beat them at their own game.
The Mongoose Pocket PHB showed that a company could - and would - repackage and sell the entirety of the rules, at a lower price. I am not saying it is particularly brilliant to worry about this, mind you, but I can almost guarantee the OGL was a big spectre over the development of 4e. Yes, they can sell plenty of books - but those could eat around the margins.

Paizo is that worst-case scenario, you see.

-O

Acanous
2013-02-11, 09:27 PM
Do we actually know this one way or the other? (I've muddied the waters with my NYT Bestseller comment, to be fair.) I've looked, but all the reports that say one thing outsells the other have one of the following flaws:
Unsubstantiated.
Not a representative sample.
Guesswork.
Neither Paizo nor WotC have ever released actual sales figures, to my knowledge.

Well, (http://cyclopeatron.blogspot.ca/2011/01/pathfinder-outselling-dungeons-and.html) Let's (http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Dungeons_and_Dragons) check (http://www.geeknative.com/22529/pathfinder-outsells-dungeons-and-dragons/).

There's a number of different sources, from awards like the ENnies to quotes from Lisa. If you like, you can pull up the stock information for Paizo publishing over the last 3 years and see EXACTLY how well they're doing.

WoTC, however, has other franchises such as MTG, so that's not a comparible method.

What it DOES prove, though, is that there's still a market for 3.5, a strong one. Pathfinder is catering to that market, while Wizards alienated them.

NoldorForce
2013-02-11, 09:41 PM
Well, (http://cyclopeatron.blogspot.ca/2011/01/pathfinder-outselling-dungeons-and.html) Let's (http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Dungeons_and_Dragons) check (http://www.geeknative.com/22529/pathfinder-outsells-dungeons-and-dragons/).Lessee, nonrepresentative sample, unsubstantiated, nonrespresentative sample. (ICv2's methodology - informal polls of retailers who use their system - allows for a lot of selection bias. Same issue occurred in XFire's comparison of Diablo 3 and League of Legends.)

There's a number of different sources, from awards like the ENnies to quotes from Lisa. If you like, you can pull up the stock information for Paizo publishing over the last 3 years and see EXACTLY how well they're doing.None of those are actual data, least of all Lisa Stevens. (She claimed that PF outsold 4E, but provided no attribution.) Plus, Paizo's a private corporation - they have to report their taxes to the IRS but don't owe the public squat in that area. (WotC is a corporate subsidiary, so not even the IRS knows direct information about their finances.)

valadil
2013-02-11, 09:42 PM
So here's what I don't get about edition wars. What's wrong with playing something out of print? As far as I'm concerned, more editions are a good thing so long as they're mechanically distinct because they give me more games to play. I didn't throw out my 3.5 books when I bought my 4e ones. Just because I have 4e books doesn't mean I'm not interested in Pathfinder. When 5e comes out, I hope to play that too. Hell, I'd even play MERP given half a chance and that's been out of print for almost 15 years.

As positive as I am about this, it amuses me that the only thing I find disagreeable is WotC's goal. I'd hate for there to be One True RPG, keeping me from playing all the alternatives.

Acanous
2013-02-11, 11:25 PM
Lessee, nonrepresentative sample, unsubstantiated, nonrespresentative sample. (ICv2's methodology - informal polls of retailers who use their system - allows for a lot of selection bias. Same issue occurred in XFire's comparison of Diablo 3 and League of Legends.)
None of those are actual data, least of all Lisa Stevens. (She claimed that PF outsold 4E, but provided no attribution.) Plus, Paizo's a private corporation - they have to report their taxes to the IRS but don't owe the public squat in that area. (WotC is a corporate subsidiary, so not even the IRS knows direct information about their finances.)

Well, informal polls and nonreprisentitive samples, as well as quotes from the people running the respective shows, are all we have to go on aside from what we see the corporations actually doing.

With the claims happening, followed by WoTC scrapping 4th and working on 5th, I believe there is enough bayesian evidence (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evidence_under_Bayes_theorem) to support the case.
Have you any information that counters the claim? I don't see Wizards issuing a denial, and in the corporate world...

Friv
2013-02-11, 11:52 PM
So here's what I don't get about edition wars. What's wrong with playing something out of print? As far as I'm concerned, more editions are a good thing so long as they're mechanically distinct because they give me more games to play. I didn't throw out my 3.5 books when I bought my 4e ones. Just because I have 4e books doesn't mean I'm not interested in Pathfinder. When 5e comes out, I hope to play that too. Hell, I'd even play MERP given half a chance and that's been out of print for almost 15 years.

Nothing is wrong with it, but with very rare exceptions, it tends to lead to a slow dwindling of the player base. No new books (and more importantly, no new printings of old books) means that new players will never find the game. Kids who are curious about roleplaying go to a store, or check online, and they find the newest version and that's what they pick up to try. Given enough time, as people invariably set aside hobbies or grow old, the game gradually withers and dies...

Or at least, that was the model. With the rise of internet culture, that may stop being true - and to a certain degree, already has. I never played any D&D older than 2nd Edition, but the rise of various clones such as Legends & Labyrinths mean that I can actually play it to a degree. The re-release of older editions of games by both Wizards and White Wolf means that old players can actually get new fans interested in older versions of their games, and make money selling PDF copies of a game that is now zero investment for them and which does nothing but fund their current games.

I think what we're likely seeing is a shift towards board-game style RPGs, where a lot of people are going to pick up and try a lot of different games, rather than sticking with a single edition of a single game. I've noticed it starting, but I don't know if that's expressive of the community as a whole.

erikun
2013-02-12, 03:58 AM
Which raises the question: who's going to win?
This is going to depend entirely, I think, on how well D&D will market itself.

Pathfinder is already established, and just needs to continue doing what they are doing to succeed. Outside of completely changing the way they do business, which I don't see happening, Paizo will keep the player base they currently have.

This means that D&D will need to:
A.) Convince the Pathfinder players to swap outright (unlikely),
B.) Be cheap/affordable enough that Pathfinder players feel they can pick it up at a reasonable price, or
C.) Appeal to a new market. The third is likely the "family game" route that was mentioned in the article, or tying in the TTRPG rules into something else (board games or video games).

The biggest problem there, though, is that I don't see WotC being capable of pulling it off. D&D3 had a number of video games and even a minitures game, and despite that, they only had a passing resemblance to the D&D3 ruleset. D&D4, despite being "videogamey" and "designed like a MMO", changed its ruleset when they finally put out a video game. Given how much in-depth knowledge people will put into a MMO or video game, I think it would be obvious to have a system which allows someone to play the same game offline - not a similar set of mechanics which will allow you to pretend like you're playing the same game, but the actual same mechanics that players are already familiar with. It doesn't seem like that is WotC's direction, though.


One small thing I've noticed is that 4e has a lot more stuff to it. It may even be referred to as bloat. It's more substantial, and less malleable from a homebrewer's point of view in that a base class can't be created without a significant time investment. Just look at the homebrew section of these very boards- there's no 4e homebrew. None. In a stark contrast, the plethora of 3.5/PF homebrew keeps people talking and thinking about the system regardless of what is or is not published.
I've always found D&D4 to be homebrew-adverse. Monster stats and encounters were intentionally designed to be easy, but everything else (especially a new class!) required a lot of work. It felt like WotC had intentionally set things up this way, to encourage people to buy official books rather than homebrew themselves, but it just seemed to have blown up in their faces.

Leolo
2013-02-12, 03:59 AM
The advantages of specialising like this are obvious: you get a much greater level of focus on what the game's intended to be about. The downside is that you exclude or minimise everything else. As a result 4e wasn't particularly good at dealing with anything that didn't involve a series of medium-powered party-based sequential combat encounters: simulation of monsters/NPCs, PvP, nonstandard characters, noncombat characters, noncombat activities, very low-power PCs, very high-power PCs, economy-based stuff, and so on. The price of specialisation is versatility.


The problem with this approach is that 4e also brought versatilityto the game. Non-combat encounters that are rewarded with XP, fighters that are valuableat higher levels as much as their wizard buddies. Different solutions to problems other than "we do it with magic". Creativity for Dungeon masters because monster don't have to follow PC rules. More variable adventuring days.

And high level play without breaking the system.

You say there was a sweet spot, but don't say the reason for this: Many people thought high level play was broken, the rules were not good enough.

Giving players a system where high level play does work is increasing the versatility.

And there are more such examples. Some months ago I read an interview with mike mearls about the question how they want to balance casters with spell slots against characters without them. The answer was pretty much: we don't. The DM is balancing them by making the adventuring day long enough to have them burn their spells so that wizards shine at the start of the day and fighters at the end.

He also said the balancing will be targeting a fix number of combat rounds. Be lower or higher of that number and it won't work anymore.

Does this sound flexible? No, of course not. And for a 4e DM this are words hard to swallow. Because I can make adventures that have combat heavy adventuring days the same as days where the characters might have only one combat without affecting the balancing of the group.

Stubbazubba
2013-02-12, 04:18 AM
Comment on the inductive logic being used to conclude comparative profitability of Pathfinder and 4e: WotC and Paizo have vastly differing costs, so what is considered a sustainable profit would have been vastly different for the two companies. So just because WotC abandoned 4e to work on Next while Paizo has published Pathfinder continually does not indicate that it sold worse than Pathfinder, it only indicates that WotC's revenues were not sufficient to cover its costs and leave a profit margin, while Paizo's was and is. Considering that the actual amount of development work and staff and such that Paizo does compared to WotC, I'm guessing Paizo's costs are a small fraction of WotC's, so they can still be profitable selling a fraction of the units that 4e is, and 4e can still be unprofitable for WotC.

I want to emphasize a point the article in the OP made that I think is important; the TTRPG industry may not be contracting (the distribution chain certainly is, which is what he describes as the market contracting, probably erroneously), but there is not really a new induction model. MMOs are far more accessible at a far earlier age, to the point that kids don't ever find TTRPGs; by the time they come across one they have already established satisfying play habits that TTRPGs have little chance of hedging in on with their very large up-front learning curve and time-intensive scheduling requirements. Competing with MMOs, game companies can't effectively market to new customers directly. Building those networks is not something TTRPG companies can spend resources on and hope to get much return on, at least not using the methods they've been using up to this point. Thus, the market may not be contracting, but it's certainly aging, and will start to dwindle as the generations die off. That is an obstacle the industry will have to face if we expect it to last another generation or two.

Saph
2013-02-12, 04:39 AM
(snip)

If you find 4e versatile, that's great. It's obvious by now, however, that there's a very large fraction of players for whom it just doesn't work. After a certain point, telling players that they should be playing system X when they've specifically said that they don't want to play system X is counterproductive.

Anyway, 3.5 vs 4e arguments are fairly pointless nowadays: both systems have been discontinued, making the edition wars effectively over (a few people are going to continue fighting them, but they'll be left behind). The new contest is going to be between 5e and Pathfinder.


Comment on the inductive logic being used to conclude comparative profitability of Pathfinder and 4e: WotC and Paizo have vastly differing costs, so what is considered a sustainable profit would have been vastly different for the two companies.

True, we don't have enough information to deduce profits. We do have quite a lot of anecdotal information about sales, though, and there have been a large and increasing number of reports from game stores (starting in 2010, and increasing rapidly throughout 2011) saying that PF was outselling 4e.

The general impression I've gotten, based on comments from WotC and from game stores, is that 4e sold well on launch but had a drop-off at some point thereafter. This matches with the reports I see on forums: a sizeable number of people who initially switched to 4e ended up switching away from it again.

Leolo
2013-02-12, 04:43 AM
Plus even if WotC is still making more money out of 4e (for example because of the insider accounts) as paizo this still means the market is split. It does not really matters if paizo has the higher part or WOTC.

MukkTB
2013-02-12, 04:43 AM
We need a lot of statistical and demographical work done. Did PF outsell 4E? Is the TTRPG audience shrinking? Is the TTRPG audience aging?

I think the planned obsolescence model is not a good idea for TTRPGs. Every time you obsolete something you break up the community a bit further. A weaker community results in individual players less involved. Then they buy less stuff.

On the other hand there is a legitimate need to update the rules on occasion. Sometimes we have crisis regarding rules and a new edition is the best fix. That is somewhat how we moved forward from 1e and 2e. The 3.x crisis was supposed to be balance. 4E was going to make things balanced so we didn't have BMX Bandits and Angel Summoners. It didn't work out obviously. What would TTRPG history have looked like if 4E had resembled 3.75 with a set of base classes that were all tier 3?

valadil
2013-02-12, 04:53 AM
I think what we're likely seeing is a shift towards board-game style RPGs, where a lot of people are going to pick up and try a lot of different games, rather than sticking with a single edition of a single game. I've noticed it starting, but I don't know if that's expressive of the community as a whole.

I've seen it too, somewhat. The groups I'm in tend to have a preferred default game (see the palette cleanser thread from last month) but shop around or play one offs in between.

Leolo
2013-02-12, 04:55 AM
If you find 4e versatile, that's great. It's obvious by now, however, that there's a very large fraction of players for whom it just doesn't work. After a certain point, telling players that they should be playing system X when they've specifically said that they don't want to play system X is counterproductive.

Anyway, 3.5 vs 4e arguments are fairly pointless nowadays: both systems have been discontinued, making the edition wars effectively over (a few people are going to continue fighting them, but they'll be left behind). The new contest is going to be between 5e and Pathfinder.

Oh, that wasn't my point. My point was more that with upcoming Next we will also have discussions that it removed versatility from the game. And that the community will split up even further, because pathfinder also does not address this problem.

Stubbazubba
2013-02-12, 05:04 AM
I think the planned obsolescence model is not a good idea for TTRPGs. Every time you obsolete something you break up the community a bit further. A weaker community results in individual players less involved. Then they buy less stuff.

Oh, yes, this is something I was going to comment on, as well. TTRPGs, as a medium, age really well. You don't need new editions every 5 years. That's one thing this industry has against MMOs. The inverse is also true; planned obsolescence is bad for the industry. Because TTRPGs are so time-intensive and you don't just "play through" all the content in a TTRPG like you do an MMO, people have no reason to stop playing older games. Newer versions are largely wasted, unless it's D&D (the lingua franca of TTRPGs) or it's been a sufficiently long time (10+ years) and you're face-lifting the rules for your existing fans, not changing the entire game and marketing structure. New versions, even new games in the same genre, do not actually mean new content; that's generated by the group, by the social interaction, which is the actual product. That makes them different from board games, from CCGs, and certainly from MMOs.

If a business can find a way to monetize the playing of the game, separate from the rules content which can be distributed online for free (and updated and errata'd seamlessly), then that would be a winning model. What that might mean is doing the Apple thing; a game publisher needs to open its own store, and charge membership fees to come and play, that are extremely reasonable, and hope to largely make it back on volume. (Pre-OGL I'd say you could charge for access to the constantly updating rules, but with a free SRD out there that you have to compete with, you have to aim elsewhere).

Saph
2013-02-12, 05:09 AM
If a business can find a way to monetize the playing of the game, separate from the rules content which can be distributed online for free (and updated and errata'd seamlessly), then that would be a winning model.

That's pretty similar to what Paizo is doing. The entire ruleset is online at the PRD, and they haven't produced all that many new rules for a while now. Most of their new product is setting-specific material, or Adventure Paths.

Totally Guy
2013-02-12, 06:24 AM
I think that Kickstarter has changed everything since that article was written. I think that creators working from their basements is coming back, and that's where it all started. Big business will be present and their day in the sun will come again. Don't be told what to play by everyone else playing it, make your own choices, even if it's hard.

Yora
2013-02-12, 06:41 AM
There was nothing stopping them from doing the same thing and raking in the same cash that Paizo did.
One thing, perhaps: Investors.

WotC does not work for themselves, to make a living and enjoy their work. They work to fill the pockets of their investors. Small private companies need to think ahead to have a sustainable business model for the long run, not just the nesxt two or three years.

Leolo
2013-02-12, 06:43 AM
D&D4, despite being "videogamey" and "designed like a MMO", changed its ruleset when they finally put out a video game. Given how much in-depth knowledge people will put into a MMO or video game, I think it would be obvious to have a system which allows someone to play the same game offline - not a similar set of mechanics which will allow you to pretend like you're playing the same game, but the actual same mechanics that players are already familiar with. It doesn't seem like that is WotC's direction, though.


I think it would be hard to really make a video game use the 4E rule set, because many elements of it would cause problems. Skill challenges and rituals are cool things. But they would create huge amount of work in computer games due to their wide applicability.

Interrupts and actions that alter some previously made action are a problem, too. 4E is full of them, and players would have the choice what they do. In a real-time game this is hard to do. And actions in general are much more versatile. In a 3.5 game you can program the game that every character that doesn't use a spell or one of a very limited amount of special actions this turn is doing a simple attack.

In a 4E game this would no longer be true, you'd have to activly choose your action each turn. And 4E characters require much more teamwork - a single player game would have to include a good team member KI or options to direct the actions of the teammembers.

That - and similar problems - are all solvable, but they create effort and limit the style of game. The best solution might be a turn based game, but those does not sell as well as real time games. A MMORPG might be a good idea, too - to avoid problems with teamplay. But there PvP would have to play a greater role and still some complexity issues exist. The problem is that most of the changes of 4E are clearly designed to be helpful at the gaming table, and not at a PC. At the gaming table it is cool to say: The monster killed our wizard? Well, no - because i have stopped the strike with my shield!

But that is nothing that i want in a computer game, because it would require complicated or very slow gameplay.

A computer game would have to throw many 4E elements away to be playable and programmable with an accaptable effort. And if you do so why using 4E at all as a basis of the game?

Kurald Galain
2013-02-12, 07:01 AM
D&D really is a a specialized game when you look at it.
High fantasy
High magic
Heroic action
Combat-focused

And yet,

Eberron isn't high fantasy.
Ravenloft isn't high magic.
Dark Sun isn't heroic action.
Planescape isn't combat-focused.


So really, most editions of D&D (excepting 4E) do just fine if you want a low-fantasy, low-magic, gritty action, exploration focused campaign. D&D is more versatile than you think, and explicitly marketed that way.




With the claims happening, followed by WoTC scrapping 4th and working on 5th, I believe there is enough bayesian evidence (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evidence_under_Bayes_theorem) to support the case.
Precisely. The clearest evidence that PF is doing well and 4E is not, is that Paizo is continuing their work on PF and WOTC is working on a new game.


If this is so, then why did Pathfinder outsell 4e? Why are they still publishing new moduals, books and adventure paths, and making sales? Wizards could have done the exact same thing here- they ALSO had the resources, the system was theirs, and they had the brand name.
The cause appears to be is that many product lines for 4E just didn't work out. Yes, the PHB1/DMG1/MM1 did well. But let's look at some other lines.

PHB Races? Canceled after two books for lack of interest.
Foo Power 2 series? Canceled after one book.
Heroes Of series? Controversial among fans, and clearly unsuccessful in reinvigorating the brand.
Champions of the Heroic Tier? Canceled and migrated to Dragon magazine.
Dragon magazine itself? There's a clear point at which its monthly content got slashed in half, which cost them a lot of subscriptions.

WOTC has made a lot of material for 4E, but a substantial amount of that just isn't very well received.

Friv
2013-02-12, 09:29 AM
I think that Kickstarter has changed everything since that article was written. I think that creators working from their basements is coming back, and that's where it all started. Big business will be present and their day in the sun will come again. Don't be told what to play by everyone else playing it, make your own choices, even if it's hard.

Huh?

*re-reads article*

Oh!

I hadn't realized that article was written in December of 2011. Okay, in that case I'm going to upgrade my opinion of it from "wrong, but interesting" to "didn't have as much info as he thought". At the end of last year, White Wolf was still playing its cards pretty close to the chest, the Kickstarter model hadn't really kicked off yet, and I don't think Wizards had announced the re-release of older editions? Can't recall.


And yet,

Eberron isn't high fantasy.
Ravenloft isn't high magic.
Dark Sun isn't heroic action.
Planescape isn't combat-focused.


Ebberon is very high fantasy, Ravenloft is absolutely high-magic, and Dark Sun is still pretty heroic action compared with nearly any other game on the market. Haven't played Planescape, so I can't speak to it.

Synovia
2013-02-12, 10:26 AM
Pathfinder and Paizo

Right out of the gate, Pathfinder had several major advantages over 4e. For one thing they had a ready-made customer base in the form of all the disaffected 3.5 players. Paizo also made the smart decision to put practically everything online for free on their PRD, in contrast to WotC's pay-to-play D&D Insider.

Most of all, though, Pathfinder was more of a generalist system, having the versatility that 4e had chosen to move away from. Not only did it have the full range of the 3.5 engine to draw upon, you could import the vast existing library of 3.5 material into PF with minimal work.

Now, none of this would have mattered if Pathfinder had remained a niche game – but sometime in 2010, the first reports started leaking out of Pathfinder actually outselling D&D, and as 2011 wore on those reports got more and more numerous. As far as I know WotC still hasn't released any sales figures, making hard numbers difficult to compare – but it's pretty obvious that WotC has decided that trying to match Pathfinder with 4e isn't working, because they're now bringing out a new edition of D&D instead.


Frankly, I think we're going to see Pathfinder run into the same issues that 3.5 did. They're already starting to have the spellcaster powercreep issues. Yeah, they're outselling WOTC, but thats more because WOTC isn't doing well, not because Pathfinder is.

I think the market is going to stay fractured until someone comes out with a market breaker, and I don't think Paizo, or Next are it. I think Next is going to be a colossal failure. Its an attempt to satisfy everyone, so its going to satisfy no one.



And there are more such examples. Some months ago I read an interview with mike mearls about the question how they want to balance casters with spell slots against characters without them. The answer was pretty much: we don't. The DM is balancing them by making the adventuring day long enough to have them burn their spells so that wizards shine at the start of the day and fighters at the end.
As long as WOTC has this attitude, I won't buy another one of their books.

Leolo
2013-02-12, 10:50 AM
As long as WOTC has this attitude, I won't buy another one of their books.

Yeah, it looks like a no - go for me, too. But from WotC perspective it seems understandable. There are to many people claiming that it was a fault to give every class a similar amount of ressources.

Even if this means that balancing is only possible by limiting the kind of stories the DM can create without getting balancing problems.

And saph is right: It doesn't matter if it really is a fault, or if even those people would think different if they read or hear some good arguments why it is a benefit.

It just matters if WotC can sell books. Another similar aspect: WotC claimed there will be no skill challenges in next. And out of combat XP are handweaved by the DM for things like good role playing.

It is a huge step back for non combat play and a huge step in the direction of combat heavy play. But they do it to satisfy people who were saying 4E is just hack & slay. This seems weird, maybe. But it makes sense if you remember the thing above: 4E changes where not accepted and the reasons for this does not really matter. From WotC perspective it does make sense to calm the players. Even if the same players will ask for exactly those things that WotC abandons now.

It is easy to find threads about balance in 3.5 forums. Easy to find threads about class options that become meaningless at higher play because different classes outshine them. Easy to find threads that at high levels encounters that involve skill checks become difficult because half the group can't make the DC and the other half can't fail. I even once discussed with someone about 3.5 who said to me: "I do not play 3.5 any more, but i would return to D&D if just it has a system for cooperative non combat task solution. That would be innovative!"

Telling him it does already exist started a discussion about 4E is just a board game with combat after combat and nothing else. Most of the changes of 4E do address problems in 3.5 - and when Next comes out like it is now we will see similar threads not long after it.

(It has to be said though: Maybe they'll change enough. Next is still in the work, so it can also still address those problems and abandon such design principles. And they already did change many things in the playtests. For WotC it is just a difficult thing to balance "We don't want to look like 4E" with "we don't want the problems of 3.5")

Tehnar
2013-02-12, 11:30 AM
My prediction:

2014: WotC and Pathfinder release their new systems (5E and whatever Paizo is doing but not telling).

Based on the playtest material, and the way they handled the playtest in general, 5E will be really bad. So bad that, because it has DnD on the cover, that it will drive away a portion of the market.

What happens next depends on Paizo:

If their new system is good, there will be a mass switch from WotC to Paizo. Hasbro will likely put the DnD brand on ice or sell it.

If the new Pathfinder is also bad, or not substantially better then 5E, the market will dwindle even further. People will split between various specialists TRPG's. Perhaps a few years later some new generic system (or later with a restart of DnD) will rise to achieve limited dominance in generic fantasy, though not quite to the level DnD had in the past.

Synovia
2013-02-12, 11:53 AM
If the new Pathfinder is also bad, or not substantially better then 5E, the market will dwindle even further. People will split between various specialists TRPG's. Perhaps a few years later some new generic system (or later with a restart of DnD) will rise to achieve limited dominance in generic fantasy, though not quite to the level DnD had in the past.

The question this brings up though, is this:

Does there need to be a "market" and by market I mean "traditional publishing distribution system".

Yeah, having a nicely bound hardcover for a reference is nice, but if Paizo and WotC were both to fail, would it negatively impact the RPG community all that heavily?

The people playing older systems would keep playing them. The people willing to play new stuff, would probably find plenty of kickstarters and such. In this age with online SRDs and such, do we really need traditional publishers involved?

jindra34
2013-02-12, 12:15 PM
The question this brings up though, is this:

Does there need to be a "market" and by market I mean "traditional publishing distribution system".

Yeah, having a nicely bound hardcover for a reference is nice, but if Paizo and WotC were both to fail, would it negatively impact the RPG community all that heavily?

The people playing older systems would keep playing them. The people willing to play new stuff, would probably find plenty of kickstarters and such. In this age with online SRDs and such, do we really need traditional publishers involved?

An utter collapse, the giant that has been the DnD system failing, would hurt the industry heavily in the short term. Long term? It probably would actually be better for the industry. Simply because it would force companies/people who are trying to build out of those ashes to actually look around and connect with the people they are selling it to.

obryn
2013-02-12, 12:31 PM
Yeah, having a nicely bound hardcover for a reference is nice, but if Paizo and WotC were both to fail, would it negatively impact the RPG community all that heavily?
I think so... I'm a new convert to the awesomeness of Kickstarters, but despite new distribution channels, brick & mortar stores are still a cornerstone of the hobby. Granted, most of their money comes from CCGs, but between table space, programs like Encounters and Free RPG day, and so on ... I think their loss would hurt the hobby. And without big publishers, FLGSes would be hurt.

-O

Yora
2013-02-12, 01:14 PM
2014: WotC and Pathfinder release their new systems (5E and whatever Paizo is doing but not telling).

Are they doing anything? They kept doing a mostly D&D 3rd Edition game when 4th Edition came out and people wanted to play their game, so I see no reason why people wouldn't want to continue playing PF if there is a 5th Edition of D&D.
And I remember several of them mentioning frequently that their business model is focusing on adventures and their setting, with the really crunchy books being mostly a neccessity. Overhauling the rulebooks would be unlikely to get people to buy adventure paths and setting books again with different stat blocks.

Synovia
2013-02-12, 01:35 PM
An utter collapse, the giant that has been the DnD system failing, would hurt the industry heavily in the short term. Long term? It probably would actually be better for the industry. Simply because it would force companies/people who are trying to build out of those ashes to actually look around and connect with the people they are selling it to.
Again, why do we care about the industry?

I'm asking, would it hurt the players? I don't think it would. I think the market/industry (as a good chunk of publishing is) is a remnant of pre-internet days.

I think so... I'm a new convert to the awesomeness of Kickstarters, but despite new distribution channels, brick & mortar stores are still a cornerstone of the hobby. Granted, most of their money comes from CCGs, but between table space, programs like Encounters and Free RPG day, and so on ... I think their loss would hurt the hobby. And without big publishers, FLGSes would be hurt.

-O
Different strokes I guess. The game stores near me were pretty much all Magic and Warhammer. They had a handful of D&D, but there generally weren't any people playing there... the stores didn't make enough money off them. Magic and the Miniature based wargames had much higher profit margins, so they got the table space.

Hiro Protagonest
2013-02-12, 02:03 PM
I think the market/industry (as a good chunk of publishing is) is a remnant of pre-internet days.

I hate reading stuff online when it's available in print. I used to read One Piece online. Checked the site every week. Read about half of Shaman King too. Cannot read manga online anymore. I want to read One Piece, Shaman King, Fist of the North Star, and all that good stuff. I don't, because I cannot read manga online.

I will always go for a book in print. It doesn't have a screen that hurts your eyes, I'd rather not lend someone my laptop (or my desktop), and it doesn't have a battery.

1337 b4k4
2013-02-12, 02:12 PM
2014: WotC and Pathfinder release their new systems (5E and whatever Paizo is doing but not telling).

Are they doing anything? They kept doing a mostly D&D 3rd Edition game when 4th Edition came out and people wanted to play their game, so I see no reason why people wouldn't want to continue playing PF if there is a 5th Edition of D&D.

I think this is a really important point. WotC's "completely new edition that makes the old edition obsolete" model of business is relatively unique in the big players of the industry.

D&D went from 1975 to 189 and while they released new versions within that time period, they were largely compatible versions. Even from 89 to 95 with 2e, the system was largely compatible with previous materials and they were still publishing the rules cyclopedia.

GURPS went from 1e to 3e in 2 years (1986-1988) and then remained on 3e through 2004 when they finally switched to 4e, and while 4e was a fairly substantial change, a good amount is easily backwards compatible, and SJ Games is constantly releasing conversion documents.

V:tM went through 3 editions which were all largely compatible as well, with 1 - 2 being mostly an errata reprint and Revised essentially consolidating supplemental materials into the core book. At one level higher than that, the WoD consists pretty much of 2 versions, 1991-2004 and 2004+

About the only "major" name I can think of (other than D&D since 2000) that has gone through so many incompatible version changes would be Traveller.

Honestly, I think even WotC (at least in some of their public statements) is finally starting to get this, which is why their stated goal for 5e is something of a rosetta stone of D&D. Something which is largely compatible with previously published material, to try and reverse the planned obsolescence model.

If they succeed at creating a rosetta stone version and it sells well, I honestly don't expect to see a new D&D edition from WotC for at least 10 years if not longer. I think the only reason WotC is making a new version is because 4e has so much bad blood associated with it that they want to distance themselves from it. And to be honest, if they tried to change it to something more backwards compatible while still calling it "4e", all the 4e fans would have as much of a conniption fit over it as the grognards do with calling 4e "D&D".

Look at it like this. Currently, the way that D&D is sold would be like if Hasbro sold the monopoly rule book, boards, pieces and supplemental add on rules, chance cards and the occasional thematic conversion set (say, star wars themed cards, pieces and board) as individual products. The planned obsolescence model is saying that because after the first 3 years of selling Monopoly, sales of the rule book dies off (because everyone already has the rules), that Hasbro should make a new version of monopoly and sell it. Each new edition should make rule changes, tweaking and "innovating" the game, even changing fundamental aspects of the game (for example, Monopoly 3e removed the limits on how many houses and hotels you can have on a property, but only for the players of the dog and the thumble everyone else was limited to only 3 houses, 4e limited everyone to 4 houses, except at the "robber baron" level of play where you could have just one hotel to put on any of your properties). Additionally, each edition should (or at best can be) largely incompatible with previous versions so that everyone will need to buy new boards and cards and supplements and new rules to stay up with what's going on, and the older editions will no longer be supported (and even actively derided).

When you think about it like that, the current model for selling D&D seems really silly, especially given that Monopoly (despite being a horribly flawed game among the board game community) continues to sell well and sell new copies of the same old rules time and time again. I'd argue almost every house in america has a copy of monopoly somewhere and until recently (they've announced some things about eliminating certain pieces and changing how borrowing money works) there haven't been any plans to alter Monopoly or release "new" editions. And yes, I know that monopoly has "themed" editions (Star Wars, LoTR, Millennium etc), but these are essentially like campaign and setting box sets, more than completely new editions. The rules between those themed editions are largely the same, just a different coat of paint.


Different strokes I guess. The game stores near me were pretty much all Magic and Warhammer. They had a handful of D&D, but there generally weren't any people playing there... the stores didn't make enough money off them. Magic and the Miniature based wargames had much higher profit margins, so they got the table space.

I'm hoping more stores start following a trend that's been happening in my area, where the store sells product, but they also sell playing space, either directly or indirectly. We have 3 stores locally (within 40 minutes) that have large open areas to play your games at, that you can use for free. All of them sell food and drinks on the side. One has private rooms you can rent by the hour and sells beer and such as well. Then it doesn't matter how much "shelf space" your FLGS can contribute to the game, or how much money they can make selling D&D stuff, it just matters that you show up to play and spend a bit of money. As long as the FLGS can make money this way, then the distribution for RPGs can change however it wants, and everyone is still mostly happy.

Synovia
2013-02-12, 02:21 PM
I will always go for a book in print. It doesn't have a screen that hurts your eyes, I'd rather not lend someone my laptop (or my desktop), and it doesn't have a battery.

I understand that, but things like the kindle don't hurt your eyes. Color E-Ink is very close, and frankly, its going to kill a good chunk of the publishing industry. Its just much cheaper to publish an ebook than it is a regular book.

Also, with eBooks, lending really isn't an issue (its trivial), and the batteries on eInk devices last forever (I get a month of heavy reading on my kindle).

I understand that there are people out there who like the feel of a book, but I don't think there's gonna be more than 10 years where that's still a choice without a significant increase in price.

Right now, most of the ebook readers don't handle reference tomes well, but they'll get better.


I just see a world where a company gives away their SRD/base rules, and sells the settings/adventures/etc. There's no real good reason for players to buy base rulesets... there's a million of them out there, and most of them are very good at atleast one type of game.

Felandria
2013-02-12, 02:42 PM
I've gotten yelled at for saying this before, but here goes.

The problem with 4e, in my opinion, was that it took too much of the role playing out of the role playing game.

4e was so focused on combat that it alienated people who enjoy spending half the session traveling or at the inn or in a town looking for equipment.

We all like combat, but that's not the only reason people play, they want to get lost in a world of imagination and fantasy and 4e, to a significant degree, forgot about that.

Honestly, I wonder if it has to do with the maps.

Until I played 4e, we never used maps and figures, sure, we had a diagram of the general area and a description of the environment, but for some people, declaring that you run up to a monster, leaping over rubble and swing away is a lot more fun than moving a figure seven squares on a map.

Not saying that can't be a fun game, but it's not the game I sat down to play.

Call me names if you wish, it's just how I feel.

That being said, I am less pessimistic about Next than most people, things like the bonus dice for fighters and the sorcerer blood powers intrigue me greatly.

Synovia
2013-02-12, 03:07 PM
I've gotten yelled at for saying this before, but here goes.

The problem with 4e, in my opinion, was that it took too much of the role playing out of the role playing game.

4e was so focused on combat that it alienated people who enjoy spending half the session traveling or at the inn or in a town looking for equipment.

We all like combat, but that's not the only reason people play, they want to get lost in a world of imagination and fantasy and 4e, to a significant degree, forgot about that.

Honestly, I wonder if it has to do with the maps.

Until I played 4e, we never used maps and figures, sure, we had a diagram of the general area and a description of the environment, but for some people, declaring that you run up to a monster, leaping over rubble and swing away is a lot more fun than moving a figure seven squares on a map.

I've always played with Maps.

I have a hard time even parsing "The problem with 4e, in my opinion, was that it took too much of the role playing out of the role playing game."

3.5 has almost no rules on roleplaying. 4e has almost no rules on roleplaying. Roleplaying is pretty much what happens when you're not using the rules. Both systems had skill checks. Both systems were capable of resolving out of combat encounters.

I just dont grok this at all. I'm not even really sure what you mean.

Frankly, 3.5 had so many utility spells and social spells that you never had to role play if you didn't want to. Need to get someone to do something? Charm. Need to get into something? Knock. etc.

1337 b4k4
2013-02-12, 03:23 PM
I have a hard time even parsing "The problem with 4e, in my opinion, was that it took too much of the role playing out of the role playing game."

3.5 has almost no rules on roleplaying. 4e has almost no rules on roleplaying. Roleplaying is pretty much what happens when you're not using the rules. Both systems had skill checks. Both systems were capable of resolving out of combat encounters.

I just dont grok this at all. I'm not even really sure what you mean.

Frankly, 3.5 had so many utility spells and social spells that you never had to role play if you didn't want to. Need to get someone to do something? Charm. Need to get into something? Knock. etc.

I've always thought the problem here is just not choosing the right words (or more accurately having multiple definitions for the same words). To me, when I see people complain that 4e didn't have rules for role playing compared to 3e, they're talking about what you're talking about at the end: utility and social spells (and skills). If you go down the list of powers (class or racial) in 4e, you can probably list on on 8.5x11 sheet of paper the number of powers that don't contain either the phrase "X[w] damage" or impart some combat status effect on a target. Now given that powers make up 90% of the character sheet plus the fact that many people's experiences with non combat in 4e has been "I diplomacy him!" and it adds up to a perception that 4e eliminated everything that wasn't about combat from the game.

But edition waring is far off topic for this thread.

Edit
---------

Jindra also makes a good point. While the specific rules have always been light, in 3.x at least you could buy ranks in cooking, oration, politics and performance to build a hafling Emeril. It might be a horrible build with nothing to contribute to the game, but you could do it, and your character sheet would have the number to reflect that. You can't do that in 4e.

jindra34
2013-02-12, 03:24 PM
I have a hard time even parsing "The problem with 4e, in my opinion, was that it took too much of the role playing out of the role playing game."

3.5 has almost no rules on roleplaying. 4e has almost no rules on roleplaying. Roleplaying is pretty much what happens when you're not using the rules. Both systems had skill checks. Both systems were capable of resolving out of combat encounters.

I just dont grok this at all. I'm not even really sure what you mean.

Frankly, 3.5 had so many utility spells and social spells that you never had to role play if you didn't want to. Need to get someone to do something? Charm. Need to get into something? Knock. etc.

You are probably right about 4e not removing roleplaying for DnD. It did however make it clear that it was now missing. With all the various little things in 3.5 its possible to miss that the rules relating to any of it have been removed. But it 4e with its laser fine focus makes it perfectly clear.

obryn
2013-02-12, 03:39 PM
If you go down the list of powers (class or racial) in 4e, you can probably list on on 8.5x11 sheet of paper the number of powers that don't contain either the phrase "X[w] damage" or impart some combat status effect on a target.
That's so far off I don't even know where to start.


You are probably right about 4e not removing roleplaying for DnD. It did however make it clear that it was now missing. With all the various little things in 3.5 its possible to miss that the rules relating to any of it have been removed. But it 4e with its laser fine focus makes it perfectly clear.
I have noticed literally no difference in roleplaying between my 3e and 4e games. The Dark Sun game I'm running is one of the most character-centric campaigns I've ever run.

Edit:

Jindra also makes a good point. While the specific rules have always been light, in 3.x at least you could buy ranks in cooking, oration, politics and performance to build a hafling Emeril. It might be a horrible build with nothing to contribute to the game, but you could do it, and your character sheet would have the number to reflect that. You can't do that in 4e.
That's not roleplaying - that's putting numbers on a sheet. You can roleplay that same character in 4e, and it won't be a "horrible build with nothing to contribute to the game" afterwards. :smallsmile:

-O

Synovia
2013-02-12, 03:47 PM
Jindra also makes a good point. While the specific rules have always been light, in 3.x at least you could buy ranks in cooking, oration, politics and performance to build a hafling Emeril. It might be a horrible build with nothing to contribute to the game, but you could do it, and your character sheet would have the number to reflect that. You can't do that in 4e.

I don't have a 4E DMG handy. Does it have no "you can make up your own skills if nothing fits" block? Thats pretty much all 3.5 ever had.

Yora
2013-02-12, 03:53 PM
3rd Edition said "You can wear two rings, one pair of gloves, one cloak, ...", while 4th Edition said something along the line of "You have one helmet slot, one boots slot, one cloak slot, ...". I think that was the page I gave up on the game.

Felandria
2013-02-12, 03:57 PM
You are probably right about 4e not removing roleplaying for DnD. It did however make it clear that it was now missing. With all the various little things in 3.5 its possible to miss that the rules relating to any of it have been removed. But it 4e with its laser fine focus makes it perfectly clear.

That's what I mean, really, with 4e, you spend so much time keeping track of what's on your sheet, there's hardly time for it.

I was playing DND encounters, they hand me a pretend and it's six pages.

A little much, I think.

But in regards to the future, you make the point of 4e's laser fine focus, and it seems Next is going to at least try and have more to offer.

A lot of it just boils down to how people play, some people get antsy waiting to get into combat, some people can't wait to get out of combat and go to a town.

jindra34
2013-02-12, 03:58 PM
Jindra also makes a good point. While the specific rules have always been light, in 3.x at least you could buy ranks in cooking, oration, politics and performance to build a hafling Emeril. It might be a horrible build with nothing to contribute to the game, but you could do it, and your character sheet would have the number to reflect that. You can't do that in 4e.

Thats not roleplaying. Thats rounding of a character. Roleplaying is taking that rounded character and actually going through what they do, acting like a person. Which needs to be at least adressed if not have rules given to it.

Synovia
2013-02-12, 04:05 PM
Thats not roleplaying. Thats rounding of a character. Roleplaying is taking that rounded character and actually going through what they do, acting like a person. Which needs to be at least adressed if not have rules given to it.

I don't think any D&D has ever had those rules though. 3.5 certainly didn't. 3.5 had some examples of backstories and stuff like that, but there were never any guidelines on how to roleplay.


All the rules are combat, exploration, or skills based. None of them are about pretending to be someone (and I don't think there should be any rules about that)

jindra34
2013-02-12, 04:12 PM
I don't think any D&D has ever had those rules though. 3.5 certainly didn't. 3.5 had some examples of backstories and stuff like that, but there were never any guidelines on how to roleplay.


All the rules are combat, exploration, or skills based. None of them are about pretending to be someone (and I don't think there should be any rules about that)

Rules? Almost certainly not. Spending time adressing it? Same degree of certainty saying yes, at least prior to 3.x, where it may have existed as a paragraph here and there. The only rule for it should be 'Get on the same page, and do it' but it still is a core thing that NEEDS to be adressed in an RPG, for exactly the reasons shown in some peoples reactions to 4e.

Yora
2013-02-12, 04:12 PM
Even more important than rules is presentation. I think rules for crafting are rather pointless and "talk-skills" work best when you make the checks 50% dice roll and 50% what the player says. But when I see any 4th Edition material, it just does not look like it is talking about a game of social interaction. It always looks like charts for a game of numbers.

Pink
2013-02-12, 04:16 PM
In regards to people mentioning Paizo making Pathfinder II, there is no evidence of any plans and in fact numerous occasions of them denying that it would happen any time soon.

Just as people have mentioned in this thread how planned obsolescence doesn't work for TTRPGs, I believe the folks at Paizo have a similar belief, and can no doubt see from the edition way of 3.5/4 how damaging an edition change for no particular reason can be. In addition, while their rules books sell well, they have stated that their flagship product are the adventure paths, and backward compatibility with APs is a concerns and huge factor that would prevent pathfinder from new editions.

I do not believe that pathfinder will have a second edition. However I'm not naive enough to think that they plan to produce PF forever. I think that when the pathfinder brand starts to go into decline Paizo will have prepared an entirely new game and setting, and launch it in a similar fashion. Of course they'll try and end the PF franchise with a bang, an AP that is one last ancient evil waking up to cause trouble in Golarion and what not, but they'll let it go as a successful game that will hopefully be played for many years yet to come and eternally supported by the PRD and purchaseable PDFs.

My thoughts anyway.

Saph
2013-02-12, 04:21 PM
My thoughts anyway.

I'd agree. Making a Pathfinder 2.0 – and thus obsoleting all existing Pathfinder material – would be a stupid move for Paizo. And so far Paizo have shown very little sign of being stupid.

Requoting, because it deserves saying twice:


I think this is a really important point. WotC's "completely new edition that makes the old edition obsolete" model of business is relatively unique in the big players of the industry.

NoldorForce
2013-02-12, 04:22 PM
That's what I mean, really, with 4e, you spend so much time keeping track of what's on your sheet, there's hardly time for it.

I was playing DND encounters, they hand me a pretend and it's six pages.Just addressing this...when was the last time you played a spellcaster in 3E? Sure, your sheet is two pages - superficially. But when you consider that you've prepared (or know) fifteen to twenty spells at corresponding levels, and that prepared casters have access to a lot more...that sheet would be enormous if you actually wrote everything out. I remember running Arcana Evolved (3E with a bunch of tweaks, basically), and one of the caster players actually made up a bunch of flashcards for everything he could do. Also we were constantly passing around the spellbook, which was its own binder (I own and thus printed out PDFs) separate from the rest of the rules.

At least with a 4E sheet all the information's there for me to look at without having to be dug up from one of several books.

Leolo
2013-02-12, 04:22 PM
I think the best argument to show how problematic 3.5 handles role playing is how often you can hear that another game is combat heavy. And therefore is no role playing game.

Because combat should be part of the roleplaying. It should be an important point of the story. Where the character of each PC is shown.

You can see powers as things where just some effects happen. Or as an option for the noble Paladin to save the wizard and for the rogue to make a dirty trick to feint an opponent.

3.5 is a combat heavy game, but still i always heard the words: "i hope it is over soon, so we can continue with the story"

But even if you ignore powers...they are just the character options that are explicitly useful in combat (and those that are usefull in and out of combat). It is like saying "all the weapons are usefull to hurt someone"

Felandria
2013-02-12, 04:46 PM
Just addressing this...when was the last time you played a spellcaster in 3E? Sure, your sheet is two pages - superficially. But when you consider that you've prepared (or know) fifteen to twenty spells at corresponding levels, and that prepared casters have access to a lot more...that sheet would be enormous if you actually wrote everything out. I remember running Arcana Evolved (3E with a bunch of tweaks, basically), and one of the caster players actually made up a bunch of flashcards for everything he could do. Also we were constantly passing around the spellbook, which was its own binder (I own and thus printed out PDFs) separate from the rest of the rules.

At least with a 4E sheet all the information's there for me to look at without having to be dug up from one of several books.

My last two characters were a 3.5 Cleric and a Pathfinder sorcerer.

The only major paperwork I had with the cleric was for the intelligent axe she had.

I didn't prepare too many different spells, just stuck to the ones that worked, it was a party of six, most of my stuff was healing anyway.

1337 b4k4
2013-02-12, 04:57 PM
That's so far off I don't even know where to start.

You could start with a list of powers that don't meet one of those two criteria. To keep it simple, start with just PHB1.



That's not roleplaying - that's putting numbers on a sheet. You can roleplay that same character in 4e, and it won't be a "horrible build with nothing to contribute to the game" afterwards.
and

I don't have a 4E DMG handy. Does it have no "you can make up your own skills if nothing fits" block?
and


Thats not roleplaying. Thats rounding of a character. Roleplaying is taking that rounded character and actually going through what they do, acting like a person. Which needs to be at least adressed if not have rules given to it.

Allow me to clarify, because I clearly didn't state my point well enough. I'm well aware that simply putting numbers on a sheet doesn't make for role playing any more than it makes for combat. But D&D via how TSR approached 1e, 2e and then WotC with 3e basically built up an entire generation of players for whom if it wasn't in the books and it wasn't on your sheet, you couldn't do it. The best example of this is the need to have a trip feat in 3e, or the question of whether or not your character can swim if they don't have the swimming feat. This generation of players is then given 4e, a game which removes all the outside (and specific) skills that have built up over the previous 3 generations and replaces them with a fixed list of generic skills, and replaced the pages upon pages they took up with pages upon pages of combat skills. To a generation of players that grew up with the books and the character sheets are law, that gives the impression that 4e eliminated a lot of the paths for role playing something that wasn't a tactical combat.

Basically 4e acknowledged that D&D never had a lot of rules for role playing outside of combat, and mostly hid that deficiency (if you think it is one) behind a list of feats in 3e and NWPs in 2e. 4e said "to heck with this charade" and threw of that cruft, giving just a bare skeleton (ironically more detailed than say, 0e, but far less so than 2e or 3e) but it really didn't spend a lot of time saying "here is how to use the non combat stuff". Yes it had skill checks and challenges, but we all acknowledge their first attempt at explaining that was horrible at best. Unfortunately, 1 chance is all WotC was going to get, and they screwed it up. 4e is no more non-combat role play deficient than any other D&D I agree, but with a generation of gamers who grew up with the 3e skill list and no guidance on going "off character sheet" so to speak, 4e highlighted that flaw and then proceeded to ignore it instead of offering a fix for it. In fact, to segue into something Yora said:


Even more important than rules is presentation. I think rules for crafting are rather pointless and "talk-skills" work best when you make the checks 50% dice roll and 50% what the player says. But when I see any 4th Edition material, it just does not look like it is talking about a game of social interaction. It always looks like charts for a game of numbers.

Pretty much this. 4e wasn't any more or less flawed in the non combat "role play" department than any other version of D&D. But the presentation really made that fact stand out. Combine that with a new combat system that many people didn't like and you have a mass exodus of players who feel (rightly) that 4e had nothing to offer them.

obryn
2013-02-12, 05:22 PM
You could start with a list of powers that don't meet one of those two criteria. To keep it simple, start with just PHB1.

There's an entire Compendium full of them. To make it easy, narrow it down to Utility powers - Class, Racial, or Skill (edit: Or Theme!). There are 3,182 as of this writing.

Being utility powers, almost none of them do damage. Very few of them impart effects or deal damage to an enemy, because that's not what Utility powers do.

"you can probably list on on 8.5x11 sheet of paper the number of powers that don't contain either the phrase "X[w] damage" or impart some combat status effect on a target" is just pure 100% misinformation.

-O

Stubbazubba
2013-02-12, 06:54 PM
This conversation is unfortunately drifting very far from anything relevant. No, 4e did not fail because of its rules. Nor did 3.5 succeed because of them. It has nothing to do with anything edition wars can prove. It has everything to do with distribution, social networking before myspace/FB, and related business decisions.

The "problem" with 4e was that it had to compete with 3.5, which had totally become the lingua franca of gaming already, and that was a suicide mission to begin with. Even if Pathfinder had never come along, 4e would not have replaced 3.5 as the lingua franca because there was a much higher barrier-to-entry. In a way its unfortunate for the industry that 3.5 used an OGL, because anything that wants to break 3.5 has to be free, which means traditional models of monetization from publishing books will never work again. That's bad for brick-and-mortar stores who see themselves as retailers, it's bad for the entire old-school supply chain.

But that doesn't mean it necessarily spells the end of an industry. We're in a period of transition, but its not something we can't succeed in. KS has already altered the way we get investment for new projects, and hopefully that will remain a viable method for years to come. Now the focus needs to be on innovating new ways of supporting those networks he talks about. That means changing the way FLGS approaches RPGs, to seeing them as a service they provide, not a product. Or online tools could be developed that digitize the experience. Either way, the focus has to move away from the publishing business model to something else.

What other industry works that way that we could look at? Paintball?

Yora
2013-02-12, 07:39 PM
The "problem" with 4e was that it had to compete with 3.5, which had totally become the lingua franca of gaming already, and that was a suicide mission to begin with.
Which is rather ironic, as that is exactly what they had planned to do when they designed the d20 System and SRD for 3rd Edition. And apparently it was a huge success in that regard. :smallbiggrin:

Saph
2013-02-12, 07:46 PM
Which is rather ironic, as that is exactly what they had planned to do when they designed the d20 System and SRD for 3rd Edition. And apparently it was a huge success in that regard. :smallbiggrin:

Especially since Dancey explicitly said in his article that the idea of the OGL was to make 3e unkillable. In which they were completely successful.

Having succeeded at making 3e unkillable, they then proceeded to try to kill it. :smallbiggrin:

Pink
2013-02-12, 07:56 PM
Especially since Dancey explicitly said in his article that the idea of the OGL was to make 3e unkillable. In which they were completely successful.

Having succeeded at making 3e unkillable, they then proceeded to try to kill it. :smallbiggrin:

THIS! So much THIS!

Synovia
2013-02-12, 09:36 PM
Especially since Dancey explicitly said in his article that the idea of the OGL was to make 3e unkillable. In which they were completely successful.

Having succeeded at making 3e unkillable, they then proceeded to try to kill it. :smallbiggrin:


The problem with having something unkillable, is that as you add rules and supplements, it gets unwieldy and starts collapsing under its own weight. We see this in software design, where a product gets to the point where its pretty good, and there's just nothing that can be done to move forward without completely rewriting it. Its held back too much by its original/out-of-date design decisions.


3.5 is a convoluted mess. And it needed to be rewritten. I think everyone agrees on that (whether they like 4E, or PF, or whatever). Everything that can't cast spells is pretty much unplayable with spellcasting classes. Half the rules don't make any sense, etc. It needed to be gutted.

The problem is, its real tough to tell that to people when they have a million books sitting at home that were $40 a piece. So WOTC is trying to make it so you can still use all those old books, which is a good sales idea, but a terrible design idea, because now we're still stuck with those old design decisions.

Acanous
2013-02-12, 11:08 PM
Melee characters are not unplayable alongside magic users.
Heck, my party has about 8 players, and in any given campaign, 3 of them will have *Some* casting ability, the rest will be mundanes.

I'm talking Paladin, Inquisitor, Sorceror casting here.

Very rarely will someone want to play a wizard (It's usually me) due to the pre-planing and bookkeeping required. Yeah, you can be awesome as a wizard, but you can also be awesome with less out-of-game time investment by playing a Barbarian (Hi Eldariel! You've saved my group DAYS of man time) or a Gunslinger, or a Rogue.

We've even got one guy that INSISTS on playing Fighter, every time.

So yeah. 3.5 and the Pathfinder model, while it does have an incredibly high ceiling for spellcasters compared to mundanes, rarely actually hits anywhere near that mark at the table.

Our casters also usually focus on Buffing the melee, or BFC, or on countering enemy casters. So they aren't going around winning the game all the time.

NoldorForce
2013-02-12, 11:48 PM
Especially since Dancey explicitly said in his article that the idea of the OGL was to make 3e unkillable. In which they were completely successful.

Having succeeded at making 3e unkillable, they then proceeded to try to kill it. :smallbiggrin:That article? Dancey's lying out his rear there. (He's done a rather lot of it over the years, and I trust him about as much as your average snake oil salesman.) The idea in his own words was to kill a lot of other RPGs - only they went about it completely backwards and (despite him claiming it wouldn't happen) got the completely backwards result.

navar100
2013-02-13, 12:07 AM
The problem with having something unkillable, is that as you add rules and supplements, it gets unwieldy and starts collapsing under its own weight. We see this in software design, where a product gets to the point where its pretty good, and there's just nothing that can be done to move forward without completely rewriting it. Its held back too much by its original/out-of-date design decisions.


3.5 is a convoluted mess. And it needed to be rewritten. I think everyone agrees on that (whether they like 4E, or PF, or whatever). Everything that can't cast spells is pretty much unplayable with spellcasting classes. Half the rules don't make any sense, etc. It needed to be gutted.

The problem is, its real tough to tell that to people when they have a million books sitting at home that were $40 a piece. So WOTC is trying to make it so you can still use all those old books, which is a good sales idea, but a terrible design idea, because now we're still stuck with those old design decisions.

No, not everyone agrees on that. However, it was rewritten anyway and made better without being "gutted". 4E "gutted" it, and that was the problem. Players were willing to accept changes, but 4E threw the baby out with the bath water. Some players didn't want the baby, so they were happy. However, enough players thought the baby was very cute and readily cooed at the new one Paizo birthed. A few still want the old baby, retiring to the old folks home along with the grognards who still say funny words like THAC0 or my class is elf. Paizo's baby, meanwhile, gets the contributions to the college fund. WOTC's new baby in a new bath can only get to community college, so now they're becoming Dr. Frankenstein in hopes of being able to say "It's alive!" to a new D&D.

NoldorForce
2013-02-13, 12:17 AM
No, not everyone agrees on that. However, it was rewritten anyway and made better without being "gutted". 4E "gutted" it, and that was the problem. Players were willing to accept changes, but 4E threw the baby out with the bath water. Some players didn't want the baby, so they were happy. However, enough players thought the baby was very cute and readily cooed at the new one Paizo birthed. A few still want the old baby, retiring to the old folks home along with the grognards who still say funny words like THAC0 or my class is elf. Paizo's baby, meanwhile, gets the contributions to the college fund. WOTC's new baby in a new bath can only get to community college, so now they're becoming Dr. Frankenstein in hopes of being able to say "It's alive!" to a new D&D.That was one of the more impenetrable metaphors I've heard. :smallconfused: Regardless, I think we'd have enough offtopic discussion.

huttj509
2013-02-13, 01:40 AM
So, just wanted to comment as an FYI because I was browsing my reprint copy just now, and it jumped out at me regarding a comment on a prior page.

Did you know:

In ADnD 1E, Spell ranges were given in inches, operating under the assumption that you were using a battlemat.

Now you know.

Kurald Galain
2013-02-13, 03:31 AM
3.5 is a convoluted mess. And it needed to be rewritten. I think everyone agrees on that (whether they like 4E, or PF, or whatever). Everything that can't cast spells is pretty much unplayable with spellcasting classes. Half the rules don't make any sense, etc. It needed to be gutted.
It is absolutely not the case that "everybody agrees on that", no.


Did you know:

In ADnD 1E, Spell ranges were given in inches, operating under the assumption that you were using a battlemat.

Now you know.And they changed that in subsequent editions, because it turned out most people were not, in fact, using a battle mat. So what is your point exactly?

huttj509
2013-02-13, 03:54 AM
It is absolutely not the case that "everybody agrees on that", no.

And they changed that in subsequent editions, because it turned out most people were not, in fact, using a battle mat. So what is your point exactly?

That if someone's going to talk about "it was never _____ before _____" that person should check the sources. 3E has plenty of diagrams on how to calculate line of sight from the corners of battlemat squares. What's special about five foot steps? It's the assumed square size. Why are there detailed templates about how to calculate cone/circle areas on square grids?

Now, if the argument is that 2E much deemphasized the battlemat, I don't have any counters. My books for that edition are back about 2000 miles away.

1E had rules for it, 3E had rules for it, 4E had rules for it...

MukkTB
2013-02-13, 05:01 AM
#1 I could see Paizo making a Pathfinder 2 if they felt they needed to update the rules enough. The important bit would be just making the tweaks minor, kind of a DND 3.8 as you will.

#2 I have always felt that 3.5 could have been 'fixed' without making an entirely new system.

Saph
2013-02-13, 05:09 AM
3.5 is a convoluted mess. And it needed to be rewritten. I think everyone agrees on that (whether they like 4E, or PF, or whatever).

They quite obviously don't agree on that, given that PF is basically 3.5 with some minor changes and yet vast amounts of people are playing it.

Dragonus45
2013-02-13, 05:17 AM
Here is a thought, i don't think i have seen anyone mentioning pathfinder society games so far. I just got back from a convention a few weeks ago where half the TT game room was people doing PFS, and im about to join my first table in roughly a week or so. What would you say the effect of PFS games has on the social web work of pathfinder as a system.

Kurald Galain
2013-02-13, 06:14 AM
Thinking about it, Pathfinder could easily get away with releasing a PF2 as long as it's fully compatible with the current version; basically, they release a new set of rulebooks including whatever errata is available, and switching out impopular classes for new ones. As the main material is still freely available on the web, I don't think anyone would complain about that.

After all, D&D is pretty much the only area where the word "edition" is used to mean "sequel". For example, the new edition of my physics textbook is just a reprint of the previous one with some updates; that is what the word "edition" means. PF could easily do editions like this and make money off it.

Leolo
2013-02-13, 06:39 AM
Of course they would only make money with it as long as enough people buy the books. And how many would do so just for errata? A smaller amount than those who have bought the original books. Especially if you think about niche products.

Same is true for golarion. As long as the world is young selling setting books about a special and yet undetailled area is good. Like Faerun in 2nd edition times.

But just selling another book about the same area without changes will not work out.

Yora
2013-02-13, 06:57 AM
Thinking about it, Pathfinder could easily get away with releasing a PF2 as long as it's fully compatible with the current version; basically, they release a new set of rulebooks including whatever errata is available, and switching out impopular classes for new ones. As the main material is still freely available on the web, I don't think anyone would complain about that.

After all, D&D is pretty much the only area where the word "edition" is used to mean "sequel". For example, the new edition of my physics textbook is just a reprint of the previous one with some updates; that is what the word "edition" means. PF could easily do editions like this and make money off it.
There seem to be minor differences between the print runs, including the erratas, I believe. The Core Rulebook is currently in it's 4th or 5th run, I believe.
Removing unpopular material is more difficult, as you can never know for sure what things are popular or not, and who might miss it if it were gone.

Synovia
2013-02-13, 09:28 AM
It is absolutely not the case that "everybody agrees on that", no.

There are people who don't think that 3.5 is a mess? Wow. low standards I guess.

Yora
2013-02-13, 09:37 AM
Thank your for your generalizing insult.

You said nonspellcasters are unplayable, we beg to differ.

AttilaTheGeek
2013-02-13, 09:44 AM
They quite obviously don't agree on that, given that PF is basically 3.5 with some minor changes and yet vast amounts of people are playing it.


3.5 is a convoluted mess. And it needed to be rewritten. I think everyone agrees on that (whether they like 4E, or PF, or whatever). Everything that can't cast spells is pretty much unplayable with spellcasting classes. Half the rules don't make any sense, etc. It needed to be gutted.

I do think of Pathfiinder as a rewrite of 3.5, though, and an (obviously) successful one at that. I see threads here, mostly in homebrew and d20, that say "the only way to fix 3.5 would be to remove or rewrite every single broken spell". And that's exactly what Pathfinder did.

Blarmb
2013-02-13, 09:51 AM
I do think of Pathfiinder as a rewrite of 3.5, though, and an (obviously) successful one at that. I see threads here, mostly in homebrew and d20, that say "the only way to fix 3.5 would be to remove or rewrite every single broken spell". And that's exactly what Pathfinder did.

No it didn't. From Color Spray to Time Stop, spells that answer encounters on their own and/or are grossly out of scale with the powers available to non-casters are alive and well in pathfinder.

They might have tweaked a few here and there but it didn't fundamentally change anything.

Yora
2013-02-13, 09:51 AM
Not really. Lots of issues weren't adressed at all, or at least not in ways that tackle the actual problem.

Synovia
2013-02-13, 09:53 AM
I do think of Pathfiinder as a rewrite of 3.5, though, and an (obviously) successful one at that. I see threads here, mostly in homebrew and d20, that say "the only way to fix 3.5 would be to remove or rewrite every single broken spell". And that's exactly what Pathfinder did.

They fixed a very small percentage of things, and they're going about adding all those things back in as things go on.

Saph
2013-02-13, 10:00 AM
You said nonspellcasters are unplayable, we beg to differ.

Yeah, I've never figured out how experienced gamers can seriously believe that.

I can understand disliking 3.5. But going from "I don't like this" to "this is unplayable" when there are vast amounts of people who not only play it but have played lots of other things and still choose to play the first thing . . . they're obviously using a very different definition of "unplayable" than the one you'll find in the dictionary.

Synovia
2013-02-13, 10:54 AM
Yeah, I've never figured out how experienced gamers can seriously believe that.

I can understand disliking 3.5. But going from "I don't like this" to "this is unplayable" when there are vast amounts of people who not only play it but have played lots of other things and still choose to play the first thing . . . they're obviously using a very different definition of "unplayable" than the one you'll find in the dictionary.

Clearly there's different definitions.

My definition of unplayable includes the situation where my usefulness to the party is based on the spellcasters' decisions not to overshadow me.

In 3.5, the fighter is useful only if the Wizard/Cleric/Druid decide to make him useful. The same goes for pretty much anything but the ToB melee classes.

Stubbazubba
2013-02-13, 11:30 AM
The problem with having something unkillable, is that as you add rules and supplements, it gets unwieldy and starts collapsing under its own weight. We see this in software design, where a product gets to the point where its pretty good, and there's just nothing that can be done to move forward without completely rewriting it. Its held back too much by its original/out-of-date design decisions.

No, that is explicitly not the problem. TTRPGs don't work like software, because TTRPG content is not limited by the contents of the code. TTRPG rules aren't the code of a software product, they're more like the UI. The content is created by the DM and the other players. It's infinite, and it comes from the people you play with, not the designers. So to sell more D&D, you need more people playing it regularly. Other players are the game, or more accurately the shared world/narrative/challenges that all contribute to are; the rules just get everyone on the same page to jump into it, or react to it, or anything in between.

Rules bloat absolutely did not weaken 3.5 at all, because each table just ignored what they didn't use and made up a bunch of stuff they wanted to use, anyway. Now, are their fundamental issues in 3.5's rules? Yeah, and anything but the most route play-style will discover them as you increase in level. Would it be a better game if those were addressed? Yes. Would a partial or total re-write be necessary to really address those? Quite possibly. But understand; rules issues were not the problem in 3.5.

The problem in 3.5 was monetization. Yes, d20 had become ubiquitous because it was free and it was D&D, but WotC hadn't yet figured out how to monetize that kind of market share. They were still approaching it from a publisher's POV. WotC failed to figure it out, so they decided to try and make it obsolete by whipping up a fresh, new, innovative re-modeled version of D&D (sufficiently different from 3.5 to render the latter obsolete) and charge a subscription for it like the MMO model. If they could transfer their market share to the subscription product, it would be great, but that's not what happened; their market share stayed with the old product, and the new product was now competing with it, and in the long run, it lost, due in large part to the far higher cost of access.

The funny thing is that WotC should have seen this coming; even by 2008 MMOs were realizing that only WoW could make subscriptions work like that. So the Free-to-Play model came out, and is now ubiquitous, where the game itself is free, but certain content requires usually a one-time fee. Premium subscriptions are optional. The balance between quality free content and trying to monetize your player-base is a fine art, but it's a useful model, and one that was naturally equipped to take the 3.5 OGL situation and monetize it, but ultimately not what WotC decided to do.

Now that 3.5/PF is the default system in the hobby, any contender has to price access to their rules accordingly: Free. There's no longer any wiggle room for this*. Monetization has to come in part by paying for premium content; you can buy access to new rules before they're incorporated into the free SRD, you can buy a nice paperback book (hardcover might be pushing it these days) with art and nice things like that, you can buy ready-to-play Adventure Paths with maps and tokens, etc., etc.

But that's just the icing on the cake. Where you really want to monetize is the playing of the game. Expand D&D Encounters/Pathfinder Society into the focus of your business. Look at successful free-to-play MMOs, how do they monetize people playing their game for free? I'm not an expert here, but I think if you look at different patterns here and adapt it to the TTRPG market, you can find a way to monetize the network.

*: Kickstarter being the exception; you can get all kinds of people to pay for a new rule-set before the fact if you give them the premium art-filled version for doing so, and then release the rules for free. See DramaSystem.

Synovia
2013-02-13, 11:34 AM
No, that is explicitly not the problem. TTRPGs don't work like software, because TTRPG content is not limited by the contents of the code. TTRPG rules aren't the code of a software product, they're more like the UI. The content is created by the DM and the other players. It's infinite, and it comes from the people you play with, not the designers. So to sell more D&D, you need more people playing it regularly. Other players are the game, or more accurately the shared world/narrative/challenges that all contribute to are; the rules just get everyone on the same page to jump into it, or react to it, or anything in between.

Rules bloat absolutely did not weaken 3.5 at all, because each table just ignored what they didn't use and made up a bunch of stuff they wanted to use, anyway. Now, are their fundamental issues in 3.5's rules? Yeah, and anything but the most route play-style will discover them as you increase in level. Would it be a better game if those were addressed? Yes. Would a partial or total re-write be necessary to really address those? Quite possibly. But understand; rules issues were not the problem in 3.5.
.

I'm sorry, but you're just not making any sense here. If the rules aren't the problem because you can just ignore them, than we don't need a system. We can just play free play.

This is Stormwind.

The rest of your post addresses why 3.5 was a problem for WotC. Thats not what I care about at all. I care about why it was a problem fro PLAYERS. The survival/profitability of WotC couldn't mean any less to me.

Saph
2013-02-13, 11:38 AM
The problem in 3.5 was monetization. Yes, d20 had become ubiquitous because it was free and it was D&D, but WotC hadn't yet figured out how to monetize that kind of market share. They were still approaching it from a publisher's POV. WotC failed to figure it out, so they decided to try and make it obsolete by whipping up a fresh, new, innovative re-modeled version of D&D (sufficiently different from 3.5 to render the latter obsolete) and charge a subscription for it like the MMO model. If they could transfer their market share to the subscription product, it would be great, but that's not what happened; their market share stayed with the old product, and the new product was now competing with it, and in the long run, it lost, due in large part to the far higher cost of access.

The funny thing is that WotC should have seen this coming; even by 2008 MMOs were realizing that only WoW could make subscriptions work like that. So the Free-to-Play model came out, and is now ubiquitous, where the game itself is free, but certain content requires usually a one-time fee. Premium subscriptions are optional. The balance between quality free content and trying to monetize your player-base is a fine art, but it's a useful model, and one that was naturally equipped to take the 3.5 OGL situation and monetize it, but ultimately not what WotC decided to do.

Very good post.

Which raises the interesting question: how's WotC going to try and solve the monetization issue with D&D Next?

Stubbazubba
2013-02-13, 12:12 PM
I'm sorry, but you're just not making any sense here. If the rules aren't the problem because you can just ignore them, than we don't need a system. We can just play free play.

Read it again. I didn't say you can ignore rules, I was responding to your description of how when a game is unkillable, it tends to "add rules and supplements, it gets unwieldy and starts collapsing under its own weight." My comments were in the context of adding rules/supplements, not having rules at all.

I told you the role rules play, they are important, and I do believe better designed and better presented rules improve the play experience. What I actually said was that continually adding new rules onto the core of 3.5 was not a problem, because you can always cut it back down to core only or pick and choose what material you will accept, and many tables do. The rules are the foundation, but rules bloat is not the problem. Ergo, not Stormwind, although I'm not sure if you meant that or Oberoni.


The rest of your post addresses why 3.5 was a problem for WotC. Thats not what I care about at all. I care about why it was a problem fro PLAYERS. The survival/profitability of WotC couldn't mean any less to me.

We know why it was a problem for players, we really do, we have gone on and on and on and on about it here, the same things keep coming up; LFQW, Save or Sucks, High Level play, the Monk, Natural Spell, etc., etc. Ignore the apologists, we know these are the problems for players because they are what always create the arguments.

Now, how to fix them is a more delicate subject which first means defining a desired play experience for D&D, which, after 4e more or less did that and still failed, no one at WotC is willing to do. The answer to these issues will differ depending on how you want to take the game, though, so that has to be done or it's all just sophistry. End of discussion.

Kurald Galain
2013-02-13, 12:19 PM
We know why it was a problem for players, we really do, we have gone on and on and on and on about it here, the same things keep coming up; LFQW, Save or Sucks, High Level play, the Monk, Natural Spell, etc., etc. Ignore the apologists, we know these are the problems for players because they are what always create the arguments.

Not exactly.

They always create the arguments precisely because somebody who's not a forum regular will step up and ask "I've never had a problem with that, why is it considered such a big deal?" This indicates that many people who don't go to D&D message boards do not have those problems. The fact that these things always create arguments simply proves that not everybody agrees on them.

Of course they're "common knowledge" on forums, but that's because forums tend to act like an echo chamber. It is likely that on other forums, the exact opposite statement will be "common knowledge".

Tanuki Tales
2013-02-13, 12:27 PM
This is Stormwind.


No. No it isn't. That's not what the Stormwind Fallacy is about. :smallconfused:

NoldorForce
2013-02-13, 12:29 PM
Now, how to fix them is a more delicate subject which first means defining a desired play experience for D&D, which, after 4e more or less did that and still failed, no one at WotC is willing to do. This keeps being said and it keeps being false. Sorry to pick on you, but if 4E failed then why is WotC working on Next in the first place? If it did fail then WotC, a company that has always made far more bank on Magic, would have cut the brand loose or sat on it.

Tanuki Tales
2013-02-13, 12:31 PM
This keeps being said and it keeps being false. Sorry to pick on you, but if 4E failed then why is WotC working on Next in the first place? If it did fail then WotC, a company that has always made far more bank on Magic, would have cut the brand loose or sat on it.

Kamigawa (unfortunately) was considered a failure as a block, but that didn't mean that they cut Magic loose or just sat on it. Just because one iteration of a brand name can be considered a corporate failure doesn't mean you need to slit the, up till then, Golden Goose's throat over one bad egg.

Synovia
2013-02-13, 12:31 PM
Read it again. I didn't say you can ignore rules, I was responding to your description of how when a game is unkillable, it tends to "add rules and supplements, it gets unwieldy and starts collapsing under its own weight." My comments were in the context of adding rules/supplements, not having rules at all.

I told you the role rules play, they are important, and I do believe better designed and better presented rules improve the play experience. What I actually said was that continually adding new rules onto the core of 3.5 was not a problem, because you can always cut it back down to core only or pick and choose what material you will accept, and many tables do. The rules are the foundation, but rules bloat is not the problem. Ergo, not Stormwind, although I'm not sure if you meant that or Oberoni.
.
Yeah, I'm sorry, it is Oberoni that I'm thinking of. My mistake.

Still, "adding new rules onto the core of 3.5 was not a problem, because you can always cut it back down to core only or pick and choose what material you will accept, " is precisely that fallacy. You can't say something isn't a problem because you can ignore it.


We know why it was a problem for players, we really do, we have gone on and on and on and on about it here, the same things keep coming up; LFQW, Save or Sucks, High Level play, the Monk, Natural Spell, etc., etc. Ignore the apologists, we know these are the problems for players because they are what always create the arguments.

Right, but none of those are a factor of WOTC's monetization model. They're all a problem in Core, that was made worse with splats. They're fundamental issues with the system that were exacerbated by rules bloat. The only way to fix those is to excise them and start over.\





They always create the arguments precisely because somebody who's not a forum regular will step up and ask "I've never had a problem with that, why is it considered such a big deal?" This indicates that many people who don't go to D&D message boards do not have those problems. The fact that these things always create arguments simply proves that not everybody agrees on them..

The fact that someone hasn't yet noticed that the emperor is naked doesn't mean he's wearing clothes. Not seeing giant rules problems doesn't mean they don't exist.

Stubbazubba
2013-02-13, 12:33 PM
Not exactly.

They always create the arguments precisely because somebody who's not a forum regular will step up and ask "I've never had a problem with that, why is it considered such a big deal?" This indicates that many people who don't go to D&D message boards do not have those problems.

Perfect. That's fine. They can keep playing an unchanged game, I'm fine with that. Or the SRD can be quietly errata'd for free and they'll never know there was much of a difference. Ignorance is bliss, but that doesn't mean there aren't problems.


The fact that these things always create arguments simply proves that not everybody agrees on them.

The big ones everyone agrees on: LFQW is a problem in double-digit levels. The Monk doesn't do what it thinks it does. High-level play is poorly understood, poorly defined, and woefully asymmetric. Individual spells or classes may or may not be universally identified as problems, but they are largely identified as such, so as far as what the problems are, it's not difficult to round up the culprits.


Of course they're "common knowledge" on forums, but that's because forums tend to act like an echo chamber. It is likely that on other forums, the exact opposite statement will be "common knowledge".

I agree with this if its referring to fixes for the problems, but if its just identifying where the problems are, then no, most forums are largely in agreement about what people argue about. Some places say "X is a problem," and some are more vocal saying, "X is NOT a problem," but few people say "The inverse of X is the problem!" I mean, there's always an outlier, but by and large, these hold true across many forums. It's just the solutions proposed that create camps of disagreement. From what I've observed, at least.

Kurald Galain
2013-02-13, 12:33 PM
This keeps being said and it keeps being false. Sorry to pick on you, but if 4E failed then why is WotC working on Next in the first place?
Look at it the other way: if it is successful, then why would WOTC cancel all further books for it and start working on a 5E instead?

They've tried several things to reinvigorate sales for 4E and none of that worked out.



The big ones everyone agrees on:
Yeah, sorry, but again not everybody agrees on this. I agree that most rules-savvy players who know about optimization tend to come to the same conclusion; but many people simply don't play that way. I agree that the 3E has issues at high level (as a matter of fact, so does 4E) but the overwhelming majority of campaigns never make it past level 10 anyway.

Because, again, Pathfinder has many of these same issues and is indisputably commercially successful. This shows that there is a substantial amount of players that doesn't agree that these issues you point out are problematic. This may be ignorance, but it may also be a different playstyle.

NoldorForce
2013-02-13, 12:36 PM
Kamigawa (unfortunately) was considered a failure as a block, but that didn't mean that they cut Magic loose or just sat on it. Just because one iteration of a brand name can be considered a corporate failure doesn't mean you need to slit the, up till then, Golden Goose's throat over one bad egg.The two aren't remotely comparable.


Look at it the other way: if it is successful, then why would WOTC cancel all further books for it and start working on a 5E instead?

They've tried several things to reinvigorate sales for 4E and none of that worked out.But you can apply the same logic for 3E and get the same warped results. Editions change when the current product line becomes no longer profitable in some way or another, but aren't necessarily indicative of actual failure. Want to know how WotC is still making money on 4E, and likely will be a while into the future? DDI - a subscription service, and one with far less overhead than printing out books.

Tanuki Tales
2013-02-13, 12:38 PM
The two aren't remotely comparable.

They are unless you want to start saying other editions of DnD were failures.

Edit: Just because one brand cycles through more iterations in a length of time than the other, doesn't mean you can't make comparable statements.

Zeful
2013-02-13, 12:41 PM
Yeah, I've never figured out how experienced gamers can seriously believe that.

I can understand disliking 3.5. But going from "I don't like this" to "this is unplayable" when there are vast amounts of people who not only play it but have played lots of other things and still choose to play the first thing . . . they're obviously using a very different definition of "unplayable" than the one you'll find in the dictionary.

That's true. The game isn't unplayable; FATAL isn't even unplayable. With enough effort, any system, no matter how poorly designed or how hard it is to understand the rules, is playable. After all, even broken toys are still played with regularly.

navar100
2013-02-13, 12:44 PM
There are people who don't think that 3.5 is a mess? Wow. low standards I guess.

We likes our BadWrongFun.

NoldorForce
2013-02-13, 12:45 PM
They are unless you want to start saying other editions of DnD were failures.

Edit: Just because one brand cycles through more iterations in a length of time than the other, doesn't mean you can't make comparable statements.Magic cycles are yearly affairs at best, while 4E had seven years between initial development and edition end? And TRPGs (while not video games) are not nearly so light of investments as card games.

A better comparison might be between 4E and, say, Android: Netrunner.

Tanuki Tales
2013-02-13, 12:54 PM
Magic cycles are yearly affairs at best, while 4E had seven years between initial development and edition end? And TRPGs (while not video games) are not nearly so light of investments as card games.

This is a discussion for another thread, but I don't think they're that light on investment when you have to take into account all of the peripheral merchandise and activity that can end up attached to even one block.


A better comparison might be between 4E and, say, Android: Netrunner.

I'm not that big a techie, so I'm sorry that I don't understand the comparison.

Stubbazubba
2013-02-13, 12:55 PM
This keeps being said and it keeps being false. Sorry to pick on you, but if 4E failed then why is WotC working on Next in the first place?

? Have you looked at how they're approaching Next? It's almost like they're taking their vision for D&D and running in the opposite direction of 4e; much less structure, much more DM oversight, etc., etc. 4e influences are present, but they're not being emphasized; the rhetoric is focusing on 'getting back to the roots of D&D' and such, it's a traditionalist approach.

Furthermore, companies often try to re-take lost market share with a new product when one fails shortly after launch. Look at Windows XP after Windows Millennium Edition.


If it did fail then WotC, a company that has always made far more bank on Magic, would have cut the brand loose or sat on it.

The brand is actually still pretty profitable (video games, novels, conventions, etc.), just not the TTRPGs.


Still, "adding new rules onto the core of 3.5 was not a problem, because you can always cut it back down to core only or pick and choose what material you will accept, " is precisely that fallacy. You can't say something isn't a problem because you can ignore it.

I'd call that a stretch, I mean, splatbooks are pretty much intended to be optional in the first place, and if you can't ignore an optional supplement in the evaluation of the strength of the game, especially since optional supplements under the OGL are published without much oversight from WotC, then I'm not sure that Oberoni should apply here. I'm not claiming that something isn't broken because it can be banned, I'm saying that 3.5 having a bunch of broken crap in splatbooks doesn't necessarily make 3.5 a worse experience for the player. In short, I'm talking about 3.5 as an edition, and that no, it is not worse off because of bad optional splatbooks. I don't think Oberoni applies to whole splatbooks in relation to a whole edition, but insomuch as it does, then you may technically be right.


Right, but none of those are a factor of WOTC's monetization model. They're all a problem in Core, that was made worse with splats. They're fundamental issues with the system that were exacerbated by rules bloat. The only way to fix those is to excise them and start over.

Agreed. See the paragraph after that, wherein I posited that until we establish ground rules for 'fixing D&D,' all conversation about how to do so is wasted.

The bigger point I'm getting at is that 'rules development' and the evolution of the industry are two different things that don't usually intersect. The real reasons behind the success or failure of editions of D&D are related to business model, not rules.

I do believe that, all else being held equal, the game with significantly 'better' rules will do better at market. However, that bolded premise is not the case, and that is where the real differences between 3.5, 4e, Next, and PF are.

Games that exist in the relative shadow of D&D like Fate games, Cortex+ games, GUMSHOE games, etc., could be said to inhabit a more 'equal' habitat, and thus their success or failure is a result of the quality of the rules, as reflected in the enthusiasm of their respective fanbases. But I'm not even sure how much of that is true.

NoldorForce
2013-02-13, 12:58 PM
I'm not that big a techie, so I'm sorry that I don't understand the comparison.Take a look. (http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_minisite.asp?eidm=207)

EccentricCircle
2013-02-13, 01:05 PM
Out of curiosity does anyone know how you get from the original outline of how the OGL was going to work linked earlier in this thread to pathfinder?
The linked outline states that other companies will be encouraged to produce adventures and sourcebooks, but won't be able to release the core rules of the game.

Did they change that, or create a different license that allows Pathfinder and things like the Pocket PHB to be published?

Stubbazubba
2013-02-13, 01:12 PM
Yeah, sorry, but again not everybody agrees on this. I agree that most rules-savvy players who know about optimization tend to come to the same conclusion; but many people simply don't play that way. I agree that the 3E has issues at high level (as a matter of fact, so does 4E) but the overwhelming majority of campaigns never make it past level 10 anyway.

Because, again, Pathfinder has many of these same issues and is indisputably commercially successful. This shows that there is a substantial amount of players that doesn't agree that these issues you point out are problematic. This may be ignorance, but it may also be a different playstyle.

If the playstyle you refer to makes it so that character choices like Feats and Class don't affect the power level of the game when they provably ought to (and are designed to do so), then changing rules won't matter either way. If someone really believes that Fighters are overpowered and Wizards so weak (based on HP or BAB or something), and plays in such a way that that ends up being true, then the rules changes under consideration won't change their experience. If they are so far below the optimization curve that demonstrably true issues not only don't come up in their games, but the opposite trends occur, then we can safely assume that changing the rules will have little effect on their play experience.

Those players are essentially as relevant to the discussion of rules issues as those who have never realized the rules issue in the first place.

Yora
2013-02-13, 01:19 PM
Out of curiosity does anyone know how you get from the original outline of how the OGL was going to work linked earlier in this thread to pathfinder?
The linked outline states that other companies will be encouraged to produce adventures and sourcebooks, but won't be able to release the core rules of the game.

Did they change that, or create a different license that allows Pathfinder and things like the Pocket PHB to be published?
No, since from the very first release, virtually all PHB and MM material was open content. No idea why they did that, but I think they might have wanted to allow other companies to make total coversions, like the Wheel of Time RPG and Warcraft RPG. Pathfinder is pretty much the same, just with fewer changes.

Tanuki Tales
2013-02-13, 02:11 PM
Take a look. (http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_minisite.asp?eidm=207)

Oh. It's a game. :smallredface:

Sorry, I thought you were talking about the phone.

Yora
2013-02-13, 02:39 PM
Oh it's a game. I thought it was a Pathfinder race. :smallbiggrin:

Kurald Galain
2013-02-13, 03:42 PM
If someone really believes that Fighters are overpowered and Wizards so weak (based on HP or BAB or something), and plays in such a way that that ends up being true,
Wrong metaphor. It's not about people who believe the exact opposite as you do (and who might be factually wrong about that), it's about people who don't care about balance. Yes, they exist. They're actually pretty common anywhere except on message boards.

These people are not relevant to a discussion about optimization, no. However, they are relevant to a discussion about market appeal. If WOTC doesn't put as much effort in balance as you'd like, well, that's probably because they have found the group (of people who don't mind imbalance) is larger than you think.

Tanuki Tales
2013-02-13, 04:22 PM
Wrong metaphor. It's not about people who believe the exact opposite as you do (and who might be factually wrong about that), it's about people who don't care about balance. Yes, they exist. They're actually pretty common anywhere except on message boards.

These people are not relevant to a discussion about optimization, no. However, they are relevant to a discussion about market appeal. If WOTC doesn't put as much effort in balance as you'd like, well, that's probably because they have found the group (of people who don't mind imbalance) is larger than you think.

I'm going to agree with Kurald.

To be honest, these forums kind of "poisoned" my gameplay after I discovered them. I had played DnD for almost a decade without ever knowing what "tiers" were or about Optimization with a capital O or what TO was or balance or anything. I had never seen a God/Batman Wizard make reality cry or really see the horrors of Linear Fighter/Quadratic Fighter. And no one, to this day, that I've ever gamed with knew or cared about any of this stuff either until I told them about it.

Synovia
2013-02-13, 04:36 PM
I'm going to agree with Kurald.

To be honest, these forums kind of "poisoned" my gameplay after I discovered them. I had played DnD for almost a decade without ever knowing what "tiers" were or about Optimization with a capital O or what TO was or balance or anything. I had never seen a God/Batman Wizard make reality cry or really see the horrors of Linear Fighter/Quadratic Fighter. And no one, to this day, that I've ever gamed with knew or cared about any of this stuff either until I told them about it.

I hadn't "known about this" but I'd sensed it. The internet just put words to it.

It was pretty clear past about 6th or 7th level that the full spellcasters were more useful than the fighter. Flight is really a game breaker.

It was pretty obvious that as we got higher level, the Rogue's skills became less and less useful because they were being outclassed by utility spells.

Nobody could put words to why, but we were all playing casters by the end. Despite the fact that having to pour through the spell compendium all the time was a PITA.

obryn
2013-02-13, 05:16 PM
I hadn't "known about this" but I'd sensed it. The internet just put words to it.

It was pretty clear past about 6th or 7th level that the full spellcasters were more useful than the fighter. Flight is really a game breaker.
I knew it and lived it, honestly. I had two 3.x campaigns which were basically Try to Challenge the Casters. (One was Arcana Evolved, which claimed that it fixed caster/non-caster balance better than 3e in its marketing. In practice, this was not at all the case.) When I realized I had to gear up an enemy just to keep him from getting spellbombed in the first round, I knew something was broken. I might not have called it "balance" but I knew it wasn't fun anymore.

So I canned that campaign, regretfully, when my discontent grew too much, and I mostly left D&D for other games. (WFRP2 and Star Wars Saga were two favorites during that period.) I came back into the D&D fold when 4e solved the problems I experienced with 3.5.

Saying people "don't care about the balance" may or may not be true in specific terms. But that doesn't mean fundamental imbalance can't have actual, noticeable detrimental effects on a game or a campaign. I mean, I might not "care about" my spleen, and I won't go around telling people how important it is, but if something goes wrong with it, I'm going to notice and complain about the symptoms.

-O

Person_Man
2013-02-13, 05:28 PM
In my personal opinion, I think all of the talk of RPGs as Network Products, Disassociated Mechanics, the effect of World of Warcraft, arguments about what the "best" or most "authentic" D&D mechanics are, etc, are just navel gazing (which is obviously something I thoroughly enjoy doing, otherwise I wouldn't spend so much time on this forum) which will have little to no impact on the success of the TRPG industry.


If WotC buys out or buys off their main rival Paizo (ie, directly purchases the company, or pays them a good amount of money to publish 5E material like Dragon Magazine or whatever) and creates a new Open Game License (ensuring that all of the other independent publishers and desktop publishing dreamers get behind the next big thing) then 5E will succeed. If they don't, it'll just fracture the gaming base further.

NoldorForce
2013-02-13, 06:10 PM
If WotC buys out or buys off their main rival Paizo (ie, directly purchases the company, or pays them a good amount of money to publish 5E material like Dragon Magazine or whatever) and creates a new Open Game License (ensuring that all of the other independent publishers and desktop publishing dreamers get behind the next big thing) then 5E will succeed. If they don't, it'll just fracture the gaming base further.The OGL won't do any good for 5E. It was what allowed fracturing in the first place.

Consider, if you will, how wildly open the OGL was. Even Creative Commons licenses had more meaningful restrictions than it. WotC got burned by it and isn't about to repeat that mistake. And funny thing is, Paizo isn't going to either - their equivalent license is about at the level of 4E's GSL in terms of restrictions.

Leolo
2013-02-13, 06:34 PM
Even if WotC would buy Paizo this wouldn't change anything. Other designers would just do the same that paizo did.

Pink
2013-02-13, 07:32 PM
Even if WotC would buy Paizo this wouldn't change anything. Other designers would just do the same that paizo did.

In fairness, Paizo had a huge advantage in launching its own system that would be difficult to imitate. They had some years publishing Dungeon and Dragon magazine, which means they were already known to a large share of the market that they were going to poach. I don't know how many other companies have anything comparable going right now.

Kurald Galain
2013-02-13, 07:34 PM
Even if WOTC wanted to buy Paizo, what makes you think Paizo is for sale? They're not a publically owned company.

Saph
2013-02-13, 07:50 PM
Even if WOTC wanted to buy Paizo, what makes you think Paizo is for sale? They're not a publically owned company.

Yeah, I suppose WotC could just offer the Paizo shareholders an obscene amount of money, but a) I'm not sure they'd be able to sell that plan to their bosses at Hasbro and b) it wouldn't exactly send a good message. They'd effectively be admitting that they didn't believe they could compete with Paizo in the open market.

Dragonus45
2013-02-13, 09:17 PM
Yeah, I suppose WotC could just offer the Paizo shareholders an obscene amount of money, but a) I'm not sure they'd be able to sell that plan to their bosses at Hasbro and b) it wouldn't exactly send a good message. They'd effectively be admitting that they didn't believe they could compete with Paizo in the open market.

Honestly it seems more likely that Paizo would buy the DnD brand, not that that's at all likely either.

kyoryu
2013-02-13, 09:34 PM
Honestly it seems more likely that Paizo would buy the DnD brand, not that that's at all likely either.

At this point I have to wonder which has more value - D&D as an RPG, or the D&D brand name for licensing.

Stubbazubba
2013-02-13, 09:39 PM
Wrong metaphor. It's not about people who believe the exact opposite as you do (and who might be factually wrong about that), it's about people who don't care about balance. Yes, they exist. They're actually pretty common anywhere except on message boards.

So if they don't care about balance, how would changing rules hurt them? So long as the nature of the game isn't radically changed like they did with 4e, I can't imagine people being upset when things are adjusted towards a much more elegant balance point; they can still play essentially as they were and keep on not caring.

If they just don't care, if they're apathetic about the problem, that also doesn't mean it's not a problem. Fortunately it also means that fixing the problem doesn't necessarily mean offending them.

The only people that are really necessary to consider besides the overwhelming number of rules-savvy optimization-medium players who can more or less point to problem spots together, are those who believe the imbalance is inherent to their enjoyment of the game, and that more balance would adversely affect their experience based on the merits of balance. I think you will find there are very few people in the anti-balance camp, compared to the pro-balance and apathetic/unaware camps. I can't substantiate that claim, but I think it makes sense.

Furthermore, I wouldn't feel very good about myself protecting the rights of the few to enjoy a more-or-less objectively imbalanced game that leads to annoying results for many real gamers in real situations, no matter how it tickles them. If you enjoy things because it's unfair, either for or against you, I don't think that's a mindset we should worry about catering to. You can always handicap yourself for the challenge of playing a Fighter at level 15, or you can let the DM make you 4 levels higher than everyone else if you want the god-mode feeling. There's no reason to not have a balanced default option since you can always adjust that to re-introduce imbalance.

Stubbazubba
2013-02-13, 10:41 PM
If WotC buys out or buys off their main rival Paizo (ie, directly purchases the company, or pays them a good amount of money to publish 5E material like Dragon Magazine or whatever) and creates a new Open Game License (ensuring that all of the other independent publishers and desktop publishing dreamers get behind the next big thing) then 5E will succeed. If they don't, it'll just fracture the gaming base further.

3.5 wasn't phased out because it was that time of product cycle again. It was phased out because WotC couldn't turn its popularity into money. If they went OGL with 5e, it would certainly become popular, because it would be free, but WotC still wouldn't be able to make money off it, because their monetization model isn't really going to work. Ergo, it would not be a commercial success for Wizards, nor much of a boon to your FLGS. It can't sustain product support like that. For 5e to succeed, it needs to be not just OGL, but OGL attached to a new revenue stream that focuses on players, not books. I don't know if players will accept that, even. But whatever the winning formula ends up being, the current paradigm will not work. A new business model is needed.

Kurald Galain
2013-02-14, 04:16 AM
So if they don't care about balance, how would changing rules hurt them? So long as the nature of the game isn't radically changed like they did with 4e, I can't imagine people being upset when things are adjusted towards a much more elegant balance point; they can still play essentially as they were and keep on not caring.

You are quite correct.

However, because of this group, balancing the game isn't a priority to WOTC. Every hour spent balancing things is an hour not spent writing fluff, or designing new feats, or whatever else the designer do. Since game balance clearly isn't what sells RPGs, why should WOTC put more than a token effort into it?

Yora
2013-02-14, 07:09 AM
Yeah, I suppose WotC could just offer the Paizo shareholders an obscene amount of money, but a) I'm not sure they'd be able to sell that plan to their bosses at Hasbro and b) it wouldn't exactly send a good message. They'd effectively be admitting that they didn't believe they could compete with Paizo in the open market.
Paizo does not have shareholders. It's a private company, so you can't just buy all the shares that are on the stock market until you have 51%. You need to convince the current owners to sell their share in the company to you, and it's common for LLCs that the co-owners have a word to say to whom shares can be sold.
If Paizo were doing poorly it might still work to approach the owners directly and offer them really generous prices for the company, but as long as they are doing good, you probably would have to offer them really big amounts of money to make them consider selling the company and creative work they created over a decade. That means offering them way more than the company and IPs are worth, which I am not sure WotC could afford.
And in this case, it's not some faceless corporations. The people could just start a new company with their new wealth and customers would know that there's been a change of adress, making the purchase pretty much moot.

Stubbazubba
2013-02-14, 08:49 AM
You are quite correct.

However, because of this group, balancing the game isn't a priority to WOTC. Every hour spent balancing things is an hour not spent writing fluff, or designing new feats, or whatever else the designer do. Since game balance clearly isn't what sells RPGs, why should WOTC put more than a token effort into it?

Short answer: They shouldn't.

Long answer: They should approach the game with both numerical and non-numerical benchmarks in mind before classes, spells, feats, maneuvers, etc., are ever designed, and then generate content that falls within those parameters. With enough testing you can iron out surprise combinations, etc., until it's within the acceptable margin of balance. Now why should they do this? Because, as I said, if one group does not care about balance, but the other wants it, then giving it to the latter group will not upset the former group. The former group will not feel like they got ripped off, since they're supposedly not in it for the "roll play" anyway. The only thing they want designers working on more than balance is fluff, and that's reasonable. Cover both of those bases, and you will have achieved a very broad appeal. That's why they should focus on it from the get go. But if they're not committed to even a conservative vision like that, then yeah, they have no need for that and can just write feats and fluff with no reference to what's actually going on in the game, and people will eat it up. Or at least they would if this was still the 90s.

NoldorForce
2013-02-14, 10:15 AM
You are quite correct.

However, because of this group, balancing the game isn't a priority to WOTC. Every hour spent balancing things is an hour not spent writing fluff, or designing new feats, or whatever else the designer do. Since game balance clearly isn't what sells RPGs, why should WOTC put more than a token effort into it?:smallconfused: I do hope you're being sarcastic here.

Synovia
2013-02-14, 10:20 AM
Short answer: They shouldn't.

Long answer: They should approach the game with both numerical and non-numerical benchmarks in mind before classes, spells, feats, maneuvers, etc., are ever designed, and then generate content that falls within those parameters. With enough testing you can iron out surprise combinations, etc., until it's within the acceptable margin of balance. Now why should they do this? Because, as I said, if one group does not care about balance, but the other wants it, then giving it to the latter group will not upset the former group. The former group will not feel like they got ripped off, since they're supposedly not in it for the "roll play" anyway. The only thing they want designers working on more than balance is fluff, and that's reasonable. Cover both of those bases, and you will have achieved a very broad appeal. That's why they should focus on it from the get go. But if they're not committed to even a conservative vision like that, then yeah, they have no need for that and can just write feats and fluff with no reference to what's actually going on in the game, and people will eat it up. Or at least they would if this was still the 90s.

A corollary to this is that you can add more fluff as you go along. If your design isn't balanced at the very beginning, you basically can't fix it. SO, its worth it to spend some time initially designing the parameters your classes need to stay within before you start writing the actual abilities.

Yora
2013-02-14, 10:21 AM
I don't think so. The only games I've heard of not being described as completely unbalanced are those that are very compact and don't have much numbers to begin with. Everything else seems to be called completely broken almost all the time.

Kaveman26
2013-02-14, 10:53 AM
In any game people are going to look for edges. Class imbalance and perceived system imbalance are a product of the players not essentially the product designers. As product lines expand and new options become available ineveitably casters will increase their flexibility and utility, driving non casters into narrower and narrower niches. Every reboot I have witnessed from my perspective is the product of market saturation creating the need to "reboot" the content so they can sell the same material over again.

If your group has a problem with imbalance a whole new balanced system is not the answer. Your group's play style and gaming preferences are the problem. I have liked every edition of D&D and especially love Pathfinder. The only system I have disliked is 4th edition and that was more because I had invested X amount of dollars into a system that suddenly lost support.

The entire approach to table top gaming needs to change. You are no longer going to make your money from 40 dollar splatbooks and equipment guides. Digital is not even the new frontier at this point, it is the expected destination.

Not many remember this game or now what it was but if you ever played Ultima Online you will know where im coming from with this.

Ultima Online was one of the first MMO's, and it was the first to break 100K mark for paid subscribers. At it's core the player base was much quicker to adapt than the designers and imbalance was a part of the game. One week wizardy was broken, the next week animal taming. Every couple weeks "explots" or "broken" mechanics were tweaked and nerfed and something else would rise up. Now here is the kicker...it didnt matter. THe game was still enjoyable even without the exploits. The fun came from the downtime in addition to the combat stuff. People would actually role play in game. Whole groups of people would act like orcs. This was possible because towns were safe and even the uberbroken flavor of the week couldnt touch you in town. A designer for the game said that is what accidentally made it succesful. Downtime became social time. As you developed social contacts you got more help in action time.

In games like WoW, most towns are simply a madcap marathon of acutioning and dropping crap off at vendors and the bank. The social time is spent in the middle of raiding or questing. As attentions are drawn to surviving encounters there is far less interaction in game and mostly reduced to chatter over voice services.

When i say the format has to change I really think that tablets and software intergration are the future. Keep a system that is flexible and static. Then keep adding playable content in the forms of adventures and adventure paths.

obryn
2013-02-14, 11:10 AM
As product lines expand and new options become available ineveitably casters will increase their flexibility and utility, driving non casters into narrower and narrower niches.
This is only true if two things hold. (1) pre-4e-style Vancian casting, (2) All the new options are to give spellcasters new toys.

So I disagree with the "inevitability."

-O

Kaveman26
2013-02-14, 11:22 AM
This is only true if two things hold. (1) pre-4e-style Vancian casting, (2) All the new options are to give spellcasters new toys.

True...eliminating Vancian style casting can stop a lot of the escalated power differential.

As for the new toys...it feels like they are always going to creep in. you can only write so many different spell does X damage desciptions before someone writes "give access to Y ability just like the melee class that used to be the only one that could do this".

And I will be the first to say...my groups never saw the over optimization problems that some seem to lament. We never felt like the group wizard constantly outshone the fighter. but all our characters fell into the tier 3-4 range because that was our style.

Synovia
2013-02-14, 11:42 AM
True...eliminating Vancian style casting can stop a lot of the escalated power differential.

As for the new toys...it feels like they are always going to creep in. you can only write so many different spell does X damage desciptions before someone writes "give access to Y ability just like the melee class that used to be the only one that could do this".

New toys aren't the problem. New toys only going to spellcasters is the problem. I'd rather not have casters duplicating melee abilities at all, but if we're going to allow the Wizard to cast a spell that duplicates "Power Attack", why aren't we allowing the Fighter to duplicate something the Wizard does?

One of the main problems for 3.5 is that there are spells that replace entire skills, spells that are more powerful than entire feat chains, and spellcasters not only get a TON of spells, they can basically swap them at will.

Basically, a Rogue will spend 10-15% of his class resources (skill points) to be good at opening locks. A Wizard can spend a 2nd level spell, that at high level is essentially 2% of his daily resources (spell slots) at 10th level, and less than 1% at 18th. And he's better at it than the rogue. And he can decide to do something else tomorrow.

And we can go down the list of skills and say pretty much exactly the same thing for almost every one of them. We can go through class abilities and do the same thing for most of them. Hide in Plain sight? There's a spell for that. Evasion? Who cares, there's spells to make it irrelevant. Wild Shape? There's a spell for that.

Person_Man
2013-02-14, 12:00 PM
Even if WOTC wanted to buy Paizo, what makes you think Paizo is for sale? They're not a publically owned company.

As far as I know, Paizo is owned by Lisa Stevens and Vic Wertz. (They might also hand out percentages to other people, but those are the only people I could find on the internet who are listed as owners). Hasbro simply has to convince both of them (and maybe just one of them, depending on how the percentages are broken out) to sell.

Hasbro is a multi-billion dollar company, looking to turn D&D into a $50 million dollar brand or off load it. Since they're making D&D Next, it's clear that Hasbro has decided not to offload D&D. Thus, they're looking to make it into a big brand, and have probably decided to put some meaningful resources into it. Paizo is a successful company, but their net revenues (after paying all of its employees, taxes, marketing, and other overhead) is probably not a huge number.

So I don't think it would be that unreasonable for Hasbro to show up to one of the owners' houses with a dump truck of cash and maybe some contractual promises (like keeping all of the Paizo staff employed at WotC for a certain period). It would help them to dominate the market, and would probably be a smart move.

1337 b4k4
2013-02-14, 12:59 PM
Basically, a Rogue will spend 10-15% of his class resources (skill points) to be good at opening locks. A Wizard can spend a 2nd level spell, that at high level is essentially 2% of his daily resources (spell slots) at 10th level, and less than 1% at 18th. And he's better at it than the rogue. And he can decide to do something else tomorrow.

And we can go down the list of skills and say pretty much exactly the same thing for almost every one of them. We can go through class abilities and do the same thing for most of them. Hide in Plain sight? There's a spell for that. Evasion? Who cares, there's spells to make it irrelevant. Wild Shape? There's a spell for that.

I do think that one thing they really ought to do with ability replacing spells is never let them be strictly better than the ability they're replacing, and always be better spent on the class who's ability is being replaced. They should also scale if slotted into a higher spell slot. I have two different methods for this depending on how you like your power level so let's take a look at "knock" for example. As a level 1 spell, knock should allow a magic user to pick a lock as a level 1 rogue. Slotted into a 5th level slot, it should allow a wizard to open a lock as a 5th level rogue. Cast on a rogue however, and it adds the level of the spell slot to the rogue. So a level 1 casting on a level 1 rogue give the rogue an effective level of 2 for the lock pick. 5th level spell on a 5th level rogue gives an effective level of 10.

Alternatively, because spell levels are at half the actual level you may prefer to change the above to double the spell level, so on an MU, level 1 confers level 2 rogue status, on a level 1 rogue, it adds 2 levels to give an effective level of 3. Similarly, slotted into level 5 spell slot would make a wizard pick locks as a level 10 rogue, or give +10 levels to the level 10 rogue in the party.

Synovia
2013-02-14, 01:50 PM
Alternatively, because spell levels are at half the actual level you may prefer to change the above to double the spell level, so on an MU, level 1 confers level 2 rogue status, on a level 1 rogue, it adds 2 levels to give an effective level of 3. Similarly, slotted into level 5 spell slot would make a wizard pick locks as a level 10 rogue, or give +10 levels to the level 10 rogue in the party.
I think we'd be better off at staying at +Spell Level instead of +Caster Level. Max ranks for a character of that level? (IE, Spell Level +3)

We need to remember, spells are temporary things, and can be swapped out if they're not useful that day. Skills are something that stay on the character forever, so because less is invested with a spell, less is gained.

As far as I'm concerned, an 18th level wizard spending a 9th level spell (roughly 5% of his total daily spell slotlevels- SRD suggests 200 spell points at 18th) to be able to replicate something an 18th level rogue spent 10% of his skill points (which are permanent) on is still a bit strong.

A +9-12 though? Thats enough that it means the wizard can deal with low end locks himself, or that he can up the Rogue's chance on a particular tough lock by 45%, which is pretty significant.

kyoryu
2013-02-14, 03:48 PM
I don't think so. The only games I've heard of not being described as completely unbalanced are those that are very compact and don't have much numbers to begin with. Everything else seems to be called completely broken almost all the time.

There's degrees of imbalance and "broken". Every RPG system has its imbalances. The questions are how severe they are, and whether they pass the "logic test" (in quotes because magic). Most people won't complain if a two-handed weapon guy in plate mail can take out a shortsword wielder in leather armor, even if they're bought at the same point level/whatever, but they will probably complain if the "effective" combination is something bizarre like dual wielding daggers while naked.

Balance complaints are inevitable (heck, I worked in MMOs for a while), but that doesn't mean they're automatically invalid.

ATEKazul
2013-02-14, 06:20 PM
This has been a fascinating discussion and learning experiance.

But I think I should point out a couple issues D&D and most likely Pathfinder are facing or going to face.


Culturaly People are getting dumber, why think when you can use electronics and risk popularity by becomming a geek? Heck I have even see some tendencies where reading is a chore and to be avoided during free time.

Now while the above is harsh I was not actually trying to affend any one.

Another issue is mental differences(I hate the word disability It makes people who think and learn differently sound stupid) are becomming more common and wide spread.

The books and format of traditional RPG's is very hard to self teach even if like me you've read them your whole life(it's the reason I have never played any of my RPG's).

What the above means is D&D is becomming inexcessable to new players unless they join a group of older and experianced players who have most likely settled on an out of date system already and there for teaches it to the new player.


Another thing is that the worlds, fluff and choices are becomming out dated I'll even list some of them.

Goblins thanks to things like WoW, MTG(oh the irony), Warhammer, Harry Potter and Hellboy, are no longer dumb savages that raid villages. Now they are mean spirited economic and steampunk tech geniuses with a lack of common sense and safety protocols.

Orcs are much the same as goblins now except they are less business savvy and have a war-like culture with some tribal forms as well.

Elves are thought of in 2 different ways tall nature loving humans with long ears and long lives or they are small workers akin to santa's elves. And their connections to the fey and fairies is just a novelty of history and mythology that no one really knows about.

Gnomes well most new players especially youger ones probably think of garden gnomes and well if I didn't know better I certainly wouldn't want to be one.

And Halflings? Is there even another genre that uses that term? Because I had to have it explained to me that they were based off hobbits and not pygmy's or something(though that was at a young age that impression has stuck with me).


As for any thing they could add for races(I dislike this term as well by the way), why not take advantage of modern day popularity?

Vampires have become so popular and diverse that D&D should have an easy time making a unique form for the players hand book. I mean there's viral, alien, demonic and magical ones now.

Were-Wolves are also popular and have a simular diversity to vampires now and if you add other were-animals at some point you could gain even more fans by tapping into things like Thundercats and TMNT or the humanoid Panda's that seem to be gathering a bit of a market.

And while I'm not so sure about this one things like L4D, Resident Evil Marval Zombies and WoW along with the popularity of apocalypses lately make me think offering a diverse and possibly intellegent form of zombie a good idea.

As for classes well I don't have a good grasp of them from all editions but they kinda seem to be wrong on a fundamental scale.

You want a holy magic user combine the monk(they really should have a magic variant), cleric, druid and shaman(if they exist) into a base class of magic users that gain power from a belief system whether they worship nature, deities, the spirits of the land or their ancestors, Primal forces of the universe or even an accended individual and his teachings of enlightenment and inner peace.

You want a holy warrior to go with the above? Take the previous classes magic system limit the options a bit and combine it with the monk, paladin and barbarian.

You want an academic spell caster? Fuse sorcerer and wizard and make the bloodlines I have heard of be optional and capable of strengthening a specialty while weakening most others.

Want a pure warrior make it a fighter with more options and perhaps add some of the monk, paladin and barbarians abilities to it as options capable of making a more diverse warrior.

Want to tap into popularity with classes?

Add Pirates as it's own class with features based on superstition, fighting, command of disagreeable people and thievery both blatant and unnoticed.

Then add Ninja's, though this will be trickier since culturally ninja's are either naruto or something like Ninja Gaiden and Mortal Kombat, Though Comic fans might point out Deadpool and Batman. What this equates to are super powered and magical mutant ninja's with abillities in stealth and mercenary work that have a clan based social structure.


Well that's my opinion, though the other points in this topic are valid and quite big. I think being unteachable to new players with out help from experianced players and lack of popular or understandable choices in core rule books are a major problem D&D and by extension Pathfinder and other RPG's are facing or going to face.


That's my 2 cents and while I doubt this will be appreciated on a die hard D&D board I thought it was still worth putting on here.

Tanuki Tales
2013-02-14, 06:38 PM
As for any thing they could add for races(I dislike this term as well by the way), why not take advantage of modern day popularity?


Oh please do not let them do this. Nothing will make me drop Next or any tabletop harder than them jumping on bandwagons and trends to define any significant part of their gaming system. Especially one that'll be as costly as anything printed under WoTC business model will inevitably be.

AttilaTheGeek
2013-02-14, 06:44 PM
Oh please do not let them do this. Nothing will make me drop Next or any tabletop harder than them jumping on bandwagons and trends to define any significant part of their gaming system. Especially one that'll be as costly as anything printed under WoTC business model will inevitably be.

This. So much this. If my Wizard has to fight alongside a sparkling vampire, I will Greater Teleport back to World of Warcraft so fast...

ATEKazul
2013-02-14, 06:52 PM
That wasn't quite what I was meaning but honestly I was expecting it.

Though I purposely used things that are popular and could easily be fit into DnD without much effort.

If Wizards actually followed some of the more major trends in culture(outside of being more understandable) I think I would look at any new books with revulsion I mean TV is almost brain dead and ruled by comedy and/or stupidity to the point of brain damage to those watching. And I wouldn't be surprised if parents start completely banning online access in mass because of how unappropriate the internet is becoming from language and behavior to content.


Though that is neither here nor there so excuss me for the rant.

Edit:

Also I don't want sparkling either but if it does happen can it atleast have a use like the effect comming from diamond scales or something

navar100
2013-02-14, 07:04 PM
Vampires - they're not ravenous blood-thirsty slaughtering monsters; they're the shirtless handsome romantic misunderstood living impaired!

1337 b4k4
2013-02-14, 08:04 PM
Nothing will make me drop Next or any tabletop harder than them jumping on bandwagons and trends to define any significant part of their gaming system.

This is unfortunate given how many classic and long lived games have large amounts of their material based on cultural trends. It's no accident that D&D races and their descriptions in the early editions were very Tolkien. Similarly, Traveller was all about capturing the space opera trend which was popular in s.f. at the time. V:tM jumped on the late 80's early 90's vampire revival (Anne Rice, Buffy, The Hunger, Blade), Cyberpunk rode the 80's and 90's s.f. noir trend. Never mind all the licensed properties (WEG Star Wars, TMNT etc).

That isn't to say that D&D needs to introduce a vampire or zombie class (though I believe they already have for the Vampire), or that they should jump on the sparkly vampire idea (the cultural loss of our monsters is a different discussion all together) but to dismiss games completely out of hand simply because they base their core on a cultural trend is a bad idea.

Yora
2013-02-14, 08:11 PM
In recent year, there has been a bunch of gritty low-magic fantasy particulary in video games but also some movies. I really wouldn't mind seeing that influence future RPGs.

Talakeal
2013-02-14, 08:29 PM
A lot of the "modern" interpretations of monsters are not new things. For example, goblins are depicted as great tinkers and inventors in the hobbit, and as devious merchants in mid 19th century fairy lore.

Tanuki Tales
2013-02-14, 11:51 PM
-Snip-

Sorry, let me clarify what I meant:

I will drop it so hard if they jump on today's modern trends that are aimed at tweens and teenagers and/or can be objectively argued as being a cultural loss.

Scowling Dragon
2013-02-15, 05:25 AM
I think what also seriously helps Pathfinder are really well made adventure paths. They allow for quick intros into the game.

Like the recent one being released will have you on a wild goose chase to save Baba Yaga (Boss), to a different continent (Bossier), to a different planet (McBossington), and then Finally to 1918 Russia (UBERBOSS)!

obryn
2013-02-15, 08:50 AM
Sorry, let me clarify what I meant:

I will drop it so hard if they jump on today's modern trends that are aimed at tweens and teenagers and/or can be objectively argued as being a cultural loss.
So... get off your lawn?

Many of the major influences on the D&D "genre" were books and stories primarily aimed at teenagers and young adults in the 70's...

-O

Synovia
2013-02-15, 09:26 AM
Culturaly People are getting dumber, why think when you can use electronics and risk popularity by becomming a geek? Heck I have even see some tendencies where reading is a chore and to be avoided during free time..

GET OFF MY LAWN YOU DAMN KIDS!

Really? You're going with this?

FatR
2013-02-15, 09:32 AM
A couple of thoughts on the matter.




D&D is *Not* a specialized game. It is not *Supposed* to be a specialized game. They want to know what FEELS like D&D? A game world where I can do *Anything*, and be good at it, with rules to support it.

I find posts like this a harmful exaggeration. No game system can satisfyingly support anything and everything, that's just a sad truth.

However, I think we're in our rights to expect from DnD to wholly support playing through typical fantasy stories. 4E conclusively proved, that attempting to be merely a skirmish wargame doesn't work for DnD. If someone here doesn't believe me, he/she can just take a look at the post count on these very forums, the 3.X/d20 subforum has over 15 times more threads than the subforum for 4E.

Now, 3.0 was by no means a perfect system for emulating a decent range of fantasy stories. And 3.5/PF really made no appreciable progress on this front. 3.X games are still the best existing approximations of a generic fantasy system on market (taking into account setting and adventure support, of course). But we should not delude themselves - DnD really hadn't advanced much as a system past 3.0, late 3.5 had a number of refreshing ideas, but those fell to the wayside, instead of becoming breakthrougs (I consider 4E to be an entirely separate game, that just happens to use the same brand).

Returning to DnDNext, it looks like another humongous disappointment in the making. Speaking charitably, it against tries to reinvent the wheel, instead of taking the 3.X base, and adressing its various issues (the complexity explosion at high levels; inadequacy of core martial classes; the shallow skill system that doesn't support interesting mechanical interactions in non-combat situations; WBL; lack of, at the very least, mass combat and social subsystems, and maybe a governance subsystem). It also seems to be again trying to be just a skirmish wargame, with everything else at most an afterthought. I don't see how it can possibly succeed on trying to invoke feels alone. I think we all already have systems that "feel like DnD" to us. Can't speak for everyone, but what I need is a game that builds upon existing DnD experiences to offer me something new, by covering areas that were either neglected or done very poorly by its precedessors.

Synovia
2013-02-15, 09:50 AM
One thing I would love to see is D&D getting less numerical differences in the races, and more flavor/ability differences.

Its a tough balancing act, but I think the direct statistical differences tend to just pidgeonhole race choice into "what do I get a dex bonus from?"

Synovia
2013-02-15, 09:54 AM
Now, 3.0 was by no means a perfect system for emulating a decent range of fantasy stories. And 3.5/PF really made no appreciable progress on this front. 3.X games are still the best existing approximations of a generic fantasy system on market (taking into account setting and adventure support, of course). But we should not delude themselves - DnD really hadn't advanced much as a system past 3.0, late 3.5 had a number of refreshing ideas, but those fell to the wayside, instead of becoming breakthrougs (I consider 4E to be an entirely separate game, that just happens to use the same brand).

Returning to DnDNext, it looks like another humongous disappointment in the making. Speaking charitably, it against tries to reinvent the wheel, instead of taking the 3.X base, and adressing its various issues (the complexity explosion at high levels; inadequacy of core martial classes; the shallow skill system that doesn't support interesting mechanical interactions in non-combat situations; WBL; lack of, at the very least, mass combat and social subsystems, and maybe a governance subsystem). It also seems to be again trying to be just a skirmish wargame, with everything else at most an afterthought. I don't see how it can possibly succeed on trying to invoke feels alone. I think we all already have systems that "feel like DnD" to us. Can't speak for everyone, but what I need is a game that builds upon existing DnD experiences to offer me something new, by covering areas that were either neglected or done very poorly by its precedessors.

The problem with 3.x IS the core. The BASE is the core. The system is designed in a fundamentally poor way. The only way to fix most of it's issues is to almost completely redesign it.


Honestly, the "Skirmish wargame" stuff is where the rules should be focused. Outside of combat, most of the stuff a party does is going to be governed by roleplay, and frankly, its the the sort of stuff that should be handled in character (or in Setting supplements - for governance rules, etc)

obryn
2013-02-15, 10:45 AM
If someone here doesn't believe me, he/she can just take a look at the post count on these very forums, the 3.X/d20 subforum has over 15 times more threads than the subforum for 4E.
If you think this forum is a representative sample of gamers in general (or even the smaller sub-population of "gamers on the internet") it explains a lot about the rest of the post. :smallsmile:

-O

Synovia
2013-02-15, 10:52 AM
If you think this forum is a representative sample of gamers in general (or even the smaller sub-population of "gamers on the internet") it explains a lot about the rest of the post. :smallsmile:

-O

Agree.

He's also completely ignoring the fact that 3E has been out for much longer than 4E, so it SHOULD have more posts.

Ashdate
2013-02-15, 10:59 AM
However, I think we're in our rights to expect from DnD to wholly support playing through typical fantasy stories. 4E conclusively proved, that attempting to be merely a skirmish wargame doesn't work for DnD. If someone here doesn't believe me, he/she can just take a look at the post count on these very forums, the 3.X/d20 subforum has over 15 times more threads than the subforum for 4E.

A few relevant points:

1) This site has had a 3.5 forum a lot longer than the 4e forum.
2) The main draw to the site, Order of the Stick, is a 3.5 webcomic. That it would draw more 3.5/Pathfinder players than 4e players is probably not that surprising.
3) Arguing how good something is based off it's relative popularity is dumb. But if we're going to, I declare the Beatles to be the greatest TRPG ever.

Being a jerk aside, I had some comments I had trouble posting a few days ago (these forums can be finicky as I'm sure you know), but I hope as dated as they are, they can at least drive the conversation a bit more on topic than the Gran Torino it's becoming.

* * *

I think it's a bit naive to figure that WotC's big gaffe is that they decided to release D&D 4e instead of D&D 3.5v2. It's easy to make the jump that [[Pathfinder = success]] therefore [[3.5v2 = would have succeed]], but I think that's a very simplistic way of looking at it. As has been mentioned in this thread, the business models that Paizo and WotC operate under are different.

There is also likely something to be said for expectations. I find it hard to believe that "Pathfinder" would have been as well received if it was one of "the" most successful gaming companies in the world (with the D&D license), Wizard's of the Coast, who published it rather than a scrappy company name Paizo. Part of Pathfinder's success was (as mentioned) channeling the frustration and anger at getting a new edition into getting ex-3.5 players to try the flavour they already knew they liked. I can picture the disappointment if Wizard's tried to sell them 3.5 "again" (in fact, I already know how it would look, as I lived through the 3e to 3.5 conversion).

But honestly, I'm extremely glad that 4e was published; if I have one big complaint about Pathfinder (and honestly, I don't mind it; I love 4e, but I also loved 3.5 back in the day), it's that there's little about the game I find innovative. Certainly, 4e didn't revolutionize TRPGs, but I feel it tried a lot harder to be something new and exciting (granted, it probably had to to try and compete with d20). Even if one considers it 4e as a system to be a failure (I certainly don't; it's been great so far for my Planescape campaign), I think there are some valuable pieces of the system that I hope - may I borrow a metaphor (ed note: that would have been funny three pages ago) - aren't thrown out in the bathwater.

Saph
2013-02-15, 11:27 AM
I think it's a bit naive to figure that WotC's big gaffe is that they decided to release D&D 4e instead of D&D 3.5v2.

WotC managed to take a market in which they had a virtual monopoly and, in less than five years, reach the point where they're at risk of losing their position to a newcomer who's using the same system that they chose to discard. Whether you choose to call that a "gaffe" is a matter of opinion, but I think most people would choose a somewhat stronger word.

Oracle_Hunter
2013-02-15, 12:30 PM
WotC managed to take a market in which they had a virtual monopoly and, in less than five years, reach the point where they're at risk of losing their position to a newcomer who's using the same system that they chose to discard. Whether you choose to call that a "gaffe" is a matter of opinion, but I think most people would choose a somewhat stronger word.
WotC's big mistake was not enforcing the "burn the warehouses" clause in their contract with Paizo. This permitted Paizo to produce a competing product that leveraged all of WotC's past investment in the IP without paying the costs of designers or advertisers.

This turned out very nice for Paizo but let's not indulge in post hoc ergo propter hoc (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post_hoc_ergo_propter_hoc) thinking to draw broader conclusions.

* * *
In regards to the OP I think it's important to notice this about Network Effects (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_effect) -- they work best when the Switching Cost (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Switching_cost) between "networks" is high.
Learning a new Rules Heavy System (e.g. World of Darkness, Dungeons & Dragons, Burning Wheel) is a huge investment in time and "committing" to a costly series of splatbooks is obviously costly in terms of money. Sunk Cost Fallacy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunk_cost_fallacy#Loss_aversion_and_the_sunk_cost_ fallacy) aside, people who were already playing 3.x would see switching to any other Rules Heavy System as a high cost and, as a result, would be more willing to stick with the network they had. The low Switching Costs between 3.x and PF gave Paizo a handy market advantage with 3.x consumers who wanted new content to purchase which permitted the 3.x network to more-or-less seamlessly switch to PF.

This is all well and good for Paizo of three years ago, but it cannot be said to be a good strategy for moving forward. Ask yourself "what can Paizo do today to increase its profitability based on PF successes in the past" and the answer is "change absolutely nothing and hope we don't lose any customers."

Now, outside of the 3.x/PF Circle you have a whole bunch of Players -- current and potential -- who are selecting games to play. While it is true that Network Effects dominate for Rules Heavy Systems there are other games too: Board Games, Video Games and Rules Light Systems. All three of these have low-to-moderate Switching Costs and that confounds the primacy of the Network Effect as I understand Dancey is arguing: if you can learn to play a game and play that game in a single evening, then you don't need to argue over which system to play. One night you can play Bliss Stage, the next The Drifter Escapes, and the third Prime Time Adventures. At this point the quality of the game matters and I have yet to find a Game Designer who thinks that 3.x/PF is a "well designed" RPG. Can you find a poorly designed game fun? Sure, people played Monopoly for decades even though it's a pretty awful game -- but with more and better options came fewer Monopoly players.
So, in short, Network Effects matter when Switching Costs are high and many entertainment sources (including Rules Light Systems) have very low Switching Costs. While this does not mean Rules Heavy Systems will vanish, it does mean they need to do more than "have a player-base" if they want to remain relevant in the future.

AFAIK, Paizo hasn't done anything to remain relevant aside from maintaining their current player-base. That still leaves them one-up on WotC who decided to leave the design of 5e to The Internet :smallsigh:

navar100
2013-02-15, 12:55 PM
The problem with 3.x IS the core. The BASE is the core. The system is designed in a fundamentally poor way. The only way to fix most of it's issues is to almost completely redesign it.


Honestly, the "Skirmish wargame" stuff is where the rules should be focused. Outside of combat, most of the stuff a party does is going to be governed by roleplay, and frankly, its the the sort of stuff that should be handled in character (or in Setting supplements - for governance rules, etc)

The success of Pathfinder would disagree with you. It's a problem for you and some others but not a universal one. I don't expect WOTC to erase the "3rd" of "3rd Edition" on a book cover and just replace it with "5th", but neither is 3E something to be ignored.


A few relevant points:
There is also likely something to be said for expectations. I find it hard to believe that "Pathfinder" would have been as well received if it was one of "the" most successful gaming companies in the world (with the D&D license), Wizard's of the Coast, who published it rather than a scrappy company name Paizo. Part of Pathfinder's success was (as mentioned) channeling the frustration and anger at getting a new edition into getting ex-3.5 players to try the flavour they already knew they liked. I can picture the disappointment if Wizard's tried to sell them 3.5 "again" (in fact, I already know how it would look, as I lived through the 3e to 3.5 conversion).


But 3.5 was sold again, as Pathfinder. WOTC gambled players were sick of the 3E model. I'm guessing all the "Fighter sucks" threads on Gleemax were an influence, but no proof. WOTC was wrong. 4E won the audience that was but it was not as large as was thought. Pathfinder did get a boost from the fired customers, but more importantly, it maintained them and got new ones. The 3.0 -> 3.5 anger was due to 3.5 happening too soon. All the soft-cover splat books came out and then they announced a change in the rules invalidating them. WOTC won that gamble of winning over angry players because at least 3.5 did improve 3.0 flaws.

When 4E was announced there was excitement. Players were ready for it. Players accepted some rules would be changed. They accepted classes, feats, and spells would be tweaked. They were expecting flaws to be fixed. "Throw out the bathwater". What they got was a different game entirely. "Threw out the baby." That was the anger.

Saph
2013-02-15, 01:01 PM
The low Switching Costs between 3.x and PF gave Paizo a handy market advantage with 3.x consumers who wanted new content to purchase which permitted the 3.x network to more-or-less seamlessly switch to PF.

The problem with that explanation is that a sizeable fraction of the 3.x customer base DID switch to 4e . . . and then switched again to 3.x/PF/something else. It wasn't a matter of switching costs – they just didn't like what WotC was selling. The overwhelming majority of PF players that I know have played 4e as well (in fact, I can't think of a single one who hasn't).

Switching costs are always a factor, but if people are switching to your product and then switching back, you've got bigger problems.

Oracle_Hunter
2013-02-15, 01:11 PM
The problem with that explanation is that a sizeable fraction of the 3.x customer base DID switch to 4e . . . and then switched again to 3.x/PF/something else. It wasn't a matter of switching costs – they just didn't like what WotC was selling. The overwhelming majority of PF players that I know have played 4e as well (in fact, I can't think of a single one who hasn't).
There is a great difference between "having played 4e" and "playing 4e."

If all you did was play a few games with a DM before binning the system then there could have been many factors that caused you to switch back: poor understanding of the rules (common in Rules Heavy Systems), bad DMing, and so on. Rather than invest the time in actually learning to play the system well (as they had with 3.x/PF) they just switched back to what they knew.

This is not to say that this is true of everyone who played a game of 4e and went back to 3.x/PF but it is just as reasonable an explanation as "4e is the worst game ever."

* * *
It should be noted that I agree with you that WotC is in big hole when it comes to D&D.

They produced a shiny new system but permitted the fruits of their labor to be sold by a competitor at the same time they were trying to encourage the consumers to transition. If Paizo had been nuked from orbit I bet 4e would have been more successful as the "network" would have remained intact as it had been for every previous traumatic edition change (and if you think 2nd to 3rd wasn't traumatic ask a grognard about THAC0 :smalltongue:). Sadly, WotC has learned the wrong lesson from 4e and instead of making a simpler system that can draw in new Players it is trying to fish in Paizo's shoals with a "me too" system built on surveys from the Internet.

5e is doomed to failure, but Paizo will be doomed in the future if it can't do more than keep its loyalists loyal. To do more it will need to actually design a good system instead of patching a "good enough" one.

FatR
2013-02-15, 01:30 PM
If you think this forum is a representative sample of gamers in general (or even the smaller sub-population of "gamers on the internet") it explains a lot about the rest of the post. :smallsmile:

-O
Oookay.
http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php
4E subforum is outnumbered 3:1.


http://www.enworld.org/forum/forumdisplay.php?3-D-amp-D-and-Pathfinder&prefixid=Dnd3e
302 threads.

http://www.enworld.org/forum/forumdisplay.php?3-D-amp-D-and-Pathfinder&prefixid=pathfinder
405 threads.

http://www.enworld.org/forum/forumdisplay.php?3-D-amp-D-and-Pathfinder&prefixid=wotc
220 threads.



He's also completely ignoring the fact that 3E has been out for much longer than 4E, so it SHOULD have more posts.
Let's then take a look at the board, which was started recently:
http://www.minmaxboards.com/
4E topics are outnumbered 119:1.

And just for lulz:
http://paizo.com/paizo/messageboards
4E board's topics are considerably outnumbered by that of 3.X/d20 board even on a site dedicated to a 3.X' deliberate copy.

Still not representative of Internet, you say? Let's ask Google which number people usually append to "DnD" when searching:
http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=dnd%203
http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=d%26d%203&cmpt=q
http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=dnd%204&cmpt=q
http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=%22d%26d%204%22&cmpt=q
(Pathfinder, unfortunately will get confused with Nissan cars when doing such a search.)


The only place on the whole Internet where 4E has greater presense is wizards.com. And that's because the site moderation blatantly took sides in the edition war, and more than that, restructured boards and nuked much of their content.

So, regardless of what you personally might think about it, 4E has failed. It has failed very, very badly. It is still unable to overshadown an edition that's out of print for well over 5 years. I advise you to deal with it. It has no impact on whatever goes at your table, if you're having fun, good luck to you. However, this fact is quite relevant for discussing the perspectives of DnD, as denial of basic fact makes a productive discussion impossible.

obryn
2013-02-15, 01:31 PM
There is a great difference between "having played 4e" and "playing 4e."

If all you did was play a few games with a DM before binning the system then there could have been many factors that caused you to switch back: poor understanding of the rules (common in Rules Heavy Systems), bad DMing, and so on. Rather than invest the time in actually learning to play the system well (as they had with 3.x/PF) they just switched back to what they knew.
It's also a salient point that 4e, as released, was not a finished or well-tested system.

It clearly needed another solid year of playtesting and internal development. Some of the bugs - like monster math, basic boring monster design (purple worm, wraiths), skill DCs, the "expertise gap," skill challenge math, V-shaped classes, crappy adventures, and the like - were relatively shallow and fixable. All of those annoying updates and errata actually made 4e a substantially better game, but that's not an excuse for releasing a flawed one.

If the game released in 2008 were as polished and tight as the 4e system is now, in 2013, things could have been different.

4e right now is great - by far my favorite edition of D&D - but I can't fault people for letting its faults dissuade them in 2008. It directly fixed the major issues I'd had with 3.5, so I was able and willing to work past or through its problems. But not everyone was in the same boat, and it missed the chance to win them over.

-O

obryn
2013-02-15, 01:35 PM
The only place on the whole Internet where 4E has greater presense is wizards.com. And that's because the site moderation blatantly took sides in the edition war, and more than that, restructured boards and nuked much of their content.

So, regardless of what you personally might think about it, 4E has failed. It has failed very, very badly. It is still unable to overshadown an edition that's out of print for well over 5 years. I advise you to deal with it. It has no impact on whatever goes at your table, if you're having fun, good luck to you. However, this fact is quite relevant for discussing the perspectives of DnD, as denial of basic fact makes a productive discussion impossible.
Okay... You seem to be getting a lot more upset about elfgames than I'm really comfortable with, so I'll just leave this be.

-O

FatR
2013-02-15, 01:58 PM
The problem with 3.x IS the core. The BASE is the core. The system is designed in a fundamentally poor way. The only way to fix most of it's issues is to almost completely redesign it.
You're objectively wrong. Issues of DnD 3.5 that you most likely have in mind, judging by your posts, can be easily fixed just by cherry-picking classes from the wide roster that exists at the moment. There are issues, but probably not those you have in mind, such as WBL/direct conversion of gold to power,that are somewhat harder and more tedious to fix, but there are still observably close 3.X variations, such as Midnight, that deal with them. To not fan the DnD edition war further, here's an example of a game whose issues are objectively unfixable without a total redesign: Scion. Not only it has very huge and easily discovered exploits, the game inevitably starts to produce completely unacceptable outcomes (battles with predetermined outcome, even between characters of the theoretically same power level) quite soon, even if you do not use the exploits, thanks to the basics of its power system being fundamentally broken.

Now, it is true that 3.X does have some problems that are nigh-impossible to remove without a total rewrite, primarily the rampant increase in complexity, coupled with overwhelming advantages of long-term build planning, making full use of said complexity, which really bogs the game down at 2-digit levels. Had 4E actually made any real steps to fixing that, I might have changed my opinion about it.


Honestly, the "Skirmish wargame" stuff is where the rules should be focused. Outside of combat, most of the stuff a party does is going to be governed by roleplay, and frankly, its the the sort of stuff that should be handled in character (or in Setting supplements - for governance rules, etc)
Why then combat stuff should not be governed by mock combat on wooden swords (note - I'm serious, LARPs do perfectly fine with this method of conflict resolution)? And how you propose to roleplay scaling the infamous impenetrable tower of a wicked sage, or finding your way through dangerous wilderness?

Synovia
2013-02-15, 02:02 PM
The success of Pathfinder would disagree with you. It's a problem for you and some others but not a universal one. I don't expect WOTC to erase the "3rd" of "3rd Edition" on a book cover and just replace it with "5th", but neither is 3E something to be ignored.


No, the success of Paizo just shows that people don't like change.

zlefin
2013-02-15, 03:50 PM
to answer the question in the original post: as a customer I think i'm going to win.
I get to choose between two well made versions and pick the one I like more to play; I think both will be popular for long enough to find either version available.
This thread has a lot of great discussion imho.

Talakeal
2013-02-15, 03:54 PM
to answer the question in the original post: as a customer I think i'm going to win.
I get to choose between two well made versions and pick the one I like more to play; I think both will be popular for long enough to find either version available.
This thread has a lot of great discussion imho.

That's true in theory, but the more fractured the hobby becomes the harder it is to find people to play with. I know my group loses several members every time a new edition is released because people won't settle on a system that they now consider second best.

Morbis Meh
2013-02-15, 03:55 PM
Oh edition war threads... on the topic, from what I have heard about DnD Next (which is little to none) is not overly positive. Will I try it out? Sure because you never know until you try (I have done my best to try 4e but I have had the bad luck of never getting into a solid group or finding a decent GM). As far as paizo is converned, I like what they did with their minor tweaks of the 3.5 system and I play in PFS. Am I afraid or dislike of change because I prefer it... nope, quite the opposite really paranoia was a great experience for me, I really want to play a full blown Cthulhu game and I am waiting to try out Eclipse phase. With that said I will guarantee that I nor my circle of friends will ever play a rl 4e campaign, one of my friends absolutely refuses to. Do I like 4e? Hard to say haven't had much of a chance to test it out but from initial encounters... nope combat takes way too long for my liking in comparison to 3.5 (this is personal experience and not to be extrapolated to anyone elses). I will still keep trying the game out hoping to get one decent campaign under my belt so I can have a more understood opinion of it but the outlook as of now is grim :smalleek:

Stubbazubba
2013-02-16, 12:31 AM
In regards to the OP I think it's important to notice this about Network Effects (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_effect) -- they work best when the Switching Cost (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Switching_cost) between "networks" is high.
Learning a new Rules Heavy System (e.g. World of Darkness, Dungeons & Dragons, Burning Wheel) is a huge investment in time and "committing" to a costly series of splatbooks is obviously costly in terms of money. Sunk Cost Fallacy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunk_cost_fallacy#Loss_aversion_and_the_sunk_cost_ fallacy) aside, people who were already playing 3.x would see switching to any other Rules Heavy System as a high cost and, as a result, would be more willing to stick with the network they had. The low Switching Costs between 3.x and PF gave Paizo a handy market advantage with 3.x consumers who wanted new content to purchase which permitted the 3.x network to more-or-less seamlessly switch to PF.

This is all well and good for Paizo of three years ago, but it cannot be said to be a good strategy for moving forward. Ask yourself "what can Paizo do today to increase its profitability based on PF successes in the past" and the answer is "change absolutely nothing and hope we don't lose any customers."

Now, outside of the 3.x/PF Circle you have a whole bunch of Players -- current and potential -- who are selecting games to play. While it is true that Network Effects dominate for Rules Heavy Systems there are other games too: Board Games, Video Games and Rules Light Systems. All three of these have low-to-moderate Switching Costs and that confounds the primacy of the Network Effect as I understand Dancey is arguing: if you can learn to play a game and play that game in a single evening, then you don't need to argue over which system to play. One night you can play Bliss Stage, the next The Drifter Escapes, and the third Prime Time Adventures. At this point the quality of the game matters and I have yet to find a Game Designer who thinks that 3.x/PF is a "well designed" RPG. Can you find a poorly designed game fun? Sure, people played Monopoly for decades even though it's a pretty awful game -- but with more and better options came fewer Monopoly players.
So, in short, Network Effects matter when Switching Costs are high and many entertainment sources (including Rules Light Systems) have very low Switching Costs. While this does not mean Rules Heavy Systems will vanish, it does mean they need to do more than "have a player-base" if they want to remain relevant in the future.

That's an excellent analysis, and I have just one more thing to add: That in addition to the cost of switching, you also have to consider the benefit of switching. The benefit of switching would be based on two things: The size of the network and the activity of the network.

Let's assume that the value of participating in either network is roughly equal (very debatable, but let's just assume). To maximize overall utility, you want to be in the network that participates more frequently. As time moves on indefinitely, opportunities for participation approach infinity for either network, so let's restrict it to opportunities within a given time-frame, say, 3 months.

Assuming that each player can only belong to one network, the cost-benefit analysis looks like this: The total benefit of participating in the original network (N1) is equal to the number of players who know how to play the game (P1) multiplied by how often they play it in our window of 3 months, or the activity level (A1). N1 = P1 * A1. The same with the second or potential network (N2). N2 = P2 * A2. In addition, the cost of switching, as you pointed out, is equal to the time (T) and money (M) necessary to acquire and become proficient in the rules. (Interestingly, since becoming proficient at the rules requires at least some actual play time, T is also a function of activity level A2, but I'm keeping it simple).

Ergo, for someone to jump from the original network to the potential network, the benefit of the latter (N2) must be larger than the sum of the benefit of the original network and the costs associated with switching (N1 + T + M). IOW, for someone to switch networks, it must be true that N2 > N1 + T + M, or (P2*A2) > (P1*A1) + T + M.

So, strategies to attract players to your network include;
Increase the player base (P2) (This is technically a function of some kind of all the others)
Increase the frequency of games via PFS or Encounters-style sponsored play, either in local FLGSes or online (A2)
Decrease T (simplify your rules, streamline their presentation)
Decrease M (release an SRD for free on the internet)

Factors that this doesn't touch on is substantial differences in play preference, and the possibility for players to be in more than one network simultaneously.

Now, this is just a very basic model, but if I were a consultant, I'd say let's compare the numbers we know in given localities and see if these four factors are, indeed, successful strategies for inducing network switching. If it's not, then the Network Effect is, at the very least, not the only significant contributor to a game's success.

Tehnar
2013-02-16, 05:45 AM
This is all well and dandy, but what about people who play with the same group for years and years, with the same frequency over the years. According to your calculations that group will never switch.

When in fact such groups switch systems, and they do it together, without the group breaking up.


Some people have a stable pool of people who they play with, and they don't care how many people play their system of preference in the nearby area. As long as their group plays what they want, they are fine. And I find that reasonable groups will take the time to try out new systems once in a while.

Yora
2013-02-16, 06:02 AM
In my experience, the system that a group plays is determined by the which ones the GM is familiar with. If one of your friends says he want's to run an RPG and he knows Pathfinder best and has some books, then you simply learn to play Pathfinder by him teaching you and the other players.
I ran a couple of groups in which half the players were only familiar with DSA and Shadowrun, and the other half never played any RPGs before, and everyone was happy with learning 3.5e because I offered to be GM and only knew that game really well and had those books.

Tehnar
2013-02-16, 08:33 AM
In my experience, the system that a group plays is determined by the which ones the GM is familiar with. If one of your friends says he want's to run an RPG and he knows Pathfinder best and has some books, then you simply learn to play Pathfinder by him teaching you and the other players.
I ran a couple of groups in which half the players were only familiar with DSA and Shadowrun, and the other half never played any RPGs before, and everyone was happy with learning 3.5e because I offered to be GM and only knew that game really well and had those books.

I agree that the constant group tries a system the GM is familiar with and wants to run games in. What keeps them playing in such a system is wherever or not they prefer it (over other systems).

That is where WotC dropped the ball IMO with 4e, and pathfinder picked it up. Its not that they failed to attract new players, but a lot of experienced players tried 4e, and decided to go back to 3.5. And there stood Paizo with open arms (new rules / adventures) that were at the same time familiar enough (they have preference with that system), but different enough that they were worth purchasing.

Oracle_Hunter
2013-02-16, 12:10 PM
I agree that the constant group tries a system the GM is familiar with and wants to run games in. What keeps them playing in such a system is wherever or not they prefer it (over other systems).
This can be skewed (as the OP noted) when nobody in a Rules Heavy Group wants to take the time to learn another Rules Heavy System. The decision process goes as follows:
(1) Am I unhappy with this system?
(2) Am I so unhappy that I would rather learn a whole new system instead of trying to patch this one?
(3) Do I know a system that I will definitely like more than this current system?
Step 3 is the hardest one because, well, you don't really know a RPG until you've played it a couple of times. Most "constant groups," as you put it, were formed as Yora noted -- a mixture of newbies and roleplay novices yoked together by a DM under a single system -- which means they usually only have learned the one system and they were taught it rather than having to figure it out on their own. Since the teaching is part of the fun, so to speak, these sorts of groups will likely only try a new system if one person is willing to learn the whole thing and teach it to everyone else -- a non-trivial cost.

In my experience, so-called "constant groups" keep playing whatever system the DM tells them to until it breaks up. I personally know of a group that still plays Torg -- TORG! -- to this day as a result. The uncommon result is that the DM of such a group decides to try a new system and the Players are all willing to go back to the less-fun stage of "learning" rather than "playing what they know.

In any case, these "constant groups" are outside the purview of the discussion. You can't market new systems to them because they've built their own closed gaming ecosystem; instead you just keep selling them what they're used to until they die or dissolve. Network Effects simply don't apply -- better to focus on manipulating their Opinion Leader (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_leadership).

Tanuki Tales
2013-02-16, 03:44 PM
So... get off your lawn?

Many of the major influences on the D&D "genre" were books and stories primarily aimed at teenagers and young adults in the 70's...

-O

And that's what and/or was there for.

And notice how I keep saying "modern". :smallwink:

MtlGuy
2013-07-26, 10:17 AM
The other thing Wizards and D&D next have in their favour of course is all of the associated IP that surrounds D&D. Each edition may reinvent the system but things like the Forgotten realms, Planescape, Beholders etc carry over from one edition to another. Wizards seem to be putting a lot of emphasis recently on making the Forgotten realms central to D&D while simultaneously starting to support all of their past editions. Does this suggest that they are putting in place a contingency for the case that they cannot retake their position as the author of the primary system? If their game isn't the lingua franca of RPGs mechanically speaking then can it be the definitive game in terms of setting lore. You may want to play pathfinder, but the latest book about the forgotten realms will still be published by Wizards of the Coast.

That's actually a boon for Paizo, it keeps their overhead down if WotC is taking on publishing campaign settings. That's a lot of R&D dollars for little return. The only book a player really needs is the Player's handbook. The DM needs the PHB, the DMG, and the monster manual. The DM only needs a campaign setting if he/she doesn't want to homebrew a world from scratch. It's the least important part of the package when online freeware will randomly generate dungeons, cities, and NPCs for you on command.

MtlGuy
2013-07-26, 10:52 AM
If a business can find a way to monetize the playing of the game, separate from the rules content which can be distributed online for free (and updated and errata'd seamlessly), then that would be a winning model. What that might mean is doing the Apple thing; a game publisher needs to open its own store, and charge membership fees to come and play, that are extremely reasonable, and hope to largely make it back on volume. (Pre-OGL I'd say you could charge for access to the constantly updating rules, but with a free SRD out there that you have to compete with, you have to aim elsewhere).

It's that kind of drive that's turning me off. Open up the 2nd edition PHB and it tells you all you need to play this game is: pen and paper, a set of polyhedral dice, this book and your imagination. You may also want graph paper to draw map. Yes, the DMG and the Monster Manual were required, but only the DM actually needed them. Compare that to today's model of being practically beholden to a battle grid, 'booster packs' of miniatures (for both PCs and Monsters/NPCs), dungeons tiles, et al.

obryn
2013-07-26, 11:59 AM
ARISE, VILE THREAD, FROM THY ETERNAL SLUMBER!


Compare that to today's model of being practically beholden to a battle grid, 'booster packs' of miniatures (for both PCs and Monsters/NPCs), dungeons tiles, et al.
You should take a look at the list of required materials for play in 1e sometime.

-O

erikun
2013-07-26, 12:15 PM
It's that kind of drive that's turning me off. Open up the 2nd edition PHB and it tells you all you need to play this game is: pen and paper, a set of polyhedral dice, this book and your imagination. You may also want graph paper to draw map. Yes, the DMG and the Monster Manual were required, but only the DM actually needed them. Compare that to today's model of being practically beholden to a battle grid, 'booster packs' of miniatures (for both PCs and Monsters/NPCs), dungeons tiles, et al.
The idea, I think, is to provide access to not-OGL materials and hopefully a useable online-mapping tool to allow players to connect and play games online. D&D Insider was quite successful, as I understand, thanks to it giving access to all D&D4e material through character builders and such.

Hiro Protagonest
2013-07-26, 12:33 PM
*points at the sign*

http://assets1.wordansassets.com/wvc-1335696868/wordansfiles/images/2012/4/29/140353/140353_340.jpg

Gamgee
2013-07-26, 12:57 PM
This makes me realize how fortunate I am that I raised my two cousins and their friends on TT RPG's. I'm not sure how many "old" groups take in young members. Hell I've GM'ed for a kid before once or twice.

I never realized that I'm probably one of the only gaming groups experiencing growth with the younger population and doing my best to convert people to the experience. Funny how time changes things. :smallfrown:

Stubbazubba
2013-07-26, 12:59 PM
It's that kind of drive that's turning me off. Open up the 2nd edition PHB and it tells you all you need to play this game is: pen and paper, a set of polyhedral dice, this book and your imagination. You may also want graph paper to draw map. Yes, the DMG and the Monster Manual were required, but only the DM actually needed them. Compare that to today's model of being practically beholden to a battle grid, 'booster packs' of miniatures (for both PCs and Monsters/NPCs), dungeons tiles, et al.

The thing with my approach is that you don't have to go to the store to game; the information is all freely available, you provide your own implements, and you're good to go just as you always have been. But a high-quality game store that charges a subscription (or pay-per-session, but you save money with the subscription if you come regularly) to come in, use their books, adventures, minis, tables, music, etc. for free, along with helpful staff who are even willing to DM for you and your friends, would hopefully be a worthwhile thing to do. WotC could integrate their marketing in these stores; when a new adventure path comes out, the store runs free sessions to show it off and get people in, and you bring in customers directly.

Of course the trend these days is to go online, but I haven't wrapped my head around how I think one could make that work yet, so I'm not sure. I suppose one option is to release the Player material freely online, then charge a one-time fee for access to the DM material, though I don't know how well that would go over. Of course, if they got an actual virtual table-top to go with it, there are all kinds of other possibilities.

elliott20
2013-07-29, 12:20 PM
Stubbazubba, I actually really liked your model on switching costs and network effect worth. For the purpose of illustrating the point of switching costs, it makes a tremendous amount of sense.

Actually, if you push that a couple steps further, and cross it against some financial projections, you could create a pretty decent financial model on the results of each action your propose.

danatblair
2013-08-23, 07:09 AM
No, the success of Paizo just shows that people don't like change.

Yes, anyone who decides that they still like to have fun in the way they previously had fun is inherently wrong. How dare they?

Also, did someone bash Torg. Honestly, I like that game. I've played Palladium, d6, white wolf, 2e-4e, pathfinder, Mutants and master minds, warhammer fantasy, rogue trader, etc.... Torg, though thoroughly quirky, does have some charm for the people who still play it on occasion. I wouldn't call it intuitive or overly well designed but it has a lot interesting ideas. I understand why someone would prefer to play something else, I just don't think it is worthy of derision.

4e, while something that i do play, kinda bores me. I have basically accepted that as long as I expect nothing more than a board game session I'll be fine. I like mini tactical combat games anyway. I mostly play it to be social with friends, while being entirely uninvested in the system and game. I've had multiple dms for the system. I've played different roles and classes. I played encounters and bought some of them fancy cad packs. Still, just mostly a board game in book form for me. After awhile most classes felt the exact same every session. I can change a class or role to have things feel fresh briefly, only to return to boredom within a few sessions of choosing which power to use on which turn. To be clear, I prefer systems that don't use levels, but prefer the pathfinder approach in implementation.

More to the actual recent topic- the challenge of new modes of monetization is interesting. I don't know that I like the idea of pay per session. Honestly, with roll20 and rpgwithme out there, I don't think virtual tabletops are where the money is at if you want to try to launch a game exclusive one. Granted, you can subscribe to these but you do not need to in order to pay anything to just pay the game. I think they use the dms need to pay for stuff model, which might work. I am in several campaigns but I don't run any. So, all I know is that it is free for me but people can pay them if they want too.

Currently, I think Paizo has the best market strategy. Not really sure how that translates as computers, pads, phones etc get integrated. I think that currently pads and phones are still a bit of a luxury so that not every gamer can afford one. they have dropped in price a lot in the last few years, but until they are a household items for everyone I think their gaming potential is still a bit off. I do see it. And I can see them being big, when their time comes.

though, at least for me, I use virtual means when I am not near physical ones. So, I guess I would like to see the face to face market, independent of technology, be around for a while. Not sure that I really want to sit at a table to have everyone game with their pads. I can see cool options to this (virtual note passing, ease of character sheet management) but really hate the idea of everyone gathering in the same place to pay attention to their screens instead of each other.

Hickaru
2013-09-06, 05:06 PM
I'm surprised no one has really talked about this, but the pathfinder business model isn't so much about pushing the system as the "pathfinder" system, but as pushing the adventure modules. Paizo has talked a couple times about how they make more money from their adventure paths. For me that is the big draw of pathfinder too, not the system but the bloody brilliant adventures that Paizo sells. A lot of the rules decisions (like their fire mechanic) past the beta have ALL been about how to deliver better AP's and Modules. Another one of these mechanics that comes to mind if the chase mechanic, its not even that good a mechanic but it works and it a nice addition to an adventure.

My group has had a ton of fun playing through Skull and Shackles. We might not be buying anymore core rulebooks anytime soon, but we WILL be buying another 6 AP's for 2 years we even had a subscription. It has also driven us to buy more physical books that we EVER did with 3.5. Instead of a digital copy of the "advanced books" we actually bought Ultimate Combat, and Magic, and the Advanced players guide. Things we passed up when we played 3.5, since the content was spotty at best and the books basically boiled down to a list of feats.

Next looks neat, I really like the advantage mechanic, but two things we stop me from buying it regardless of how good the system ends up being.

1) Lack of good interlocking modules (aka adventure paths.) Wizards adventures were hit and miss, never released enough of them to satisfy. Never enough variety. I still love return to castle ravenloft, but the big adventure my group really loved were all third party. Banewarrens because it was stupidly hard, and Three Days to Kill for being so fresh and unique have always been group favorites.

2) The system will age out. Wizards builds its RPG's to expire. So it can make money on the next wave of books. I don't like that. Pathfinder extended the life of our 3.5 material. We actually barely used the pathfinder stuff for the first year and a half sticking to what was familiar (3.5) Now we use pathfinder exclusively the 3.5 material has proved to be lesser when compared to the entire pathfinder RPG now that is has some extra books under the umbrella.

P.S. I love archetypes, most of 3.5 was all about working to a prestige class, archetypes fix that, now I just love to play MY class, whatever it may be.

Hickaru
2013-09-06, 05:42 PM
(sry for the double post)

I also call BULL**** on the people saying DND 4E wasn't part of the wizards development cycle. I remember them announcing how long they had worked 4th edition, I did the math. They started development only ONE year after the release of 3.5
Similar timings were present for 3.5 and 3.0
They AGRESSIVLY seek to make there old products obsolete. They learned this from MTG. It makes sense since MTG is basically a way to print money.

Ashdate
2013-09-06, 05:59 PM
(sry for the double post)

I also call BULL**** on the people saying DND 4E wasn't part of the wizards development cycle. I remember them announcing how long they had worked 4th edition, I did the math. They started development only ONE year after the release of 3.5
Similar timings were present for 3.5 and 3.0
They AGRESSIVLY seek to make there old products obsolete. They learned this from MTG. It makes sense since MTG is basically a way to print money.

I don't know if they "learned" that from MTG (Magic is - in many ways - a very exceptional game. The only game that really compares in how popular it was is probably the Pokemon TCG), as MTG works on a much different model, where the game creates (and obsoletes, to a degree). new product four times a year.

But the larger point - that the business model demands that they always plan to release the next edition (no pun intended) - is true. 've heard it said that despite the overall "failure" of 4e (noting that said "failure" was that it did make a billion dollars), that the D&D "Insider" has basically funded the next edition, which is probably true. As a fan of 4e, I'm of course disappointed that they're switching editions, but I can't fault them for it. Next would be coming regardless of how successful 4e was.

In the "main" Next thread, there are people who are hoping that WotC supports Next for a decade. They are going to be sorely disappointed roughly five years after Next is finally released.

johnbragg
2013-09-06, 06:59 PM
Way, way upthread someone speculated that the future of TTRPG was more like board games--a premium on learning it quickly and playing in an evening.

Others raised the big-picture point of TTRPG following the demographic path of model trains as a hobby--not enough new players coming in.

And the question was raised of what Paizo does for an encore, now that they've essentially taken up the mantle of 3.x and have limited growth potential.

What about the opposite of a splatbook? Instead of a book publishing a new list of feats and spells and races and monsters, a book that lays out "Pathfinder Basic", aimed at younger kids, with just a handful of classes and races and a much more limited selection of spells, in a not-quite-as-dark setting?

Playtest to optimize the game at low to medium-low levels.

Mordar
2013-09-06, 07:01 PM
Sorry if this is covered - I can't read the original article from my current computer, but will look at it when I can!


Tabletop RPGS are network products. The true value of a tabletop RPG isn't the book/box/PDF you buy, it's the network of social connections you share that let you play the game.
The less commonality between these social connections and the more segmented the community, the weaker the social network becomes.
This means that having lots of different competing game systems can be harmful. If your group can't all agree on a single system to play, there's no game.
(Aside: this is a lot like languages. If one guy in your group speaks French and another Spanish and another Chinese and another Russian but they all speak a common language like English, then they can all communicate. If they don't have a common language, you've got a problem.)

How does this reconcile with the "hey day" of RPGs when multiple companies were able to support radically different RPG and TTG lines featuring radically different systems...all with extensive, *full time* employees on staff? D&D was king, but was far from the only game and TSR was far from the only game company.

FASA, Chaosium, White Wolf, etc. each had time as the number two money-raker, and all had plenty of time as profitable RPG makers. Add in groups like GDW, West End and PaceSetter as well, and you've got even more diversity with success.

So, is it that gamers have become specialized (because of the d20 model or generic systems like GURPS/Savage Worlds), or that the market has shrunk (in relative terms) such that the economies of scale preclude smaller companies from having success?

Is it that the geek world, while expanding, has reduced time available for RPGs so that even though there are more of us, more of us are playing MMOs, table top wargames/clix or other immersive video game options and only play table-top games once in a while (where it was once appointment-entertainment)?

In short, how is it that now, when there are so many more of us geeks in public view, that we have fewer successful games and game companies? How does a unifying system speak to that issue?

- M

kyoryu
2013-09-06, 07:49 PM
Way, way upthread someone speculated that the future of TTRPG was more like board games--a premium on learning it quickly and playing in an evening.

I don't even know if that game is Pathfinder, but there needs to be some way to get people playing with a low barrier of entry. I actually think Dungeon World would probably be my go-to, of what's on the market today.


So, is it that gamers have become specialized (because of the d20 model or generic systems like GURPS/Savage Worlds), or that the market has shrunk (in relative terms) such that the economies of scale preclude smaller companies from having success?

Basically, I think that RPGs are going through a contracting phase right now. People inevitably leave the hobby, one way or another. And I think that in general the barriers to entry have gone up enough to significantly impact the "acquisition rate" of new players.

Since such a large number of players today have been doing this for years, their tastes have become rather specialized, and their desired complexity level has increased. This makes it hard for companies to sell games that target new players, since the existing players don't find that kind of simpler game very appealing. The dominance of d20 (one of the most complex systems I know of) has exacerbated this, at it has caused the gaming community to self-select for people that like complexity.

Oracle_Hunter
2013-09-06, 08:14 PM
Basically, I think that RPGs are going through a contracting phase right now. People inevitably leave the hobby, one way or another. And I think that in general the barriers to entry have gone up enough to significantly impact the "acquisition rate" of new players.

Since such a large number of players today have been doing this for years, their tastes have become rather specialized, and their desired complexity level has increased. This makes it hard for companies to sell games that target new players, since the existing players don't find that kind of simpler game very appealing. The dominance of d20 (one of the most complex systems I know of) has exacerbated this, at it has caused the gaming community to self-select for people that like complexity.
FWIW, this is exactly what people were saying about the console market before the Wii came out :smallsmile:

Scow2
2013-09-07, 10:06 AM
FWIW, this is exactly what people were saying about the console market before the Wii came out :smallsmile:

And the Wii shook everything up and dominated the industry by being new, different, and easily-accessible.

molten_dragon
2013-09-07, 10:53 AM
The other thing Wizards and D&D next have in their favour of course is all of the associated IP that surrounds D&D. Each edition may reinvent the system but things like the Forgotten realms, Planescape, Beholders etc carry over from one edition to another. Wizards seem to be putting a lot of emphasis recently on making the Forgotten realms central to D&D while simultaneously starting to support all of their past editions. Does this suggest that they are putting in place a contingency for the case that they cannot retake their position as the author of the primary system? If their game isn't the lingua franca of RPGs mechanically speaking then can it be the definitive game in terms of setting lore. You may want to play pathfinder, but the latest book about the forgotten realms will still be published by Wizards of the Coast.

I'm not so sure if that matters that much or not. It's so easy to take over 3.0/3.5 material and use it in pathfinder that you can run a game in faerun (or eberron, or whatever) using the pathfinder system pretty easily. Just like you can pretty easily run a 3.5 game in Golarion.

Now it might start mattering if they were to begin releasing new material related to the various campaign settings, but I'm not sure how much new material is really available. Most of the fluff is out there, I'm not sure what there is to cover that hasn't been. Rewriting it probably isn't going to get people to buy expensive new books just for minor changes.

johnbragg
2013-09-07, 10:55 AM
No, the success of Paizo just shows that people don't like change.

No, people don't like change for no good and blatantly obvious reason.

Skill checks and level-by-level multiclassing (which opened up prestige classes) were a quantum leap forward from 2nd edition. (Base attack bonus vs THAC0 and 3 saves vs 5 saves were improvements, but not revolutionary.) And the d20 system was very homebrew-friendly, so if your favorite flavor of 2E cheese wasn't available (or wasn't available until the splatbook updated) could be available quickly.

I admit I didn't play 4e--the people in my gaming group that bought it weren't impressed, and everything about it sounded very "MMORPG your D&D game." And any system or update is going to have advantages. But the persistence of edition wars and the success of Pathfinder says that 4E doesn't wipe the floor with 3E or 3.5E the way 3E >>> 2E.


And the Wii shook everything up and dominated the industry by being new, different, and easily-accessible.

True. The Wiii also rebooted the "entry-point" for console gaming. If you're an old fart with kids, and you don't have 20 hours a week to play video gamesanymore, you know you're going to suck at console gaming. So "getting back in", you're buying a new system and some new games (because your pre-kids system either went to a garage sale, isn't working, or your games are scratched all to hell). That's a pretty big up front cost for to suck at a video game.

The Wii re-opened a lower level of difficulty--play for a few hours, and you can rock at Mario Kart-level games.

I wonder if the long-term (decades-eye-view) isn't to invert the concept of the splatbook--fewer classes and options to overwhelm young/reluctant players, to get them into the habit. Then they can graduate to other games.

So maybe I ask my wife for the PDFs of the Red Box Set and the 10-module pack for my birthday......

johnbragg
2013-09-07, 11:12 AM
I'm not so sure if that matters that much or not. It's so easy to take over 3.0/3.5 material and use it in pathfinder that you can run a game in faerun (or eberron, or whatever) using the pathfinder system pretty easily. Just like you can pretty easily run a 3.5 game in Golarion.

What's the advantage of running old 3.0/3.5 stuff in Pathfinder over running off of 3.5 books from Amazon? You can get a 3.5 PHB for $30 new, or as little as $16 used. The Pathfinder Core Rulebook is about the same price.

Does the Pathfinder Core Rulebook replace PHB/DMG/MM?


Now it might start mattering if they were to begin releasing new material related to the various campaign settings, but I'm not sure how much new material is really available. Most of the fluff is out there, I'm not sure what there is to cover that hasn't been. Rewriting it probably isn't going to get people to buy expensive new books just for minor changes.

I think 4E campaign books would be a tough sell. Those tend to sell out of established brand loyalty, and if you enjoy Setting X that much, you're probably still running a Setting X 3.5 game and cussing out 4E.

Although part of that is that we're comparing 3E:4E to 2E:3E. Since 4th edition isn't as big an improvement, there's not as much reason to spend the money to update cities and NPCs etc.

From 2E to 3E, updating a campaign setting gives maybe 50-100 key NPCs skills, feats and prestige classes--not to mention creating a bunch of new prestige classes. Let's say that's worth $30-40. From 3E to 4E, what do you get for buying the update?

Hickaru
2013-09-07, 12:28 PM
Does the Pathfinder Core Rulebook replace PHB/DMG/MM?


It's the DMG and PHB the mm is separate but to be fair the pathfinder Bestiary is OGL and thus the monsters are available for free on the online PSRD


Lok 't all 'dem monstars
(http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/monsters/monsterIndex.html)



From 3E to 4E, what do you get for buying the update?


Spellplague... (ewww...)




What's the advantage of running old 3.0/3.5 stuff in Pathfinder


To be honest, a LOT. You know how skills are annoying to do x4 at first level, and cross skills you were seemingly punished for taking, Pathfinder fixed that.
You know how you have dead levels in a lot of classes? Like who the **** ever takes 20th level rouge? It was a dead level... Pathfinder fixed that.
Know how annoying trip, disarm, sunder, and grabble are? Pathfinder fixed that.
Archetypes help create diversity within the same class giving you abilities that fit what you were going for.
It's still very much a d20 game and definitely 3.5. I think Pathfinder benefited a lot from having Monte Cook during the development he worked on the original with Skip Williams and I think he had very obvious insights into the pit falls of the system, and on top of that he understood the underlying math that Skip had laid down to make the system work. The d20 system really does have an amazing logic to the math side of things.
Pathfinder's CMB, and CMD, fit right at home as the perfect solution to the long winded combat options (grapple, trip, ect)

molten_dragon
2013-09-07, 12:40 PM
What's the advantage of running old 3.0/3.5 stuff in Pathfinder over running off of 3.5 books from Amazon? You can get a 3.5 PHB for $30 new, or as little as $16 used. The Pathfinder Core Rulebook is about the same price.

There's not much of an advantage, but people might like the pathfinder core rules better, or the material available or whatever. The point is that it's very easy to take the fluff from the 3.5 settings and use it for a pathfinder game, and not that much harder to take the crunch and do the same.


Does the Pathfinder Core Rulebook replace PHB/DMG/MM?

It replaces the PHB and DMG, there is a separate book for monsters.

Hickaru
2013-09-07, 12:48 PM
I'm not so sure if that matters that much or not. It's so easy to take over 3.0/3.5 material and use it in pathfinder that you can run a game in faerun (or eberron, or whatever) using the pathfinder system pretty easily. Just like you can pretty easily run a 3.5 game in Golarion.

Now it might start mattering if they were to begin releasing new material related to the various campaign settings, but I'm not sure how much new material is really available. Most of the fluff is out there, I'm not sure what there is to cover that hasn't been. Rewriting it probably isn't going to get people to buy expensive new books just for minor changes.

Then they should release Adventures, they could make a series of adventures based in a part of Faerun, that takes you from 1 - 20th level, and has a narrative, is not just a series of dungeon crawls (this is an important feature) and is original in some sense.

All honestly I love the pathfinder system, but then again I loved the math of the 3.5 system, but if Paizo switched had switched to another system instead I would have gone with them, the adventures are that good.

In the last year we have built our own Kingdom in KingMaker, been pirates on the high seas in Skull and Shackles, in the society modules, we have hunter werewolves, stopped a ghost invasion and investigated murders in Absalom.
I know most gamers do this kinda things, but Paizo nails it. The feeling of the settings the encounters you experience. Its just amazing. In skull and shackles you have to swim and harvest crabs as swabs, getting stranded on a ghoul island, have to mutiny your ship then get in squibbed. You get to be part of a pirate race, with money and power as a reward. Hunt down ships in the trade lanes, deal with powerful Chelish pirate hunting ships. Deal with tattooed sorcerers and devilish saughin in the middle of a vine invested bay.
Basically they NAIL it.

I like Faerun but they never made a lot of great adventures for it. I had the waterdeep book, but 6, 40 page adventures would have been awesome! When they did release an adventure it tended to be just a dungeon crawl. go kill the things, don't sweat to much of the details.

DND Next can work if they just produce playable material, it will get people playing, keep people coming back for more, and means that system's lifespan is greatly extended.

The age of splat books is dead. In paizo's world they are there to support the Adventures, why did I buy the terrible "Tieflings of Golorian" and rather useless (its just fluff) "Cheliax, Empire of devils" cause I wanted to build a better character to play in Council of Thieves.

Speaking of Council of Thieves the second adventure is a DEATH play. It even has a full script! Our group actually acted it out (verbally). Pre play included the actors being tested by having fruit thrown at them ect. Our group physically threw paper at people as they tried to read lines from the script!!!

I know... I am gushing about these adventures, but thats the thing it's not the rules are awesome, its what you DO within them.

Black Jester
2013-09-07, 01:52 PM
And the Wii shook everything up and dominated the industry by being new, different, and easily-accessible.

...and it had absolutely nothing to do with aggressive marketing, right?

This one of the examples why drawing wrong conclusions can be so simple sometimes. What is required to revitalize the slowly, but steadily dying RPG market is not some ingenious super simple new game that makes it easy for new players to pick them up; we have more than enough of those, a few of them are actually good and even have a decent brand name going for them, like the Dragon Age RPG (okay, the publication policy of that one is horrible, but the game itself isn't that bad).
No, if you truly wanted to revitalize the dying RPG scene, there are little chances besides massive marketing (and i mean massive; after all RPGs are so niche, I guess many potential players who would enjoy it in theory just have no idea they exist or how they truly work). or a miracle.

For the existing RPG scene as it is, a failure of D&D 5e and a Pathfinder (not very likely, I know) would actually be not so bad, as it would remove any notion of a 'default' game from which all other deviate and - hopefully - replace it with a more balanced approach to the large number of actually quite good (and frequently better games than any D&D version) which tend to be overshadowed or even completely overseen as it is.

kyoryu
2013-09-07, 02:04 PM
level-by-level multiclassing (which opened up prestige classes) were a quantum leap forward

"Forward" is a matter of opinion.


FWIW, this is exactly what people were saying about the console market before the Wii came out :smallsmile:

Having been in the video game industry for about 15 years, I'm one of those people.

It's not *as* pronounced in the video game industry because there are people out there making accessible games. The fact that the controllers are overly complicated is the real barrier to entry.

The Wii did a great job of getting non-gamers to play games. It's a pity they didn't follow it up with titles to *keep* them playing games.

erikun
2013-09-07, 03:36 PM
...and it had absolutely nothing to do with aggressive marketing, right?
Somewhat marketing, somewhat the system itself.

What were those best-selling games for the Wii? Wii Sports, Wii Fit, Wii Play, Wii Party, and so on. In other words, games which used the simple inputs from the Wii remote for controls. What were the games that helped the Nintendo DS take off? Nintendogs and Brain Age mostly, both games where the interface is just the touch screen. Try imagining any of these games on the Playstation 3, with it's three control sticks and ten face buttons, and how widely accepted it would've been.

Also, before it comes up: The controls for the various Wii games are the same as for Rhythm Heaven Fever (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhythm_Heaven_Fever), and the same touchscreen-only controls found in Brain Age are also in Professor Layton, Ace Attorney, and Ghost Trick. A system is quite capable of being easy to pick up while still capable of allowing complex situations with the rules.

1

As for Dragon Age, this is the system with 8 abilities, 4 additional stats, 24 different weapons each with their own individual stats, 9 different combat actions, dozens of focuses and fiddly bits, a difficulty test chart, a stunt list... and this is just the quick start rules! That's an absurd amount of material to learn and keep track of for just picking up the system and giving it a try.

The fact that this could be considered a "simple game to pick up" by anyone is pretty much an indication of how complex and opaque the whole RPG genre has become to new entry.

johnbragg
2013-09-07, 03:43 PM
The fact that this could be considered a "simple game to pick up" by anyone is pretty much an indication of how complex and opaque the whole RPG genre has become to new entry.

I'm taking that as another vote for the Red Box Set PDFs as Daddy's birthday present. It's been forever since I've seen the REd Box set, but kids raised on Harry Potter and My Little Pony (two daughters) should be a good D&D audience.

tasw
2013-09-12, 12:41 AM
You are quite correct.

However, because of this group, balancing the game isn't a priority to WOTC. Every hour spent balancing things is an hour not spent writing fluff, or designing new feats, or whatever else the designer do. Since game balance clearly isn't what sells RPGs, why should WOTC put more than a token effort into it?

Actually this is because "game balance" in this context is a PvP concept which has no place in RPG's and does not exist at the actual game table in play.

They arent focusing on it because it does not matter and appealing to the vocal minority online who care about hypothetical balance issues that never come up in real play cost them a lot of money and the position as market leader to Paizo..


So... get off your lawn?

Many of the major influences on the D&D "genre" were books and stories primarily aimed at teenagers and young adults in the 70's...

-O

Not only get off my lawn but yes I have your ball and I just shot a hole in it. (throws far) go fetch you little bastards, dont come back or I will stake your sparkly vampires out in the sun without their magic rings where they belong.

tasw
2013-09-12, 12:54 AM
That's my 2 cents and while I doubt this will be appreciated on a die hard D&D board I thought it was still worth putting on here.

I like most of your ideas. I'm not a die hard D&D player though. I prefer white wolf or warhammer.

first off D&D needs to define successful.

if its profitability then with the new e tools for publishers thats very easy.

It its X amount of profitability then they need to embrace modern tools and make a fast paced game that easy to get into and likely has a VTT available for android and apple.

Should everyone need one? No.

But should the DM be able to plug his phone into a projector and get an awesome layout? Hell yes.

Table top games need to flat out change and become both a party game on the low level and a hardcore RPG on the high end.

And the monetizing needs to come from splatbooks and WoTC would be well served to buy out MMO competition and created a rock solid turn by turn game that everyone can buy.

AuraTwilight
2013-09-12, 02:13 AM
Actually this is because "game balance" in this context is a PvP concept which has no place in RPG's and does not exist at the actual game table in play.

No, it is not a "PvP" thing. It's a "The spellcaster in the party does my job better than I can so my character is completely useless" issue, or a "My fighter character has nothing to do outside of combat" issue.

obryn
2013-09-12, 07:48 AM
Not only get off my lawn but yes I have your ball and I just shot a hole in it. (throws far) go fetch you little bastards, dont come back or I will stake your sparkly vampires out in the sun without their magic rings where they belong.
You know that's a 7-month-old post?

I mean, I'm still in agreement with what I wrote back then, but it's still kinda weird.

-O

Oracle_Hunter
2013-09-12, 10:33 AM
You know that's a 7-month-old post?

I mean, I'm still in agreement with what I wrote back then, but it's still kinda weird.

-O
Such are the hazards of arguing with a Time Lord :smallbiggrin:

Saph
2013-09-12, 10:40 AM
I'm quite entertained that my thread's still going. :smallbiggrin:

Re-reading it, I think it holds up pretty well. Still not obvious who's going to win the Next/PF edition war.

johnbragg
2013-09-12, 10:46 AM
Actually this is because "game balance" in this context is a PvP concept which has no place in RPG's and does not exist at the actual game table in play.

Maybe we mean different things by "game balance". What I mean by game balance is some widely shared issues:
1. The healbot cleric's player is bored.
2. The low-level wizard's player is frustrated and often bored because he's used his spell(s) for the day and is now useless, or because the monsters knocked him out of the fight (again).
3. The high-level non-casters are bored because they're basically functioning as meatshields so that "CoDzilla" and "Batman Wizard" can solve the problem.

Some of this is mediocre DMing, but the reality is that most DMs will be mediocre.


They arent focusing on it because it does not matter and appealing to the vocal minority online who care about hypothetical balance issues that never come up in real play cost them a lot of money and the position as market leader to Paizo..

Not only get off my lawn but yes I have your ball and I just shot a hole in it. (throws far) go fetch you little bastards, dont come back or I will stake your sparkly vampires out in the sun without their magic rings where they belong.

Ashdate
2013-09-12, 11:10 AM
Re-reading it, I think it holds up pretty well. Still not obvious who's going to win the Next/PF edition war.

Asmodeus. It was always Asmodeus all along.

Stubbazubba
2013-09-12, 11:36 AM
The Wii reached for the lower end of the N64 demographic (MarioKart players) that was largely left behind in the days of the XBox and PS2. And they marketed like their lives depended on it, and it all worked, amazingly well. Microsoft and Sony, as much as they attempt to broaden their base a little bit with the entertainment features of their last couple of consoles, are still pushing the envelope for hardcore gamers first, and anything else second. They don't want to risk their existing customers for potential new ones. Nintendo took that risk, and anyone who was a hardcore gamer became a PS3 or XBox 360 owner, while Nintendo picked up countless new customers.

But has that success lasted? No. The Wii U tries to bring the Wii demographic and the hardcore gamers closer together, and it hasn't worked at all. People are either happy with their Wii, or don't trust anything with Wii in the name to deliver what they want. Moreover, the casual gamers that the Wii exposed to the world as a huge and profitable demographic don't need a dedicated gaming box; they have phones and tablets for that now, and they, unlike gaming consoles, actually do combine all kinds of other functionality and truly are a device for all kinds of entertainment.

Console gaming is slipping. The hardcore gamer demographic is aging, and while there are still many new customers, those new users aren't nearly as big a number as they used to be. Mobile gaming has taken the casuals, and owning a current-gen dedicated gaming box will soon be the sign of a hardcore gamer, not ubiquitous as it was ten or even five years ago.

That being said, some studios are beginning to realize that to have real sticking power these days, their games need to be innovative, captivating, and very, very fun. The coverage lately about the upcoming XBox One and PS4 has also hit on this; that which one people buy will ultimately not come down to better specs, but which one has the better games at launch.

Now what's the parallel to table-top? Well, table-top gaming hit the point that game consoles are in now, like, a few decades ago. Given what I just said about the primacy of games over systems, though, I agree with those who said that PF's model of pushing the adventures is spot on; that keeps the tricky math-stuff of new rules to a minimum, it can (and should) showcase the best experience the genre has to offer, and it can be sold for fairly cheap, which means people will just keep buying them, and not be torn like they are over whether or not to switch editions. The question, then, is how to expand that model to bring in a bunch of new players. There are three ways the industry could do this that come to mind, and these aren't mutually exclusive, they're just the potential things I see:


Hybrid RPGs/board games: A self-contained adventure with its own map, minis, and, like, 5-10 page rulebook. It gives simple rules for an adventure spanning 1-2 levels (though I wouldn't even use levels in this model), plus all the content of that adventure. It would still be more open-ended than a board game in that you could make up what you want your character to do, and a DM is present to adjudicate stuff like that, but this would be more suitable for the family gaming scene, and greatly reduce the design workload while increasing iteration speed, while both delivering core rules and, at least in theory, high-quality adventure content. It's then expandable. And one more thing: LEGO should be a big partner here...
Hybrid mobile games: With a snazzy interface in everyone's pocket, you can play things in real-time or more PbP-style on mobile devices. The app doesn't have to replace the actual experience, it just streamlines all the rules and calculations. On the other hand, it could replace the in-person game entirely, and you get Notifications when something happens in-game, and respond when you are able. Actually, push notifications might go a long way to preventing PbP stagnation. But, the app doesn't limit what you're capable of trying; there's still a human DM who can design adventures or purchase and use pre-made ones, but what is done when and how is still in the DM's power to control.
3-D Printing: This could definitely lower the barrier-to-entry for more rules-heavy or tactics-heavy games like 3.5/4e. Being able to print your own custom minis and assets for online adventure modules would make complicated movement or attack rules more palatable, since you don't have to rely on TotM play.


Any of those three, I think, would expand the demographics (the first two more so, the last one just a little bit) by lowering the barriers-to-entry. And they all plug into the Adventure Path first model. That is probably the best and most obvious way to monetize the content of the game being played, since monetizing play, as people have said, is very tricky with a long tradition of totally free play. That said, the adventure model is a happy medium; you don't prevent anyone from making their own, but you work hard to make sure that your adventures are the best experience available, and you can try to funnel new customers into the experience through those adventures.

CombatOwl
2013-09-13, 08:45 AM
Advance Note: This post assumes you've read this Escapist Bonus Column on EN World by Ryan Dancey (http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?315800-4-Hours-w-RSD-Escapist-Bonus-Column). If you're at all interested in D&D/RPGs and you haven't read it, go do it now. It has loads of insider info about D&D 3e/4e and the RPG market. I'm going to be referring to the article throughout this post.

RPGs as Network Products

Out of all the stuff Dancey covers, one part that stood out to me as particularly interesting was the market research data. Here's the summary:

Tabletop RPGS are network products. The true value of a tabletop RPG isn't the book/box/PDF you buy, it's the network of social connections you share that let you play the game.
The less commonality between these social connections and the more segmented the community, the weaker the social network becomes.
This means that having lots of different competing game systems can be harmful. If your group can't all agree on a single system to play, there's no game.
(Aside: this is a lot like languages. If one guy in your group speaks French and another Spanish and another Chinese and another Russian but they all speak a common language like English, then they can all communicate. If they don't have a common language, you've got a problem.)

Looked at from this perspective, this explains why D&D has been so dominant in the TRPG market for so long: it's the system everyone knows how to play. One guy wants to play Shadowrun, another wants WEG Star Wars, another likes White Wolf, a fourth prefers FATE, but they all know D&D. (Looking at D&D this way isn't exactly a compliment – it's the game everyone plays, but not because they want to – but it's great for market share). Just as with language, there's a natural tendency for one to become the lingua franca: the unifying system that everyone plays.

And that was how things were with D&D, until 4e.

The Edition Wars

With 4e, WotC managed to do what every competing RPG company had been trying and failing to do for decades: they fractured the market. Edition wars are nothing new, but over the years since 4e's release it's become clear that WotC has lost a lot of their customer base.

Most of the edition wars have been focused on whether 4e was a better game than 3.5: one side insisting it was objectively better, the other side convinced that it was clearly worse. Looking at it through the lens of the Dancey article, though, I'm starting to think that 4e's biggest problem wasn't mechanics, or presentation, or marketing. 4e's problem was that it was too specialised.

Generalist vs Specialist

One of the stated design goals of 4e was to focus on the "sweet spot" covering levels 5-10 or so in 3.5, the idea being that that was the part most players enjoyed. However, 4e went further than that: it focused on a very specific type of game within that level range, where you had 4-6 PCs running through a combat-heavy adventure flowchart with occasional breaks for out-of-combat abilities and skills.

The advantages of specialising like this are obvious: you get a much greater level of focus on what the game's intended to be about. The downside is that you exclude or minimise everything else. As a result 4e wasn't particularly good at dealing with anything that didn't involve a series of medium-powered party-based sequential combat encounters: simulation of monsters/NPCs, PvP, nonstandard characters, noncombat characters, noncombat activities, very low-power PCs, very high-power PCs, economy-based stuff, and so on. The price of specialisation is versatility.

Traditionally, the supporters of 4e have made one of two counterarguments to this point:

1) 4e is versatile and can do just as much as any other D&D edition.

2) 4e isn't versatile, but it's good at what it does and most people don't care about the things it doesn't deal with anyway.

I'm not going to deal with 1), except to point out that from a sales perspective there's little practical difference between a system that isn't versatile and a system which is versatile but which the people who want versatility can play for months and still not find what they're looking for. 2), however, is more interesting.

Argument 2) is interesting because it's right. Most people aren't interested in using the D&D rules to make noncombat characters, or to fight PvP battles, or to try to build an economic empire, or to play low-level rocket tag. For any of those things, there's probably only 5%-10% of the player base who genuinely cares about them.

However . . . add up six or a dozen of those 5% groups, then all of a sudden you're starting to get a sizeable number, aren't you?

Now, none of this changes the fact that 4e was successful as a game. It sold plenty and can currently be found spread all over the place. However, WotC wanted more than that: they wanted a unifying system that would become the TRPG standard. They might have succeeded if they hadn't had any competition – but as things turned out, they did.

Pathfinder and Paizo

Right out of the gate, Pathfinder had several major advantages over 4e. For one thing they had a ready-made customer base in the form of all the disaffected 3.5 players. Paizo also made the smart decision to put practically everything online for free on their PRD, in contrast to WotC's pay-to-play D&D Insider.

Most of all, though, Pathfinder was more of a generalist system, having the versatility that 4e had chosen to move away from. Not only did it have the full range of the 3.5 engine to draw upon, you could import the vast existing library of 3.5 material into PF with minimal work.

Now, none of this would have mattered if Pathfinder had remained a niche game – but sometime in 2010, the first reports started leaking out of Pathfinder actually outselling D&D, and as 2011 wore on those reports got more and more numerous. As far as I know WotC still hasn't released any sales figures, making hard numbers difficult to compare – but it's pretty obvious that WotC has decided that trying to match Pathfinder with 4e isn't working, because they're now bringing out a new edition of D&D instead.

D&D Next

Like a lot of members of these boards, I've taken part in the D&D 5e Playtest. And one of the things that WotC seems to keep asking in the questionnaires is whether things "feel like D&D" or are "integral to D&D". Like (I suspect) most people, I've found these questions a bit weird. Why are they asking whether something "feels like D&D"? Shouldn't they be focused on making a good game?

Looking at it from the perspective of the Dancey article, though, it makes sense. WotC's priority isn't to improve D&D's mechanics – their priority is to create a unifying system. They want to make D&D Next the new standard tabletop RPG that everyone knows and everyone plays, and so they're trying to appeal to as broad a range of people as possible.

The thing about unifying systems, though, is that it only works if there's only one of them. Lots of people like to say that it doesn't matter which system sells better, because more good games is good for the hobby, right? But that's not how it works for Paizo and WotC. They're both (willingly or not) in a competition for the top spot.

There Can Be Only One!

So what does this mean?

At present the D20 market is split between 4e and Pathfinder, with a sizeable fraction playing versions of 3.5 and a small minority playing older editions. Having a minority playing older editions is normal; having the majority split between two competing systems is not.
Under the unifying system theory, there's a natural push towards having one system that everyone plays. Two systems can't share the top spot: one is going to cannibalise the customer base of the other.
4e, having been discontinued, is out of the race. WotC are going to try to transfer the remaining 4e customer base over to 5e.
This means that over the coming years, D&D 5e and Pathfinder are going to fight it out. Whoever wins will get to be the "standard" RPG system. There can be only one!
Which raises the question: who's going to win?

D&D 5e has the enormous power of the D&D brand behind it. Dungeons and Dragons is still a household name, and that carries a huge amount of weight. People will buy 5e no matter how bad or good it is, just because it's D&D.

Pathfinder, on the other hand, has momentum on their side. Their market share has been steadily increasing for years, and most importantly they currently have an open market. D&D Next not only isn't out, it doesn't even have a release date. By the time it does hit the shelves Pathfinder will have had a huge head start.

So what'll happen? I don't know, but it'll be interesting to watch.

5th edition isn't going to be able to bring people back to WOTC--if for no other reason than because WOTC's business practices make it absurdly expensive to play their games. Pathfinder is going to win that fight. Perhaps the smartest move WOTC could make at this point would be to do something like what Green Ronin does with Freeport and start releasing Pathfinder versions of their unsupported settings (Planescape, Dark Sun, Spelljammer, etc--you know, the stuff they haven't touched in over a decade). Hell, they could just license that work out if they wanted to collect money for doing nothing. Their biggest advantage IS their IP, and right now they're not able to capitalize on that because no one wants to invest in or play their current systems. The obvious solution to that is to start re-releasing Pathfinder versions of the popular IPs that they haven't been doing anything with anyway. Obviously don't put out Pathfinder versions of Eberron and Forgotten Realms, but that's not the sum total of the popular IP they own.

Getting people interested in WOTC products again is probably the only way they'd be able to rebuild their brand, and right now a new edition of D&D is not going to do that. I literally don't know anyone who is even remotely expressing interest in playing 5th edition. Granted, I don't think they'll do any of this, because it just seems totally outside their corporate culture.

Ashdate
2013-09-13, 10:45 AM
5th edition isn't going to be able to bring people back to WOTC--if for no other reason than because WOTC's business practices make it absurdly expensive to play their games. Pathfinder is going to win that fight. Perhaps the smartest move WOTC could make at this point would be to do something like what Green Ronin does with Freeport and start releasing Pathfinder versions of their unsupported settings (Planescape, Dark Sun, Spelljammer, etc--you know, the stuff they haven't touched in over a decade). Hell, they could just license that work out if they wanted to collect money for doing nothing. Their biggest advantage IS their IP, and right now they're not able to capitalize on that because no one wants to invest in or play their current systems. The obvious solution to that is to start re-releasing Pathfinder versions of the popular IPs that they haven't been doing anything with anyway. Obviously don't put out Pathfinder versions of Eberron and Forgotten Realms, but that's not the sum total of the popular IP they own.

They would have to be crazy to bother supporting a competitors product (especially since they've got their own version they could use to sell 3.5 books). They would both undermine confidence in their own upcoming game, plus they might send the message to consumers that they should just stick with Pathfinder, "as clearly Wizard's has shown that they're willing to support them."

There would also be no money in for them, given how expensive campaign settings are to produce compared to the amount of money they would make them (and since this is Hasbro, they'd need to make a big chunk of money to make it worthwhile). The thing about Green Ronin is that they're not attached to one of the biggest toy companys in the world, where the definition of success is not "paying the bills."

(as an aside, there was a Dark Sun 4e campaign setting, and they touched on the Planescape material with both the 4e Manual of the Planes and Dragon magazine, so I don't know if it's fair to say they haven't touched them in a decade.)

CombatOwl
2013-09-13, 11:16 AM
They would have to be crazy to bother supporting a competitors product (especially since they've got their own version they could use to sell 3.5 books).

It's pretty clear that relatively few people are going to buy books for their new edition, and all of the product lines I mentioned were not supported into 3e or 3.5e. Why would it be crazy for them to make money? They're not going to get a lot of traction with 5e--that boat has already sailed. What they do do have going for them is a set of IP that is relatively popular. The sensible answer to this dilemma--a situation where no one wants your core products, but lots of people want the supplemental materials--is to go release the supplemental products that you weren't going to do anything with anyway for the competitor's product and see how they do. It doesn't actually cost them very much, since it's highly unlikely that they're planning to release any Planescape, Dark Sun, or Spelljammer products for 5e anyway. Like I said, FR or Eberron products for Pathfinder wouldn't make a lot of sense, but licensing out the popular IP they haven't touched in a decade certainly would.

Does anyone seriously think that very many people are going to give WOTC the benefit of the doubt and start investing heavily in 5e products? LEt's not forget that D&D has been out of the #1 slot not just for a few quarters for but for a couple of years now. They're not even a firm #2. How is this new edition going to turn things around for them? Do you think people are going to abandon Pathfinder to return to 5e? I don't. Is the draw of forgotten realms or Eberron strong enough to get people to play them using the 5e materials, rather than just covnerting the old 3.5e FR and Eberron materials for Pathfinder? If the answer to that question (is WOTC Setting IP strong enough to get lots of people to invest in the new system?) is no, then obviously the correct move is to start releasing products for their competitor's system. If nothing else, Paizo releases their system on generous enough terms to make it practical to do so.

I don't think the draw of FR or Eberron is strong enough to convince me to go buy a huge stack of books at $50 a piece just to that I can have something that... I already have, in the form of easily converted 3.5e FR/Eberron material that I can already use for Pathfinder. That said, I would probably be willing to buy quite a lot of WOTC setting books if they would make the conversion easier (I.E. by having Pathfinder rules) and bring the settings up to date with new things to do.

Ultimately one has to ask whether it's even worth WOTC's time to develop D&D anymore, as it has been in the past. At this point, it would be reasonable for them to simply acknowledge that it's their Setting IP that has the value, not the system books that no one wants.


They would both undermine confidence in their own upcoming game, plus they might send the message to consumers that they should just stick with Pathfinder, "as clearly Wizard's has shown that they're willing to support them."

Quite possibly. On the other hand, Wizards has a problem with their customers thinking they just don't care about their preferences. One way to keep their customers may be to acknowledge that this whole debacle was a mistake and to decide that their interest lies in releasing products that their customers want--rather than trying to shape customer demand to meet a product for which there is only limited preexisting demand.


There would also be no money in for them, given how expensive campaign settings are to produce compared to the amount of money they would make them (and since this is Hasbro, they'd need to make a big chunk of money to make it worthwhile).

Like I said, they could just license it out to smaller publishers. I'm sure there's enough interest for someone to pick up and publish a Pathfinder version of Planescape, among other things. WOTC could make money without having to do or risk anything other than the reputation of a product line they've long abandoned. The risk would fall entirely on the shoulders of the smaller publisher, and they could even maintain the integrity of their current line--since again these setting IPs I was talking abut are settings that didn't even make it into 3rd edition, let alone 4th--and almost certainly won't make it to 5th.

It's money on the table that they're missing.


The thing about Green Ronin is that they're not attached to one of the biggest toy companys in the world, where the definition of success is not "paying the bills."

And the RPG industry these days is increasingly moving towards a model where these big companies are either going to have to change their expectations or get out of the business. One way to deal with this is to adopt an IP-based model where the larger publishers simply license out the production of setting books and collect royalties without having to worry about making margins in the publishing business. Which is actually what I was talking about.


(as an aside, there was a Dark Sun 4e campaign setting, and they touched on the Planescape material with both the 4e Manual of the Planes and Dragon magazine, so I don't know if it's fair to say they haven't touched them in a decade.)

You're right about Dark Sun, but some mention in the Manual of the Planes hardly counts as support for a very expansive setting like Planescape.

Ashdate
2013-09-13, 11:52 AM
I would suggest that if Hasbro was in a position where dumping individual D&D IP off is something they're willing to do, then the likelihood that the rest of D&D would be going with it. And D&D isn't in that bad of shape (seriously, D&D Insider - a subscription based service that for the game they haven't seriously supported in over a year - is making them half a million dollars a month (http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?308250-How-many-people-subscribe-to-D-amp-D-stuff/page17) in subscription fees).

Companies as big as Hasbro have tons of IP that they basically sit on, because when the next big thing hits they don't want to be caught with their pants down. The money they would make from licensing out campaign settings would be peanuts, literally drops in the bucket, and (as mentioned) drops that would pull people away from this shiny new D&D edition that they're trying to sell.

I understand the reluctance you have for supporting Next - I share it, and I'm doubtful that Next will pull my group away from 4e - and I share some of your concerns about the future of the brand. But you're not thinking like one of the biggest toy companies in the world.

obryn
2013-09-13, 01:39 PM
Does anyone seriously think that very many people are going to give WOTC the benefit of the doubt and start investing heavily in 5e products?
Yes. Honestly, it's not that far-fetched. Wait and see.

edit: And it's extremely likely Hasbro/WotC would rather hang onto Planescape IP for potential CRPGs, movies, tv shows, board games, etc. not to mention potential RPG sales.

-O

tasw
2013-09-13, 03:19 PM
Maybe we mean different things by "game balance". What I mean by game balance is some widely shared issues:
1. The healbot cleric's player is bored. No he's not. He LIKES helping the team. thats why he chose to play a healbot.
2. The low-level wizard's player is frustrated and often bored because he's used his spell(s) for the day and is now useless, or because the monsters knocked him out of the fight (again). PF basically fixed this with unlimited cantrips already
3. The high-level non-casters are bored because they're basically functioning as meatshields so that "CoDzilla" and "Batman Wizard" can solve the problem.

No they not. They chose to play meatshields because they LIKE that role.

Seriously, this is why these problems NEVER come up in actual play and exist solely on forums.



See bolded

You know that's a 7-month-old post?

I mean, I'm still in agreement with what I wrote back then, but it's still kinda weird.

-O

I had no idea the thread had been resurrected. I missed it back then somehow and thought it was a new one.

kyoryu
2013-09-13, 04:17 PM
Seriously, this is why these problems NEVER come up in actual play and exist solely on forums.


Strange, I've seen all of them to some extent or another in actual games. Either I'm hallucinating, or we are different people that have different experiences. Must be hallucinations.

huttj509
2013-09-13, 05:01 PM
Strange, I've seen all of them to some extent or another in actual games. Either I'm hallucinating, or we are different people that have different experiences. Must be hallucinations.

Seconded. I ran into the Druid problem accidentally before anyone in the group discovering any sort of DnD forum, as well as "useless fighters" and "someone needs to be stuck playing the healer."

We had the druid stomping around being kinda awesome at everything, not so much the cleric at that point.

navar100
2013-09-13, 05:39 PM
Strange, I've seen all of them to some extent or another in actual games. Either I'm hallucinating, or we are different people that have different experiences. Must be hallucinations.

Raises hand.

I'm currently playing a Life Oracle and having a blast. My motto is "No one dies on my watch except the not nice." The other players know how crucial my role is to the party's success. They know they can afford to put more effort on offense because I go full throttle on defense. They "get the kill" because I make darn sure they aren't killed themselves.

In one recent combat all I did was Channel Energy. That literally saved the party's lives. We were hit with a couple of Ice Storms bringing the party down to teens or single digits in hit points before anyone could even reach the bad guys. They were spread out so not even the party wizard could affect them all. Had I not healed the party the bad guys would have finished them off once engaged in melee and other magics. It wasn't the first time I was ceremoniously voted MVP of the combat.

The party's favorite spell is Blessing of Fervor which I get to cast almost every combat. In one of our early campaign battles we were able to prepare for it, and I spammed Bull's Strength and Shield Of Faith on everyone who could use them. Once battle begun they were able to do most of the work, and I cast Bless and the occasional attack spell. Hold Person on the hobgoblin chief did prove to be fun non-heal-bottery.

Being a heal-bot does not prevent me from casting attack spells, but I know, the DM knows, and the players know my character is an equal contributor to party success in combat despite my low personal kill count.

AuraTwilight
2013-09-13, 06:06 PM
Raises hand.

I'm currently playing a Life Oracle and having a blast. My motto is "No one dies on my watch except the not nice." The other players know how crucial my role is to the party's success. They know they can afford to put more effort on offense because I go full throttle on defense. They "get the kill" because I make darn sure they aren't killed themselves.

In one recent combat all I did was Channel Energy. That literally saved the party's lives. We were hit with a couple of Ice Storms bringing the party down to teens or single digits in hit points before anyone could even reach the bad guys. They were spread out so not even the party wizard could affect them all. Had I not healed the party the bad guys would have finished them off once engaged in melee and other magics. It wasn't the first time I was ceremoniously voted MVP of the combat.

The party's favorite spell is Blessing of Fervor which I get to cast almost every combat. In one of our early campaign battles we were able to prepare for it, and I spammed Bull's Strength and Shield Of Faith on everyone who could use them. Once battle begun they were able to do most of the work, and I cast Bless and the occasional attack spell. Hold Person on the hobgoblin chief did prove to be fun non-heal-bottery.

Being a heal-bot does not prevent me from casting attack spells, but I know, the DM knows, and the players know my character is an equal contributor to party success in combat despite my low personal kill count.

This is not a description of a healbot Cleric, so...you're not really refuting the point you think you are.

TuggyNE
2013-09-13, 06:12 PM
Some people (5-15%?) like to healbot. Others like to "healbot", in the sense of being more of a buffbot that heals (10-20%?). Many others like neither role, and resent being forced to healbot (65-85%?). Game design that forces a healbot, based on the observation that some people like it, is undesirable, because it's impossible to be sure that every group will have one or more players that like that role.

tasw
2013-09-13, 07:12 PM
Strange, I've seen all of them to some extent or another in actual games. Either I'm hallucinating, or we are different people that have different experiences. Must be hallucinations.

Yup your hallucinating. Or projecting more likely.

Theres a world of difference between the DM seeing what he perceives as an imbalance and thinking it must make some players miserable and those other players ACTUALLY feeling miserable. The former happens a lot, the latter, very rarely.

Does a wizard casting knock once a day make the rogues player feel useless? I've never seen it. Theres usually lots of locked doors in a dungeon, not just one or two and the wizard is being a moron pissing away his 2nd level spells on what is explicitly a loud action when the rogue could do it quietly without expending any resources. But hey, theres gonna be 10 more locks after that dofus is out of 2nd level spells, and traps, and people to sneak up on, and enemies to backstab. The rogue feels fine. Otherwise he would have made a wizard in character creation.

Players who make fighters (I am one, love them in PF) know that a big part of your job is playing watch dog to the squishies. If you dont like it you dont make a character of that class.

etc etc


Game design that forces a healbot, based on the observation that some people like it, is undesirable, because it's impossible to be sure that every group will have one or more players that like that role.

Proceed to meetup.com gaming group, gamer finder, etc etc and post that your group needs a cleric. You shouldnt have too much difficulty finding someone who wants to play a heal bot. Its more then 15%. And if thats impossible then have someone play to 2 characters. Lots of players like to do it and one can be the healbot that prays a lot.

A game whose design centers around combat though really does need to take into account that people will be hurt and need healing in some battles. No healing surges are not an acceptable fix.

TuggyNE
2013-09-13, 07:57 PM
Proceed to meetup.com gaming group, gamer finder, etc etc and post that your group needs a cleric. You shouldnt have too much difficulty finding someone who wants to play a heal bot.

"Needs a cleric" is not at all semantically equivalent to "needs a healbot"; even in common parlance, it could easily mean a "healbot" that actually is more focused on buffing than on healing (a role that is considerably less boring than actual healbotting), and it could even include Clericzilla in its various forms.


A game whose design centers around combat though really does need to take into account that people will be hurt and need healing in some battles. No healing surges are not an acceptable fix.

"People need healing" and "the group needs a healbot that does (almost) nothing but heal in combat or out of it" are not the same proposition at all, and it is perfectly possible to make a character that's responsible for keeping the group healed, but (almost) never actually heals within combat, or even out of it. (In 3.5, DMM:Persist vigorous circle is the standard way to do that; wands of cure light wounds/lesser vigor or healing belts are also effective at out-of-combat healing, which is generally less boring by virtue of being glossed over.)

Mordar
2013-09-13, 08:10 PM
Theres a world of difference between the DM seeing what he perceives as an imbalance and thinking it must make some players miserable and those other players ACTUALLY feeling miserable. The former happens a lot, the latter, very rarely.

Here's a point I think you might be missing...the imbalance doesn't have to make players feel miserable. It only has to make them feel marginalized, secondary (or tertiary) unsuccessful in order to have a negative effect on their enjoyment of the game and thus potentially limit their interest in playing the game (or buying additional game materials).

You've mentioned an affection for "playing watch dog" and protecting the less-robust party members. That's an affection we share. It is far too easy for us to be rendered redundant by the CoDzilla and mage combinations (you know, the less-robust characters), and we serve as little more than the flanker to give the rogue sneak-attack opportunities on the drones while the casters mop up the real bad guys. Not a very heroic tale to tell at the tavern...

Even among the best of friends this can be a real issue. My current game group has one guy in it with whom I am very close, but I really much prefer to either DM or have him DM just because playing with him means always ceding the spotlight (or getting into an arms race that doesn't really appeal to me). As DM, I can mitigate the problem and be sure that everyone has some spotlight time both in role play and in roll play. Not every DM has the inclination, foresight or desire to do so.

Now, there are many, many experiences I suspect we've both had with groups that accommodate multiple "tiers" of character classes and everyone is involved and has a good time (heck, I like campaigns where bards and monks can play!)...but the ease with which core classes can be so disparate in power, effectiveness and opportunity to impact dice-based events is a legitimate weakness, particularly in an age when CharOp boards are all over the place.

- M

tasw
2013-09-13, 11:20 PM
"Needs a cleric" is not at all semantically equivalent to "needs a healbot"; even in common parlance, it could easily mean a "healbot" that actually is more focused on buffing than on healing (a role that is considerably less boring than actual healbotting), and it could even include Clericzilla in its various forms.



"People need healing" and "the group needs a healbot that does (almost) nothing but heal in combat or out of it" are not the same proposition at all, and it is perfectly possible to make a character that's responsible for keeping the group healed, but (almost) never actually heals within combat, or even out of it. (In 3.5, DMM:Persist vigorous circle is the standard way to do that; wands of cure light wounds/lesser vigor or healing belts are also effective at out-of-combat healing, which is generally less boring by virtue of being glossed over.)

People who like to play healers dont find in combat healing boring. Your solving a problem that doesnt exist for the healer clerics.

And some DM's dont run bog standard CR fights were 75% are a foregone conclusion and your just jerking around. Some of us run fewer, higher CR fights where healing in combat isnt a luxury, its a necessity. And after the cleric does it you can see a real sense of accomplishment.



Here's a point I think you might be missing...the imbalance doesn't have to make players feel miserable. It only has to make them feel marginalized, secondary (or tertiary) unsuccessful in order to have a negative effect on their enjoyment of the game and thus potentially limit their interest in playing the game (or buying additional game materials).

And that doesnt happen. Players realize they are part of a team. Very few D&D players want to dunk every point and be a ball hog. Most players understand they have a role in the team and choose a class that lets them play the role they enjoy the most.

If you want to be sneaky you play a rogue, if you want to solve random problems and blast enemies you choose a spell caster, if you want to be a wilderness guy you choose a ranger, and if you want to thump stuff with a sharp stick and play bodyguard you do barbarian or fighter.

Maybe the very first time you play you chose a role you dont enjoy. But after that you chose the class that does what you enjoy doing. Whether thats guarding, buffing, healing, sneaking or blasting.

Very few players care about kill count. They care about contributing to the story and the battles and they chose a class that lets them personally contribute in the way that they enjoy the most.

Balance is irrelevant. Few players sit down and say "i want to win D&D" "i want to kill the most bad guys". They say "lets play a story" and then do it.

This is why 4e failed. 3e gives you so many choices that no matter how you like to play a character theres an option for you, but you arent straight jacketed into that option.


You've mentioned an affection for "playing watch dog" and protecting the less-robust party members. That's an affection we share. It is far too easy for us to be rendered redundant by the CoDzilla and mage combinations (you know, the less-robust characters), and we serve as little more than the flanker to give the rogue sneak-attack opportunities on the drones while the casters mop up the real bad guys. Not a very heroic tale to tell at the tavern...

Codzilla NEVER actually happens in a game with a halfway competent DM. Those buffs are temporary, take several rounds of casting limited resource spells just to the get the cleric as good (not better, just as good, assuming the fighter chose **** feats, if he chose good ones he's always better then the cleric) and a halfway intelligent enemy when a giant, glowing, chanting, cleric kicks the door in runs for the hills for a minute or two until almost all the buffs are gone, he's out of heal spells (used them on expired buffs) and has fewer offensive options left then the bard, and then counter-attacks.

Codzilla isnt a rules problem. Its a piss poor DM playing monsters as morons problem. These creatures live in a world where these things are ubiquitous they would have to be truly, deeply, stupid not to know that if you just run like hell for a few rounds and then counterattack that unbeatable cleric is now basically a helpless 3 legged puppy.

Theres a whole thread on this, Dm's playing smarter or harder or something along those lines currently active.



Now, there are many, many experiences I suspect we've both had with groups that accommodate multiple "tiers" of character classes and everyone is involved and has a good time (heck, I like campaigns where bards and monks can play!)...but the ease with which core classes can be so disparate in power, effectiveness and opportunity to impact dice-based events is a legitimate weakness, particularly in an age when CharOp boards are all over the place.

-.

No its not. Most players dont care about the "power" that kills the most bad guys. They care that they form a cohesive team and work together through an interesting story.

And 90% of players never touch a forum, much less a charop board.

And the charop boards are deeply flawed in actual play anyway. They pretty much all assume max level. But the vast majority of games never get to max level and more then half of the builds you find on there have so many levels before max when their functionally useless due to overspecializing that the chances of them ever surviving to max level are laughable.

AuraTwilight
2013-09-14, 01:19 AM
People who like to play healers dont find in combat healing boring. Your solving a problem that doesnt exist for the healer clerics.

Nice of you to speak for everyone. I love to play healers, but I don't like to be combat healing if my doing so either A) Prolongs the fight artificially, or B) doesn't adequately keep up with the damage my allies are taking.


And some DM's dont run bog standard CR fights were 75% are a foregone conclusion and your just jerking around. Some of us run fewer, higher CR fights where healing in combat isnt a luxury, its a necessity. And after the cleric does it you can see a real sense of accomplishment.


There's more ways of getting healing than having a dedicated healer character. They're called potions.


And that doesnt happen. Players realize they are part of a team. Very few D&D players want to dunk every point and be a ball hog. Most players understand they have a role in the team and choose a class that lets them play the role they enjoy the most.

It DOES happen. It's not that one person is trying to dunk every point and being a ball hog, but that players start to naturally do what's optimal and someone realizes their character is redundant because someone else can do their job better, inherently. The Party Wizard pulling his punches to not make anyone feel bad doesn't prevent that for some people because they still intellectually know otherwise, and the gesture comes off as condescending kiddie gloves.


Very few players care about kill count. They care about contributing to the story and the battles and they chose a class that lets them personally contribute in the way that they enjoy the most.


This is a fallacy. Kill counts aren't the issue here. There's bigger problems with the game balance people are bringing up that have nothing to do with combat at all.


Balance is irrelevant. Few players sit down and say "i want to win D&D" "i want to kill the most bad guys". They say "lets play a story" and then do it.


There's a difference between "I want to win D&D" and "I want to contribute equally." There's a difference between "Let's play a story" and "Let's play a story where every character matters."

You clearly have no grasp of the actual issues because you're just grasping at the Oberoni fallacy in every paragraph you make.


Codzilla NEVER actually happens in a game with a halfway competent DM.

This is absolute bullcrap. Codzilla objectively exists in all games with clerics and wizards and druids, the difference is whether or not the players of those characters use that potential. And even if someone is a competent DM, it can still happen on accident. You can either run the risk of the newbie Cleric accidentally wiping the encounter when they try out Divine Power once...or you can ban Divine Power forever.

And if you're a DM that fixes problems by banning everything that's possibly problematic, I have doubts about your competence.


Those buffs are temporary, take several rounds of casting limited resource spells just to the get the cleric as good (not better, just as good, assuming the fighter chose **** feats, if he chose good ones he's always better then the cleric) and a halfway intelligent enemy when a giant, glowing, chanting, cleric kicks the door in runs for the hills for a minute or two until almost all the buffs are gone, he's out of heal spells (used them on expired buffs) and has fewer offensive options left then the bard, and then counter-attacks.

Wrong. Divine Power. It costs 1 standard action, lasts 1 round/level, basically gives full BAB, a +6 enhancement bonus to Strength, and a heap of temporary Hit Points. That makes you a virtual-Fighter long enough to clean up the fight, since most D&D fights don't even cap 4 rounds, if that.


Codzilla isnt a rules problem. Its a piss poor DM playing monsters as morons problem. These creatures live in a world where these things are ubiquitous they would have to be truly, deeply, stupid not to know that if you just run like hell for a few rounds and then counterattack that unbeatable cleric is now basically a helpless 3 legged puppy.


It's totally a rules problem. Players are perfectly capable of controlling the terrain so that enemies can't escape. It's called Web and it's not expensive.


No its not. Most players dont care about the "power" that kills the most bad guys. They care that they form a cohesive team and work together through an interesting story.

And 90% of players never touch a forum, much less a charop board.

90%? Where'd you get that statistic, your ass?

Also, I appreciate your stupendous mind-reading powers. I truly do. Thank you for informing me that most players think the way you do without your needing to ask them, and thank you for informing me that all I care about is power, without knowing anything about me or my games.


And the charop boards are deeply flawed in actual play anyway. They pretty much all assume max level. But the vast majority of games never get to max level and more then half of the builds you find on there have so many levels before max when their functionally useless due to overspecializing that the chances of them ever surviving to max level are laughable.

What are you even talking about? Char-Op boards aren't about Actual Play, they're about theoretical optimizing in ways that no real GM would ever allow for the sake of thought exercise and illuminating possible problems for GMs to look out for. No one except uninformed new posters go to those boards thinking they're "How to pwn your game" walkthrough builds.

TuggyNE
2013-09-14, 02:04 AM
People who like to play healers dont find in combat healing boring. Your solving a problem that doesnt exist for the healer clerics.

You're begging the question (https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/begging-the-question). Of course people who don't mind in-combat healing don't mind in-combat healing. Those people are by no means the only ones who want to (or are willing to) run clerics, because "cleric" and "healbot" need not be synonymous!


And some DM's dont run bog standard CR fights were 75% are a foregone conclusion and your just jerking around. Some of us run fewer, higher CR fights where healing in combat isnt a luxury, its a necessity. And after the cleric does it you can see a real sense of accomplishment.

Often, more difficult fights correlate to higher optimization all around, in which case in-combat healing is very seldom optimal, and usually abandoned. So there's a substantial number of games where the DM runs brutally tough fights, and the players, in order to survive, switch to heavy buffing, lock-down, and so on and so forth in order to minimize the need for in-combat healing. After all, the best healing spell is the one you didn't need to cast because all the enemies were unable to do any damage that turn.


And that doesnt happen.

Ever? :smallconfused:


If you want to be sneaky you play a rogue, if you want to solve random problems and blast enemies you choose a spell caster, if you want to be a wilderness guy you choose a ranger, and if you want to thump stuff with a sharp stick and play bodyguard you do barbarian or fighter.[quote]

And if you want to sit around and play nursemaid, you roll up a healbot. Again. Or no one rolls a healbot and everyone complains about it from time to time.

Examples in this campaign log, where there's little or no CoDzilla (and in fact often thoroughly misguided ideas of optimality), but a strong distaste among all the players (some more than others) for playing the healbot.

[quote]Very few players care about kill count. They care about contributing to the story and the battles and they chose a class that lets them personally contribute in the way that they enjoy the most.

It's not about kill count, as any God wizard would tell you, it's about doing interesting and effective things that are more than just "OK, my party doesn't die quite yet".


Codzilla NEVER actually happens in a game with a halfway competent DM. Those buffs are temporary, take several rounds of casting limited resource spells just to the get the cleric as good (not better, just as good, assuming the fighter chose **** feats, if he chose good ones he's always better then the cleric) and a halfway intelligent enemy when a giant, glowing, chanting, cleric kicks the door in runs for the hills for a minute or two until almost all the buffs are gone, he's out of heal spells (used them on expired buffs) and has fewer offensive options left then the bard, and then counter-attacks.

This quote and the following one are misattributed to me; I didn't post them, although I don't disagree either.

DMM:Persist, DMM:Quicken, various Cleric debuffs and crowd control to prevent runners (or simply buff speed too) say "no, you stick around and get killed".

If you ban those, of course, it's not completely unfixable, but neither is it an automatic "only the stupidest DM ever could make such a newb mistake".


And the charop boards are deeply flawed in actual play anyway. They pretty much all assume max level. But the vast majority of games never get to max level and more then half of the builds you find on there have so many levels before max when their functionally useless due to overspecializing that the chances of them ever surviving to max level are laughable.

The TO sections, or the PO sections? Most handbooks are designed for all level ranges.

johnbragg
2013-09-14, 06:54 AM
People who like to play healers dont find in combat healing boring. Your solving a problem that doesnt exist for the healer clerics.

And some DM's dont run bog standard CR fights were 75% are a foregone conclusion and your just jerking around. Some of us run fewer, higher CR fights where healing in combat isnt a luxury, its a necessity. And after the cleric does it you can see a real sense of accomplishment.

This is true, but the reality is that most GMs will be average. I think it's easier to figure out houserule sets that balance things, even if playing with weak GMs, than it is to find better GMs.


And that doesnt happen. Players realize they are part of a team. Very few D&D players want to dunk every point and be a ball hog. Most players understand they have a role in the team and choose a class that lets them play the role they enjoy the most.

But people want to do something interesting within that role. A few posts upthread there was the guy playing a "Life Oracle" and talking about the non-Core "Blessing of Fervor" and "Channeling Energy"--whoa, I just found the Blessing of Fervor description, which is pretty stacked for a 4th level spell. That's an indication that Pathfinder find ways to solve the "Cleric casts Cure Critical Wounds repeatedly while the fighters and paladins soak up damage until the monsters are dead" issue.

The rule sets should make it easier for less-than-awesome DMs to let everyone do something awesome in a session. (Maybe Pathfinder did that for healbot clerics--it certainly sounds more flavorful, even if it still amounts to "I spend the first 2 rounds of the fight buffing everybody and the rest of the climactic battle healing people".) As it was in 2E and 3E, of the four basic-base classes, the cleric was the most "NPCable."


If you want to be sneaky you play a rogue, if you want to solve random problems and blast enemies you choose a spell caster, if you want to be a wilderness guy you choose a ranger, and if you want to thump stuff with a sharp stick and play bodyguard you do barbarian or fighter.

Maybe the very first time you play you chose a role you dont enjoy. But after that you chose the class that does what you enjoy doing. Whether thats guarding, buffing, healing, sneaking or blasting.

There are plenty of times when a group needs (or at least could use) a certain type. I've joined groups that needed fighters and arcane casters and clerics, (it's been 20 years since I was in a group that was short on rogue-types) and the divine caster in 2.0/3.0/3.5 had the least chance to shine, at least before ridiculously high level.


Very few players care about kill count. They care about contributing to the story and the battles and they chose a class that lets them personally contribute in the way that they enjoy the most.

Right. They care about contributing in an interesting way. If they're "contributing" by repeated casting Cure Wounds until they run out, or (at 15th or so level) doing trivial damage while keeping the monsters away from the casters who are doing the real work, they're not contributing in an interesting way.


Balance is irrelevant. Few players sit down and say "i want to win D&D" "i want to kill the most bad guys". They say "lets play a story" and then do it.

They want to do something awesome and heroic, not do something routine and workmanlike while they stand near someone who's doing something awesome and heroic.


This is why 4e failed. 3e gives you so many choices that no matter how you like to play a character theres an option for you, but you arent straight jacketed into that option.

I think the big reason 4e failed was it looked and sounded like World of Warcraft d20.



Codzilla isnt a rules problem. Its a piss poor DM playing monsters as morons problem. These creatures live in a world where these things are ubiquitous they would have to be truly, deeply, stupid not to know that if you just run like hell for a few rounds and then counterattack that unbeatable cleric is now basically a helpless 3 legged puppy.

I've never played with a CoDzilla, possibly because we all knew that if my cleric did use the Awesome Kewl options available to him, we'd be screwed and out of healing soon enough, so sit back and let UberPaladin and the wizard solve the problem while the rogue/cleric/alchemist played with cool toys. (And part of the reason the group "needed a cleric" when I joined was the cleric/rogue/alchemist wasn't bringing the healing firepower.)

Ansem
2013-09-14, 08:28 AM
Besides my usual argument that I prefer to immerge as a fictional character like being a person living in a Terry Pratchett book, over playing something more aligned to a videogame, I do think that on most communities (except biased ones which ban one of the two choices) the sheer amount of activity on one category instead of the other significes what the market prefers.

Take GitP alone
4e:
threads 2,210 posts 35,861
3/3.5e:
threads 38,356 posts 731,128
Not a decisive argument or proving anything really, but it does amaze me always on the majority of fora. A recurring thing like this has to mean something.

obryn
2013-09-14, 09:05 AM
Besides my usual argument that I prefer to immerge as a fictional character like being a person living in a Terry Pratchett book, over playing something more aligned to a videogame, I do think that on most communities (except biased ones which ban one of the two choices) the sheer amount of activity on one category instead of the other significes what the market prefers.

Take GitP alone
4e:
threads 2,210 posts 35,861
3/3.5e:
threads 38,356 posts 731,128
Not a decisive argument or proving anything really, but it does amaze me always on the majority of fora. A recurring thing like this has to mean something.
GiTP is a 3.x-centric board. Plenty of boards ban people for being jerks, but I have yet to see one where you're banned for liking the wrong elfgame.

-O

tasw
2013-09-14, 10:47 AM
stuff.

Glad I was able to educate you on your rediculous ideas.

"contribute equally"
LOL.

No one contributes equally in every single adventure. You shouldnt even try that. Some adventures highlight some characters and some highlight others

"players controlling terrain"

web? But I thought your wizard was using his 2nd level spells nerfing the rogue by being invisible,silent and using knock on every locked door? You mean that doesnt happen afterall? Not to mention its not by any means a gaurantee AND he has to win initiative or its not even an option. AND it would also stick Codzilla when he walked in, and now we're back to the temporary buffs not being half as good as you think when reading them. And on that topic.

"Divine power"

does not make you equal to a fighter. Even with the +6 your strength is STILL probably lower then the fighters, or your CON is because the fighter didnt need to dump ability points in WIS like you did AND CHA if you want your channelling energy to be any good. Clerics are much more MAD then a fighter.

And in pathfinder you dont even get that +6 until your 18th level.

And it still doesnt give you the bonus feats, which if the fighter halfway understands the system means he's still gonna mop the floor with your divine powered butt fairly easily.

LOL hell, I've had enemies not even worry about running away, they just go full defense and let their back row pepper all the spell casters. Since Codzilla is fighting ineffectually rather healing it usually puts the party in a position where theres just the arcane caster and maybe an archer taking the full brunt of the spells and damage from the back line of the enemy. And the wizard usually doesnt last too long against that.

"forums"

I can assure with absolute certainty that the vast majority of gamers never touch a forum. Theres millions of gamers just in america and most forums only have a few thousand members, a fraction of which are actively paying attention on an even semi-regular basis. And those guys probably have accounts on multiple forums so they're being counted more then once when you add up all the forum accounts in existence.


GiTP is a 3.x-centric board. Plenty of boards ban people for being jerks, but I have yet to see one where you're banned for liking the wrong elfgame.

-O
** cough, wotc forums, enworld cough


You're begging the question (https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/begging-the-question). Of course people who don't mind in-combat healing don't mind in-combat healing. Those people are by no means the only ones who want to (or are willing to) run clerics, because "cleric" and "healbot" need not be synonymous!

Why not? Sneaking is synonymous with rogues, the wilderness is synonymous with druids and rangers and hitting things with sharp objects is synonymous with barbarians and fighters.

So why shouldn't healing be synonymous with clerics?



DMM:Persist, DMM:Quicken, various Cleric debuffs and crowd control to prevent runners (or simply buff speed too) say "no, you stick around and get killed".

If you ban those, of course, it's not completely unfixable, but neither is it an automatic "only the stupidest DM ever could make such a newb mistake".


Persistant spell adds two levels to the level of the spell severely hindering the level of spell it can be used on for the most of the game and isnt really relevant to an enemy just defending or leaving the area anyway.

Quickened spell adds 4 levels, making it even less useful for most of the game then persistant spell.

Assuming you were to combine quicken and say hold personX to hold 2 targets still while pummeling them as codzilla the best way to do it would be to apply quicken to hold person making it 6th level.

So you have to be 11th level to even try this (meaning more then half the game its not even remotely a problem) spend 2 actions just casting, and burn out half your max level spells. AND either target can still make saves.

Maybe if you target the leaders, and they fail their saves this is an I win button. But its also a higher level option where important enemies are likely to have defenses against magic, including simple dispel magic spells that with one spell destroy your whole strategy with a little luck but your not at all neutralizing anyone elses actions. The warriors got a full turn to pummel things while you sitting there chanting and maybe having an affect, and maybe pissing away your turn depending on the luck of the dice. The rogue is sneaking into position and maybe getting a sneak attack and the wizard.... certainly found something useful to do. They usually do.

You didnt take over the combat, you were simply an effective team member who burned through a lot of your limited resources.



They want to do something awesome and heroic, not do something routine and workmanlike while they stand near someone who's doing something awesome and heroic.

This applying personal taste to everyone. There are different definitions of awesome and heroic. The cleric in my game likes healing people, he uses it as a chance to make odd off-color jokes and solicit tithes.... but he likes doing it.

The fighter specifically built a sword and board, high CON, highest AC possible tank because he enjoys playing the bodyguard. Not long ago the party was running from something that way overmatched them and he got to stand in the doorway blocking it and saving everyone while the cleric healed him and the wizard frantically scanned through his book for an improvised stone wall ritual... (okay i did handwave that on the spot, didnt expect them to wake up the monster, they were supposed to sneak by) but still, everyone got to do something they enjoyed and were specifically built for. The fighter spent the next hour IC messing with the wizard about the "look on his face when that thing was chasing us, dont worry though, I'm here to save you".

To the healer and the fighter what they did WAS awesome and heroic. Not long ago our Barbarian got a critical, rolled max damage and 1 shotted an enemy leader two levels higher then him. And that was awesome, but so was when he used intimidate to talk a bunch of orcs into fleeing halfway into a fight.

We dont all define awesome and heroic as being in the spotlight and making the clutch play. Some of us really enjoy playing the offensive line and knowing the team wouldnt have won without us, even if someone else did the most flashy parts.



I think the big reason 4e failed was it looked and sounded like World of Warcraft d20.

Low blow, the real world of warcraft D20 book is one of my favorite settings.

AuraTwilight
2013-09-14, 01:40 PM
Glad I was able to educate you on your rediculous ideas.

It's spelled 'ridiculous'. :3


LOL.

No one contributes equally in every single adventure. You shouldnt even try that. Some adventures highlight some characters and some highlight others

Huh. My games do this just fine by illuminating different protagonists at different times in dramatic and interesting ways and everyone feels like they get the same amount of screentime. If you can't manage that you're one of those incompetent DMs you keep bringing up, I guess.


web? But I thought your wizard was using his 2nd level spells nerfing the rogue by being invisible,silent and using knock on every locked door? You mean that doesnt happen afterall?


You realize Wizards can do both at the same time, right?


does not make you equal to a fighter. Even with the +6 your strength is STILL probably lower then the fighters, or your CON is because the fighter didnt need to dump ability points in WIS like you did AND CHA if you want your channelling energy to be any good. Clerics are much more MAD then a fighter.

It still gives you full BAB, and that +6 is usually able to put you up to snuff with a Fighter's because very few Clerics dump STR at all. And no one dumps CON. :P

The need to keep points in CHA is only necessary for Pathfinder Clerics, I guess. But that's only for Channeling Energy, which is a sub-par use of a Cleric's time as we've already gone over. Whether people are satisfied with that option or not is irrelevant.


And in pathfinder you dont even get that +6 until your 18th level.


So what? By 18th level the Cleric has much more highly destructive options, like Gating in Solars.


And it still doesnt give you the bonus feats, which if the fighter halfway understands the system means he's still gonna mop the floor with your divine powered butt fairly easily.


That's nice except 1) Anyone can take Fighter feats and none of them are that great in a PVP set-up and 2) No one is talking about PVP here except you. You're moving the goal-posts and being intellectually disingenuous.


LOL hell, I've had enemies not even worry about running away, they just go full defense and let their back row pepper all the spell casters. Since Codzilla is fighting ineffectually rather healing it usually puts the party in a position where theres just the arcane caster and maybe an archer taking the full brunt of the spells and damage from the back line of the enemy. And the wizard usually doesnt last too long against that.

You're neglecting the other half of Codzilla: Druids. They can completely ignore their physical stats because they can turn into effing bears and elephants and dinosaurs.


I can assure with absolute certainty that the vast majority of gamers never touch a forum. Theres millions of gamers just in america and most forums only have a few thousand members, a fraction of which are actively paying attention on an even semi-regular basis. And those guys probably have accounts on multiple forums so they're being counted more then once when you add up all the forum accounts in existence.

It's interesting you only count America, considering that America doesn't even make up 50% of the entire RPG playerbase and I can personally attest that most people in, say, Japan, play their tabletop RPGs almost exclusively in online environments, much less discuss it in forums.

Even if that wasn't the case though, your point still requires you to somehow have scanned every gaming forum in existence, which I very much doubt you've done.

It's a moot point anyway. That people don't go to the internet to complain a problem doesn't indicate that they're not experiencing the problem, and experiencing the problem doesn't mean they've noticed the causes, or that there even is a problem.

(And yes, people can still suffer from problems without being aware they're doing so, so don't even respond with that).


Why not? Sneaking is synonymous with rogues, the wilderness is synonymous with druids and rangers and hitting things with sharp objects is synonymous with barbarians and fighters.

So why shouldn't healing be synonymous with clerics?

Because none of those are true. Example: Paladins.


This applying personal taste to everyone. There are different definitions of awesome and heroic. The cleric in my game likes healing people, he uses it as a chance to make odd off-color jokes and solicit tithes.... but he likes doing it.

The fighter specifically built a sword and board, high CON, highest AC possible tank because he enjoys playing the bodyguard. Not long ago the party was running from something that way overmatched them and he got to stand in the doorway blocking it and saving everyone while the cleric healed him and the wizard frantically scanned through his book for an improvised stone wall ritual... (okay i did handwave that on the spot, didnt expect them to wake up the monster, they were supposed to sneak by) but still, everyone got to do something they enjoyed and were specifically built for. The fighter spent the next hour IC messing with the wizard about the "look on his face when that thing was chasing us, dont worry though, I'm here to save you".

To the healer and the fighter what they did WAS awesome and heroic. Not long ago our Barbarian got a critical, rolled max damage and 1 shotted an enemy leader two levels higher then him. And that was awesome, but so was when he used intimidate to talk a bunch of orcs into fleeing halfway into a fight.

We dont all define awesome and heroic as being in the spotlight and making the clutch play. Some of us really enjoy playing the offensive line and knowing the team wouldnt have won without us, even if someone else did the most flashy parts.

And that's fine. But it shouldn't be the default for absolutely everyone and if the game falls apart if people stand outside of their roles, that's not good game design.

Being a Blaster Wizard is fine if you enjoy it, but eventually you'll try out all these non-blasting spells and realize how subpar Evocations are, objectively, to what your wizard COULD be doing, and then the entire basic premises of the game start to shift in the face of this new information because gaming assumptions need to change to account for it.

And if Wizards should just be Blasters, why do they have these broken-as-hell options for casting spells?

You've been resorting to fallacies. That a GMs and players can just ignore the problems and artificially restrain themselves to a safe, working part of how the game works doesn't change that it's full of pitfalls, imbalance, and problematic rules and options.


Low blow, the real world of warcraft D20 book is one of my favorite settings.

I've got to second this. I'm not a fan of WoW but do sometimes pilfer those books for my own games. It's really depressing that it got shafted by poor timing though. WoW 4th Ed would've been a pretty nice synergy.

obryn
2013-09-14, 05:08 PM
** cough, wotc forums, enworld cough

Nonsense.

People who get banned for edition warring and spending all their time crapping on stuff they don't like (as opposed to taking about stuff they do like) often blame the mods rather than their own behavior. It's easier to cry "bias!" then reflect, "maybe I was being a jerk."

I haven't seen anyone banned anywhere for liking any game. Only for being jackasses about the stuff they don't. Or jackasses in general, I suppose.

-O

TuggyNE
2013-09-14, 05:19 PM
No one contributes equally in every single adventure. You shouldnt even try that. Some adventures highlight some characters and some highlight others

Not the assertion here: rather, being a healbot will seldom get you highlighted, and the rest of the time, you're not just average, you're below average. Most character roles have occasions where they are relatively ineffective; only the healbot is in that situation most of the time.


"players controlling terrain"

web? But I thought your wizard was using his 2nd level spells nerfing the rogue by being invisible,silent and using knock on every locked door? You mean that doesnt happen afterall?

That wasn't actually suggested by anyone in the present discussion. (Also, a plethora of spell slots suggests that's not necessarily true, not to mention that web is not even vaguely the only crowd control spell.)


Not to mention its not by any means a gaurantee AND he has to win initiative or its not even an option. AND it would also stick Codzilla when he walked in, and now we're back to the temporary buffs not being half as good as you think when reading them. And on that topic.

I was actually considering CoDzilla casting e.g. hold person. If the Wizard is doing BFC, so much the better. (Also, freedom of movement.)


"Divine power"

does not make you equal to a fighter. Even with the +6 your strength is STILL probably lower then the fighters, or your CON is because the fighter didnt need to dump ability points in WIS like you did AND CHA if you want your channelling energy to be any good. Clerics are much more MAD then a fighter.

Why would you care about channeling energy if you're a melee-specced Cleric?


LOL hell, I've had enemies not even worry about running away, they just go full defense and let their back row pepper all the spell casters. Since Codzilla is fighting ineffectually rather healing it usually puts the party in a position where theres just the arcane caster and maybe an archer taking the full brunt of the spells and damage from the back line of the enemy. And the wizard usually doesnt last too long against that.

"Fighting ineffectually rather [than] healing" is gold, thank you. :smallbiggrin:

(If it's so ineffectual, why would enemies run? If it's so effectual, why are you badmouthing it? Finally, I didn't notice this earlier, but how are enemies auto-detecting Cleric buffs, which are mostly rather subtle, and why are they prioritizing running when they wouldn't run from a Fighter?)


Why not? Sneaking is synonymous with rogues, the wilderness is synonymous with druids and rangers and hitting things with sharp objects is synonymous with barbarians and fighters.

So why shouldn't healing be synonymous with clerics?

Rangers can't sneak? Barbarians aren't wilderness-focused? Paladins and Rangers and every single class in the whole game except Healer can't hit things with sharp objects?

I feel justified in rejecting all these overly-confining stereotypes wholesale.


Persistant spell adds two levels to the level of the spell severely hindering the level of spell it can be used on for the most of the game and isnt really relevant to an enemy just defending or leaving the area anyway.

Persistent in 3.5 means your buffs are not rounds/level, but the whole day. Also, it's not two levels, but six; more on that later.


Quickened spell adds 4 levels, making it even less useful for most of the game then persistant spell.

For this, DMM (in 3.5, at least, though admittedly not PF :smalltongue:) is tremendously useful, because no levels are added at all.


Maybe if you target the leaders, and they fail their saves this is an I win button. But its also a higher level option where important enemies are likely to have defenses against magic, including simple dispel magic spells that with one spell destroy your whole strategy with a little luck but your not at all neutralizing anyone elses actions. The warriors got a full turn to pummel things while you sitting there chanting and maybe having an affect, and maybe pissing away your turn depending on the luck of the dice. The rogue is sneaking into position and maybe getting a sneak attack and the wizard.... certainly found something useful to do. They usually do.

Assuming you're using hold person at all, which is only a consideration if the enemies are trying to run.

("Sneaking into position" is not directly useful, by the way, and the Wizard has roughly the same sorts of useful things to do as you, namely casting spells with various saves.)


You didnt take over the combat, you were simply an effective team member who burned through a lot of your limited resources.

Well, what's wrong with that? Effectiveness is all that's really being asked for here! Instead of the pointless "well, you can survive another half a hit" of healbotting.


This applying personal taste to everyone. There are different definitions of awesome and heroic. The cleric in my game likes healing people, he uses it as a chance to make odd off-color jokes and solicit tithes.... but he likes doing it.

OK. And you are certain that there is such a person in every party, that not only can be convinced to do the job, but enjoys it?

The only one applying personal taste to everyone is the one arguing that healbotting is a role that should always be filled. A game in which it is unnecessary is considerably superior unless there are more people who would only be happy playing a healbot than there are people who do not like playing a healbot. I consider the chance of that quite low.