Is DnD Dying? The Non-Flamebait/Edition War Version

[obliged_salmon]

So I saw a similar-titled thread pop up earlier and it quickly devolved into dredge and got locked. Let's try again, a little more civil this time, shall we?

So my question is NOT "is DnD becoming worse with each new edition" but rather, "are many of the interesting fringe/independent games and their ideas outshining DnD and other more mainstream games (Shadowrun, White Wolf, GURPS)?" Roughly speaking, are they showing up the old standard?

Let's talk a bit about some of the independent games on the market, and what they do differently from DnD, and why it might be better.

Burning Wheel/Mouse Guard: My current favorite, these games by Luke Crane say DnD got it wrong. You should put everything on the table, give characters their own agendas to pursue, rather than a GM-driven storyline, and make them fight for their beliefs.

Apocalypse World: While it has "classes" and "experience," this game spells it out for the GM and players. There's only one way to play this game, and it drives with an intensity and electric current that may leave DnD gasping for breath in its wake.

InSpectres: Jared Sorensen's lighthearted mystery/ghost hunting game, where the players can call timeout to do a reality TV style confessional, in order to tell the story before it happens.

Does a game's design have an impact on how player's roleplay? How about game theory? Not the GNS one, the math one. Has anyone played one or two of the many, many independent games growing out there, and found that DnD no longer appeals to them? Has anyone seen/played a few indie games and decided they don't hold up to DnD after all? Where IS our hobby going, and where CAN it go?

[DeltaEmil]

You ought to change the thread title, because your opener is about a question that is different from your title, and people are going to think you were going to talk about the financial success of D&D (all it's incarnations) instead of if other rpg-systems have more 'interesting' options...

[pasko77]

Personally, becoming old and grumpy, I've started to define DnD "not a RPG, but a strategy game", and switched to rules-light system (risus, fudge). Mainly because none in my group is really interested in strategy and we are all content to delegate to a "roll high, win" and a description our conflicts.

I'm not sure wheter the Burning Mouse is correct about giving mechanics to "motivations", but sure is something to try.

I also like WHFB 3rd edition's idea to have a "group sheet" to which all players contribute, so the group is an alive entity. Though I sincerely despise that edition for everything else in it.

The hobby is not changing, per se, it is simply more mainstream than it was 20 years ago. There have always been games in which motivations and whatnot are more important than stats (On Stage, WoD to some extent). Different games stress different parts of the hobby (strategy, recitation, daydreaming, ...)

[Totally Guy]

I don't think it is.

D&D has one remarkable game theory property. The systems increase in value with the number of players playing them.

It's not just about playing the game it's also about talking about it, finding players, identifying ones self as part of a community.

So the more players of D&D there are, the easier all these periphery elements come together and reinforce each other.

It's these peripheral properities that smaller independent games struggle to gain at all. It's why Monopoly is a household name, and a board game like Puerto Rico (high ranking game on Board Game Geek for years) is unheard of.

[Sarco_Phage]

D&D has one remarkable game theory property. The systems increase in value with the number of players playing them.

This is something that all the other better systems also have, you know. It's not unique to DnD.

As for myself, I think DnD only survives nowadays because it is the iconic RPG. When the average person sees an image of nerds huddled in the back of a gamer's shop rolling dice, likely he'll assume they're playing DnD. The d20 is strongly associated with both the gaming medium and DnD. For most people, the only RPG they've ever heard of is likely DnD.

It'll coast along on brand recognition and because we, as a commnity, resist change virulently. There are much better systems out there, they're just not Dungeons and Dragons, you know?

[Yora]

Is dungeon crawl with expendable characters fading into the background and giving way to games about character motivation?

Certainly, and that's happening for decades.

[Totally Guy]

This is something that all the other better systems also have, you know. It's not unique to DnD.

Oh yeah. That's true.

But D&D, with the biggest player base, carries the most power.

I guess that's why we get edition wars. That power is being juggled. And that's a bit scary.

I suppose this phenomenon is probably why there was the big ol' glut of D20 conversions back in the old days.

[valadil]

Burning Wheel/Mouse Guard: My current favorite, these games by Luke Crane say DnD got it wrong. You should put everything on the table, give characters their own agendas to pursue, rather than a GM-driven storyline, and make them fight for their beliefs.

I do all those things in DnD. Did I get DnD wrong?

[Obrysii]

Honestly, I would say that 4th Edition, WoTC's restructuring of their website to Gleemax (is that still around?), and the killing of the paper Dungeon and Dragon magazines, did more to harm the D&D property than anything else.

I know my group, and my extended group, have not purchased anything from WoTC since 4th Edition came out.

[Comet]

I do all those things in DnD. Did I get DnD wrong?

You can do all those things, but the system itself is built for other things, namely a chain of combat and skill conflicts with clear victory conditions.

That's the problem, the division between 'crunch' and 'fluff'. A good system, in my opinion, doesn't have such a division. The story and the characters should be an intergral part of the design of the game, not just something you can throw on top of mechanical win/lose encounters if you feel like it.

[Erom]

D&D has one remarkable game theory property. The systems increase in value with the number of players playing them.

Network effect!

and a board game like Puerto Rico (high ranking game on Board Game Geek for years) is unheard of.

Or that might be because Puerto Rico is the worst game ever designed :P

Personal preference of course, but Dominion/Caracassone/Settlers all >> Puerto Rico.

[Totally Guy]

I do all those things in DnD. Did I get DnD wrong?

Absolutely not!

This article by Chatty DM talks about how he uses Dungeons and Dragons to do those kinds of things and compares them directly to the games Obliged Salmon and I like.

I met chatty at a con a while back. He was a great guy. But I didn't know it was even him until I got back home and found he'd blogged about our encounter!

Edit:

Dominion/Caracassone>> Puerto Rico.

I'd agreed with that but I didn't think anyone would know them. Which was kind of the point...

[Eldan]

Burning Wheel/Mouse Guard: My current favorite, these games by Luke Crane say DnD got it wrong. You should put everything on the table, give characters their own agendas to pursue, rather than a GM-driven storyline, and make them fight for their beliefs.

What? I mean, I don't know what you usually do in D&D, but that's exactly what my games are about. I just set a scene. The characters act.

[Jan Mattys]

Back in the days, D&D = Roleplay.

Now, D&D is simply the most iconic brand, but a brand nonetheless. Other brands (Vampires, GURPS, you name them) have achieved the legitimate status of acceptable, or even better suited, alternatives for roleplaying.

D&D is still a synonym for Roleplaying Game in the minds of the uninformed, but its prominence in the eyes of the gamers is less evident.

Not that there's anything intrinsecally wrong with D&D: it is not a decaying brand, and it's not jumping the shark. It's just that the potential market expanded and competitors jumped in.

Basically, it's like Microsoft Explorer: back in the days, 95% had explorer, and 5% had Netscape Navigator. Today, 55% use Explorer, 26% use Firefox, and another 20% Safari, Opera, Chrome, etc...

D&D opened the path and still remains strong, but different choices arose for the gamers, and dominating the market became impossible.

As for me, I've been playing and DMing for years now, and my group finally settled for an homebrew version of the WhiteWolf system. We use the dots system for modern roleplay, fantasy roleplay, everything. It's light, extremely customizable, very easy to manage, and very, VERY balanced.
And we successfully played Cyberpunk, Sword&Sorcery, Pirates of the Caribbean, Modern warfare and Call of Cthulhu settings with it.

Just perfect.

[Yora]

I know my group, and my extended group, have not purchased anything from WoTC since 4th Edition came out.

Just yesterday I bought the Manual of the Planes.

3rd Edition.

[Sacrieur]

Honestly, I would say that 4th Edition, WoTC's restructuring of their website to Gleemax (is that still around?), and the killing of the paper Dungeon and Dragon magazines, did more to harm the D&D property than anything else.

I know my group, and my extended group, have not purchased anything from WoTC since 4th Edition came out.

I know a lot of people trash WotC for 4e (myself included), but you gotta hand it to them. 4e is a lot more organized and better written than 3.X. And much more streamlined. I say 4e is a step in a good direction for WotC.

[obliged_salmon]

Certainly DnD is the "iconic" RPG. The layman probably wouldn't even recognize something like 3:16 Carnage Among the Stars as a game unless they flipped through it. Heck, probably not even something like Vampire the Masquerade. Still, those games are getting shelf space not only at FLGS's, but big chain book stores. But might there be a point when DnD loses its iconic status, in favor of all these new ideas?

@valadil: Certainly, you CAN do all those things in DnD, but it's not common. In BW, it's coded into the game rules. For instance, each PC has three or four beliefs/goals on their character sheet, and they get in-game rewards for pursuing them.

[Comet]

On D&D dying:

I sincerely hope that D&D will live on. It might not be my favourite system, but the presence of a clear giant in the roleplaying market makes it much easier for newcomers to get into the hobby.
If, instead of Dungeons and Dragons, they would only run into a dozen independently produced games at the local game shop, the threshold to pick one up and start playing would be pretty high.

I began with Dungeons and Dragons, the old Red Box I got as a gift mind, and it really made the whole process that much easier. I know because we tried to play with other systems with my mates back then, before we got D&D, and they did a really poor job of explaining what the whole thing was really about. It was all very occult and so we gave up, until I got lucky and scored the aforementioned Red Box.

I really don't want to see this hobby become even more of an esoteric affair, with dozens of mysterious rulebooks and an impenetrable field of alternatives and niche games to wade through. D&D is an easy entry point and the more accessible this hobby is, the better.

[Cartigan]

So I saw a similar-titled thread pop up earlier and it quickly devolved into dredge and got locked. Let's try again, a little more civil this time, shall we?

So my question is NOT "is DnD becoming worse with each new edition" but rather, "are many of the interesting fringe/independent games and their ideas outshining DnD and other more mainstream games (Shadowrun, White Wolf, GURPS)?" Roughly speaking, are they showing up the old standard?

Let's talk a bit about some of the independent games on the market, and what they do differently from DnD, and why it might be better.

Burning Wheel/Mouse Guard: My current favorite, these games by Luke Crane say DnD got it wrong. You should put everything on the table, give characters their own agendas to pursue, rather than a GM-driven storyline, and make them fight for their beliefs.

Apocalypse World: While it has "classes" and "experience," this game spells it out for the GM and players. There's only one way to play this game, and it drives with an intensity and electric current that may leave DnD gasping for breath in its wake.

InSpectres: Jared Sorensen's lighthearted mystery/ghost hunting game, where the players can call timeout to do a reality TV style confessional, in order to tell the story before it happens.

Does a game's design have an impact on how player's roleplay? How about game theory? Not the GNS one, the math one. Has anyone played one or two of the many, many independent games growing out there, and found that DnD no longer appeals to them? Has anyone seen/played a few indie games and decided they don't hold up to DnD after all? Where IS our hobby going, and where CAN it go?

This is the first time I have ever heard of two of those and only barely heard of the third (Mouse Guard). On the other hand, I can pick up D&D games in a big box store (for a change)

I think it's winning still.

[Yora]

But might there be a point when DnD loses its iconic status, in favor of all these new ideas?

Yes. I think that is pretty much uncontested.

[Sacrieur]

D&D is certainly not dying, perhaps you should take a look at this.

[Yora]

That chart is missing lables, but it does look like a drop of about 50%.

[obliged_salmon]

On D&D dying:

I sincerely hope that D&D will live on. It might not be my favourite system, but the presence of a clear giant in the roleplaying market makes it much easier for newcomers to get into the hobby.
If, instead of Dungeons and Dragons, they would only run into a dozen independently produced games at the local game shop, the threshold to pick one up and start playing would be pretty high.

I began with Dungeons and Dragons, the old Red Box I got as a gift mind, and it really made the whole process that much easier. I know because we tried to play with other systems with my mates back then, before we got D&D, and they did a really poor job of explaining what the whole thing was really about. It was all very occult and so we gave up, until I got lucky and scored the aforementioned Red Box.

I really don't want to see this hobby become even more of an esoteric affair, with dozens of mysterious rulebooks and an impenetrable field of alternatives and niche games to wade through. D&D is an easy entry point and the more accessible this hobby is, the better.

To some extent, I really agree with this. DnD does a good job of bearing its responsibility of "game new players are most likely to encounter." Some games do not assume new players, and specifically say so at the front of the book, then dive into the heavy stuff. BW is great, but it took me the better part of a year to really wrap my head around it.

However, does DnD teach bad habits to new players? My first game was 3.5 DnD, and it quickly taught me a few important lessons. First, that optimization was the only way I could assert control in the game context. Second, that the closer my character's goals aligned with the GM's story, the more fun I had. Third, that social encounters will be resolved in a way that's almost entirely dependent on the DM, so suck up to him in those situations.

Yes, I also learned that roleplaying is awesome, but at what cost? I wouldn't recommend new players jump into something like Dogs in the Vinyard, but maybe Mutants and Masterminds? 7th Sea? I guess it also depends on the genre you're looking for.

[Eldan]

That sounds more like D&D failure than anything else, though.

Also, on the D&D chart: look at worldwide. That's a massive, continuous drop.

[Sarco_Phage]

D&D is certainly not dying, perhaps you should take a look at this.

That graph proves the opposite of your point, buddy.

[potatocubed]

I think D&D's survival is something to do with the 'second-best' phenomenon (probably not its actual name).

As in, games can be largely divided into three tiers:

1. Your Favourite Games. You want to play these so bad it burns.
2. Whatever. Sure, you'll play if that's what your group wants.
3. No Way. You'll walk if these games come up.

D&D, I think, sits in most people's 'Whatever' tier. It's easy to get your group to play D&D because, while it might not be stupendously amazing, it's good enough for most things. It's an easy compromise when you're pitching the next campaign.

Plus, there's the previously mentioned stuff about brand recognition and the network effect, plus support: D&D has countless modules for when you can't think of an adventure, and the answer to any rules question is a 30-second Google search away.

[AslanCross]

Perhaps other games are more well-made. Perhaps I'm relatively new to RPing and thus have much to learn. Perhaps other systems are cheaper, or free, or worth the money. I still play D&D. It works fine for me.

No, I don't think D&D is dying.

[Sarco_Phage]

Perhaps other games are more well-made. Perhaps I'm relatively new to RPing and thus have much to learn. Perhaps other systems are cheaper, or free, or worth the money. I still play D&D. It works fine for me.

No, I don't think D&D is dying.

How many players have you found locally recently?

It took me years to find a group in Paranaque.

[Cartigan]

That graph proves the opposite of your point, buddy.

Search trends don't really mean a lot. It implies some stuff, but that's about it. D&D is still head and shoulder above those games he mentioned - even on a downward slope. Besides Mouse Guard, they don't even register.

Sure, Chrome is pulling off percentages of the browser market from Firefox, but Firefox is still the second largest browser market in the world, even losing a few percentage points. And while on a downward trend, IE will ALWAYS be number 1 because businesses use it.

[Sarco_Phage]

Search trends don't really mean a lot. It implies some stuff, but that's about it. D&D is still head and shoulder above those games he mentioned. Besides Mouse Guard, they don't even register.

Ahhh, compared to the ones in OP's post? Well, yeah, by any metric DnD is doing a lot better.

I'm just saying, the graph indicates a decline, rather than an increase. I thought he was just trying to say DnD's popularity had increased.