# When did WotC D&D "Jump the Shark"?



## Mercurius (Apr 16, 2011)

Is there any denying that WotC D&D is in shambles, or borderline shambles? The DDI debacle, the cancellation of numerous products, the shoddy quality of _Heroes of Shadow _(from what I've heard), the lack of communication about the present state of affairs and the future, the lingering wound of the PDFiasco, and so on. 

But I'm wondering is this: at what point did things really begin to go down hill? OK, I'm going to pre-empt the predictable snarky comments like "When 4E was announced" or "When the core rulebooks came out." Kinda funny, but leave it be. 

So what do you think? When did WotC D&D jump the shark? _Has _it jumped the shark at all, in your view? While we're at it, is there any turning the ship around or is a new edition in the near future inevitable? What say you?

My feeling is that it jumped the shark with Essentials. The quality of the rule books had been strong, especially from PHB 2 onward, but with recent excellent works like the Dark Sun books, the Planes books, etc. But the whole gesture of Essentials seemed...desperate, and also seemed to stall 4E perhaps permanently. But, most of all, it wasn't a movement forward - it was a re-packaging of old material with very little innovation. A few bright spots but more than the actual material itself, it seemed to derail the line, so to speak.

I would couple that with the online version of Character Builder, which if I remember correctly was around the same time. WotC taking away the offline versions of Character Builder and Monster Builder was a travesty - and yet another bad PR move in a long line of bad PR moves.

In other words, the Fall of 2010 was the Fall of WotC D&D.

_note: I am specifically saying "WotC D&D" to differentiate it from the game of 4E itself, which I think is still a very good game and evolving in a positive direction. But the whole presentation, publication, and "carrying" of the game--the line, if you will--is what I'm talking about. _


----------



## shamsael (Apr 16, 2011)

No.

DDi is better than it's ever been, we're finally getting progress on the VTT, and Heroes of Shadow is at least as good as Martial Power 2 (though neither are as good as MP1, DP, PrP, AP, PsP).  I can't believe more people aren't talking about the Paladin Striker build, and if anyone still thinks Essentials is supposed to be an easier, dumbed down D&D, then they really need to read the Assassin Executioner.

As far as cancelled products, I'm in favour of this, since the content of these products is simply being moved either to DDi or to other new products.  Examples: the Vampire was going to be in Ravenloft but we got it in Heroes of Shadow instead, Class Compendium's erratad PHB1 classes are being posted free online.

The essentials books were probably the most important thing that's happened to 4e.  PHB2 showed us that roles were not set in stone, and PHB3 showed us an alternative to the daily/encounter/at-will scheme.  Essentials brought both of these concepts to the next level while leaving the original material relevant and compatible.

The online character builder is a much better choice for a lot of reasons.  While I understand some people are upset because they can no longer gain full access to the character builder and all of the new powers by occasionally renewing their DDi subscription and downloading a patch, I think these people should feel greatful that they got to steal D&D for as long as they did without consequence.

Anyway, No.

And, just to point out, Fonzy jumped the shark in Season 5, yet Happy Days stayed on the air for 6 whole seasons after that.


----------



## UngeheuerLich (Apr 16, 2011)

I don´t have the feeling they did actually jump the shark...

but they would have been better off, if they just made a cleaner cut, really revising more with essentials... leave 4e of old for those who liked it, and make a new, improved version for all others...


----------



## Fifth Element (Apr 16, 2011)

No. C'mon.

The OP's note at the end also has me puzzled. 4E is great and evolving in a good way, but WotC D&D might have jumped the shark? The game's what matters, not how it's presented.


----------



## malraux (Apr 16, 2011)

Wikipedia says:


> The usage of "jump the shark" has subsequently broadened beyond television, indicating the moment in its evolution, characterized by absurdity, when a brand, design, or creative effort moves beyond the essential qualities that initially defined its success, beyond relevance or recovery.



I don't think that WotC's 4e products have quite hit this yet.  Certainly not the beyond relevance or recovery bit.  A slow schedule and a few bad books really don't put the entire line beyond the pale for me.  The closest I think its come is the silverlight transition of DDI.  But even that isn't recoverable; a useable online monster builder would fix much of that.

Certainly essentials didn't jump the shark, as it challenged certain key ideas of 4e design without overthrowing them.


----------



## Ryujin (Apr 16, 2011)

Jumped the shark? It hasn't; certainly not if you understand the origin and meaning of the term.

I will say that I rarely even bother to look at Dragon and Dungeon now, though, since the change to separate files for download. I used to wait until the end of the release and then just download the whole thing, to read at leisure.


----------



## jbear (Apr 16, 2011)

I know what you mean Mercurius even though if the above definition provided by Malraux is what jumping the shark means, then I agree that I don't think they have reached that point yet.

Actually, I think they are going through a pulling things around phase. Which probably will take some time til that becomes fully evident.

But the signs are there. Peoples feedback about recent articles in DDI are largely very positive. And one of those articles was written by someone from Paizo. Am I the only one who thinks that is worthy of raising the eyebrow ?

Here's a thought ... 
WotC has a pretty interesting, open minded guy at the helm who wants to capture the wonder he felt when he first began playing D&D but within the framework of 4e.
Paizo initially was prepared to jump on board with 4e if they liked the system. That didn't happen. But the game has expanded, changed and matured over these (nearly 3?) years, I think it's quite a different beast than the one initially released. Maybe there is dialogue going on there at some level... we do know that one of the guys from Paizo is in a 4e gaming group over at WotC ... at least I remember reading mention of that recently... you can see where I'm going with this, right?


----------



## TerraDave (Apr 16, 2011)

That may not be the perfect analogy, but _something_ has been up. 

Lets review (going back about a year, then forward):

*Wave of Updates
*More layoffs (Heinso, Collins...)
*Essentials
*Online CB
*Dropping Products
*New Direction in continuing products (this is still playing out)
*Changes to online content (still playing out)
*Fortune Cards (also still playing out, but not looking good)

4E has been interesting to watch. A rough launch, with a negative tone (at least for 3E fans), end of print Dragon and Dungeon, Gleemax and the 3D VT, a delayed GSL no one likes, seeming lack of play-testing, some out of gate errata/issues (stealth, minions, solo HP), slow death of the minis...

BUT, the game is saved by actually being pretty good, and then you have the compendium and CB and some good follow on products (e.g. PHB II, DMG II, Open Grave...). I think we perceived this as a big recovery and strong period for the game. And one that continues, with last summer feeling like a peak. 

I guess this was not strong enough. For whatever reasons WotC has clearly felt pressure to do better and different, and has just been throwing stuff out there, one thing after another, and it seems pretty obvious some of this has been rushed. 

I still feel optimistic. The product slowdown was probably warranted, the dumber stuff (ok, fortune cards) will go away, the online stuff will get fixed.

But, Mercurius could be right, terminal decline may be here.


----------



## OnlineDM (Apr 16, 2011)

First, I have no idea what the original poster means about the difference between 4e D&D and WotC D&D. Aren't these the same thing?

Second, I don't think the game has jumped the shark. Dungeon/Dragon magazine content has had some good stuff lately. The Virtual Table has the potential to be very interesting to me (since I mainly run games online). 

The online Character Builder is in a funny spot for me. I've mostly moved over to using it and am pretty much okay with it. My wife was resistant, but she tried it last night for the first time. I was telling her that it's pretty good and has some nice features, but I did come away from the experience feeling less good about it - in comparison to the downloadable Builder. 

The good point for the online Builder is that it contains material from the newer books. That's all. The bad points in comparison are:

No customization of character sheets (can't make a one-page version)
No customization of which cards print out (waste of paper/ink)
No support for house rules
Terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad interface for equipment

The new Builder is generally fine for my purposes, but I'm sad to realize how much worse it still is than the old Builder (except that it has updated material).

I'm still enjoying D&D4e, and I'm encouraged by the increased communication from WotC in their new weekly columns (especially Rule of Three and Mearls's column). I think the game still has lots of good stuff to come.


----------



## S'mon (Apr 16, 2011)

I like the actual Essentials materials a lot, but I have to agree that things seemed to fall apart in Fall 2010.  My February 2010 versions of the downloadable Monster Builder & Character Builder software are IMO superior to what is currently available online.  The current online charbuilder is not terrible, but from what I have seen of it IMO is not as good.  While there effectively is no online monster builder, and the downloadable monster builder was crippled by the MM3 update, thank goodness I was not a subscriber then.


----------



## kaomera (Apr 16, 2011)

Mercurius said:


> Is there any denying that WotC D&D is in shambles, or borderline shambles?



Yes. I think that's an entirely subjective assertion, and while you're certainly entitled to feel that way, I would deny that it is actually true for most people playing D&D right now.


----------



## Ourph (Apr 16, 2011)

Mercurius said:


> Is there any denying that WotC D&D is in shambles, or borderline shambles?



I think HoS is pretty awesome and the latest offerings from the online magazines are seriously tempting me to resubscribe, so I have a hard time saying at this moment that WotC is in shambles. Two months ago? Sure. But it looks like they are now moving in the right direction.


----------



## Keefe the Thief (Apr 16, 2011)

Mercurius said:


> Is there any denying that WotC D&D is in shambles, or borderline shambles? The DDI debacle, the cancellation of numerous products, the shoddy quality of _Heroes of Shadow _(from what I've heard), the lack of communication about the present state of affairs and the future, the lingering wound of the PDFiasco, and so on.
> 
> But I'm wondering is this: at what point did things really begin to go down hill? OK, I'm going to pre-empt the predictable snarky comments like "When 4E was announced" or "When the core rulebooks came out." Kinda funny, but leave it be.
> 
> ...




The fall of D&D ended when it hit Absurdistan with terminal velocity while riding your post like a horse. 

ENworld has been, for me and IMHO, the place where ridiculous assertions like this are amassing like a singularity of haha/hoho. All games have good times and bad times, great and terrible products, good and bad decisions, and yet they don't jump the shark - because ENworld reserves all the sharks in the sea for D&D jumping until the year 2444. 

And you know what the sad thing is? I really would like to adress specific points in your post, but they are all so, well...
... is it time for 5e?
... Essentials a sign of desperation?
... Eseentials just a repackaging?
... 4e vs. 4eE / Wotc 4e vs. Blah 4e?
Sorry, these points have jumped the shark.

And Mercurius: if you have to preemtively admonish people NOT to snark at your post, doesn't that mean something is not right?


----------



## Chronosome (Apr 16, 2011)

Discussing whether or not something has "jumped the shark" is silly. Some people currently dig D&D and some people don't, for various reasons. You don't discuss if something has "jumped"; you discuss _when_ it did, after it did. I'd leave it to the nerd-historians (snarkyologists?) of tomorrow.


----------



## ggroy (Apr 16, 2011)

From an historical perspective, when did 3.5E D&D jump the shark?


----------



## malraux (Apr 16, 2011)

For WotC to have jumped the shark, they would have had to do something crazy, like convert the whole system to the DnD Adventure system (ie the boardgame rules), drops the ddi and books, etc.  That would be the level of changes to be jumping the shark.


----------



## malraux (Apr 16, 2011)

ggroy said:


> From an historical perspective, when did 3.5E D&D jump the shark?




I dunno that 3.5 ever did jump the shark.  Jumping the shark implies a radical change, not necessarily a constant change in quality or direction.  Contemporaneously, the only real jumping the shark event that I can think of is the final episode of BSG; which technically doesn't count as it was the final episode.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred (Apr 16, 2011)

Frankly I think the issue to a large extent is certain people wanted the game to go in a different direction than it has lately. Don't confuse "this is not to my taste" with "this is bad". HoS is NOT a poor quality product. One or two bits apparently offend the overly mechanically inclined mindset of some posters. Gosh, a Vampire has 2 surges, OH NOZ!!!! The whole book is crap! The game is foundering! WotC is crumbling to dust! Sigh.

Obviously they've had cutbacks and at some level they were told that in hard times you're going to have to bring up your ROI (or somesuch thing). Clearly they're trying to do more with less. They have Encounters, they have new online tools, more board games, etc. All with at best no new resources. So yeah, Dragon and Dungeon got pared back an bit and then they decided to rethink the production process there to align with where they're going, etc. 

The problem with comparing to the 3.x days is the industry was in both a happy time of peak RPG interest, the economy was relatively good, the industry hadn't really started to feel the most significant impacts of the digital revolution, etc. 4e exists in a doubtful time of change. Anyone with a lick of talent, the resources of WotC, and any common sense did well 8-10 years ago. Today you have some very excellent people over at WotC busting ass to make any headway at all in a much tougher environment and doing pretty well.

The product is awesome. It is FAR from jumping the shark. When they start pumping out a dozen worthless broken supplements detailing stuff nobody cares about? Then they'll be in the shark jumping phase.


----------



## Dice4Hire (Apr 16, 2011)

The whole "jumped the shark" thing is ridiculous in any context.

That said, WOTC seems to be in a lot of trouble from my point of view. 

Sure, I can play for a long time with what I have now, but, hey, I would like to buy more stuff from them. 

But what in the world am I gonna buy?

Essentials? --> the '10' product series, which was an outright lie as HoS is essentials
      No, it does not add anything to my game. 

HoS itself? --? And probably Heroes of the Feywild, too.
      I do not play darker stuff, and do not play essentials which stakes this product. 

Adventures? 
       What adventures? Madness is coming out and looks like it might be good. But one a 
        year is pathetic. 

Campaign Setting?
       Neverwinter might be nice, especially if they do themes. But will it be essentials? 
        Probably.  

DDI?
       I've said my piece on this before, the only thing that would get me on DDI was super 
        strong Dungeon content, and it is not there. Nothing else is interesting to me. 


So, yes, D&D is in big trouble from my point of view. If you do not agree, more power to you, but it does not change my view of D&D.


----------



## Droogie128 (Apr 16, 2011)

I just think they've come to a point where they've released all of the sacred cows, and they're figuring out which direction to go next. 

4e has shown that it can flex and bend a lot without breaking, and I feel they may be out to test the threshold some more.

I've got mixed emotions on HoS, though. In terms of quality. I think the Blackguard is a thing of beauty, but the Shade and Vampire are a giant step backwards (racial penalty, and a dual primary-stat class that doesn't even have a choice in the matter). I definitely hope this part is not the new direction.

Overall, I remain cautiously optimistic. They seem interested in communication finally, or at least they pretend to me. They also finally looked towards the CharOp boards for opinions.

*edit*

Just to Dice4Hire above me, HoS is not purely essentials. There's a lot of stuff in there that is equally useful for non essentials products. It's actually a pretty good mix.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz (Apr 17, 2011)

> snarkyologists



Sharkyologists?


----------



## TheUltramark (Apr 17, 2011)

when they "make" all their novelist advance the storylines 100 years into the future.....
that has leather jacket and water skis written all over it


----------



## billd91 (Apr 17, 2011)

From my point of view, as a D&D player since 1981, D&D jumped the shark when it became clear 4e was going to be so much of a transformation. It's like when Sam had sex with Diane on Cheers. A central dynamic of the show changed - as had several central dynamics of the game in 4e. And in both cases, the change was made to increase the customer base - ratings for Cheers, players for D&D. But for customers/viewers like me, too much is lost and the game/show enters a decline.  

I fully accept that whether or not something has jumped the shark is subjective. You may not agree, but for me 4e's design is what sent D&D over the shark.


----------



## tuxgeo (Apr 17, 2011)

Keefe the Thief said:


> The fall of D&D ended when it hit Absurdistan with terminal velocity while riding your post like a horse.



IMHO that should be "at terminal velocity," not "with." (But there, I'm grammarNazi'ing. Sorry.) 



> ENworld has been, for me and IMHO, the place where ridiculous assertions like this are amassing like a singularity of haha/hoho. . . .



"If they're amassing, then they can't be singular -- can they?" (Again, sorry.)

< snip >



> And Mercurius: if you have to preemtively admonish people NOT to snark at your post, doesn't that mean something is not right?



But snarking is fun! 

(Alas, I can't give XP to Keefe the Thief again so soon; but that was a singularly inventive sequence of invective. Or something. 
I love such creative and expressive uses of English.)


----------



## Droogie128 (Apr 17, 2011)

DM Magic said:


> Essentials = Non-Essentials.




Yes. They're the same edition. However, what I was referring to is stuff obviously made for the essentials versions of the classes. For instance, the cleric powers are implement powers. The warpriest doesn't really use implement powers, so those are best used by the laser cleric straight out of the PHB1. It's not all material designed for the warpriest. So, it's got material for the classic 4e classes, and their essentials counterparts.


----------



## the Jester (Apr 17, 2011)

D&D hasn't jumped the shark, but the recent steep decline in both quality and quantity started (imho) with the decision to pull support for the original CB and MB without adequate replacements, and after months of misleading statements about a forthcoming "update".

That said: 



shamsael said:


> DDi is better than it's ever been




NO. 

DDI is better than it has been _since the switchover to the online CB and MB_ but is still total crap compared to where it was a year and a half ago.


----------



## Aegeri (Apr 17, 2011)

If DDI is better than it has ever been, then how on earth did I fail to notice it being absolutely terrible before now? If this is "better" then I can't fathom when it was ever actually good (and once upon a time, I was very happy with DDI). DDI right now is just a total and complete shambles. I'm not going to bother ranting further on that because so many already have.

While I am very disappointed with wizards and am rapidly losing my enthusiasm for 4E, I don't think they have jumped the shark. I thought Heroes of Shadow was a mediocre book filled with poorly thought out elements (Worst race, one of the worst EDs in the entire game by miles, another striker class that barely performs its striker role etc) it's still *miles* ahead of nearly any 3.5 player option splatbook. It has underpowered or poorly thought out elements in the book, but nothing that just breaks the game badly like many 3.5 splatbooks could do. Most of the content is well balanced or just underpowered and very little seems outright broken. Most of essentials is like this actually, so while I might not like it out of the two available options (broken elements or underpowered elements/trap options) one is better than the other.

There are other decisions that I hate and find plain stupid as well. Epic tier being increasingly ignored, fortune cards ever being released, the cancellation of a book required for their magic item rarity system to work and such forth. The lack of rare magic items to fit with the new expected treasure system is particularly poor from Wizards. It makes this aspect of essentials feel half assed and ill thought out. One would think if you change a core system in DnD then you should actually support it.

At the same time I see real evidence to be positive again, because Wizards are directly asking their community about the mechanical problems in the game and potential solutions. If Wizards listens to their own community, I anticipate great things could be in store.

But only if they actually listen.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred (Apr 17, 2011)

I think the HoS material is pretty good. Remember, there are already plenty of options for players who simply want to optimize their characters. You want to be a Vampire? Well, there are some pluses and minuses... Not every option has to be clearly some kind of mechanical optimum, especially not if that compromises other considerations. It is a game of fantasy and imagination more than it is a wargame, and it was time that 4e design reflected that. It isn't like the options people have been complaining about are terrible, they are limited in some ways. Being a shade creates some issues, but it should also be interesting.

Not that there's any reason an option should be weaker if it doesn't add something to it and the 4e devs do slightly miss the mark sometimes, but all of the stuff in HoS works and is perfectly usable. If you just want to min/max, then skip it.


----------



## Aegeri (Apr 17, 2011)

AbdulAlhazred said:


> I think the HoS material is pretty good.



1/3 races was basically a waste of page space, it added probably the worst ED in 4E (and there was some fair competition here), plus a class that is a giant trap for new players unless they have a (albeit minor) degree of system mastery and then a _very_ strong concept of how to play 4E tactically. At the same time I didn't really care for more options for wizards and clerics, but in saying that one has to be fair. Wizards and Clerics are nowhere near as saturated as the 4E fighter (who has 414 powers! Yikes).

So I found very little of value in this book myself. Most of the PPs and other EDs were simply underwhelming to just a "Okay, but there are better" options. Personally HoS is the most disappointing book that Wizards have released, especially because it was so important for steadying the ship post-essentials. It failed at that on every level and has only succeeded at making me less optimistic about 4E in future. 

I'll grant I did like things from the book: Despite the vampire being a trap if you can play 4E well and take durable, it's a fun and interesting class. It's just the two conditions "Knows how to play 4E" and "Takes durable" that are the trick. The necromancer was pretty cool and I think making it a mage school was probably the best choice in the end. But in the end I'm sick of wizard builds (and fighters, before anyone mentions that) and I'm really not liking the racial penalties coming back. Vryloka are a pretty neat new race, but why saddle them with a crippling -2 penalty to surge value that becomes irrelevant beyond heroic anyway? It's an insult to injury feature after level 10, but level 1-4ish Vryloka's really feel it.

It's also trivially removed with a feat, just adding more weight to the ever increasing "Feat tax" arguments that get thrown around. If anyone follows the char op feedback thread, the most common complaint that nearly every poster brings up are feat taxes. I don't see why wizards continues to add these to 4E (Vampires needing durable, Vryloka needing the +2 surge feat and such forth from this book).


> Being a shade creates some issues, but it should also be interesting.



The shade has absolutely no redeeming features whatsoever, it didn't even get feats to save it from being pretty much the bottom of the barrel in 4E. If you include monster manual races, it's competing with the bullywug in terms of who is actually worse.


> but all of the stuff in HoS works and is perfectly usable.



I really disagree with that. I feel most of it is functional, but there is a fair amount of stuff that really doesn't sell itself on a usable manner whatsoever.

I just hope Wizards returns to form with a bang come Heroes of the Feywild. If Heroes of the Feywild is as disappointing as Heroes of Shadow, it's probable that I will lose interest in buying any new 4E products and just stick to everything from Heroes of Shadow backwards. HoS only sneaks in because I do actually kind of like some of the things in it - especially after I houserule the easy to fix errors: Vampires simply get durable for free and Vryloka have no -2 penalty to surge value. But again, Wizards has a long time before Heroes of the Feywild and if they _listen_ to their community I have zero doubt of HoF avoiding the problems that HoS has had (and maybe recent books in general, even going back pre-essentials!). If HoF shows that Wizards basically didn't listen to their own community and just repeats all the same silly errors again - then I think "Jumping the shark" may have happened. I did hear that Mike has a speedboat and some water skis.


----------



## ThatGuyThere (Apr 17, 2011)

As a non-4th-Edition person, listening to the 4th-Edition people talking recently, I'd say, "Now".

But I'd also say, "Well, maybe."

I think the analogy to "jump the shark" is actually apt. The "Jump the Shark" episode was when the creative center of Happy Days shifted - the moment the work went from Being About What It Was When It Started to Being About Something More Than That. And I think 4th Edition is doing that, right now.

And yes, that can fail. Dismally. And has, often, in popular culture. But someone earlier (1st page) said something telling - Happy Days <literally> "jumped the shark" in it's fifth season, out of eleven seasons total, and is remembered as one of the finest shows on television. All in the Family became Archie Bunker's Place. Smallville went from "meteor freaks and a subdued superhero tone" to Doomsday, Major Zod and Darkseid.

(I'm specifically aiming for ones that are generally considered a "mixed bag" of preferring before-and-after the 'direction change'.)

4th Edition is maturing - and most definitely changing - as a game. Essentials - and remember, I'm only talking from arm's length, here - changed the way the game worked (how classes were set up), without actually changing how the game worked (ie, math). They're beginning to work with the engine in new and interesting ways; I'd fully expect at least some "speculative" works, similar to Magic of Incarnum, Book of 9 Swords, and so forth, testing the edges and limits of the engine, and trying to use it's strengths (and there are many) to cover it's weaknesses (and there are some).

Yes, there's a chance - a good chance, I'd say - 4th Edition will not be "the same game" two years from now, in the same way sitting at a 3.5 table 2/3rds of the way through and seeing a Warlock, a Scout, a Warmage, and a Healer instead of any "core" classes made it "not the same game". That doesn't mean it's a bad thing (although it might be bad for one given person, personally).

I'd say we're too early on Wizard's direction-change and development vector to decide the game's a failure. There's still hundreds of directions it could go (including backwards).

So, again, I answer the OP with, "Right now - but that may turn out to be a good thing".

Edited to note - That 3.5 table badly needs a tank. I'd have probably rolled a Lawful Incarnate.


----------



## Aegeri (Apr 17, 2011)

The worst thing with essentials was it lost two opportunities:

1) It could have changed the level up chart to incorporate expertise for free. You'd still leave the feats for people who wanted more than 1 expertise feat (for whatever reason). This was a prime opportunity, especially as they changed many other rules completely with the Rules Compendium (see recent discussions about grabbing/flanking ending when you can't take OAs).

2) They should not have changed the magic item system without actually considering if they had enough items to support it. They should have been much more comprehensive in changing old items rarity (there are a fair few items that could be made common, that were just lumped into uncommon). In addition, they could have _unnerfed_ certain items and made them rare, like Veteran's Armor (which was a major problem when you could make billions of them and spam dailies every encounter for a while).

They are indeed at a cross roads though, but as I keep saying if you read through all of this thread there are _common_ elements that come up time and time again. If wizards even fixes half of those, we're in for a pretty solid future. Wizards cannot have jumped the shark yet until we see the result of that feedback. If its acknowledged I don't think anyone could complain: As some big errors in 4E will be fixed. Plus I love the idea of going back and actually buffing a few of the more broken options to usable instead of just publishing more things. There is a great summary of the general consensus here.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred (Apr 17, 2011)

I think the problem is there are 2 VERY VERY different ways of approaching the concept of utility in a game like 4e.

For instance a Vampire to me has maximum utility when it most thoroughly evokes the concept of being a vampire. If it doesn't do that it is literally worthless because all it is is a name and some random mechanics applied to it. The CONCEPT has to be supported. It MUST feel like a vampire or it is 'broken'. How well it works in a min/maxing optimizer sense as the best mechanical choice for making a character fight well is utterly irrelevant if it doesn't first and foremost do the job of supporting my "my character is a vampire" concept. The HoS vampire appears (not having run the thing I'm not certain, but I suspect from looking at it) to do a pretty decent job of evoking a vampiric character.

Now, I don't disagree that it is good for characters to be as mechanically equal despite thematic choices as possible. In the case of the vampire it is a bit tricky to tell. Yes it will be helpful to have some experience playing the game, but I think any reasonably intelligent player who takes the time and has a decent grasp of 4e healing mechanics and how encounters work will pretty quickly figure out a viable way to play the character. It IS an advanced sort of character, not every shlub is going to play this sort of PC. I'm not trying to be elitist but I don't really feel that it is necessary for every dark niche and cranny of the game to be entirely transparent to rank newbies as long as they have plenty of variety of good options they can figure they'll be happy and the more sophisticated player can play his vampire and it will be fine. Again I wouldn't take that concept TOO far, but within reason it can actually add a bit to the game.

Now, is the HoS vampire ACTUALLY a good solid design? Is there an obvious way to make something better? I don't really like to second guess the designers, especially on something I've only played with in theorycraft effectively. I CAN think of things that might have broadened the concept and the idea of making it a theme is tempting, but it is quite possible these things were explored and dropped by the dev team for perfectly good reasons that aren't apparent to me in my armchair.

I could repeat the above for the shade but I won't. I tend to agree that the shade needs a better racial power implementation than it has, but even good well-written material isn't perfect, and I've never accused WotC of being perfect either. I still think the book is chock full of very good stuff (and fortuitously my campaign took a sharp left turn into shadowy matters lately so it is something I am going to get some good mileage out of in the next couple months too).

In other words from my perspective material needs to be evocative, otherwise I might as well be playing solitaire or Cosmic Encounter. We RPG to ROLE PLAY. The game aspect is significant but 4e luckily is very strong there and I am FAR from convinced that HoS is going to give us any real issues there that come even close to obviating its nice evocative content.


----------



## Aegeri (Apr 17, 2011)

> Is there an obvious way to make something better?



Believe it or not yes. Just take durable. When you can freely spend your extra surges for extra attacks and damage, the vampire makes a lot of sense. Once you get to higher levels you can usually spend 2-3 surges a combat, especially if you have a good defender/controller. While you will lose surges to damage, the regeneration at bloodied and ability to heal by using an allies surge are pretty solid. You also have enough surges that a skill challenge or trap won't bother you.

I'm not kidding that durable makes the vampire from a fragile glass cannon that can fall over from a single bad trap/skill challenge, into a really interesting and fun class to play. It's just that simple as writing "1st Feat: Durable" on your character sheet. By paragon tier you'll end up with 5 surges and with the Vampire Noble (IIRC) you can use blood drain 3x an encounter for 3 extra surges. 4 surges gets you through their very harsh early game and 5 surges + 3 potential extra (or 2 if you go the other PP) has you sitting very pretty. The other thing is the more freely you can spend surges, the more you keep up with actually performing a striker role. A vampire without spending surges is chronically behind on damage - so if you can spend surges more freely you can really keep up pretty effectively. It's somewhat paradoxical actually in this manner: You can't afford to have too low surges in case a trap/skill challenge comes in from nowhere but you need to be able to reliably burn surges to keep up with other strikers damage wise. I actually think it's a very interesting tactical situation and is why while I dislike the core design of the vampire, in play it has more than enough merit for me that I'd love to see a PC play it.

4 surges would still be a pretty big disadvantage, it's just not as crippling and makes the class more forgiving to anyone. It really is this simple it makes me honestly wonder why Wizards never caught something like this in playtesting. But then again I was more worried about this before the thread I linked above: Because if Wizards will ask their community I hope we'll get more openness about new content and what they plan. I personally feel the feedback thread on the official forums about Mike Mear's recent Rule of Three has prompted this. To say the least his answer about the shade was completely _ravaged_ by a majority of the community.

Not all fixes are simple of course returning to the shade. I have no idea how to fix the shade short of rewriting the entire race, but other people have really great ideas already. I might just use one of theirs as I've seen a couple of user efforts that are pretty good (and remove the -1 surge value as well).

But again if Wizards listen to their fans and the community, I have no doubt things like this might be fixed or just not be an issue in future.


----------



## Herschel (Apr 17, 2011)

Mercurius said:


> When did WotC D&D jump the shark?



In round two after the bridge section collapsed leaving a two square opening between it and the crocodile. It does have a +16 bonus to athletics so it wasn't as if it was going to miss the roll.


----------



## Raith5 (Apr 17, 2011)

4E still works great at my table. But I must say when I saw the Shardmind race in PH3 the vision of Fonzi's bike did flash through my mind.


----------



## Mummolus (Apr 17, 2011)

I don't think 4E has jumped the shark just yet.

I do, however, think that if in a year we look back and haven't seen any support for classes that aren't "Essentials", then the release of Essentials will very likely be seen as the moment.

The thing to keep in mind with Happy Days is that it wasn't until some time afterward that the shark moment was identified as the start of the downslide, and right now we're too close to Essentials to be able to tell if it's the same sort of thing. It certainly has the potential to be, but it would be premature to say it is already.


----------



## S'mon (Apr 17, 2011)

the Jester said:


> D&D hasn't jumped the shark, but the recent steep decline in both quality and quantity started (imho) with the decision to pull support for the original CB and MB without adequate replacements, and after months of misleading statements about a forthcoming "update".
> 
> That said:
> 
> ...




Agreed ('must spread xp, etc') - the Essentials products are very nice, though poorly marketed, new players are still buying the PHB not HotF/K IME.  But the online situation is very much not good.


----------



## shamsael (Apr 17, 2011)

ggroy said:


> From an historical perspective, when did 3.5E D&D jump the shark?



Tome of Battle: the Book of Nine Swords


----------



## shamsael (Apr 17, 2011)

Aegeri said:


> Believe it or not yes. Just take durable. When you can freely spend your extra surges for extra attacks and damage, the vampire makes a lot of sense. Once you get to higher levels you can usually spend 2-3 surges a combat, especially if you have a good defender/controller. While you will lose surges to damage, the regeneration at bloodied and ability to heal by using an allies surge are pretty solid. You also have enough surges that a skill challenge or trap won't bother you.
> 
> I'm not kidding that durable makes the vampire from a fragile glass cannon that can fall over from a single bad trap/skill challenge, into a really interesting and fun class to play. It's just that simple as writing "1st Feat: Durable" on your character sheet. By paragon tier you'll end up with 5 surges and with the Vampire Noble (IIRC) you can use blood drain 3x an encounter for 3 extra surges. 4 surges gets you through their very harsh early game and 5 surges + 3 potential extra (or 2 if you go the other PP) has you sitting very pretty. The other thing is the more freely you can spend surges, the more you keep up with actually performing a striker role. A vampire without spending surges is chronically behind on damage - so if you can spend surges more freely you can really keep up pretty effectively. It's somewhat paradoxical actually in this manner: You can't afford to have too low surges in case a trap/skill challenge comes in from nowhere but you need to be able to reliably burn surges to keep up with other strikers damage wise. I actually think it's a very interesting tactical situation and is why while I dislike the core design of the vampire, in play it has more than enough merit for me that I'd love to see a PC play it.
> 
> ...




I think they did see this in playtest.  The class description tells you to get durable.  I think giving the vampire 2 surges and highly recommending durable was just friendlier than saying the vampire gets 4 surges and no feat at level 1.


----------



## Ourph (Apr 17, 2011)

Mummolus said:


> I do, however, think that if in a year we look back and haven't seen any support for classes that aren't "Essentials", then the release of Essentials will very likely be seen as the moment.



_Heroes of Shadow_ contains plenty of support for classes from PHBI (Wizard and Cleric spring immediately to mind), so I guess we're safe. Whew! That was a close one.


----------



## Matt James (Apr 17, 2011)

The entire argument was set up with a statement that WotC is in shambles. It sets the tone before the premise of the argument is made. 

ugh...


----------



## Tony Vargas (Apr 17, 2011)

I assume that what the OP meant by 'WotC D&D' is simply D&D over the period that it's been owned by WotC, since the late 90s sometime.

D&D, on the whole, may have jumped the shark with Planescape, or, perhaps most compellingly, _when it was acquired by the company that invented M:tG._

For me 4e took the plunge into waters it shouldn't have with the PH3.


----------



## Mummolus (Apr 17, 2011)

Ourph said:


> _Heroes of Shadow_ contains plenty of support for classes from PHBI (Wizard and Cleric spring immediately to mind), so I guess we're safe. Whew! That was a close one.



Right, and when we see _anything_ for Runepriest, Seeker, Artificer, or even new builds that aren't "subclasses", then I'll agree with you. Why not try to contribute something in the meantime?


----------



## Matt James (Apr 17, 2011)

Mummolus said:


> Right, and when we see _anything_ for Runepriest, Seeker, Artificer, or even new builds that aren't "subclasses", then I'll agree with you. Why not try to contribute something in the meantime?




Was your last sentence to in response to that poster, or to WotC?


----------



## ppaladin123 (Apr 17, 2011)

Try to separate the game from the business. 4e might be a wonderful game but the decisions WotC has made and the problems that have plagued their recent endeavors do not bode well for their business. I think the system has all sorts of ways to continue to grow and stay fresh. Whether the d&d division at WotC will survive to make them is another story.


----------



## Dice4Hire (Apr 17, 2011)

Ourph said:


> _Heroes of Shadow_ contains plenty of support for classes from PHBI (Wizard and Cleric spring immediately to mind), so I guess we're safe. Whew! That was a close one.




If your entire PHBI, II, III experience is clerics and wizards, then I guess you are right.


----------



## Tony Vargas (Apr 17, 2011)

Ourph said:


> _Heroes of Shadow_ contains plenty of support for classes from PHBI (Wizard and Cleric spring immediately to mind), so I guess we're safe. Whew! That was a close one.



Nope, it contains support for the Warpriest and Mage.  It's just that a Cleric or Wizard can use most of it, too.


----------



## Keefe the Thief (Apr 17, 2011)

billd91 said:


> From my point of view, as a D&D player since 1981, D&D jumped the shark when it became clear 4e was going to be so much of a transformation. It's like when Sam had sex with Diane on Cheers. A central dynamic of the show changed - as had several central dynamics of the game in 4e. And in both cases, the change was made to increase the customer base - ratings for Cheers, players for D&D. But for customers/viewers like me, too much is lost and the game/show enters a decline.
> 
> I fully accept that whether or not something has jumped the shark is subjective. You may not agree, but for me 4e's design is what sent D&D over the shark.




Phew, that was close. I thought this thread (which is about internal shark-jumping in 4e) lacked at least one post that encased the whole edition with sharky borders. 
While it does add nothing to the discussion at hand, it is somewhat of a tradition to say that [edition +1] jumped the shark when [edition +0] ended. It's "there is only one Highlander movie" all over again.


----------



## Stormonu (Apr 17, 2011)

ggroy said:


> From an historical perspective, when did 3.5E D&D jump the shark?




I wouldn't say "jumped the shark", so much as "I got off the bus because it wasn't going to my destination".  And that was somewhere around DMG 2/PHB 2.  By the time 4E rolled around, I just wasn't interested in keeping up.

4E Essentials seems to been a shift as well.  As I understood it, it was supposed to be a subsection to bring in new players and "Classic" support would be resumed after the Essential products were out.  Instead, I get the sense future releases will be built on Essentials roots, while "Classic" 4E will be slowly and quietly retired.


----------



## TarionzCousin (Apr 17, 2011)

I think it was when they lost "Fonzie" [MENTION=51773]Scott_Rouse[/MENTION]. 

They can't jump the shark without Fonzie, right?


----------



## Derulbaskul (Apr 17, 2011)

shamsael said:


> (snip)DDi is better than it's ever been,  (snip)




I'm sorry, I can accept the other arguments you make but this is simply wrong.

DDi sucks.

Sorry to put it so bluntly. I mean, look at this month. We're halfway through the month and we have one two- or three-page article (_Eye on the Realms_, so not exactly what the non-FR fans are looking for). By the end of the month we'll have, what?, nearly a whole adventure in _Dungeon_?

DDi is better if you go back in time to when there was a functioning Monster Builder etc... and _Dungeon_ and _Dragon_ both had content.

@OP: While I agree with some of your comments in your original post, I don't think _jumping the shark_ was the right phrase/meme to use.

Apropos of nothing, I just want the Monster Builder to work, the Compendium to be updated and I will forget everything else. One of the things I have learnt from 12 years in Singapore is how to lower my expectations so as to avoid disappointment.


----------



## UngeheuerLich (Apr 17, 2011)

But the free content we get is getting better and better...


----------



## Goonalan (Apr 17, 2011)

I DM three campaigns at the moment, PC Levels 14, 8 and 5- I have enough stuff (adventures & crunch) as it stands to play all three through to 30th Level, and all three groups are having masses of fun- D&D (IMHO) has never been better, it's like a second childhood for me- loads of players, easy to teach to others, and... I'd better stop now in case I jinx it.

Jump the shark- I'd never heard the expression before today.

WOTC are just plain crazy, although that's an outsiders POV of course- I just can't get my head around some of the things they are doing. I bought 4e on the back of the VTT and various DDi stuff- none of this has come to pass for me- I have every printed issue of Dungeon and approx. 75% of Dragon- I've not read either of the electronic versions for a year. The CB seems okay at the moment- the MB is just incredily frustrating.

WOTC seem to start doing something, second guess themselves and wander off in a different direction and try something else- leaving islands of ideas that are not quite finished yet. It's all playable but it seems to be directionless at times, Like they don't know what's going to work anymore- or else someone up high is telling them if this doesn't sell then... it's like someone in Hasbro has suddenly turned a light on an discovered an office full of guys goofing off and having fun with odd-shaped dice. Don't get me wrong they work hard but it's like they've been left to their own devices up until now- or at least I hope its this. 

The alternative is they really don't know which direction they are heading with 4e, what will work, what will fail- or even have any new ideas (and people to produce things- like DDi content, like a CB that does..., like a MB that works, like a VTT that does what they said- and connects to the other stuff). Three years (nearly in) and the transition to an electronic game (that is mostly what they are doing right?) is still mostly a great idea.

No sharks were jumped.

It's still a great game, I just wish the stuff they produced (DDi) just did what I want it to do- and seemingly what they want/said it would do.


----------



## Mirtek (Apr 17, 2011)

shamsael said:


> DDi is better than it's ever been,



 You mean beside the CB being a joke and the mags being reduced to mere leaflets? Well, that still leaves DDI with, ehm, ....


OnlineDM said:


> The new Builder is generally fine for my purposes, but I'm sad to realize how much worse it still is than the old Builder (except that it has updated material).



 Which is only one goole search away for the old bulider


----------



## Mercurius (Apr 17, 2011)

I'm going to write a general response as there are just too many specific points to address.

I have to admit, I used "jump the shark" because I think it is an amusing phrase. I can agree that it might not be the most appropriate analogy, but nor do I think it is completely misplaced. As someone pointed out, it just may be too soon to tell. 

In that regard, there has been a lot of misunderstanding--as usual--based upon holding too tightly to the letter of the law rather than the spirit. As TerraDave put it, "_something_ has been up." WotC has been steering a wobbling ship - with an unclear course, perhaps because of confusion within the company as to the best direction to take. Does this mean they have jumped the shark with D&D? Maybe, maybe not. But at the least many have observed that they have been flailing a bit over the last eight months or so, and that this means _something. _

Furthermore, ppaladin123 aptly clarified what I mean by "WotC D&D" and why I used that instead of 4E. I knew this would be a problem, which is why I tried (and evidently failed) to clarify what I meant in the last paragraph of the original post. Let me clarify, again: *I am not talking about 4E - that is, the game itself, or how it plays at the table.* I am talking about how WotC has handled it, the business and brand name in its current iteration (and I'm not talking about older editions that WotC has published). 

I love 4E the game - I think it is the best version of D&D so far, at least in terms of game design and combat, if not in terms of story and setting elements. But, as I tried to communicate in the original post, it is that the way WotC has _handled _4E, especially since Fall of 2010, that has been hugely problematic, and thus when I talk about "WotC D&D jumping the shark I am talking about the company itself, or rather the brand group within the company and the direction they are steering the ship. This is _not _the same thing as the game or how it plays at the table.

So again, I'm not saying that _4E the game _jumped the shark, but that WotC's D&D brand group _may _have, in terms how their handling of the game and the direction they've been going in terms of community and products.


----------



## malraux (Apr 17, 2011)

I'll freely grant that WotC has seemed directionless for quite a while.  I'll be surprised if they convince me to purchase much more from them in the next year.

As a nitpick though, jumping the shark is about picking a new direction not losing the map.  IMO, WotC has been rudderless for a while. 

edit: Yay for mixed metaphors!


----------



## Fifth Element (Apr 17, 2011)

Derulbaskul said:


> I'm sorry, I can accept the other arguments you make but this is simply wrong.



Considering the argument is one based purely on personal tastes, then it can't be wrong. Some people do seem to find DDI better now than it ever was. You can assume they're lying, but unless you do their tastes cannot simply br brushed off as being wrong.

You might find DDI now worse than it's ever been. But since there's no objective standard for goodness, I think we're better off not telling people that their tastes are wrong, even if more people agree with you than agree with them.


----------



## malraux (Apr 17, 2011)

Fifth Element said:


> Considering the argument is one based purely on personal tastes, then it can't be wrong. Some people do seem to find DDI better now than it ever was. You can assume they're lying, but unless you do their tastes cannot simply br brushed off as being wrong.
> 
> You might find DDI now worse than it's ever been. But since there's no objective standard for goodness, I think we're better off not telling people that their tastes are wrong, even if more people agree with you than agree with them.




No, but there are objective standards for capacity.  There's a pretty good case that the new CB is less capable than the old one.  Moreover, there's a solid case that the monster builder is worse currently than it was before the buggy update.

Now the current quality of the magazines might outweigh that in determining which is better, but there are reasonably objective ways to measure the old vs the new.


----------



## shamsael (Apr 17, 2011)

Dice4Hire said:


> If your entire PHBI, II, III experience is clerics and wizards, then I guess you are right.




Well, considering we already have TWO martial power books, I would say the Cleric, Warlock, Wizard and Paladin were the most neglected PHB1 classes.  Funny that HoS just happened to support all four of those.


----------



## shamsael (Apr 17, 2011)

Fifth Element said:


> Considering the argument is one based purely on personal tastes, then it can't be wrong. Some people do seem to find DDI better now than it ever was. You can assume they're lying, but unless you do their tastes cannot simply br brushed off as being wrong.
> 
> You might find DDI now worse than it's ever been. But since there's no objective standard for goodness, I think we're better off not telling people that their tastes are wrong, even if more people agree with you than agree with them.




I'm not really worried about it since he did say he agreed with everything else I said.  I knew my DDI stance was "controversial" (or as controversial as D&D fans on the internet deserve to get), and I would have tucked it into the middle of the post or left it out entirely if I wasn't responding point-for-point to the original post.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred (Apr 17, 2011)

From my perspective D&D has been around for 37 years now (and I guess I've been playing it pretty much all that time with a few breaks). There have been times when the game has changed directions somewhat, times when the owners have sort of drifted along, times when they have been highly energetic, times when they've put out high quality stuff, and times when they've put out lower quality stuff or less stuff. The game has continued to exist in all of these various times and has always fulfilled its basic purpose. 

I just don't see where it is today as a big deal one way or the other. In fact I think overall it is in a pretty good place. The existing edition of the game is very solid, there's a LOT of material supporting it, and that material is mostly pretty high quality. Beyond that the game has actually advanced pretty rapidly overall into the digital realm. WotC moved a very big leap forward with 4e and DDI. Looking at it from any kind of wide perspective this has been quite remarkable. 4e itself is only 3 years old, same for DDI. In the perspective of 37 years of D&D this is a relatively short period of time. Even if we put the worst possible spin on where WotC is right now I just don't see it as a big deal. D&D is strong. D&D will continue. D&D will continue to evolve. Maybe some of the things being done with it now are dead ends. So what? People get way too focused on whatever is happening this month or this year and lose perspective on the big picture. Heck, any of you would have peed your pants to have the DDI we have right now today 5 years ago. Quit comparing things to hypotheticals that have never existed. It is a niche product. We can all dream of what the possibilities would be in a grand fantasy world where D&D had a zillion bucks to spend to do everything everyone could possibly dream of. It never has been that way and it never will be.

Beyond that how much of an actual difference does it make to people playing the game what is going on in WotC HQ right now? We all have plenty of good solid 4e material to use and some very nice and convenient online tools. If they spend a year or two slacking off some and releasing stuff you're not that interested in, well it isn't the first time that's happened and we all just kept on enjoying our games. All the angst just seems not worth it to me. I just don't care. I'm going to keep running my games. I have better stuff than I have ever had before overall and I could hardly be happier. Sure it is fun to nitpick the latest splatbook or whatever, but in the long run none of that matters much. 

D&D jumped the shark, there is no shark.


----------



## Dragonblade (Apr 17, 2011)

Personally, I think the phrase "jumped the shark" has jumped the shark. Its an internet meme that was clever once but now its become tired and cliche. 

As far as 4e goes, I do myself drifting away from it due to increasing frustration over some of WotC's moves to consolidate everything online. I don't want an online RPG thats stuck behind a paywall. I want to buy a solid line of hardcovers that support a tabletop game that doesn't require an internet connection or a subscription to play. But overall I feel the game itself is pretty solid. But unless WotC starts putting out more hardcovers like Heroes of Shadow, I'm not really spending anymore money. I already own all the 4e books and am pretty satisfied with that collection. If 5e goes completely online, then I probably won't follow.

I like what Paizo is doing with Pathfinder at least in terms of keeping the torch alive for old school tabletop play. But there are elements of 3.5 design that I wish they would jettison. Still, I find myself buying their books more and more frequently, mostly because unlike 4e books which are pretty dry, the Pathfinder books are enjoyable to read in their own right even if I don't play.


----------



## Ampersand999 (Apr 17, 2011)

The problem it seems to me is that Wizards of the Coast's situation isn't jumping sharks. It's more like is that the light at the end of the tunnel or an on coming train?

By the way, from a business perspective, Hasbro had its quarterly 10-K report last week. And it missed the general "Street" consensus of estimates. How much of it came from Wizards we'll probably never know, but I fully expect more firings, cuts, and possible spin-off until the bottom line improves for Hasbro. And where the problems are, that's where the cuts will continue. So is Wizards a liability for Hasbro? _That's_ the question.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred (Apr 17, 2011)

Ampersand999 said:


> The problem it seems to me is that Wizards of the Coast's situation isn't jumping sharks. It's more like is that the light at the end of the tunnel or an on coming train?
> 
> By the way, from a business perspective, Hasbro had its quarterly 10-K report last week. And it missed the general "Street" consensus of estimates. How much of it came from Wizards we'll probably never know, but I fully expect more firings, cuts, and possible spin-off until the bottom line improves for Hasbro. And where the problems are, that's where the cuts will continue. So is Wizards a liability for Hasbro? _That's_ the question.




Without knowing the performance of the unit that 4e is part of we have no way of knowing. OTOH Hasbro is a big company and they may not see massive cutting as the proper response, and they have resources to avoid doing that if they don't want to. 

Remember, Hasbro is the type of company that, while they have many perennial products, is used to constantly investing in its properties, creating new things, etc. Toys go in and out of fashion constantly. They may well not be terribly quick to disband R&D groups that are going to provide what sells next Christmas, even if they have to operate in the red for a while. They are more likely to look carefully at the management of groups where they missed having a good return last year and asking if those groups are working on the right thing.

So, it might mean changes in 4e group's management, but unless they suddenly decide the whole product is hopeless, can't make money, and not worth supporting anymore it is likely that overall things won't change a lot (they are already cut down a lot from 3 years ago after all). They might just change the product mix for 4e. In fact oddly enough, they already seem to have done that...

I'll take a wild guess and say that not much will change in 4e land until 2012, but that they may be doing less ambitious projects and consolidating things. So DDI will probably get a lot of attention, but we probably won't see a bunch of other print products announced. Maybe one or two, but they won't go back to 2009's crazy release schedule. Nor will they go back and start releasing more Power * books.


----------



## Mercurius (Apr 17, 2011)

AbdulAlhazred said:


> D&D jumped the shark, there is no shark.




I appreciate your "Zen" attitude, Abdul, but don't confuse being interested in a topic with freaking out about it or taking it personally. Ultimately, yeah, it doesn't really matter - I have a whole bookshelf of RPG materials, more than enough for a lifetime, and if not I can always create what I want. I started this thread, and other threads of a similar nature, because it is interesting to me and I enjoy "state of the industry" conversations.



Ampersand999 said:


> The problem it seems to me is that Wizards of the Coast's situation isn't jumping sharks. It's more like is that the light at the end of the tunnel or an on coming train?
> 
> By the way, from a business perspective, Hasbro had its quarterly 10-K report last week. And it missed the general "Street" consensus of estimates. How much of it came from Wizards we'll probably never know, but I fully expect more firings, cuts, and possible spin-off until the bottom line improves for Hasbro. And where the problems are, that's where the cuts will continue. So is Wizards a liability for Hasbro? _That's_ the question.




Good point. It just goes to show you: never make Faustian bargains .



AbdulAlhazred said:


> I'll take a wild guess and say that not much will change in 4e land until 2012, but that they may be doing less ambitious projects and consolidating things. So DDI will probably get a lot of attention, but we probably won't see a bunch of other print products announced. Maybe one or two, but they won't go back to 2009's crazy release schedule. Nor will they go back and start releasing more Power * books.




I think this is right on. They seem like they're in a bit of a holding pattern, either because they are developing something big and new (5E, a major renovation of DDI, etc), or because they are trying to determine what direction to take; probably both.


----------



## malraux (Apr 17, 2011)

FWIW, they have been working to churn out a fair amount of product, just not the traditional products we're used to.  The board games have pulled some resources, the VTT is taking some resources, etc.

Now, for me, I'm somewhat in favor of this.  The books for me have a strong diminishing utility.  I won't buy another power book, PHB, or item book.  I might get more setting books, but maybe not.  So they either try to sell stuff to fewer and fewer people, or work on expanding the brand in some way without new books.


----------



## Herschel (Apr 17, 2011)

Which is a good way to look at it except it doesn't account for predictions of armageddon.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred (Apr 17, 2011)

Mercurius said:


> I appreciate your "Zen" attitude, Abdul, but don't confuse being interested in a topic with freaking out about it or taking it personally. Ultimately, yeah, it doesn't really matter - I have a whole bookshelf of RPG materials, more than enough for a lifetime, and if not I can always create what I want. I started this thread, and other threads of a similar nature, because it is interesting to me and I enjoy "state of the industry" conversations.




Yeah, I think I would enjoy them more if I had some real numbers, or some level of view into what the different companies are thinking and up to. It is fun to think about, but then no new insight really appears. Not that we all don't try, there's just nothing to go on.



> I think this is right on. They seem like they're in a bit of a holding pattern, either because they are developing something big and new (5E, a major renovation of DDI, etc), or because they are trying to determine what direction to take; probably both.




Yeah, my idea is it isn't a big new project because they really did get cut back at the end of '09 pretty hard. If they were really working on 5e I don't think they have the staff for that. I also think it would be a terrible business idea and I figure they're smarter than me, so I figure they won't make a terrible mistake, lol. 

Mostly, I think they sold 4e to Hasbro as a big deal and Hasbro directed as much resources their way as they could use. The result was a good product but they mismanaged the digital side of it at first, the economy started to tank, and 4e didn't sit so well with some of the fan base. I think it IS successful, but I kind of suspect the managers that were running things at that time got in deep because they had a lot of rope (yay more mixed metaphores). By the end of '09 corporate's patience had worn thin, they cut them back severely and told them to refocus, replaced some of the management, etc. Since then they've been moving ahead as much and fast as they can with what they have, but basically you've got a small crew that has been told to do both 4e and related board game products etc, Encounters, AND hammer out a lot of major DDI improvements. They're just plain under resourced and trying to work out how to get the work of 30 people done with 12.


----------



## Gryph (Apr 17, 2011)

Not to be snarky (well too snarky), the ramp was built and shark penned with the decision to make everything core that is published in DDI and supplements. The boat wasn't fired up until PHB3 and the racial books for Dragonborn and Tieflings. 

For me, PHB3 marked the last book I bought from WoTC sight unseen. I have purchased a fair amount of material since, but not all, and every quarter of the release schedule I purchase less. Honestly, the new player options are so increasingly niche in their appeal I feel the price/performance ratio is seriously lacking (insert disclaimer about opinion, etc...).


----------



## Fifth Element (Apr 18, 2011)

malraux said:


> No, but there are objective standards for capacity.  There's a pretty good case that the new CB is less capable than the old one.  Moreover, there's a solid case that the monster builder is worse currently than it was before the buggy update.



Sure, but capacity is not the only aspect of goodness here. Depending on how much value you place on capacity as opposed to some other aspect, you arrive at different aggregate values.

Some aspects can be objectively measured, I'm sure. But not all, and that leads us back to personal preference.


----------



## Dice4Hire (Apr 18, 2011)

Gryph said:


> For me, PHB3 marked the last book I bought from WoTC sight unseen. I have purchased a fair amount of material since, but not all, and every quarter of the release schedule I purchase less. Honestly, the new player options are so increasingly niche in their appeal I feel the price/performance ratio is seriously lacking (insert disclaimer about opinion, etc...).




All core was a terrible idea, I agree.

As for books, I, too, am very leery of new ones, and I hate to  be.

i would love to be looking forward to an elemental-themed (for example) PHBIV in a month or two.

I would buy it in a heartbeat.

But WOTC is printing all niche stuff. 

HOS is too niche. Yes, it has some good stuff, but going for the evil side of characters and being essentials drove me off. The rest of the year is pretty niche also. Like Neverwinter. It is FR, and might be quite good, but making it neverwinter has a chance of driving off customers (though it might attract the FR people, too. 

I jsut htink we need to go back for mroe genral appeal.


----------



## TheUltramark (Apr 18, 2011)

Derulbaskul said:


> *Apropos of nothing, I just want the Monster Builder to work, the Compendium to be updated and I will forget everything else*. One of the things I have learnt from 12 years in Singapore is how to lower my expectations so as to avoid disappointment.





Again, I apologize for not being up to speed with the rest of this, but what is a "monster builder".  Also, would mm1,2&3 on pdf be considered a compendium?


----------



## Derulbaskul (Apr 18, 2011)

TheUltramark said:


> Again, I apologize for not being up to speed with the rest of this, but what is a "monster builder".  Also, would mm1,2&3 on pdf be considered a compendium?




The Monster Builder exists in two forms:

- There was an offline version that worked very well for about a year until a patch released at the time of MMIII crippled it somewhat. It's still better than the online piece of junk. It is called Adventure Tools Classic on the WotC website.
- There is now an online version that doesn't let you build monsters or do much else. Utter rubbish.

Both can be found on this page: Dungeons & Dragons Roleplaying Game Official Home Page - Tool (D&D Adventure Tools)

The Compendium rocks. It's the only part of DDi that doesn't simply blow chunks. It basically compiles everything (feats, powers, classes, monsters) for 4E. It can be found here: Dungeons & Dragons Compendium

You can search on the Compendium without a subscription but you cannot see the full results. 

As much as I think WotC has completely stuffed up almost everything related to DDi, I will say the Compendium is simply outstanding.


----------



## Eridanis (Apr 18, 2011)

Moved to RPG Industry forum.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred (Apr 18, 2011)

Gryph said:


> Not to be snarky (well too snarky), the ramp was built and shark penned with the decision to make everything core that is published in DDI and supplements. The boat wasn't fired up until PHB3 and the racial books for Dragonborn and Tieflings.
> 
> For me, PHB3 marked the last book I bought from WoTC sight unseen. I have purchased a fair amount of material since, but not all, and every quarter of the release schedule I purchase less. Honestly, the new player options are so increasingly niche in their appeal I feel the price/performance ratio is seriously lacking (insert disclaimer about opinion, etc...).




It is just kind of inevitable. After you put out all the 927 options for each core class and every which possible way of combining them all together, and every race anyone has ever heard of (plus a few), then you're kinda pretty much left with niche...

4e just burned through all the permutations FAST. I think they felt that with OGL 3.x still lurching around out there unkillable they had to whip 4e right up to a comparable level of completeness very quickly. Thus in 3 years flat they've practically covered every mainstream option that any reasonable player will ever need.

Could they have an elemental power source? Yeah, but what actually would it do that is really genuinely new? What character from myth, legend, or literature can't you make already that it would provide you with the ability to do. Are some hair splittingly minor variations of existing mechanics really enough to make something like that unique?

Honestly I think the main problem with 4e is they simply went too fast. Less is more, but we only got MORE MORE MORE. Of course it is slowing down now, how could it NOT??!!


----------



## BryonD (Apr 18, 2011)

Agreeing with shark anologies aside....

WotC is just a bit schizophrenic right now.  That's all.

They had a great plan to massively increase their fan base.  It did not work.  Their fan base got smaller.  

The best thing they can do right now is dance with the one the brung'em and work with the strengths they have.

The second worst thing they can do right now is reverse course and put trying to get lost fans back in front of focusing on the the desires of the 4E fan base.

The worst thing they can do right now is keep second guessing themselves and swinging back and forth.

They are doing the latter.


----------



## Gryph (Apr 18, 2011)

AbdulAlhazred said:


> It is just kind of inevitable. After you put out all the 927 options for each core class and every which possible way of combining them all together, and every race anyone has ever heard of (plus a few), then you're kinda pretty much left with niche...
> 
> 4e just burned through all the permutations FAST. I think they felt that with OGL 3.x still lurching around out there unkillable they had to whip 4e right up to a comparable level of completeness very quickly. Thus in 3 years flat they've practically covered every mainstream option that any reasonable player will ever need.
> 
> ...




I agree with all of this. There were a couple of early publishing/layout decisions that I think forced them into the hurried early pace. Splitting out some of the iconic races/classes/monsters from the first three books. I'm looking at you Gnome/Bards/Giants.

I also think WoTC's aversion to setting support and adventures contributed. Two books and a smallish adventure for each setting is very sparse. I think some additional gazeteer style soft-backs and more adventures would have sold well enough to be mildly profitable, kept interest high and allowed for some space between the core hardbacks.

I don't think it is too late to add to the print schedule with some of the types of materials they skipped with this edition. I think there are still a lot of FR, Eberron and Dark Sun fans out there.


----------



## Mark CMG (Apr 18, 2011)

billd91 said:


> From my point of view, as a D&D player since 1981, D&D jumped the shark when it became clear 4e was going to be so much of a transformation. It's like when Sam had sex with Diane on Cheers. A central dynamic of the show changed - as had several central dynamics of the game in 4e. And in both cases, the change was made to increase the customer base - ratings for Cheers, players for D&D. But for customers/viewers like me, too much is lost and the game/show enters a decline.





Does that mean Essentials = Kirstie Alley/Rules Bloat?


----------



## billd91 (Apr 18, 2011)

Mark CMG said:


> Does that mean Essentials = Kirstie Alley/Rules Bloat?




Maybe in the sense that Essentials is an attempt to produce a 4e more palatable to previous edition fans - as Kirstie Alley's character Rebecca brought in another chance for there to be an unconsummated sexual tension dynamic between Sam and another woman.

But out of respect for the once slim and sexy new actress who landed an intimidating part playing in a Star Trek movie (by the far the best of them), I'm going to consider any digs at her weight like the bloat comment to be pretty tasteless.


----------



## delericho (Apr 18, 2011)

Mercurius said:


> Is there any denying that WotC D&D is in shambles, or borderline shambles?




Yep. There seems to be plenty of denying it.

I'm not even sure I agree with it myself - sure, things are clearly not quite right over there, but that may be nothing more than the effect of WotC changing direction while we watch, rather than an actual crisis.



> But I'm wondering is this: at what point did things really begin to go down hill?




In my opinion, WotC (and D&D) has been on a downhill slope since 2006. Now, 2006 was an _outstanding_ year - lots of really good product. But since then... not so good.

For me, the watershed product was "Scourge of the Howling Horde", which was a truly woeful 3.5e module. Fortunately, WotC seem to have avoided producing anything _quite_ so bad since then, at least in print. Although a Monster Builder that doesn't actually build monsters, but only levels them up (incorrectly) would seem to match it quite handily...



> So what do you think? When did WotC D&D jump the shark? _Has _it jumped the shark at all, in your view?




Maybe, maybe not. We'll probably know either way by the end of the year.


----------



## ggroy (Apr 18, 2011)

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Yeah, my idea is it isn't a big new project because they really did get cut back at the end of '09 pretty hard. If they were really working on 5e I don't think they have the staff for that.




In principle they can "outsourced" the design and development of 5E D&D to outside contractors.  (How likely they would have done this, is another question). 



AbdulAlhazred said:


> I also think it would be a terrible business idea and I figure they're smarter than me, so I figure they won't make a terrible mistake, lol.




I would be more inclined to believe that many large companies function more like Dilbert.


----------



## ggroy (Apr 18, 2011)

Gryph said:


> I also think WoTC's aversion to setting support and adventures contributed. Two books and a smallish adventure for each setting is very sparse.




Perhaps publishing adventures as "Dungeon Magazine" DDI articles, is more cost effective for them than publishing them in paper book/module format?


----------



## DaveMage (Apr 18, 2011)

When WotC's D&D drops off of ICv2's Top 5 RPG list, then there will cause for concern.

Until then, D&D seems to be doing just fine.  They were top sales for Q4 in December, and tons of people have a DDI subscription.  The fact that they are bringing the character builder online and still creating the VTT says to me that the game is still going strong.  If they were to cancel the VTT and or sections of the DDI, that would send a much different message.

They've separated the design team (thus cut the RPG staff in half), so expenses for the RPG should be down.


----------



## Blue (Apr 18, 2011)

shamsael said:


> DDi is better than it's ever been, we're finally getting progress on the VTT, and Heroes of Shadow is at least as good as Martial Power 2 (though neither are as good as MP1, DP, PrP, AP, PsP).  I can't believe more people aren't talking about the Paladin Striker build, and if anyone still thinks Essentials is supposed to be an easier, dumbed down D&D, then they really need to read the Assassin Executioner.
> 
> [...]
> 
> The online character builder is a much better choice for a lot of reasons.  While I understand some people are upset because they can no longer gain full access to the character builder and all of the new powers by occasionally renewing their DDi subscription and downloading a patch, I think these people should feel greatful that they got to steal D&D for as long as they did without consequence.




I respectfully disagree.  I paid and continue to pay for yearly subscriptions, so I don't fall into your "steal D&D" category.  Let's look:

Online character builder finally is getting to the point where it can handle my active characters without too many handwritten notes.  Inherent bonuses they've added, but I can't even put a net my character picked up in his inventory because he's not proficient with it - even though the rules explicitly allow using non-proficient weapons.  General poor interface (inventory/shopping I'm looking at you), lack of custom equipment and feats, space-wasting character sheets.  20 character maximum.  Oh, and I can't use it without an internet connection, like during lunch before a game.  Factually, this is worse.

Monster Builder does not allow you to build monsters.  Factually, this is worse.  Much worse.

Dragon and Dungeon have been putting out less content, no longer put out a monthly schedule, no longer do compilations, and are spotty about letting you know if an article is complete with edits done (or no edits forthcoming).  Factually, this is worse.

Compendium has moved to a new format, and doesn't change your category when you search.  This are both objective changes, but I prefer them.  Compendium has improved.

VTT is having a beta.  I am not part of it so I can't objectively rate it.  /For me/, I play tabletop so it doesn't add anything, but I can see that it could add for others.  This is factually better because it adds something that wasn't in DDI before.  How it compares to iPlay (?) and the other 3rd party sites that do exist I can't say.


----------



## Gryph (Apr 18, 2011)

ggroy said:


> Perhaps publishing adventures as "Dungeon Magazine" DDI articles, is more cost effective for them than publishing them in paper book/module format?





I would assume so. I'm not sure it generates more revenue. I understand the WoTC gets a pretty good revenue stream from DDi, but lets look at the marginal revenue picture.

From the number of character bullder/monster builder threads here and on other forums I'm going to hypothesize that most subscribers would be happy to pay the DDi subscription for *good* versions of those tools. For the remaining subscribers (10%?, 20%?) who *wouldn't subscribe without the magazine too* your cost consideration is an obstacle to my idea. In that they may become disgruntled at being asked to buy such material seperately if it causes a reduction in perceived value of the magazine content, and it might.

So then the question becomes, can we sell enough units of such products without losing subscribers and to make the product profitable? I think they could.


----------



## BryonD (Apr 18, 2011)

DaveMage said:


> When WotC's D&D drops off of ICv2's Top 5 RPG list, then there will cause for concern..



So you advise against any medical treatment so long as the patient is not dead?
D&D has always been *the one game*.  There has never been a really meaningful ability to comapre other games to it.  There was D&D and then you compared the rest to each other.

Now it can be as low as #5 and that doesn't mean anything?


----------



## Hussar (Apr 18, 2011)

BryonD said:


> Agreeing with shark anologies aside....
> 
> WotC is just a bit schizophrenic right now.  That's all.
> 
> ...






DaveMage said:


> /snip
> 
> They were top sales for Q4 in December, and tons of people have a DDI subscription.  The fact that they are bringing the character builder online and still creating the VTT says to me that the game is still going strong.
> 
> /snip




Hrm, how to reconcile these two points of view?  Both pretty much entirely based on anecdotes with no context.  On one hand, syaing that WOTC's fan base got smaller is a complete assumption with no factual backing, but, on the other hand, "tons of people have a DDI subscription" isn't exactly scientific either.

Guess it's back to the three blind men and an elephant time again.


----------



## pawsplay (Apr 18, 2011)

ggroy said:


> From an historical perspective, when did 3.5E D&D jump the shark?




I don't think it ever did. The game was cancelled before really reaching full maturity.


----------



## DaveMage (Apr 18, 2011)

BryonD said:


> So you advise against any medical treatment so long as the patient is not dead?
> D&D has always been *the one game*.  There has never been a really meaningful ability to comapre other games to it.  There was D&D and then you compared the rest to each other.
> 
> Now it can be as low as #5 and that doesn't mean anything?




I'm thinking in terms of $$ only - not the game itself - because I believe that's how WotC corporate will judge the game.  If the bottom line for the brand is healthy (meeting or exceeding expectations), then nothing else matters.  

Judging from the product changes (essentials, online builders, board games), the game is undergoing a shift in creative focus, but if the bottom line is still strong enough, then I doubt they're worried.  

This is also why I don't think it matters where they are in the Top 5 as long as they are in the Top 5.  Heck, IIRC, they didn't release any product in Q1, so I expect they will not be #1 or maybe even #2, but yet I fully expect them to be in the Top 5 anyway.  Should they drop out, however, is when game stores might start dropping them.  Then it becomes a problem.

Personally, I think 4E has become a schizophrenic mess between the original core, the intro set, essentials, and board games, but what I think about the game doesn't matter to the bottom line.


----------



## pawsplay (Apr 18, 2011)

As pointed out before, Happy Days went another six seasons after the shark jumping. Liking the whole run of Happy Days does not make you a bad person. Nonetheless, it would be difficult to deny that something changed in tone along the way.

I think WotC jumped the shark with D&D with _Races of the Dragon_. There were so many things wrong with that product. First, it took what started as a bit of lore in 3e ("kobolds believe they are the chosen followers of dragons, isn't that cute har har") which evolved into canon in 3.5, and in Races of the Dragon, come full to fore, with dragon-winged, definitely spawn of dragons, kobolds. Kobolds??? Seriously??? Then you have the Spellscales, which is arguably one of the least cool-looking DDM figures I can think of... and the Dragonborn. Whereas before draconic beings were typically monsters, Dragonborn were a PC-race. In addition to shifting the D&D milieu somewhat by making them a racial choice, they also emphasized a relationship with Bahamut (a platinum dragon) rather than "normal" dragons, and they were a transformed race rather than a natural one. Yet these characteristics proved to be quite superficial, as 4e proved with its monotreme dragonborn with oddly non-monotreme-mammal breasts. The book itself was created from the premise that books with "Dragon" in the title sold well, racial books sold well, and if D&D needed anything, it was more dragon. As such, the book was decidedly un-artistic. Races of the Wild may have been mediocre, but at least it was something. Races of the Dragon was little more than an attempt by the writers to redeem a cash-driven concept.

Despite the changes in specifics, Races of the Dragon began to develop some of the tropes that would come into full bloom with 4e: draconic kobolds, exotic (even transformed) races, dragons all over the place, and a hard shift away from class genre fantasy as well as baroque fantasy, and straight toward the gonzo fantasy that grew out of video games, endless FR novels, blockbuster cinema, and cross-polination with works such as Exalted and Earthdawn. Note that this transformation has little to do with what I imagine to be the financial rationale for Races of the Dragon. Rather, it has to do with the writers, unfettered from what has come before, deciding to make D&D its own thing... and its own thing, as they saw it, involved a lot of tropes I would identify as being foreign to the core of the original game. 

So, to summarize... the financial pressure to produce something with mass market appeal, combined with a gradual but noticeable shift toward a new style of fantasy, contributed ultimately to 4e and thence to the development of the line since.


----------



## Zhaleskra (Apr 18, 2011)

I feel WotC jumped the shark sometime in 3.5 when they started promoting the "treat the DM as your doormat" approach. This feeling is based on comments elsewhere the suggested the idea that WotC promoted the idea that a DM has to allow something if it's in an official source, and he or she is a bad DM for saying "no".


----------



## BlueBlackRed (Apr 18, 2011)

D&D jumped the shark when Hasbro bought them.

There have been some amazing things released since that moment, but the overall trend is downhill due to pure profit-seeking.

Pre-Hasbro WotC's goal of fixing the game and returning it to its loved status amongst us vs. Hasbro's WotC squeezing the game for every single penny it can grab.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred (Apr 18, 2011)

Hussar said:


> Hrm, how to reconcile these two points of view?  Both pretty much entirely based on anecdotes with no context.  On one hand, syaing that WOTC's fan base got smaller is a complete assumption with no factual backing, but, on the other hand, "tons of people have a DDI subscription" isn't exactly scientific either.
> 
> Guess it's back to the three blind men and an elephant time again.




There are basically a few data points we have:

1) Industry info, not quantitative, but presumably the purveyors of this information manage to sell it to someone, so it has some value... 

2) Amazon sales figures, questionable to draw too many conclusions from, but still indicative.

3) The actual WotC product releases. Hard to say exactly what they tell us, but we know that WotC is still turning out D&D stuff...

4) WotC staffing. We don't know for sure what this is, but we can at least tell when they add to or cut back from staff.

5) Size of the DDI group on the WotC boards. We know objectively this represents the lower bound on current active DDI subscribers.

1 & 2 both still put 4e in the top 5 RPGs and often in the #1 spot. 3 obvious shows they've changed focus, but equally obviously they are still releasing a decent amount of stuff. 4 appears to be unchanged for well over a year. 5 is up to 50822 members from 48k in Feb. 

I wouldn't go out far on any ice and say this all tells us exactly what is going on or that any great conclusions can be drawn, but it is pretty plain that 4e is competitive with several other RPGs, one of which is its own evil twin. Hasbro apparently feels justified in maintaining the staffing for the product and producing a reasonable amount of material even if the mix is a bit different than it was a while back. Finally it is pretty clear that DDI has a fairly steady user base that appears to probably be growing slowly over time.

Nothing I see anywhere in any of this indicates a product in some kind of collapse or death spiral. People have claimed that "Essentials tanked" but again there isn't even the slightest evidence to back that up. The product is out there in a LOT of retail outlets, which seems to have been a major objective, and it appears to remain on the shelves, unlike many of the previous hardbacks which have slowly disappeared. 

Aside from unsubstantiated statements by people that don't work for WotC and presumably don't actually have any more information than anyone on this forum D&D 4e appears to be doing OK. That could certainly be untrue or 'doing OK' could be unacceptable to the money people but AFAICT anyone claiming they know more is blowing hot air. I'm comfortable holding the opinion that the game is viable and will largely go on as it has, modulus some shifts which really are in no way unprecedented for D&D in its history.


----------



## Fifth Element (Apr 18, 2011)

BlueBlackRed said:


> Pre-Hasbro WotC's goal of fixing the game and returning it to its loved status amongst us vs. Hasbro's WotC squeezing the game for every single penny it can grab.



Is that why they spent $1 million to acquire D&D? To fix the game and return it to its former glory?

I would have thought the goal would have been to recoup the $1 million investment and earn enough profit to justify the investment in the first place.

It's easy to paint Hasbro as an evil business out only to make money, but that's no more true of them than it was of pre-Hasbro WotC, which was in fact a business out to make money.


----------



## billd91 (Apr 18, 2011)

Fifth Element said:


> Is that why they spent $1 million to acquire D&D? To fix the game and return it to its former glory?




$1 million to acquire D&D? That's an odd figure. They acquired TSR lock, stock, and barrel for $25 million (with Five Rings Publishing as well, but even with that, I'd assume TSR made up more than half with more than $1 million of that being for the value of D&D).

Sure, they'd have wanted to recoup their investment. But I don't think that would have been the goal of picking up TSR in the first place. I doubt they sat around looking for things $30 million in debt to invest in and then turn around simply on the value of the bottom line. I think they actually *did* want to return TSR's flagship RPG product to glory by making it their own flagship product in tabletop RPGs as well. 

It wasn't merely a financial investment, it was a prestige, profile-raising, and market expanding investment.


----------



## Umbran (Apr 18, 2011)

I don't think WotC D&D has "jumped the shark".

"Jumping the shark" is doing something sensational and outrageous in order to bolster perceived flagging popularity.  I don't think this has ever happened with WotC (or any other) D&D.

Putting out a new edition, to my mind, does not qualify - that isn't done to bolster flagging popularity, but to overcome the saturation issues of a niche market.


----------



## DaveMage (Apr 18, 2011)

After thinking about it some more, rather than "jumping the shark" it's more long the lines of "throw everything against the wall and see what sticks."

IMO, this edition has had more experiments in it than any other.

To Wit:

1. Spreading out the Core.  Rather than all the "traditional" stuff being in PHB1, DMG1, and MM1, they deliberately spread it out over multiple core rulebooks.

2. Defined ending.  Rather than have a game which potentially goes on forever (no level cap), 4E defined the end of the game as level 30.

3. Deleting/changing so-called "traditional" aspects of the game (Vancian magic, cosmology) and changing back a bit with Essentials.

4. Electronic "magazines".  No more print copies of Dungeon and Dragon magazines.

5. DDI.  Full support (at least, that was the initial intent) for the game using an online subscription service.

6. Essentials.  A base of evergreen products that defined the core game.  While this is similar to what was the plan with 3.0 (all supplements expect the player/DM to have the core books and that's it), Essentials has a greater number of products in the definition of "core".

7. Smaller game books.  While they may have abandoned this with their latest book, they released a number of smaller softback books.

8. Board Games.  Rather than stand alone board games that had little to do with the RPG, this time the Board Games incorporate rules of the RPG in them.

9. Collectable Cards as supplements.  Jury is still out on the popularity, and they have received mixed reviews, but this is a step in a direction that is eyebrow-raising to say the least.

10. Splitting the D&D team into RPG and "other".  While board games and the collectable cards may be part of the "other", time will tell what this "other" group produces.

If nothing else, they should have a lot of good info on what works and what doesn't for the next iteration of the game...


----------



## AbdulAlhazred (Apr 18, 2011)

billd91 said:


> $1 million to acquire D&D? That's an odd figure. They acquired TSR lock, stock, and barrel for $25 million (with Five Rings Publishing as well, but even with that, I'd assume TSR made up more than half with more than $1 million of that being for the value of D&D).
> 
> Sure, they'd have wanted to recoup their investment. But I don't think that would have been the goal of picking up TSR in the first place. I doubt they sat around looking for things $30 million in debt to invest in and then turn around simply on the value of the bottom line. I think they actually *did* want to return TSR's flagship RPG product to glory by making it their own flagship product in tabletop RPGs as well.
> 
> It wasn't merely a financial investment, it was a prestige, profile-raising, and market expanding investment.




I think both can be true. I seriously doubt WotC acquired D&D with the sole idea that it would be a feather in their cap. They did it because it was possible, it fit in with their business competency, and they figured they could recoup their investment. At the same time it certainly made them the leading company in the RPG industry and gave them a product with a lot of recognition. 

It is really impossible to say what exactly the calculations were there, but surely making an adequate return was high on the list. $30 million is a LOT of money, certainly in the RPG industry.


----------



## Fifth Element (Apr 18, 2011)

billd91 said:


> $1 million to acquire D&D? That's an odd figure. They acquired TSR lock, stock, and barrel for $25 million (with Five Rings Publishing as well, but even with that, I'd assume TSR made up more than half with more than $1 million of that being for the value of D&D).



Why do I remember a story about a $1 million cheque? Maybe it was $1 million cash plus $24 million in debt assumption?

Whatever the number was, it was still an investment.



billd91 said:


> Sure, they'd have wanted to recoup their investment. But I don't think that would have been the goal of picking up TSR in the first place. I doubt they sat around looking for things $30 million in debt to invest in and then turn around simply on the value of the bottom line. I think they actually *did* want to return TSR's flagship RPG product to glory by making it their own flagship product in tabletop RPGs as well.



Yes, but why did they want to do it? Was it out of the goodness of their hearts? Or did they have the same motive that all business have: in the long run, to make money?



billd91 said:


> It wasn't merely a financial investment, it was a prestige, profile-raising, and market expanding investment.



What good are prestige, a raised profile and an expanded market to a business? Increased profits, that's what.


----------



## billd91 (Apr 18, 2011)

Fifth Element said:


> What good are prestige, a raised profile and an expanded market to a business? Increased profits, that's what.




I think that's cart before the horse mentality. Why does a gamer get into the game publishing biz? To make tons of money? It's my understanding that's rare. They do it because they think they can turn their interests and passions into income-making enterprises.

If it were just about making money or growing the bottom line, I'm sure they could find more effective ways of doing so than publishing games. But they choose to do so in the gaming realm and that says they want to do something more than just increase their profits. They want to do it in a particular way and with particular types of products.

There certainly are businesspeople who do think to do just about anything they can in order to increase profits. It's how you get huge corporations like  Philip Morris with tentacles in all sorts of non-tobacco-related industries. But companies on a smaller scale usually focus on a particular type of product or competency because that's what segment their directors want to serve. Acquiring TSR couldn't have been WotC's best way of increasing their profits. But I think it was seen as a great way to grow the company in a particular way, serving a particular set of customers, satisfying a particular set of their directors' passions, and picking up a particular mind share among consumers. While those might have also had the benefit of increasing their profits, I doubt that was the primary reason.


----------



## BryonD (Apr 18, 2011)

Hussar said:


> Guess it's back to the three blind men and an elephant time again.



Maybe.  Or maybe we know something you don't.


----------



## nedjer (Apr 18, 2011)

D&D has never been so colourfully-see-through-head before


----------



## Fifth Element (Apr 18, 2011)

billd91 said:


> I think that's cart before the horse mentality. Why does a gamer get into the game publishing biz? To make tons of money? It's my understanding that's rare. They do it because they think they can turn their interests and passions into income-making enterprises.



If they spent $25 million to acquire TSR, we're well beyond talking about people creating income from their passions. That is, if they had the ability to invest $25 million, we're not talking about things in the same universe.



billd91 said:


> Acquiring TSR couldn't have been WotC's best way of increasing their profits.



We have no way of knowing if this is true, and considering the business they were already in it might well be false.



billd91 said:


> But I think it was seen as a great way to grow the company in a particular way, serving a particular set of customers, satisfying a particular set of their directors' passions, and picking up a particular mind share among consumers. While those might have also had the benefit of increasing their profits, I doubt that was the primary reason.



If you're the director of a company with hundreds of employees, you don't have the freedom to squander $25 million on satisfying your passions. If the business case doesn't make sense (ie, sufficient future profits to justify the investment) then you don't do it. Peter Adkinson is clearly not a bad businessman.

There is nothing inherently wrong or dirty with the pursuit of profit. My initial response was to Hasbro being painted as filthy money-grubbers, while previously the game had been published for the sake of the game. That's naive.

For instance, here's a quote from Mr. Adkinson about publishing 3E (from the "30 Years of Adventure" book): _"Obviously, we [Wizards] had a strong economic incentive for publishing a  new edition; sales for any product line tend to spike when a new  edition comes out, assuming the new edition is an improvement over the  first. And given the change in ownership we thought this would be an  excellent opportunity for WotC to 'put its stamp on D&D.'"_


----------



## AbdulAlhazred (Apr 18, 2011)

BryonD said:


> Maybe.  Or maybe we know something you don't.




Or vice versa. While I'm sure there are people with more or less knowledge around it is also quite obvious that nobody outside of WotC knows much and even ex-employees take their NDA's quite seriously. 

In any case lots of people claim to know lots of things. Maybe a few of them do, but like any rational person I go by evidence that I can reasonably attribute as accurate. You'd have to explain in a credible way how you know more than the rest of us before I would take it into account.


----------



## ggroy (Apr 18, 2011)

AbdulAlhazred said:


> even ex-employees take their NDA's quite seriously.




Just wait until the NDA's are unenforceable, whether because a "statute of limitations" runs out and/or an ex-employee is retired and doesn't give a damn anymore.

Sooner or later, somebody will spill the beans.


----------



## billd91 (Apr 18, 2011)

Fifth Element said:


> If you're the director of a company with hundreds of employees, you don't have the freedom to squander $25 million on satisfying your passions. If the business case doesn't make sense (ie, sufficient future profits to justify the investment) then you don't do it. Peter Adkinson is clearly not a bad businessman.
> 
> There is nothing inherently wrong or dirty with the pursuit of profit. My initial response was to Hasbro being painted as filthy money-grubbers, while previously the game had been published for the sake of the game. That's naive.




As I pointed out, it's not just a question of pursuing the head guy's passions. But since it's the passions of the initial business people who got them into biz in the first place, I can't imagine them not being a factor. And when dealing with the windfalls of Magic, it's a lot easier to make a bigger speculation on a debt-ridden husk like TSR than without. I have no doubt that the rampant success of Magic helped the financial risk of taking on TSR's problems look like a better business decision than it would have if WotC had merely been a profitable venture instead of PROFITABLE.

I've never said that it's wrong or dirty to pursue profit, but it would also be a mistake to assume that's the only or even primary reason for pursing a particular option, particularly with a relatively new, relatively small company still aiming to make a bigger name for itself in a small industry. The dynamics of a smaller and more personal company are different from those of a large corporation like Hasbro. Preferences and passions, albeit tempered by the business case, still have a place.


----------



## Fifth Element (Apr 18, 2011)

billd91 said:


> As I pointed out, it's not just a question of pursuing the head guy's passions. But since it's the passions of the initial business people who got them into biz in the first place, I can't imagine them not being a factor.



In the sense that they're in the business of games, certainly. The company was a game publisher, and that establishes constraints on what they're going to branch out into. They weren't nearly the size of a conglomerate, so each new activity was going to be game-related to take advantage of the abilities of the people and practices they already had in place.



billd91 said:


> I've never said that it's wrong or dirty to pursue profit, but it would also be a mistake to assume that's the only or even primary reason for pursing a particular option, particularly with a relatively new, relatively small company still aiming to make a bigger name for itself in a small industry.



Was WotC a small company in the industry? They had $25 million to spend on TSR. That doesn't strike me as small.


----------



## Ourph (Apr 18, 2011)

Tony Vargas said:


> Nope, it contains support for the Warpriest and Mage. It's just that a Cleric or Wizard can use most of it, too.



How is that not support?


----------



## BryonD (Apr 18, 2011)

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Or vice versa. While I'm sure there are people with more or less knowledge around it is also quite obvious that nobody outside of WotC knows much and even ex-employees take their NDA's quite seriously.
> 
> In any case lots of people claim to know lots of things. Maybe a few of them do, but like any rational person I go by evidence that I can reasonably attribute as accurate. You'd have to explain in a credible way how you know more than the rest of us before I would take it into account.




Do you think GURPS will (or could) be #1 next month?  
Do you have enough "insider" information to speculate on that?


----------



## Raven Crowking (Apr 18, 2011)

(1)  I am sure D&D 4e/Essentials is profitable.

(2)  I am sure that WotC would like it to be *more* profitable.

(3)  I am sure that, if WotC believed re-releasing AD&D 1e next year, one book at a time, would be more profitable than whatever they are currently planning.....we'd be seeing AD&D 1e re-released next year, one book at a time.

(4)  I am not a fan of 4e, or the delve format, BUT the only thing that even comes close to potential shark-jumping is the stupidsilly namesmack naming that 4e is rife with.

IMHO.



RC


----------



## Jeffrey (Apr 18, 2011)

Umbran said:


> "Jumping the shark" is doing something sensational and outrageous in order to bolster perceived flagging popularity.




There might be an argument made that the "slaying of sacred cows" in 4e fits this definition exactly.

Not sure that I would support it, but the argument could be made.


----------



## Imaro (Apr 18, 2011)

AbdulAlhazred said:


> There are basically a few data points we have:
> 
> 
> 5) Size of the DDI group on the WotC boards. We know objectively this represents the lower bound on current active DDI subscribers.




Uhm... actually we don't know this objectively. There have been some weird anomalies discovered about the numbers concerning this group, between the numbers for "Listed Members" and the actual number of members listed under member list, here's the thread... it starts around page 16, post 151. 

Whoops! Browser Settings Incompatible

Here's the relevant quote...



DMaple said:


> If you look at the group from your home area is says there are currently
> 
> 49673 Members
> 
> ...


----------



## Imaro (Apr 18, 2011)

Jeffrey said:


> There might be an argument made that the "slaying of sacred cows" in 4e fits this definition exactly.
> 
> Not sure that I would support it, but the argument could be made.




Or the adding back in of some classic tropes with the essentials format...


----------



## AbdulAlhazred (Apr 18, 2011)

ggroy said:


> Just wait until the NDA's are unenforceable, whether because a "statute of limitations" runs out and/or an ex-employee is retired and doesn't give a damn anymore.
> 
> Sooner or later, somebody will spill the beans.




Heh, try to find out anything about WotC financials, EVER. Aside from some stuff that was revealed due to a lawsuit WRT TSR and whatever Hasbro released when they bought WotC there's been squat. If it hasn't come out in 10+ years, I'm skeptical...

Sure a few people have made some very general comments about products they worked on, etc, but all regarding stuff years gone by. Read Ryan's stuff, even he really has relatively little to say about the business side of things or really anything except things he was involved in 10 years ago.

It is a small industry. You don't spill the beans on employers or former employers unless you don't feel like ever working in the field again as long as you live, and maybe eating a lawsuit. Besides it really isn't ethical to talk about other people's money. You're going to wait a long time to learn anything IMHO.


----------



## Fifth Element (Apr 18, 2011)

Raven Crowking said:


> (4)  I am not a fan of 4e, or the delve format, BUT the only thing that even comes close to potential shark-jumping is the stupidsilly namesmack naming that 4e is rife with.



So you're (owl)bearish on the trend then? It chills you to the bone(snapper)? You feel stuck in the muck(dweller)? That's stun(jelly)ing. It's not all doom and gloom(wing), you can just leave it in the dust(digger) if you like.

Thunderherder. Webbird. Sorry, I'm all out of clever at the moment.


----------



## TheUltramark (Apr 19, 2011)

again, I don't want to sound like the old codger ... "back in my day sonny..." but the bottom line you have to ask yourself is this:
Do you still have playing?
if yes, awesome!
if no, what can you as a group do to make it more fun...if you don't like a new rule...change it...if you think a new book sucks, don't use it, if you think 4e as a whole is monkey crap (which me and my cohorts do not) then scrap it and go back to 3rd or 2nd or 1st or whatever you played that gave you the most enjoyment.

As far as when did the whole thing jump the shark, as I posted earlier, making the novelist jump their stories 100 years into the future was ridiculous.  Take just Salvatore for example...Cattie-Brie: dead...Wolfgar: venerable...Bruenor: very aged (near death)...Artemis : dead.... 
really????? all that so you can launch a new line????
shark jumping example if I had ever seen one
---and there is a youtube video interview of R.A.S. basically saying it sucked, but he had no control.
http://youtu.be/TlceNdbt9Q8


----------



## UnknownAtThisTime (Apr 19, 2011)

I've glanced at the whole thread and can't believe there is not a single  photoshop of a "Fonzie cum polearm" leaping over a ferocious Bulette.


----------



## Raven Crowking (Apr 19, 2011)

Fifth Element said:


> So you're (owl)bearish on the trend then? It chills you to the bone(snapper)? You feel stuck in the muck(dweller)? That's stun(jelly)ing. It's not all doom and gloom(wing), you can just leave it in the dust(digger) if you like.
> 
> Thunderherder. Webbird. Sorry, I'm all out of clever at the moment.




Surely you mean flamebeak owlbear, blacktongue bonesnapper, squiddgyfoot muckdweller, wallsmooth stunjelly, tenebrousdreaming gloomwing and underfoot donkeyhorse muchmaw dustdigger, right?

Rumblefooted thunderherder?  Ebonwing webbird?

No?


RC


----------



## Fifth Element (Apr 19, 2011)

FunRuiner GrumpyPants.

(Or are you really defending webbird?)


----------



## Hussar (Apr 19, 2011)

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Or vice versa. While I'm sure there are people with more or less knowledge around it is also quite obvious that nobody outside of WotC knows much and even ex-employees take their NDA's quite seriously.
> 
> In any case lots of people claim to know lots of things. Maybe a few of them do, but like any rational person I go by evidence that I can reasonably attribute as accurate. You'd have to explain in a credible way how you know more than the rest of us before I would take it into account.




Just to expand on this for a second because the other part of my original point I think got a bit lost in the scrum.  It's not that we don't have bits of information, it's that the information lacks a great deal of context.  

If you look at the anecdotal evidence that comes out, it comes in one of two flavours.  Either it's:

A) I like game X, it's doing really well where I am.
or
B) I don't like game X, no one is playing it where I am.

What you rarely see is the following:

C) I like game X, but, I'm really having trouble finding anyone else in my area who does.
or
D) I don't like game X, but, everyone else around me loves it.

In other words, the popularity of a game is directly proportional to the amount a person likes that game.  The bias is obviously pretty thick.  All things being equal, you should see C and D just as often as A and B.

Or, take the "evidence" from various FLGS owners.  FLGS owner claims, "Game X flies off the shelf but game Y sits and gathers dust".  But, again, there's no context given.  Let's say that Pathfinder is doing well at the store and 4e isn't.  There could be many reasons for this, other than just the popularity of the games.  For one, the store could be actively biased for or against a given game and that wouldn't be the first time that's happened.  Or, perhaps this store is selling the books, but the store down the street is running Encounters and Gamma World events six days a week and all the 4e buyers go to that other store.  That's just two off the top of my head and I'm sure there are many other reasons that could be just as true as "Game X is more popular that Game Y".

So, yes, IMO, anyone who comes to any sort of conclusion based on the flimsiest of evidence that we have presented here is holding the tail of an elephant and claiming it's a snake.


----------



## Hussar (Apr 19, 2011)

Raven Crowking said:


> (1)  I am sure D&D 4e/Essentials is profitable.
> 
> (2)  I am sure that WotC would like it to be *more* profitable.
> 
> ...




I can't posrep you for this RC, but, I totally agree with everything you just said here.  Even the naming conventions.


----------



## BryonD (Apr 19, 2011)

Hussar said:


> Or, take the "evidence" from various FLGS owners.  FLGS owner claims, "Game X flies off the shelf but game Y sits and gathers dust".  But, again, there's no context given.  Let's say that Pathfinder is doing well at the store and 4e isn't.  There could be many reasons for this, other than just the popularity of the games.  For one, the store could be actively biased for or against a given game and that wouldn't be the first time that's happened.  Or, perhaps this store is selling the books, but the store down the street is running Encounters and Gamma World events six days a week and all the 4e buyers go to that other store.  That's just two off the top of my head and I'm sure there are many other reasons that could be just as true as "Game X is more popular that Game Y".



The point is frequently made that when 3E was new, "all the same complaints were made against it".  And yet these localized bias-driven gaps in sales did not emerge.

What is the difference?



> So, yes, IMO, anyone who comes to any sort of conclusion based on the flimsiest of evidence that we have presented here is holding the tail of an elephant and claiming it's a snake.



Declaring all the evidence flimsy does not make the totality of it actually be flimsy.


Quite simply, even saying you don't know it is a huge concession.
Three years into 3E no one was saying we don't know.  People who didn't like 3E were actively complaining about how much it had taken over and was stifling innovation.  There was no question.

Why is there even a question now?

What is the difference?

And, it was you, personally, Hussar, who with great confidence assured me that all of this would blow over by the end of the first summer because that was how long it would take for everyone to finish their current games and then switch to 4E.  

You've gone from absolute certainty of one thing to hand waving and smoke screens against the opposite.

And, for the record, I have seen people comment on liking 4E but having a hard time finding groups....

Even your own example presumes it is not hard to find stores in which "Pathfinder is doing well" and "4e isn't".  That alone says that the D&D brand has come down more than a notch.

No one is complaining about 4E stifling anything.  That is because it is different now.


----------



## Mercurius (Apr 19, 2011)

Hussar said:


> Hrm, how to reconcile these two points of view?  Both pretty much entirely based on anecdotes with no context.  On one hand, syaing that WOTC's fan base got smaller is a complete assumption with no factual backing, but, on the other hand, "tons of people have a DDI subscription" isn't exactly scientific either.
> 
> Guess it's back to the three blind men and an elephant time again.




Not quite. I think too much is made of places like EN World not being representative of the larger fanbase. Sure, a poll on EN World only means something on EN World (if even that), but what you _can _get a sense of is the general tone of fandom of a given edition - how happy people are with the game, how many people moved to another edition, and so forth. This isn't cold hard data but it is "listening to the people" (which WotC could do more of and evidently is doing, to some extent, through Mearls' articles).

And also remember that it is the diehard fanbase that is, while a small minority of overall D&D players, the engine that moves the vehicle of the hobby. It is well known that a small percentage of active, regular D&D players, is responsible for the majority of D&D sales. 

My game group is a good example: in our group of six I own a huge bookshelf of a few hundred (400?) different game books. My guess is that the other five guys own maybe 20 between them, and some of them are old attic-dwelling copies of 1E books they haven't played in 25 years. So in my group, 17% of the group (me) is responsible for 95% of the product. 

I know this is purely anecdotal but I've heard variations of this story time and time again. Even if we reduce the numbers a bit and say that 20% of D&D players are responsible for 80% of the product, we still have to recognize that it is very important to keep that 20% happy. Even if half are OK with only minor gripes and a quarter grumble but keep on spending, you still have 5% who are in danger of not buying anything--which is 20% of the product. And then you have that other 5% that is teetering between sucking it up and entering full-out disgruntlement.

The point being, if a business wants to have long-term success then it needs to care not only about sales figures but customer satisfaction, and _lasting _customer satisfaction. Plenty of people buy 4E books but my guess is that customer satisfaction is lower than any other edition only three years into the cycle. People loved 3E in 2003; well, there was the 3.5 debacle but that was just a blip on the radar. All was well in 1992, three years after 2E came out, in heart of the "Golden Age of Settings." And of course the 1980-82 era (three years after the various 1E core hardcovers were published) was the peak of D&D interest.

So I don't think it is erroneous to say that, at the least, something is iffy, if not completely rotten, in Denmark. It doesn't matter what the exact numbers are; what is important is the general tenor of the community, which is problematic to say the least, and certainly not improving.


----------



## Hussar (Apr 19, 2011)

BryonD said:
			
		

> Declaring all the evidence flimsy does not make the totality of it actually be flimsy.
> 
> 
> Quite simply, even saying you don't know it is a huge concession.
> ...




Is 4e as popular as d20 was at the height of the d20 bubble (which is about 3 years into 3e)?  No, of course not.  No one would argue that.  But, then again, D&D throughout its history has rarely been as popular as it was for those three or four years.

Of course, not being as popular as D&D was during the bubble is not the same as failing.

See the difference?



> And, it was you, personally, Hussar, who with great confidence assured me that all of this would blow over by the end of the first summer because that was how long it would take for everyone to finish their current games and then switch to 4E.




I would point out that I was hardly the only one saying that.  Erik Mona said the same thing as well, yet I don't see you pointing to that over and over again.  

But, in any case, I'll freely admit that I was mistaken.  Then again,  I was basing that totally on gut reaction without any evidence.

Kinda like you're doing now.



> You've gone from absolute certainty of one thing to hand waving and smoke screens against the opposite.
> 
> And, for the record, I have seen people comment on liking 4E but having a hard time finding groups....
> 
> ...




No smoke screens.  I'm going to repeat myself ONE MORE TIME.

WE DON'T KNOW.  

You could be right.  It's quite possible that you are.  Unfortunately, without any supporting evidence, there's just no way to tell.  You keep making claims that you are absolutely right, that 4e is floundering, that it's lost fan base, and whatnot, without a shred of actual real evidence.

Again, you could be right.

Again, you don't know.

Say it with me, strings of unsupported, obviously biased anecdotes do not lead to anything resembling an informed conclusion.


----------



## Beginning of the End (Apr 19, 2011)

Mercurius said:


> So what do you think? When did WotC D&D jump the shark?




2003.

The premature release of 3.5 marked a shift in both the management and predominant design ethos at the company. The new management didn't understand what had made 2000 successful and overcompensated in reaction to mistakes (both perceived and real). The new design ethos was buying hard into the My Perfect Encounters(TM) school of design and allowing the CharOp tail to wag the dog.


----------



## Hussar (Apr 19, 2011)

Mercurius said:


> Not quite. I think too much is made of places like EN World not being representative of the larger fanbase. Sure, a poll on EN World only means something on EN World (if even that), but what you _can _get a sense of is the general tone of fandom of a given edition - how happy people are with the game, how many people moved to another edition, and so forth. This isn't cold hard data but it is "listening to the people" (which WotC could do more of and evidently is doing, to some extent, through Mearls' articles).




If I spent lots of time on the Paizo boards, I would think that 4e is the worst game ever written, right up there with FATAL and that WOTC employees regularly serve small furry animals live with their lunch.  

Never mind that WOTC has done more gamer outreach in the past couple of years than anyone's done in the past couple of decades with things like the D&D Encounters and Gamma World, which apparently gets completely overlooked when people on chat boards talk about "listening to the people".



> And also remember that it is the diehard fanbase that is, while a small minority of overall D&D players, the engine that moves the vehicle of the hobby. It is well known that a small percentage of active, regular D&D players, is responsible for the majority of D&D sales.




Really?  This is well known?  Or is it just commonly assumed without any actual facts backing it up.  I thought it was sales of PHB's that were the majority of D&D sales.  Those aren't hardcore fans buying typically.  Those are the casual players who only buy one or two books ever and probably outnumber the hardcore players a hundred to one.



> My game group is a good example: in our group of six I own a huge bookshelf of a few hundred (400?) different game books. My guess is that the other five guys own maybe 20 between them, and some of them are old attic-dwelling copies of 1E books they haven't played in 25 years. So in my group, 17% of the group (me) is responsible for 95% of the product.




Whereas in the groups I've typically played with, generally everyone had at least the PHB (of whatever edition) as well as a couple of other books.

Whose anecdote wins?



> I know this is purely anecdotal but I've heard variations of this story time and time again. Even if we reduce the numbers a bit and say that 20% of D&D players are responsible for 80% of the product, we still have to recognize that it is very important to keep that 20% happy. Even if half are OK with only minor gripes and a quarter grumble but keep on spending, you still have 5% who are in danger of not buying anything--which is 20% of the product. And then you have that other 5% that is teetering between sucking it up and entering full-out disgruntlement.




But your numbers here are completely fabricated based on your own experiences and not based on anything resembling a fact.  You have no idea how many groups play with one player with a large library or if groups spread out the costs.  

For example, every group I've ever played with has included multiple DM's.  Every single one.  Therefore, just about every group has had multiple copies of a number of books.  

Might I ask how many times you've changed groups?



> The point being, if a business wants to have long-term success then it needs to care not only about sales figures but customer satisfaction, and _lasting _customer satisfaction. Plenty of people buy 4E books but my guess is that customer satisfaction is lower than any other edition only three years into the cycle. People loved 3E in 2003; well, there was the 3.5 debacle but that was just a blip on the radar. All was well in 1992, three years after 2E came out, in heart of the "Golden Age of Settings." And of course the 1980-82 era (three years after the various 1E core hardcovers were published) was the peak of D&D interest.




A blip on the radar?  I'm sure there are rather a large number of d20 publishers that don't think 3e to 3.5 was a blip on the radar.  For most publishers, that was the death knell of their publishing in D&D.  

3 years after publishing 2e, according to some claims by people here, D&D had lost almost HALF of its player base.  It had certainly lost a great deal by all accounts.  3 years after publishing 2e, D&D was in SECOND PLACE to Vampire in sales (at least briefly).

4e was briefly in second place to another D&D game - Pathfinder.  It would be more worrying if it had been a non-d20, non-D&D game.  But, it wasn't.  A game that leveraged the D&D name and a great deal of really, really excellent marketing (and I won't deny for a moment that Paizo is WAY better at marketting its game to existing D&D players) managed to briefly pull ahead of 4e D&D.  We'll see how things go a few years down the road.



> So I don't think it is erroneous to say that, at the least, something is iffy, if not completely rotten, in Denmark. It doesn't matter what the exact numbers are; what is important is the general tenor of the community, which is problematic to say the least, and certainly not improving.




I think it's the general tenor of a small, but EXTREMELY vocal segment of the community.


----------



## Tuft (Apr 19, 2011)

Mercurius said:


> So what do you think? When did WotC D&D jump the shark?





When they used an apparently hefty initial advertising budget from Hasbro to commission a commercial where they dumped dragon dung on previous fans. 


I'm sure they now wish they had spent that money on something that could be reused down the line to promote the game in a positive manner, instead of something so personally petty.


----------



## delericho (Apr 19, 2011)

Imaro said:


> Uhm... actually we don't know this objectively. There have been some weird anomalies discovered about the numbers concerning this group, between the numbers for "Listed Members" and the actual number of members listed under member list, here's the thread... it starts around page 16, post 151.
> 
> Whoops! Browser Settings Incompatible
> 
> Here's the relevant quote...




Very interesting. But... does the page listing with the avatars include people who haven't selected an avatar at all? That would explain the 'missing' 13,000 people.

Of course, it would also be trivial to set up the count to increment when people join, but fail to decrement when people leave. And since there is a certain incentive to inflate the numbers of subscribers...

I have to agree - the number of members quoted for that group is not a good indication of the number of subscribers. I wouldn't be at all surprised if the actual number turned out to be anywhere between 30,000 and 100,000. (Although, even at the lowest bounds, I'd still consider that 'a lot'. How it stacks up against WotC's predictions at the start of the DDI project, though...)


----------



## AbdulAlhazred (Apr 19, 2011)

delericho said:


> Very interesting. But... does the page listing with the avatars include people who haven't selected an avatar at all? That would explain the 'missing' 13,000 people.
> 
> Of course, it would also be trivial to set up the count to increment when people join, but fail to decrement when people leave. And since there is a certain incentive to inflate the numbers of subscribers...
> 
> I have to agree - the number of members quoted for that group is not a good indication of the number of subscribers. I wouldn't be at all surprised if the actual number turned out to be anywhere between 30,000 and 100,000. (Although, even at the lowest bounds, I'd still consider that 'a lot'. How it stacks up against WotC's predictions at the start of the DDI project, though...)




Well, THIS is absolutely true, that if you have a community account and you are a DDI subscriber you are added to the DDI group, and if you lapse your subscription you're removed from the DDI group. In EVERY OTHER GROUP on the community the count reflects the actual number of users who have joined that group. The numbers in the DDI group are too large to prove if that is true there and you can leave that group to test the theory anyway AFAIK. 

So, yes, it is POSSIBLE that the group member count in the DDI group is an evil conspiracy by WotC to deceive us all about DDI subscription numbers, but frankly that seems rather ridiculous to me. The 13k missing avatars? It COULD indicate that the group membership count includes people without community accounts, in which case it is an absolute count of actual active DDI subscribers. I can believe that's possible. I fail to believe the count never decrements since in every other respect the DDI group is just another group (WotC rents the whole community platform, it isn't like they built it specifically for their needs anyway).



BryonD said:


> The point is frequently made that when 3E was new, "all the same complaints were made against it".  And yet these localized bias-driven gaps in sales did not emerge.
> 
> What is the difference?




There is a HUGE difference. First of all 2e was deader than a doornail in 1999. The books were off the shelves and long since gathering dust in the bargain bins around here. Anecdotally around here it was a has-been game. Yes, you could find the die-hard core of 2e AD&D fans online etc but the game was dated, the producer was moribund, the market had been flooded for several years with badly written garbage. It was by far the low point of D&D in my experience. ANY new edition was entering a green field. Of course people welcomed 3e, it was the first sign that D&D was still alive.

Contrast this with the introduction of 4e, very different. 3.5 never suffered from a deficit of support, etc.



> Declaring all the evidence flimsy does not make the totality of it actually be flimsy.




No, it makes relying on it an exercise in piling one flimsiness on top of another. It isn't even a matter of flimsiness either. It is a matter of there is NO OBJECTIVE EVIDENCE WHATSOEVER to support the conclusion that 4e isn't quite successful. 

The popularity of PF is notable, but even that doesn't indicate a whole lot about 4e. 2/3 of the people I play with play other versions of D&D as well as 4e. It seems logical that PF sales detract from 4e sales in some fashion, but we don't really know to what extent that is true. In fact if you know a bit about markets and marketing you'd be very hesitant to draw that conclusion hastily. Many people buy both. They might spend more on one if the other didn't exist, but they may also buy more overall since there's more to choose from. Many of the people buying PF stuff might not be playing at all if PF didn't exist, and those people may STILL buy a 4e product now and then. The opposite is true as well, I doubt PF would be doing as well if 4e didn't exist personally. 

The point is, your 'evidence' isn't flimsy, it is non-existent.



> Quite simply, even saying you don't know it is a huge concession.
> Three years into 3E no one was saying we don't know.  People who didn't like 3E were actively complaining about how much it had taken over and was stifling innovation.  There was no question.
> 
> Why is there even a question now?
> ...




Again, what other choice of game systems did people have? 2e was DEAD DEAD DEAD dust covered bargain-bin fodder. The question wasn't between 2e and 3e, it was whether or not D&D was going to survive at all or if more modern games were finally going to kill it off (IIRC V:tM was doing quite well at the time of the 3e launch). Obviously 3 years in that question was answered, D&D lived and thrived, but 3.x WAS D&D. 

So, again, the difference today is only that 3.5 was far from dead when 4e was launched, and on top of that we have D&D zombie stepchild, PF, out there as well.

Beyond that though I think there is a deeper underlying issue. The TT RPG hobby as a whole is dying. Objectively the whole hobby has aged drastically. There were VERY few adults playing D&D 30 years ago. Today it is largely a hobby made up of people who picked it up 10+ years ago and half the demographic is 40+ and a good chunk are past that. This is no secret. Heck, half the justification that WotC had for releasing 4e and then Essentials, not to mention Encounters, was to bring new people into the hobby. It is a shrinking pie. It is simply a different world than it was 10 years ago.



> And, it was you, personally, Hussar, who with great confidence assured me that all of this would blow over by the end of the first summer because that was how long it would take for everyone to finish their current games and then switch to 4E.
> 
> You've gone from absolute certainty of one thing to hand waving and smoke screens against the opposite.
> 
> ...




I'm not having trouble finding groups. The groups I find are older (by far) than they were 20 years ago, but there are plenty of people around to play with and I've run 4e continuously since it was released without any shortage of players. 

You're taking Hussar's words and twisting them. He simply made an example where he used the names of two games to illustrate a point and you're trying to warp it into some kind of evidence for your position. Personally I find that indicates either a huge deep seated bias or a rather thin rhetorical trick that does nothing for your arguments.

I think we CAN agree that things are different in 2011 than they were in 2003. It is a very different market. The world is changing fast, and frankly one of the major factors in the RPG market is that WOTC created the competition for its own product. Not to take anything from Paizo at all, but they didn't make 3.5 what it was, and PF wouldn't exist at all if it wasn't for 3.5. I really don't believe that ANY conceivable 4e that was anything beyond a mild refresh of 3.5 would be in any different market position than 4e is now. It is a good game, and frankly I think it is doing quite well. Times may be tough and PF may, or may not, be biting into its market, but even so the game is obviously pretty successful. The alternate theory being what, that Hasbro is so dumb they published 35+ 4e books before figuring out they can't sell it? I'm skeptical...


----------



## delericho (Apr 19, 2011)

AbdulAlhazred said:


> So, yes, it is POSSIBLE that the group member count in the DDI group is an evil conspiracy by WotC to deceive us all about DDI subscription numbers, but frankly that seems rather ridiculous to me...




I'm inclined to agree. Sadly, though, we simply can't _know_, and that's enough for me to consider the 45,000 figure doubtful.



> No, it makes relying on it an exercise in piling one flimsiness on top of another. It isn't even a matter of flimsiness either. It is a matter of there is NO OBJECTIVE EVIDENCE WHATSOEVER to support the conclusion that 4e isn't quite successful.




I have to agree with you here. For any company other than WotC/Hasbro, 4e would be considered a phenomenal success. The only real questions, as far as I can tell, are "is it as successful as 3e?" and "is it successful _enough_ for WotC/Hasbro?"


----------



## BryonD (Apr 19, 2011)

Hussar said:


> Is 4e as popular as d20 was at the height of the d20 bubble (which is about 3 years into 3e)?  No, of course not.  No one would argue that.  But, then again, D&D throughout its history has rarely been as popular as it was for those three or four years.
> 
> Of course, not being as popular as D&D was during the bubble is not the same as failing.
> 
> See the difference?



The biggest difference I see is that you are having a knee jerk reaction and not reading what is being said.

4E is NOT "failing".
DDI is making a very nice, steady stream of cash.

But the market is deeply split now.  D&D as a brand could be doing vastly better than it is.  

Again, we certainly don't know what WotC's goals were.  It may very well be "failing" at that.  But in a simple sideline observer sense, it is making money and not "failing".  4E detractors have said that in this very thread and I know I've said it very explicitly to you on more than one occasion.  

Why are you unwilling to discuss the actual point instead of trying to misrepresent the other side?


I also wonder, since we have no evidence whatsoever, according to you, how can you even claim anything you just claimed?




> I would point out that I was hardly the only one saying that. Erik Mona said the same thing as well, yet I don't see you pointing to that over and over again.



I have no memory of that statement from Erik and I rather doubt it was said by him with anything approaching the same certainty and expectation that you did.



> But, in any case, I'll freely admit that I was mistaken. Then again, I was basing that totally on gut reaction without any evidence.
> 
> Kinda like you're doing now.



wrong.  Your protests notwithstanding, I'm looking at a lot of information and rather than putting everything in the "all informative" stack or "completely and fully without merit" stack, actually considering the context and value of the pieces.  

There is a lot of purely meaningless anecdotal and useless information out there.  And I throw that on the zero value stack just as you do.  

I'm assessing what the the information we do have says.  You were basically expressing emotional wishful thinking.  It is not at all like what I'm doing now.




> Say it with me, strings of unsupported, obviously biased anecdotes do not lead to anything resembling an informed conclusion.



OK

Strings of unsupported, obviously biased anecdotes do not lead to anything resembling an informed conclusion.

Happy?  That is certainly a true statement.  I agree with it 100%.

Now, try this one:

Useful information scattered amongst strings of unsupported, obviously biased anecdotes does not stop being useful.

Can you say that?


----------



## Raven Crowking (Apr 19, 2011)

Hussar said:


> I can't posrep you for this RC, but, I totally agree with everything you just said here.  Even the naming conventions.




A notable deviation from our norm.



For what it's worth, though, I am getting the impression that 4e didn't do well enough for WotC/Hasbro and that 5e will be substantially closer to earlier models.  I.e., they would like to recapture the lightning of 1e and 3e. 

Obviously, I base this on nothing evidencial....as others have said on this thread, the "evidence" is flimsy if it even exists.  Just some of the questions and polls coming out of WotC these days.

It does seem, though, that (like movies) the editions with the odd numbers are better than those with the even numbers.    Even *Star Wars *was numbered so that _*Empire Strikes Back*_ is episode V......... 

(And, yes, the prequels show that this observation is not always true.   )

In conclusion, play what you enjoy playing.  Life is too short for bad gaming.


RC


----------



## Raven Crowking (Apr 19, 2011)

Fifth Element said:


> FunRuiner GrumpyPants.








> (Or are you really defending webbird?)




Only in its original context, as an alien creature from a downed spaceship in the Barrier Peaks!


----------



## Fifth Element (Apr 19, 2011)

Hussar said:


> 4e was briefly in second place to another D&D game - Pathfinder.



I'm not sure there's real evidence of this either.


----------



## BryonD (Apr 19, 2011)

AbdulAlhazred said:


> There is a HUGE difference. First of all 2e was deader than a doornail in 1999. The books were off the shelves and long since gathering dust in the bargain bins around here. Anecdotally around here it was a has-been game. Yes, you could find the die-hard core of 2e AD&D fans online etc but the game was dated, the producer was moribund, the market had been flooded for several years with badly written garbage. It was by far the low point of D&D in my experience. ANY new edition was entering a green field. Of course people welcomed 3e, it was the first sign that D&D was still alive.



OK, I actually agree with you.

But this is certainly where it gets very frustrating because you are VERY much arguing with 4E fans at this point.  Over and over I hear from people who insist that the complaints against 4E are just the absolutely predictable history repeating itself.  My reply has been that two people saying something then and 500 people saying it now is not history repeating itself.

It seems we agree on that.



> Contrast this with the introduction of 4e, very different. 3.5 never suffered from a deficit of support, etc.



Actually, 3E was clearly on the way out.  It certainly wasn't allowed to reach the pits that 2E wallowed in.  But it is interesting that PF seems to be more popular now than 3E was in the last couple years of its life.



> No, it makes relying on it an exercise in piling one flimsiness on top of another. It isn't even a matter of flimsiness either. It is a matter of there is NO OBJECTIVE EVIDENCE WHATSOEVER to support the conclusion that 4e isn't quite successful.



First, you are falling into the same trap as Hussar.
As numerous people have said, myself included on many occasions, 4E is making a lot of money.

But the market is deeply split now.  If 4E had not split the market it would be making a hell of a lot more money than it is.  And when I commented upthread about WotC being schizophrenic and swinging back and forth between supporting the 4E fan base and chasing the people they lost, it tied back to this.  

I certainly am willing the go out on a limb and presume that WotC's plan was NOT to split the market and they hoped, and expected, to continue being the single 800 lb gorilla.  Wouldn't you agree that is a reasonable guess despite my ready concurrence that we truly don't know anything on that?

4E is not "failing".  I don't claim it is.  But the market is deeply split and D&D could have been doing MUCH better and when 4E was first given the go the plan and expectation SHOULD have been that it would do much better.

All that said....

There is evidence.  It gets absurd when people who don't like what the data say decide they just want to ignore it.

I am NOT claiming that I know what 4E makes or what PF makes.  I'm not claiming I know to the nearest 10% what the split in revenue is.  

But there is a ton of evidence that things are a lot different now.



> The popularity of PF is notable



It is?  I thought you just said there was NO OBJECTIVE EVIDENCE WHATSOEVER



> , but even that doesn't indicate a whole lot about 4e.



By itself, I agree.  But there has certainly been a pattern here.

Pathfinder was in no small part born from the discontent with 4E in a large segment of the fan base.

So no, you certainly can't just look at PF sales and declare that an indicator of 4E.  But if you have been following the story all along, the common source is there to see.




> In fact if you know a bit about markets and marketing you'd be very hesitant to draw that conclusion hastily.



I know a bit.  And as I just said above, I agree that just trying to assign direct cause and effect between the two is wrong.  There is more to it than that.



> The point is, your 'evidence' isn't flimsy, it is non-existent.



Just simply not true.




> Beyond that though I think there is a deeper underlying issue. The TT RPG hobby as a whole is dying.



Wait a second.  Just before you were talking about how people buy both games so the "notable" success of PF says nothing about 4E.  And, again, as an isolated comparison, I agree.  But that presumes that a lot of people buying D&D are now just buying D&D plus PF and the pie is therefore growing and instead of one success we have two.  That is certainly a potentially valid model which could exist.  But then you turn around and say "the pie is shrinking".  If the pie is shrinking AND someone else now has comparable amounts of pie as the guy who used to have the majority of the pie, then the only rational conclusion is that the guy now has less pie.




> It is a shrinking pie.



Just retained for the record.  



> I'm not having trouble finding groups. The groups I find are older (by far) than they were 20 years ago, but there are plenty of people around to play with and I've run 4e continuously since it was released without any shortage of players.



Oh, I don't doubt it.  Neither am I.  I did not say no one could find a group.  Hussar said you don't hear that.  I said I have.  Just anecdotes.  



> You're taking Hussar's words and twisting them. He simply made an example where he used the names of two games to illustrate a point and you're trying to warp it into some kind of evidence for your position. Personally I find that indicates either a huge deep seated bias or a rather thin rhetorical trick that does nothing for your arguments.



No, that is not true.

My point is that his example could not exist in the first place if my position was truly wrong.



> I think we CAN agree that things are different in 2011 than they were in 2003. It is a very different market. The world is changing fast, and frankly one of the major factors in the RPG market is that WOTC created the competition for its own product. Not to take anything from Paizo at all, but they didn't make 3.5 what it was, and PF wouldn't exist at all if it wasn't for 3.5.



Obviously PF could not exist as is without WotC's OGL.  Hats off.

But the success of PF is still, as you put it, "notable".  And I think is interesting in itself.  The very game that was not doing good enough to continue supporting is now breathing down WotC's neck.  
Is Paizo just that much better at marketing and giving the people the material they want?  Is it a case of you don't know what you've got until it's gone?

As I said, PF appears to be doing better now than 3E was in the waning days.  There is something going on there.



> I really don't believe that ANY conceivable 4e that was anything beyond a mild refresh of 3.5 would be in any different market position than 4e is now. It is a good game, and frankly I think it is doing quite well. Times may be tough and PF may, or may not, be biting into its market, but even so the game is obviously pretty successful. The alternate theory being what, that Hasbro is so dumb they published 35+ 4e books before figuring out they can't sell it? I'm skeptical...



Again, the whole "can't sell it" is either just knee jerk or red herring.

But I disagree that a different 4E could not have been vastly more successful.  Now, I certainly agree that it is easier said than done to make a fully new game that still appeals to 3E fans.  But is was certainly more than "conceivable".

But the problem is that this was never even WotC's goal.  They made that clear, and early on this was held as a standard and point of pride.  They wanted to vastly increase the fan base of D&D.  They saw tons of people playing WOW* pretending to be an elf and wanted to know why those people were not giving THEM money to pretend to be an elf.  They wanted DMing to not be intimidating and they wanted to lower the bar for entry level play.

And the whole "firing" customers thing started as a light hearted off hand comment that certainly got blown way out of proportion.  But it did sum up their position.  If they lost 10 old fans and gained 200 new fans, then they are up 190 fans.  You can't make an omelet and all that.

Now that all sounds great.  I'm all for them growing their business and if they lose me but gain just 2 to replace me, then good on them.  I completely support it.  

But it didn't work.  And in trying to do that, they passed on trying to keep what they had.  So we will never know if they could have done it or not.  That ship has long sailed.



* My standard WOW disclaimer, if you don't know it, ask.


----------



## delericho (Apr 19, 2011)

BryonD said:


> But the market is deeply split now.  If 4E had not split the market it would be making a hell of a lot more money than it is.  And when I commented upthread about WotC being schizophrenic and swinging back and forth between supporting the 4E fan base and chasing the people they lost, it tied back to this.
> 
> I certainly am willing the go out on a limb and presume that WotC's plan was NOT to split the market and they hoped, and expected, to continue being the single 800 lb gorilla.  Wouldn't you agree that is a reasonable guess despite my ready concurrence that we truly don't know anything on that?




In my opinion, the absolute _worst_ move WotC made was to fail to renew the Paizo licenses for Dragon and Dungeon. At the time, it seemed a rational thing to do - they wanted to move the magazines online as a major selling-point for the DDI.

Unfortunately, things haven't worked out like that. Not only are the e-magazines of extremely questionable value, and not only did the move generate a lot of nerdrage (much of it certainly undeserved), but it also led _directly_ to the creation of Pathfinder, first as an Adventure Path product to replace the lost mags, then as an RPG in its own right, _and_ as a haven for those disillusioned with 4e.

How much different would things be if Paizo, instead of being WotC's #1 competitor, were instead their #1 cheerleaders?


----------



## Charles Dunwoody (Apr 19, 2011)

Wizards has published two versions of D&D built on the work of a previous company and previous designers. In both cases, a revision was made to the original rules after a two or three year period (3.5 and Essentials). Older material (3.0 and 4E PHB) were updated with free online articles (just now starting for 4E). 

I bought 3.5 but didn't buy Essentials. It really just came down to not wanting to spend money again for similar material (the new builds for the classes in the 4E PHB, the magic item system overhaul, etc.). I also believed that Essentials would create some stress when paired with the earlier design paradigms. 

4E is a closed system. By which I mean only a few hard-core designers at Wizards and some selected freelancers work on it. I believe this decision can lead to some dead-ends in design (not enough playtesting) and can alienate the customer base (who rightly or wrongly feel they aren't being heard).

PF is an open system. It doesn't draw just on 3.5 but also other OGL work and a large pool of skilled designers including former TSR and Wizards employees. One employee at Paizo worked on 4E as a former employee of Wizards for example and still freelances for Wizards.

A few years ago, Paizo brought novels of Gary Gygax back into print and brought him as a guest of honor to Gen Con. They've had Ed Greenwood, Jeff Grubb, and Keith Baker help design their campaign world book. China Mieville and Dianne Cunningham have even done a touch of world building for the RPG. Paizo does open playtests (for free) and incorporates customer feedback gathered online at at cons into rulebooks.

Wizards capitalized on the name and existing rules of D&D created by others in the same way Paizo has. Pathfinder is not the zombie stepchild of D&D anymore than Wizards two versions of D&D are the zombie love child of TSR. Both companies took an existing game and created their own game from it.

Paizo generates goodwill by being an open system. The designers don't just communicate with customers, some of the customers themselves become freelance designers. And previous great designers from previous editions also add to the game and/or are honored by Paizo.

Did Wizards "jump the shark" by not staying with the more open model of game design they created and championed back in 2000? If sales are good and profit is how success is defined, then no they did not.

If success is measured by staying more closely in touch with the traditions of D&D and the fan base, then opinions are more likely to vary. But some customers would say Wizards has failed IF putting value on tradition and existing customers is a sign of success.

As Monte Cook put it in a recent blog. James Patterson made $70 million last year writing novels. Michael Chabon has won a Pullitzer and other prizes but didn't make $70 million last year. Who is a more successful writer? Depends on the values applied and how you want to measure success!


----------



## billd91 (Apr 19, 2011)

delericho said:


> Unfortunately, things haven't worked out like that. Not only are the e-magazines of extremely questionable value, and not only did the move generate a lot of nerdrage (much of it certainly undeserved), <snip>




You may think it was undeserved. But I have no problem with the WotC-directed nerdrage over this. I was *really* enjoying Dungeon magazine and thought Paizo had done a fantastic job of finding out what most of their customers wanted and responding to that. Fortunately, Paizo turned out to be made of stern-enough stuff and they managed to soldier on and thrive.


----------



## delericho (Apr 19, 2011)

billd91 said:


> You may think it was undeserved. But I have no problem with the WotC-directed nerdrage over this. I was *really* enjoying Dungeon magazine and thought Paizo had done a fantastic job of finding out what most of their customers wanted and responding to that. Fortunately, Paizo turned out to be made of stern-enough stuff and they managed to soldier on and thrive.




Oh, I was also delighted with the direction and quality of the magazines, and was very sorry to see them go.

At the same time, it was just a business decision, taken for business reasons. The license had expired, and they elected not to renew it. (Indeed, they actually _did_ extend it slightly, to allow the "Savage Tide" AP to end.)

It certainly wasn't the utter betrayal that some posters declared at the time. I'm really not convinced that _anger_ was really warranted, never mind the level ot vitriol and hyperbole that was thrown about by some people.

And I say that despite thinking, with the benefit of hindsight, that it was the worst mistake WotC have made in their entire management of D&D.


----------



## Mercurius (Apr 19, 2011)

Beginning of the End said:


> 2003.
> The premature release of 3.5 marked a shift in both the management and predominant design ethos at the company. The new management didn't understand what had made 2000 successful and overcompensated in reaction to mistakes (both perceived and real). The new design ethos was buying hard into the My Perfect Encounters(TM) school of design and allowing the CharOp tail to wag the dog.




I think you're right. This is also about the time that it seemed WotC started shifting from the open source/Dancey approach to publication back to a more traditional one. The GSL and DDI furthered this development.

On the other hand, while I agree that with 3.5 WotC "overcompensated in reaction to mistakes" there is an inherent problem to offering an open source product: third party publishers are going to be pissed whenever you make changes to the game, but the only way to improve the game is to make changes. So you end up being caught between a rock and a hard place: either keep the game unchanging, or only slowly changing, but remaining viable for 3PPs or continue to evolve and develop the game, adding new ideas and approaches.

I tend to prefer the latter, mainly because I enjoy a changing game - I like trying out and playing new versions of D&D. But I wish there was a way to keep the 3PP door as widely open as possible.



Hussar said:


> If I spent lots of time on the Paizo boards, I would think that 4e is the worst game ever written, right up there with FATAL and that WOTC employees regularly serve small furry animals live with their lunch.




Well, this is just another grain of sand on the pile. My point is that if you look at the total picture, I personally have never seen as much ire and dissent around a given edition of D&D. Now because of the internet, we really can't go much further back than about 15 years. But within that span of time, the D&D community is more fractured than ever (since 4E came out) - and it isn't even close. 



Hussar said:


> Never mind that WOTC has done more gamer outreach in the past couple of years than anyone's done in the past couple of decades with things like the D&D Encounters and Gamma World, which apparently gets completely overlooked when people on chat boards talk about "listening to the people".




Good point. Unlike many, I also think Mearls' recent articles are authentically meant in good spirit.



Hussar said:


> Really?  This is well known?  Or is it just commonly assumed without any actual facts backing it up.  I thought it was sales of PHB's that were the majority of D&D sales.  Those aren't hardcore fans buying typically.  Those are the casual players who only buy one or two books ever and probably outnumber the hardcore players a hundred to one.




Yes, you are right that PHBs and, to a lesser extent, the other two core books make up the bulk of D&D sales. My numbers--which, as you say, are entirely made up but simply serve as illustration--probably relate more to unique titles. My guess is that in terms of gross sales, you have 20% of fans spending about 50% of the money, which is still significant.



Hussar said:


> Whereas in the groups I've typically played with, generally everyone had at least the PHB (of whatever edition) as well as a couple of other books.
> 
> Whose anecdote wins?




Obviously we can't just look at our anecdotes. 



Hussar said:


> But your numbers here are completely fabricated based on your own experiences and not based on anything resembling a fact.  You have no idea how many groups play with one player with a large library or if groups spread out the costs.




Yes, thanks for repeating what I said in my previous post! 



Hussar said:


> For example, every group I've ever played with has included multiple DM's.  Every single one.  Therefore, just about every group has had multiple copies of a number of books.
> 
> Might I ask how many times you've changed groups?




Not many, but does it matter? Again, I'm going upon what I've heard, mainly on message boards. But I am willing to at least meet you halfway - that groups are split between those with one diehard and a bunch of casual fans (maybe with one or two "inbetweeners"), and groups with a bunch of diehards and one or two casual fans.

It may be more useful to not look at groups but individuals. If we made a scale of 1-5 (with _*speculated *_percentage of total active players in parentheses), we could come up with something like this:



*Very casual players* (20-30%?) - perhaps the spouses of more serious players who don't own anything behind maybe some dice and a PHB and perhaps not even that. This also includes the people that try a game out once or twice and never come back.
*Casual players *(30-50%?)* - *probably own one or two books, dice, shows up regularly, but probably never DMs or thinks about the game outside of the session.
*Dedicated players *(15-25%?) *- *starts thinking about the game outside the session, expanding their collection, tries their hand at DMing, etc. Probably doesn't think about the hobby or industry beyond the game itself.
*Serious players *(5-15%?) *- *has an RPG collection, regularly DMs, spends a fair amount of time thinking the game and hobby (and the industry) outside of sessions.
*Diehard players *(<5%?) - these are the game room folks with vast collections, maybe playing and running in multiple games. For them gaming is probably their primary hobby, maybe primary interest. May be game designers.
 
My assertion is the bulk of RPG items - in terms of unique products - is bought by categories 3-5, yet the higher you go in categories the less total numbers of players. The majority of active gamers are probably Very Casual or Casual, and the only items either buys are dice, maybe a miniature, and a core rulebook - and perhaps not even that.

My point of all of this is that a game company, in order to survive beyond the initial release of the core rulebook, has to keep the Dedicated-to-Diehard fan base (maybe 30% of the total number of active players) happy.

But again, don't get too caught up on numbers - they're not meant to be definitive but illustrative (and highly speculative). They could be way off, although I think the general spirit of the proportions is about right. Remember, we're talking about millions of gamers - so to say that less than 5% are Diehard and about 10% are Serious, is still to say that there are some hundreds of thousands of gamers that are serious about roleplaying. 



Hussar said:


> A blip on the radar?  I'm sure there are rather a large number of d20 publishers that don't think 3e to 3.5 was a blip on the radar.  For most publishers, that was the death knell of their publishing in D&D.




I was talking about fan reaction, not other publishers. I don't remember there being a lasting outcry from the fanbase and a mass exodus to other games like we've seen with 4E.



Hussar said:


> 3 years after publishing 2e, according to some claims by people here, D&D had lost almost HALF of its player base.  It had certainly lost a great deal by all accounts.  3 years after publishing 2e, D&D was in SECOND PLACE to Vampire in sales (at least briefly).




Good point. I think what we saw in the early 90s was the "Boomer" generation of D&D players (those who started in the late 70s and early 80s and made up the bulk of the so-called "25 million" D&D players of the early-to-mid 80s) growing up. That generation, my generation, went off to and graduated from college and then focused on their social lives and careers. In my opinion, part of the 3E boom was due to the fact that a lot of these folks came back - or at least those that had been at least Dedicated players - and started to settle down a bit with families, and wanted some form of creative/fun outlet that wasn't drinking or poker.

The Vampire wave was a new sub-generation of slightly younger players with a more postmodern outlook. I don't think this group was taken away from D&D as much as it was created, a new cultural group.



Hussar said:


> 4e was briefly in second place to another D&D game - Pathfinder.  It would be more worrying if it had been a non-d20, non-D&D game.  But, it wasn't.  A game that leveraged the D&D name and a great deal of really, really excellent marketing (and I won't deny for a moment that Paizo is WAY better at marketting its game to existing D&D players) managed to briefly pull ahead of 4e D&D.  We'll see how things go a few years down the road.




It will be very interesting to see how this plays out. I personally think that Pathfinder has more of a cap on total players than D&D does, partially because of the brand name but also because of the game itself. There are a large group of D&D players that won't go to Pathfinder, that prefer 4E and may be open to 5E, but feel that Pathfinder is "going backwards" to 3.5. I admit to being one of them (this is not to say that I wouldn't play and enjoy Pathfinder - and I do buy quite a few of Paizo's products - but that I prefer 4E and am curious as to what the next iteration of D&D might be).



Hussar said:


> I think it's the general tenor of a small, but EXTREMELY vocal segment of the community.




True, but it is an important segment - it is a significant portion of the Dedicated, Serious, and Diehard fanbase that is active on message boards and ends up being influential because of the loudness of its voice.



Tuft said:


> When they used an apparently hefty initial advertising budget from Hasbro to commission a commercial where they dumped dragon dung on previous fans.




Except that they didn't "dump dragon dung" on the fans, they mildly made fun of the older game. If I remember correctly, that is. Certainly it wasn't the best PR, but people have blown this way out of proportion, imo.




BryonD said:


> 4E is NOT "failing".
> DDI is making a very nice, steady stream of cash.
> 
> But the market is deeply split now.  D&D as a brand could be doing vastly better than it is.




Well put - and this is crucial. Yes, 4E is (probably) doing fine overall, but if you are the Hasbro exec in charge of oversight of WotC, or if you are the D&D bigwig (Bill Slaviscek?) you're probably not satisfied with "fine." The crucial part is that D&D as a brand could be doing much better - that is the point. To put it into letter grades, I think WotC's handling of 4E has been in the D to C range; a D is still a passing grade and a C is still adequate, but neither are good. And when you have the hottest brand name in the industry you should be doing much better than adequate.

Now it may be that 3E was catching lightning in a bottle and that the world has moved on and we'll never see another traditional tabletop RPG renaissance. But if you're WotC, you're looking for ways to manufacture another renaissance, a new Golden Age - you simply can't operate under the assumption that the Golden Days are gone and RPGs are a dying hobby...otherwise you might as well make as much money as you can for as long as possible and start preparing to sell the brand.

To be honest, I wouldn't be surprised if that is exactly what WotC is doing. But only time will tell. What someone described as WotC throwing all sorts of stuff at the wall to see what sticks may be their last gasp efforts to find something profitable enough to continue. If nothing sticks, or sticks well enough, we may be seeing the final days (years) of WotC D&D.


----------



## Hussar (Apr 19, 2011)

BryonD said:
			
		

> But the market is deeply split now. If 4E had not split the market it would be making a hell of a lot more money than it is. And when I commented upthread about WotC being schizophrenic and swinging back and forth between supporting the 4E fan base and chasing the people they lost, it tied back to this.




You keep repeating that the market is specifically "deeply" split.  What evidence do you base this on?  That Paizo is doing well?  We still have very little idea of how many people are actually playing 4e or Pathfinder.

Does anyone have any numbers on the RPGA?  That would likely be a good place to start I would think.  If the RPGA has been losing membership year on year since 4e has been released, I'd say that would be very good evidence of "deep" splits.

The problem is, Paizo doing well doesn't really tell us much.  What is good for Paizo might be fantastic for WOTC, or it might be an absolute failure, just because of the difference in the size of the companies.  Doing ok, or even just kind of coasting along isn't fantastic for WOTC, but, for any other RPG company would be a red letter day, again, just because of the size difference in the companies.

What is your metric for "doing well"?  Doing as well as 3e did after initial release?  Then D&D has been failing for most of its history, because the only time we saw those kinds of numbers was shortly after the release of AD&D in the early 80's.  

Here's why I don't buy into the idea that you have any sort of solid evidence.  Look at En World.  Since the release of 4e, En World has grown about 50% in registered users.  (Looking at Wayback machine, a snapshot of November 2008 states that the site had 70k members, that's a 50% jump (give or take) in 3 years)  Give En World's fairly friendly 4e stance, wouldn't that lead to a conclusion that there is a growing population of 4e gamers?

Or are those 30k new members all playing other games?

Actually, this is my point.  We don't know.  All we know is that there has been a pretty decent spike in membership in the last 2 1/2 years.  But, again, we lack any real context.  We can't say that 4e is driving membership, anymore than we can say that anything else is driving membership.

Look, BryonD, I'm not saying that you are wrong.  I'm really, really not.  I'm saying that you are making statements that don't have a lot of backing behind them.  It's pretty flimsy and repetition does not actually make anything true.


----------



## Hussar (Apr 19, 2011)

Mercurious said:
			
		

> Well put - and this is crucial. Yes, 4E is (probably) doing fine overall, but if you are the Hasbro exec in charge of oversight of WotC, or if you are the D&D bigwig (Bill Slaviscek?) you're probably not satisfied with "fine." The crucial part is that D&D as a brand could be doing much better - that is the point. To put it into letter grades, I think WotC's handling of 4E has been in the D to C range; a D is still a passing grade and a C is still adequate, but neither are good. And when you have the hottest brand name in the industry you should be doing much better than adequate.




But, again, let's not forget historical context either.  3e is released after several years of the largest economic growth in American history (and much the same in many other countries as well).  4e is released after several years of some of the poorest economic performance in a generation or two.  

Getting a passing grade on a luxury product when economic times are poor isn't a bad thing at all.  Adequate in a time when many other companies are failing isn't too shabby.

And, again, what is your benchmark?  How good should 4e be doing to get a B grade?  Or an A grade?  3e just released?  Again, outside of the early 80's, D&D has never reached that level.  3.5 certainly didn't.  2e didn't.  And most of the time, 1e didn't as well.



> Now it may be that 3E was catching lightning in a bottle and that the world has moved on and we'll never see another traditional tabletop RPG renaissance. But if you're WotC, you're looking for ways to manufacture another renaissance, a new Golden Age - you simply can't operate under the assumption that the Golden Days are gone and RPGs are a dying hobby...otherwise you might as well make as much money as you can for as long as possible and start preparing to sell the brand.




Why is "doing adequately" equated with "dying hobby"?  I mean, modest growth or even static doesn't mean dying.  Again, outside of about six years, the past 30 years of D&D has not been fantastic sales, it's been mostly "adequate". 



> To be honest, I wouldn't be surprised if that is exactly what WotC is doing. But only time will tell. What someone described as WotC throwing all sorts of stuff at the wall to see what sticks may be their last gasp efforts to find something profitable enough to continue. If nothing sticks, or sticks well enough, we may be seeing the final days (years) of WotC D&D.




Again, there seems to be this disconnect.  You and BryonD admit that WOTC is doing well with the DDI.  That seems to be the case, although, again, big grain of salt time.  You say that it's doing adequately, as in it's not losing money, but not making a whole lot either.

But, if I'm still making a return on my investment that is better than what I'd get in the bank, why would I sell off the investment in a very poor economic time?  Wouldn't it be much, much better to do what WOTC did and sell at the hottest time?  Let's not forget, Hasbro didn't wait until WOTC was failing to buy the company.


----------



## Fifth Element (Apr 19, 2011)

Hussar said:


> You keep repeating that the market is specifically "deeply" split.  What evidence do you base this on?  That Paizo is doing well?  We still have very little idea of how many people are actually playing 4e or Pathfinder.



To build on Hussar's post, there's also another important factor: the number of players who play both 4E and Pathfinder. Having two games with large player bases does not necessarily mean the market is "deeply split". There are obviously some players who play only one or the other, but there are others (like my groups) who alternate between the two.

So not only do we not know how many people are playing each game, we don't know how many of these two groups are also members of the other group.

Thus, claims of a "deep" split, other than amongst vocal minorities, are unsupported.


----------



## BryonD (Apr 19, 2011)

Hussar said:


> Look, BryonD, I'm not saying that you are wrong.  I'm really, really not.  I'm saying that you are making statements that don't have a lot of backing behind them.  It's pretty flimsy and repetition does not actually make anything true.



And repeating claims that "all of it" is flimsy doesn't make *that* true.

There have been detailed discussions of the various sources of information.  And you were involved.

There is a group that has given up on actually discussing the situation and instead wants to declare everything null without any basis for THAT claim.  And I can spend a bunch of time re-presenting everything.  And in another thread two weeks from now you will just again hit a reset button and act like none of this ever happened either.

I'm not going to feel obligated to restate the argument over and over.  Feel completely free to declare victory over that.  If that is your standard, then by your rules I declare you the winner.  Congrats.

I'm going to keep calling it the way I see it.


----------



## BryonD (Apr 19, 2011)

delericho said:


> How much different would things be if Paizo, instead of being WotC's #1 competitor, were instead their #1 cheerleaders?



There is no telling where a path not taken may have lead.

Honestly, I don't see much chance of converting large numbers of people who really strongly dislike 4E into fans.


----------



## TheYeti1775 (Apr 19, 2011)

ggroy said:


> From an historical perspective, when did 3.5E D&D jump the shark?




Book of Nine Swords as said earlier.
===========================================

Far as the rest of it, my prespective is as a non-4E player/dm.
I've played a total of one 4E campaign.  About 8 sessions or so.

--------------------------------------------------------
We were spoiled during 3.0/3.5 years.  Admit it to yourselves first.
The OGL, and the plethora of D20 3rd party products was pretty much a player/dm's dream.  It was a long cry from the days where a fan page would get you a C&D letter from TSR.

Something happened prior to 4E that caused WotC to rethink their strategy in the market place.
That is in evidence from bringing all the licenscing back in house and to the GSL.

Dragon & Dungeon, yup I was pi$$ed off at that when it's print line ended, but using the 20/20 of hindsight.  The magazine market itself was shrinking.  So can't fault them there.  In retrospect it might have saved the branding of those magazines with their move.

DDI really intrigued me as they were ramping up.  But as I saw there was no support to older editions (which I still play) there was nothing there that made me want to buy into it.
The character builder offline was great though, I liked it.  Because of that CB I actually played in that 4E game without much issue.
Once it went to an online model only, it wasn't something I wanted.  As there was nothing within DDI that appealed to me.

To the 'Jump the Shark' moment within 4E, I think it will be looked back as the Essentials moment if it comes to it.  That seems a general consensus within many boards of when Players/GM's begin not purchasing 4E products when they purchased all before.

---------------------------------------------------
But what ever your preceived shark jump is, it is still recoverable.  At least in my opinion.
While a heavy crunch book only sells to a subset of your entire demographic, a heavy fluff book has the ability to cross that Edition War barrier.
Think about it, how many lapsed and current edition players/DM's would love a real updated on Greyhawk?
I know I would snag up a fluff book.
Same with many other settings they have in house.

I think they went a step in the right direction when they were going with the 3 books and done method for a campaign setting.  You didn't saturate a setting out, but you satisfied a lot of different players by allowing for old settings to come back to the fold (i.e. Darksun).  I actually picked up and browsed the book and put it to the wishlist on Amazon as a might buy later, think it's about number 10 on my to buy list.  Considering not only D&D is on that list, that's pretty good.  

Half the battle for them is get someone to consider buying it.

Death of mini's hurt in another way.  That was one of the last items of Hasbro/WotC I was regularly buying.  How many here can say the same?
Same with the Star Wars licence. I had just gotten into Star Wars when it all ended.  The good thing though is I jumped in both feet to it and I have all the books as a complete set now. 

Another idea that might/would boost your sales up.
Tie in modules/settings to your DDI.  
No not as a must have but as a benefit to older edition players.
You have the knowledge base there at WotC and you own the rights (least I assume you do) to the old editions to have articles on the DDI about using that book under prior edition rules.
Really it's a kill three birds with one stone method.
1. Boost Sales of books by lapsed edition players/gms
2. Boost DDI usage/sales.
3. Satisfy grognards and bring them back as paying customers. $$

But what do I know.
I'm just someone with several hundred in disposable income per paycheck. And only two real hobbies.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz (Apr 19, 2011)

> Except that they didn't "dump dragon dung" on the fans, they mildly made fun of the older game. If I remember correctly, that is. Certainly it wasn't the best PR, but people have blown this way out of proportion, imo.




Marketing 101: When you're talking marketing & brand management, belittling your prior product is something you simply don't do unless you're mocking something _objectively_ bad about it, like a safety issue, for instance.  _And even then_, it's usually a bad idea to explicitly call attention to past flaws.  The risk of alienating parts or all of your installed customer base is generally not worth the potential payoff.

Simply put, WotC's marketing plan was a bad idea from the start, and the result was predictable.


----------



## MrGrenadine (Apr 19, 2011)

I don't mean to pick, Hussar, but I'd like to make a couple comments on your post:



Hussar said:


> Never mind that WOTC has done more gamer outreach in the past couple of years than anyone's done in the past couple of decades with things like the D&D Encounters and Gamma World, which apparently gets completely overlooked when people on chat boards talk about "listening to the people".




I would say Paizo has done more outreach in the past decade, myself, but who knows?  Here's an honest question, though:  Whats the feedback loop for Encounters and GW, because reaching out to customers doesn't necessarily mean listening and responding to customers.  You need the loop!  And if WotC is really listening to its customers, _and wisely choosing which feedback to incorporate_, then that can only be good for the game.




Hussar said:


> A blip on the radar?  I'm sure there are rather a large number of d20 publishers that don't think 3e to 3.5 was a blip on the radar.  For most publishers, that was the death knell of their publishing in D&D.




Are you thinking of specific publishers here, because I thought the GSL was the death knell for D&D 3PP.




Hussar said:


> 3 years after publishing 2e, according to some claims by people here, D&D had lost almost HALF of its player base.  It had certainly lost a great deal by all accounts.  3 years after publishing 2e, D&D was in SECOND PLACE to Vampire in sales (at least briefly).




I think D&D was a mess at the tail end of 2e, because TSR was a mess.  The game rebounded spectacularly during the 3e years, which was great to see.



Hussar said:


> 4e was briefly in second place to another D&D game - Pathfinder.  It would be more worrying if it had been a non-d20, non-D&D game.  But, it wasn't.  A game that leveraged the D&D name and a great deal of really, really excellent marketing (and I won't deny for a moment that Paizo is WAY better at marketting its game to existing D&D players) managed to briefly pull ahead of 4e D&D.  We'll see how things go a few years down the road.




Interesting point, but I would think it would be _more_ worrisome for D&D's current owner that a d20 D&D-based game is the one nipping at their heels.  (If that's really happening, off course, because I have no proof of that.)  And I'm not sure what you mean by "leveraged the D&D name", because Pathfinder doesn't seem to do that.  What it does do is leverage past D&D editions, as did 3rd edition, 3.5, 4e, Essentials, etc etc.

Also, excellent marketing can get folks to the table, but only a solid and fun game will keep players at the table.  My unsupportable anecdotal experience leads me to believe that Pathfinder will be fine down the road.  But anything can happen.

In the meantime, I'll keep playing both PF and 4e.


----------



## UnknownAtThisTime (Apr 19, 2011)

UnknownAtThisTime said:


> I've glanced at the whole thread and can't believe there is not a single photoshop of a "Fonzie cum polearm" leaping over a ferocious Bulette.











My gods, that is terrible.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred (Apr 19, 2011)

BryonD said:


> OK, I actually agree with you.
> 
> But this is certainly where it gets very frustrating because you are VERY much arguing with 4E fans at this point.  Over and over I hear from people who insist that the complaints against 4E are just the absolutely predictable history repeating itself.  My reply has been that two people saying something then and 500 people saying it now is not history repeating itself.
> 
> It seems we agree on that.




Right, it isn't history repeating itself. Certainly not exactly. OTOH there's still a good bit of validity to the idea that every version roll produces angst in some part of the fan base. How much of that is 4e in particular and how much is just editionitis is hard to say.



> Actually, 3E was clearly on the way out.  It certainly wasn't allowed to reach the pits that 2E wallowed in.  But it is interesting that PF seems to be more popular now than 3E was in the last couple years of its life.




I don't know this actually. That is I don't know either thing to be true. I'd say 3.x was pretty tapped out as far as new material, sure. I actually don't really know how popular PF is in relation to any other system. It is reasonable to guess that PF is similar in popularity to 4e, but I don't even KNOW that. Again, you have very few facts. I have very few facts. You interpret them to get the answer you like, and frankly I probably do the same thing.



> First, you are falling into the same trap as Hussar.
> As numerous people have said, myself included on many occasions, 4E is making a lot of money.
> 
> But the market is deeply split now.  If 4E had not split the market it would be making a hell of a lot more money than it is.  And when I commented upthread about WotC being schizophrenic and swinging back and forth between supporting the 4E fan base and chasing the people they lost, it tied back to this.




Again though we do not know what 4e is making, nor what PF is making. Maybe both of them are doing better than 3.5 ever did. Maybe both of them are doing much worse. The bit we know seems to indicate they're both doing OK, but we have NO way of knowing what the market would be like without either 4e or PF in the picture. I'm going to pretty much guess that truth is the vast majority of players out there don't really give a knob about PF vs 4e. I think 3.5 might have been not making WotC a lot of money, but my observation is that PLENTY of people were playing it. Heck, it is still quite popular. 
[/quote]

I certainly am willing the go out on a limb and presume that WotC's plan was NOT to split the market and they hoped, and expected, to continue being the single 800 lb gorilla.  Wouldn't you agree that is a reasonable guess despite my ready concurrence that we truly don't know anything on that?

4E is not "failing".  I don't claim it is.  But the market is deeply split and D&D could have been doing MUCH better and when 4E was first given the go the plan and expectation SHOULD have been that it would do much better.[/quote]

I don't know about that. My feeling is that what WotC saw was that 3.5 was slowly winding down, partly due to just being a saturated market and natural tendency for gamers to go on to the next new thing, but also because the whole RPG market HAS shrunk. 

In essence I think 4e was more of a strategic move than just a 'refresh' like 1e->2e was. They COULD have tweaked 3.5 and made effectively a WotC 'PF'. The problem with that is all it achieves is AT BEST selling a new set of books to the same people. They wanted to create a system that they can leverage further, to get new players. To bring in the people playing other games, kids, MMORPG players, etc. A 3.5 rehash would have zero chance of doing that.

The WERE willing to take the risk of splitting the market or leaving some of the fan base behind. I agree, I don't think they anticipated Paizo doing what they did, but I'm not convinced it is actually that big a deal for WotC. Paizo has the same problem NOW that WotC had 3 years ago. A system that only appeals to a diminishing fanbase and if they want to fix that they'll have to do the same thing WotC did, make a new system. Except now WotC has 3 years head start on that. Even if 4e itself DOESN'T get them all the way where they want to be, the competition is going to have to go piss off their fanbase to produce a modern game that MIGHT still be viable in 5 more years. 4e is there. Maybe it still needs another iteration, and maybe the quest for a bigger market is hopeless, but if it can be done it isn't Paizo that is likely to be able to do it, it is WotC and it will be done with substantially the game they have now.



> All that said....
> 
> There is evidence.  It gets absurd when people who don't like what the data say decide they just want to ignore it.
> 
> ...




There's no objective evidence as to how they are doing financially or sales-wise. Nobody ever claimed it isn't obvious that PF is a popular RPG. There's simply no evidence that it is doing some kind of number of 4e. We don't know how much either makes, we have only a nebulous idea about their sales at best, and we have no idea of how many people play each one, play both, etc. MOST OF ALL we have no evidence that 4e isn't doing everything that WotC expects of it and wants it to do. None at all. We have no idea what their sales projections are/were, costs, expected return, or any of the other numbers we'd need to know that.



> By itself, I agree.  But there has certainly been a pattern here.
> 
> Pathfinder was in no small part born from the discontent with 4E in a large segment of the fan base.
> 
> So no, you certainly can't just look at PF sales and declare that an indicator of 4E.  But if you have been following the story all along, the common source is there to see.




Oh, I think PF was born from a desire by a certain segment of the market that basically wants to keep playing 3.5. That's obvious. I think the error is in thinking that when 4e was dreamed up that WotC was ignorant of the fact that a lot of people would continue to play the old game and there are always plenty of fans of every earlier edition that gripe on the new one. It wasn't a big deal with 2e->3e simply because there wasn't a choice, WotC needed to put out something and 2e was dead. Anyone at that point who was annoyed with the change was no longer a customer they could have pleased. I think they were fully aware that 4e would split the fan base. Surely they weren't anticipating PF, but then again that die was cast LONG BEFORE 4e was even dreamed of with the OGL terms. What nobody has shown me any evidence of is that 4e has been seriously hurt by PF.



> I know a bit.  And as I just said above, I agree that just trying to assign direct cause and effect between the two is wrong.  There is more to it than that.
> 
> Just simply not true.




Lets see it then. LOL. I hear all these statements about how people 'know this' and 'know that' and yet somehow delivery of evidence is always astoundingly lacking. I mean I laid out all that I know of that can be garnered without some kind of insider info that I have yet to meet anyone who can prove that they have it. "I know things" isn't squat. This is the Intertubes, talk is cheap, lol. I don't mean that to sound offensive. It is just the reality, there's lots of talk and vanishingly little substance going around.



> Wait a second.  Just before you were talking about how people buy both games so the "notable" success of PF says nothing about 4E.  And, again, as an isolated comparison, I agree.  But that presumes that a lot of people buying D&D are now just buying D&D plus PF and the pie is therefore growing and instead of one success we have two.  That is certainly a potentially valid model which could exist.  But then you turn around and say "the pie is shrinking".  If the pie is shrinking AND someone else now has comparable amounts of pie as the guy who used to have the majority of the pie, then the only rational conclusion is that the guy now has less pie.




Well, I never said that I thought 4e sold as well as or better than 3.5 did in its heyday. I don't know actually, but I suspect ALL RPGs sell less now than they did in past years. However, more choice for customers is better, and if having 2 games that are both interesting keeps more gamers engaged AT ALL, then both games are relatively better off. If say 4e would be selling 30% below 3.5 at its 3 year mark and because of PF it is only 20% off that, then wouldn't that mean 4e benefited from the existence of PF? Sure it would. Now lets suppose that PF was quite appealing to newbies and brought droves of them into the hobby, it could sell 10x better than 4e and still be a good thing for 4e. Honestly though 4e APPEARS to be quite a lot more friendly to new players than 3.5/PF to be honest, so the question is really how effective is it at bringing them in? That seems to be (by WotC's own admission) job #1 for 4e, get new players. 



> Oh, I don't doubt it.  Neither am I.  I did not say no one could find a group.  Hussar said you don't hear that.  I said I have.  Just anecdotes.




Yeah, I was just stating what I see too. 



> No, that is not true.
> 
> My point is that his example could not exist in the first place if my position was truly wrong.




Well, it sure sounded like to me you were interpreting Hussar's example to mean all he could find was PF games and that was some kind of evidence of something. That was what I got from what you said. His example seemed utterly generic to me. He could as easily have swapped the names of the two games around and made the same point. Maybe I don't understand what you were trying to say there, and this exchange has gotten long enough now it is hard to even sort out who said what, lol.



> Obviously PF could not exist as is without WotC's OGL.  Hats off.
> 
> But the success of PF is still, as you put it, "notable".  And I think is interesting in itself.  The very game that was not doing good enough to continue supporting is now breathing down WotC's neck.
> Is Paizo just that much better at marketing and giving the people the material they want?  Is it a case of you don't know what you've got until it's gone?
> ...




As I said, there's a trade off that WotC apparently feels compelled to make. They could have made something just about like PF and gotten the same sort of response (and had Paizo doing support for it). The problem is that doesn't work in the long term. It might not even work in the medium term. PF is a 3.5 refresh, everyone buys the shiny new, and then what? It is basically the same game. You can repeat that endlessly but the customer base gets smaller every time. WotC decided to break the mold. They're not after the 3.5 fan base, they're after a whole new market. Did they want to lose customers? Of course not.

Here's the thing though. What, aside from making a game that is not warmed-over 3.5, has WotC done that is so terrible? Really? Produce a fine and high quality line of books for 4e? AWFUL! lol. Create an online offering? Wow, terrible! lol. Paizo produces good books too, but I'm sorry I don't buy this whole WotC is a bunch of incompetent boobs, watch them fail silliness. They're doing some new things and taking some serious risks so they do run into issues. What is Paizo doing? Publishing nice books. They can both do that. Could Paizo do a DDI Compendium, a Character Builder, or a Monster Builder? A VTT? Hunh, don't see a single sign of any possibility they can do those things. Are those new things perfect? Nope! They're just things you can buy or not buy depending on if you like them, but hey, apparently 50k+ people are dropping at least $6 a month in WotC's pocket for DDI. Who's actually doing the better job here?



> Again, the whole "can't sell it" is either just knee jerk or red herring.
> 
> But I disagree that a different 4E could not have been vastly more successful.  Now, I certainly agree that it is easier said than done to make a fully new game that still appeals to 3E fans.  But is was certainly more than "conceivable".




But it would not fulfill their long term goals, so that would be useless to them.



> But the problem is that this was never even WotC's goal.  They made that clear, and early on this was held as a standard and point of pride.  They wanted to vastly increase the fan base of D&D.  They saw tons of people playing WOW* pretending to be an elf and wanted to know why those people were not giving THEM money to pretend to be an elf.  They wanted DMing to not be intimidating and they wanted to lower the bar for entry level play.




And they did. Now, maybe they're tilting at windmills and there's really no possible way to grow the fanbase all that much. There's no way we'll ever know if that is true or if they simply failed to do it right. That is assuming they fail...



> And the whole "firing" customers thing started as a light hearted off hand comment that certainly got blown way out of proportion.  But it did sum up their position.  If they lost 10 old fans and gained 200 new fans, then they are up 190 fans.  You can't make an omelet and all that.
> 
> Now that all sounds great.  I'm all for them growing their business and if they lose me but gain just 2 to replace me, then good on them.  I completely support it.
> 
> But it didn't work.  And in trying to do that, they passed on trying to keep what they had.  So we will never know if they could have done it or not.  That ship has long sailed.




And again with the "but it didn't work" CITATION NEEDED. This is what we're talking about man. You can make these statements all day and all night, but you HAVE NO EVIDENCE TO BACK THEM UP.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred (Apr 19, 2011)

MrGrenadine said:


> Interesting point, but I would think it would be _more_ worrisome for D&D's current owner that a d20 D&D-based game is the one nipping at their heels.  (If that's really happening, off course, because I have no proof of that.)  And I'm not sure what you mean by "leveraged the D&D name", because Pathfinder doesn't seem to do that.  What it does do is leverage past D&D editions, as did 3rd edition, 3.5, 4e, Essentials, etc etc.
> 
> Also, excellent marketing can get folks to the table, but only a solid and fun game will keep players at the table.  My unsupportable anecdotal experience leads me to believe that Pathfinder will be fine down the road.  But anything can happen.
> 
> In the meantime, I'll keep playing both PF and 4e.




My hypothesis is that WotC looks at things strategically. They see that they needed a new style of game in order to avoid just riding the existing market into oblivion as the customers get older and older and there are fewer and fewer of them.

Why would they worry about PF? There are 2 possibilities. They are correct and PF will simply fade away to oblivion just like 3.5 or some WotC warmed-over 3.5 would have. They are wrong and the whole product in any form whatsoever is doomed no matter what they do.

If they're right, then Paizo is the one that is in a no-win situation in the longterm. At best what would they do, warm over PF yet again? Come out with their radically new system to compete with a now entrenched 4e and try to compete with all the experience and resources that WotC will have acquired in the new market conditions in the meantime? Maybe Paizo could try to steal a march on them in 5 years, but they lack the D&D brand name. Paizo can make a nice little business off of PF, but beyond that they have dim prospects.

If the market really is terminal it doesn't matter anyway. I suppose in that case they'd have been better off to make a 3.5 warm-over and suck the tail end of it dry and not leave some of it to a competitor, but any business with that mentality is doomed anyhow. 

They had to try and they are still trying, and they will keep trying until they succeed or the doors shut. Personally I admire that a bit in the WotC people, they have vision and courage. Maybe it is bad vision, but only time will tell, and maybe it is hopeless courage, but that's better than cowardice.


----------



## TheYeti1775 (Apr 19, 2011)

AbdulAlhazred said:


> You can repeat that endlessly but the customer base gets smaller every time. WotC decided to break the mold. They're not after the 3.5 fan base, they're after a whole new market. Did they want to lose customers? Of course not.



I doubt seriousily they wanted to throw the baby out with the bath water.  I think they bit their own behinds via the actions that lead up to the announcement of 4E than some failed promises afterwards.
Their own NDA's prevented a lot of smoothing over against the various actions that led up to it all.  While it's cool to take your site down to prep the big announcement changeover, doing the site take down for several days during one of the biggiest RPG conventions to make it a suprise that most of us suspected anyways. 
I think the PR blunders more than anything lead to the biggiest portion of the split.



AbdulAlhazred said:


> Here's the thing though. What, aside from making a game that is not warmed-over 3.5, has WotC done that is so terrible? Really? Produce a fine and high quality line of books for 4e? AWFUL! lol. Create an online offering? Wow, terrible! lol. Paizo produces good books too, but I'm sorry I don't buy this whole WotC is a bunch of incompetent boobs, watch them fail silliness. They're doing some new things and taking some serious risks so they do run into issues. What is Paizo doing? Publishing nice books. They can both do that. Could Paizo do a DDI Compendium, a Character Builder, or a Monster Builder? A VTT? Hunh, don't see a single sign of any possibility they can do those things. Are those new things perfect? Nope! They're just things you can buy or not buy depending on if you like them, but hey, apparently 50k+ people are dropping at least $6 a month in WotC's pocket for DDI. Who's actually doing the better job here?



If I remember right the OGL didn't grant digital rights.  Wasn't there a stink about that also or am I think the GSL.  Could have sworn there was an issue with PCGen about that.  Pazio probably didn't want to deal with the nest.


----------



## Mercurius (Apr 19, 2011)

Hussar said:


> But, again, let's not forget historical context either.  3e is released after several years of the largest economic growth in American history (and much the same in many other countries as well).  4e is released after several years of some of the poorest economic performance in a generation or two.
> 
> Getting a passing grade on a luxury product when economic times are poor isn't a bad thing at all.  Adequate in a time when many other companies are failing isn't too shabby.




Hmm...not sure if I agree here. I'm not a business guy, but if I remember correctly entertainment stuff actually does well in recessions; I'm thinking about movies, for instance. Now RPG books aren't the same thing as movies, but nor are they truly "luxury items" in the same way that a massaging desk chair is or Mini Cooper. I would think in times of recession RPGs could thrive, or at least not decline too much.



Hussar said:


> And, again, what is your benchmark?  How good should 4e be doing to get a B grade?  Or an A grade?  3e just released?  Again, outside of the early 80's, D&D has never reached that level.  3.5 certainly didn't.  2e didn't.  And most of the time, 1e didn't as well.




How about having a thriving, happy fan-base for starters? How about a D&D Insider that is actually improving and developing? How about a growing fan-base, even? Etc.




Hussar said:


> Why is "doing adequately" equated with "dying hobby"?  I mean, modest growth or even static doesn't mean dying.  Again, outside of about six years, the past 30 years of D&D has not been fantastic sales, it's been mostly "adequate".




That is not what I wrote. What I did write is that WotC cannot operate as if that's the case, that is that RPGs are a dying hobby. They have to assume that it can not only survive but thrive. Right now it seems to me that 4E is just surviving.



Hussar said:


> Again, there seems to be this disconnect.  You and BryonD admit that WOTC is doing well with the DDI.  That seems to be the case, although, again, big grain of salt time.  You say that it's doing adequately, as in it's not losing money, but not making a whole lot either.




I don't know if they are "doing well." I would guess that they are doing OK, but that the potential is much greater _if _they improve the product. And that is what I do know, or at least feel for myself: That DDI is fraught with problems, from the bugginess of the programs to the reliance upon internet to the lack of new Builders.



Hussar said:


> But, if I'm still making a return on my investment that is better than what I'd get in the bank, why would I sell off the investment in a very poor economic time?  Wouldn't it be much, much better to do what WOTC did and sell at the hottest time?  Let's not forget, Hasbro didn't wait until WOTC was failing to buy the company.




True, but if you're a corporation like Hasbro you don't think as much about return on investment as profitability. If WotC is only just making a bit over their investment I could see Hasbro wanting to allocate those resources elsewhere, unless they feel that D&D is a loss leader (which I don't think it is).

Again, I'm not denying that D&D makes WotC (and thus Hasbro) money. But the point is, I think, it is not nearly as successful as it could and should be.



Dannyalcatraz said:


> Marketing 101: When you're talking marketing & brand management, belittling your prior product is something you simply don't do unless you're mocking something _objectively_ bad about it, like a safety issue, for instance.  _And even then_, it's usually a bad idea to explicitly call attention to past flaws.  The risk of alienating parts or all of your installed customer base is generally not worth the potential payoff.
> 
> Simply put, WotC's marketing plan was a bad idea from the start, and the result was predictable.




You'll find no disagreement from me.


----------



## nedjer (Apr 19, 2011)

The secret master plan for WoTC to take control of much of the entertainment industry: basically zombies and cheerleaders. It's genius, can't believe we didn't have more faith in them.


----------



## Tuft (Apr 19, 2011)

Mercurius said:


> Tuft said:
> 
> 
> > When they used an apparently hefty initial advertising budget from Hasbro to commission a commercial where they dumped dragon dung on previous fans.
> ...




Thinking about this: 

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Azcn84IIDVg]YouTube - A 4th Edition Interview with a Red Dragon (and his cronies)[/ame]


at 1:30. If not dragon dung, then what is it?


.


----------



## TheUltramark (Apr 20, 2011)

ok, I am going with some assumptions that coul dbe wrong, so correct as needed, but...
WotC is actually owned by Hasbro
Hasbro is a publicly traded company
therefore the team of folk at the offices of Coastwizards that are owned by Hasbro have only two choices:
Make Money or die tryin

personally, my group has enough 4E stuff and plain old imagination to keep us going for years without worrying about what might come out 6 months from now, or if the place folds altogether.


----------



## mudbunny (Apr 20, 2011)

Tuft said:


> Thinking about this:
> 
> YouTube - A 4th Edition Interview with a Red Dragon (and his cronies)
> 
> ...




Due to that part being a troll posting something on the internet, I thought that they were making fun of internet trolls.


----------



## Retreater (Apr 20, 2011)

I guess to respond to the OP, fans of their own particular flavor of D&D can point to any change in the game's history as the moment the brand "jumped the shark."

In the past week, my relatively small circle of gaming friends along have brought up what they thought were the worst changes in the history of D&D:

1) The creation of 3rd edition from AD&D 2nd edition.
2) The 3.5 revision.
3) The creation of 4th edition.
4) The new Essentials content.

I can only point to the time that I stopped having as much fun with the game, which had nothing to do with edition. It was when my old gaming group started to disperse across the country; our sessions began getting shorter and less frequent; players stopped thinking about the game away from the game due to real life issues; and we accept people in our group with little gaming skills, social skills, or hygeine skills. THOSE were the moments that the game lost its luster, and were far more detrimental to my gaming experience than anything that WotC or Paizo can pull off.

Retreater


----------



## Raven Crowking (Apr 20, 2011)

mudbunny said:


> Due to that part being a troll posting something on the internet, I thought that they were making fun of internet trolls.




Given that his "trolling" consisted largely of legitimate concerns about the new edition, which were being made at the time it aired by fans of previous editions.....Sorry, but this was a really bad commercial, that directly targeted people who were concerned with the direction WotC was taking D&D in.

Painting such folks as trolls and then dragon-dunging them might have seemed funny to the developers at the time, but it was boneheaded, pure & simple.  It also comes off as vindictive toward a segment of the gaming population who didn't immediately buy into WotC's new paradigm.

What amount to attack ads against people who don't immediately support your product is.....off-putting at the least.  And some of the ones I've seen seemed to me to have been devised to aid 4e supporters in "winning the edition wars".

No, I am not happy with WotC's ad department.  I would actually like to see some acknowledgement of this, and an apology, from WotC.

YMMV.


RC


----------



## Fifth Element (Apr 20, 2011)

_I met my old edition
At the gamestore last night
It seemed so glad to see me
I just cried
And we talked about some old times
And we killed ourselves some owlbears
Still outraged after all these years
Oh, still outraged after all these years _
​


----------



## Hussar (Apr 20, 2011)

BryonD said:


> And repeating claims that "all of it" is flimsy doesn't make *that* true.
> 
> There have been detailed discussions of the various sources of information.  And you were involved.
> 
> ...




Yes, I was involved in those threads.  That's WHY I'm saying what I'm saying.  You look at a bunch of anedotes, stripped of context, lacking any real substance, and claim that they are the truth.  I look at the same "evidence" and say, "Y'know what?  We can't really state anything with any assurance.  It might be true, but, really?  No one actually knows."


----------



## Hussar (Apr 20, 2011)

MrGrenadine said:


> I don't mean to pick, Hussar, but I'd like to make a couple comments on your post:
> 
> 
> 
> I would say Paizo has done more outreach in the past decade, myself, but who knows?  Here's an honest question, though:  Whats the feedback loop for Encounters and GW, because reaching out to customers doesn't necessarily mean listening and responding to customers.  You need the loop!  And if WotC is really listening to its customers, _and wisely choosing which feedback to incorporate_, then that can only be good for the game.




Past decade?  Don't think so.  Did Paizo even exist in 2001?  And, while Paizo has done fantastic things reaching out to its fans, what has it done to reach out to new gamers?  What has any gaming company done on the scale of D&D Encounters?  Or the Library initiatives.  Or giving money to registered gaming groups as WOTC did a few years back?



> Are you thinking of specific publishers here, because I thought the GSL was the death knell for D&D 3PP.




In 2006, before 4e was announced, how many companies were producing 3pp D&D?  5 maybe?  And that was stretching it.  All the mid tier companies were almost gone (Mongoose, AEG, FFG) and other than Paizo, you had very, very little on the ground.



> I think D&D was a mess at the tail end of 2e, because TSR was a mess.  The game rebounded spectacularly during the 3e years, which was great to see.




Agreed.  But, there were elements which facilitated that rebound that were totally outside of WOTC's control.  A moribund gaming industry that hadn't seen a new big game in years (quick, name 3 releases from 1995 up to the release of 3e that made a big, lasting splash).  Years of fantastic economic growth certainly didn't hurt.  So on and so forth.



> Interesting point, but I would think it would be _more_ worrisome for D&D's current owner that a d20 D&D-based game is the one nipping at their heels.  (If that's really happening, off course, because I have no proof of that.)  And I'm not sure what you mean by "leveraged the D&D name", because Pathfinder doesn't seem to do that.  What it does do is leverage past D&D editions, as did 3rd edition, 3.5, 4e, Essentials, etc etc.




Sorry, I thought the tag line on the front of the Pathfinder books was "3rd Edition THRIVES!"



> Also, excellent marketing can get folks to the table, but only a solid and fun game will keep players at the table.  My unsupportable anecdotal experience leads me to believe that Pathfinder will be fine down the road.  But anything can happen.
> 
> In the meantime, I'll keep playing both PF and 4e.




Honestly, I think Pathfinder will be fine for years as well.  I just don't think it will grow much beyond what it is now.  I think they leveraged the fact that people were dissatisfied with 4e and liked 3e and drew heavily on that crowd for their fans.  But, 5 years down the road, that crowd will be pretty much saturated - either they chose one game or the other (or both).  But it won't grow much beyond that.

I'll be very interested to see how their new Basic book goes.  I wish them all the best.



> True, but if you're a corporation like Hasbro you don't think as much about return on investment as profitability. If WotC is only just making a bit over their investment I could see Hasbro wanting to allocate those resources elsewhere, unless they feel that D&D is a loss leader (which I don't think it is).
> 
> Again, I'm not denying that D&D makes WotC (and thus Hasbro) money. But the point is, I think, it is not nearly as successful as it could and should be.




This is a bit false.  Large corporations ONLY think about return on investment because that's the only thing that matters as far as the shareholders are concerned.  A stable ROI is a very, very valuable thing.  Evergreen products are the bread and butter of any large corporation.  Flash in the pan fads are expensive and wasteful because for every fad, there's a thousand ideas that flopped.

So, sure, it could be more successful.  That's always true.  But, at some point the company has to accept that there is an upper limit to how successful you can expect a product to be.  It would be great if there were 100 million tabletop gamers out there.  But, after 30 years, it's not likely to happen.


----------



## Fifth Element (Apr 20, 2011)

Hussar said:


> This is a bit false.  Large corporations ONLY think about return on investment because that's the only thing that matters as far as the shareholders are concerned.  A stable ROI is a very, very valuable thing.



Indeed. Looking at profits by themselves would show a stunning lack of awareness of the context in which said profits were earned.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred (Apr 20, 2011)

Hussar said:


> Yes, I was involved in those threads.  That's WHY I'm saying what I'm saying.  You look at a bunch of anedotes, stripped of context, lacking any real substance, and claim that they are the truth.  I look at the same "evidence" and say, "Y'know what?  We can't really state anything with any assurance.  It might be true, but, really?  No one actually knows."




Exactly. It is like people derive these hypotheses from practically no solid information at all, and then they repeat them 1000 times and they become "the truth" backed by the solid evidence of all the threads repeating the same old unsupported hypotheses. 

There's simply NO TRUTH out there, unless someone has insider information that everyone else lacks and hasn't appeared anywhere. Show me this evidence! Don't keep repeating "it exists", SHOW ME.


----------



## Raven Crowking (Apr 20, 2011)

Fifth Element said:


> _Oh, still outraged after all these years _




Methinks thou dost protest too much.

Not happy =/= outraged, however so you may wish that it did!  



			
				MrGrenadine said:
			
		

> Hubris will make even the acknowledgement of missteps impossible.




I am proof positive that this is not necessarily so.


----------



## Henry (Apr 20, 2011)

AbdulAlhazred said:


> There's simply NO TRUTH out there, unless someone has insider information that everyone else lacks and hasn't appeared anywhere. Show me this evidence! Don't keep repeating "it exists", SHOW ME.




The only truth I have is my anecdotal evidence which is as follows:

Last month, I bought pathfinder's Inner Sea map for twenty bucks. I just bought the PDF of Inner Sea World Guide for Pathfinder for ten bucks. I fully intend to buy Ultimate Magic in May as soon as it's shippable, and Ultimate Combat in August after that, for the total tune of about ninety to 110 bucks in a six month time span.

Contrast this with the ZERO dollars I've spent on D&D since I canceled my DDI account in November, and seeing no product on the roster that even interests me this whole year. Prior to that, the last books I bought was the two Dark Sun books, and the first essentials book, which I haven't used yet. Pathfinder is keeping my interest by putting out attractive products that pique my interest, and WotC just has not, and even canceled the products that DID interest me. WotC is taking every possible misstep to try to keep me as a customer, and for someone who was buying up 4E material like candy prior to October of 2010, that's saying a lot.

What are their missteps, from my perspective?

1. Cutting all ebook releases.
2. Replacing their existing well-done software with substandard and restrictive substitutes.
3. Hitching their wagon to the GSL instead of the OGL.
4. Supporting the essentials material to the exclusion of pre-Essentials design, rather than supplementing it with Essentials design.

I also have concerns with the direction that things like their Fortune Cards initiative is moving, but that's minor - I have no desire for any collectible aspect to RPGs, but I have no proof that this is an indicator of the future, so unless I have evidence to the contrary, as I say it's minor at best.

However, the four issues above Paizo is embracing in direct opposition to WotC, and in addition to some good solid design work and excellent idea generating material, it's the main reasons they're keeping my interest.


----------



## mudbunny (Apr 20, 2011)

Raven Crowking said:


> Given that his "trolling" consisted largely of legitimate concerns about the new edition, which were being made at the time it aired by fans of previous editions.....Sorry, but this was a really bad commercial, that directly targeted people who were concerned with the direction WotC was taking D&D in.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> YMMV.




_shrug_

Like I said. For me it was pretty clear that the ad was targeted at trolls (hence the use of a troll character), not people simply complaining.

But, one's opinions of the ads, like everything else, is subjective. I can see why you feel the way that you do, and understand it, I just don't agree with it.

(Note that this in no way means that i am dismissing your feelings.)


----------



## Jeffrey (Apr 20, 2011)

Fifth Element said:


> _I met my old edition
> At the gamestore last night
> It seemed so glad to see me
> I just cried
> ...




Unnecessary.


----------



## Hussar (Apr 20, 2011)

Henry said:


> The only truth I have is my anecdotal evidence which is as follows:
> 
> Last month, I bought pathfinder's Inner Sea map for twenty bucks. I just bought the PDF of Inner Sea World Guide for Pathfinder for ten bucks. I fully intend to buy Ultimate Magic in May as soon as it's shippable, and Ultimate Combat in August after that, for the total tune of about ninety to 110 bucks in a six month time span.
> 
> ...




Oh, and that's totally fair Henry.  Honestly, I haven't spent a dime on 4e since buying the core 3, so, WOTC lost me as a customer a long time ago.  Then again, my RPG purchasing has dropped virtually every year over the past ten years, so this is not particularly surprising.

But, while it's totally valid to say that WOTC is not catering to you, it's not really all that valid to say that you are either A) a typical consumer (you might be, but, we don't know) and B) that your habits are indicative of anything other than your personal buying habits.

Even if we get fifty people together who say that their spending habits are the same as yours, it's not really indicative of anything other than on the Internet, we can find fifty people who agree with you.  There might only be 51 people out there that agree with you and we just happened to find almost all of them.

Given that people are far, far more likely to complain than to post saying, "Hey, I've got a great game and no problems", there's just so much bias in the reporting.

And, just to jump to the other side of the fence for a while, I totally agree that WOTC could be doing a lot more to engage fans.  I'm really rather staggered that they are not doing so.  I wonder if the orders have come down from on high after all the hooply and fruforol that surrounded the launch where any statement made by a WOTC employee was dissected down to the angstrom in the search for yet another thing to be pissed off about.  I wonder if the decision was made to not engage with fans in an uncontrolled medium where anything of value just got buried under so much crap.

I think it's not a good idea.  But, I wonder if they decided that the goodwill they could gain from engaging people would be just lost under the mountain of vitriol that gets spewed every time they poke their head up.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred (Apr 20, 2011)

[MENTION=158]Henry[/MENTION] Yeah, sure. I have nothing against it. Personally wasn't super fond of the graphic design, color choice etc. Rather wordy too. Just kind of didn't fit my style. I'd be totally happy with WotC's rules and Paizo's adventures. That was the promise that somehow was not born. 

There's no other mistake WotC has ever made, except mishandling its relationship with Paizo to start with. Paizo could be doing adventures and DDI for that matter instead of WotC writing magazines, which they are OK at, but it is like their adventures, a little flat.

I think fundamentally though, PF attracts certain people, 4e attracts certain people. Probably both with be around for a long time to come. I'm having a fine time playing 4th now (well, DMing, I really can't find anyone else to DM online, lol). Have all the same players and that game has been poking along most every week. I use my existing 2e setting without changing really anything much. If you really just do what is fun, it works well.


----------



## Tuft (Apr 20, 2011)

Raven Crowking said:


> Given that his "trolling" consisted largely of legitimate concerns about the new edition, which were being made at the time it aired by fans of previous editions.....Sorry, but this was a really bad commercial, that directly targeted people who were concerned with the direction WotC was taking D&D in.
> 
> Painting such folks as trolls and then dragon-dunging them might have seemed funny to the developers at the time, but it was boneheaded, pure & simple.  It also comes off as vindictive toward a segment of the gaming population who didn't immediately buy into WotC's new paradigm.
> 
> ...




Exactly. Casting those fans who no longer fit your "vision" as trolls, and then employing scatological humiliation on them is so petty and vindictive that it is astounding. It's also arrogance in the same class as BP executives ("I want my life back"). That's why it definitely is a major shark-jumping moment to me. 

Rallying your troops by, well, flinging muck at an outsider _is_ a well-known psychological trick, and it is easy to employ. It is also an ugly one.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz (Apr 20, 2011)

> But, one's opinions of the ads, like everything else, is subjective. I can see why you feel the way that you do, and understand it, I just don't agree with it.




Subjective, yes, but also in some cases, professional and based on empirical data.

As in, history has taught marketing professionals that, while it occasionally works, _the vast majority of the time_ the kind of marketing WotC used to launch 4Ed backfires.  You really can't belittle your prior product in your ad campaigns and expect everyone to agree with that viewpoint.  It's bad marketing; it's bad brand management.

(That was my assessment of the live action ads, the "gnome interview" and some of the designer interviews...having never before seen the ad above.  _THAT_ was simply awful.)


----------



## Stormonu (Apr 20, 2011)

Hussar said:


> Past decade?  Don't think so.  Did Paizo even exist in 2001?  And, while Paizo has done fantastic things reaching out to its fans, what has it done to reach out to new gamers?  What has any gaming company done on the scale of D&D Encounters?  Or the Library initiatives.  Or giving money to registered gaming groups as WOTC did a few years back?




Back around 2005, right after Katrina, I sent a meekly worded letter to Paizo that it looked like my copy of Dungeon had gotten lost in the mail during the chaos, and could I please get a replacement copy.

I was very shocked a few weeks later to get a box containing not only a replacement mag, but a handful of books, minis, dice and whatnot.  I later found out I was not the only one who received such a "care package" from them (and I believe they have done this following other disasters) and I have never forgotten that small ray of sunshine in that otherwise depressing time in my life.

Paizo has done quite right by my standards of supporting the hobby, and their fans to boot.


----------



## DaveMage (Apr 20, 2011)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> (That was my assessment of the live action ads, the "gnome interview" and some of the designer interviews...having never before seen the ad above.  _THAT_ was simply awful.)




That ad above reminds me of why I think it's ok to "dump" on WotC and 4E.

To me, that ad made it looked like that if you criticized a WotC design decision, you were a troll to be "dumped" on.

If that was their opinion - screw 'em!


----------



## ExploderWizard (Apr 20, 2011)

shamsael said:


> And, just to point out, Fonzy jumped the shark in Season 5, yet Happy Days stayed on the air for 6 whole seasons after that.




Many things linger on long after the quality that defined them vanishes. 

The problem with things that jump the shark is that they _don't _dissappear.


----------



## BryonD (Apr 20, 2011)

Hussar said:


> But, while it's totally valid to say that WOTC is not catering to you, it's not really all that valid to say that you are either A) a typical consumer (you might be, but, we don't know) and B) that your habits are indicative of anything other than your personal buying habits.



But you are responding to an argument that no one is making.

I have not met a single person who claims, "I don't play 4E.  I am typical. Therefore 4E is hurting."

If you find me one, then I will agree that they are wrong and your dispute stands.

I encounter people who play 4E.  Each event is nothing but an anecdote.
I encounter people who have left D&D since 4E came along.  Each event is nothing but an anecdote.

However the frequency of the two events is quite notable.  
You could still say that this is "just an anecdote" of my personal random encounters, biased by my geography and online habits.  Fair enough.
But a couple points apply to that.  First, this is at least a different tier of anecdote.  Second, the odds of me finding this distribution by pure chance, ten years ago during 3E was astronomical.  It is like winning the lottery.  Ok, people do win the lottery.  So I'm just that guy and my lottery winning anecdote doesn't mean anything about the frequency of lottery winners.  So you are still leading this debate.

But then I talk to other people who have the exact same experience in completely different areas.  Huh.  There sure seem to be a lot of lottery winners out there.  Weird.

Then we look at other anecdotes out there.
There is plenty of serious flaws in looking at Amazon data.  People misuse it constantly.  Very small flurries of activity can wildly swing that data and make it look completely wrong.  So if GURPS releases a new book, you can probably capture a screenshot showing GURPS as the #1 RPG.  But you can also look at trends.  In the past 3E was dominant, now it varies.  The pattern has changed.  What does that tell us?  Well, something has changed.
What is it that has changed?  Dunno.  Maybe Amazon's methods just changed.  Maybe the people shopping online have changed.  Maybe someone learned how to hack the system.  Dunno.  What are the odds that this change would happen just in time to hurt the appearance?  Dunno, but lottery winners happen, that doesn't mean everyone wins the lottery.

We hear from people with knowledge of retail bookstores that the sales are not the same.  Well, that is just an anecdote of big chains and everyone knows that they are going through a lot of trouble right now.  No telling what that means.  Just bad luck for 4e on the timing.  

We hear from distributors that things are completely different now.  Well, they only service a segment of the market and don't provide a full picture.  Not sure why that segment of the market would not be dominated by the 800 lb gorilla the way it used to be.  But hey, lottery winners happen and lottery winners are just meaningless anecdotes.

We hear from game stores.  As you said, some game stores report 4E sales are great and some report they are terrible.  Now, clearly game store owners have some likelyhood of being gamers.  So we have a bias issue.  Yep, need to be careful here.  Now, if we stick with the null hypothesis that everything is the same now then there should have been the same distribution of anti-3E gamestore owners then as there are anti-4E game store owners now. And yet, we didn't have game store owners complaining that they could not move 3E/D20 product.  We had "the glut".  We had "stiffling".  Maybe game store owners were just as biased against 3E then as they are against 4E now.  But for some odd reason they have started electing to put their biases above their profits now.  It is just really bad luck for 4E that this change in values has happened now.  Or it could be that the distribution is just the same, but the luck of the draw was such that game store owners completely randomly happened to be clustered in the tiny anti-4E segment of the population.  Just another lottery winner.  

One starts to wonder how many lottery winners are needed before one is permitted to draw the conclusion that there are more lottery winners than there used to be.  

Those are not all the examples, but I think I've covered the frequently discussed ones.

If you try to take any one of them out and say it means something, then you are wrong.  But understanding that those data points are all parts of one large population is important.  

If someone now says they can look at that and say "4E is failing" then they are deluding themselves.  If someone looks at that as says "PF has more revenue than 4E" then they are deluding themselves.  If someone looks at all that and says "it is 70/30 4E" or "it is 50/50" or it is any X0/X0, then they are deluding themselves.  We really do not have ANY information to answer any of THOSE questions.

But a rational person CAN look at all that and conclude that something is very different now from what it used to be.

And if you can't find any difference, then you are just not looking honestly.  And, humorously, the fact that deniers of the change participate in this thread is a drop of evidence against them.  This kind of claim 10 years ago would not have merited conversation.

Now, the one big thing left of is DDI.  People will say that DDI makes all the difference.  Ok, fair point.  There is some quibble over whether the DDI subscriber base is 30K or 50K.  For a second, lets assume 30K.  Well, let me just say, that is a hell of a lot of money.  Congrats!!  Now, lets changes the assumption to 75K.  And lets assume that not a single one of those people is double counted because no one with a DDI subscription anywhere ever buys  a single book again.  The deck is completely stacked in 4E's favor.  If all of that is correct and 75K DDI subscribers is swaying the whole marketplace, then I stand corrected.  The D&D brand is doing far far worse than I thought.


I certainly wonder, what anecdotes are there to suggest that 4E is just a dominate as 3E was?  Or to suggest that the market is largely unified and not "deeply split".


----------



## Fifth Element (Apr 20, 2011)

BryonD said:


> But a rational person CAN look at all that and conclude that something is very different now from what it used to be.



As I've said before, there _is_ something different now: the second-most popular edition of D&D is published by a different company than the company that publishes the most popular edition of D&D.

We used to have AD&D published alongside basic D&D, both by the same company. Would you call the market "deeply split" then? There was certainly some animosity between the two groups, if you only listened to the loudest voices. But most D&D players were probably interested in both editions, and many played both editions at the same time.

We have no basis to now say that 4E players play 4E, PF players play PF, and never the twain shall meet.

We do know that Pathfinder is popular, in a general sense. We have no basis to proceed from that to a "deeply split" market, since we don't know how many of those PF players are also into 4E, and vice-versa.

"The market is deeply split" is a positive assertion, and requires evidence to support it. Where is your evidence, not that there are two popular editions of D&D right now, but that this leads to a split in the market?


----------



## BryonD (Apr 20, 2011)

Fifth Element said:


> As I've said before, there _is_ something different now: the second-most popular edition of D&D is published by a different company than the company that publishes the most popular edition of D&D.



First, that is not the point most others are making.  If we can first agree that there IS a split between 4E and PF, then we can certainly move on to discussing the significance of PF being a built on 3E D&D.  

But I'd also say that there is a very real difference between PF / 4E and the coexisting versions of the past.  Again, the existence of PF would not have happened if a marketplace of fans rejecting the new version of D&D had not been there for the taking.  And the differences don't stop there.  Can you show me the comparable event to debating whether or not a cartoon dragon taking a dump on a troll over his preference between basic or advanced was an issue?  And why does PF seem to be MORE popular now than 3E was in its lagging days?

Honestly, my recollection is that basic D&D was a gateway game and AD&D became the big game.  Honestly, I was a kid and really not paying attention to that kind of information.  I don't think it was a head to head nearly so much as a pairing.  (meaningful numbers of exceptions notwithstanding).  But, if you say my memory is just wrong, so be it.  I don't really care because I don't agree it is relevant.

And I know with an absolute certainty that there are absolutely people playing both games.  But if you are trying to paint a picture of one big happy family, then that is just funny.  I'm a "H4TER".  I'm an "edition war-monger".  (And I have a lot of fun.)  But as I've said many time before, 4E is a perfectly ok game.  It is easily on my list of top 20 RPGs of all time.  Maybe top ten.  But there are better and I choose to play those.  Heck, there are better games that I still don't ever get around to.  But I literally find myself running into other gamers completely at random and commonly hearing "4E SUCKS!!".  If I'm a H4TER, you should check out those guys.  And there are a lot of them.

But again, that is all tangent because the point is whether or not we even agree that PF is in the ballpark of 4E.


----------



## Umbran (Apr 20, 2011)

BryonD said:


> And why does PF seem to be MORE popular now than 3E was in its lagging days?




Why does it _seem_ that way?  You want other people to give you reasons for your own perceptions?  

Maybe it seems that way because it is, in fact, more popular.  Or maybe it is because the available information is biased, or maybe because you are subject to certain forms of confirmation bias.  The potential reasons why it seems to be one way or another are many and varied, and we can only guess at which ones apply to you, or any other particular person.


----------



## Nagol (Apr 20, 2011)

Fifth Element said:


> As I've said before, there _is_ something different now: the second-most popular edition of D&D is published by a different company than the company that publishes the most popular edition of D&D.
> 
> We used to have AD&D published alongside basic D&D, both by the same company. Would you call the market "deeply split" then? There was certainly some animosity between the two groups, if you only listened to the loudest voices. But most D&D players were probably interested in both editions, and many played both editions at the same time.




Actually, that has been the case historically as well more generally in RPGs.

Runequest 2e threatened AD&D's popularity for a short period and was poised to take lead just before the sale to Avalon Hill in the early '80's.  oWoD systems from White Wolf hit t least 2nd in popularity in the '90s.


----------



## Aus_Snow (Apr 20, 2011)

Mercurius said:


> But I'm wondering is this: at what point did things really begin to go down hill?



When 3.5 was announced.

I suppose, after that, when it was stated that there would be no 4.5, followed in more recent times by... well, call it what you will. I have my own perspective on it, but I know there are those who would disagree. And fair enough too. What the OP is asking, seems to me to be more to do with impressions and the like. So that is what I've posted.

Oh, and it didn't help that 3.5 was later revealed to be have been planned from the get go. Which might make one wonder about 4.5 as well...

3.5 and 4.5, for my money. So to speak.


----------



## Fifth Element (Apr 20, 2011)

BryonD said:


> But if you are trying to paint a picture of one big happy family, then that is just funny.



I'm doing no such thing. The picture I'm painting is grey and fuzzy, and we can't really see any detail in it.

You have painted a clear picture of a "deep split" in the market. That may very well be the case. But we don't know whether or not it's the case.



BryonD said:


> But again, that is all tangent because the point is whether or not we even agree that PF is in the ballpark of 4E.



If you make the ballpark big enough, then clearly PF is in it. The question of exactly how big the ballpark needs to be before we can get PF in it, however, is an open question and we have little to no evidence to go on.


----------



## Fifth Element (Apr 20, 2011)

Nagol said:


> Actually, that has been the case historically as well more generally in RPGs.
> 
> Runequest 2e threatened AD&D's popularity for a short period and was poised to take lead just before the sale to Avalon Hill in the early '80's.  oWoD systems from White Wolf hit t least 2nd in popularity in the '90s.



Indeed. I'm working on the assumption that when BryonD says "market" he means "D&D market", not "RPG market" or even "fantasy RPG market".


----------



## Raven Crowking (Apr 20, 2011)

Fifth Element said:


> I'm doing no such thing. The picture I'm painting is grey and fuzzy, and we can't really see any detail in it.




This is an instance where I really must agree with Fifth Element.

There may be data out there, but our access to that data is so slim that no credible view is available, IMHO.  Or, another way to put it is that all viewpoints are equally credible/non-credible.


RC


----------



## Fifth Element (Apr 20, 2011)

Raven Crowking said:


> There may be data out there, but our access to that data is so slim that no credible view is available, IMHO.  Or, another way to put it is that all viewpoints are equally credible/non-credible.



Precisely. I'm sure the data does exist, but we don't have access to it. Probably no one person has access to all of it.

I'm not arguing for a specific viewpoint, I'm arguing that specific viewpoints are not supportable due to the paucity of available evidence.

I can't prove that the majority of PF players also play 4E. But I'm not saying that they do; I'm saying that such an assertion has as much weight behind it as the assertion that there is a deep divide between the two groups, which is to say very little.


----------



## Mercurius (Apr 20, 2011)

My view is more towards Bryon's in that while I agree that anecdotes aren't proof and we don't have "the data", we do have our own experiences to draw from and the viewpoints of those that we encounter. In the internet era this can be substantial. 

Now of course the internet and the anecdotes that we encounter doesn't prove anything beyond that _some _people are upset, that there is _some _division in the community. The question is to what degree, and for that all we can do is conjecture.

(As an aside, I would suggest we stop the argument as to what constitutes proof because it really won't go anywhere. I would also suggest that there is nothing wrong with discussing our impressions; but as soon as it devolves into "but you can't prove that" then the conversation dies. It is similar to the idea that "That's just your personal opinion, which you are stating as fact." No kidding, but let's move on, shall we? Sometimes I feel like I'm stuck in some nightmarish latter-day version of a college class from the early 90s, Postmodernism 101. ;-))

Back to the topic at hand. Again, I think it is clear that there is _some _division, perhaps even a fair amount. I would also suggest that, as Bryon implied, the amount of dissatisfaction with 4E is somewhat more (probably significantly so) than 3E. I don't remember as many "defectors" during that era; sure, there were some, but there was no mass exodus back to 2E, no 2E Pathfinder. 

Anecdotal? Sure. But that doesn't make the discussion not worth having.

One more thing. Given that my preferred version of D&D is actually 4E, I take issue with a frequent implication that saying something is rotten in Renton means that one is a "H4TER". I like the game quite a bit, and more than 3.5 or Pathfinder or any other edition. I don't think it is perfect, in fact I think it has significant flaws, but my hope is that 5E is an attempt to fix those flaws rather than turn back the clock to sometime before 2008, or to scrap the game and start again. In other words, criticizing WotC does not make one a H4TER.


----------



## Raven Crowking (Apr 20, 2011)

Mercurius said:


> My view is more towards Bryon's in that while I agree that anecdotes aren't proof and we don't have "the data", we do have our own experiences to draw from and the viewpoints of those that we encounter. In the internet era this can be substantial.




Sure.  Everyone is allowed to set the bar where they become convinced wherever they think makes sense.  That doesn't mean others will accept that bar, or what has met that bar as consisting of actual evidence.



> In other words, criticizing WotC does not make one a H4TER.




I agree with this absolutely!




RC


----------



## nedjer (Apr 20, 2011)

Seems they didn't so much jump the shark as goose the killer whale?


----------



## AbdulAlhazred (Apr 20, 2011)

Mercurius said:


> My view is more towards Bryon's in that while I agree that anecdotes aren't proof and we don't have "the data", we do have our own experiences to draw from and the viewpoints of those that we encounter. In the internet era this can be substantial.
> 
> Now of course the internet and the anecdotes that we encounter doesn't prove anything beyond that _some _people are upset, that there is _some _division in the community. The question is to what degree, and for that all we can do is conjecture.
> 
> ...




Right, I mostly agree, maybe not on every detail, but I think mostly we're all on the same page.

I think my issue is simply with BryonD. First of all he seems to me to be determined to interpret any doubt as to his opinion on things as meaning that we believe that PF is insignificant, nothing in 2011 is any different than it was in 2008, etc etc etc. That is a significant misinterpretation of what at least I (and I am gathering from other poster's responses I'm not alone) have been saying. 

The world goes on. 2011 is NOT 2008. Every edition of D&D exists within some unique time frame with its own unique market forces, competitors, business dealings, etc etc etc. 

There is no doubt that PF is a popular FRPG. None at all. Just as with any other game there will be people who love it and 'hate' the competition. You can go to many forums or gaming groups or stores and find people that 'hate' one of 4e or PF. Still, the vast majority of people that play D&D that I run into fall far more in the middle. They might prefer one game over the other, but they do play or have played both.

Honestly the strongest trend I personally have seen with 4e is old AD&D players picking it up. I'd count myself in that category. IME a lot of those people really don't care that much for 3.5/PF. How big is that factor? I'd have no idea, but BryonD's view of things where 4e apparently is hated by armies of gamers is at best far from the whole story. 

There are definitely 2 popular forms of D&D on the market. There are some people that like one or the other, and some that like both or don't care etc. That's about all you can say BryonD, sorry. That sure is different than 2008, but really do I even care? I don't have time, energy, and money to dump into 2 systems. I picked the one I like. It is well supported and fun. The other choice? Got nothing against it. Might have picked that in a different situation I suppose. I'm good with both of them thriving. Competition is always good.


----------



## BryonD (Apr 21, 2011)

Umbran said:


> Why does it _seem_ that way?  You want other people to give you reasons for your own perceptions?



No, what is my perception is that this is a common perception.  If it is not a common perception then I stand corrected.  But I think it is.  But if you think I'm asking other people to justify something that purely I see, then that was simply a poor job of expressing the idea on my part.



> Maybe it seems that way because it is, in fact, more popular.  Or maybe it is because the available information is biased, or maybe because you are subject to certain forms of confirmation bias.  The potential reasons why it seems to be one way or another are many and varied, and we can only guess at which ones apply to you, or any other particular person.



It is vastly harder to compare the popularity of a game now to the popularity of a game 4 to 5 years ago.  No doubt and I don't claim anything to the contrary.

As I have said many times before, when they announced 4E, I was a supporter Day 1, when the most common reaction was "money grubbers want me to buy the rules again...."  Because to me it was clear that 3E had lived its life and was on the down slope.

With PF it seems that they have really breathed an amazing vitality back into it, and by "it" I guess I mean both the game system itself and the fan base as well.

Maybe with the time between the two I'm simply confusing direction of motion with relative position.  Could be.  But I'm under the impression that a lot of other people see it this way as well.  And it is at least interesting to note whatever level it was at, that level motivated WotC to move on.  And yet now that game that wasn't doing well enough for for WotC is now in the ballpark of neck and neck with WotC's new game.  So either PF is doing somewhat better than 3E was in the end, or 4E is already doing no better than 3E was in the end.


----------



## BryonD (Apr 21, 2011)

Fifth Element said:


> I'm doing no such thing. The picture I'm painting is grey and fuzzy, and we can't really see any detail in it.
> 
> You have painted a clear picture of a "deep split" in the market. That may very well be the case. But we don't know whether or not it's the case.



Whatever, you compared it to two games published by the same company as part of a common brand.  That is a lot more "one big happy family" than the situation I see.



> If you make the ballpark big enough, then clearly PF is in it. The question of exactly how big the ballpark needs to be before we can get PF in it, however, is an open question and we have little to no evidence to go on.



Can you show any evidence whatsoever to refute the claim that it is in a standard size ballpark?

If you challenged me with any other game 3 years into 3E, I certainly could have done that.  The request would have been so silly that I doubt I would have bothered.  But it could have been done.


----------



## Fifth Element (Apr 21, 2011)

BryonD said:


> Can you show any evidence whatsoever to refute the claim that it is in a standard size ballpark?



There's a standard-sized ballpark with respect to the RPG industry? How big is it exactly?


----------



## BryonD (Apr 21, 2011)

AbdulAlhazred said:


> First of all he seems to me to be determined to interpret any doubt as to his opinion on things as meaning that we believe that PF is insignificant, nothing in 2011 is any different than it was in 2008, etc etc etc. That is a significant misinterpretation of what at least I (and I am gathering from other poster's responses I'm not alone) have been saying.




Huh?




> but BryonD's view of things where 4e apparently is hated by armies of gamers is at best far from the whole story.



BryonD's view is that there is a serious split.  "the whole story" includes meaningfully large numbers of people who find 4E unappealing enough that they have walked away from it.  And it *is* disturbingly common to find people within that group that really do HATE 4e.  But if I had ever claimed that was the whole story then the end of the story would be "and that is why 4E isn't published any more, because it is hated by armies of gamers."

The split that I describe is just that.  There are, apparently, roughly the same number of player that love 4E.  And I certainly know that more than a few of them have serious negative opinions of PF.  Maybe we could call it hate there as well, but I will stop short of putting that word in the mouth of the other side.



> There are definitely 2 popular forms of D&D on the market. There are some people that like one or the other, and some that like both or don't care etc. That's about all you can say BryonD, sorry.



That may be all you can say.  But rational interpretation of the available information does make it possible to say more than just that.



> I'm good with both of them thriving. Competition is always good.



I 100% agree there.


----------



## BryonD (Apr 21, 2011)

Fifth Element said:


> There's a standard-sized ballpark with respect to the RPG industry? How big is it exactly?



So all you've got now is word games?  Ok.

And you may have missed the point, but the SIZE of the ballpark isn't the question.  It is pretty freaking small compared to the ballpark of WOW.

But if it is devastatingly small or a new golden age huge, it makes no difference.  The point is, they are both in the same one.


----------



## Fifth Element (Apr 21, 2011)

BryonD said:


> But if it is devastatingly small or a new golden age huge, it makes no difference.  The point is, they are both in the same one.



There's another positive assertion. Depending on where you draw the line of that ballpark, you could get a number of people to agree with you; and a number who disagree. But you can't define it precisely, since we don't have any actual evidence. So we're left with some vague notion, which is impossible to refute but also impossible to support.


----------



## BryonD (Apr 21, 2011)

You need to go back and read what I wrote earlier.


----------



## pemerton (Apr 21, 2011)

I seriously doubt that Paizo is making as much money from Pathfinder as WotC was making from 3E in its final years, simply because (as far as I understand it) 3E in its final years was keeping afloat a rather bigger ship than Pathfinder is. (But maybe I just have mistaken beliefs about the comparative size of WotC and Paizo.)

EDITED to respond to OP: 4e jumped the shark when WotC nerfed Come and Get It not to deal with an issue of overpoweredness, but rather in response to complaints (primarily, I believe, from non-4e players) about the players of fighter PCs having access to metagame abilities.


----------



## Hussar (Apr 21, 2011)

Stormonu said:


> Back around 2005, right after Katrina, I sent a meekly worded letter to Paizo that it looked like my copy of Dungeon had gotten lost in the mail during the chaos, and could I please get a replacement copy.
> 
> I was very shocked a few weeks later to get a box containing not only a replacement mag, but a handful of books, minis, dice and whatnot.  I later found out I was not the only one who received such a "care package" from them (and I believe they have done this following other disasters) and I have never forgotten that small ray of sunshine in that otherwise depressing time in my life.
> 
> Paizo has done quite right by my standards of supporting the hobby, and their fans to boot.




Hang on a tick.  That's not what I said though.  I said nothing about their support for their fans (which has been outstandingly fantastic.)  I was solely talking about gamer outreach - as in trying to bring in new people to the hobby.



			
				BryonD said:
			
		

> I certainly wonder, what anecdotes are there to suggest that 4E is just a dominate as 3E was? Or to suggest that the market is largely unified and not "deeply split".




There are a whole slew of positions between "unified" and "deeply split" that are undreampt of by your words.


----------



## Hussar (Apr 21, 2011)

BryonD said:


> Whatever, you compared it to two games published by the same company as part of a common brand.  That is a lot more "one big happy family" than the situation I see.
> 
> Can you show any evidence whatsoever to refute the claim that it is in a standard size ballpark?
> 
> If you challenged me with any other game 3 years into 3E, I certainly could have done that.  The request would have been so silly that I doubt I would have bothered.  But it could have been done.




How many people play D&D in any form?

How many people play a given edition of D&D at this time?

How has this changed in the past year?  Two years?  Five years?

Sure, right after the 3e bubble when D&D was as popular as it had ever been in its entire history, possibly even rivalling the popularity of the early 80's, you couldn't find another game that was coming close.  Ok, I'll agree with that.

But, is that the bar now?  That for D&D to be "successful" it has to be as successful or more successful than it every has been in the past?  Wouldn't that mean that D&D has been failing for most of its history?  You've 30 years of D&D, and about 6 years of D&D being clearly on top of pile.

Is 4e as popular as 3e was in 2001?  Nope.  I don't think anyone would think that.  D&D has rarely been that popular.  It would have been nice had it pulled the same trick again, but, really that's wishful thinking - too many variables out of everyone's hands.

Is Pathfinder more popular than 3e was in, say, 2006?  I have no idea.  And, I have a sneaking suspicion that very few people do either.  I have a Dragon from that era talking about the RPG having some 100-150 k members.  Are there 150 k Pathfinder players?  Who knows.

Like others, my picture is grey and pretty darn fuzzy.


----------



## TheUltramark (Apr 21, 2011)

i read this thread like 3 times trying hard to make sense out of it, I think I pulled my brain.

I don't know if this is an anecdote or how big a ballpark it is, or anything like that, but I will tell you this....if i am NOT a shareholder of hasbro inc.  why would I give a crap if 4E is behind pathfinder in popularity or sales?


----------



## TheAuldGrump (Apr 21, 2011)

TheUltramark said:


> i read this thread like 3 times trying hard to make sense out of it, I think I pulled my brain.
> 
> I don't know if this is an anecdote or how big a ballpark it is, or anything like that, but I will tell you this....if i am NOT a shareholder of hasbro inc.  why would I give a crap if 4E is behind pathfinder in popularity or sales?



It depends on whether the similarity in sales figures is because Pathfinder is booming (hooray!) or if they are from WotC declining (boo!).

If the market is growing, then all is fine - Pathfinders sales can be balanced by new growth in the RPG industry.

If it is because 4e is failing, then things get murkier - it is not all that important which game is doing better if the market as a whole is getting smaller.

Ideally, I would love to see Pathfinder matching or beating 4e sales _without 4e losing customers_. This would represent a large growth in the industry. _My_ game would be growing, but not at the expense of what I still view as the entry point into the hobby. More people have heard of D&D than RPGs in general - they refer to role playing games as D&D, regardless of any actual title.

I saw a variant of this a few days ago - a kid (well, teen, anyway) holding up the Pathfinder and calling it D&D. The good thing is that it was not disparaging, it was a happy comment - it was the D&D that he wanted, so for him it was D&D, even though the title said Pathfinder. He and his friends bought both remaining copies of the Core book. (I think that a 40% coupon may have been involved.)

They left happy.  New growth, not a customer straying from one game to another. But at no point did he call it anything other than Dungeons & Dragons or D&D. He knew that it was Pathfinder, but for him it was D&D. 

More likely there has been some shrinking of 4e, but growth from Pathfinder has a bit more than balanced it - and there are folks who play and/or own both.

Not quite a zero sum game, but leaning that way. But the sales numbers for hobby games from the end of last year were encouraging, so I am a bit less worried about a failing D&D, if it _is_ failing, bringing down the hobby with it.

The Auld Grump


----------



## Mercurius (Apr 21, 2011)

AuldGrump, don't forget that WotC's publication output has been rather light over the last eight months - which is almost three Quarters. Sure, there was Essentials, but those sales figures are more of a long-term thing anyways, it being an evergreen product line. But between August of 2010 and April of 2011 there was no real new material, which may have hurt 4E's sales overall.

Speaking for myself, during that period I bought three Essentials products (_Rules Compendium, Heroes of the Fallen Lands, _and _Monster Vault) _and a bunch of Pathfinder stuff - a few Chronicles, the new world book, and the _GameMastery Guide - _so overall about 50-50_. _I may or may not have bought all that Pathfinder stuff if 4E's schedule had been more full, but the point is that my spending became _relatively _more skewed towards Paizo than WotC.  During the Quarter before (summer) the ratio was probably more like 80-20 or 70-30 towards WotC.


----------



## Balesir (Apr 21, 2011)

pemerton said:


> EDITED to respond to OP: 4e jumped the shark when WotC nerfed Come and Get It not to deal with an issue of overpoweredness, but rather in response to complaints (primarily, I believe, from non-4e players) about the players of fighter PCs having access to metagame abilities.



 Which, of corse, I don't think they have*, but it's a good line, anyway!

* Unconditional forced movement - i.e. forced movement without a hit roll - is arguably too powerful for *any* class, and cases of it are pretty rare.  And weapon to-hit vs Will (with attendant mark, if you are a Fighte- sorry, "Weaponmaster") is not too shabby, anyway.


----------



## DaveMage (Apr 22, 2011)

pemerton said:


> I seriously doubt that Paizo is making as much money from Pathfinder as WotC was making from 3E in its final years, simply because (as far as I understand it) 3E in its final years was keeping afloat a rather bigger ship than Pathfinder is. (But maybe I just have mistaken beliefs about the comparative size of WotC and Paizo.)




Without knowing what WotC was making, we'll never know.

However, Paizo's provided an inkling of a portion of the revenue they do gerenate.  If you're bored, simply go to their messageboards and start counting the subscribers and what lines they subscribe to.   The products in each line have a pretty consistent price, so there you go.  Of course, subscriber sales are only a portion of their overall revenue as they also run a store and have solid sales through traditional distribution.


----------



## BryonD (Apr 22, 2011)

Hussar said:


> There are a whole slew of positions between "unified" and "deeply split" that are undreampt of by your words.



Ok, and what anecdotes do you have for these dreams?


----------



## BryonD (Apr 22, 2011)

pemerton said:


> I seriously doubt that Paizo is making as much money from Pathfinder as WotC was making from 3E in its final years, simply because (as far as I understand it) 3E in its final years was keeping afloat a rather bigger ship than Pathfinder is. (But maybe I just have mistaken beliefs about the comparative size of WotC and Paizo.)



How do you know 3E was adequately keeping WotC afloat?
How do you know Pazio's little boat is floating really really high?

I really agree with DaveMage that we don't know specifically and I don't claim to know it is "making the same money"?  I have been talking about popularity in terms of fan base.  Now, there should be some tie between the two, of course, but there are still different.  

Of course, we also have our collection of anecdotes from various business sources.  And we all understand that data has limitations.  But they suggest that current 4E and current PF are roughly equitable.  Some of them go so far as to flat out claim they are.  Yes, you can challenge that.  But come on, we are going to challenge all these sources on the one hand and then turn around and take your gut feel as the answer on the other hand?

I've still seen no evidence that disputes the idea that they are reasonably equitable.  So if we assume PF is not doing as well as 3E was (which might be true) then and equitable 4E now already isn't either....  That isn't exactly a good conclusion to land on.

But again, as important as money is, and it is very, I'm looking at fan base.  Because I'm a gamer, not an investor (at least not in these companies).  

I completely support WotC doing whatever makes the most money.  Frankly, if Bill Gates decided to pay them off to make a D&D he loved and every single person on this website hated, and offered them more money for it than they are making now, then that would be the good business choice.  But it would still suck from the point of view of us gamers.  And you could claim that the Bill Gates option is dumb because they would be sacrificing the future.  But if you say that, then you are back to my fanbase point of view.


----------



## BryonD (Apr 22, 2011)

TheAuldGrump said:


> Ideally, I would love to see Pathfinder matching or beating 4e sales _without 4e losing customers_. This would represent a large growth in the industry.



Absolutely.  Growth of the hobby would be the clear best answer.

Very much AGAIN, I definitely don't think 4E is "failing".  And, I don't have a strong opinion about its direction right now.  It sounds like the from the OP and other similar posts that there is some discontent within the ranks of the 4E fanbase.  But I'm not there and don't claim to know.    4E was announced and marketed as a game with clear distinctions from the prior edition.  I believe the "split" happened in the six months leading up to and six months following 4e's release.  And the announcement of playtest start up of PF was part of that.  But that announcement would not have happened had an emerging market not presented itself.

But if since that time both games have grown, then that is an awesome place to be.


----------



## BryonD (Apr 22, 2011)

pemerton said:


> but rather in response to complaints (primarily, I believe, from non-4e players)



Completely different line here but..

You seem to be implying that trying to make the game appealing to potential fans they have lost is a bad thing.  Is that a fair assessment of your point?


----------



## Fifth Element (Apr 22, 2011)

BryonD said:


> Ok, and what anecdotes do you have for these dreams?



We have some on these boards who play only 4E or only PF. We also have others who play both. Do you dispute this? If not, you have your anecdotal evidence.

Which is not to say it's evidence of anything.


----------



## Raven Crowking (Apr 22, 2011)

BryonD said:


> Completely different line here but..
> 
> You seem to be implying that trying to make the game appealing to potential fans they have lost is a bad thing.  Is that a fair assessment of your point?




Well, I think WotC should have given a lot less attention to the gripes of those who didn't like TSR-D&D, so it probably washes out.  And I mean that both in terms of 3e and 4e.


RC


----------



## BryonD (Apr 22, 2011)

Fifth Element said:


> We have some on these boards who play only 4E or only PF. We also have others who play both. Do you dispute this? If not, you have your anecdotal evidence.
> 
> Which is not to say it's evidence of anything.



Much to the contrary of disputing it, I have pointed it out in this very thread.

But I'm not challenging the idea that some overlap exists.  I'm looking for anecdotes that seriously challenge the claim of "a split" as a decent characterization of the market as a whole.


----------



## Fifth Element (Apr 22, 2011)

BryonD said:


> But I'm not challenging the idea that some overlap exists.  I'm looking for anecdotes that seriously challenge the claim of "a split" as a decent characterization of the market as a whole.



We don't know. That's what I'm arguing.

There are several possible characterizations;for example unified, muddled and a deep split. You're making the assertion that a deep split is the accurate one. It's not up to me to disprove that, it's up to you to prove it.


----------



## BryonD (Apr 22, 2011)

Raven Crowking said:


> Well, I think WotC should have given a lot less attention to the gripes of those who didn't like TSR-D&D, so it probably washes out.  And I mean that both in terms of 3e and 4e.
> 
> 
> RC




Heh.  Well, in fairness, I'm using a bit of a double standard on this myself.  I *don't* think WotC should focus on getting lost fans back right now.  Of course anything that grows the fans base is still the right move.  But it would be easier to lose 4E fans than to recover people who have walked away from D&D to embrace 4E.  

Don't throw good money after bad.

I didn't even know about the change to CaGI.  But I would agree that I saw many debates about it and typically it was anti-4E people pointing it out and pro-4E people defending.  Now, clearly, there may have been far more massive arguments entirely within the 4E fanbase and I just missed those because I don't frequent those places.  But Perm's comment does not suggest he saw anything different than I did.  

If they really did change because of anti-4E complaints, then that is a bad move and part of the schizophrenia I mentioned.


----------



## BryonD (Apr 22, 2011)

Fifth Element said:


> We don't know. That's what I'm arguing.
> 
> There are several possible characterizations;for example unified, muddled and a deep split. You're making the assertion that a deep split is the accurate one. It's not up to me to disprove that, it's up to you to prove it.



Shrug.  
I'm not hung up on "prove".  Making the case where it is the reasonable conclusion of a rational assessment of the available data is adequate.  And with that you can always have people just say "no it isn't" no matter how much you do show.

Whether or not you look closely enough to decide for yourself and whether or not you are willing to say so really don't matter.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred (Apr 22, 2011)

BryonD said:


> Much to the contrary of disputing it, I have pointed it out in this very thread.
> 
> But I'm not challenging the idea that some overlap exists.  I'm looking for anecdotes that seriously challenge the claim of "a split" as a decent characterization of the market as a whole.




I don't see any evidence of much of anything outside of various forums.

Of the people that play in 4e games I run, some also play 3.5 and/or DM 3.5. One runs a 4e Gamma World game. Another couple of my old 2e players (who never even played 3.x at all to my knowledge) still like 2e and would like to play 2e, but they didn't either say they wouldn't play 4e. The FLGS here is rather eccentric as the person who owns it has infinite money and thus has no interest in pleasing customers. Said person doesn't seem to be a 4e fan, but I haven't really actually discussed it with them. They don't run Encounters, but neither AFAICT do they participate in any Paizo/PF outreach. They carry a full line of 4e products, a full line of 3.x products, and a full line of PF products. Their roster of reservations for tables has been filled with various stuff, including a couple 3.5 games that have had a table for years. There's no real room for another game. I'm assuming they have little interest in 4e since no 4e games are on that list. Neither are any PF games. Most of it is M:tG, WH40K, a couple other RPGs, and misc other games.

In other words, if anything, 3.5 is still the most popular system, 4e seems to be mostly well accepted and the 3.5 people I know will play 4e. Nobody has PF or has played it. There are still some 2e holdouts, but they mostly seem amenable to playing 4e.

Not much can probably be drawn from that. There are plenty of player groups around I have no contact with and I don't know what they play or prefer. Anything could be true. We all exist amicably and no words of hate have been spoken in my presence. Prior to the release of 4e and PF most people played 3.5 and some played 2e.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred (Apr 22, 2011)

[MENTION=957]BryonD[/MENTION] I don't think there is actually massive discontent amongst 4e players at WotC at all. I think if you go back and look at the 3.5 boards there was equal amounts of complaining about trivial mechanical details then as well. Given that there are rarely large issues to complain about 4e you simply see people jumping on all the smallest things like if a class has one more or less HS than it should and nonsense like that. The system is solid enough that you can actually see those small differences and they mean something you can measure. With 3.5 there was no point in even bothering, the issues were much more high level and much bigger.

Likewise DDI. Since people are paying for it on a monthly basis they naturally are quite picky about it. Mostly DDI has been quite excellent. They were ill-advised to remove the old CB when they did, but that aside DDI has been nothing but great. Some concern about magazine article quality/quantity was certainly understandable but notice they seem to have been well aware of that and have repeatedly stated it is going in the other direction now. Of course DDI really shouldn't be an issue anyway. It is a pure PLUS on the side of 4e, if you don't like it you don't buy it. No amount of complaining about it really reflects on the game system at all.

So, no, I don't think people are particularly dissatisfied about 4e or with WotC right now. I think they are the same insufferably unpleasable Internet rabble as ever!


----------



## Fifth Element (Apr 22, 2011)

BryonD said:


> I'm not hung up on "prove".  Making the case where it is the reasonable conclusion of a rational assessment of the available data is adequate.



And I'm not hung up on semantics; that's what I mean by prove in a case like this.



BryonD said:


> Whether or not you look closely enough to decide for yourself and whether or not you are willing to say so really don't matter.



I've looked at every bit of evidence you've offered, and found it seriously lacking. You keep referring to the data as if it's something well-established and easily interpretable. It's not. Everything that I've seen you present relies on one's point of view to arrive at a conclusion. That is, if you think there's a split, you'll see a split. But I haven't seen anything really solid to say one way or the other with any certainty.

You've agreed that some overlap exists between 4E and PF players, for example. You've apparently decided that that overlap is small enough that a deep split exists, even though we have no way of knowing what the degree of overlap is.

In my group, the overlap is 100%, since we all play both 4E and PF. Now there's no way that's the case for everyone, but I wouldn't make a conjecture about what the percentage is for the market as a whole, without some sort of actual research being done. It could be 2%. It could be 50%. We don't know. Selectively collecting a few anecdotes and arriving at a conclusion on that results in a baseless conclusion.


----------



## Raven Crowking (Apr 22, 2011)

BryonD said:


> I'm not hung up on "prove".  Making the case where it is the reasonable conclusion of a rational assessment of the available data is adequate.




I am firmly of the opinion that we don't have enough data to know anything.

I am also firmly of the opinion that you are making a reasonable conclusion based on what data you do have and/or find acceptable.  So long as you don't assume that your conclusion _*must*_ be the case, you are on firm ground AFAICT.



AbdulAlhazred said:


> I don't see any evidence of much of anything outside of various forums.




Which is also fine.

Individuals are allowed to set the bar as to what they believe is credible evidence, and how much of said credible evidence is required to make a conclusion credible.

BryonD's assessment is reasonable.  Human beings (and other living organisms) can and do make judgement based on inadequate data.  The rabbit who waits for proof that there is a fox in the bushes is an ex-rabbit in very short order.  

Your rejection of that assessment is also reasonable.  Skepticism is rational.

But, if sometimes making a judgement means you end up leaping away from the wind, sometimes also waiting for more data about that rustle in the bushes means that the fox gets you.


RC


----------



## BryonD (Apr 23, 2011)

AbdulAlhazred said:


> [MENTION=957]BryonD[/MENTION] I don't think there is actually massive discontent amongst 4e players at WotC at all.



Ok, I'll certainly take your word for that.



> So, no, I don't think people are particularly dissatisfied about 4e or with WotC right now. I think they are the same insufferably unpleasable Internet rabble as ever!



Well, amongst the fan base certainly....

It is true that other elements were present before, but the proportions are notably different.


----------



## BryonD (Apr 23, 2011)

Fifth Element said:


> I've looked at every bit of evidence you've offered, and found it seriously lacking.



That's nice.

We disagree.

I'd look at your evidence and assess it as well.  That is if you had any.



> You keep referring to the data as if it's something well-established and easily interpretable. It's not. Everything that I've seen you present relies on one's point of view to arrive at a conclusion.



That is just plain wrong.

When Black Diamond say that PF is selling as well as 4E, that is NOT a "point of view".  If someone says that they now know the answer because Black Diamond made a statement about their slice of the pie, they would be very wrong.  But that is simply one example.  

Yeah, there is information out that which is completely open to being called subjective.  

But trying to hide the rest of the information behind that just sounds like trying to find a preconceived conclusion.  

Black Diamonds piece of the pie does NOT tell us what is going on.  Hussar keeps comparing it to blind men and elephants.  And if you take it out of context, trying to use Black Diamond alone is one blind guy saying the elephant is shaped like a snake.  It is wrong and foolish.

But, the funny thing is, all the blind guys are feeling different parts of the elephant and instead of saying "a snake", "a tree", etc....

They are all saying: "an elephant", "yep, elephant here too", "I got elephant".

There appears to be an elephant in the room.


----------



## TheAuldGrump (Apr 23, 2011)

Raven Crowking said:


> Your rejection of that assessment is also reasonable.  Skepticism is rational.



Up to the point that it becomes denial - you would think that Skully would be a little more flexible the seventh or eighth time her nose is rubbed in the supernatural....

This is not, by the way, the same as saying that you are wrong in this particular case. It has more to do with having watched way too much X-Files last week....

The Auld Grump, X-Files and Gargoyles... I am _so_ not complaining about being forced to watch Gargoyles.


----------



## TheUltramark (Apr 23, 2011)

instead of starting a new thread, I will ask this question here.

Q: What if Hasbro cut coastwizards tomorrow, simply announced that the entire line would be scrapped.  *How would that affect your gaming?*

my answer: not one bit.  There is plenty of 4E material out to keep me n my group busy for a very long time.  Then if we do get bored, there are 3 other versions of d&d we could go back to and play for years until boredom set in.


----------



## pemerton (Apr 23, 2011)

BryonD said:


> You seem to be implying that trying to make the game appealing to potential fans they have lost is a bad thing.  Is that a fair assessment of your point?



My point is mostly that WotC seem to be changing the game in a way that takes it away from my preferences. (Aspects of Essentials, plus some other recent trends, are further examples of this - as I think I mentioned on one of the Roads to Rome or related threads a month or two ago.)

Good luck to them it it increases their sales. It reduces the likelihood of me buying things from them, but my tastes may be in a minority. After all, many of the things I like most about 4e - metagame mechanics, the points-of-light "atmosphere and vibe" (to borrow a phrase from Mercurius) in place of a detailed setting, the encounter build/scaling guidelines, etc - seem to be among the most frequently-criticised elements of the game.


----------



## Hussar (Apr 23, 2011)

BryonD said:


> /snip
> 
> Black Diamonds piece of the pie does NOT tell us what is going on.  Hussar keeps comparing it to blind men and elephants.  And if you take it out of context, trying to use Black Diamond alone is one blind guy saying the elephant is shaped like a snake.  It is wrong and foolish.
> 
> ...




How many blind guys are we talking about though?  I mean, in that thread that you are referencing, there was another blind guy who owns this site arguing that 4e has been very, very good to him.

Again, why is Blackdiamond getting those particular results?  What is the context?  Is he the only gaming store in his location?  Is there another gaming store that 4e gamers regularly go to?  Is his store a bastion of WOTC hate?  Or, is it that 4e just isn't that strong in his area and Pathfinder is doing great?

None of these questions got answered.  No context beyond, "I like Game X and Game X is doing well in my area" was given.

There's an elephant in the room all right, and it smells to high heaven.

Again, you claim that there is a *deep* split in the fan base.  It's the DEEP part that I dispute, not the existence of a split.  Disputing the existence of a split would be pretty stupid all things considered.  Some people didn't like 4e and went to Pathfinder.  

Yup, I agree with that.  That's pretty much obviously true.

How many?  

Until you can answer that with anything more than gut reaction, then your characterization of "deep" is nothing more than you claiming the tail is a snake.  Getting ten random people on the Internet to agree with you doesn't exactly entail anything close to fact.  Particularly when it's been pretty clearly shown that the anecdotes are almost universally self-selecting.

Hey, you can believe whatever you like.  That's most certainly your right.  But, I really cannot see how you can claim anything resembling facts in that belief.

Me?  Personally?  I have no idea.  Could be true.  Might not be.  I'll sit up here on my fence, where I've pretty much parked my keister for the past year or so.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred (Apr 23, 2011)

BryonD said:


> That's nice.
> 
> We disagree.
> 
> ...




I think the problem is nobody here is saying PF doesn't sell as well as 4e. Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't, but the little we can gather from any or all sources of evidence is just that they're both top selling RPGs. We don't know what whatever Black Diamond says means. We don't know how many people prefer which game or both games or for that matter neither.

What we have are a bunch of blind men feeling around, sure. The problem is if one feels a leg and one feels a trunk and one feels a tail then someone might say "aha that has to be an elephant!" but that doesn't mean it IS an elephant. You're LOOKING FOR AN ELEPHANT and finding one. Maybe its a tree, a snake, and a rope. 

Finally, it just doesn't matter all that much. 4e is a good game (or the devil's spawn if you prefer) and OBVIOUSLY WotC isn't giving up and abandoning the game. They sure aren't showing any signs of doing that this year, that's for sure. If they were they'd have given a bunch of their staff the boot, eh. Never once has the existence or non-existence of PF made any difference to me. If there's some vast quantity of people that are 'divided' from me and won't play 4e with me you're going to have to come over here and show me those people, because they simply don't exist in my experience. I don't even really care what happens in some other place, but given the obvious popularity of 4e I'm not real concerned that I'd be able to find players anywhere I'm likely to go.


----------



## tuxgeo (Apr 23, 2011)

_(don't really have much of a point aside from agreeing with RC)_



Raven Crowking said:


> < . . . >
> 
> Individuals are allowed to set the bar as to what they believe is credible evidence, and how much of said credible evidence is required to make a conclusion credible.
> 
> BryonD's assessment is reasonable.  Human beings (and other living organisms) can and do make judgement based on inadequate data.  The rabbit who waits for proof that there is a fox in the bushes is an ex-rabbit in very short order.




Yes. Conclusions don't need to be logically derived through valid syllogisms in order to turn out to have been correct. 



> Your rejection of that assessment is also reasonable.  Skepticism is rational.



Sometimes, yes. 
However, skepticism can also be a result of skeptical habit, and can be applied out of force of that habit without being based on any rational argument at all. 



> But, if sometimes making a judgement means you end up leaping away from the wind, sometimes also waiting for more data about that rustle in the bushes means that the fox gets you.



Yes. Decisiveness doesn't always need to wait for thorough conviction based on unassailable evidence.


----------



## Fifth Element (Apr 23, 2011)

BryonD said:


> I'd look at your evidence and assess it as well.  That is if you had any.



I don't believe there is any real evidence, that's my entire point. Or at least that the little evidence there is not nearly sufficient to make a detemination.

I completely agree with Raven Crowking (!) that your interpretation of a split in the market is reasonable to you based on the evidence you've seen. And you are fully entitled to say something like "I suspect there might be a deep split in the market" or something similar.

But your insistence that there _is necessarily_ a deep split, that that is the only reasonable interpretation, is what I object to. The evidence you're basing your inferences on is incomplete and self-selective. It gives hints of what might be going on, but is not nearly sufficient to make a solid determination.

It's when you try to paint your personal interpretation as fact that the trouble starts.


----------



## Raven Crowking (Apr 23, 2011)

Fifth Element said:


> I completely agree with Raven Crowking (!)











Just saying.



RC


----------



## Dannyalcatraz (Apr 23, 2011)

> Some people didn't like 4e and went to Pathfinder.



...some stayed with 3.5Ed and don't support either game; some abandoned all of the D20 family and are happily playing some other system.

Just sayin'.
****

From my point of view, inferring that there is a deep split is...problematic.

On the one hand, PF sales as reported by outlets like Amazon and Black Diamond are indicative of a product that latched onto a large and unsatisfied market demographic- you typically wouldn't see those kinds of numbers from a completely new product that didn't have some kind of "in."

But they are also snapshots of the data: the companies with the whole pictures aren't giving up the full 411.

And aditionally, the nature of the products is such that most consumers in the market don't view purchasing them as a binary decision.  Just because one buys 4Ed does not mean one may not also be a fan of PF.

Still, though, there are many for whom 4Ed is such a radical departure from their expectations of _D&D_ gaming that, to this day, _the game itself_ makes them angry.  To them, it is a betrayal.  And THAT, to me, is indicative that the divide is very deep indeed.

IOW, whether the divide is "deep" rather depends on what you mean by that word.


----------



## BryonD (Apr 23, 2011)

pemerton said:


> My point is mostly that WotC seem to be changing the game in a way that takes it away from my preferences. (Aspects of Essentials, plus some other recent trends, are further examples of this - as I think I mentioned on one of the Roads to Rome or related threads a month or two ago.)
> 
> Good luck to them it it increases their sales. It reduces the likelihood of me buying things from them, but my tastes may be in a minority. After all, many of the things I like most about 4e - metagame mechanics, the points-of-light "atmosphere and vibe" (to borrow a phrase from Mercurius) in place of a detailed setting, the encounter build/scaling guidelines, etc - seem to be among the most frequently-criticised elements of the game.



Fair enough.  Obviously I don't share your preference.  And I personally think that following that preference was not a great strategy.

But that is not remotely to say that there is anything at all wrong with you are anyone else having that preference or being quite happy that WotC catered to it.

And I do suspect WotC would be better served by staying with you over reacting to complaints of people such as myself.


----------



## BryonD (Apr 23, 2011)

Hussar said:


> How many blind guys are we talking about though?  I mean, in that thread that you are referencing, there was another blind guy who owns this site arguing that 4e has been very, very good to him.



You are mangling both my point and your own analogy.

The blind men and the elephant has nothing to do with how many men there are, just that there are several and because they have different bits of data on the elephant they reach wildly different conclusions.  The data is not wildly varying, quite the opposite, it is remarkably consistent.

And I don't see how you can be paying attention to what I have been saying and turn around and suggest that 4E doing great for Morrus is remotely contrary to my position.  What have I said that contradicts that?

My position is that both games are doing well, but that there is a split in the fan base.  Every reference I had pointed out supports that BOTH PF and 4E are doing well.  

No matter how many times the clarification is offered, you keep lurching from "split" to "4E is failing".  A claim not only not made, but expressly rejected.




> Again, you claim that there is a *deep* split in the fan base.  It's the DEEP part that I dispute, not the existence of a split.  Disputing the existence of a split would be pretty stupid all things considered.



I'll have to settle for that.  Certainly it is progress....


----------



## BryonD (Apr 23, 2011)

AbdulAlhazred said:


> I think the problem is nobody here is saying PF doesn't sell as well as 4e.



As with Hussar, I'll take that as good progress.  



> What we have are a bunch of blind men feeling around, sure. The problem is if one feels a leg and one feels a trunk and one feels a tail then someone might say "aha that has to be an elephant!" but that doesn't mean it IS an elephant. You're LOOKING FOR AN ELEPHANT and finding one. Maybe its a tree, a snake, and a rope.



I think you are torturing that anaolgy now.  They are not finding "a leg", "a trunk", "a tail", and then drawign lines to make an elephant.

They are finding "equity", and "equity", and "equity".



> Finally, it just doesn't matter all that much. 4e is a good game (or the devil's spawn if you prefer) and OBVIOUSLY WotC isn't giving up and abandoning the game. They sure aren't showing any signs of doing that this year, that's for sure. If they were they'd have given a bunch of their staff the boot, eh. Never once has the existence or non-existence of PF made any difference to me. If there's some vast quantity of people that are 'divided' from me and won't play 4e with me you're going to have to come over here and show me those people, because they simply don't exist in my experience. I don't even really care what happens in some other place, but given the obvious popularity of 4e I'm not real concerned that I'd be able to find players anywhere I'm likely to go.



Did I mention that I think 4E is popular?  Maybe I should have mentioned that.  Oh wait, I did.  

My experience has been that there are a lot of people who like 4E and avoid 3E.  My experience has been that there are a lot of people who like 3E and avoid 4E.  My experience has also been that there are plenty of people who like both.  But the first two groups *seem* to outnumber the third.

Is it "important".  
We are talking about a game.  We can say nothing is important.  I certainly enjoy debating this stuff in part because I don't care about the conclusions nearly as much as I do about things like politics.  And that makes the debates much more of a recreational activity.

I do think that there is some significance to gaming as a whole when the leading brand causes a split like this.  But, certainly "gaming as a whole" is still quite the small teapot for this tempest.

But I'm still just looking at the information and making observations.  Not long ago the idea that there was any split whatsoever, or that PF was remotely comparable to 4E in the marketplace were far more controversial ideas than 
this debate.  So the simple fact that these items are now taken for granted is an interesting point.


----------



## BryonD (Apr 23, 2011)

Fifth Element said:


> The evidence you're basing your inferences on is incomplete and self-selective.



Heh, you respond to my offer to assess your data and you respond by simply saying my data is "self-selective".  Please, tell me what I have failed to select.


----------



## Fifth Element (Apr 23, 2011)

BryonD said:


> My position is that both games are doing well, but that there is a split in the fan base.  Every reference I had pointed out supports that BOTH PF and 4E are doing well.



But this does nothing to demonstrate a deep split in the fan base. Both games could be doing well because both are being bought by most of the same people, for example. Since we have no data on who is buying the games and what other games they buy, there's no grounds to infer that there is a deep split.

Surely not everyone who plays PF plays 4E and vice versa. There is surely a split of some sort, but you conitnue to insist on this split being very deep, without having anything to support the assertion.

You can't assess my "data" because I don't have any, as I've said repeatedly. My position is that you don't have any real data either, leaving only conjecture that you insist is fact.


----------



## Fifth Element (Apr 23, 2011)

BryonD said:


> My experience has been that there are a lot of people who like 4E and avoid 3E.  My experience has been that there are a lot of people who like 3E and avoid 4E.  My experience has also been that there are plenty of people who like both.  But the first two groups *seem* to outnumber the third.



Now this is getting somewhere. There is a world of difference between this and "There IS a deep split, prove me wrong!"

As long as you're saying that it seems this way based on your experience, then there's nothing to say against it. It doesn't match my experience, which is that all 4E players I know also play some version of 3E. So it seems to me that there is not a deep split, but I certainly can't be sure of that.


----------



## Fifth Element (Apr 23, 2011)

BryonD said:


> or that PF was remotely comparable to 4E in the marketplace



I'd say this is far from taken for granted; see previous in this thread. "Remotely comparable" is a very nebulous term, and you can fit a heck of a lot in there. But we already tried that discussion.


----------



## TheUltramark (Apr 24, 2011)

I don't mean to crap on anyone's parade, but why would anybody care even in the slightest if there is a split in the fan base??????????

How could that possibly affect your gaming experience ???????


----------



## TheAuldGrump (Apr 24, 2011)

TheUltramark said:


> I don't mean to crap on anyone's parade, but why would anybody care even in the slightest if there is a split in the fan base??????????
> 
> How could that possibly affect your gaming experience ???????



You asked that before, and had a reply on page 14....

And it was a pretty common sense answer. A split in the fan base can mean a smaller hobby - if the threshold market is damaged. The split, as demonstrated by so many edition war threads, is potentially divisive, making _both_ markets smaller than they might be.

Welcome to the department of the bureau of redundancy agency.... 

The Auld Grump


----------



## BryonD (Apr 24, 2011)

Fifth Element said:


> "Remotely comparable" is a very nebulous term, and you can fit a heck of a lot in there. But we already tried that discussion.



Actually, we have not.  You keep trying to latch on to adjectives as a means of ignoring the rest of the point and then ducking the issue that you have yet to produce a drop of contrary evidence, despite repeated requests.  

And then you try to declare that a conversation "already had".  
 If you have a better rebuttal, I'd assume you would offer it.

If you actually do make a point, I'll be here.  But I feel no obligation to simply play argument clinic with you.


----------



## Fifth Element (Apr 24, 2011)

BryonD said:


> Actually, we have not.  You keep trying to latch on to adjectives as a means of ignoring the rest of the point and then ducking the issue that you have yet to produce a drop of contrary evidence, despite repeated requests.



Once more: the party making the positive assertion has the onus of evidence placed upon it. I am not making a particular argument, specifically because I do not believe there is sufficient evidence to make such an argument.

Is that clear now?



BryonD said:


> And then you try to declare that a conversation "already had".
> If you have a better rebuttal, I'd assume you would offer it.



I'm not offering a rebuttal, I'm suggesting you have not defined "in the same ballpark" such that it has any meaning. I can't rebut an opinion, which (it seems to me) is all you've provided.

For example, you could be saying that 4E and PF are in the same ballpark, and are very close to each other, and the third-ranked RPG is very far out of the ballpark. Or you could be saying that PF is just barely in the same ballpark as 4E, and the third-ranked game is just outside the ballpark, such that it's closer to PF than PF is to 4E. I don't know, because you haven't provided any meaningful points of comparison, just a lot of "it seems" and nebulous terms.


----------



## Fifth Element (Apr 24, 2011)

TheUltramark said:


> I don't mean to crap on anyone's parade, but why would anybody care even in the slightest if there is a split in the fan base??????????
> 
> How could that possibly affect your gaming experience ???????



It doesn't have to directly affect one's own gaming experience to be an interesting point of discussion.


----------



## Psion (Apr 24, 2011)

ggroy said:


> From an historical perspective, when did 3.5E D&D jump the shark?




In my mind, I see Weapons of Legacy as the beginning of times when it was really "not worth keeping up" with the 3.5 products coming out from WotC anymore.


----------



## Odhanan (Apr 24, 2011)

WotC D&D jumped the shark with 3.5 D&D. It just took time for me to realize it. Then came Book of Nine Swords, and then it became increasingly obvious, with the Rust Monster Redux and all the BS that followed.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz (Apr 24, 2011)

ggroy said:


> From an historical perspective, when did 3.5E D&D jump the shark?



While there were several products I didn't buy, the one that I purchased that simply made me go "Blech!" was _Tome of Battle._


----------



## DaveMage (Apr 25, 2011)

Psion said:


> In my mind, I see Weapons of Legacy as the beginning of times when it was really "not worth keeping up" with the 3.5 products coming out from WotC anymore.




Yeah, I did not like the execution of that book.


----------



## BryonD (Apr 25, 2011)

Psion said:


> In my mind, I see Weapons of Legacy as the beginning of times when it was really "not worth keeping up" with the 3.5 products coming out from WotC anymore.



Seems a good call.

Edit: Though some of the art was really good.  To bad that was the entirety of value there....


----------



## BryonD (Apr 25, 2011)

Fifth Element said:


> Once more: the party making the positive assertion has the onus of evidence placed upon it. I am not making a particular argument,



You seem to be under some illusion that this is a court of law.

But that aside, I've made my case.  "No it isn't" fails to contradict that.




> specifically because I do not believe there is sufficient evidence to make such an argument.



That sounds suspiciously like a positive assertion....



> Is that clear now?



Yep. You have nothing to offer but don't like what the information says, so you are just muddying the water as much as you can.   



> I'm not offering a rebuttal, I'm suggesting you have not defined "in the same ballpark" such that it has any meaning. I can't rebut an opinion, which (it seems to me) is all you've provided.
> 
> For example, you could be saying that 4E and PF are in the same ballpark, and are very close to each other, and the third-ranked RPG is very far out of the ballpark. Or you could be saying that PF is just barely in the same ballpark as 4E, and the third-ranked game is just outside the ballpark, such that it's closer to PF than PF is to 4E. I don't know, because you haven't provided any meaningful points of comparison, just a lot of "it seems" and nebulous terms.



Ok, so in your own words you are stating that you don't know what "in the ballpark" means.  Noted.

And I have covered all of this.  I even specifically discussed at least two other games besides PF and 4E.  So now you are just demonstrating how disconnected your point if view is.

But that's fine.    The standard is not that I have to "prove" anything.  The actual standard here is that I have to mystically force you to stop saying "no it isn't".

Obviously that is impossible.  So you win.  Congrats.

In the mean time, reality will be over here.


----------



## BryonD (Apr 25, 2011)

Odhanan said:


> Then came Book of Nine Swords, and then it became increasingly obvious, with the Rust Monster Redux and all the BS that followed.



It really is funny now to look back at all the complaints that were offered against Bo9S, MM IV, the monster re-dos, and then see not only how that was basically alpha tests for 4E concepts, but also see how they pushed ahead and were then, apparently, surprised at the complaints against 4E.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred (Apr 25, 2011)

BryonD said:


> You seem to be under some illusion that this is a court of law.
> 
> But that aside, I've made my case.  "No it isn't" fails to contradict that.
> 
> ...




And what we're saying is your 'evidence' is either based on a tiny narrow selected group of people whom you apparently know. Beyond that all we've heard that I'd call backed up by evidence is "PF sells well, maybe comparably with 4e" and I've certainly seen enough edition wars to see that it certainly has a few rabid proponents. Likewise 4e. Beyond that? I take my own personal experience at AT LEAST the value of that of anyone on a forum, and it says basically this "split" is a tempest in a teacup. I hate to say it, but NO edition war has ever even slowed down people just getting on with playing IME. Nobody said to me "whah I won't play 2e, 1e is better, whah!" or substitute whatever editions. Frankly I just see all these questions and debates and such to be silly overall. 

You will believe what you want, and that's the way the world is. Time will tell.


----------



## TheAuldGrump (Apr 25, 2011)

Psion said:


> In my mind, I see Weapons of Legacy as the beginning of times when it was really "not worth keeping up" with the 3.5 products coming out from WotC anymore.



WoL was a very good idea, with absolutely horrible execution.

Jumping the shark? Maybe not - I would actually go with some of the later Complete books. There was at least one very, very good book after WoL - Heroes of Battle. I tend to think of jumping the shark being the point where I give up on a game entirely. There have been games where the shark has been jumped with the first releases. 

But as time passed it did seem that WotC had less to say for 3.X, but spent more effort saying it.

The Auld Grump


----------



## Hussar (Apr 25, 2011)

AbdulA said:
			
		

> Nobody said to me "whah I won't play 2e, 1e is better, whah!"




Oh, now, this I have seen.  I've seen more than a few people who would play 1 edition and not another.  I honestly have never really had an opportunity to play an earlier edition unless I specifically went out and found a group playing it, so, personally, it's never been an issue for me.

But, I have had people turn up their noses based on whatever edition I was playing at the time - B/E gamers not playing in an AD&D game comes to mind for example.  And most certainly vice versa there.


----------



## TheUltramark (Apr 25, 2011)

So, let me ask
is there a segment of player out there that has at some point, when they were on board with coastwizards and their products, bought every new book as it came out and tried to integrate it into their own game?

That seems rather ambitious and completely opposite from the way we play.  When we played 3.25 for example, there were some of the books we never bothered to get, for any number of reasons, including laziness i suppose.


----------



## Nagol (Apr 25, 2011)

TheUltramark said:


> So, let me ask
> is there a segment of player out there that has at some point, when they were on board with coastwizards and their products, bought every new book as it came out and tried to integrate it into their own game?
> 
> That seems rather ambitious and completely opposite from the way we play.  When we played 3.25 for example, there were some of the books we never bothered to get, for any number of reasons, including laziness i suppose.




Yep.  That was the explicit position of one of the two D&D 3.5 groups I was involved in multi-year campaigns as a player.  We started just before 3.5 was published and adoped all WotC product up to and including PHB2 (and possibly a few more after that).


----------



## Stormonu (Apr 25, 2011)

TheUltramark said:


> So, let me ask
> is there a segment of player out there that has at some point, when they were on board with coastwizards and their products, bought every new book as it came out and tried to integrate it into their own game?
> 
> That seems rather ambitious and completely opposite from the way we play.  When we played 3.25 for example, there were some of the books we never bothered to get, for any number of reasons, including laziness i suppose.




I am/was a DM, but yes, I did this - and also incorporated a lot of 3pp books (stuff from Goodman Games, Green Ronin, Fantasy Flight, Mongoose and AEG mostly).  That stopped about the time DMG2 rolled out, as I just couldn't keep up any more.

Tome of Battle was one of the few books I never incorporated, and the second round of Completes just rubbed me the wrong way.


----------



## Raven Crowking (Apr 25, 2011)

My jumping-off point for buying/using everything was 3.5.


RC


----------



## TheUltramark (Apr 25, 2011)

well, I guess then i am just a casual player, but I bet I have just as much fun as anyone else.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz (Apr 25, 2011)

TheUltramark said:


> So, let me ask
> is there a segment of player out there that has at some point, when they were on board with coastwizards and their products, bought every new book as it came out and tried to integrate it into their own game?
> 
> That seems rather ambitious and completely opposite from the way we play.  When we played 3.25 for example, there were some of the books we never bothered to get, for any number of reasons, including laziness i suppose.



I'm close.

There were some books I didn't buy because I felt I didn't need them, but I tried to incorporate almost everything I bought into my game.

The exceptions were Savage Species, which I used until I saw the improved version in AU/AE; the Epic rulebook, which I thought was clumsy; Weapons of Legacy which I used in highly modified form; and ToB, from which I only incorporated a few feats.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred (Apr 25, 2011)

Hussar said:


> Oh, now, this I have seen.  I've seen more than a few people who would play 1 edition and not another.  I honestly have never really had an opportunity to play an earlier edition unless I specifically went out and found a group playing it, so, personally, it's never been an issue for me.
> 
> But, I have had people turn up their noses based on whatever edition I was playing at the time - B/E gamers not playing in an AD&D game comes to mind for example.  And most certainly vice versa there.




Yeah, which just illustrates how useless anecdotes really are. I don't pretend they really tell us anything. BryonD OTOH seems to think they're less than worthless. I suspect it mostly has to do with individual attitudes and what people are looking for in games. I'm very easy-going and frankly probably just filter out people I don't care to deal with, like rule system zealots. I've also been gaming in the same area since the early 80's, so I already know more-or-less all the people I need to interact with and naturally they're compatible with my preferences. 

I also think it is a pushback thing. When you're going around with a chip on your shoulder for one or another game system, you will get fairly sharp responses. Even though I'll play anything, if you come to me telling me how great PF is and it is the only thing to play and blah blah blah, you'll probably get a reaction of 'stick it'.  Thus I see the whole 'divide' thing as basically something people bring to the picnic themselves. I could sit in a room full of gamers and have them all playing 4e without a comment. BryonD OTOH might get a lot of 'shove off, we don't like your pet game'. Not saying that's true, or that it is a bad thing, but how you approach people has a huge effect on how they react.


----------



## Vyvyan Basterd (Apr 25, 2011)

TheUltramark said:


> So, let me ask
> is there a segment of player out there that has at some point, when they were on board with coastwizards and their products, bought every new book as it came out and tried to integrate it into their own game?
> 
> That seems rather ambitious and completely opposite from the way we play.  When we played 3.25 for example, there were some of the books we never bothered to get, for any number of reasons, including laziness i suppose.




In 3.5 it was a matter of money. I didn't buy many accessories, but if my players were interested in buying a book of character options I integrated the material into our game.

In 4E we use anything that's been loaded to the Compendium.

We like new options. We certainly understand why some people do not though.



			
				TheUltramark said:
			
		

> well, I guess then i am just a casual player, but I bet I have just as much fun as anyone else.




I'm sure you do have just as much fun. But my group playing in your games would not have as much fun. It's a relative matter of taste, not an objective matter of one of us playing "right" and the other "wrong."


----------



## Fifth Element (Apr 25, 2011)

BryonD said:


> Ok, so in your own words you are stating that you don't know what "in the ballpark" means.  Noted.



Wrong. What I'm saying is that "in the ballpark" is a vague term, and I don't know what _you_ mean by it, because it could mean many things.

Basically, I'm trying to get you to say something specific and verifiable, because up to now you've used vague and nebulous terms, and asked if we can disprove them. We can't even tell what you're arguing specifically. How deep is a "deep split"? How big is this ballpark you're talking about? If it turns out that PF has 30% of the player base that 4E does, someone might present that as evidence that they're not really in the same ballpark. But you might count 30% as being in the ballpark. We don't know because you won't be specific.

You can speculate about deep splits all you like, but you can't be surprised when others ask for evidence, or when they reject anecdotes provided in place of real evidence. If you want to call it speculation and opinion, there's nothing I can say to that. But you're declared it as fact.

And I'm not saying "no it isn't". I'm saying "there's no evidence that it is". That's quite different. I don't know whether it is or it isn't. There's no evidence that it is, and no evidence that it's not. Which leaves us with speculation and opinion.


----------



## Umbran (Apr 25, 2011)

BryonD said:


> In the mean time, reality will be over here.





Listen, folks, what has been set up here is, like it or not, an ego match - someone's rather mockingly made an assertion as if they know objective reality, and others don't, without recognized authority to make such an assertion.  There is no way to defend such an assertion except by main force of will.  And contests of wills tend to end in arguments.

Honestly, EN World does not exist for you to play out that kind of thing.

So, please folks, don't set up your arguments in this fashion.  If your points of reason don't do the job, don't make it a point of wills instead.  Thanks much.


----------



## BryonD (Apr 26, 2011)

Fifth Element said:


> but you can't be surprised when others ask for evidence, or when they reject anecdotes provided in place of real evidence.



But I can be bemused when you pass off evidence as anecdotes.



> And I'm not saying "no it isn't". I'm saying "there's no evidence that it is". That's quite different.



Unless you give a justification, which you have made a point of refusing to do, it is just a wordy way of saying exactly the same thing.  

Part of my point is "there is evidence".  Replying to that with "there's no evidence" and replying to that with "no it isn't" are precisely the same.



> I don't know whether it is or it isn't. There's no evidence that it is, and no evidence that it's not. Which leaves us with speculation and opinion.



Well, we disagree and you have provided zero support for your side. 
I've pointed that out numerous times and beating my head against the wall has done nothing but get me to the point that I get warned.  (and fair enough for that)  

But there is more here than pure anecdotes.  You are not going to concede that.  That is your right.


----------



## MrGrenadine (Apr 26, 2011)

AbdulAlhazred said:


> If there's some vast quantity of people that are 'divided' from me and won't play 4e with me you're going to have to come over here and show me those people, because they simply don't exist in my experience.




There can't possibly be any question as to whether there are folks who won't play 4e, so, just to make sure I understand you, the sticking point as far as you're concerned is whether or not there's a "vast" quantity of people who won't play 4e?

So we can agree on a split, but not a "vast" one, or in BryonD's words, a "deep" one.

I gotta say that the willingness of folks to dig their heels in over such a fine point makes BryonD's assertion all the more likely.  But how about this for a litmus test:  there's obviously a split at ENWorld, but that doesn't tell us how far the split runs.  What if the same split exists in other online communities?  Anyone have any evidence of that?  What if the split exists amongst players in brick and mortar stores, too?  Does that prove a "vast" or "deep" split?  How about if there is evidence of a split in many or most online communities and brick and mortar stores? 

Really, it sounds like the only way for some folks to be convinced that BryonD's assertion is true would be to have a worldwide census, but there must be some other way, besides hard numbers, to lean the fence-sitters one way or the other.


----------



## Fifth Element (Apr 26, 2011)

BryonD said:


> Well, we disagree and you have provided zero support for your side.



I've provided my own anecdote several times: every 4E player I know personally still also plays 3E and is interested or plays Pathfinder. That suggests there is not a deep split in the market, though I don't believe that small bit of evidence has any real meaning for the market as a whole.

As for my justification for rejecting your evidence, it's because you provide nothing but anecdotes as evidence for this deep split. I might concede there was more than just anecdotes if you provided something other than anecdotes. If you have done so, I have missed them.


----------



## BryonD (Apr 26, 2011)

TheUltramark said:


> So, let me ask
> is there a segment of player out there that has at some point, when they were on board with coastwizards and their products, bought every new book as it came out and tried to integrate it into their own game?



Pretty close.

I don't know how hard I "tried to integrate" stuff.  I never really thought of it in those terms.  Stuff was default "allowed" unless it was ruled out after reading it.  And there was certainly stuff that was ruled out.  But if it was cool AND it appealed to somebody, then there was a generally permissive approach.  But it was very much a passive allowance and not a proactive effort to "integrate".

If something was perfectly fine from a balance point of view but just conflicted with the concept of a campaign or setting, it would be out on that count as well.  But a future campaign may be completely different on that front, whereas bad design just stayed bad.

And, I never bought any Eberron stuff (beyond the first core book).  I did not but MMIV and probably several other titles later in the cycle as the quality record became rather spotty.

So, in a strict sense, I guess my answer is "not me".  But in the spirit of it, pretty much.


----------



## Fifth Element (Apr 26, 2011)

MrGrenadine said:


> So we can agree on a split, but not a "vast" one, or in BryonD's words, a "deep" one.



Absolutely. It seems a given to me that some 4E players don't play PF, and vice versa. But we have no idea what the proportion is.



MrGrenadine said:


> Really, it sounds like the only way for some folks to be convinced that BryonD's assertion is true would be to have a worldwide census, but there must be some other way, besides hard numbers, to lean the fence-sitters one way or the other.



Not a worldwide census, surely. But something other than anecdotes would be nice. Something other than "people I know are split" or similar things, because anecdotes of a split are easily countered by anecdotes of no split.


----------



## BryonD (Apr 26, 2011)

Fifth Element said:


> I've provided my own anecdote several times: every 4E player I know personally still also plays 3E and is interested or plays Pathfinder. That suggests there is not a deep split in the market, though I don't believe that small bit of evidence has any real meaning for the market as a whole.



We agree that anecdotes are just anecdotes.



> As for my justification for rejecting your evidence, it's because you provide nothing but anecdotes as evidence for this deep split. I might concede there was more than just anecdotes if you provided something other than anecdotes. If you have done so, I have missed them.



You missed them.


----------



## Fifth Element (Apr 26, 2011)

BryonD said:


> So, in a strict sense, I guess my answer is "not me".  But in the spirit of it, pretty much.



I did this as well in the 3E days. I stopped about a year after 4E's release, basically as a financial decision in that I already had enough stuff to last a heck of a long time. I'll still allow pretty much anything in a game if a player wants it.


----------



## BryonD (Apr 26, 2011)

Fifth Element said:


> Something other than "people I know are split" or similar things, because anecdotes of a split are easily countered by anecdotes of no split.



People I know have nothing to do with my conclusion.  They happen to be consistent with my conclusion, but they provide zero evidence of it or for it.


----------



## Fifth Element (Apr 26, 2011)

BryonD said:


> You missed them.



Link?


----------



## BryonD (Apr 26, 2011)

In this thread


----------



## Fifth Element (Apr 26, 2011)

BryonD said:


> In this thread



What page? I've been through the thread and don't recall them.


----------



## TheUltramark (Apr 26, 2011)

Fifth Element said:


> I've provided my own anecdote several times: *every 4E player I know personally still also plays 3E and is interested or plays Pathfinder.* That suggests there is not a deep split in the market, though I don't believe that small bit of evidence has any real meaning for the market as a whole.
> 
> As for my justification for rejecting your evidence, it's because you provide nothing but anecdotes as evidence for this deep split. I might concede there was more than just anecdotes if you provided something other than anecdotes. If you have done so, I have missed them.




I hate to even get into the split or no split...especially since it isnt about banana split, but here goes....

I play 4e currently, and I have zero interest in pathfinder.  I didnt even know it exsisted until I came to this board, so I looked at some of the stuff, and I gotta be honest, the thought of learning a whole new system, after investing the time and brain power in 4e (which is just fine) really makes no sens - to me.  People who want to play PF exclusively are more than welcome to, why would I want to stop them? People who want to dabble in both d&d and pf - again, why is it of any concern to me???????

Now, I think I am going to enjoy some ice cream


----------



## Hussar (Apr 26, 2011)

Here's an example of why I don't buy the voodoo "evidence" that BryonD pins his conclusions on.

Look at Osric.  Looking at the OSRIC downloads page, as I type this, there are currently 48379 downloaded copies of OSRIC out there.  At least that many copies have been downloaded from the official site.

Now, I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt that not everyone who has downloaded OSRIC is playing it or even ever played it.  I know this, because I'm one of them.  I downloaded it to take a look, but, never played with it.  So, I know this is true.

Now, how many OSRIC players are there out there?  Who knows?  I do know that the Dragonsfoot forums have about 6000 ish members, so that might be a good place to start.  Obviously, again, this number is REALLY, REALLY rough.

Now, how many downloads did the free Pathfinder Beta garner?  The only number I could find was from the Golariapedia - here, in the first paragraph that stated by the end of the playtest, 45000 copies had been downloaded.

Does that mean that Pathfinder is roughly the size of OSRIC?  Well, I doubt it.  And, considering Paizo sold out their first print run, I'd guess that probably the numbers are higher.

But, again, you've actually got comparible numbers to look at.  Both the free versions of the games garnered about the same number of downloads.

Should we then conclude that Pathfinder is about as popular as OSRIC and other OSR games?  Does that put it in the same category as things like Labyrinth Lord and Castles and Crusades?

Hey look, I found a snake!


----------



## Hussar (Apr 26, 2011)

TheUltramark said:


> I hate to even get into the split or no split...especially since it isnt about banana split, but here goes....
> 
> I play 4e currently, and I have zero interest in pathfinder.  I didnt even know it exsisted until I came to this board, so I looked at some of the stuff, and I gotta be honest, the thought of learning a whole new system, after investing the time and brain power in 4e (which is just fine) really makes no sens - to me.  People who want to play PF exclusively are more than welcome to, why would I want to stop them? People who want to dabble in both d&d and pf - again, why is it of any concern to me???????
> 
> Now, I think I am going to enjoy some ice cream




Well, honestly, the AuldGrump answered this, but, I think it bears repeating.  TTRPG's are a pretty darn small hobby.  Traditionally, you had D&D covering about 3/4 of the sales in that niche.  That means that you had one company who was making enough money to be able to afford things like playtesting, high quality books, and various other bells and whistles.

If you fraction between two companies, now no one has enough money to develop bigger projects.  Imagine WOTC, with half as much money coming in, trying to develop something like the DDI.  As horrible as their online efforts have been, cut the budget in half and it's just not going to happen.

The theory goes, and I'm not sure if I ascribe to it, that having one large (ish) company servicing the hobby works better than a couple (or a bunch) of much smaller companies.


----------



## TheAuldGrump (Apr 26, 2011)

TheUltramark said:


> So, let me ask
> is there a segment of player out there that has at some point, when they were on board with coastwizards and their products, bought every new book as it came out and tried to integrate it into their own game?
> 
> That seems rather ambitious and completely opposite from the way we play.  When we played 3.25 for example, there were some of the books we never bothered to get, for any number of reasons, including laziness i suppose.



There is, and it is not unique to Wizards - Back in 2e there were lots of _really_ badly balanced splats (I am looking at _you_, Complete Book of Elf Cheese!), that folks would try to integrate anyway.

I never had a hard time telling players (or myself) 'No. Just, no.' Neither in 2e or 3e.

This did not prevent somebody from wanting to play a samurai in what was essentially the 17th C. Germanies. Or an Oozemaster in the middle of the burning times.

Sometimes I had to line item a book - yes, yes, no, yes, no way in the seven burning Hells, okay.....  I actually had better luck with 3pp books than with WotC. WotC's material was likely to be all over the place, good, terrible, everything in between.



TheUltramark said:


> well, I guess then i am just a casual player, but I bet I have just as much fun as anyone else.




Having fun is what it's all about.  If you are having fun then have at!

The Auld Grump


----------



## Aberzanzorax (Apr 26, 2011)

TheAuldGrump said:


> I actually had better luck with 3pp books than with WotC. WotC's material was likely to be all over the place, good, terrible, everything in between.




I'm the sort of collector described, and I even do it with select 3pps. I do like to integrate it all, but not necessarily in the same world or time. Also, integration can include "unique" individuals...i.e. there is one oozmaster in the whole world - a freak of nature.


But I quoted your point there because I agree. I find 3pp books to be much more consistent than WotC books (here I'm mostly speaking to their 3.5 offerings--which I'm now thinking is when they jumped the shark). 

But, that said, a 3pp book might be consistently bad or consistently good...but it's consistent. WotC books I found usually had some gems and some rough. I wonder if that is a function of 3pps being smaller and usually having a single writer rather than WotC being larger and potentially having a few individuals work on a book?


----------



## Maggan (Apr 26, 2011)

Hussar said:


> The only number I could find was from the Golariapedia - here, in the first paragraph that stated by the end of the playtest, 45000 copies had been downloaded.




Heh. Four of those downloads are by me!  I was between computers and lost some files, and had to download the playtest again. 

Cool thing, that open playtest, btw.

/M


----------



## TheAuldGrump (Apr 26, 2011)

Aberzanzorax said:


> I'm the sort of collector described, and I even do it with select 3pps. I do like to integrate it all, but not necessarily in the same world or time. Also, integration can include "unique" individuals...i.e. there is one oozmaster in the whole world - a freak of nature.
> 
> 
> But I quoted your point there because I agree. I find 3pp books to be much more consistent than WotC books (here I'm mostly speaking to their 3.5 offerings--which I'm now thinking is when they jumped the shark).
> ...



Or just trying to be all things to all people, yet at the same time trying not to go too far in any one direction. So there was a whole lot of dabbling, and not much focus.

There were exceptions - Tome of Magic had some very interesting, very focused spellcasters. And it was one of their better books - possibly their best book that I never used. If Pact Magic had been around when I first did my 1600s homebrew then it would have been a very different place. Not good for retrofitting though.

A3pp could afford the focus, and go further along their path - Frost & Fur vs. Frostburn. I used both, but F&F was much the better book in my estimation.

The Auld Grump


----------



## AbdulAlhazred (Apr 26, 2011)

MrGrenadine said:


> There can't possibly be any question as to whether there are folks who won't play 4e, so, just to make sure I understand you, the sticking point as far as you're concerned is whether or not there's a "vast" quantity of people who won't play 4e?
> 
> So we can agree on a split, but not a "vast" one, or in BryonD's words, a "deep" one.
> 
> ...




Well, there will always be someone who won't play any given game. There's a lot of people in the world. For the concept of a 'split' to be meaningful I think more is required than "there's this guy that won't play X and there's this other guy that won't play Y" to be saying anything meaningful. 

I don't know that I care to try to parameterize what constitutes a split. I don't see that any arbitrary dividing lines I'd draw would mean much or that there would be any reason for anyone else to agree with them.

I don't even agree that there is any appreciable split at Enworld. Again there are people that insist they won't play one or the other, but people make a lot of absolute sounding statements online and then when it comes down to it they don't mean much. More importantly than that though, I don't see that many people here making such hard and fast statements. Some, but it seems like a reasonably small fraction. 

The fact that there's no way to prove or disprove BryonD's assertion has no bearing on its validity whatsoever. Reasoning that "because you can't disprove X that proves it" is so wrong it isn't even wrong. No rational person operating in an evidence driven logical deductive fashion will be convinced without convincing evidence. 

Anyway, to get off that dead horse...

Back in the 2e days our policy was basically if it wasn't core 3 book 2e then forget it. We did utilize some of the earlier supplements like the Priests Handbook and Monster Mythology. The later options stuff was all pretty much untested garbage that was pumped out during the "Playtesting is a waste of time and not real work" phase of TSR's final plunge into oblivion. Now and then someone would try to pass some of it off, but I never even bothered to buy those books. This was TSR's jumping of the shark.

As for 4e, we allow anything from any official source. There have been a few times when concern has been expressed about a specific build, item, or power. Nobody in my games ever insisted on cheesing out, so it didn't matter. The orb wizard wasn't that optimized, only picked up one or two save penalty effects, and generally didn't try to break things wide open. Notice though, this possibility wouldn't have required anything except core stuff, AV1 and PHB1. So you see 4e seems to be the first edition that didn't diverge into lala land at some point. It always had a few broken things, they got fixed, and you can safely purchase any 4e book and it is well designed. I know I have most of them and they're all fine. The stuff in Dragon is fine too. 4e has in no way shape or form jumped anything. It may be slowing down due to having tapped out most of the obvious material, but it sure hasn't gone downhill.


----------



## TheUltramark (Apr 26, 2011)

Hussar said:


> Well, honestly, the AuldGrump answered this, but, I think it bears repeating.  TTRPG's are a pretty darn small hobby.  Traditionally, you had D&D covering about 3/4 of the sales in that niche.  That means that you had one company who was making enough money to be able to afford things like playtesting, high quality books, and various other bells and whistles.
> 
> If you fraction between two companies, now no one has enough money to develop bigger projects.  Imagine WOTC, with half as much money coming in, trying to develop something like the DDI.  As horrible as their online efforts have been, cut the budget in half and it's just not going to happen.
> 
> The theory goes, and I'm not sure if I ascribe to it, that having one large (ish) company servicing the hobby works better than a couple (or a bunch) of much smaller companies.




Again, it is my opinion, and I guess it's a minority, that there is enough d&d product already published to keep me and my friends playing d&d for about 57.5 more years - and while it would be sad to see, if Hasbro decided to shut down their caostwizards product line, or even just the D&d segment of said line, I'm certain I would get over it in short order.


----------



## renau1g (Apr 26, 2011)

TheUltramark said:


> Again, it is my opinion, and I guess it's a minority, that there is enough d&d product already published to keep me and my friends playing d&d for about 57.5 more years - and while it would be sad to see, if Hasbro decided to shut down their caostwizards product line, or even just the D&d segment of said line, I'm certain I would get over it in short order.




It's not that you're a minority, it's that your "opinion" is rather short-sighted. Just like we (as a species) could burn fossil fuels, pollute the oceans, over fish, strip mine, dump toxic waste, clear-cut the rainforst, etc, etc. and it wouldn't affect us. It's that for the future of the hobby (ie the next generation of gamers), having a pair of smaller companies doing smaller projects might have a harder time pulling in new players or continuing to survive, etc. 

Now the above is obviously a far extreme (future of the planet) vs. Wizards being shut down (a niche market, luxury item company).


----------



## Aeolius (Apr 26, 2011)

renau1g said:


> Just like we (as a species) could burn fossil fuels, pollute the oceans, over fish, strip mine, dump toxic waste, clear-cut the rainforst, etc, etc. and it wouldn't affect us.




If we pollute the oceans, there would be no sharks to jump.


----------



## TheUltramark (Apr 26, 2011)

renau1g said:


> It's not that you're a minority, it's that your "opinion" is rather short-sighted. Just like we (as a species) could burn fossil fuels, pollute the oceans, over fish, strip mine, dump toxic waste, clear-cut the rainforst, etc, etc. and it wouldn't affect us. It's that for the future of the hobby (ie the next generation of gamers), having a pair of smaller companies doing smaller projects might have a harder time pulling in new players or continuing to survive, etc.
> 
> Now the above is obviously a far extreme (future of the planet) vs. Wizards being shut down (a niche market, luxury item company).




so your contention is that there is NOT enough role playing game material currently published - and that for the sake of my great grandchildren D&D needs to continue to operate?


----------



## billd91 (Apr 27, 2011)

TheUltramark said:


> so your contention is that there is NOT enough role playing game material currently published - and that for the sake of my great grandchildren D&D needs to continue to operate?




No. I think his contention is that the interests of your satisfaction, in the short term, aren't the same as the interests of the long term health of the hobby.


----------



## TheUltramark (Apr 27, 2011)

billd91 said:


> No. I think his contention is that the interests of your satisfaction, in the short term, aren't the same as the interests of the long term health of the hobby.



I can't get my head around this
so....if in 50 years there isnt a D&D 10th edition, people won't still be gaming?
creative people won't still be publishing material related to gaming?  Resources aimed at better gaming won't continue to be invented?


----------



## Hussar (Apr 27, 2011)

Well, considering that D&D (in whatever form) constitutes the overwhelming majority of tabletop gaming, it's not too far of a stretch to think that if D&D were to fade off the shelves, tabletop gaming would fade into complete obscurity within a few years.  It's not 50 years, it's 10 years.

Sure, you have a group right now that you play with.  Fast forward ten years, your current group will likely have split up for a number of reasons - mostly real life stuff like moving, new jobs, kids, etc.  You want to build a new group, because, for instance, you've just moved to a new city to take that great job.

But, gamer numbers have dwindled due to lack of support.  No new gamers coming into the hobby means replacement doesn't happen.  Groups fade out and nothing replaces them.  In the suburbs, the traditional bastion of gaming, you'd probably be able to find groups, particularly in and around large centers, but, outside of that?  Good luck.

Now, maybe online virtual tabletop will keep things going for some time, but, eventually, the number of people dropping out of the hobby will mean that even if you personally want to game, you won't be able to find anyone you want to game with.

That's the danger in having no support for the hobby.  

To give a example, try finding a group of people to play Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.  Or Metamorphasis Alpha.  Or Star Frontiers.  Or the bajillion other OOP RPG's out there.


----------



## Raven Crowking (Apr 27, 2011)

I only see that as likely if the Internet ceases to exist.

If I can easily find people to play RCFG, then a halfway decent GM should be able to find people to play Star Frontiers......'cause I suck.

YMMV.


----------



## Hussar (Apr 27, 2011)

That's the point though RC.  You can find a group to play RCFG because of your current situation.  Imagine that D&D has been off the shelf for ten years, or is only stocked in very well stocked FLGS's in large cities.  Now, move to a small city with no FLGS.  Comic books stores?  Sure, but no dedicated FLGS.

Now, let's see you find players for your game.  Let's see someone who isn't the creator of the game, find players for your game.


----------



## Raven Crowking (Apr 27, 2011)

Hussar said:


> That's the point though RC.  You can find a group to play RCFG because of your current situation.  Imagine that D&D has been off the shelf for ten years, or is only stocked in very well stocked FLGS's in large cities.  Now, move to a small city with no FLGS.  Comic books stores?  Sure, but no dedicated FLGS.
> 
> Now, let's see you find players for your game.  Let's see someone who isn't the creator of the game, find players for your game.




Funny, but I started in a small town with no comic book store, let alone a FLGS, where no one played D&D or had even heard of it AFAIK, yet I managed to find players, and I managed (as I later learned) to inspire another to take up DMing and found a gaming group whose first encounter with D&D was seeing me read the Holmes Basic book in the school library.  D&D then, where I was, was less of a blip than D&D would be were it shelved 10 years now.

I sure had no trouble starting a game in Basic Training.  I had people offering to polish my boots and make my bunk so that they could play.

I had no trouble starting a game anywhere I've ever lived.....big city, small town, no difference.  It has never been a case with me of having too few players to choose from, even when the potential pool had never played a role-playing game before.

I have little doubt that, if D&D had been off the shelves for 10 years, and you plonked me down just about anywhere, I could raise interest in any game I chose to run.  And I have little doubt that, a year later, it will again be a case of me deciding whether or not to let other players join, rather than wondering where to scare some players up from.

And, just to be clear, when I say "little doubt" I mean "none whatsoever".

And I'm just some guy.  I'm sure that there are much, much better GMs than I am.  I don't cater to players.  I am willing to say No.  I let the dice fall where they may.  I choose what I am willing to run, and what kinds of characters I am willing to allow into the game.

If I can get a game, anywhere, and build it into more of a question of how to solve the "too many players for the available seats" problem, I am pretty sure that any halfway decent GM can do the same.

YMMV.


RC


----------



## TheUltramark (Apr 27, 2011)

Hussar said:


> Well, considering that D&D (in whatever form) constitutes the overwhelming majority of tabletop gaming, it's not too far of a stretch to think that if D&D were to fade off the shelves, tabletop gaming would fade into complete obscurity within a few years.  It's not 50 years, it's 10 years.
> 
> Sure, you have a group right now that you play with.  Fast forward ten years, your current group will likely have split up for a number of reasons - mostly real life stuff like moving, new jobs, kids, etc.  You want to build a new group, because, for instance, you've just moved to a new city to take that great job.
> 
> ...




but do you really think that IF Hasbro kills D&D that nobody will step up and make fantasy role playing products????
does the artist formerly known as TSR hold the fate of fantasy role playing in its hands????
Can guys like Mike Mearls, James Wyatt, Chris Perkins, and Andy Collins not either go work for another exsisting company, or even start their own????

TWA went out of business...people still fly


----------



## billd91 (Apr 27, 2011)

TheUltramark said:


> TWA went out of business...people still fly




Stop a random person on the street and ask them to name a nerdy fantasy game NOT on the computer. See if any of them, who can answer, say anything other that Dungeons and Dragons. Now ask them to name more than one airline.

Dungeons and Dragons is a high-profile entry point into a niche hobby. It usually takes up the most space on your average non-gaming bookstore that also happens to carry RPGs. It's the most visible and well known RPG. 

Personally, I'm not convinced that having one game/company of that stature is a good thing for the hobby, but it's what we've got and it has served reasonably well over the years. Remove it and that's a serious blow to the hobby's visibility and casual recruitment until or unless something can replace it.


----------



## Stormonu (Apr 27, 2011)

Well, the D&D SRD is public domain, so even if WotC were to stop production of D&D proper, I think the game would continue to live on.

I mean, games like chess, checkers and the like have survived without a big publisher backing them.  So long as the game remains being played, there is a good chance it will live on past the death, dismemberment or change of scope of its cuurrent copyright holder.


----------



## Philotomy Jurament (Apr 27, 2011)

Mercurius said:


> But I'm wondering is this: at what point did things really begin to go down hill?



WotC lost me at 3.5.  I was already growing dissatisfied with 3.0; 3.5 was the tipping point where I said "enough" and started re-evaluating what I wanted from D&D.  However, I did still give WotC some money by buying PDFs of older edition stuff...until they quit selling those. These days they aren't selling anything I'm interested in.



> While we're at it, is there any turning the ship around or is a new edition in the near future inevitable?



I'm not interested in 4e, so there's no turning that around.  I also doubt that a new edition would be to my tastes: WotC's preferred approach to D&D and my preferred approach to D&D have been getting farther and farther apart.  I don't see that trend turning around with a new edition.  (If a new edition does come out, I'll check it out, just like I did with 4e, but I don't have high hopes.)


----------



## Hussar (Apr 28, 2011)

Raven Crowking said:


> Funny, but I started in a small town with no comic book store, let alone a FLGS, where no one played D&D or had even heard of it AFAIK, yet I managed to find players, and I managed (as I later learned) to inspire another to take up DMing and found a gaming group whose first encounter with D&D was seeing me read the Holmes Basic book in the school library.  D&D then, where I was, was less of a blip than D&D would be were it shelved 10 years now.




This would be in the early 80's when D&D was at the height of its popularity no?



> I sure had no trouble starting a game in Basic Training.  I had people offering to polish my boots and make my bunk so that they could play.




You managed to find gamers in the highest concentration of gamer demographics outside of prison?  Shock.



> I had no trouble starting a game anywhere I've ever lived.....big city, small town, no difference.  It has never been a case with me of having too few players to choose from, even when the potential pool had never played a role-playing game before.
> 
> I have little doubt that, if D&D had been off the shelves for 10 years, and you plonked me down just about anywhere, I could raise interest in any game I chose to run.  And I have little doubt that, a year later, it will again be a case of me deciding whether or not to let other players join, rather than wondering where to scare some players up from.
> 
> ...




Well, considering how many posts we see right now, of people who would like to game but can't find a group, I'd say that you're probably stretching things a bit to say you can find a group no matter what.  

Obviously it's not quite as easy as you are seeming to claim here to get a group together and keep it going.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred (Apr 28, 2011)

I think it is like most things. Some people are good at digging up a group to play with and other people aren't so good at that. It seems to me there ARE quite a lot of people out there who would play if they were presented with a game to join and a bit of encouragement. Whether that task is easy or not just depends on the person. RC maybe has a knack for that.


----------



## Raven Crowking (Apr 28, 2011)

Hussar said:


> This would be in the early 80's when D&D was at the height of its popularity no?




This would be spring of 1980, following getting Holmes for my brother for Christmas 1979 -- which required an hour's drive to a larger population centre.

I don't know when the height of D&D's popularity was (or is), but I do know no one was playing it in Harland, Wisconsin that year that wasn't connected to me directly or indirectly.  The other DM available that first year (Frank) later told me that he learned of the game by seeing me with the book in the library, as mentioned upthread.

So, no, it had nothing to do with having a major corporation behind me, and had everything to do with running a fun game that made people want to join in.



> You managed to find gamers in the highest concentration of gamer demographics outside of prison?  Shock.




Is it the highest concentration?  Really?  What do you base that on?

IME, there are more gamers among university students, for example.

Of course, 9/10ths of all statistics are just made up.  7/8ths of all people know that.



> Well, considering how many posts we see right now, of people who would like to game but can't find a group, I'd say that you're probably stretching things a bit to say you can find a group no matter what.
> 
> Obviously it's not quite as easy as you are seeming to claim here to get a group together and keep it going.




It is for me.

As I said, though, YMMV.


RC


----------



## Nagol (Apr 28, 2011)

Hussar said:


> Well, considering how many posts we see right now, of people who would like to game but can't find a group, I'd say that you're probably stretching things a bit to say you can find a group no matter what.
> 
> Obviously it's not quite as easy as you are seeming to claim here to get a group together and keep it going.




IME, someone enthusiastic about the game who is willing to DM is almost always able to find a group.

I've started a bunch of groups 'cold' -- most weren't even D&D -- Holmes D&D, _Aftermath_, _CHAMPIONS_ (twice), and _Justice Inc._

Often, those looking for a game fruitlessly want to play, not run.  That is harder to come by.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz (Apr 28, 2011)

Re: finding a group

I was an army brat, so I had to move every couple of years, so I have some insight on finding groups.

I picked up D&D in 1977 in Aurora, CO...and a year later, I was in the tiny town of Manhattan, KS. I found a small group in my neighborhood, and one at school...which I helped merge.

In 1982, I moved to Irving, TX (part of the Dallas/Ft. Worth Metroplex) and found another small group at school- a couple of whom I still game with- and started a gaming club at my private (Catholic) school.

College was in San Antonio- a had to find a new group and did by asking my buddies.  Law school in Austin had me checking with my local game stores for leads, and found one to which I belonged for 3 years.

Returning to the Dallas area, my group was all away at various schools of their own, so I had to find yet another group.  Yet again, I turned to my FLGS and found gamers in search of new players.  I played in a few groups...and then my old buddies started trickling back to the Metroplex.  They happened to have met some other gamers in the area- including a guy from my HS whom I didn't know was a gamer- and I joined that group.

In most of those groups, I joined as a player, but eventually GMed _something_.

So, I have to say, having had to find new groups in several different cities, large and small: look harder.  Especially ask at your FLGS.  If there is no FLGS, hang out in the gaming section of a bookstore and ask another patron.  Check out the local college campus.

And yes, be willing to start a group and maybe even run a game.


----------



## Raven Crowking (Apr 28, 2011)

Reading the recent review of Gloomwrought, I have to admit that I am cautiously optimistic about the product.  I fully intend to pick this one up, and to use it.  

If WotC has jumped the shark (which I am not at all sure is the case), it may just be possible for them to "jump back" (as it were).  

It does seem to me that WotC is following these threads, and has made some positive changes to product presentation as a result.

Now, where is my Ruins of the Forbidden City boxed set, Wizards?  Huh?  Where is it?  Huh?  (Not kidding here; I'd pay good money for it!)



RC


----------



## TheUltramark (Apr 28, 2011)

I am so lucky.

There are 8 at my table.  Three of us have been together for going on 30 years, five of the eight for 10+ years.  If I were in a position to have to "find a game" I'm not sure I could - or even would want to do it.  This doesn't include any pbmb games, which are (or at least were when I was playing on-line) a dime a dozen.

So, about shark-jumping, I guess D&D is so ingrained into me, that I would be considered one of the people who kept watching after Fonzie traded the harley for water skis.

I do still think the novels jumped the shark with the 100 year leap.


----------



## amerigoV (May 2, 2011)

ggroy said:


> From an historical perspective, when did 3.5E D&D jump the shark?




Probably when they introduced that vampiric werebadger gnome in the Shining South FR supplement. Crazy times, crazy times.


----------



## Windjammer (May 3, 2011)

When did WotC jump the shark?

PHB 4, no question.


----------



## Jor-El (May 3, 2011)

Magic of Incarnum. Followed by Tome of Battle, and the second round of "Complete" books. Although the Race books were pretty "meh".


----------



## AbdulAlhazred (May 3, 2011)

Raven Crowking said:


> Is it the highest concentration?  Really?  What do you base that on?
> 
> IME, there are more gamers among university students, for example.
> 
> Of course, 9/10ths of all statistics are just made up.  7/8ths of all people know that.




Seriously, the US Army is a giant hive of gaming activity. Certainly was back in the late 70's and early 80's. From 78-80 I lived down the road from the main gate of Fort Hood. You had 2 divisions full of young guys living in barracks with nothing they needed to spend their money on. Sure, there were 8 bajillion bars, 12 bajillion pawn shops, and surprisingly enough MANY gaming stores. Seriously, Copperas Cove is a town of maybe 10k people, at most, and the locals weren't exactly rolling in it. There were at one point THREE gaming stores in this one town, all large and well-stocked. Down the road in the bigger town, Killeen IIRC, there were another 2-3 large gaming stores. 

It was enough of a hotbed that we were constantly doing playtest groups for Steve Jackson, Metagaming, ADB (later Star Fleet Battles), etc. There would easily be 50 people in the store all weekend and there were 12 large gaming tables. I can attest to having played with the most prototypical versions of GURPS, many of the more well-known mini-games, all the TFT stuff (before GURPS), and several other games that never saw the light of day.

So yeah, if you're in the Army and you can't find a game it is like Las Vegas and you can't find a hussie. Just doesn't happen. May be different nowadays I suppose, but I expect not. If I were going to run a game store I'd very definitely look closely at plopping it right near a nice big Army base.


----------



## Raven Crowking (May 3, 2011)

SO, personal anecdote based on one post, then?

Without any information about the concentration anywhere else?


----------



## AbdulAlhazred (May 3, 2011)

Raven Crowking said:


> SO, personal anecdote based on one post, then?
> 
> Without any information about the concentration anywhere else?




Are you saying my anecdotes aren't PROOF! 

Yeah, I know. Things could be totally different nowadays too.


----------



## Raven Crowking (May 3, 2011)

Well, like I said, I had no problems finding players when I was in the US Army, but I didn't find that the overall % was higher than in, say, college and university campuses.

It isn't "There are lots of gamers in the military" that I dispute; it is "There is a larger concentration than elsewhere".


RC


----------



## Dannyalcatraz (May 4, 2011)

> Seriously, the US Army is a giant hive of gaming activity. Certainly was back in the late 70's and early 80's.




That matches my experience on and around bases in Aurora, CO, Manhattan, KS and reading gaming publications during that time period.  I especially remember seeing frequent contributions to Starfleet Battles rules by servicemembers.  (I could be wrong, but AIR, the "Kaufman" in Kaufman Retrograde was a US serviceman gamer.)


----------



## AbdulAlhazred (May 4, 2011)

Raven Crowking said:


> Well, like I said, I had no problems finding players when I was in the US Army, but I didn't find that the overall % was higher than in, say, college and university campuses.
> 
> It isn't "There are lots of gamers in the military" that I dispute; it is "There is a larger concentration than elsewhere".
> 
> ...




Eh, hard to say. I think the demographics were at least that gamers were mostly young and male and when you have Army you have a lot of young guys around. College campuses, I think the thing is there you have mostly people with other open-ended demands on their time and less money to spend on things like games. Army pay might not be awesome but single guys living on base didn't NEED to spend a lot of money on necessities. 

I remember there was this space wargame that was played on table top back around 1979. The models were not cheap, they were all cast metal and pretty large. Some of these guys had 3-4 hundred of these $10-20 models, and there were a LOT of people playing it. They would buy stupid amounts of stuff. It was amazing.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz (May 4, 2011)

Hell- ever look at their stereo systems?  The prices for audio in the base exchanges, catalogs and now online are sometimes STOOPID low.


----------



## Ourph (May 4, 2011)

renau1g said:


> It's that for the future of the hobby (ie the next generation of gamers), having a pair of smaller companies doing smaller projects might have a harder time pulling in new players or continuing to survive, etc.



Given the humble origins of the most popular brand name in our hobby (i.e. Gary Gygax gluing boxes together in his basement) I think it is entirely possible that it is your point of view that is short sighted. I think it is worth noting that the success of the game DROVE the growth of an industry and not the other way round. The hobby doesn't need the industry, the industry needs the hobby.


----------



## Dice4Hire (May 4, 2011)

I have been impressed with WOTC's offerings this month or six weeks. Nice stuff, both on DDI and off.


----------



## Raven Crowking (May 4, 2011)

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Eh, hard to say. I think the demographics were at least that gamers were mostly young and male and when you have Army you have a lot of young guys around. College campuses, I think the thing is there you have mostly people with other open-ended demands on their time and less money to spend on things like games. Army pay might not be awesome but single guys living on base didn't NEED to spend a lot of money on necessities.




I'll agree with "hard to say".  Of course, I've had plenty of female gamers in groups I've run as well.  Even when I was in the Army.  And, in the Army, not all of the gamers I played with were from on-post.



RC


----------



## AbdulAlhazred (May 4, 2011)

Raven Crowking said:


> I'll agree with "hard to say".  Of course, I've had plenty of female gamers in groups I've run as well.  Even when I was in the Army.  And, in the Army, not all of the gamers I played with were from on-post.
> 
> 
> 
> RC




Yeah, I seem to remember that we had a pretty heavy overrepresentation of guys back in those days in that particular area, since all the Army people were male. There were a pretty decent number of locals, though most of us in that category were high school age. My sister was at least as big a gamer as I am though. 

Nowadays? Even in college? Yeah. In fact I think it has been a few years since the guys outnumbered the ladies in my group. I suspect, again without anything but personal observation, that the ratio of men to women has been evening out a lot since the early days. Lots more women in the Army too nowadays, though I'm not anywhere near that scene anymore.


----------



## BryonD (May 7, 2011)

Fifth Element said:


> What page? I've been through the thread and don't recall them.



Works been nuts and it has been more than a week since I even logged in here.  And honestly, I don't know what my frequency will be.

But that said, you were the one demanding proof, but now you can't even be bothered to be up to speed on the topics you are arguing?  You are saying I have not made my case, but you admit you have no idea what case I have made.  Clearly you are just presuming your own conclusions.


----------



## BryonD (May 7, 2011)

Hussar said:


> Here's an example of why I don't buy the voodoo "evidence" that BryonD pins his conclusions on.
> 
> Look at Osric.  Looking at the OSRIC downloads page, as I type this, there are currently 48379 downloaded copies of OSRIC out there.  At least that many copies have been downloaded from the official site.
> 
> ...



This is just bizarre.  

Have I EVER pointed at the free downloads of the Pathfinder beta as my evidence?

You are going back to the old stand by Hussar tactic and invented a really stupid straw man example and declaring that to be the point someone else has made despite there being zero truth to that claim.  

If you want to actually talk about what I said, please do.

Just as one off the cuff example, that is not on the list of things I have actually cited, do you remember the photos of lines at the Paizo 2009 GenCon booth?  Do you think those people were there for free downloads?  Was there a similar line at the OSRIC booth?  

And no, I don't think that GenCon 2009 proves the SLIGHTEST thing about split markets or how any game is doing today. That is not in any way my point.  But it does demonstrate how out of touch your pointless claim about free downloads is.


----------



## Fifth Element (May 7, 2011)

BryonD said:


> But that said, you were the one demanding proof, but now you can't even be bothered to be up to speed on the topics you are arguing?



No, I am demanding proof, and when asked you responded "It's in the thread." So I went back through all of your posts in the thread, and didn't see any specific proof, just claims and anecdotes. You claim there's solid evidence out there, but you can't show it to us. Where is it?


----------



## Eridanis (May 7, 2011)

Everyone, please take a deep breath and think before posting aggrivated responses. Venting your spleen is no way to continue a conversation.


----------



## JeffB (May 7, 2011)

When did this thread jump the shark?


----------



## Stormonu (May 8, 2011)

Thinking about it, I don't think WotC jumped the shark.

I think the shark is chasing WotC though, and threatening to devour the D&D department.


----------



## Hussar (May 9, 2011)

BryonD said:


> This is just bizarre.
> 
> Have I EVER pointed at the free downloads of the Pathfinder beta as my evidence?
> 
> ...




Wow, talk about totally missing the point.

I freely admitted that what I was saying was voodoo logic.  That was the entire point of that little exercise.  I took a piece of information from one place, stripped away any context, then added in another piece of information, also stripped of any context, and then came to a conclusion.

Of course the conclusion is utterly bogus.

THAT'S THE POINT!

Which is precisely what you have done with your repeated claims that there is a deep divide in the fanbase.  You've taken pieces of information, stripped of context and then claimed that they are evidence to support your idea when in fact, they're mostly isolated factoids that could easily have a number of different interpretations and causes.

That's the point I was making there.


----------



## Raven Crowking (May 9, 2011)

Hussar said:


> I freely admitted that what I was saying was voodoo logic.  That was the entire point of that little exercise.


----------



## Jeffrey (May 10, 2011)

Long thread.

Hey!

Anyone need a hobby?

I know of this great little game where you pretend to be elves and dwarves and go exploring dungeons and best of all -- it's all in your MIND!


----------



## Aeolius (May 11, 2011)

Eridanis said:


> Venting your spleen is no way to continue a conversation.




A venting spleen will draw sharks for sure...
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gciFoEbOA8]YouTube - jaws clip: "You're going to need a bigger boat"[/ame]


----------

