# Not Reading Ryan Dancy



## mythusmage (Jan 13, 2007)

His blog that is. The front page loads fine, but this page shows nothing besides the background. The XHTML is there, it shows up when you go to "view source". But it doesn't display in the browser. I suspect it's the file name.

The page in question has Ryan's predictions for hobby gaming in 2007. I have the page downloaded and can open it in a text editor. But commenting at his place on what he said is a no go. That said, I thought I'd spread the word and get folks to go there and add their take.

And Ryan, if you ever read this I have a word for you, WordPress. Get yourself a site of your own (I use Totalchoice Hosting myself). Most low cost hosts use a control panel such as cPanel, which comes with a utility that will install blogging software for you. One such engine is Wordpress, which works well and doesn't inflict excessively long file names on you.

My thoughts on what Ryan had to say coming up as soon as I compose them.


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## jaerdaph (Jan 13, 2007)

How old is your machine? I work at a nonprofit and naturally we have a few computers that are about seven years old that have no problem opening that page. 

This really isn't meant to be judgmental in any way, but there does come a point in time where support for and compatibility with older computers and software just isn't feasible anymore. I hate to say it, but if you are using an older machine, you're just going to get left behind more and more as time goes by. Again, I'm not trying to be judgmental, just stating a fact.


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## Master of the Game (Jan 13, 2007)

Loads fine for me.


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## kenobi65 (Jan 13, 2007)

'Tis working just fine for me, as well.


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## RainOfSteel (Jan 13, 2007)

There are some interesting tidbits of news in there, but regardless of the man's credentials, there are too many specific predictions to believe that they will all simply come true.

Here's my prediction: 53.2% of Ryan Dancey's predictions will not come true.

Oh, and 79.92% of all statistics are made up on the spot.


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## Vigilance (Jan 13, 2007)

RainOfSteel said:
			
		

> There are some interesting tidbits of news in there, but regardless of the man's credentials, there are too many specific predictions to believe that they will all simply come true.
> 
> Here's my prediction: 53.2% of Ryan Dancey's predictions will not come true.
> 
> Oh, and 79.92% of all statistics are made up on the spot.




But at least he's gutsy enough to MAKE specific predictions.


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## Alzrius (Jan 13, 2007)

I'm having no trouble loading and reading the page, though it seems to have a non-panicky sense of doom & gloom that's something of a downer.


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## Turjan (Jan 13, 2007)

mythusmage said:
			
		

> His blog that is. The front page loads fine, but this page shows nothing besides the background. The XHTML is there, it shows up when you go to "view source". But it doesn't display in the browser. I suspect it's the file name.



I suspect it's your computer or your browser. The blog looks fine.

As to the blog, it just translates to "The sky is falling". It's basically an extrapolation of what happened in 2006.


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## eyebeams (Jan 13, 2007)

He's already wrong about White Wolf. "Transitioning to a shell business," doesn't fit with planning the most ambitious year for new RPG releases in its history. I don't think the company has ever planned as many new games or major core supplements simultaneously, running from acquired licensed (BESM) to an entirely new in-house game (Scion). White Wolf scaling back its RPG operations would take at least two years, and it's my feeling that even as a branch/partner of CCP, the allure of tabletop RPGs as a testbed for intellectual property is just too economical to pass up. 

Really, I think the plan is to do for RPGs and mass media what Marvel did for comics. Comics are an effective way for Marvel to maintain loyal, core fans while testung out new ideas, but the comics themselves only provide 2% of Marvel's income. Similarly, RPGs maintain a fanbase and are cheaper than throwing ideas by executives, focus groups and the general public until something sticks. Marvel has shown the value of robust IP, as opposed to flying blind into film, television and computer games without a clue as to whether anybody cares about a given project.


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## Acid_crash (Jan 13, 2007)

I think that, although a lot of what he says has a certain kind of logic behind it, his estimation of White Wolf is probably going to be dead wrong.  I think White Wolf will probably be the one company to exceed expectations this year, and they seem to be the one that is truly trying to expand their lineup this year.

I am not a market analyst or anything like that, and I could be way wrong, and it is just my opinion, but having been a gamer the last five years, and seeing what's being produced, this year won't be as doom and gloom as predicted.  

My prediction is White Wolf will have a more stellar year, with BESM 3e, Scion and Monte Cooks World of Darkness all being successful (although BESM won't be a huge hit, depends).  GW will have success with Warhammer 40K Roleplaying, all three of them will be hits.  Most people will buy the new Star Wars rpg, if only to see what the changes will be and to see if it will be, indeed, a prelude to the future D&D 4e (we all know it will come out, it's just a matter of time)...if that leads to a future lineup of Star Wars books, only time will tell.  

I don't know what else is coming out... more supplemental D&D stuff that will further lead to a faster increase in the desire of a new edition because most of it will probably be the same old stuff just rehashed in a new format (I am not saying that it won't be new, or innovative, but innovation isn't Hasbro's or WotC cup of tea...and what innovation they have created --- looking at Magic of Incarnum, Tome of Magic, and Psionics Handbook type stuff--- has not really been received all that well from the majority of D&D gamers).  My FLGS won't even reorder those now unless someone asks them to for a special order.  

There are other new rpgs coming out, but most of those only people like us who get on the web on a daily basis, and who do research and look for them, will discover them.  Games like Wild Talents will be passed over, and other games in the same category and produced by equally small companies, won't be picked up by the majority of FLGS (if most are like mine, mine didn't even know that Wild Talents was being made, and they couldn't do an order for me so I had to do it myself).  Same for Burning Empires, etc.

I don't know if anything I say has merit, these are just my opinions, and I hope that there is a booom in the future of roleplaying games that doesn't require a new edition of Dungeons and Dragons.  Seems like whenever a new edition comes out, sells are way up, then slowly decline, and as they decline, the whole market declines, until a new edition comes out.  It's unfortunate.


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## mythusmage (Jan 13, 2007)

For those who asked...

Yes, she's old. Got her back in 1998. Still works well, but in order to upgrade to OSX I need to upgrade ram to at least 256 megs physical. I'd be better off trading up for a MacMini and flat panel display. And that requires fecal consolidation on my part. Email or PM me for details on providing (financial) encouragement. 

On Ryan's screed...

Saved the page, opened it in AppleWorks, and read through it. How valid his prognostications are depends on how well he reads the industry, and from previous comments in this thread, he would appear to be 180 on a couple of subjects. There is one thing one needs to remember about predictions, they are rather dependent on a simple qualifier, "If this goes on." WizKids could decide to expand into mainstream retail, and maintain their hobby business as well. There is nothing that says you can't do both. Hell, Hasbro could decide to encourage expansion by Wizards, and start the ball rolling on 4e with a comprehensive, and transparent, general survey of potential customers.

Then there is the matter of outsiders entering the hobby game business. Mattel is new to this stuff, might they bring in new ways of looking at RPGs? New paradigms in design and play? What about Milton Bradley, another of Hasbro's game divisions? What if they're thinking is so superior to Wizards re RPGs D&D 4e ends up as a Milton Bradley game?

Don't scoff, Companies such as Milton Bradley and Parker Brothers have been publishing games for close to a century now. They know games; how to design them, how they are played, and how to write rules for them. Maybe only a Milton Bradley designer can drop balance for the counterproductive impediment it is in RPGs.

We may get truy new thinking, we may not, only time will tell.


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## Gez (Jan 13, 2007)

Firefox 1.5.0.9 here. Page displays fine, despite NoScript, Adblock+, and other things that sometimes interfer with a site's display.


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## delericho (Jan 13, 2007)

mythusmage said:
			
		

> Then there is the matter of outsiders entering the hobby game business. Mattel is new to this stuff, might they bring in new ways of looking at RPGs? New paradigms in design and play? What about Milton Bradley, another of Hasbro's game divisions? What if they're thinking is so superior to Wizards re RPGs D&D 4e ends up as a Milton Bradley game?




That seems unlikely, though. From Hasbro's point of view, "thinking so superior" == "sells better", but it's highly unlikely any RPG could be devised that would sell better than D&D without the D&D name. I would wager you could repackage FATAL as D&D 4e and it would sell better than the next biggest RPG.

Now, I might be wrong about that. If someone could figure out a way to sell an RPG in mass-market numbers to kiddies and their parents, they might get somewhere. Even then, though, I wouldn't expect D&D to be redesigned in the same model - the name remains sufficiently kiddie-unfriendly to give pause... I think.


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## Varianor Abroad (Jan 13, 2007)

I found it a very interesting read. I don't remember how much of his prior predictions turned out true, but I seem to remember he nailed a few trends. Anyone keeping track of the hit ratio?


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## Glyfair (Jan 13, 2007)

Turjan said:
			
		

> As to the blog, it just translates to "The sky is falling". It's basically an extrapolation of what happened in 2006.




I think it better translates to "the sky is changing."   It might be smaller and lower, but it will be different.  There is a sense of doom, but it's more of a concern about changes than actual ending.



			
				eyebeams said:
			
		

> He's already wrong about White Wolf. "Transitioning to a shell business," doesn't fit with planning the most ambitious year for new RPG releases in its history.




It doesn't fit in with those being the current plans.  It can fit in with them changing those plans by the end of the year (because of the response to those changes).  He's predicting a change in those plans because of developments through the year.  He might be right, he might be wrong, but I don't think he's "already wrong."

He's right with WizKids, who since the post announced they were going with only one distributor (Diamond/Alliance) to better serve the hobby industry.  It's very controversial whether this is the right move and does what they hope it will, but it does meet his prediction they would try to keep the hobby stores as their primary interest.


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## Mark CMG (Jan 13, 2007)

I got the feeling from his previous posts around here that he had some personal stake in a new form of CRPG that more closely simulated a tabletop experience but divorced gaming from the requirement of a facilitator/DM.  I wouldn't be surprised if what he is predicting _coincidentally_ comes to fruition about the same time some company he is in bed with releases a product to the market.  Frankly, his call for transparency with GAMA came true, too, though not in the same sense as some believed he meant.


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## Turjan (Jan 13, 2007)

Glyfair said:
			
		

> I think it better translates to "the sky is changing."   It might be smaller and lower, but it will be different.  There is a sense of doom, but it's more of a concern about changes than actual ending.



Well, I didn't say "the sky is crashing to the ground". He's extrapolating from the happenings of the last two to three years, with vanishing (or migrating) companies and only miniature-oriented games with comparably simple rules doing well.


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## Mouseferatu (Jan 13, 2007)

Thing is, while Ryan has more than once made comments worth paying attention to, he's also more than once been proved completely wrong, and he's been crying doom of some form or another for years now.

Personally, I take his thoughts for exactly what they are: Guesses. They may be guesses by a man who knows more about the industry than most, which lends them _some_ validity, but at the end of the day, they're still just guesses.


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## Psion (Jan 13, 2007)

RainOfSteel said:
			
		

> There are some interesting tidbits of news in there, but regardless of the man's credentials, there are too many specific predictions to believe that they will all simply come true.




I'd call them "chancy but plausible."


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## DaveMage (Jan 13, 2007)

Psion said:
			
		

> I'd call them "chancy but plausible."




Chancy Dancey?


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## eyebeams (Jan 13, 2007)

Glyfair said:
			
		

> It doesn't fit in with those being the current plans.  It can fit in with them changing those plans by the end of the year (because of the response to those changes).  He's predicting a change in those plans because of developments through the year.  He might be right, he might be wrong, but I don't think he's "already wrong."




Well, he says that WW will reduce its business by the end of '07. The problem is that this is impossible. For one thing, releases are planned a year (if they're rushing) to two years (if not) in advance. As I have multiple contracts in the hopper right now and I know that there's stuff that, chronologically speaking, has to come later, that puts off any significant change until around 2009, unless WW feels like wasting lots and lots of money on kill fees and abandoned pre-production.


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## M.L. Martin (Jan 13, 2007)

*Shrug*  I haven't taken Ryan Dancey seriously for years; why should I start now?  

   Besides, I can't shake the feeling that he's upset that the hobby hasn't congealed into a single entity/hivemind yet.


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Jan 13, 2007)

Mouseferatu said:
			
		

> Thing is, while Ryan has more than once made comments worth paying attention to, he's also more than once been proved completely wrong, and he's been crying doom of some form or another for years now.
> 
> Personally, I take his thoughts for exactly what they are: Guesses. They may be guesses by a man who knows more about the industry than most, which lends them _some_ validity, but at the end of the day, they're still just guesses.



Same here, for the same reasons.

The optimists' blogs don't get quoted that much, so few people pay attention to them as they do the ones predicting The End of All That We Know (Again).


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## Bayushi Seikuro (Jan 13, 2007)

*My two cents...*

It seems that so many gamers feel the predictions are completely dead wrong.

Dancey has said before similiar things, and a lot of the business end of his predictions get lost.

Hasbro controls Wizards. Hasbro will want to see results, and for Wotc to get Big Numbers, they will need a new edition - everyone (or a good chunk) will buy a 4e, even if only the corebooks.  How many people bought 3.5 corebooks and kept only the 3e splat?

 Hasbro doesn't understand small markets.  Hasbro works with numbers and bottom lines.  A similiar situation might be like the New Line cinema/Peter Jackson squabble right now.  PJ is saying NL cheated him out of money; they're saying, stop suing us; we've given you a quarter of a billion dollars.  Would Peter Jackson's Hobbit make money faster than they could print it?  Probably.  But in NL's analysis, it's not worth it.  I think it's similiar with Hasbro  etc -- they want their money now, not seeing that they can make tons of money spread out over years or decades selling quality splatbooks (not all the crud they've been releasing falls under that catergory btw).

Someone made a comment about board games and people who design it having a stronger design sense; I call BS on that.  Board games, for the most part, are fire and forget weapons, as it were.  They hit or miss; yes, there are many brands and types of monopoly (Star Wars, etc), but they use these 'core rules'; when's the last expansion you've seen come out for Scrabble or Monopoly?

I think Dancey is right in his perception of Hobby Stores, which he defines very clearly.  The FLGS myth we talk about here largely falls into the 'group of gamer friends open a business'.  I know friends who started a business just to get cheap deals on gaming stuff and it led to a business.  I feel there is a large chunk of Hobby Stores/gaming stores that are looking for the quick cash in; they see that X MtG card sells for a thousand dollars, and you have Y chance to get it; it's math to them, no interest in building relations with people.

On another tangent, he's said before gaming won't die, but that we need to accept Hasbro, as a business, will see the pure numbers as being worthless.  That will be the best chance for small publishers to print things up, make new ideas.  I think that was the point of OGL - to make a common frame of reference for gamers to fall back on.   Look at what's happened since OGL -- we saw a glut of fairly useless books come out, but we saw a lot of high quality stuff come out.  Who's still in business?

I ramble.  

I feel gaming is like the arts; we all say we support the gaming industry, but when do we look at new items?  Or new systems?  I admit I'm guilty of it as well; I may buy 'interesting' non-d20/D&D stuff, but not as often as I'll buy something of immediate use.  It's like saying we support the arts, but refuse to visit galleries of sculptures, preferring paintings or orchestra.

My two meager copper, wistfull scraped up off the floor.


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Jan 13, 2007)

Bayushi Seikuro said:
			
		

> I feel gaming is like the arts; we all say we support the gaming industry, but when do we look at new items?  Or new systems?  I admit I'm guilty of it as well; I may buy 'interesting' non-d20/D&D stuff, but not as often as I'll buy something of immediate use.  It's like saying we support the arts, but refuse to visit galleries of sculptures, preferring paintings or orchestra.



True, but the buy-in on Nobilis is a lot higher than, say, downloading a single off of iTunes to try out a band or entire style of music.

The market both needs people to try new things and is mostly set up to make it difficult. (Although PDFs often go a long way toward helping out, if they have a reasonable price point.)


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## JVisgaitis (Jan 14, 2007)

mythusmage said:
			
		

> Yes, she's old. Got her back in 1998. Still works well, but in order to upgrade to OSX I need to upgrade ram to at least 256 megs physical.




So you're on OS9? Wow, that's insane. I'd recommend downloading iCab. Alternatively, try and find an old copy of Mozilla.

On your system dilemma, you certainly don't need to upgrade to a mini. Take a look at eBay, I sold a 17" iMac for like $400 with a ton of software over a year ago. You should be able to get something good on the cheap.

Looks like Ryan's blog is done on iWeb which uses layers. I love Apple, but iWeb needs some serious work... Layers are horrible and reek havoc on older browsers.


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## Glyfair (Jan 14, 2007)

Whizbang Dustyboots said:
			
		

> True, but the buy-in on Nobilis is a lot higher than, say, downloading a single off of iTunes to try out a band or entire style of music.




Back in the 80's the "buy in" for a new system was the GM who bought the new system (and there was always at least one person who bought a new game) and would run a few games at the local game store.  You got to try a new game for the cost of some time.  

Over time, though, we've lost that option (admittedly, some never had that resource at all).  It started with MtG.  If you walked into the FLGS you didn't see various RPGs getting set up, you saw people playing card games.  In the late 90s the organized play systems started taking over.  Now you had miniature games as well as card games squeezing the RPGs out.  Some RPG companies have dipped into this idea, but it's never very organized or regimented (the RPGA is as organized as it gets).

Let's not even get into the fact that we have lost a large percentage of our FLGS (at least here in the U.S.)

Also, much of the original RPG crowd that is still playing has gotten older.  They have to budget their roleplaying time (meaning less experimentation with systems) and often prefer to play with their regular group with very little or no new blood.  Some even refuse to play in an RPG session with new people without an extensive audition process!

While RPGs are moving a bit towards the internet, I'm not sure that it's the ideal place to get exposed to a game.  Being able to see and use the GMs game material being a major component of most demos (at least those that cause you to want to really "buy in" to the game).


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## mythusmage (Jan 14, 2007)

JVisgaitis said:
			
		

> So you're on OS9? Wow, that's insane. I'd recommend downloading iCab. Alternatively, try and find an old copy of Mozilla.
> 
> On your system dilemma, you certainly don't need to upgrade to a mini. Take a look at eBay, I sold a 17" iMac for like $400 with a ton of software over a year ago. You should be able to get something good on the cheap.
> 
> Looks like Ryan's blog is done on iWeb which uses layers. I love Apple, but iWeb needs some serious work... Layers are horrible and reek havoc on older browsers.




Mozilla has the same problem Netscape 7 has, iCab for OS 9 doesn't implement CSS well, so I get to make do with what I have.

My real problem is with personal fecal consolidation. I have clinical depression, and so I have trouble staying on track. Now that I'm seeing a dentist, and my shrink upped my meds again, I should do better.

I'd rather not go with a newer used iMac. Most everybody is switching over to writing for MacTel machines, and that software has problems with the older Motorola and IBM chipsets. Besides, a new Mac will last longer than an old one, and thats what I need.


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## Nightchilde-2 (Jan 14, 2007)

It worked OK for me (Firefox 2.0 here).

As to the comment, while I have a good deal of respect for Mr. Dancy (spawning more or less from the early work with the SRD/OGL), I think most of his predictions are doom & gloom and full of little substance.  I think some of them *might* happen, but by no stretch all of them.


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## Kesh (Jan 14, 2007)

mythusmage said:
			
		

> For those who asked...
> 
> Yes, she's old. Got her back in 1998. Still works well, but in order to upgrade to OSX I need to upgrade ram to at least 256 megs physical. I'd be better off trading up for a MacMini and flat panel display. And that requires fecal consolidation on my part. Email or PM me for details on providing (financial) encouragement.




Oooh, you're in OS 9? That would do it. Your browser probably doesn't support XHTML.

Also, I don't think "fecal" is the word you're looking for. "Financial" maybe?


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## Turjan (Jan 14, 2007)

Kesh said:
			
		

> Also, I don't think "fecal" is the word you're looking for. "Financial" maybe?



See, and I was trying to figure out why you go to a dentist when you have diarrhea. There you go . Fiscal, perhaps?


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## Kaodi (Jan 14, 2007)

Actually, after reading through the comments section after the full article, I began to wonder if the problem with gaming stores is that a new successful model costs too much upfront for anyone to really be able to risk it. Mostly from the Cheers comment. It seems like what he is proposing is a business that derives most of its money from activities other than gaming, but driven by the desire to game. I'm no business magnate, but I could see something like that actually working, though perhaps only in the really large markets until the right forumla had been ironed out. The problem is, who has the money for that kind of venture in this hobby? Most of the people who might probably day jobs that pay well that aren't worth giving up.


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## bodhi (Jan 14, 2007)

Kesh said:
			
		

> Also, I don't think "fecal" is the word you're looking for. "Financial" maybe?



Well, the expression is "get my (poop) together". So yeah, "fecal consolidation" works.


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## mythusmage (Jan 14, 2007)

Kesh said:
			
		

> Oooh, you're in OS 9? That would do it. Your browser probably doesn't support XHTML.
> 
> Also, I don't think "fecal" is the word you're looking for. "Financial" maybe?




XHTML is just HTML with strictly enforced rules, no problem there. No, the iWeb people just have to be fancy with their toys.

Back on topic, my impression is that certain game store owners seem to think that professionalism will make their hair fall out, give them glottal hives, and give slime molds cramps.


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## RyanD (Jan 15, 2007)

mythusmage said:
			
		

> But commenting at his place on what he said is a no go.




I'll be happy to respond here to anyone who wants to ask questions or make comments -- don't let some oddball web problem hold you back!

Ryan


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## RyanD (Jan 15, 2007)

Mark CMG said:
			
		

> I wouldn't be surprised if what he is predicting _coincidentally_ comes to fruition about the same time some company he is in bed with releases a product to the market.




I've got no horse in this race.  The only hobby gaming product I'm actively working on, if brought to market, will be evolutionary, not revolutionary, and it won't have a digital component.  Its not even an RPG.

I'd like to have to time to build out all the RPG support services I envison for OrganizedPlay, but at the moment, there is little chance of that happening.

Ryan


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## JVisgaitis (Jan 15, 2007)

RyanD said:
			
		

> I'll be happy to respond here to anyone who wants to ask questions or make comments -- don't let some oddball web problem hold you back!




I'll take you up on that. You mentioned in your overview that WotC would stop production a lot of key products and that they don't have anything in the hopper. In regards to a 4th Edition, do you think that is something coming soon or far off in the distant future?


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## Heathansson (Jan 15, 2007)

RyanD said:
			
		

> I'll be happy to respond here to anyone who wants to ask questions or make comments -- don't let some oddball web problem hold you back!
> 
> Ryan



Dp you see Mattel picking up an existant rpg, making a new one, or going the trading card route?
Also,  do you see rpg manufacturers trying to hybridize with the heroclix and/or trading card market?


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## JVisgaitis (Jan 15, 2007)

Damn, hit submit too soon... Do you think that 4e whenever it is released will still support the OGL? Not that it matters as if they make 4e incompatible with the current OGL it would probably be so far from D&D that it wouldn't matter anyway.

I'd also be interested to hear your thoughts on a full featured and well supported gateway for playing games over the internet via voip. Do you think that would help to grow the D&D base by bringing old players back or would its effectiveness be negligible?

Lastly, just curious if you think the next big thing in gaming will be of the collectable variety or not. Thanks Ryan!


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## RyanD (Jan 15, 2007)

Varianor Abroad said:
			
		

> I found it a very interesting read. I don't remember how much of his prior predictions turned out true, but I seem to remember he nailed a few trends. Anyone keeping track of the hit ratio?




I wish I had a list.    It would be interesting to look back and track a hit rate.  I envy people like Robert Cringely for having the foresight to track predictions.

I can try to make a list of the things I remember.  The quality of my predictions got better after WotC bought FRPG, and I got access to lots 'real data' (especially the archives of TSR), and has probably gotten worse since leaving, and losing that access.

I predicted that L5R would change the way people looked at the CCG medium, and I think I got that one right.  L5R is as much a storytelling vehicle as it is a competitive card game.

I predicted that FRPG would have a shot at equaling WotC's marketshare, and that prediction was wrong.  I assumed we could scale up 10 games to $5 million each, and match my perception that WotC was doing $50 million in sales annually.  We couldn't scale up even one game to $5 million, and WotC was, and is, doing WAY MORE than $50 million in sales.

I predicted that Legend of the Burning Sands would be bigger than L5R, because we designed it after learning a lot of lessons about game design that aren't and can't be fixed in the core L5R engine.  I was way wrong on that prediction.

I predicted that 1998 would be "the year without new collectible card games", carving off an exception for our stuff and other games from WotC, and that was basically right.  1998 was probably the low point for CCG releases as many companies died from the collapse in 1996/1997.  There were more than zero releases, but far, far less than in the previous two years -- and the purpose of that projection was in relation to how much advertising dollars would be available to keep various CCG magazines alive, which related to another prediction I made about a lot of those publications failing because the ad revenue was going to vaporize, which it did, and subsequently, so did a bunch of magazines.  I'd have to check my notes, but I think Precedence was the other bright light at that time, with the Babylon 5 game.

Around 1998 I predicted that WotC would not develop a game that would make more money than Magic, and so far, I've been right about that.  Pokemon was developed in Japan, WotC was just the translator/publisher.  This was a point of big contention with certain people inside WotC who felt that I was not a "team player" because I didn't think the ARC System games had upside potential.  I lasted longer at WotC than ARC System, but not by much.

I made a series of internal and external predictions about the market once I was asked to take over the RPG business in the fall of 1998.  

I predicted that we were splitting consumer dollars into too many small piles due to having too many products in development and that if we produced fewer things we'd generate the same revenue but we'd make more profit by increasing the unit volumes of the things we did produce, and I was right about that.

I predicted that the sale of Alternity games would prove to be unable to support their overhead, and the test was the Dark*Matter product, which was very unsuccessful despite its great design (both game & graphic), and lead directly to a final decision to kill the line.

I predicted that we would repeat the trend seen in 1988/1989 when TSR went from 1st to 2nd Edition, and had a five-fold increase in year-over-year sales of PHBs.  I'll call that prediction successful, even though the actual increase was more like 10-fold.

I predicted that 3rd party publishers would be willing to take a chance on the Open Gaming License, and that prediction proved demonstrably correct.  I was stunned that many of those publishers were pre-existing game companies -- I fully expected them to be the least interested in the experiment, and that virtually all 3rd party OGL content would come from startups and self-publishers.  White Wolf's move with the Sword & Sorcery imprint was totally unexpected.

I predicted that D20 would drive support in the marketplace for non-D20 games to the lowest point possible.  Its arguable if that happened or not -- the argument is about the word "possible".  Certainly, it forced publishers to defend a decision to make non-D20 games on rationale more compelling than "because we want to", and it did not factor, at all, on the emergence of the web-based PDF RPG industry.  What has happened is a dearth of commercially viable RPGs that have enough volume to be sold through a majority of game stores based on a game engine that did not predate D20, which is not D20 or a D20 variant, or a game heavily influenced by the design paradigm established by D20.  There have been a number of one-shots, like the Serenity game, which have done well in the short term, but so far, none have created evergreen businesses in the way that Vampire or Shadowrun did.  "Based on D20" is becoming a very blurred distinction as well.  One could argue that Mongoose's new Rune Quest is "based on" D20, and my opinions about the similarities of GW's Warhammer Fantasy game and D20 are well known.  All taken, I think I have to mark this one as a "miss", but give myself an "E" for effort, as D20 did have pretty massive effects on RPGs as a category, and those effects were in line with the prediction.

(before the shouts start:  I define RPGs like all the White Wolf Storyteller games, HERO 5th Edition Revised, the new Shadowrun RPG, etc. as having predated D20, because their player networks, in general, see them as "new versions of an existing game" rather than "whole new games".)

I predicted that organized play would become a necessary component of every successful marketing plan for hobby gaming, and I was right.

I predicted I could make a company that would capture & capitalize on that trend, and I was wrong (I made the company, but was never able to make it a de facto standard.  It appears that standard may be happening, but my company isn't the one building it.)

I predicted that people would pay to play Living City scenarios, and boy, was I wrong!

I predicted that the RPGA would not capitalize on the interest in Living Greyhawk, and I was wrong again.  I also predicted that few people would care much for the RPGA's attempt at a "new" kind of Living Campaign experience (i.e. the Green Regent) and I think I was correct, but don't have the data to be sure.

I predicted that the industry would not suffer a catastrophic meltdown in the way the comic book business did in the late 1990s, or the gaming industry experienced during the CCG collapse of 1996/1997 due to the slowdown in Pokemon sales because WotC had kept the distribution tier on a tight leash, and had gone direct to keep product flowing to game stores no matter how many wannabes tried to clog up the system.  I was right on the money with that prediction -- a group of stores that probably existed just to sell Pokemon certainly vanished, but the deflation of the Pokemon bubble was in no way catastrophic.

I predicted that Pokemon was the first of many following products that would go into the mass market and be huge successes.  Yu-Gi-Oh! showed up right on schedule.

I predicted annually that we'd have fewer core hobby stores than the previous year, starting in 2000, and I've been right 6 years in a row.

I predicted that ACD would be bought and that Alliance would move to consolidate distribution the way Diamond did in the comic book business. Missed completely.  (Recent developments with WizKids though may mean I was just late, not wrong.  We'll see.)

I predicted that several mid-tier publishers would go out of business either through bankruptcy or acquisition, and several did.  Furthermore, Alderac Entertainment Group and Palladium both had brushes with near-catastrophe.  Specifically I made that prediction based on significant declines in revenue as their businesses got smaller in response to the contracting retail tier.  In the case of AEG at least, I know that's exactly correct, and I suspect it was also the case at many of the other failed and nearly-failed businesses.

I predicted that Pokemon had opened a pipeline that would cause all future successful collectible game products to flow from the core to the mass with little or no delay, and that the mass would make most of the money from those future games.  Yu-Gi-Oh!, Pirates from WizKids, Nauruto, and now World of Warcraft validate that prediction.

I predicted that the flow of new anime properties licensed for games from Japan would slow to a trickle.  That wasn't much of a prediction, since it was based on simple logic.  For decades, Japanese creators made content that was mostly ignored here in the US.  After Pokemon, US companies rushed to Japan and bought the rights to everything available, and brought much of it here as fast as they could.  Now, they can only bring new things at the same rate the Japanese market can create new things -- which is about the same rate as the US market can.

I predicted that WotC would not announce 4e in 2006, and I was right.

I predicted that WotC would not have a successful new game in 2006.  The jury is still out on Dreamblade, but I think the Star Wars game is a hit.  I'll call that a miss.

I'm sure people can Google up other predictions I've made -- it will be interesting to see them.

Ryan

[Edited:  Corrected name of Serenity RPG.  Sorry MWP!]


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## RyanD (Jan 15, 2007)

JVisgaitis said:
			
		

> I'll take you up on that. You mentioned in your overview that WotC would stop production a lot of key products and that they don't have anything in the hopper. In regards to a 4th Edition, do you think that is something coming soon or far off in the distant future?




I am of two minds about "4th Edition".

First, I think that WotC may, at some point, create a product called "4th Edition", but that product will look just like 3rd Edition with a series of clear rules improvements & tweaks; essentially, a 3.5 on steroids.  To me, that's a "marketing release".

Second, I think WotC may actually try to make "Dungeons & Dragons" mean "a miniatures game with roleplaying", and I could see them creating a whole new way of presenting D&D in a miniatures-centric way that would be worth calling the line "4th Edition".  To me, that's a "new design release".

I think there's a good chance, probably 50/50, that we'll see a 3.75 kind of release in 2007 or 2008.  A new set of core books, revised, but basically the same game we already have.  I think that product will not be called "4th Edition", nor will it be marketed as 4th Edition.  There are powerful forces inside WotC that believe (not without quite a bit of market research and product experience to back them up) that gamers will buy a "revision" to a games' core rules every 3-4 years and that not inducing those purchases is just leaving money on the table.

What I'd *like* to see is a "4th Edition" which hybridizes MMORPG play and tabletop play, with an RPGA moderation facility, that uses on-line tools to create characters and scenarios, and focuses on bringing the best elements of the tabletop and the digital environments together under the most powerful brand in fantasy adventure gaming.  If you ever see a notice that WotC has hired me back to run RPGs, that's the direction I'll be looking to move.

Ryan


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## RyanD (Jan 15, 2007)

Heathansson said:
			
		

> Dp you see Mattel picking up an existant rpg, making a new one, or going the trading card route?




Mattel has been making hobby games for about 5 years.  They have made collectible miniatures games, and collectible card games.  So far, none of them have been sold through traditional game store channels.

I do not think they'll ever dabble with an RPG.  "Role playing" is a defined category in the mass market toy world - it means fake swords, Hulk muscle suits, and other gear kids use to dress up and play "lets pretend".  They know that RPGs in the sense we mean them are marginal busineses that require a large number of people, and are currently in the process of transitioning to the digital realm and leaving the tabletop behind (in terms of new players likely to be acquired).

I could see them buying or investing in a trading card game company.  They have looked at several, and they likely looked at WizKids before Topps bought it.  I think that if a small company has a big hit, they'll be in an instant bidding war with Hasbro & Mattel.

Ryan


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## MerricB (Jan 15, 2007)

RyanD said:
			
		

> I predicted that we would repeat the trend seen in 1988/1989 when TSR went from 1st to 2nd Edition, and had a five-fold increase in year-over-year sales of PHBs.  I'll call that prediction successful, even though the actual increase was more like 10-fold.




Hmm - that's very interesting. I've seen Gary Gygax (and others) post that sales of 2e (PHBs?) were half that of 1e, but I'm very unsure of what time periods were being compared.

So, in the medium term (after the initial flurry of buying), did the 2e PHB actually do better than the 1e PHB was doing at the end of the 1e run?

Cheers!


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## RyanD (Jan 15, 2007)

JVisgaitis said:
			
		

> Do you think that 4e whenever it is released will still support the OGL? Not that it matters as if they make 4e incompatible with the current OGL it would probably be so far from D&D that it wouldn't matter anyway.




I think it will be licensed with the OGL using a System Reference Document just like 3.0 and 3.5 were.



> I'd also be interested to hear your thoughts on a full featured and well supported gateway for playing games over the internet via voip. Do you think that would help to grow the D&D base by bringing old players back or would its effectiveness be negligible?




D&D doesn't have a problem with players.  More than 1 million people play it every month.  D&D has a problem with acquiring new players.  New players want the kind of imersive, yet community-connected experience delivered by MMORPGs.  Adding virtual tabletops, internet chat, or other features to D&D as we know it isn't the answer, and likely won't work.



> Lastly, just curious if you think the next big thing in gaming will be of the collectable variety or not. Thanks Ryan!




I think the next $100 million+ business will be a collectible business, yes.  But I also think there's a chance we'll see a sub $5 million new category emerge by the end of 2007, which may spawn a business segment as large as the RPG segment (roughly $50 million), and that new category may not be, and probably won't be, one where "collectibility" is a key component.

Ryan


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## kenobi65 (Jan 15, 2007)

RyanD said:
			
		

> There have been a number of one-shots, like the Serendipity game, which have done well in the short term, but so far, none have created evergreen businesses in the way that Vampire or Shadowrun did.




Are you referring to the Serenity RPG?  Or is there a game called "Serendipity" that I've never heard of? 



			
				RyanD said:
			
		

> I also predicted that few people would care much for the RPGA's attempt at a "new" kind of Living Campaign experience (i.e. the Green Regent) and I think I was correct, but don't have the data to be sure.




On the various RPGA lists and boards I frequent, Ian Richards (head of RPGA) has stated, more than once, that play of the "D&D Campaigns" (first Legacy of the Green Regent, then Mark of Heroes, and now Xen'drik Expeditions) has been quite strong; while I haven't seen him quote actual play numbers in a couple of years now, when Green Regent was running, he said it was second only to Living Greyhawk in active players.  

Those quotes from him always lead to some raucous debate; a fair number of RPGA vets will always be quoted as saying, "you've got to be kidding me; I don't see *any* LotGR/MoH/XE play in my area."  I'm not sure what to believe fully in those discussions; I never like to put a lot of empirical weight behind "nobody I know does X" kinds of statements, but I see a lot of them.

I have a suspicion that Stephen Radney-MacFarland was one of the key believers in the D&D Campaigns; with his departure from RPGA last summer, we already see some things changing (they're allowing online play of the D&D Campaigns, which would have never happened with SRM in charge; they're partially going away from the online chararacter tracker, which is still buggy after 4 years of use, etc.)

I sense some excitement among RPGA players that Xen'drik is doing things differently (4 different factions, each being run by a veteran RPGA staffer, a la LG).  OTOH, RPGA continues to transition away from giving any support to any campaigns not directly owned by WotC.


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## RyanD (Jan 15, 2007)

MerricB said:
			
		

> Hmm - that's very interesting. I've seen Gary Gygax (and others) post that sales of 2e (PHBs?) were half that of 1e, but I'm very unsure of what time periods were being compared.




Over its lifetime, the 1E PHB outsold the 2E PHB by a good margin.  I don't have sales figures to back this up, but I'm pretty confident that the 3E PHB has sold more units than the 1E PHB did, although it's a close race.



> So, in the medium term (after the initial flurry of buying), did the 2e PHB actually do better than the 1e PHB was doing at the end of the 1e run?




I think I've posted elsewhere that at the end of 1E, the 1E PHB was selling about 50K units a year, and the first year of sales of the 2e PHB generated about 250K units of sales.

Early in its lifecycle, the 1E PHB generated several years (I want to say 5 to 7) of sales well above 200K, and the slowdown in 1E PHBs was much more gradual than the slowdown of 2E PHBs, which was pretty dramatic.

One thing that many people don't know is that the RPG category, as a whole, had dropped by nearly 50% in terms of unit & revenue between 1990 and 1993.  In fact, had Magic and the CCG category not developed, the gaming industry as we know it was almost certainly doomed.  RPGs would have been moved to the book chains (which had their own near death experiences as they shifted from mall-based stores to Big Box retail stores).  Many of the factors that brought down TSR were affecting every RPG publisher in the market at that time.  TSR's woes just continued for a long time masked by CCG sales, and some financial manipulation of their book trade accounts.


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## JVisgaitis (Jan 15, 2007)

RyanD said:
			
		

> D&D doesn't have a problem with players.  More than 1 million people play it every month.  D&D has a problem with acquiring new players.  New players want the kind of imersive, yet community-connected experience delivered by MMORPGs.  Adding virtual tabletops, internet chat, or other features to D&D as we know it isn't the answer, and likely won't work.




I'm not disagreeing with you, but I've seen a lot of people leave the hobby for online video games because its easier to play over XBOX Live from the couch when the kids go to sleep or in the den in front of a computer with Team Speak. Personally I still do tabletop gaming, but I would play more if I had an easy vehicle over the net to do so. Granted it may not acquire new players, but do you think it could bring old players back to the fold?

Also, I'm sure when you were at Wizards you had tons of meetings on bringing more players to the game. If you were back in charge how would you try and increase the player base?


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## MerricB (Jan 15, 2007)

RyanD said:
			
		

> Over its lifetime, the 1E PHB outsold the 2E PHB by a good margin.  I don't have sales figures to back this up, but I'm pretty confident that the 3E PHB has sold more units than the 1E PHB did, although it's a close race.




Thank you very much, Ryan. That's very good to know.

Did you lump D&D Miniatures in your predictions along with the D&D RPG, or was DDM something you saw failing in the next year?

Cheers!


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## RyanD (Jan 15, 2007)

MerricB said:
			
		

> Did you lump D&D Miniatures in your predictions along with the D&D RPG, or was DDM something you saw failing in the next year?




I think it's safe to define "D&D" as "D&D RPGs, miniatures and novels" in the context of my blog predictions.

Ryan


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## Mark CMG (Jan 15, 2007)

RyanD said:
			
		

> I've got no horse in this race.  The only hobby gaming product I'm actively working on, if brought to market, will be evolutionary, not revolutionary, and it won't have a digital component.  Its not even an RPG.
> 
> I'd like to have to time to build out all the RPG support services I envison for OrganizedPlay, but at the moment, there is little chance of that happening.
> 
> Ryan





Thanks for the response.


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## jedijon (Jan 16, 2007)

I noticed you locked your blog thread--I hope you're still answering questions!

Hi--most of your blog is pretty even-keeled, however, I'm puzzled by your insertion of the witticism regarding the king of the blind.  I think that overall, your tone doesn't necessarily harken to doom and gloom for the industry.  Yet you've taken this as an opportunity to jibe at the leaders of the industry.  Is this simply because they let you go from WotC?  In the absence of more specifics as to the failings of these companies I can't help but view the comment as a way to espouse your displeasure at the management styles of said companies.  Clearly shrinking portfolios and margins speak for themselves.  However, if you are willing would you provide more detail as to what those flaws are specifically, and what (if any) ways there may be to fix them.

Your comments about distributors ect, are of most interest to me and incidentally what I have the least knowledge about.  From a pure business sense though isn't this all a GOOD thing?  Distributors and shops of an older era closing up?  If the fans themselves are still there which seems almost a given until the gaming sector as it is either retires (losing their income) or dies (losing their discretion et al)--then all that remains is to get them the games.  The internet (much lambasted by the store owners of this current generation) seems to be a thriving medium.  Won't the losses in this sector be short-term as new more effective business methods are developed?  Evolution would seem to thrive on hard times and most especially on a culling of the fold.  It would seem to go hand-in-hand that new ways of delivering games means new ways of developing games, which means new---well new games!  Is this type of organic ground up paradigm shift so impossible?  Is our only salvation another niche for a so-called new gaming genre??


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## RyanD (Jan 16, 2007)

jedijon said:
			
		

> I noticed you locked your blog thread--I hope you're still answering questions!




Don't know what you mean - no locking on my blog.  Please feel free to post!



> I'm puzzled by your insertion of the witticism regarding the king of the blind.  I think that overall, your tone doesn't necessarily harken to doom and gloom for the industry.  Yet you've taken this as an opportunity to jibe at the leaders of the industry.  Is this simply because they let you go from WotC?




I resigned from Wizards of the Coast, I was not fired.  They wanted me to stay, but I was not happy there and it was time for me to move on.

I call those 6 companies "one eye'd kings" because they are all tragically flawed, but even so, they have the resources, the brands, and the team to lead the whole industry, to change it (for better or worse), and their actions will have a wider impact than virtually the whole rest of the industry combined.

Wizards of the Coast suffers from Neil Armstrong syndrome.  After you walk on the moon, what do you do for an encore?  Your company is full of rock stars who have generated hundreds of millions of dollars, bought and sold whole categories of product, and all want to prove they can be the genesis of the "next big thing".  As a result, they have a very, very hard time making successful new products; everything they try blows up.  If it's a good idea, all the rock stars try to pile in and get their slice of credit.  If it challenges the political status quo, it gets strangled in the cradle.  And if by some miracle it does start to become successful, the key managers are often pulled off the project to work on something else.  More than any other company in gaming, WotC needs a Steve Jobs.

Upper Deck is a company that is in gaming purely for the money.  They're a sports card company that is run by sports card guys, and on some level, they've not reconciled themselves to the idea that elves & orcs are making their company successful.  You can read all about Upper Deck's executives here:

http://www.amazon.com/Card-Sharks-High-Stakes-Billion-Dollar-Business/dp/0788193813

They have yet to show that they can make a game successful because of its game qualities.  Yu-Gi-Oh! was an import/translation deal like Pokemon.  World of Warcraft is popular because of MMORPG items.  Vs. has a massive pro-tour with cash prizes backing it up.  In a lot of ways, at the highest levels, Upper Deck is the company a lot of gamers accuse WotC of being - just focused on the money, with no love for the products.

Games Workshop is the only big company in gaming that built their success, one year after another.  They had a laser-like focus, and they just worked hard on their business making it better and better.  Then the market changed, and they did not change with it.  Now, about five years later, they're decaying rapidly, but they're still strong.  Games Workshop is a company that could surprise a lot of people if it had new management and a new vision, and once they clean up their balance sheet.  Borrowing money to pay shareholder dividends is a quick route to disaster, and it cannot long continue.  Until they have a top-level change, they're unlikely to make progress.

I love Privateer, think Matt Wilson is a rock star, and would buy the company right now if I had the money and the opportunity.  Making the transition from 'small company' to 'growth company' is really, really hard.  Most entreprenuers who try it fail.  Sometimes, success kills.  The problems of scope & size that come with growth can overwhelm executives used to having hands on responsibilities for product quality and design.  Until we see how Matt and his team handle the stress, we have to assume that its a period of danger for Privateer.  I wish them all the luck in the world.

WizKids's fatal flaw is that they're true believers.  They want to follow WotC to the top of the mountain along the same trail - up the hobby gaming route.  They got a good start, right at the point where that market started to come apart at the seams.  6 years later, they're still battling.  I think its a futile fight.  As long as they spend valuable resources (time, money & energy) fighting that battle, they're delaying the day of reckoning when they have to switch directions and fight a whole new battle on a new battlefield.

White Wolf grew up.  When they were young punks, all living in a big house together, they could live the ethic their products espoused.  Now they're all older, wiser, and a little less willing to fail in pursuit of art.  And they have a viable exit to the MMORPG world, and they know it.  They're smart enough to take it, so I believe they will.  Their tragic flaw is that you can't stay young forever, eventually everyone grows up.  And grownups just can't relate on that deep, psychic level with the adolescents who are the primary target of the World of Darkness.



> Your comments about distributors ect, are of most interest to me and incidentally what I have the least knowledge about.  From a pure business sense though isn't this all a GOOD thing?




No distributor makes perfect orders.  All of them end up with a little more than they can sell of any given, non-fad product.  Those overages add up.  As the number of distributors contracts, the overages shrink, which decreases publisher sales.

In the comic book business, a series of moves and countermoves ended with Diamond Comics having monolithic distribution rights for most comics.  Its essentially a monopoly.  Alliance, the largest hobby distributor, is owned by the same man who owns Diamond.  It is very likely that Alliance wants to move into a parallel environment with Diamond - being the monolithic game distributor.  Some people (mostly retailers) are worried that this will have disastrous effects on their businesses, and some (especially those who are chronic slow paying accounts) are probably right.  Some publishers fear that if Alliance becomes a monopoly that they'll be shut out of the market (and some of them, especially the low end of the low end, are probably right).

My battles with distributors are legendary.  I have honest and open relationships with them; no punches are pulled, and I know that some of the best and brightest people in the industry work for some of the distributors.  They know I think they need to add value to remain relevant, and I know they think that they're indispensable parts of the market, that things would be much worse without them.  It's a constant back & forth, from which I gain a lot of interesting perspective and insight.  I don't wish any of them personal harm, but I do hope the distribution tier, as a group, changes to add more value.



> then all that remains is to get them the games.




There is a *huge* flaw in your logic here.  Don't feel bad.  The whole gaming industry is based on that flaw.  The flaw is this:

_Once you give people an open-ended toolbox of a game, and encourage them to make their own content for it, why do they need to keep buying products?_

The biggest competitor to 3E wasn't White Wolf, or Palladium, or any other publisher's game.  It was 2E, and 1E, and OD&D.  Likewise, White Wolf's new World of Darkness games don't have to overcome D20, they have to overcome previous editions of Vampire.

Most people who play RPGs don't buy RPG products once they've found a game and a group they like.  Most people who buy RPG products never use most of what they buy to play a game with, because they can't induce a group to try it, or the game turns out to just not be worth playing.  That's a horrible disconnect between market & customers.

The CCG and minis categories are successful because they've embedded the meme that you have to keep buying new product to play the games into the minds of their customers.  RPGs need a similar meme, but 30 years of history may make it impossible.  Or they can shift to a service-based model (like a MMORPG) where you pay a fee to stay within the network.  Or some third alternative I haven't thought of yet.



> The internet (much lambasted by the store owners of this current generation) seems to be a thriving medium.




The internet is a great medium for making sales.  It's a terrible medium for marketing.  It does not do a good job of making geographically local communities.  It compromises the core value of tabletop RPGs (the tabletop) -- people who are internet active are likely to look for or prefer an internet game.  Big games have a long term future on the internet.  New games  from startups require physical shelf space to catch the eye of browsers who might not otherwise have heard of, or considered purchasing them.  The internet is lousy at replicating that experience.

Ryan


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## Mark CMG (Jan 16, 2007)

RyanD said:
			
		

> It compromises the core value of tabletop RPGs (the tabletop) -- people who are internet active are likely to look for or prefer an internet game.





That's a leap I do not believe actually follows.  Some, perhaps even many, might play an Internet game as a alternative when a tabletop game canot be found but those who enjoy tabletop RPGs, IME, do not view online gaming as an actual substitute or preference.


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## JVisgaitis (Jan 16, 2007)

Mark CMG said:
			
		

> That's a leap I do not believe actually follows.  Some, perhaps even many, might play an Internet game as a alternative when a tabletop game canot be found but those who enjoy tabletop RPGs, IME, do not view online gaming as an actual substitute or preference.




I dunno, its pretty close to the mark with my group. When we can't do tabletop we play games over XBOX Live and the occasional MMO. We're all dying to get our hands on the Conan MMO when it hits 360. He's right in saying tabletop is high maintainence expecially when you have 2 kids.


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## Mark CMG (Jan 16, 2007)

JVisgaitis said:
			
		

> I dunno, its pretty close to the mark with my group. *When we can't do tabletop we* play games over XBOX Live and the occasional MMO. We're all dying to get our hands on the Conan MMO when it hits 360. He's right in saying tabletop is high maintainence expecially when you have 2 kids.





I think you have missed what I am saying while agreeing with me (as I point out by bolding a bit of your post in my quote).  The preference is for tabletop, the alternative (not the substitute) is another type.  You seem to be saying that if you had the time and ability to do either, you'd prefer RPG tabletop gaming.  That's my contention.  However, from this and other (past) threads, I get the impression that RyanD believe that they are interchangable and that he believes most people see it as such.  It is with that contention (if I have been reading him right) that I do not concur.


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## Prince of Happiness (Jan 16, 2007)

RyanD said:
			
		

> I think there's a good chance, probably 50/50, that we'll see a 3.75 kind of release in 2007 or 2008.  A new set of core books, revised, but basically the same game we already have.  I think that product will not be called "4th Edition", nor will it be marketed as 4th Edition.  There are powerful forces inside WotC that believe (not without quite a bit of market research and product experience to back them up) that gamers will buy a "revision" to a games' core rules every 3-4 years and that not inducing those purchases is just leaving money on the table.Ryan




I, for one, would support a revision or "3.75" that adds a lot of the new base classes, feats, PrCs, etc. I like this market research.


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## JVisgaitis (Jan 17, 2007)

Mark CMG said:
			
		

> The preference is for tabletop, the alternative (not the substitute) is another type. You seem to be saying that if you had the time and ability to do either, you'd prefer RPG tabletop gaming.




OK, now I see what your saying. Yeah, that's true for me, but he specified the young generation which I don't disagree with. Also, some people from my group are happy doing what we're doing now so they did find a substitute.


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## jedijon (Jan 17, 2007)

Ryan, that's not what I meant when I said "all that remains is to get them the game".

When you mention that you've fought legendary battles to get distributors to see that they need to provide some service only they can provide to add value to their existence--I'm right there with you.

Let's ignore deadlines (say if we're talking collectibles, that the next DDM release isn't 4 months from the previous one, but whenever the market demands that release. . . . ) and accept lower margins (by making smaller print runs, many of your comments are geared towards speculating on what the lower end of the market is doing (since the big guys innovation is tragically flawed) and thus this is already the norm).  What then does a distributor do for me?  Product is coming as quickly as my small hypothetical staff can make it, which = as fast as the customer wants it +/- some initial error at start-up.  Let's think LEAN here.  Again--why do I NEED a distributor?  Why would the lack thereof drive the hobby into a downspiral???

The things they provide--getting product everywhere on the same day for a release, letting all the game stores they reckognize as game stores (remember I'm just a customer--I might be getting this wrong and shorting this list here), previewing releases with promotional materials.  Most of all of this is behind the scenes.

What if I sell on the internet.  Marketing is horrible on the internet???  Maybe in pure dollars terms compared to what's spent on TV, but since the price of a TV ad is beyond the scope of even the big six--of what consequence is that?  The internet is supposed to be a hot-bed of innovation.  A way for dreams to be born.  Isn't the bottom line of your predictions just that bad business savvy and a wont to live in the past is what's shackling the potential of the gaming industry?  You seem to want new games and new ways to play them.  Capitalism supports what works and kills what doesn't.  Towards that end, I say again, that any potential gloom in your 07 predictions is only good!  Maybe I can't exactly describe in what ways the downfall of entrenched gaming companies will foster new games and new market growth--but I will stand by my statement that some serious trouble at the top can only open up the potential of the new blood that carries the greatest potential of innovating the whole industry.  My keystone for the next year or two in my own consumer-minded interest in gaming will be on the small start-ups like Corvus Belli (admittely, European).  But, there will always be disposable cash, unless we start putting lead in our pipes and go out like the Romans, and we've got some 25 years--supposing nobody joins the hobby (I think we're ridiculously loyal to the IDEA of gaming)--where we'll still have a widespread gaming community to tap for potential cash-flow when developing that new game that will capture the next generation.

I did very much appreciate your elaboration on your views of the industry leaders, and my apologies for not knowing more of your situation viz WotC.  I will be following your blog avidly.


----------



## Glyfair (Jan 17, 2007)

jedijon said:
			
		

> Again--why do I NEED a distributor?  Why would the lack thereof drive the hobby into a downspiral???




The answer to that depends on who you are.

Are you a customer?  Then that answer hinges on whether you need a game store (whether brick & mortar, online or something else).

Are you a game store?  You need a distributor to manage your time.  All of the game stores I know personally do not have hours and hours to spend ordering from literally _hundreds_ of game companies.  Having to set up an account with each game company is very labor intensive, especially the ones where you only need one or two products.  Let's not mention the customer that wants a special order from a company that you don't normally carry.

Are you a game producer?  Unless you are one of the largest, you need them to get your product in the stores.  Without distributors, because of the above problems mentioned for retailers, you have to convince each game store to deal with *you*.  In fact, you have to spend a lot of time selling your product to individual stores, rather than a few distributors.  

Without distributors, only the top few companies would have their products carried in the game stores.  A game store would only deal with companies that is worth their time to carry.  Dealing with WotC or Gamesworkshop gives them hundreds of products their is a market for.  Dealing with say Inner Circle games requires time and effort for a few products that their customers might not even be interest in.  Multiply that by the number of game companies out there with only a limited number of products.

Sure, some smaller game companies might band together (sort of like what happened with White Wolf during the early d20 years).  However, that is really creating distributors under a slightly different paradigm.

Distributors really are needed in the game industry.  However, based on my experiences secondhand with them, I think that if one entered the market with a very different idea of what the experience could be for stores, retailers, and maybe even the end user, than they could easily take over.  There is lots of room for improvement (unfortunately, I'm not sure the profits are there to encourage that).


----------



## delericho (Jan 17, 2007)

RyanD said:
			
		

> Most people who play RPGs don't buy RPG products once they've found a game and a group they like.
> 
> The CCG and minis categories are successful because they've embedded the meme that you have to keep buying new product to play the games into the minds of their customers.  RPGs need a similar meme, but 30 years of history may make it impossible.




Okay, but how could you possibly structure that? The fact is, once you've got the core rules, you simply do not need anything else.

I could see a company trying to sell the notion that they would provide the adventures, where each adventure is a deluxe boxed set including minis, dungeon tiles for the floorplans, and so forth... but adventures are generally poor sellers.

Similarly, I could see a company producing electronic adventures is a better format than the current pdf standard, where as the adventure progresses the DM uses the interface to make changes interactively (for example, the adventure automatically calculates creature response to an incursion). Such a format would probably be better than most DMs could create on their own without excessive investment of time (which says nothing about the quality of the adventure itself, of course). The problem there, again, is that adventures don't sell well.

They could try not publishing an MM 4e, with a view that to get monster stats DMs would have to buy the adventures produced and/or the minis. But, I see this resulting in one of two outcomes: either 4e will be abandonned by the community in favour of sticking with what we have, or the fan community will pick up the slack with an online database of monsters new and old.

Likewise, an attempt to revert to the old BD&D model of Basic/Expert/Companion/Masters/Immortals rules would probably meet heavy resistence from existing players - if I'm investing in the game, I want all the rules in a compiled and easy-to-reference form.

You could deliberately insert power creep into the supplements of the game... but this works best in a competitive rather than cooperative model. And, in any case, it is reliant on players being empowered with the thinking that the DM must allow any supplement into his game... which I for one will never accept (as carte blanche).

So, what levers do the companies really have?


----------



## jodyjohnson (Jan 17, 2007)

The main avenue seems to be releasing products that make the core experience better.

Which relies more on scattershot supplements which not everyone will buy.

For every game-improving supplement you release it becomes harder to make the next one even better.


I think the stategy from WotC right now is target the player with new options and target the DM with supplements that make running the game easier and more fun (new format adventures, stat block revisions, even mini cards).

Problem is that the first half (new player options) is sucking any gains in the second into the void.


----------



## JVisgaitis (Jan 17, 2007)

jedijon said:
			
		

> Again--why do I NEED a distributor?  Why would the lack thereof drive the hobby into a downspiral???




Because the lack of a distributor would crush every small company in existence. Do you enjoy purchase stuff from small companies like mine? If you do, we need distributors. We sold about 700 books through distribution in 2 months. Through the internet and backed by dozens of great feedback and praise we've sold maybe 50 in 3 years.

If we were to release a print product without putting it to distribution, we wouldn't even bother and we'd be doing something else. No matter how giant the d20 market is, its extremely difficult to get people to know about your company and your products. If I had a marketing guru on staff like Ryan, we would certainly do a lot better.

Since Inner Circle is a few guys in a garage, we're all wearing tons of hats and trying to learn as we go. A distributor helps us get our product in the hands of gamers everywhere and without them, we wouldn't be in business.


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## charlesatan (Jan 18, 2007)

jedijon said:
			
		

> What if I sell on the internet.  Marketing is horrible on the internet???  Maybe in pure dollars terms compared to what's spent on TV, but since the price of a TV ad is beyond the scope of even the big six--of what consequence is that?  The internet is supposed to be a hot-bed of innovation.  A way for dreams to be born.  Isn't the bottom line of your predictions just that bad business savvy and a wont to live in the past is what's shackling the potential of the gaming industry?  You seem to want new games and new ways to play them.  Capitalism supports what works and kills what doesn't.  Towards that end, I say again, that any potential gloom in your 07 predictions is only good!  Maybe I can't exactly describe in what ways the downfall of entrenched gaming companies will foster new games and new market growth--but I will stand by my statement that some serious trouble at the top can only open up the potential of the new blood that carries the greatest potential of innovating the whole industry.  My keystone for the next year or two in my own consumer-minded interest in gaming will be on the small start-ups like Corvus Belli (admittely, European).  But, there will always be disposable cash, unless we start putting lead in our pipes and go out like the Romans, and we've got some 25 years--supposing nobody joins the hobby (I think we're ridiculously loyal to the IDEA of gaming)--where we'll still have a widespread gaming community to tap for potential cash-flow when developing that new game that will capture the next generation.




I think you're confusing marketing with advertising. Marketing is a bit wider in scope, and is considered with the public image of the game/company/the individual.

Here's what I inferred from Ryan's post (feel free to correct me if I'm wrong on any of my assuptions):

1) In terms of sheer profits/sales, yes, the Internet works. That's what he meant when he said "making sales".

2) This is where the marketing part comes in. What's your concept of D&D? It's a tabletop game, played with other people with other people in real life. That idea is the result of good marketing. It's not a likely possibility as of the moment, but let's assume all the retailers have gone and the only place you can get your RPG fix is on the Internet (via sites like EnWorld or Amazon or DriveThruRPG for example). When that happens, you're changing the marketing of D&D. Is it still a tabletop game? Yes. But you're muddling the "playing with other people in real life" because sadly (and I'm not saying it has to be) shopping on the Internet isn't a group thing, it's a solo act. Sure, we have Private Messaging, chatting, boards and the like to communicate with other people but there's also the possibility that it's really just you in your birthday suit and all you're really staring at is the monitor and some sites. That's time you're not with your gaming buddies playing tabletops or shopping for table top paraphernalia. Suddenly, D&D books simply seem like game books which you read for yourself and not actually get to actually use in group play. Granted this is all an exagerration and over-simplification. But there's a real dynamic with meeting people in real life and playing a game, or meeting fellow hobbyists in a store (much in the same way people congregate at EnWorld).

3) There's also the browsing part. When I'm in the bookstore or a gaming store, sometimes I don't know what to buy. Honestly it's easier for me to browse through a shelf rather than to browse through web pages because of its near-infinite content. If I know what I'm getting, it's not a problem but for people who want to impulse buy (or get lured by it), the retailers are key.


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## scruffygrognard (Jan 18, 2007)

RyanD said:
			
		

> I am of two minds about "4th Edition".
> What I'd *like* to see is a "4th Edition" which hybridizes MMORPG play and tabletop play, with an RPGA moderation facility, that uses on-line tools to create characters and scenarios, and focuses on bringing the best elements of the tabletop and the digital environments together under the most powerful brand in fantasy adventure gaming.  If you ever see a notice that WotC has hired me back to run RPGs, that's the direction I'll be looking to move.
> Ryan



I REALLY hope that D&D doesn't head in this direction and, as it becomes more and more tied to miniature play, find myself drifting away from it in search of a system that is more roleplaying/story driven rather than being some fusion of wargaming/MMORPGs.  

Castles & Crusades, warts and all, is (too me) a step in the right direction.


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## Mark Plemmons (Jan 18, 2007)

RyanD said:
			
		

> Second, I think WotC may actually try to make "Dungeons & Dragons" mean "a miniatures game with roleplaying", and I could see them creating a whole new way of presenting D&D in a miniatures-centric way that would be worth calling the line "4th Edition".




Those are my thoughts as well.



> I think there's a good chance, probably 50/50, that we'll see a 3.75 kind of release in 2007 or 2008.  A new set of core books, revised, but basically the same game we already have.  I think that product will not be called "4th Edition", nor will it be marketed as 4th Edition.




I disagree on this one, though.  My guess is that it *will* be called 4th edition.  However, if there is a 3.75, I'm betting it'll be called PHB III and DMG III (and MM MCXXVII).


----------



## Echohawk (Jan 18, 2007)

Mark Plemmons said:
			
		

> I disagree on this one, though.  My guess is that it *will* be called 4th edition.  However, if there is a 3.75, I'm betting it'll be called PHB III and DMG III (and MM MCXXVII).



I'm betting on "Player's Handbook Revised" with no specific number on it. (And the same for the MM and DMG, obviously.)


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## WayneLigon (Jan 18, 2007)

Mark CMG said:
			
		

> That's a leap I do not believe actually follows.  Some, perhaps even many, might play an Internet game as a alternative when a tabletop game canot be found but those who enjoy tabletop RPGs, IME, do not view online gaming as an actual substitute or preference.




I have to agree with this. I'm pretty active on the net but I don't do a lot of gaming on it; it's just not set up to replicate the tabletop experience. I play in a couple of text-based games (MUSH/MUX, not MUD). I've played in a couple PBP games. Neither come even within a whisper of the tabletop experience.

I've played in things like Fantasy Grounds and a couple other similar things: they allow me to get together with people I couldn't ordinarily game with but the experience is excruciatingly slow. I put up with it briefly, but it's much like a MUSH: you get done in an hour what it takes seconds to do on tabletop.

Plus, at least one person in my group will not use a PC; the only reason he even touches one is because his work demands it. Otherwise, nada.


----------



## thedungeondelver (Jan 18, 2007)

"The biggest competitor to 3E wasn't White Wolf, or Palladium, or any other publisher's game. *It was 2E, and 1E, and OD&D.*"

Boy this gave me pause.  Is that why those systems were buried?


----------



## Glyfair (Jan 18, 2007)

thedungeondelver said:
			
		

> "The biggest competitor to 3E wasn't White Wolf, or Palladium, or any other publisher's game. *It was 2E, and 1E, and OD&D.*"
> 
> Boy this gave me pause.  Is that why those systems were buried?



I think buried is too strong a word, but yes.  When 3E came out many of the public WotC staff stated that earlier editions would not be supported because they didn't want to split their market.  

I know, for example, there was a call for 2E adventures in _Dungeon_ along with 3E adventures.  That's one case where I know that reason was given.


----------



## kenobi65 (Jan 18, 2007)

WayneLigon said:
			
		

> I have to agree with this. I'm pretty active on the net but I don't do a lot of gaming on it; it's just not set up to replicate the tabletop experience. I play in a couple of text-based games (MUSH/MUX, not MUD). I've played in a couple PBP games. Neither come even within a whisper of the tabletop experience.
> 
> I've played in things like Fantasy Grounds and a couple other similar things: they allow me to get together with people I couldn't ordinarily game with but the experience is excruciatingly slow. I put up with it briefly, but it's much like a MUSH: you get done in an hour what it takes seconds to do on tabletop.




There's a group of folks that I've become good friends with over the years, through online (chatroom-based) play.  The group evolved out of a couple of groups that were playing RPGA modules together online; we still do that, though some of us have started an "online home game", as well.

I concur that it's not as good as F2F play, and can be painfully slow and frustrasting sometimes, but the comraderie makes it worthwhile, at least for me.  And, I'm able to play F2F with many of these folks once or twice a year, which is a real treat.


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## sjmiller (Jan 18, 2007)

RyanD said:
			
		

> people who are internet active are likely to look for or prefer an internet game.



I would have to strongly disagree with you on this point.  I am extremely "internet active".  I am on the net every day using it co communicate, do research, and generally stay connected to the world.  When I play games I prefer to play them *away* from my computer.  I spend all day looking at a monitor, why would I want to spend my nights doing that?  This is true not only of myself, but of all but one member of my gaming group.  For me, and for many people I meet, gaming, including RPGs, is meant to be a face-to-face experience, not something you do online.


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## drothgery (Jan 18, 2007)

thedungeondelver said:
			
		

> "The biggest competitor to 3E wasn't White Wolf, or Palladium, or any other publisher's game. *It was 2E, and 1E, and OD&D.*"
> 
> Boy this gave me pause.




What's so surprising about this? If you ask Microsoft what the biggest competitor to Windows Vista is, they'll tell you it's Windows XP (and that's only because it's been a long time and XP was a lot better than 9x/ME and a pretty sharp break; otherwise, the pre-XP versions would still have significant market share).



			
				thedungeondelver said:
			
		

> Is that why those systems were buried?




No. It's just a recognition of the state of the market; when WotC was launching 3.x, the vast majority of the people they were trying to sell it to were playing 2e, 1e, and/or OD&D (me, I was in the no-game limbo I'd been in between finishing college and moving to SoCal; I picked up the 3.0 core rules, but wasn't actually playing). If they didn't think 3.0 was good enough to switch to, they wouldn't have.


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## thedungeondelver (Jan 18, 2007)

drothgery said:
			
		

> What's so surprising about this? If you ask Microsoft what the biggest competitor to Windows Vista is, they'll tell you it's Windows XP (and that's only because it's been a long time and XP was a lot better than 9x/ME and a pretty sharp break; otherwise, the pre-XP versions would still have significant market share).




See, that'd be a good analogy except...

...except it isn't.  If Microsoft were still releasing DirectX revisions for Win9x, there'd be plenty of people still using it.  Go to ntcompatible.com and read through the forums there to see the hoops people have jumped through to try and keep legacy apps and games working on XP.  Vista will become preeminent because Microsoft has already stated that DirectX support for Windows 2000 and Windows XP will cease with DX9.0c; to get 10.0 (and to get hardware that is fully enabled), you'll have to run Vista.

To keep going on the Windows issue, if every advance had been a good one then explain Windows Millenium Edition.  WinME was unstable, added needless things to the OS and was generally regarded as a mistake by the industry at large.

People will upgrade because Microsoft will _make them_ upgrade.  No DirectX for older editions means an end to those OS revisions as hardware manufacturers struggle to keep up with Microsoft's strictures.



> No. It's just a recognition of the state of the market; when WotC was launching 3.x, the vast majority of the people they were trying to sell it to were playing 2e, 1e, and/or OD&D (me, I was in the no-game limbo I'd been in between finishing college and moving to SoCal; I picked up the 3.0 core rules, but wasn't actually playing). If they didn't think 3.0 was good enough to switch to, they wouldn't have.




Oh I don't deny that at all.  However, consider that the fan-base was cut by half when *2nd Edition AD&D* was released, and that Gary (prior to his departure) lobbied for a continuance of *AD&D*:



			
				gary gygax said:
			
		

> Well, just to step back, with the release of 2nd Edition, approximately half of their gaming audience left, refusing to buy 2nd Edition.  There is still a very large original 1st Edition AD&D community going strong.
> ...
> Had anyone with business acumen, in my estimation, been running TSR at that time, when they saw half of their market disappear instead of trying to sell twice as many books to half as many people, the intelligent thing to have done would have been to come out with new releases of original AD&D, and tell the gamers “Hey, look, you can go either way now guys, we’ll support both of these marvelous lines,” and Dungeons and Dragons, too – why not?




Of course the company was so fundamentally boned shortly thereafter that they could've given away free twenty dollar bills and been in less financial trouble...but I think we're all aware of the post-Gygax, pre-WotC lunacy.


----------



## delericho (Jan 18, 2007)

thedungeondelver said:
			
		

> To keep going on the Windows issue, if every advance had been a good one then explain Windows Millenium Edition.  WinME was unstable, added needless things to the OS and was generally regarded as a mistake by the industry at large.




IIRC, ME was a rush-job brought about when it became apparent Windows 2000 wasn't going to be backward compatible with Windows 9x games.



> Oh I don't deny that at all.  However, consider that the fan-base was cut by half when *2nd Edition AD&D* was released, and that Gary (prior to his departure) lobbied for a continuance of *AD&D*:
> 
> 
> 
> ...




Gary's a smart guy, and I will forever be thankful for the game he's given us, but in this issue he's dead wrong. Trying to support two parallel lines is a really bad idea - you have to expend 200% the development effort to bring in 125% of the sales. A lot of the people who left with 2nd edition would not have been pulled back in - they would have continued to be lost.

Alas, if that analysis is correct, I'm not sure there was anything TSR could have done to rescue the situation.


----------



## MerricB (Jan 18, 2007)

thedungeondelver said:
			
		

> Of course the company was so fundamentally boned shortly thereafter that they could've given away free twenty dollar bills and been in less financial trouble...but I think we're all aware of the post-Gygax, pre-WotC lunacy.
> [/font]




See what Ryan posted above:



			
				Ryan Dancey said:
			
		

> I think I've posted elsewhere that at the end of 1E, the 1E PHB was selling about 50K units a year, and the first year of sales of the 2e PHB generated about 250K units of sales.
> 
> Early in its lifecycle, the 1E PHB generated several years (I want to say 5 to 7) of sales well above 200K, and the slowdown in 1E PHBs was much more gradual than the slowdown of 2E PHBs, which was pretty dramatic.
> 
> One thing that many people don't know is that the RPG category, as a whole, had dropped by nearly 50% in terms of unit & revenue between 1990 and 1993. In fact, had Magic and the CCG category not developed, the gaming industry as we know it was almost certainly doomed. RPGs would have been moved to the book chains (which had their own near death experiences as they shifted from mall-based stores to Big Box retail stores). Many of the factors that brought down TSR were affecting every RPG publisher in the market at that time. TSR's woes just continued for a long time masked by CCG sales, and some financial manipulation of their book trade accounts.




Cheers!


----------



## Falstaff (Jan 18, 2007)

cperkins said:
			
		

> I REALLY hope that D&D doesn't head in this direction and, as it becomes more and more tied to miniature play, find myself drifting away from it in search of a system that is more roleplaying/story driven rather than being some fusion of wargaming/MMORPGs.
> 
> Castles & Crusades, warts and all, is (too me) a step in the right direction.




I agree with you completely. I DO NOT like table-top wargames, never have. It definitely appears as if D&D (and the Star Wars RPG for that matter) are becoming more and more mini-centric. I hate that that's happening.

If I want to play a minis wargame I'd play one, but when I play D&D I want to play a game of the imagination that doesn't require moving little plastic toys around the table to help my mind visualize what's happening.

Anyway...


----------



## Storm Raven (Jan 18, 2007)

Falstaff said:
			
		

> I agree with you completely. I DO NOT like table-top wargames, never have. It definitely appears as if D&D (and the Star Wars RPG for that matter) are becoming more and more mini-centric. I hate that that's happening.




The problem is that, historically, D&D has been at its most successful when it has been at its most wargamey. Look at the 1e books - they are littered with wargame style rules and assumptions, right down to listing movement in inches, and giving "drift" rules for travelling on a hexagonal map and so on.

And that version of D&D was much more popular in its day than 2e (for example) was in its day. And when 3e came out, and emphasized the table top wargame aspects again, it outsold 2e. So, based upon historical market performance, a wargame style game appears to be what the customers _want_, and so that is what we are likely to get.


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## dcas (Jan 18, 2007)

thedungeondelver said:
			
		

> "The biggest competitor to 3E wasn't White Wolf, or Palladium, or any other publisher's game. *It was 2E, and 1E, and OD&D.*"
> 
> Boy this gave me pause.  Is that why those systems were buried?




I had to go back and read this to make sure that Mr. Dancey actually wrote this!  But it basically confirms what I've said in the past regarding why WOTC won't reprint prior editions of D&D. They don't want to compete with themselves.


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## Falstaff (Jan 18, 2007)

Storm Raven said:
			
		

> The problem is that, historically, D&D has been at its most successful when it has been at its most wargamey. Look at the 1e books - they are littered with wargame style rules and assumptions, right down to listing movement in inches, and giving "drift" rules for travelling on a hexagonal map and so on.
> 
> And that version of D&D was much more popular in its day than 2e (for example) was in its day. And when 3e came out, and emphasized the table top wargame aspects again, it outsold 2e. So, based upon historical market performance, a wargame style game appears to be what the customers _want_, and so that is what we are likely to get.




Maybe.

I DM a First Edition campaign now. We never use  - or ever feel the need to use - miniatures or battle mats. Even when I was younger and my older brother and his pals played AD&D, they never used miniatures.

I don't think the same can be said for the 3rd edition of D&D. From my understanding you MUST use minis if you want to play correctly. Sure, I'm certain there are groups of players out there that play 3rd edition and don't use minis, but I can't see how they adjudicate the combat rules correctly.


----------



## Ourph (Jan 18, 2007)

Falstaff said:
			
		

> Maybe.
> 
> I DM a First Edition campaign now. We never use  - or ever feel the need to use - miniatures or battle mats. Even when I was younger and my older brother and his pals played AD&D, they never used miniatures.
> 
> I don't think the same can be said for the 3rd edition of D&D. From my understanding you MUST use minis if you want to play correctly. Sure, I'm certain there are groups of players out there that play 3rd edition and don't use minis, but I can't see how they adjudicate the combat rules correctly.




Honestly, I don't see how you can adjudicate the 1e combat rules correctly without miniatures and a battle mat too.  I'm not saying you can't adjudicate 1e combats without minis (I almost never use minis when playing 1e or B/X D&D) but doing without requires adjudications outside the rules just as much as 3e would IMO.  1e spells, light sources, weapons, etc. all have ranges that must be adjudicated/fudged if you're not using minis and a ruler.  1e facing rules for AC are almost impossible to fully implement for combats involving more than 3-4 individuals if you're not using some type of counter to track positions.  If you're not tracking those things in some concrete manner the DM is either ignoring parts of the rules or making on-the-fly adjudications based on his best estimate of where PCs and opponents are during the round.

IMO going without minis in 3e isn't any different.  The rules you are adjudicating/skipping/fudging are different, but the amount of stuff you have to hand-wave is virtually the same.  I think the reason the use of minis in 3e is more common isn't because they're required more by the rules, but because the rules make the implementation of minis and a battlemat easier and lots of people just prefer to use minis when the rules make it easy for them to do so.


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## Falstaff (Jan 18, 2007)

Ourph said:
			
		

> Honestly, I don't see how you can adjudicate the 1e combat rules correctly without miniatures and a battle mat too.  I'm not saying you can't adjudicate 1e combats without minis (I almost never use minis when playing 1e or B/X D&D) but doing without requires adjudications outside the rules just as much as 3e would IMO.  1e spells, light sources, weapons, etc. all have ranges that must be adjudicated/fudged if you're not using minis and a ruler.  1e facing rules for AC are almost impossible to fully implement for combats involving more than 3-4 individuals if you're not using some type of counter to track positions.  If you're not tracking those things in some concrete manner the DM is either ignoring parts of the rules or making on-the-fly adjudications based on his best estimate of where PCs and opponents are during the round.
> 
> IMO going without minis in 3e isn't any different.  The rules you are adjudicating/skipping/fudging are different, but the amount of stuff you have to hand-wave is virtually the same.  I think the reason the use of minis in 3e is more common isn't because they're required more by the rules, but because the rules make the implementation of minis and a battlemat easier and lots of people just prefer to use minis when the rules make it easy for them to do so.




Okay.


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## dcas (Jan 18, 2007)

Ourph said:
			
		

> 1e spells, light sources, weapons, etc. all have ranges that must be adjudicated/fudged if you're not using minis and a ruler.



Generally I use saving throws to determine whether or not someone is in the range of a particular spell.

I think using minis for abstract combat is a bit strange -- since in actual melee combat the combatants would be moving all over the place rather than staying in one particular square. As far as other rules are concerned, such as attacking from behind, I would generally rule that a PC could face all of his attackers unless there are (a) too many of them or (b) one or more of them has skills (Move Silently, etc.) that would allow him to approach unnoticed.

Not necessary at all to ignore rules. Yes, some on-the-fly adjudication is probably necessary, but IMHO preferable to using miniatures.


----------



## Banshee16 (Jan 18, 2007)

RyanD said:
			
		

> I am of two minds about "4th Edition".
> 
> First, I think that WotC may, at some point, create a product called "4th Edition", but that product will look just like 3rd Edition with a series of clear rules improvements & tweaks; essentially, a 3.5 on steroids.  To me, that's a "marketing release".
> 
> ...




Collated and organized rules?  Maybe.  And I'm not going to question their market research, as I have only annecdotal evidence to compare against.....but I don't *agree* with the assessment that gamer will buy outright new editions every 3-4 years.  There are so many supplemental books etc. that making wholesale edition changes will (I think) fragment their customer base.

Probably many of us here are EN World are atypical customers....both from the fact that we're all sitting on a message board talking about the game, but also from the perspective that many of us have probably purchased many books over the years.  If they started doing edition changes every 3-4 years, I'd probably fall behind and stop bothering to buy, and I don't think I'm alone in that feeling.  This is not a hobby of buying trading or gaming cards.  At an average price of $30-40, gaming books are expensive....once you have 40, 50, 60 books, that's a significant expense.  I won't use the term "investment" because the books rarely gain value.  I know I could probably sell my Dark Sun collection for $100 or $200...but it cost far more than that to get it in the first place....hence it's not an investment.

The problem isn't the core rules....so much as it is everything *depending* on the core rules....the complete books, the equipment guide, the various monster manuals, the adventures, the races series, the "nomicon series", etc.  Changing from 3E to 4E would invalidate that material.  Sure, it can be converted, but that's a lot of work.  There's plenty of 2E stuff which still hasn't been converted.  So given that I've probably got 40-50 rulebooks based on 3/3.5, there's really not much incentive to buy a 4.0 MM/PHB/DMG, whereas I'd probably continue to purchase 3.5 supplements.

Many of us don't use the minis, so incorporating them further into the rules might not be the wisest move.  Or maybe, I'm the exception rather than the rule.  I know in my group that most of us have purchased minis, but we get maybe 5% use out of our minis.  Everyone's purchased some, but there's one guy that plays the minis game on alternate nights, so he keeps collecting.  He has so many that most of never get a chance to use our own, so 5 of the 6 people in the group have stopped buying any more, and only one guy is purchasing them at this point.  I don't think I've even opened my minis container in 2-3 months.

Those are just my thoughts.

Banshee


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## Banshee16 (Jan 18, 2007)

dcas said:
			
		

> Not necessary at all to ignore rules. Yes, some on-the-fly adjudication is probably necessary, but IMHO preferable to using miniatures.




I generally find that using miniatures pulls me out of the game.

Banshee


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## Storm Raven (Jan 18, 2007)

Falstaff said:
			
		

> Maybe.
> 
> I DM a First Edition campaign now. We never use  - or ever feel the need to use - miniatures or battle mats. Even when I was younger and my older brother and his pals played AD&D, they never used miniatures.




That is almost entirely irrelevant. The fact remains that AD&D 1e as written, very clearly shows its wargaming roots. To play the game, as written, almost requires miniatures, or at least some way of measuring distances and showing positions and so on. I know many people who did not do that, but they glossed over, ignored, or fudged a lot of the AD&D 1e rules to play the game that way.



> _I don't think the same can be said for the 3rd edition of D&D. From my understanding you MUST use minis if you want to play correctly. Sure, I'm certain there are groups of players out there that play 3rd edition and don't use minis, but I can't see how they adjudicate the combat rules correctly._




They do it the same way one adjudicates AD&D 1e combat without miniatures: they ignore or fudge a lot of things that the rules specify. There is nothing wrong with doing this (no matter what edition you are suing), but the simple fact remains that the most "wargamey" versions of D&D are the ones that have been the most commercially successful. And WotC (or anyone else who might happen to own the rights to D&D in the future) is interested in making commercially successful products.


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## Ourph (Jan 18, 2007)

dcas said:
			
		

> Generally I use saving throws to determine whether or not someone is in the range of a particular spell.



I'm not sure how that would work.  Do you mean you would have a combatant roll a saving throw to determine whether he was within the 6" + 1"/level range of an M-U's _Message_ spell?  If so, that 1) seems like a wierd way to handle it; and 2) just validates my point that in order to do without minis the DM is probably going outside the normal rules to adjudicate most situations involving distance/movement/facing/etc.



			
				DCAS said:
			
		

> As far as other rules are concerned, such as attacking from behind, I would generally rule that a PC could face all of his attackers unless there are (a) too many of them or (b) one or more of them has skills (Move Silently, etc.) that would allow him to approach unnoticed.



That's fine, but if the defender is using a shield you need to know which attacks are falling on his shield side, his off-shield side, etc. in order to match a specific attack roll with the right AC.  When I'm running 1e I can't keep track of that for more than 1 or 2 people at a time, so if I'm not using minis, I usually just pick and it's not necessarily consistent with whatever I picked two rounds ago, so I'm hand waving it.  I'm just pointing out that running 3e combat without minis requires the same type of handwaving, so technically neither DM would be running the combat's "right" (as Falstaff put it).



			
				DCAS said:
			
		

> Not necessary at all to ignore rules. Yes, some on-the-fly adjudication is probably necessary, but IMHO preferable to using miniatures.



To use the same example from above.  If a 1st level M-U character is 20" away from is Fighter companion in round 1, moves 12" in round 2 and you on-the-fly adjudicate that he's close enough to case _Message_ in round 3, you're ignoring the rules (for spell range and/or movement because he's 8" away casting a spell with a range of 7").  I have no problem with this.  I do it all the time when playing without minis.  I'm just pointing out that playing without minis in 3e doesn't require you do to anything materially different than what people do all the time when playing other systems.

If playing "right" means tracking distances, movement and position exactly for every creature involved in a combat then playing the game "right" without using minis and a ruler/battlemat is just as hard for 1e as it is for 3e.


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## thedungeondelver (Jan 18, 2007)

Storm Raven said:
			
		

> That is almost entirely irrelevant. The fact remains that AD&D 1e as written, very clearly shows its wargaming roots. To play the game, as written, almost requires miniatures, or at least some way of measuring distances and showing positions and so on. I know many people who did not do that, but they glossed over, ignored, or fudged a lot of the AD&D 1e rules to play the game that way.





Y'know this is the one thing that current edition(s) of *DUNGEONS & DRAGONS* do that I actually don't mind, and find a bit of a puzzler that many of my fellow prior-edition adherents are up in arms about.  That is, the minis angle.  I love miniatures, I always have.  I find them indespensible for playing *D&D* of nearly any stripe - whether placing them in meticulously constructed underground fortresses, built using every last chip of my massive Dwarven Forge collection or I just grabbed a battlemat, marker and whatever minis happened to be on the painting table at the moment, I likes me some minis.  I'm not crazy about "D&D minis" - the actual, physical minis themselves but that's because I'm a snob.  I prefer metal, hand-painted (by me!).

Assuming basic stats could be agreed upon by both parties, I'd play some *D&D MINIATURES* using my extensive Reaper collection...but that's another story.



> (no matter what edition you are suing)




Especially if you're Pat Pulling!  _zing!_


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## RyanD (Jan 19, 2007)

Banshee16 said:
			
		

> I don't *agree* with the assessment that gamer will buy outright new editions every 3-4 years.




There were roughly 4 years between 3.0 and 3.5.  Say what you want about 3.5 (and god knows, a lot has been said) it was very successful commercially.  How much of the 3.0 player network upgraded to 3.5?  My guess is 60% or more initially, and probably as much as 80% in the present.

A ".5" style "revision" (especially if it contained a Monster Manual with 75% new monsters, and a spell section in the PHB with 75% new spells) would likely be very successful.  I could see adding a big section to the DMG on how to design monsters and/or gods too.  If that line is announced in Spring of '07 for release in spring of '08, it would be right on the ".5" timeline.  And I suspect it would be just as commercially successful as 3.5 was.

Ryan


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## JVisgaitis (Jan 19, 2007)

RyanD said:
			
		

> And I suspect it would be just as commercially successful as 3.5 was.




Ryan, this is something that I always wondered, and you are probably the only person who could answer this. Before we commited to doing Denizens of Avadnu for 3.5, we had 1,200 preorders through Alliance. After 3.5 was released and we upgraded our product, those preorders were cut in half. Did that have anything to do with the announcement of 3.5 or was that just bad luck on our part or the state of the industry at the time? Do you think 3.5 was as successful for third party companies as it was for Wizards?


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## RyanD (Jan 19, 2007)

JVisgaitis said:
			
		

> Did that have anything to do with the announcement of 3.5 or was that just bad luck on our part or the state of the industry at the time? Do you think 3.5 was as successful for third party companies as it was for Wizards?




I do not think the cut in your orders was a 3.5 effect.  I think that 3.5 happened to coincide with the <pop> of the D20 bubble, as retailers realized that they couldn't just order 1 of any thing "D20" and expect it to sell.  Once that bubble popped, I think a lot of retailers canceled >all< their D20 preorders, then switched to selectively ordering stuff on a case by case basis especially once it shipped and they could gauge reaction on the web.

Because those two things happened at roughly the same time (and it could be argued that WotC's revelations about 3.5 at Winter Fantasy was a trigger of the D20 bubble being popped), I think it will be impossible to ever tell how much of the pain experienced by D20 publishers came from stores getting savvy to the glut on the market, customers deciding to stop binging on D20 products, people confused/upset with the changes in the game and how extensive they proved to be, and the resulting economic effects which probably took down some good games and good companies by association.

I'm virtually certain that the only company to really benefit from 3.5 was Wizards of the Coast.  That doesn't mean they were the only company that >could< have benefited, only that they >were< the only company that  benefited.  I think the D20 publishers, en masse, just didn't understand the scope of the changes that were coming, and did not react quickly enough to them to keep riding the wave.  I suspect a lot of people who are doing D20 design looked at 3.5 and thought "well, that's not much more than a tune up" -- the perception within the industry was significantly different than the perception of the customers, who perceived the 3.5 changes as so significant that they elected to assume that 3.0 material was no longer easily usable.

And frankly, we really had pretty much hit a point of saturation.  Within the core "high fantasy" genre, all the real meat was off the bone, and publishers were getting increasingly desperate to find something worth publishing a book about.  Most of the D20 glut wasn't worth upgrading to 3.5 anyway.

So I think you just had a big ball of confusion, and its just not fair to point a finger at any one thing and say "that's the cause of the problem".

Ryan


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## Banshee16 (Jan 19, 2007)

RyanD said:
			
		

> There were roughly 4 years between 3.0 and 3.5.  Say what you want about 3.5 (and god knows, a lot has been said) it was very successful commercially.  How much of the 3.0 player network upgraded to 3.5?  My guess is 60% or more initially, and probably as much as 80% in the present.
> 
> A ".5" style "revision" (especially if it contained a Monster Manual with 75% new monsters, and a spell section in the PHB with 75% new spells) would likely be very successful.  I could see adding a big section to the DMG on how to design monsters and/or gods too.  If that line is announced in Spring of '07 for release in spring of '08, it would be right on the ".5" timeline.  And I suspect it would be just as commercially successful as 3.5 was.
> 
> Ryan




Maybe I didn't quite phrase my opinion on the matter clearly....I'm not saying that something like a 3.75, with collated rules, more core classes from some of the post 3.5 launch supplements etc. being included wouldn't be successful.  You may be right.  And given that I skipped paying for the 3.5 core books, by using the SRD instead, I might actually be tempted to buy copies of those 3.75 hard covers.  I might not agree with all the changes that 3.5 instituted....but I can admit that there were some good things, and more, at this point my original 3.0 launch core books are starting to get a little beaten anyways....so replacing them would not be a bad idea.

I'm saying that a wholesale edition change...a 4.0 that changes everything again, and requires that not only do many gamers have to retrofit/convert 2nd Ed. stuff, but also now 3.0 and 3.5, and then are marketed 4.0 versions of books they just bought in 3.5, may not generate the success they anticipate.

How old is the average player?  I seem to remember that it's more like 30 than 14.  If that's the case, that means that we've got an aging customer base in the industry.  It also might mean that the industry hasn't grown through the creation of new players, so much as it has through the "reawakening" of older players who might have stopped playing years ago.  I'm not going to make a prediction...I just think it's food for thought.  Because if it's generally the same group of players now that it was 20 years ago, with some new blood, then there's probably more players than they think, that are in their 30's, and have several editions worth of books....and probably have little desire to feel like they're being sold the same thing over and over, in decreasing time intervals.

I've got two copies of Drow of the Underdark (2nd Ed.) and will likely buy the new one in 2007.  Plus I have Plot and Poison.  I know P&P and DotU 2E are both great books.  Who knows about the new one?  But at some point, I'm going to have to ask myself if I really *need* the newest one.  And the addition of 4E would only complicate matters.

You've been knee-deep in the inner workings of the industry, whereas I obviously haven't.  So I see this as a debate, more than saying "Ryan Dancey is wrong".  That's not what I'm trying to say.  But I've been a pretty avid consumer for a good 16-17 years.  And despite some conventional wisdom which would say that as a kid, I bought more than I would as an adult, I think I've bought more 3E product in my 20's and early 30's than I ever did of 2nd Ed. because I've had far more disposable income.

If there *is* a sizable proportion of the player base who are like me, I'm just not how sure how often they can continue to tap the player base for the same books.  Once every 10 years is one thing....once every 4 years is something very different.

I wouldn't mind some clarified, errata'd, and expanded rules, integrating some of the best stuff created since 3.5 was launched.  But a new edition that invalidates everything else I've purchased, I'm not so sure of.

Banshee


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## Banshee16 (Jan 19, 2007)

RyanD said:
			
		

> And frankly, we really had pretty much hit a point of saturation.  Within the core "high fantasy" genre, all the real meat was off the bone, and publishers were getting increasingly desperate to find something worth publishing a book about.  Most of the D20 glut wasn't worth upgrading to 3.5 anyway.
> 
> 
> Ryan




I know my experience with some lines, like Swashbuckling Adventures, was that at least on the message boards and mailing lists, the arrival of 3.5 divided an already divided customer base.  They already had dual stat books, with R&K and 3.0 rules.  When 3.5 arrived, many of us really didn't like the changes 3.5 inflicted on the game.....so many didn't want the line to change to 3.5...whereas others said they wouldn't buy if the game *didn't* change to 3.5.  In the end, the line failed.  Whether 3.5 was the reason, I have no idea.  But I'd bet it was a factor, because it divided part of the customer base for that game.

And 3.5 wasn't completely compatible with 3.0.  Plus, it made changes many of us didn't like....paladin mounts appearing like genies, shortened spell durations going even further towards forcing us to play in the X fights/day, kick down the door style of play.  On a personal level, this helped lead me into purchasing more 3rd party products which preserved the older feel of play...Conan, Midnight, Black Company,Iron Kingdoms, etc.

Banshee


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## dcas (Jan 19, 2007)

Ourph said:
			
		

> I'm not sure how that would work.  Do you mean you would have a combatant roll a saving throw to determine whether he was within the 6" + 1"/level range of an M-U's _Message_ spell?



I would have to look up that particular spell; is it an area-of-effect spell? I wasn't referring to ranges in my post regarding saving throws but to areas of effect.



> If so, that 1) seems like a wierd way to handle it;



Well, I don't think it's weird. It's why I prefer saving throws to be abstract rather than linked to ability scores or "reflexes," etc. For example, if someone rolls a successful saving throw against a magic-user's _fireball_ spell, it isn't because he has superior reflexes (how can you have wonderful reflexes against an effect that is instantaneous, anyway?), but because he wasn't in the AOE in the first place.



> and 2) just validates my point that in order to do without minis the DM is probably going outside the normal rules to adjudicate most situations involving distance/movement/facing/etc.



It's not moving outside the normal rules, it's _using_ the normal rules.



> That's fine, but if the defender is using a shield you need to know which attacks are falling on his shield side, his off-shield side, etc. in order to match a specific attack roll with the right AC.



I would think that the PC would turn so that attackers were on his shield side. If he's facing more attackers than his shield can handle (depending on the size of the shield and the number of attacks from each attacker), then yes, some on-the-fly DM adjudication is required to determine which attacks are falling on his off-shield side. Likewise, if the PC is surrounded, some adjudication is required to determine which attacks are falling on the rear.



> If playing "right" means tracking distances, movement and position exactly for every creature involved in a combat then playing the game "right" without using minis and a ruler/battlemat is just as hard for 1e as it is for 3e.



I don't think playing "right" necessarily involves these things in combat.

But 3e makes minis and battlemat more necessary because some of the rules (attacks of opportunity, frex.) depend on knowing where the PCs and their attackers are at all times. If you prefer to fudge these rules then no, minis and battlemat are not strictly necessary.


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## JVisgaitis (Jan 19, 2007)

RyanD said:
			
		

> I'm virtually certain that the only company to really benefit from 3.5 was Wizards of the Coast. That doesn't mean they were the only company that >could< have benefited, only that they >were< the only company that benefited.




So if the revision could have been taken advantage of, would you imagine it would have been from established companies through products that were successful in 3.0 and were being revised to 3.5? If not and the bubble did burst at this point (and I see no logic to refute that), what could have been done to ride the wave? Is there something we could have done or were we just too late to the party?


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## Ranger REG (Jan 19, 2007)

RyanD said:
			
		

> There are powerful forces inside WotC that believe (not without quite a bit of market research and product experience to back them up) that gamers will buy a "revision" to a games' core rules every 3-4 years and that not inducing those purchases is just leaving money on the table.



I'm sorry, but my wallet and I heavily oppose those forces. I'm not in favor of buying revisions every 3 years. I oppose any [silver-spoon] fans who support this marketing ploy. They might as well send ther full wallet to me since they got money to burn.

You can revise your TCGs as little as 18 months, but don't do that to my favorite RPGs.


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## Ourph (Jan 19, 2007)

dcas said:
			
		

> I would have to look up that particular spell; is it an area-of-effect spell? I wasn't referring to ranges in my post regarding saving throws but to areas of effect.



Since I specifically referred to spell "ranges" in my original post I thought it was clear that I wasn't talking about areas of affect, but whether the target of a spell was within the spell's listed range.  Using saving throws to adjudicate that seemed very strange to me; thus, my question.  Obviously you were misunderstanding my original comment when you brought up saving throws.


			
				dcas said:
			
		

> I don't think playing "right" necessarily involves these things in combat.
> But 3e makes minis and battlemat more necessary because some of the rules (attacks of opportunity, frex.) depend on knowing where the PCs and their attackers are at all times. If you prefer to fudge these rules then no, minis and battlemat are not strictly necessary.



I'm using the word "right" in reponse to Falstaff's use of the word "correctly".  It seems to me that accurate application of the facing rules, spell ranges, etc. in AD&D "depend on knowing where the PCs and their attackers are at all times".  As you point out, so do many rules in 3e.  I don't see the difference between the two situations.  In both games you are either applying the combat rules strictly and completely or you are handwaving spacial relationship stuff that is cumbersome to track without some sort of concrete physical representation.  IMO, both games require the use of minis/counters and a battlemat/ruler to run "correctly" (where we're defining correctly as making complete and accurate use of all the rules at all times - which is, I assume, the meaning Falstaff was attaching to the word) but both games function just fine if the DM replaces minis/counters and a battlemat/ruler with on-the-fly adjudications and reasonable estimates.  

Minis and a battlemat are only "more necessary" in 3e if the players aren't willing to handwave the exact same types of things that you seem to be saying you're more than comfortable handwaving for AD&D.  I don't see the difference between handwaving AoOs and handwaving the shield/facing rules.


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## dcas (Jan 19, 2007)

Ourph said:
			
		

> Since I specifically referred to spell "ranges" in my original post I thought it was clear that I wasn't talking about areas of affect, but whether the target of a spell was within the spell's listed range.  Using saving throws to adjudicate that seemed very strange to me; thus, my question.  Obviously you were misunderstanding my original comment when you brought up saving throws.



I apologize for any misunderstanding (and you are quite right, I used the word "range" myself) -- I use saving throws to adjudicate whether a PC or NPC is in the area of effect, not whether he is in the range of a spell. I suppose I would do the same for a spell with a range that also allowed a saving throw, or I might rule differently (for example, the PC was looking away when a _light_ spell was cast, so he wasn't blinded).

I guess for a ranged spell with no saving throw I would make a ruling on-the-fly as to the location of the would-be target. I would probably determine a % chance that the target character was in the range, and then roll the dice.



> I'm using the word "right" in reponse to Falstaff's use of the word "correctly".  It seems to me that accurate application of the facing rules, spell ranges, etc. in AD&D "depend on knowing where the PCs and their attackers are at all times".



I think it depends on what one means by "accurate." Since AD&D does not model combat accurately, it seems a bit weird to try and determine PC and attacker position and direction accurately. (Of course, I am surely parting ways with the author of AD&D here.)



> Minis and a battlemat are only "more necessary" in 3e if the players aren't willing to handwave the exact same types of things that you seem to be saying you're more than comfortable handwaving for AD&D.  I don't see the difference between handwaving AoOs and handwaving the shield/facing rules.



Oh, I agree that one could "handwave" AoOs. But wouldn't that result in a lot less of them happening? (Not that that wouldn't be a bad thing. . . .  ) If not, then I could see players getting upset when their characters are provoking AoOs for seemingly no reason.

It just seems to me that 3e has more rules that would require "handwaving." I could be wrong, I haven't looked at the 3e combat rules in ages.


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## Ourph (Jan 19, 2007)

dcas said:
			
		

> Oh, I agree that one could "handwave" AoOs. But wouldn't that result in a lot less of them happening? (Not that that wouldn't be a bad thing. . . .  ) If not, then I could see players getting upset when their characters are provoking AoOs for seemingly no reason.
> 
> It just seems to me that 3e has more rules that would require "handwaving." I could be wrong, I haven't looked at the 3e combat rules in ages.




IME PCs don't go around provoking a lot of AoOs.  Unless they are in a contained area, it's usually possible to move around without provoking.  Plus, anyone taking an action that would precipitate an AoO usually orchestrates a way around it (enough ranks in Tumble for movement, enough ranks in Concentration for spellcasting or having a high enough AC that the attack is not likely to connect).  Other things that provoke, like grappling, don't require knowing exactly where other combatants are.  The ones you are most likely to misjudge without minis are the movement-based ones and, like I said, those are fairly rare in my experience, so misjuding on a few isn't going to drastically affect the game (at least not any moreso than missing a few AC adjustments due to shield facing or handwaving the range of a few spell effects in AD&D).


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## Storm Raven (Jan 19, 2007)

Ranger REG said:
			
		

> I'm sorry, but my wallet and I heavily oppose those forces. I'm not in favor of buying revisions every 3 years. I oppose any [silver-spoon] fans who support this marketing ploy. They might as well send ther full wallet to me since they got money to burn.




I suspect that your opposition will count for exactly nothing. Given that Dancey at this point has nothing to gain from misleading any of us concerning the likely future of the game, I see no reason not to believe his statement that there are powerful forces at WotC backed by market research that believe that a new edition/revision every four years or thereabouts is a viable product strategy.

Sure, get indignant and vote with your feet, refusing to buy a new edition if you think it has been released "too soon". That's your right, and power as a consumer. But, if we believe Dancey's statement, your opposition will be swamped under the mass of gamers who will go ahead and spend their money on the new books.

I oppose the continued broadcasting of _Supernanny_, _Nanny 911_, _Wife Swap_ and _Trading Spouses_, yet somewhere there are people who watch those shows and keep their ratings up. I suspect the same would be true for you vis-a-vis a new edition of D&D that you would not buy. Enough people would that WotC would still make money.

So, in the end, your opposition would amount to nothing that WotC would care about.


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## Maggan (Jan 19, 2007)

Ranger REG said:
			
		

> I oppose any [silver-spoon] fans who support this marketing ploy.




Good for me I work hard for my money then, so I can spend it as I chose, without risk of being viewed as someone who's born with a silver spoon in his mouth.

Seriously, you don't know why people buy the books, you don't know what else they forsake, you don't know how they got their money. For all *I* know they could be working double shifts at the pizza place to pay for the books.

/M


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## T. Foster (Jan 19, 2007)

I'd rather see WotC aim to make money by selling 1 product to 5 million people rather than by selling 50 products each to 100,000 people (and my idea of "1 product" does not include either a monthly subscription fee or a need to continually buy new "booster packs" of minis/cards/whatever...).


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## Ranger REG (Jan 19, 2007)

Maggan said:
			
		

> Good for me I work hard for my money then, so I can spend it as I chose, without risk of being viewed as someone who's born with a silver spoon in his mouth.
> 
> Seriously, you don't know why people buy the books, you don't know what else they forsake, you don't know how they got their money. For all *I* know they could be working double shifts at the pizza place to pay for the books.



Then I also oppose sympathizers who are willing to pull double jobs to get revisions.

As for my voice being amount to nothing, I DON'T THINK SO. If I'm the only one here to state it publicly and no one shares my sentiment, then so be it. But it is not nothing.


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## Ranger REG (Jan 19, 2007)

T. Foster said:
			
		

> I'd rather see WotC aim to make money by selling 1 product to 5 million people rather than by selling 50 products each to 100,000 people (and my idea of "1 product" does not include either a monthly subscription fee or a need to continually buy new "booster packs" of minis/cards/whatever...).



Can one single product sold to 5 million customers be enough to keep the business going for at least 5 years?

Right, and I can crap gold stool and I can cough up silver mucus.


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## Maggan (Jan 19, 2007)

Ranger REG said:
			
		

> Then I also oppose sympathizers who are willing to pull double jobs to get revisions.




That's cool. I'll just buy two each of the eventually released books, to cover for your lack of enthusiasm!

/M


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## Justin Cray (Jan 19, 2007)

I wouldn't mind a new D&D version every 4 years if all the new edition stuff would actually be released together. Waiting 3 years for Complete Scoundrel makes me sooo not appreciate 3.75 if I'd had to abandon it after only 1 year playing with it.

Unless Skill Tricks are a portent of what's to come.  

Releasing new editions that fast makes campaign sourcebooks like Five Nations retarded, too. As it stands all the crunch in these will become obsolete, and the 3.75 Five Nations will be redundant in the fluff department. Just drop the new Feats and PrCs. You could then just advance the history or some metaplot thingie with each new version.


----------



## Storm Raven (Jan 19, 2007)

Ranger REG said:
			
		

> Then I also oppose sympathizers who are willing to pull double jobs to get revisions.




So, it isn't just people with silver spoons in their mouths that you don't like, it is people who work hard to get money too? Do you dislike people who make the same amount of money you do but have different spending priorities as well?



> _As for my voice being amount to nothing, I DON'T THINK SO. If I'm the only one here to state it publicly and no one shares my sentiment, then so be it. But it is not nothing._




You can rant, that's your right. But, as I said, if what Dancey has said is correct, it is nothing that WotC will care about. You see that modifier "that WotC will care about"? That's the meat here. _You_ care about it. Your mother may care about it. The guy sitting next to you at the gaming table may care about it. But the liklihood is that WotC simply will not.


----------



## Storm Raven (Jan 19, 2007)

Ranger REG said:
			
		

> Can one single product sold to 5 million customers be enough to keep the business going for at least 5 years?
> 
> Right, and I can crap gold stool and I can cough up silver mucus.




You do realize that selling one product to five million people amounts to identical sales as selling 50 products to 100,000 people don't you? If the "50 products selling 100,000 copies apiece" model is sufficient to keep a business afloat, then the "1 product selling 5,000,000 copie" is likely to be _better_, since you don't have to develop the 49 additional products and can save money on that end.


----------



## kenobi65 (Jan 19, 2007)

Storm Raven said:
			
		

> You do realize that selling one product to five million people amounts to identical sales as selling 50 products to 100,000 people don't you? If the "50 products selling 100,000 copies apiece" model is sufficient to keep a business afloat, then the "1 product selling 5,000,000 copie" is likely to be _better_, since you don't have to develop the 49 additional products and can save money on that end.




Except for the whole cash-flow thing.

Most game books have a high front-end sales spike.  Core rulebooks aren't quite as "spikey" in that regard (because you always have a certain number of people just coming into the game), but, even so, you'd sell an awful lot of those 5 million in the first few months.

In order to remain a viable business and make their bosses in Rhode Island happy, WotC has to show good sales on an ongoing basis.


----------



## Storm Raven (Jan 19, 2007)

kenobi65 said:
			
		

> Except for the whole cash-flow thing.
> 
> Most game books have a high front-end sales spike.  Core rulebooks aren't quite as "spikey" in that regard (because you always have a certain number of people just coming into the game), but, even so, you'd sell an awful lot of those 5 million in the first few months.
> 
> In order to remain a viable business and make their bosses in Rhode Island happy, WotC has to show good sales on an ongoing basis.




The 1e PHB supposedly sold about 200,000 units per year for multiple years in a row. That sort of consistency would certainly work fine to support a company.


----------



## dcas (Jan 19, 2007)

Storm Raven said:
			
		

> The 1e PHB supposedly sold about 200,000 units per year for multiple years in a row. That sort of consistency would certainly work fine to support a company.



It also sold enough that TSR continued to print it for a year (two printings!) after the 2e PHB was released. _Unearthed Arcana_ sold so well that it was printed for two years (4-5 printings!!) after the 2e PHB was released.

So yeah, the books had staying power, and there's no reason to think that the same couldn't be true of 3.x.


----------



## kenobi65 (Jan 19, 2007)

Storm Raven said:
			
		

> The 1e PHB supposedly sold about 200,000 units per year for multiple years in a row. That sort of consistency would certainly work fine to support a company.




A small company would kill or die for that.  A medium-sized company would, too.  I'm still not convinced that that (200K sales of one book per year, and that's it) would be enough to keep Hasbro happy.  As it is, D&D may well be worth more to them for the IP, and the related income (from the novels and licensing) than it is for the actual RPG sales.


----------



## kenobi65 (Jan 19, 2007)

dcas said:
			
		

> It also sold enough that TSR continued to print it for a year (two printings!) after the 2e PHB was released. _Unearthed Arcana_ sold so well that it was printed for two years (4-5 printings!!) after the 2e PHB was released.
> 
> So yeah, the books had staying power, and there's no reason to think that the same couldn't be true of 3.x.




Even so, that also was 20 years ago, and, depending on who you talk to, the RPG industry may not be as healthy now as it was then.


----------



## Storm Raven (Jan 19, 2007)

kenobi65 said:
			
		

> A small company would kill or die for that.  A medium-sized company would, too.  I'm still not convinced that that (200K sales of one book per year, and that's it) would be enough to keep Hasbro happy.




WotC, in a non-new-edition-release-year, may not sell a whole lot more total books than that as it stands now. From the figures I have seen (unverified, so take them with a grain of salt), print runs of 20K or so for the various hardback supplements are not that uncommon. Under that assumption, the math adds up to a few hundred thousand game books sold per year for WotC.


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## Prince of Happiness (Jan 19, 2007)

Ranger REG said:
			
		

> I'm sorry, but my wallet and I heavily oppose those forces. I'm not in favor of buying revisions every 3 years. I oppose any [silver-spoon] fans who support this marketing ploy. They might as well send ther full wallet to me since they got money to burn.




Silver spoon? Man, like Ice Cube did for beats, I'm jackin' for books.


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## SteveC (Jan 19, 2007)

You know I'm really surprised at the hostility to the release of an updated rules set every few years. With the SRD, it's perfectly possible to play a 3.5 campaign using your 3.0 rulebooks. Heck, I ran a 3.5 campaign by only updating my Monster Manual, and I haven't ever purchased the 3.5 DMG.

An update of the 3.5 rules to add in the rules that have become defacto parts of 3.5 would be welcomed by me: rules for immediate and swift actions, updates to the polymorph rules, addition of class variant options for the core classes, errata for spells and addition of the new uses for skills...all of those things would cause me to buy a new PHB right now. They also wouldn't invalidate any of the current splat books.

Just sayin' is all.

--Steve


----------



## delericho (Jan 19, 2007)

T. Foster said:
			
		

> I'd rather see WotC aim to make money by selling 1 product to 5 million people rather than by selling 50 products each to 100,000 people




What do the game designers do while the company is living off the income generated by their new PHB 4.0? If they're not producing anything for the game, why would Wizards want to keep them on-staff? Would it not be better to lay off the entire design staff, except for one lead designer, and have him lead a team of freelancers in the development of the PHB 5.0 in four years time?

Is that really what you want to see WotC doing?


----------



## Storm Raven (Jan 19, 2007)

delericho said:
			
		

> What do the game designers do while the company is living off the income generated by their new PHB 4.0? If they're not producing anything for the game, why would Wizards want to keep them on-staff? Would it not be better to lay off the entire design staff, except for one lead designer, and have him lead a team of freelancers in the development of the PHB 5.0 in four years time?
> 
> Is that really what you want to see WotC doing?




Its what most publishing companies do. Why should WotC be markedly different?

I would rather see WotC have a stable of freelancers they work with on an as needed basis and have them be top notch guys than have one or two top guys and a bunch of second tier talent on staff.


----------



## T. Foster (Jan 19, 2007)

delericho said:
			
		

> What do the game designers do while the company is living off the income generated by their new PHB 4.0? If they're not producing anything for the game, why would Wizards want to keep them on-staff? Would it not be better to lay off the entire design staff, except for one lead designer, and have him lead a team of freelancers in the development of the PHB 5.0 in four years time?
> 
> Is that really what you want to see WotC doing?



 Yeah, pretty much.


----------



## WayneLigon (Jan 19, 2007)

Storm Raven said:
			
		

> I would rather see WotC have a stable of freelancers they work with on an as needed basis and have them be top notch guys than have one or two top guys and a bunch of second tier talent on staff.




Why would you assume the freelancers would be top-notch guys? I've seen several companies complain about the ability of freelancers to complete projects on time and turn in quality work. As I understand it, normally even if a book is written by a freelancer it's then turned over to an in-house design staff to make sure it's complete.


----------



## DaveMage (Jan 19, 2007)

SteveC said:
			
		

> You know I'm really surprised at the hostility to the release of an updated rules set every few years. With the SRD, it's perfectly possible to play a 3.5 campaign using your 3.0 rulebooks. Heck, I ran a 3.5 campaign by only updating my Monster Manual, and I haven't ever purchased the 3.5 DMG.
> 
> An update of the 3.5 rules to add in the rules that have become defacto parts of 3.5 would be welcomed by me: rules for immediate and swift actions, updates to the polymorph rules, addition of class variant options for the core classes, errata for spells and addition of the new uses for skills...all of those things would cause me to buy a new PHB right now. They also wouldn't invalidate any of the current splat books.
> 
> ...




You are presuming a mild update, and I don't think many would argue with you if that were the case.  3.5 changed just enough, though, that it made many 3.0 products a hassle to update.  Adventures written with the 3.0 mentality's tactics, suddenly became silly (the changes in haste and harm spells greatly affected the FR Spider Queen adventure, for example). 

For a greater update, I think the amount of hostility is proportional to the amount of products one has purchased in the current system.  If you only have a handful of 3.5 books, then, sure, why would you care if there's an update?  Your financial investment in the system is minor.  But if you have, say, hundreds of 3.5 compatible products (especially adventures), you are much less likely to want an update that may affect the usefulness of the products you have.

(And certainly, one doesn't have to update, but if you are a DM who wants to continue to play 3.5 because you've purchased 100 books for the system, and then 4E comes out, which your 4 players, who buy maybe 4 books/year like even better, then all the investment in 3.5 either becomes a waste or a headache to convert.)


----------



## SteveC (Jan 19, 2007)

DaveMage said:
			
		

> You are presuming a mild update, and I don't think many would argue with you if that were the case.  3.5 changed just enough, though, that it made many 3.0 products a hassle to update.  Adventures written with the 3.0 mentality's tactics, suddenly became silly (the changes in haste and harm spells greatly affected the FR Spider Queen adventure, for example).
> 
> For a greater update, I think the amount of hostility is proportional to the amount of products one has purchased in the current system.  If you only have a handful of 3.5 books, then, sure, why would you care if there's an update?  Your financial investment in the system is minor.  But if you have, say, hundreds of 3.5 compatible products (especially adventures), you are much less likely to want an update that may affect the usefulness of the products you have.
> 
> (And certainly, one doesn't have to update, but if you are a DM who wants to continue to play 3.5 because you've purchased 100 books for the system, and then 4E comes out, which your 4 players, who buy maybe 4 books/year like even better, then all the investment in 3.5 either becomes a waste or a headache to convert.)



Yes, I'm thinking more of a minor set of updates encorporating errata and product updates into the Core. In the long run, this will actually save some space, as many of these rules are included in every WotC product. How many times do I need to see those swift/immediate action rules?

A full-on new edition, to my mind, should occur only ever eight to ten years. A revised rulebook that doesn't invalidate the current splats can come every two years or so as far as I am concerned. I won't necessarily buy each and every one mind you (a new DMG would have to include some significant changes for me to want it, for example), but I think this is really just part of doing business at this point.


----------



## Storm Raven (Jan 19, 2007)

WayneLigon said:
			
		

> Why would you assume the freelancers would be top-notch guys?




Because if WotC didn't have to pay for a large staff, then they could afford to pay freelance writers and designers enough money to make it worth their while to take on projects for them.



> I've seen several companies complain about the ability of freelancers to complete projects on time and turn in quality work. As I understand it, normally even if a book is written by a freelancer it's then turned over to an in-house design staff to make sure it's complete.




Several companies in the gaming industry also pay very poorly, pay late, don't work well with their freelance help, and generally don't do what it takes to attract the best talent.


----------



## Fifth Element (Jan 19, 2007)

Banshee16 said:
			
		

> I know I could probably sell my Dark Sun collection for $100 or $200...but it cost far more than that to get it in the first place....hence it's not an investment.




Not to pick nits, but this depends on how you define "investment". From a business perspective, an "investment" is not something that necessarily increases in value (or is expected to increase in value) over time. When a business invests in a machine (and "invest" is the proper term), it does not expect to sell it in 10 years at a profit. An investment in this sense is something that makes you money, or provides some benefit, over a long period of time.

So an RPG collection is an investment - sure you may "lose money" if you resell it, but between the time you bought it and the time you sold it, you *used* it, and had fun with it. And that has value. Value that's hard to attach a number to, but value nonetheless.


----------



## Fifth Element (Jan 19, 2007)

T. Foster said:
			
		

> I'd rather see WotC aim to make money by selling 1 product to 5 million people rather than by selling 50 products each to 100,000 people (and my idea of "1 product" does not include either a monthly subscription fee or a need to continually buy new "booster packs" of minis/cards/whatever...).




Then stop complaining and get yourself appointed to Hasbro's Board of Directors already! Just write them a nice letter explaining what they're doing wrong, and I'm sure they'll be keen to hear all of your ideas.


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## RyanD (Jan 19, 2007)

DaveMage said:
			
		

> 3.5 changed just enough, though, that it made many 3.0 products a hassle to update.




I honestly don't think WotC's R&D group believed the changes in 3.5 were as big as they actually were.  Part of the problem with R&D is and was that they for the most part are not into min/maxing PCs.  (They spend most of their days working on monsters and NPCs, after all).

While running Living City, I worked with a team of about 10 people who were, in my opinion, as good at their "job" (finding and fixing problems with 3.0 as they related to PC powers) as the team I worked with in R&D.  We found so many issues that the Living City errata and change document grew to be about 30 pages long; and that included stuff that was just notated as "not permitted" because we never could find good ways to fix it.

We saw a lot of that stuff incorporated into 3.5.  I'm not saying the R&D team lifted our work verbatim (and they certainly could have, since by license it was all owned by WotC anyway) but even if they did the same kind of work in parallel and found the same problems and the same kinds of solutions, much of what we did to Living City to make the game work better was incorporated into 3.5.

However, we had the advantage with Living City of seeing how our changes directly impacted the play pattern.  When we changed various spells, we saw the reactions of the players as they switched tactics.  That in turn became reflected in the adventure design guidelines that we were using to create content for those PCs.  (And in 3.0 Living City we didn't change the durations of the buffs, but we discussed it, and knew what kind of problems doing so would likely cause).  With 3.5, I believe that WotC made a lot of changes to make the game better, but didn't have the ability/interest to see how those changes would radically alter the way the game was being played.  I think that if they had understood how far-reaching those "minor" changes were, they may not have made them.

Mechanically, 3.0 and 3.5 are virtually identical games, with the exception of a few things on the margin.  But component-wise, the 3.5 spells and some of the 3.5 extraordinary and supernatural abilities make the play experience so different that adventure material written for one is almost certainly compromised when used with the other.  That was, I think, an unintended consequence.

Ryan


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## T. Foster (Jan 19, 2007)

Fifth Element said:
			
		

> Then stop complaining and get yourself appointed to Hasbro's Board of Directors already! Just write them a nice letter explaining what they're doing wrong, and I'm sure they'll be keen to hear all of your ideas.



Ooh, snarky! I'm not claiming to have all the answers, I'm just stating my preference.


----------



## Lanefan (Jan 19, 2007)

RyanD said:
			
		

> What I'd *like* to see is a "4th Edition" which hybridizes MMORPG play and tabletop play, with an RPGA moderation facility, that uses on-line tools to create characters and scenarios, and focuses on bringing the best elements of the tabletop and the digital environments together under the most powerful brand in fantasy adventure gaming.  If you ever see a notice that WotC has hired me back to run RPGs, that's the direction I'll be looking to move.



What would it take to talk you out of incorporating MMORPGs into the main game?  I do *not* want to see the day come when an internet-connected computer becomes an essential tool required to play a tabletop game!

Lanefan


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## happyelf (Jan 19, 2007)

RyanD said:
			
		

> What I'd *like* to see is a "4th Edition" which hybridizes MMORPG play and tabletop play, with an RPGA moderation facility, that uses on-line tools to create characters and scenarios, and focuses on bringing the best elements of the tabletop and the digital environments together under the most powerful brand in fantasy adventure gaming.



I've heard nothing but bad things about the RPGA and i'm familiar enough with MMORPG's to be highly dubious about such a combination. If anything we'd end up with the worst of the two, not the best, because such an inclusive system would drift towards the lowest common denominator. And of course, if you made this a feature, people would be unable to ignore it, assuming you want this service-based approach to be viable.

There are a lot of different play-styles out there, and many of them don't play well together. You may consider such issues marginal, but they'd be the kiss of death when trying to create a comunity that was unified in a meaningful way.

I can see a lot of appeal for some minor online resources. I think integrated web-based tools for things like character creation and so on would be great. And I can see a lot of potential for a functional matching system. I can also imagine other resources, like pages for various settings and locations(such as a city or nation), with an option to add articles where people could talk about their usage of or alterations to the area, and various voting and search features. There is a lot of potential.

But if you try and bring everyone into one tent, it's just going to be a really big, really crappy tent, that a large number of people will not touch with a ten foot tent-pole. And just to clarify, i'm not talking the kind of pole you hold a tent up with, i'm talking about a pole purchased by tentventurers specifically for the cautious poking of potentially dangerous tents. Even such courageous heroes would not risk their pole on such a tent.

Anybody who thinks i'm exagerating need only look around the net a bit for bad gamer stories, or read some of the news articles that arise from the WOW sensation. MMO's and RPG's get played by a lot of wierd, sometimes unpleasant people. Creating a unified comunity would bring more people from the latter category into contact with other players, and frankly they do enough damage as it is. 

The worst participants on our hobby already cost us huge numbers of new players, drive people out of the LGS, kill gaming clubs, and worse. Trying to sell a comunity to these people is a bad idea. Still, it would be funny to read.

Oh, and D&D isn't the most powerful brand in fantasy adventure gaming, that's "Warcraft", as in "world of", as in "you can't beat it at it's own game, don't even try".


----------



## helium3 (Jan 19, 2007)

Lanefan said:
			
		

> What would it take to talk you out of incorporating MMORPGs into the main game?  I do *not* want to see the day come when an internet-connected computer becomes an essential tool required to play a tabletop game!
> 
> Lanefan




First things first, he'd actually have to work for the company that's going to eventually be releasing a new version of the main game.

Secondly, you'd have to promise to buy enough extra copies of the game to make up for the new players of the game that WOTC would lose by NOT building in some sort of MMO tie-in.

An MMO tie-in, if done well, would be a huge opportunity for WOTC to vastly increase the number of people that actually play the game. And, as much as grognards would hate it, that would probably be good for the hobbie in the long run.


----------



## Mark CMG (Jan 19, 2007)

RyanD - As long as you are sharing so much of your knowledge and insight, what was it that happened with GAMA?  What was the extent and result of your involvment?  What sort of shape is GAMA in now? Do you have any connection with Games Quarterly that is now so vigorously competing with GAMA to be the primary national convention for game manufacturers (Games Expo 2007)?


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## RyanD (Jan 19, 2007)

happyelf said:
			
		

> Oh, and D&D isn't the most powerful brand in fantasy adventure gaming, that's "Warcraft", as in "world of", as in "you can't beat it at it's own game, don't even try".




If they take no action, WotC will let the above become truth.  Today, it is not truth.  WoW has a lot of players, but there's very little brand equity in it; it mostly means "a MMORPG".  D&D, over 35 years, has a vastly wider audience, across a wide demographic, a diverse psychographic, and it has been successfully leveraged into movies, video games, and novels, as well as its original application as a tabletop RPG.

Give them 10 more years, and Blizzard will solidify their brand and D&D will lose that race forever.  But the race is still running as we debate, and it is far from lost.

Ryan


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## DaveMage (Jan 19, 2007)

RyanD said:
			
		

> I honestly don't think WotC's R&D group believed the changes in 3.5 were as big as they actually were.  Part of the problem with R&D is and was that they for the most part are not into min/maxing PCs.  (They spend most of their days working on monsters and NPCs, after all).




Interesting.

When you were there, did WotC market research indicate what percentage of gamers play with a min/max style?


----------



## Flexor the Mighty! (Jan 19, 2007)

helium3 said:
			
		

> First things first, he'd actually have to work for the company that's going to eventually be releasing a new version of the main game.
> 
> Secondly, you'd have to promise to buy enough extra copies of the game to make up for the new players of the game that WOTC would lose by NOT building in some sort of MMO tie-in.
> 
> An MMO tie-in, if done well, would be a huge opportunity for WOTC to vastly increase the number of people that actually play the game. And, as much as grognards would hate it, that would probably be good for the hobbie in the long run.




So the best thing for tabletop gaming would be to take it off the tabletop?


----------



## RyanD (Jan 19, 2007)

Mark CMG said:
			
		

> what was it that happened with GAMA?




I made a really bad decision.  I discovered that the GAMA board of directors was using email list management software that published their correspondence to a public website, and after making that discovery, I monitored that list (i.e., I read their private email) without telling them that it was possible to do so.  At the time, it seemed like a reasonable tactic in a heated political battle; the Board was actively engaged in a variety of actions I felt had the immediate potential to destroy the organization if they were not held accountable and were actively engaged in efforts to conceal information from the public and from GAMA's own members.  In retrospect, the information gained proved trivial, and was far outweighed by the unethical act which provided that information.  One of the first things I did following the election in which I was named GAMA Treasurer was to notify the Board about the security leaks, the Board disclosed that information to the GAMA Members and the previous Board members, and after substantial debate, I tendered my resignation so as to limit the fallout of my actions.  I hoped that my resignation would firewall the matter and let the rest of the Board get on with the work they had been elected to perform.  Unfortunately, they never recovered their momentum and the potential for good was lost.



> What sort of shape is GAMA in now?




It's in worse shape than it could be, but it is not as bad off as it might have become.  They have a lot of challenges to overcome due to changes in the marketplace, and they have had a hard time communicating to the publishers the value of GAMA membership.  I certainly share part of the blame for that condition.



> Do you have any connection with Games Quarterly that is now so vigorously competing with GAMA to be the primary national convention for game manufacturers (Games Expo 2007)?




I occasionally write for GC, and I'll be attending the Expo in a non-official capacity (although I may be moderating a panel or two).  I don't see what Mark Simmons is doing with his show as being necessarily bad for GAMA, or GAMA's Trade Show; GAMA is focsed on "the hobby gaming industry" and Games Expo has a wider focus - anyone who makes or sells games of any kind.  I see the two as complimentary in many respects.

Ryan


----------



## Glyfair (Jan 19, 2007)

Flexor the Mighty! said:
			
		

> So the best thing for tabletop gaming would be to take it off the tabletop?




I'm not sure exactly what Ryan is looking for here.  However, I do think it could be a good idea would be to design it so that the ability to use these things is part of the game.  I shouldn't be required, but it should be there (sort of like the TVs that started being designed "cable ready" before cable was in almost every home).


----------



## RyanD (Jan 19, 2007)

DaveMage said:
			
		

> When you were there, did WotC market research indicate what percentage of gamers play with a min/max style?




Roughly 20%.  You can read all about it at:

http://www.seankreynolds.com/rpgfiles/gaming/BreakdownOfRPGPlayers.html

Ryan


----------



## DaveMage (Jan 19, 2007)

RyanD said:
			
		

> Roughly 20%.  You can read all about it at:
> 
> http://www.seankreynolds.com/rpgfiles/gaming/BreakdownOfRPGPlayers.html
> 
> Ryan




Thanks!


----------



## RyanD (Jan 19, 2007)

Flexor the Mighty! said:
			
		

> So the best thing for tabletop gaming would be to take it off the tabletop?




I'd like to see a game that you can play either on the tabletop, or on the computer.  Ideally, you could move characters back and forth between the tabletop and the digital realm, but that might be impossible.  You should certainly be able to use one unified toolset to create adventure content that would work both on the tabletop and in the digital realm.

I'd move the game to a subscription service, with a marketplace for adventure content that 3rd party developers could tap into, and an open development model for the rules of the game and for game components, to maximize the value of everyone who would be interested in participating in that process.

I could see people playing with nothing more complex than some dice and some books, and other people playing a 100% digital game with no real-world component of any kind; and both groups would be playing basically the same game -- as well as several hybridized points along that continuum.

I think that the depth and quality of the rules, the value of the various worlds, and the strength of the community of people who would be interested in developing content would let D&D kick any competitive game system in the nuts, hard.


----------



## Mark CMG (Jan 19, 2007)

RyanD said:
			
		

> I made a really bad decision.





Fair enough for me.  Thanks for being so forthcoming.




			
				RyanD said:
			
		

> It's in worse shape than it could be, but it is not as bad off as it might have become.  They have a lot of challenges to overcome due to changes in the marketplace, and they have had a hard time communicating to the publishers the value of GAMA membership.





Would you outline their course much differently than you did while you were trying to affect those changes from within?




			
				RyanD said:
			
		

> I occasionally write for GC, and I'll be attending the Expo in a non-official capacity (although I may be moderating a panel or two).  I don't see what Mark Simmons is doing with his show as being necessarily bad for GAMA, or GAMA's Trade Show; GAMA is focsed on "the hobby gaming industry" and Games Expo has a wider focus - anyone who makes or sells games of any kind.  I see the two as complimentary in many respects.





It seemed to me that the Expo was attempting to envelop "the hobby gaming industry" focus as part of its larger focus, eliminating a need for GAMA's trade show.  Have you heard anyone mention that they would have to be choosing between the two, as funds are too limited to do both?  The Expo certainly has walked into the attention of the industry and sat right down on GAMA's yearly time slot and location, no?


----------



## Banshee16 (Jan 19, 2007)

Fifth Element said:
			
		

> Not to pick nits, but this depends on how you define "investment". From a business perspective, an "investment" is not something that necessarily increases in value (or is expected to increase in value) over time. When a business invests in a machine (and "invest" is the proper term), it does not expect to sell it in 10 years at a profit. An investment in this sense is something that makes you money, or provides some benefit, over a long period of time.
> 
> So an RPG collection is an investment - sure you may "lose money" if you resell it, but between the time you bought it and the time you sold it, you *used* it, and had fun with it. And that has value. Value that's hard to attach a number to, but value nonetheless.




In my mind, that's why it's an entertainment purchase, and not an investment.  Maybe it's because I have so many accountants in the family that I'm just looking at it a little more critically.

And I don't say any of this to disparage those who buy the books....because I've got tonnes of them as well.  However, edition changes lead to older stuff becoming fairly useless, hence I prefer them to be stretched out as long as possible.

Banshee


----------



## delericho (Jan 19, 2007)

DaveMage said:
			
		

> For a greater update, I think the amount of hostility is proportional to the amount of products one has purchased in the current system.  If you only have a handful of 3.5 books, then, sure, why would you care if there's an update?  Your financial investment in the system is minor.  But if you have, say, hundreds of 3.5 compatible products (especially adventures), you are much less likely to want an update that may affect the usefulness of the products you have.




I may be a statistical outlier, but I have a great deal invested in 3.5 (and 3.0 before it), but would positively welcome a well-done 4e at this time. The sheer weight of the ruleset has become a burden to me, and I would like to see much of the dross cleared out and the best options rolled into the core.

That said, I would only accept a 'new edition' every four years if I was told that this was the plan up front and it was matched by a vastly reduced number of 'significant' supplements between editions. (First on my chopping-block would be the "Complete X" and "Races of" books - these are fine utility books, but don't inspire, and if we're cutting the number of releases then I want only the best of the best to be produced.)


----------



## helium3 (Jan 19, 2007)

Flexor the Mighty! said:
			
		

> So the best thing for tabletop gaming would be to take it off the tabletop?




Yeah sure. There's no reason that the table-top experience (or at least portions of it) can't be ported into some sort of an electronic construct. There are definitely parts of the game that are better handled by machines.


----------



## helium3 (Jan 19, 2007)

RyanD said:
			
		

> I'd like to see a game that you can play either on the tabletop, or on the computer.  Ideally, you could move characters back and forth between the tabletop and the digital realm, but that might be impossible.  You should certainly be able to use one unified toolset to create adventure content that would work both on the tabletop and in the digital realm.
> 
> I'd move the game to a subscription service, with a marketplace for adventure content that 3rd party developers could tap into, and an open development model for the rules of the game and for game components, to maximize the value of everyone who would be interested in participating in that process.
> 
> ...




Get out of my head.


----------



## DaveMage (Jan 19, 2007)

delericho said:
			
		

> I may be a statistical outlier, but I have a great deal invested in 3.5 (and 3.0 before it), but would positively welcome a well-done 4e at this time. The sheer weight of the ruleset has become a burden to me, and I would like to see much of the dross cleared out and the best options rolled into the core.




Out of curiosity (if you don't mind answering), how many 3.5 (both WotC and other companies) adventures would you say you had?


----------



## JVisgaitis (Jan 19, 2007)

Ryan, do you think there is enough life left in d20 for a new company to come in and make an impact (with the PDF business aside)? Do you think a new verison of D&D (in whatever form it may take) could jumpstart the d20 print market again?


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## RyanD (Jan 19, 2007)

JVisgaitis said:
			
		

> Ryan, do you think there is enough life left in d20 for a new company to come in and make an impact




I absolutely believe that.

If someone came up with a concept as compelling in 2007 as Vampire was in 1991, I think it would be successful regardless of what game engine it used.

I think that if someone could come up with a compelling new kind of marketing that reached the millions of people playing D&D and got them to buy something, it would be very successful.

I think that if you could convince enough people that you're a REALLY REALLY GOOD game designer, and that you were publishing a core RPG that was just plain better (in a demonstrable sense that you'd actually experience on the tabletop), you could attempt to cultivate a cult following and build that into a larger business over time.

What I don't believe is that you can publish a generic, Middle-Earth clone fantasy world, a series of splatbooks, and advertise it with a web site/discussion board system, a few banner ads and maybe a page in an issue or two of Dragon Magazine, and expect to generate very much revenue or interest.

Ryan


----------



## Piratecat (Jan 19, 2007)

Fifth Element said:
			
		

> Then stop complaining and get yourself appointed to Hasbro's Board of Directors already! Just write them a nice letter explaining what they're doing wrong, and I'm sure they'll be keen to hear all of your ideas.



*This is probably meant tongue in cheek, but please be careful about making arguments personal; snarky comments can easily be misinterpreted.*


----------



## Ranger REG (Jan 20, 2007)

Maggan said:
			
		

> That's cool. I'll just buy two each of the eventually released books, to cover for your lack of enthusiasm!



More like my lack of OVER-enthusiasm.


----------



## Ranger REG (Jan 20, 2007)

SteveC said:
			
		

> You know I'm really surprised at the hostility to the release of an updated rules set every few years. With the SRD, it's perfectly possible to play a 3.5 campaign using your 3.0 rulebooks. Heck, I ran a 3.5 campaign by only updating my Monster Manual, and I haven't ever purchased the 3.5 DMG.
> 
> An update of the 3.5 rules to add in the rules that have become defacto parts of 3.5 would be welcomed by me: rules for immediate and swift actions, updates to the polymorph rules, addition of class variant options for the core classes, errata for spells and addition of the new uses for skills...all of those things would cause me to buy a new PHB right now. They also wouldn't invalidate any of the current splat books.
> 
> Just sayin' is all.



But would it cause you to buy a new _PHB_ every three years? Sure, it's updated, but you're forking over $30 for a little update from your previous $30 copy.

No, I can't handle buying new updated _PHB, DMG, and MM1 every three years. Maybe every 5 to 6 years, but not 3 to 4 years. I'd drop D&D in favor of their other lines, even if that makes me an outcast of the D&D "in" crowd._


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## kenobi65 (Jan 20, 2007)

happyelf said:
			
		

> I've heard nothing but bad things about the RPGA...




I'm just curious...exactly what "bad things" do you hear?

I ask because "I've heard nothing but bad things about the RPGA" is a pretty common attitude I see among EN Worlders.  Please don't consider me an RPGA apologist (the organization has a lot of warts), but I've enjoyed playing in the RPGA for years.  It's obviously not for everyone, but I'm always curious to hear why people hate RPGA so much.


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## teitan (Jan 20, 2007)

Ryan Dancey to me is like the Sandy Collora of RPGs. Sandy Collora is a guy who works in movies who's done a few short films about Batman and Superman that looked cool as 3 minute clips but everybody praises them like the man is a god and is proving that you can use the traditional costumes etc. I think the guy could be about the worst thing for a comic book movie but anyway... people latch onto these guys opinion and the majority of the time it seems to me personally that they are wrong and by a wide margin. While I agree that WOW and similar games have eaten into the RPG audience by eating up entertainment dollars but he seems to exaggerate the extent and his opinions on D&D development and where it is going should have as much weight as my own opinions because we don't work in the company and our insights should both be seen in the same light: idle speculation. Sure, he is more educated on the matter but how long has it been since he worked at the company? Another opinion of his that I think is wrong is his opinion on various campaign settings for D&D being a part of TSR's downfall when you look at other companies like WHite Wolf and it is THEIR bread and butter. I'm sorry, Ryan Dancey is a lot of smoke & mirrors.


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## JVisgaitis (Jan 20, 2007)

teitan said:
			
		

> I'm sorry, Ryan Dancey is a lot of smoke & mirrors.




That was kinda harsh. Did you miss the whole part in the thread where his accuracy on all things in the industry was mentioned? Ryan's arguments are usually backed by a lot of real world data. I'd like to see the data you are using to back up your observations. Either that, or a resume with some real world experience.


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## Mighty Veil (Jan 20, 2007)

RyanD said:
			
		

> If they take no action, WotC will let the above become truth.  Today, it is not truth.  WoW has a lot of players, but there's very little brand equity in it; it mostly means "a MMORPG".  D&D, over 35 years, has a vastly wider audience,




Only problem is the D&D brand has a negative public reaction, unlike WoW. I think that's been RPGs' problems since the mid-90s. Most of its designers stopped designing it for a wider audience. It choose the demos it wanted to appeal to. And that narrow choice to overall target made it something far, far away to the radar of the casual person.

At work people have no troubles talking about WoW in front of others. A few who hadn't heard of it will make a "D&D" joke. But then that joker gets quickly corrected -- "It's not D&D! It's an online game".

Michael Jackson is a father. No one thinks "MJ" when asked for a good example of an adult with children. He has a bad rep. D&D's rep isn't very good these days.


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## Umbran (Jan 20, 2007)

teitan said:
			
		

> I'm sorry, Ryan Dancey is a lot of smoke & mirrors.





Perhaps you missed the post above, where in bright bold red letters a moderator warned against making arguments personal.  

I should not have to make a second warning about that so soon.  So everybody, before you post - consider carefully, because there won't be a third warning.  Respect, please.  No more name calling, derision, or dismissiveness.


----------



## happyelf (Jan 20, 2007)

RyanD said:
			
		

> If they take no action, WotC will let the above become truth.



I didn't say they should take action, but they can't beat Blizzard in the MMO stakes. They're too strong. This is particularly true considering how many companies are already trying to create the next WOW or some variation therof. WOTC and any company would be better off staying away from the MMO model, unless they simply want to create a profitable MMO and feel they have a niche, as may be the case with White Wolf.



> Today, it is not truth.  WoW has a lot of players, but there's very little brand equity in it; it mostly means "a MMORPG".



I'm no fan of the warcraft setting but a lot of people have played those games and for a great many of them that _is_ the generic fantasy setting. You ask these people what fantasy isto them and they will say warcraft and the LOTR movies.

Blizzard has een around a long time and they have a generation of loyal fans who have grown up playing their games. There are even many people who look at Dawn of War and claim that Games Workshop is ripping off Starcraft(as opposed to Starship Troopers). And we're not talking small numbers here, we're talking huge numbers of fans.



> D&D, over 35 years, has a vastly wider audience, across a wide demographic, a diverse psychographic, and it has been successfully leveraged into movies, video games, and novels, as well as its original application as a tabletop RPG.



I really think you're underestimating the huge power of Blizzard and it's games. This is an industtry giant in an industry much larger than this one. And while MMO's are still a niche hobby, WOW is hugely suceessful and is clearly tapping into mainstream demographics, many of wich is brushed against with it's earlier games.



> Give them 10 more years, and Blizzard will solidify their brand and D&D will lose that race forever.  But the race is still running as we debate, and it is far from lost.
> Ryan



The best way to win a battle is before it is even fought. Blizzard did that, by creating a brand and a loyal fanbase years before it took on the MMO genre. And when it did hit that genre, it turned that fanbase into the a core wich has grown to enormous size. Nobody can struggle with them now, they already won, and there's no shortage of would-be-giant killers viying for future market share.

I'm aware that you're not nesecarily proposing a straight up mmo brawl here, but the reality is that if you try and tpa in that market, you're competing with WOW and other potential giants directly, and they're already taking players and consumers away from computer games and hobby games. The solution to that isn't to meet them head on, it's to find a niche they're not serving.

I personally think that niche is variety. Variety of preference is at the core of this hobby and WOTC or another large company were to really embrace that as part of their product, that could give them a more genuine service to sell to subscribers, for instance. Ideas like player matching (not just by location, but by play style, freetime, ect), some kind of simple prefernce language, and a versatile approach to mechanics and the like would give players the tools they need to find the games they want.

This is of course the opposite of the MMO approach, where everyone is in a big tent and variant play styles are at best poorly understood. Even WOW has at least partially failed to sevice variants like more casual players and PVPers. but they can hardly avoid doing so since such attempts clash with the MMO model.


----------



## happyelf (Jan 20, 2007)

kenobi65 said:
			
		

> I'm just curious...exactly what "bad things" do you hear?
> I ask because "I've heard nothing but bad things about the RPGA" is a pretty common attitude I see among EN Worlders.  Please don't consider me an RPGA apologist (the organization has a lot of warts), but I've enjoyed playing in the RPGA for years.  It's obviously not for everyone, but I'm always curious to hear why people hate RPGA so much.



I just hear a lot wich suggests to me that it's dominated by powergamers and inclusive in a way wich ultimatly drives people away from it.

Then there's the unsubstantiated rumors. Like some guy in new zealand saying that he went to a meet and the guy who got player of the night was the guy who kept screaming "BOOYAH" whenever he rolled good. And there was some guy in Brisbane who refused to talk to women at his table. Stuff like that wich, while it could be dismissed, is passed around a bit too often to be disregarded entirely.

Sure, a lot of it is common to clubs and conventions regardless of their afiliation, but that's the point- if you're going to have an RPGA, it has to do better than the norm, or better than the lower benchmark. 

I think comunity is the key to this hobbymaking a resurgence, in fact I think it would birng the hobby to new heights. If we can create real clubs, a club culture, that embrances not only playstyle and other types of matching, but requires a decent standard of behaviour from it's members, I think this hobby could explode. Buti've yet to see an organisation that could really make that happen.


----------



## Glyfair (Jan 20, 2007)

happyelf said:
			
		

> Stuff like that wich, while it could be dismissed, is passed around a bit too often to be disregarded entirely.




You mean like the things I hear about players that play D&D?  I hear a lot about how people that play are always committing crimes that play D&D.  That sort of stuff is passed around pretty often, too.


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## happyelf (Jan 20, 2007)

Glyfair said:
			
		

> You mean like the things I hear about players that play D&D?  I hear a lot about how people that play are always committing crimes that play D&D.  That sort of stuff is passed around pretty often, too.



Yeah, I hear a lot of stories about people who play D&D being socially inept, neurotic, acting out wierd power fantasies in the game, I hear about whole clubs dying because the people in charge won't deal with key troublemakers with odious personalities, I hear about long term friendships being ruined by bad games, I hear about new players being driven away from the hobby because their first experience with it is extremly unpleasant. And you know what? All those things happen. 

I'm not talking about fiction and anti-D&D hysteria here, i'm talking about the fact that the hobby has some very negative contributors, and since comunity is so important to it, any buisness that seeks to capitalise on that comunity, has to deal with those problem players and issues.

I'm not being elitist here. I know what it's like to be on the receiving end of unfair labels, and I don't expect gamers to be super-trendy or outgoing or perfect people or whatever. But there are a lot of things holding back the hobby, and dysfinctional comunity issues rank high on the list of root causes. The RPGA fails to genuinly deal with that reality.


----------



## Wraith-Hunter (Jan 20, 2007)

Mighty Veil said:
			
		

> Only problem is the D&D brand has a negative public reaction, unlike WoW. I think that's been RPGs' problems since the *mid-90s*. Most of its designers stopped designing it for a wider audience. It choose the demos it wanted to appeal to. And that narrow choice to overall target made it something far, far away to the radar of the casual person.
> 
> At work people have no troubles talking about WoW in front of others. A few who hadn't heard of it will make a "D&D" joke. But then that joker gets quickly corrected -- "It's not D&D! It's an online game".
> 
> Michael Jackson is a father. No one thinks "MJ" when asked for a good example of an adult with children. He has a bad rep. D&D's rep isn't very good these days.




Not the mid 90's try mid 80's. D&D struggled with a bad rep for many years.


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## AdmundfortGeographer (Jan 20, 2007)

happyelf said:
			
		

> I'm not being elitist here. I know what it's like to be on the receiving end of unfair labels, and I don't expect gamers to be super-trendy or outgoing or perfect people or whatever. But there are a lot of things holding back the hobby, and dysfinctional comunity issues rank high on the list of root causes. The RPGA fails to genuinly deal with that reality.



I think you are being elitist. A Disfunctional community is not the same as a group populated with some individuals with inept social skills. Seriously, this is par for the course in the RPG hobby. If you are going to put together an organization whose goal is to get a cross section of RPG hobbyists to come together and play you are going to end up getting a representative cross section of those playing the game... and it will include, very likely, a representative cross section of those in the hobby with bad socializing skills or habits. 

What is the RPGA supposed to do to "genuinely deal with that reality"? Create a crack squad of social-skill police? Forcibly ban anyone who doesn't bathe every day? Or doesn't wash their hair? Or doesn't use deodorant? Require new members take etiquette classes before being able to attend a convention?

Plus, any sufficiently large organization is going to have personality clashes regardless of social ability of members, and these clashes are more likely the sort of things that bring down clubs rather than just the random eccentric member.

I'm very understanding about having standards about who you will play with at your own table, but condemning a whole organization because its membership is open to all is elitist.

Also, from the sound of it, some of your complaints are five years old at least. The RPGA's Living Campaigns ditched "player of the table" awards years ago.

I've played in the RPGA's Living Greyhawk campaign since 2001. I have met some odious people I would never invite to my house to play. Far more, I have sat at scores tables with hundreds of the best role players in the hobby.


----------



## Maggan (Jan 20, 2007)

Ranger REG said:
			
		

> I'd drop _D&D_ in favor of their other lines, even if that makes me an outcast of the _D&D_ "in" crowd.




It'd make you as much of an outcast as you yourself chose to be. Not many people on EN World has problems with people playing earlier editions. Some even play earlier editions in addition to playing the latest edition. And some, like me, play other games as well as D&D.

Doesn't make me an outcast.

EDIT: It does seem as if opting to play a new edition would make me an outcast in some circles, though.

/M


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## Melan (Jan 20, 2007)

Storm Raven said:
			
		

> The 1e PHB supposedly sold about 200,000 units per year for multiple years in a row. That sort of consistency would certainly work fine to support a company.



According to the Acaeum, 


> In 1989, TSR sold something like 1,000,000 copies of the D&D boxed set in one year.



That's not just 200.000 copies, that's five times as much, years after the huge D&D boom. Plus Basic D&D didn't just sell X copies, it gently guided new gamers towards other lines (Advanced D&D and so on). For all the talk about being an industry giant, WotC doesn't seem to be thinking big on this scale. Per the same page: 


> Currently, I think they're selling at least 150,000 to 200,000 Players Handbooks per year (probably more with the 3.5 release).



How about selling _a million copies_ of a well designed basic set? We don't know how profitable that Basic set was, but I suppose with those kinds of print runs, there must have been very good economies of scale. Could it be that while everyone keeps thinking about the "advanced" line, it was an evergreen starters' box which was raking in the dough?


----------



## Melan (Jan 20, 2007)

Wraith-Hunter said:
			
		

> Not the mid 90's try mid 80's. D&D struggled with a bad rep for many years.



However, there is a world of difference between "bad and cool" and "bad and pathetic". The first drives sales, the second can kill a company.


----------



## Maggan (Jan 20, 2007)

Melan said:
			
		

> Could it be that while everyone keeps thinking about the "advanced" line, it was an evergreen starters' box which was raking in the dough?




That's what I think. Without anything to back it up other than a vague recollection of how I and others I know got into D&D.

/M


----------



## delericho (Jan 20, 2007)

DaveMage said:
			
		

> Out of curiosity (if you don't mind answering), how many 3.5 (both WotC and other companies) adventures would you say you had?




Just adventures?

Well, I have every Dungeon since 3.0 was released within easy reach, I have maybe 5 D&D adventures for 3.5, plus the eight 3.0 "Adventure Path" modules and RttToEE, and about half a dozen third-party adventures. This excludes PDFs, but I don't have many of those.

The main things I'm looking to buy this year are adventures. But it's difficult to justify - running a Dungeon Adventure Path takes about a year, and I only have time to be involved in one face-to-face campaign per year. (I might have time to add one online campaign... but my Stone Age PC wouldn't be up to running the software.)


----------



## DaveMage (Jan 20, 2007)

delericho said:
			
		

> Just adventures?
> 
> Well, I have every Dungeon since 3.0 was released within easy reach, I have maybe 5 D&D adventures for 3.5, plus the eight 3.0 "Adventure Path" modules and RttToEE, and about half a dozen third-party adventures. This excludes PDFs, but I don't have many of those.
> 
> The main things I'm looking to buy this year are adventures. But it's difficult to justify - running a Dungeon Adventure Path takes about a year, and I only have time to be involved in one face-to-face campaign per year. (I might have time to add one online campaign... but my Stone Age PC wouldn't be up to running the software.)




I asked because I think the more adventures one has, the more likely that they don't want a revision.  Some people (which, unfortunately doesn't include me) are very good at doing conversions on the fly.  They can take an adventure from any edition - even other game systems - and adapt them quickly to whatever game they are playing.  For those of us who can't, a new edition essentially makes our collection unusable (beyond providing inspiration).  

Your point about justifying buying adventure paths is a very good one.  I have 7 super adventures of which I will be able to run one in the next year or so (World's Largest Dungeon, Rappan Athuk Reloaded, Shackled City, Ptolus, The Accordlands campaign, The Drow War, and Ruins of the Dragon Lord). The "Expedition" series from WotC is also producing some fine stuff.   If there's a new edition coming soon, and it invalidates these adventures as playable (with the new rule set), then I have a tough decision to make regarding switching.  If the business model effectively nullifies my ability to use these products during the lifespan of an edition, then I either have to stop buying mega-adventures, or not upgrade.  A tough choice.

It's to the point that I hope 4E makes such a radical change that I lose interest.


----------



## RyanD (Jan 20, 2007)

> In 1989, TSR sold something like 1,000,000 copies of the D&D boxed set in one year.




That data is inaccurate.  There was a year where more than 1 million D&D boxed sets were sold, but it wasn't 1989.  1979 is more like it.  It was an exception to the trend.  The data may be in error, or it might represent a 1 time mass market sale of some kind.  The data we had from TSR's old computer system was inconclusive.

Ryan


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## Lord Rasputin (Jan 20, 2007)

RyanD said:
			
		

> I'd like to see a game that you can play either on the tabletop, or on the computer.  Ideally, you could move characters back and forth between the tabletop and the digital realm, but that might be impossible.  You should certainly be able to use one unified toolset to create adventure content that would work both on the tabletop and in the digital realm.



So, what you're saying is a game that lets GMs create their own MORPGs for their personal groups, sort of an RAD for tabletop RPGs. Say, the GM makes a scenario for Greyhawk Online, which has a bunch of locations and NPCs and items predeveloped. He makes a few extra NPCs and tweaks some others to fit his agenda, and sets up a few encounters. He then has his group create their characters, which uses a client that has a D20-based generation system with a visual representation and maybe a few personality traits added (many of the NPCs would be 'bots for ease of GMing, and extending that to the PCs lets a game continue with a missing player's character going as a bot); GURPS with pictures, perhaps.

Now, everyone logs into the server, which has some sort of MMORPG subscription service. Game play works something like RPGs over IRC/AIM/whatever chat system, but there is a visual representation of the game, with sound and actual spoken dialog (customized voices, not just customized pictures ... now everyone is a Real Roleplayer using a funny voice!), so you can actually see combat or NPCs, like a MMORPG. Some of the game can happen without GM input after he has used the electronic tools to create the scenario, so even he can go have a sandwich while everyone else is kicking butt.

(No, this isn't wholly spontaneous; I've been thinking about this for awhile.)


----------



## helium3 (Jan 21, 2007)

Lord Rasputin said:
			
		

> (No, this isn't wholly spontaneous; I've been thinking about this for awhile.)




You and everyone else.


----------



## ashockney (Jan 21, 2007)

Mark CMG said:
			
		

> I got the feeling from his previous posts around here that he had some personal stake in a new form of CRPG that more closely simulated a tabletop experience but divorced gaming from the requirement of a facilitator/DM.  I wouldn't be surprised if what he is predicting _coincidentally_ comes to fruition about the same time some company he is in bed with releases a product to the market.  Frankly, his call for transparency with GAMA came true, too, though not in the same sense as some believed he meant.




So, RyanD, you've predicted a new "revolutionary" hobby game segment, that will breakthrough in the $5 million tier in 2007.  Has Mark CMG nailed it, or did you have something else specific in mind?

If neither of the above, where is the prediction coming from, observance of overall market saturation or perhaps discussions with game companies who are focused on the truly "innovative"?


----------



## SteveC (Jan 21, 2007)

Ranger REG said:
			
		

> But would it cause you to buy a new _PHB_ every three years? Sure, it's updated, but you're forking over $30 for a little update from your previous $30 copy.
> 
> No, I can't handle buying new updated _PHB, DMG, and MM1 every three years. Maybe every 5 to 6 years, but not 3 to 4 years. I'd drop D&D in favor of their other lines, even if that makes me an outcast of the D&D "in" crowd._



_
Hopefully this doesn't seem too tangental from the topic or Ryan's analysis, but yes, I'd pick up a new PHB, MM and DMG every three years if they took the best content from the splats and put them into the core rules. At the same time, if WotC took the material they put in the revisions into the SRD, then no one would actually need to buy them in order to keep playing. I mentioned several things that I think would make a new PHB a worthwhile investment for me, and as I think about it, using the new creature description format would make me buy a new MM as well. As far as the DMG goes, how about taking the luck rules from the new complete scoundrel and making them core? I think a lot of GMs would see the appeal to that right away.

All of this presupposes that there is a sizable amount of new rules content that comes out that is evolutionary for the current edition, and is also of high quality as well. It also supposes that the material is made available to the SRD. What makes the cut? Well, that's the decision for R&D to make back at WotC central. It's not too hard, however, to see the rules that have come out and really struck a chord with people over the last few years, and it's also a situation where there would be years of playtesting with these rules to see if any tweaks or changes were necessary before they made it into the core three rulebooks.

--Steve_


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## happyelf (Jan 21, 2007)

Eric Anondson said:
			
		

> I think you are being elitist.



Any functional comunity must have standards. 



> A Disfunctional community is not the same as a group populated with some individuals with inept social skills.



Yes, but i've seen and heard enough to know that all too often the comunity is genuinly disdunctional. That is my point. 



> Seriously, this is par for the course in the RPG hobby. If you are going to put together an organization whose goal is to get a cross section of RPG hobbyists to come together and play you are going to end up getting a representative cross section of those playing the game... and it will include, very likely, a representative cross section of those in the hobby with bad socializing skills or habits.



And, if there arenot standards wich exclude the worst of these people, then that comunity will fail, or at the very least, fail to reach it's potential.



> What is the RPGA supposed to do to "genuinely deal with that reality"? Create a crack squad of social-skill police? Forcibly ban anyone who doesn't bathe every day? Or doesn't wash their hair? Or doesn't use deodorant? Require new members take etiquette classes before being able to attend a convention?



Is it really so much to ask that people bathe regularly if they're going to turn up to a group activity?



> Plus, any sufficiently large organization is going to have personality clashes regardless of social ability of members, and these clashes are more likely the sort of things that bring down clubs rather than just the random eccentric member.



Thoe clashes are part of what i'm talking about. A decent club or organisation needs to be able to deal wiht those issues, but all too often organisations of games do not, in part because they are unable or unwilling to deal with issues directly and constructivly.



> I'm very understanding about having standards about who you will play with at your own table, but condemning a whole organization because its membership is open to all is elitist.



But nto inapropriate, particularly if, like the RPGA, the organisation has it's own tables. Will these tables be open to anyone? Even problem players? How many news players will remain in such an organisation if the tables it provides are always dominated by problem players?



> Also, from the sound of it, some of your complaints are five years old at least. The RPGA's Living Campaigns ditched "player of the table" awards years ago.



I'm simply talking about examples i've heard, two of many. And frankly, ditching such an award may not be a good thing, depending on their reasons.



> I've played in the RPGA's Living Greyhawk campaign since 2001. I have met some odious people I would never invite to my house to play. Far more, I have sat at scores tables with hundreds of the best role players in the hobby.



Not everyone has your personal tolerances, nor should they be expected to.



			
				Lord Rasputin said:
			
		

> So, what you're saying is a game that lets GMs create their own MORPGs for their personal groups, sort of an RAD for tabletop RPGs. Say, the GM makes a scenario for Greyhawk Online, which has a bunch of locations and NPCs and items predeveloped. He makes a few extra NPCs and tweaks some others to fit his agenda, and sets up a few encounters. He then has his group create their characters, which uses a client that has a D20-based generation system with a visual representation and maybe a few personality traits added (many of the NPCs would be 'bots for ease of GMing, and extending that to the PCs lets a game continue with a missing player's character going as a bot); GURPS with pictures, perhaps.
> 
> Now, everyone logs into the server, which has some sort of MMORPG subscription service. Game play works something like RPGs over IRC/AIM/whatever chat system, but there is a visual representation of the game, with sound and actual spoken dialog (customized voices, not just customized pictures ... now everyone is a Real Roleplayer using a funny voice!), so you can actually see combat or NPCs, like a MMORPG. Some of the game can happen without GM input after he has used the electronic tools to create the scenario, so even he can go have a sandwich while everyone else is kicking butt.
> 
> (No, this isn't wholly spontaneous; I've been thinking about this for awhile.)



So what you're talking about is Neverwinter Nights, only it would be, say, NWN5 when we're currently up to number 2. 

For those who don't know, NWN is the D&D computer game, complete with DM client, 3d map-modeling software, and so on. Only it's a _real_ comptuer game, built on a buget, not a wish-list, so it's features are not perfect and the current version (the second) is still undergoing early patching.


----------



## Mark CMG (Jan 21, 2007)

ashockney said:
			
		

> So, RyanD, you've predicted a new "revolutionary" hobby game segment, that will breakthrough in the $5 million tier in 2007.  Has Mark CMG nailed it, or did you have something else specific in mind?





He has already refuted my contention within the bounds of particular vocabulary.


----------



## kenobi65 (Jan 21, 2007)

happyelf said:
			
		

> I just hear a lot wich suggests to me that it's dominated by powergamers and inclusive in a way wich ultimatly drives people away from it.




Well, I suppose that there are a fair number of them...but I'm certainly not, and most of the couple dozen folks I regularly play RPGA with aren't, either.  On Robin Laws' continuum, I'd say that most of them are primarily Storytellers.

That said, I will certainly admit that there are RPGAers who want their characters to get as powerful as they can, as fast as they can.  Do they "dominate" RPGA play?  Not in my experience.  I honestly don't encounter a *lot* of them, but if your tolerance for powergamers is zero, playing RPGA, particularly at a convention, probably isn't for you, because if you play long enough, you'll find some.

Help me understand what you mean by "inclusive in a way which ultimately drives people away from it?"



			
				happyelf said:
			
		

> Then there's the unsubstantiated rumors. Like some guy in new zealand saying that he went to a meet and the guy who got player of the night was the guy who kept screaming "BOOYAH" whenever he rolled good. And there was some guy in Brisbane who refused to talk to women at his table. Stuff like that wich, while it could be dismissed, is passed around a bit too often to be disregarded entirely.




I, too, could give you a half-dozen stories about boorish or plain-old-jerk RPGA players I've encountered, too.  But, that's out of 100 or so convention tables I've sat at, and another 200 or so online.  I've played with many hundred different people, and I could probably count the jerks on both hands.  Yes, the jerks stand out in your memory...but they are *so* the exception to the rule.  If you have zero tolerance for jerks, too, then you probably shouldn't be playing with anyone you don't know, because you're going to run into a jerk every now and again.



			
				happyelf said:
			
		

> Sure, a lot of it is common to clubs and conventions regardless of their afiliation, but that's the point- if you're going to have an RPGA, it has to do better than the norm, or better than the lower benchmark.




RPGA does have rules and penalties for truly offensive behavior.  They've banned people for cheating, and I know there was one case where they issued a lifetime ban for assault.  General boorishness or idiot behavior, unfortunately, is often in the eye of the beholder.  The RPGA campaigns all have guidelines for ethical play, which include rules about "contribute to the fun of the whole group while playing", "play fairly and honestly", and "be considerate of others," but it's also up to the DM and the other players to speak up if they feel someone isn't respecting those rules.  Does saying "Booyah!" too much really violate those?

Ultimately, you simply can't legislate angelic behavior.  That'd be nice, but it's an unrealistic expectation in an "open" organization.


----------



## AdmundfortGeographer (Jan 21, 2007)

kenobi65 said:
			
		

> Help me understand what you mean by "inclusive in a way which ultimately drives people away from it?"



I figured it was sorta like the old Yogi Berra quote: "It's so crowded no one goes there anymore."


----------



## kenobi65 (Jan 21, 2007)

Eric Anondson said:
			
		

> I figured it was sorta like the old Yogi Berra quote: "It's so crowded no one goes there anymore."




Ahh, I think I get it now.  I think this means "they let anyone in, including the jerks."


----------



## AdmundfortGeographer (Jan 21, 2007)

And a tangentially related opinion of the matter would be summed up by Groucho Marx, "_I refuse to join any club that would have me as a member_."


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## happyelf (Jan 21, 2007)

kenobi65 said:
			
		

> Help me understand what you mean by "inclusive in a way which ultimately drives people away from it?"



What i'm saying is that by setting the bar low for entry, any comunity or club then drives other people away who don't want to asociate with those who are allowed to enter. Sometimes this is snobbery, but in this hobby, all too often the worst people are the default status quo, because they aren't excluded or dealt with. 

Then we have the seperate issue that, leaving aside value jugements, different people like different things at the table.



> I, too, could give you a half-dozen stories about boorish or plain-old-jerk RPGA players I've encountered, too.  But, that's out of 100 or so convention tables I've sat at, and another 200 or so online.  I've played with many hundred different people, and I could probably count the jerks on both hands.  Yes, the jerks stand out in your memory...but they are *so* the exception to the rule.  If you have zero tolerance for jerks, too, then you probably shouldn't be playing with anyone you don't know, because you're going to run into a jerk every now and again.



I don't really have a problem with numbers of the sort you're stating. But, and i'm not speaking primarily of the RPGA here, I find that poor behaviour is often far more common, particularly in areas where it's not immediatly apparent because it has led to, for instance, an intert or defunct club, or a convention wich barely anyone in the area attends. Gamer comunities are almost always highly fragmented, and jerks play a big role in that.



> RPGA does have rules and penalties for truly offensive behavior.  They've banned people for cheating, and I know there was one case where they issued a lifetime ban for assault. General boorishness or idiot behavior, unfortunately, is often in the eye of the beholder. The RPGA campaigns all have guidelines for ethical play, which include rules about "contribute to the fun of the whole group while playing", "play fairly and honestly", and "be considerate of others," but it's also up to the DM and the other players to speak up if they feel someone isn't respecting those rules. Does saying "Booyah!" too much really violate those?



The 'booya' one was just a funny quote I read, although i'm pretty sure it was genuine and it does suggest that there's a lot of variation as to what play styles are encouraged. 

Either way, the reality is that if any comunity in this hobby is going to succeed, rather than just limping along, it needs to realise that people have different standards for play and for behaviour, and needs to be on top of those issues in a very genuine way. Saying "ok guys let's all be nice" in general terms sounds fine on paper but in practice it doesn't help a comunity function when half the people at the table (or in the room) are going to get seriously turned off by stuff that the other half might not even realise is a problem. And that's to say nothing of actual jerks.



> Ultimately, you simply can't legislate angelic behavior.  That'd be nice, but it's an unrealistic expectation in an "open" organization.



I'm confident that if anyone wants to create a more functional model for comunities and clubs in this hobby, and particularly if they're planning to profit from it, they must accept these issues and work to address them.


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## Melan (Jan 21, 2007)

RyanD said:
			
		

> That data is inaccurate.  There was a year where more than 1 million D&D boxed sets were sold, but it wasn't 1989.  1979 is more like it.  It was an exception to the trend.  The data may be in error, or it might represent a 1 time mass market sale of some kind.  The data we had from TSR's old computer system was inconclusive.
> 
> Ryan



Interesting! What would be your estimate for post-boom Basic D&D sales? Commentary from various designers and TSR staff points towards impressive figures, but apart from this Acaeum data, little in the way of exact figures.


----------



## ashockney (Jan 21, 2007)

Mark CMG said:
			
		

> He has already refuted my contention within the bounds of particular vocabulary.





I meant more the "product" category itself, as opposed to his "role" with it.

Specifically your contention that the breakthrough product may be: 



			
				Mark CMG said:
			
		

> a new form of CRPG that more closely simulated a tabletop experience but divorced gaming from the requirement of a facilitator/DM.




When I read RyanD's original prediction, I envisioned a PVP/RPG (ala WoW) that could be run using bluetooth technology on handheld devices (such as the Nintendo DS or Sony PSP), and therefore create a CRPG that allowed for easy transportability between playing "solo" or playing in a PVP environment or playing AT a tabletop, but on a CRPG - still using a real life DM however, should you desire it.

So, I was curious to hear from RyanD what specifically he had in mind, or if this was just a wild assumption on the state of the gaming market based upon the overall condition today.


----------



## AdmundfortGeographer (Jan 21, 2007)

happyelf said:
			
		

> Either way, the reality is that if any comunity in this hobby is going to succeed, rather than just limping along, it needs to realise that people have different standards for play and for behaviour, and needs to be on top of those issues in a very genuine way.



I'd say that tens of thousands of active members across the globe, and growing, is far from limping. I think the kinds of nannyism you are asking out of a soulless bureaucracy would cause cause far more people to leave the organization than inspire hold outs to join. Otherwise the best solution is for gamers to handle etiquette issues between themselves.


----------



## guildofblades (Jan 21, 2007)

>>Because the lack of a distributor would crush every small company in existence. Do you enjoy purchase stuff from small companies like mine?<<

Thats simply not true. The Guild of Blades is still a fairly company and we have been operating without the use of any game distributors in North American for almost three years now and we use very few distributors overseas as well. At the low point of our efforts in trying to distribute our products through the 3 tier system the hobby game market currently utilizes we were barely able to justify the production of new products. Our business got back onto a healthy track of growth only after finally making the decision to abandon game distributors and sell via other means and 2006 was by far its best years in our 11 year history.

It is simply that the industry got "lazy". As the 3 tier system got established within our industry and access to retail stores become more stable for the early market leaders back in the 80's, those market leaders became very much vested with that system. As that system has always had somewhat of a captive audience and a core clientel (hobby game stores) of small and struggling businesses strapped for working capital, it is an entire business model that has hardly ever adapted to newer methods and new technologies to enhance its service and make its own operations and the channel as a whole more efficient. That need for innovation shrank dramatically in the late 90's as the distributor consolidations happened and the increasing dominance of the hobby game specific distributors in direct sales to the core market (ie, after the 1995 TCG bubble burst most general hobby distributors got out of games entirely or reduced to only selling just the core popular collectibles of the moment). In this isolated market outside ideas have been shunned and all concept of innovation has stagnated.

The current distribution system for the core hobby is so fundamentally flawed its more harmful to the health of the market than it is useful. Of nearly all successful game publishing companies, from the multi million dollar ones to the small 2-10 man shops who operate profitably year after year I see one prevailing trend. They are increasingly deriving more and more of their revenue from outside sales through hobby game distributors. Some companies like the Guild of Blades have made the final decision regarding the worth of the 3 tier system and support it not at all, but in truth, most of the others remain wedded to the concept that it keeps the retailers around. More on that in a moment. As such, those manufacturers still support the 3 tier system and in spite of those efforts their business still has been migrating more and more around it. This is not a healthy business model. Ryan D. suggests distributors have to innovate and add a lot more value to prevent from becoming obsolete. My contention is they are already obsolete. It is just 20 years of manufacturer loyalty and doctrine that says the distributors are vital to retail stores' health has led to a heavy reluctance on the part of manufacturers to refuse to take a very hard look at the real affects of such a failed business structure on their company's and the overall market. Distributors would not only have to massively innovate in their offerings for us to even remotely consider a return to using the 3 tier system, they would have to demonstratively prove a level of business and financial stability before we could ever entrust such a vital function of our business to them again.

Ryan S. Johnson
Guild of Blades Publishing Group
http://www.guildofblades.com
http://www.1483online.com
http://www.thermopylae-online.com


----------



## RyanD (Jan 21, 2007)

ashockney said:
			
		

> So, I was curious to hear from RyanD what specifically he had in mind, or if this was just a wild assumption on the state of the gaming market based upon the overall condition today.




As I mentioned in my blog, it's a spider-sense thing.  I can't tell you what, when, who or why, but my instincts are screaming that something is coming.  And no, it's nothing I'm involved in at the moment; that prediction has nothing to do with me.

Ryan


----------



## RyanD (Jan 21, 2007)

Melan said:
			
		

> Interesting! What would be your estimate for post-boom Basic D&D sales? Commentary from various designers and TSR staff points towards impressive figures, but apart from this Acaeum data, little in the way of exact figures.




Basic D&D as a product was always a good seller for TSR, but after its initial peak, it never represented a competitor to AD&D in terms of unit sales -- just comparing sales of the PHB to the various D&D products, the AD&D PHB consistently outsold them.  Sales of D&D products tended downward and by the mid 1990s, they were unimportant in the grand scheme of TSR's sales.  Even the D&D Cyclopedia was never a great unit volume driver.

We had a theory that the "D&D" products were often bought as gifts for someone who wanted AD&D products.  The idea that "D&D" and "AD&D" were really two different games was just beyond anything that made sense to the larger market.  I'm certain that a lot of parents/uncles/siblings, etc. bought the "Basic D&D" product believing that it was the introduction product to the "Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Game".  So D&D sales are not an indicator of the success or market interest in "D&D" per se, but are mingled with, and in fact may mostly represent, gift giving activities targeting AD&D players or potential AD&D players.

Ryan


----------



## MerricB (Jan 21, 2007)

RyanD said:
			
		

> That data is inaccurate.  There was a year where more than 1 million D&D boxed sets were sold, but it wasn't 1989.  1979 is more like it.  It was an exception to the trend.  The data may be in error, or it might represent a 1 time mass market sale of some kind.  The data we had from TSR's old computer system was inconclusive.




Notes:
Basic D&D (1st version, Holmes) was 1977
Basic D&D (2nd version, Moldvay) was 1981
Basic D&D (3rd version, Mentzer) was 1983
Basic D&D (4th version, Black Box) was 1991.

Cheers!


----------



## Shadowslayer (Jan 22, 2007)

RyanD said:
			
		

> I'm certain that a lot of parents/uncles/siblings, etc. bought the "Basic D&D" product believing that it was the introduction product to the "Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Game".




I'd have been happy even if it _was_ the wrong thing. As it stands, I asked my Grandmother for Dungeons and Dragons for Christmas. She was horrified that I'd ask for such a thing, and then said she'd pray for me.


----------



## Ranger REG (Jan 22, 2007)

Maggan said:
			
		

> It'd make you as much of an outcast as you yourself chose to be. Not many people on EN World has problems with people playing earlier editions. Some even play earlier editions in addition to playing the latest edition. And some, like me, play other games as well as D&D.



I only play the earlier editions when I found myself in a gaming group (not my own) have not yet catch up to 3e, or very resistant to it. I have been resistant to 3.5e when it came out just three years after 3.0e. I finally caught up just two years after (2005).

In a way, I feel more like *Diaglo* than *SteveC.* I like to get more out of the books I purchase, and by more I mean at least 7 years of gaming application. I'm not going to buy revisions if I already have rules (albeit scattered among many supplements), which is not a revision but a compilation/compendium. I also am not going to buy revisions when the R&D staff cannot make up their mind (i.e., flip-flopping) like they did with the polymorph rules. I thought the reason for RPGA is to have rules brutally playtested by *qualified, certified* gamers. If they don't want it, don't put it.

Here's my prediction: _D&D_ will go paperless, the rules will be broadcasted wi-fi onto your cell phone (or laptop with broadband access) via a subscription service (credit card required otherwise you're a loser), and expect the rules to be constantly updated not every 3 years, but every 3 minutes, which should spice up your gaming sessions (especially when WotC R&D still flip-flopping on polymorph).


----------



## Destil (Jan 22, 2007)

Two notes: A) There IS a D&D MMORPG. Stormreach. Dosn't say much for the brand that I haven't seen it mentioned. And from what I've heard it's a very much DIKU-MUD me-too! style generic-fantasy MMO in a very overcrowded marketplace (check out www.mmogchart.com/ if you're at all interested in the kinds of numbers the various games attract). For what it's worth I like to think that D&D basicly is the very defination of what modren generic fantasy *is*, but most people don't even realise this.



			
				happyelf said:
			
		

> Blizzard has een around a long time and they have a generation of loyal fans who have grown up playing their games. There are even many people who look at Dawn of War and claim that Games Workshop is ripping off Starcraft(as opposed to Starship Troopers). And we're not talking small numbers here, we're talking huge numbers of fans.




And this comment reminds me of this: http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2006/04/10


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## Sean Patrick Fannon (Jan 22, 2007)

RyanD said:
			
		

> What I'd *like* to see is a "4th Edition" which hybridizes MMORPG play and tabletop play, with an RPGA moderation facility, that uses on-line tools to create characters and scenarios, and focuses on bringing the best elements of the tabletop and the digital environments together...




Amen, brother. You and me, both. As you know, I've been talking about this very thing, and related ideas, for a while . The time has certainly come.

If not WOTC, then someone. Ultimately, *lots* of someones. Of course, I hope to be one of them...


----------



## Flexor the Mighty! (Jan 22, 2007)

Lord Rasputin said:
			
		

> So, what you're saying is a game that lets GMs create their own MORPGs for their personal groups, sort of an RAD for tabletop RPGs. Say, the GM makes a scenario for Greyhawk Online, which has a bunch of locations and NPCs and items predeveloped. He makes a few extra NPCs and tweaks some others to fit his agenda, and sets up a few encounters. He then has his group create their characters, which uses a client that has a D20-based generation system with a visual representation and maybe a few personality traits added (many of the NPCs would be 'bots for ease of GMing, and extending that to the PCs lets a game continue with a missing player's character going as a bot); GURPS with pictures, perhaps.
> 
> Now, everyone logs into the server, which has some sort of MMORPG subscription service. Game play works something like RPGs over IRC/AIM/whatever chat system, but there is a visual representation of the game, with sound and actual spoken dialog (customized voices, not just customized pictures ... now everyone is a Real Roleplayer using a funny voice!), so you can actually see combat or NPCs, like a MMORPG. Some of the game can happen without GM input after he has used the electronic tools to create the scenario, so even he can go have a sandwich while everyone else is kicking butt.
> 
> (No, this isn't wholly spontaneous; I've been thinking about this for awhile.)




While this doesn't sound that bad, it isn't much of a substitution for what many enjoy RPG's for, sitting around a table with friends and playing a game.  This is just a more personalized MMO with many of the same limitations, things that are not covered in the game system are not possible since they have not been coded.  I'm sure I'd be able to enjoy such a thing, but it is a different beast than a pencil and paper tabletop game.  

Plus where is the fun in being the DM if you don't get to play too?


----------



## Sean Patrick Fannon (Jan 22, 2007)

Flexor the Mighty! said:
			
		

> While this doesn't sound that bad, it isn't much of a substitution for what many enjoy RPG's for, sitting around a table with friends and playing a game.




This is why, IMHO, it is important to create an effective _hybrid_ approach, one that integrates classic tabletop game play with online opportunities and event-based (convention, in-store happenings, etc.) opportunities.


----------



## Erik Mona (Jan 23, 2007)

RyanD said:
			
		

> I predicted that the RPGA would not capitalize on the interest in Living Greyhawk, and I was wrong again.




Delicious.

--Erik


----------



## Erik Mona (Jan 23, 2007)

RyanD said:
			
		

> I'm virtually certain that the only company to really benefit from 3.5 was Wizards of the Coast.




Sometimes it is fun being the company that no one remembers in discussions like these, but I can assure you that Paizo benefited greatly from 3.5, as Dungeon was the only place to get compatible adventures for the first several months, and we hit the ground running even before the official release of the revised rules. Coupled with the concurrent development of the Adventure Path concept we significantly increased Dungeon's circulation, which has been climbing ever since.

--Erik Mona
Publisher
Paizo Publishing, LLC


----------



## Dragonblade (Jan 23, 2007)

What a fascinating thread. Ryan, thanks for coming here and posting. I always find your insights really interesting.

I hope that if the market does move towards an online/tabletop hybrid that the game is still playable offline with dice, books and your friends. WoW is cool and all, but the enjoyment I get from sitting around a table with my friends and actually rolling tangible dice will always exceed the enjoyment I get from any MMORPG.

To be honest, games where I sit in a room by myself clicking my mouse are just not as fun as the true tabletop experience.


----------



## Flexor the Mighty! (Jan 23, 2007)

Sean Patrick Fannon said:
			
		

> This is why, IMHO, it is important to create an effective _hybrid_ approach, one that integrates classic tabletop game play with online opportunities and event-based (convention, in-store happenings, etc.) opportunities.




So how do you tie in my Greyhawk game with online stuff and events?  No DM really runs a game world the same, PC's make stuff happen and they end up diverging from each other.  How would online be tied in?  Do you think a player should be able to take their character into some online setting and back to a home game with full effects of their online stuff coming into play?  "Well sorry Aaron but I took Fred the Fighter into the WOTC tourney this week between sessions and he got a vorpal sword now."   I guess I have trouble seeing how you can have a home campaign tied into a shard MMO type thing, especially with all the various home brew settings and heavily modified official settings.  Do you think the home game needs to be tied into the official settings and bound by those restrictions?  

I'm interested in where you think this type of hybrid should go.


----------



## JVisgaitis (Jan 23, 2007)

Flexor the Mighty! said:
			
		

> So how do you tie in my Greyhawk game with online stuff and events?
> 
> I'm interested in where you think this type of hybrid should go.




I don't want to speak for Ryan, but I believe he means computer software that intgrates with the tabletop game. So if you purchase the core books, you can get the same copies of those on your computer. If the book is updated with eratta the online version is updated automatically. You would create your character on the computer and whenever a new book is added with new Feats or whatever, those are available to you online.

Ryan, correct me if I'm wrong.


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## stonehill_troll (Jan 23, 2007)

*Re: Alternate or new distributor for RPGs...*

Ryan,

What do you see lacking with the current distributors of RPG material?

What business tools (new or othewise) do you feel a "new" distributor could bring to the publishers and retailers?


----------



## Sean Patrick Fannon (Jan 23, 2007)

Flexor the Mighty! said:
			
		

> So how do you tie in my Greyhawk game with online stuff and events?  No DM really runs a game world the same, PC's make stuff happen and they end up diverging from each other....




This is very true in a lot of cases, and for GMs who wanted to play with no limits on what happens in their game, the options for shared experiences do become limited. That's OK. Nothing need change for them if they have an effective game going and everyone is enjoying it.



> I'm interested in where you think this type of hybrid should go.




What I am talking about _does_ require a certain level of cooperation and understanding on everyone's part. Limits _do_ have to be set, and GMs who want to tie the events of their games into the greater whole will have to be willing to hold their stories and the development of their player characters to those limits. The key is setting up limits that can be lived with, and which are dynamic enough over time to not make players or GMs feel too held back. 

The return on that is the ability to know that the stories told _happen_ and _matter._ Quite frankly, if you make the world big enough, a *lot* can be going on at any given time. As well, you give "higher access" to major story developments to those GMs and groups that really invest into the process _and_ play along the most effectively with the story directions underway.

I am not saying it doesn't require a lot of planning, detailed design, cooperation, and management. I am just saying that I believe it can work, and I believe it's part of the next step in evolving the hobby.


----------



## Mark CMG (Jan 23, 2007)

RyanD said:
			
		

> I'm virtually certain that the only company to really benefit from 3.5 was Wizards of the Coast.







			
				Erik Mona said:
			
		

> Sometimes it is fun being the company that no one remembers in discussions like these, but I can assure you that Paizo benefited greatly from 3.5, as Dungeon was the only place to get compatible adventures for the first several months, and we hit the ground running even before the official release of the revised rules.





I'm going to go ahead and suggest that Creative Mountain Games's flagship product, the SRD 3.5 Revised, has been a huge boon to CMG (and gamers, too, of course).  Without 3.5, this product dies on the vine.


----------



## happyelf (Jan 24, 2007)

Sean Patrick Fannon said:
			
		

> What I am talking about _does_ require a certain level of cooperation and understanding on everyone's part. Limits _do_ have to be set, and GMs who want to tie the events of their games into the greater whole will have to be willing to hold their stories and the development of their player characters to those limits. The key is setting up limits that can be lived with, and which are dynamic enough over time to not make players or GMs feel too held back.
> 
> The return on that is the ability to know that the stories told _happen_ and _matter._ Quite frankly, if you make the world big enough, a *lot* can be going on at any given time. As well, you give "higher access" to major story developments to those GMs and groups that really invest into the process _and_ play along the most effectively with the story directions underway.
> 
> I am not saying it doesn't require a lot of planning, detailed design, cooperation, and management. I am just saying that I believe it can work, and I believe it's part of the next step in evolving the hobby.



I'd say the next step of the hobby is the exact opposite- recognising that the hobby is inherently varied and versatile, and capitalising on that. We don't need systems that try and unify everyone into one continuity, and politely ignore those who play differently. What we need is to first recognise that everyone plays differently, and then focus efforts on enhancing the strengths of that model, while negating it's formidable weaknesses and drawbacks. 

By trying to unify play, you're ignoring one of it's essential elements- it varies, greatly. This is one of the great strengths of the hobby, and one of the major problems that cause so many pitfalls and conflicts in groups and clubs and the comunity overall. There is a clear case for a shift in approach that recognises this and puts it at the core of the hobby, where it belongs.

I believe that features like player matching and versatile rules systems can be developed to take the hobby ot a new level, to codify the reality that 99% of GM's have been playing with all along. It's all well and good to talk about the RPGA and MMO hybrid models and the like, but ultimatly these approaches are working against the creative energy of the hobby unless they recognise that there is no unified approach, no grand scheme all (or even most) gamers can follow, and at the very least such a system must make genuine efforts to recoginise that if it is to function. 

We are not all playing the same game, and so, for a game with a large audience, the solution is to offer genuinly different ways to play, and help people find others who play in a compatable way.

Otherwise, essentially you're going to have the same problem that MMO's do with varant playstyles, only while they can ignore them, an RPG analogue cannot, since for us, play style is at the core of the experience, while MMO's can rely on graphics, basic play, and their access to a larger and more mainstream audience.


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## guildofblades (Jan 24, 2007)

>>Ryan,

What do you see lacking with the current distributors of RPG material?

What business tools (new or othewise) do you feel a "new" distributor could bring to the publishers and retailers?<<

Not sure which Ryan you were addressing, but I'll take the questions just the same.

What is lacking? Oh boy a guy could write a whole book in reply to that question. I'll try and cover the important stuff.

Focus. None of the current distributors seem to have any focus. Every long term successful business not only figured out how to make their operation profitable, but they also keep an eye on their market and make long term business plans to insure the growth of that market and a stronger position within it. None of the hobby game distributors currently do that. The distributors stand in the middle between the manufacturers and retailers and in that roll they stand the best chance of facilitating data collection and sharing. They can implement programs to support the diversity of games, educate retailers, publish sales trends and help local retailers to identify and take advantage of local and regional trends. Market information should also flow upstream to their manufacturer partners, providing data on store types, formats, sales volumes (by city, region/per capita), and much more. In general they don't seek to add any information value adds to manufacturers because they fear if manufacturers somehow magically lay hands on this data they'll just go around the distributors. But the reality is that forward thinking manufacturers NEED market data and if they can't obtain it through the distributors then they pretty much are forced to go around them to get it and once they've gone around them for information its not a big leap to go around them with product.

The current crop of distributors all act like its 1929 and they have advance knowledge of the impending stock market crash and they are all madly racing about trying to sell what they can before the crash happens. Not a one seems to have implemented programs to advance the hobby, the industry or their futures within it. They basically sit astride a product flow and cash in while they can. They act as road blocks on the development of new businesses, fail to restock and fill orders on many manufacturers they supposedly distribute (due to fear of inventory bloat or poor cash flow management leaving them unable to provide the services they should). In short, they really aren't there to build up the industry, they are there to milk the easy sales on the most high demand product only. There is no appearance of investment in the future.

What would a forward thinking distributor look like?

Well, for one thing, unless a new distributor were to enter the market with very deep pockets and thus intended to stock a wide breadth of stock and stock it in a proper fashion so as to actual fill demand and thus service both manufacturers and retailers properly, then a smaller distributor really should find a focus. Back in the late 80s there were maybe 10,000 gaming SKUs (or less) available for a retailer to stock their store from. Today that number is more like 40,000. Yet the number of products the average distributor services is far LESS than it once was, and I will explain in a moment why thats bad for the industry (I suspect Ryan D would present the exact opposite argument regarding how many SKU's should be serviced). The reality is the gaming market has grown a great deal since then. The distributors, however, have not grown. Mostly due to poor management, a large number of mergers and bankruptcies dating back from the mid TCG crash of the mid 90's and the replacement distributors that entered the market afterwards were all small operations trying to grow into the roll. But the reality is that no small, capital strapped, distributor can enter the market and be a "FULL LINE" distributor when there are 40,000 SKUs. Its quite impossible. But they all try to present themselves as such.

The distributor tier needs specialization. When a market matures as the hobby gaming market has been doing, it opens up the possibility and indeed often the need for more specialized companies to service smaller segments of the market. In trying to pretend to be full line distributors what usually ends up happening is each distributor stocks just the products for the top few manufacturers and then they pretend to stock the products from the mid tier manufacturers and more enterprising smaller manufacturers. By pretend I mean, they claim to stock it all. But the reality works more like this. A manufacturer will spend the months prior to the release of a new product marketing that product and building up enough interest for that product on the hopes they can sell enough to cover their printing bills and other overhead and make a profit. As a new product often selling to a built in fan base for that manufacturer and also building on the pre launch marketing campaign and good will the manufacturer has with retailers, the up front sales on that product are stronger (almost always) than they will be in the months and years after its release. Distributors know this so they collect "pre orders" from retailers on a new release, order that much, plus sometimes a bit more, and then sell it to the retailers. These days they thus strive to leave zero of that product in stock. When a retailer calls up that distributors and wants more the distributor doesn't have it so puts it on a "back order" and starts collecting other back orders from other retailers. Then days, weeks or months down the road when there are X number of back orders, the distributor will order X, minus some number on the assumption that not all retailers will still want the thing after so much time.

Obviously that system is dramatically flawed. It leaves consumers and retailers waiting far too long to get the products they want. Retailers know thats how it works and thus don't even try half of the time to re order a product that has sold to keep available. The distributor got the best through put on the first month or two of sales so for all intents they are now done with that product and ready for the next set of new releases.

But do game consumers really want their RPGs, Board Games, stand alone card games, miniatures and so all to effectively become short production run collectibles? Obviously not. But that is what is happening. The problems with this situation are many.

1) Manufacturers spent a lot of resources and time to design a new product and bring it to the market. When they can only effectively sell that product for a short window of a few months through retail stores they lose much of their ability to generate profits on that item over time. So without those profits they don't have the resources to support that product for the long term. Sure, they still sell the thing on their website because they have all the left overs from their large print run yet to sell. But they can not dedicate time to really support the product. Game demos for in stores and at conventions, promotions and give aways to generate interest, add on material published online to add further value to the product, etc. Further, with less returns per product you start to find a lot of manufacturers cutting corners on product. Products are rushed through production and suffer from lack of good play testing, editing, less is spent on art, etc,. Because if not enough profit can be generated from a single product sold steadily over time a manufacturer turns to releasing a LOT of new products, so that each new product can take advantage of that initial ordering rush from distributors and retailers. The cash flow demands of any real ongoing business using that distribution system pretty much demand it. This they call the new release of product treadmill.

2) Retailers can't possibly stock all of that. They have less ability to stock all of this than the distributors do. Which isn't too terrible if they could at least lay hands on a copy within a few days to fill special orders. But we're back to the distributors not stocking the things either and putting them on back orders. So a new product sells some copies locally through a store. Some of the early customers buy it and like it. They tell their gaming friends, get online and post reviews or mention it in site discussions, etc. So now the next group of people are interested in the product and go to their local store to buy it...only the store can't get it for them. If the player really wants it they usually have to go online and buy it from the manufacturer (which costs more due to shipping and takes longer). Repeat this process enough times and its easy to see why many of the casual gamers who aren't at their local game store several times a week have given up supporting their local stores.

So what can a distributor do to help BOTH its retail customers and the manufacturers they distribute? A distributor can specialize. Its a forgone conclusion that a distributor is going to sell the leading collectible product of the moment. That plus a few other top sellers are expected to be sold by every distributor. But after that a distributor should pick a specialization of some sort, committing to either a product category, theme or specific set of manufacturers and then provide top notch service on those products. Maintain near 100% availability of those products, provide top levels of product details and work more closely with their manufacturers to run promotions. Retailers will then know they can trust that distributor to get them all the products provided under that specialization. A reliably supply line between manufacturer and retailer is created and game consumers can once again gain faith in their local retailer. (In truth, due to the shier volume of game releases out there most retailers ought to be contemplating specializations. Most already do to some extent but that lesson has been lost on the distribution tier).

Other than specialization distributors could offer some or all of the following:

1) Information. Information. Information. A manufacturer NEEDS a LOT better data than they get today. They need to know which stores are buying their products and how much. This data could be compiled automatically by computer by the distributor and exported in any number of ways from computer print out with stats and graphical and geographical charts, to data dumps that a manufacturer can import into their own CRM (Customer Relations Management) database. With this data a manufacturer can very closely examine sales trends by store and by region and begin to get a real understanding of their market and how their product is doing. Manufacturers can more clearly identify areas that need additional marketing support to generate a cohesive local player base for their games. They can identify stores that are doing well with their product and communicate with them to understand how that success came about, then implement similar programs with other retailers. And perhaps most useful to both distributor and retailer, with accurate data they can more quickly decide when a product line has failed to gain traction and to discontinue it.

2) Seminars and Education. There are new retailers (and manufacturers) that open up all the time. As the middle man in the business distributors deal with both. They are also uniquely positioned to hold education seminars in the primary zones that they service to help teach possibly new entrants to the field some key basics about the industry. These can be done for a profit also. Most important for their own business would be an outreach and educational process for new stores, as this would directly grow their direct customer base.

3) A well capitalized and forward thinking distributor might consider the creation of its own retailing brand and then set about establishing a franchise system for such. Backing them with some of the resources, stock and connections a distributor has access to, perhaps for a slice of ownership in the new stores.

4) Real time data delivery. Why in this modern era of computers and the internet are so many of the companies in our industry so backwards. A distributor is as much information broker as it is shipping consolidator. Yet few distributors have tried to leverage technology to their advantage in this roll. A couple distributors have current stock reporting. But provide no online sales trends of retail customer data to their manufacturers. A distributor could easily (well, perhaps not easily, but it wouldn't be all that challenging) set up a system where manufacturers could log in to input and update their own product sell sheets for new and existing products. This would be updated online in real time. Whenever a retailer placed an order, first thing that should happen would be that a button on a computer is pressed which would automatically go through a program that would check all sell sheets and compare it against those not yet received by that retailer and then print one of each sheet in a stack. As the warehouse staff went to the warehouse shelves to pack the order these would be printing, along with the invoice and packing slip for the order. The stack of sell sheets along with invoice and packing slip then get dumped into the box and off the order goes. On the manufacturers own control panel area inside that distributor's system the manufacturer would get reports of which stores had receieved which sell sheets and when.

Presently distributors just say "print us your sell sheets and we'll put them into boxes" which means the manufacturer must print them and then ship them. The warehouse staff must sort them manually (many sheets from many different manufacturers) and insert them into boxes. The usual result is only a few sheets make it into any given order going out and those just what happen to be laying around. More than once did I visit our old distributors' warehouses only to find boxes full of fliers sitting as of yet unopened months or years after sending them to them. Additionally, real time printing will allow for the most up to date information.

There is absolutely no good reason that pre order solicitations processes should take 3-6 months ahead of release, but thats where things stand now. Distributors like Alliance use that time to make a catalog of forthcoming products and send/sell it to their retailers. The information it in must be submitted to them at least 90-120 days in advance. This is usually before the item has even been printed. By the time of actual projected release the release date is often off and half the product specs have changed. Worse, retailers presented their pre orders so far in advance they can't remember what they pre ordered. That couple with variable actual release times makes it very difficult for smaller stores to dare even place pre orders on anything but the most sought after products because they are afraid too many items they pre ordered will release at once and they won't have the cash flow to handle it. So manufacturers should be able to update their own pre order info in the system and pre orders should be gathered as little as 2-4 weeks in advance. These catalogs can be printed on demand and be bundled with special buy in sell sheets to better inform retailers of their ordering options. Further, with each new pre order catalog sent, a database of what was already pre ordered could easily spit out a record for the retailer of what they already have on pre order but has not yet released and manufacturer updated projected release dates (assuming the manufacturer put the release date back for some reason).

5) Automated product recommendations. By examining the data of what actually is ordered and sold through their retail stores it would not be hard to develop lists of products that do well within a specific store and other products likely to also do well in that store. This can all be figured out by computer process. When it comes time to send pre order catalogs to retailers it wouldn't be too difficult to include a computerized print out of the following: A re order sheet for things likely to be sold out (figured by past sales / re order trends and sales trend averages among the total retail customer base serviced by that distributor) and plus a product recommendation sheet for products they have not yet ordered that are likely to have solid cross over appeal to products they have already ordered.

---

Seriously, I have never run a distribution company before but it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see how they can leverage technology a whole lot better than they do now, which is pretty much not at all. A little innovation and a commitment to solid service levels would pretty well be a revolution in hobby game distribution.

Ryan S. Johnson
Guild of Blades Publishing Group
http://www.guildofblades.com
http://www.1483online.com
http://www.thermopylae-online.com


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## helium3 (Jan 24, 2007)

Are there contractual agreements in place that prevent manufacturers from directly dealing with retailers? Or is dealing with retailers just an enormous hassle better left to a third party?


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## JVisgaitis (Jan 24, 2007)

helium3 said:
			
		

> Are there contractual agreements in place that prevent manufacturers from directly dealing with retailers? Or is dealing with retailers just an enormous hassle better left to a third party?




No, but if retailers find out you do that they freak out and start a huge boycott on all your products. I've seen retailers in "discussions" about this very thing at GTS and by discussions I mean screaming at the top of their lungs. Not pretty...


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## Flexor the Mighty! (Jan 24, 2007)

Sean Patrick Fannon said:
			
		

> This is very true in a lot of cases, and for GMs who wanted to play with no limits on what happens in their game, the options for shared experiences do become limited. That's OK. Nothing need change for them if they have an effective game going and everyone is enjoying it.
> 
> 
> 
> ...




That really sounds horrible.  "Sorry Frank but Sir George can't become High Lord of Greyhawk because that doesn't fit with the online story, even if it would be the logical outcome of tonights session..."  I'd gladly sit that evolution out.   

Everyone wants to evolve the tabletop RPG into something else these days, mini game, board game, MMO.  Makes me sad.


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## guildofblades (Jan 24, 2007)

>>Are there contractual agreements in place that prevent manufacturers from directly dealing with retailers? Or is dealing with retailers just an enormous hassle better left to a third party?<<

No contractual obligations that limit it. However, distributors tend to lose what little motivation they might have had to sell your stiff if they suddenly realize they might have reliable competition. Read that as, as the manufacturer you wold have an unfair advantage since when you offer to sell the product you actually have it stock where, well, they claim to, but don't. So for the most part its an either or proposition. Sell through distributors to reach the retail stores or sell directly to the retail stores.

The conventional wisdom suggests you will sell more product to retail stores if you sell through distributors than if you sold direct. Its a pretty theory that was surely once true, but I question its validity in today's market. The reason is there are a LOT of retail stores that don't want to stock a single item deeply or stock a majority of the products that are available for a given line. Hence if they order the product directly from the manufacturer they might only order a few products at a time. And thats a scale where it becomes not worth it for either the retailer or manufacturer's time to bother with. The theory holds that if you sell your products through distributors because they can offer those retailers consolidated shipping and the ability to mix and match products from many manufacturers that the retailer thus has the option of ordering just a few products from each manufacturer. Multiplied over the number of total retailers out there and wham, you are suppose to get a lot more sales.

Here is why that theory is no longer valid (for the majority of manufacturers).

1) The number of dedicated stores that stock a wide variety of manufacturers products as opposed to just the top few is actually fairly small. Less than 500. Probably less than 250 for the number that carry much in the way of "small press".

2) With the casual stores not all that interested or dedicated in selling anything other that what the top manufacturers product, of those that do stock a copy or two of your product, they'll have forgotten about it after that first order. For the bulk majority of them, they won't bother to re order. So you get a first round pass on sales to this audience as your reward for dealing with distributors only.

3) After that first round is done those stores that are the dedicated hobby stores and interested in actually restocking and continuing to sell will immediately run into out of stock situations at their distributors. So almost right away the bulk of "extra" sales you generated due to selling through distributors are being lost due to the dedicated stores having supply problems in restocking. Over some number of months (or years) this translates into more lost sales than were gained. The only difference may be that in the very short term going through distributors might generate more initial cash flow and for companies that do not have strong back list ongoing sales, that extra little bit off their "newest" product might be what they need to keep the doors open.

4) When you sell direct to a store you have more opportunities to remind those stores about your entire product line, not just your newest item. Hence you and the store can create a stronger in store environment for support of the product line and fan base. This can generate an upswing in sales that stores that only dabble in the product line can't hope to achieve.

5) If a manufacturer takes the time to set up an efficient "pick and pack" area for their company it is not difficult or time consuming to package smaller packages meant for direct sales to retailers. USPS offer all the necessary tracking info now at affordable prices to make shipments of smaller packages cost effective. And computer technology and even the most basic of CRM packages allow the manufacturer to easily keep track of a larger number accounts. used color copiers or refillable laser or ink jet printers can allow a manufacturer to print all of its solicitation materials in the quantity desired and at an affordable price.

In essence, additional service options in shipping and advancements in both printing tech and customer relations software have vastly reduced the "added value" that distributors offer due to their shipping and ordering consolidation function, which is pretty much the only real function most of them have to sustain their businesses.

The one point of resistance in offering direct sales is, the retailer. For 20 years retailers in our industry have been taught to be lazy in their product sourcing. Most retail businesses, large and small, have a multitude of vendors from which they have to keep track of and place orders with. In hobby gaming some of the smaller retailers use a sole distributors (yep, just one), and basically have to take the product offerings that distributors offers and nothing else. Its a completely unorthodox situation rarely duplicated in any other retail business and there is no way it could last in the more modern industry with such vastly expanding selections of hobby game product available on the market. That just one more reason the hobby distributor tier has become antiquated and is doomed to collapse unless they get busy innovating on how they do business.

Ryan S. Johnson
Guild of Blades Publishing Group
http://www.guildofblades.com
http://www.1483online.com
http://www.thermopylae-online.com


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## Mark CMG (Jan 24, 2007)

helium3 said:
			
		

> Are there contractual agreements in place that prevent manufacturers from directly dealing with retailers? Or is dealing with retailers just an enormous hassle better left to a third party?





The retailers I have talked to generally do not have the time to deal directly with as many manufacturers and publishers as exist and rely on the additional discount they get by placing a large order with a distributor (of products from multiple manufacturers/publishers) to turn a profit.




			
				guildofblades said:
			
		

> The one point of resistance in offering direct sales is, the retailer. For 20 years retailers in our industry have been taught to be lazy in their product sourcing.





The suggestion that retailers do not deal directly with hundreds of sources for products because they are "lazy" seems odd to me.


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## guildofblades (Jan 24, 2007)

I did not mean to suggest the retailers themselves are lazy. I realize that most are hard working independent businessmen. But...in most retail fields they always teach "get as close to the source as possible", ala, remove the middle men when possible. The reasons for this are the usual, better discounts and more reliable supply. For some reason, probably owing to the fact that back before there were dedicated game stores that gaming was a sideline that hobby stores got from general hobby distributors, game retailers (excepting a few) never adapted to the idea of moving closer to the source. Its a common business practice and one employed at most any successful retail enterprise.

And when you stop to think about it...the difference between ordering direct and ordering through distributors, product availability issues notwithstanding, can often tally up to a difference between 5-15% of MSRP. When even a very healthy hobby retail store is lucky to clock in a profit of 10% and most, if they are turning a profit at all, are more likely in the 1-5% range, an extra 5-15% of gross margin would be a HUGE BOON to the fiscal health of their business. The counter to this argument is always "we don't have time", but thats patently not true. Retailers small and large order from a multitude of sources all the time and I know of a few in our own industry that do the same, and one game store in a mall that I have heard has around 150 product vendors. So obviously logistically its possible...but the will to do the work and to get organized must be there also.

I am not suggesting that everything need be ordered direct. When they want to stock just one or two titles and IF their distributor can get it for them reliably (meaning its actually being stock...not back ordered), the sure, consolidate that small business through wholesellers. But on any single business where it makes up even a half of a percentage of gross sales, yes, they ought to be seeking whatever advantage that can be had by ordering direct.

Did you know that back in the 80's distributors had such a strangle hold over the industry that I heard of retailers who were threatened with having their accounts at distributors terminated for daring to order some goods direct with the manufacturer? I mean really, can you as a publisher think of of telling a consumer you will refuse to sell to them if the dare to buy gaming products made by any manufacturer other than you? Lol.

Ryan S. Johnson
Guild of Blades Publishing Group
http://www.guildofblades.com
http://www.1483onlie.com
http://www.thermopylae-online.com


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## Sean Patrick Fannon (Jan 24, 2007)

Flexor the Mighty! said:
			
		

> That really sounds horrible.  "Sorry Frank but Sir George can't become High Lord of Greyhawk because that doesn't fit with the online story, even if it would be the logical outcome of tonights session..."  I'd gladly sit that evolution out.




In truth, what I have planned would very much allow for the possibility of Sir George becoming High Lord of Greyhawk. If that's where your group is based in the greater scheme, and your group's story goes that way in a logical fashion, there's every chance that's what would happen.

The key is to make sure that there are a *lot* of cool outcomes for lots of characters, spread out over the larger scope of the world.

Characters don't go from "just off the farm" to "High Lord of Greyhawk" in a single session. The key is to coordinate, session to session, in a way that lets things play out naturally _but_ fairly. There's some give-and-take there. If Sir George gets to the part in the story where he stands a good chance of becoming High Lord of Greyhawk, this is something that the community of Game Masters will know about before hand and have a chance to plan for. If, in fact, there's some kind of competition for the throne, that will figure into Sir George's story (and the story of his group's campaign) as well as the story of other players and GMs who are set in the Greyhawk area.*  



> Everyone wants to evolve the tabletop RPG into something else these days, mini game, board game, MMO.  Makes me sad.




Actually, it's not very sad at all. In many of these cases, people are simply trying to find a form of adventure gaming that appeals to more people. A lot of these efforts become "gateway products" that can easily lead players to explore the style of play you prefer.

As has already been observed, no one's going to come take your dice and character sheet away, so even with other forms like this coming out, your style will live and thrive at your table and be there for when others come looking.



* - Please note that I don't _necessarily_ mean the Greyhawk campaign literally. I was simply using the example proposed by Good Flexor here. If I had to choose a setting from the D&D milieu, I might choose the Forgotten Realms for what I have in mind. However, I actually have some other settings in mind to start with...


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## Mark CMG (Jan 24, 2007)

guildofblades said:
			
		

> (snip)





It might be better for your company, specifically, for retailers to deal directly with manufacturers/publishers but this simply is not the case for the retailers themselves.


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## helium3 (Jan 24, 2007)

Mark CMG said:
			
		

> It might be better for your company, specifically, for retailers to deal directly with manufacturers/publishers but this simply is not the case for the retailers themselves.




Why?


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## Mark CMG (Jan 24, 2007)

helium3 said:
			
		

> Why?





Time and money.  Hundreds of manufacturers/publishers to deal with at an increased cost.  There is no real savings, even if a few manufacturers or publishers might heavily discount for dealing direct.  It takes time and costs money to call them all (or email/fax orders) and to chase them down with inevitible mis-shipments or damaged shipments.  Smaller individual orders to multiple sources removes the discounts one gets by placing larger orders with a few select distributors.  Add in the additional costs for shipping when your smaller orders are not large enough to get free or discounted shipping rates.  Plus, the amount or paperwork increases tremendously.

I've talked to a number of people on this issue in the past, those who own or order for gamestores, and recently discussed this with a friend who is an owner/orderer of one of the top gamestores in the country (he may even pop in this thread to elucidate further) and it just isn't feasable (unless you, perhaps, have game products in a very, very limited number in a store of another type, e.g. a comic book store with two or three game company lines).


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## guildofblades (Jan 25, 2007)

>>It might be better for your company, specifically, for retailers to deal directly with manufacturers/publishers but this simply is not the case for the retailers themselves.<<

When the retailer can double their year end profit by doing so, yeah, its better for them. The extra labor that entails is easily covered by the additional margin they receive and then some.

Thats why any retailer doing any real volume does indeed directly order from WOTC, Upper Deck and GW. Because at those volumes even a blind man can see the benefit. But with the mid sized (in revenue) product lines and the strong performing small press lines its not so obvious "per product line", but plainly obvious once you lump that volume together and add up the savings. They claim its not time efficient because they simply don't see the need, but some of the more successful stores do order direct on their better performing lines just so they can get the better discount, product availability and service from the manufacturer. Other stores like the mall store I mentioned orders from 150 different sources. Some hobby stores work with dozens of different vendors or more. So why is it that you think game retailers just "can't"? They obviously can. But they have to get organized about the process of doing it. And....the manufacturers willing to sell to them direct also really need to make it a quick and easy process too.

Taking the easy route and simply getting everything their distributor happen to be offering them this month is the crutch that is hindering them from growing. No retail store can hope to perform well if they can't get a reliable supply chain and based on the current distribution climate within the industry, the distributors can only provide that on the top tier lines. Not a coincidence that there has been a trend over the last decade for a shrinking spread of which companies generate the bulk of the revenues in dedicated hobby game stores. Yeah, you are obviously going to sell more of the product you can stock regularly as compared to those you can't.

Ryan S. Johnson
Guild of Blades Publishing Group
http://www.guildofblades.com
http://www.1483online.com
http://www.thermopylae-online.com


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## RyanD (Jan 25, 2007)

Mark CMG said:
			
		

> It might be better for your company, specifically, for retailers to deal directly with manufacturers/publishers but this simply is not the case for the retailers themselves.




I've done extensive analysis of this issue, both in abstract, and in terms of actually investing in retail stores.

If the store uses a computerized POS system, and tracks its inventory on that system, and the buyer intelligently sets order points and target levels, and the POS system is programmed to generate either email or fax orders (which sound like a lot of big if's but all can be accomodated by QuickBooks, as well as several other POS systems I investigated), the time required to stay current and place orders amounts to about six hours a week.  Integration with most major shipping companies (UPS, FedEx, etc.) is so good now that you can usually configure your shipping account to track inbound shipments and notify you when there's a problem.

In return for that six hours (which is likely less than most retailers spend on the phone with distributors each week doing their purchasing), the average retailer can generate between 5 and 10% additional net profit annually.  Larger stores get an even better benefit - this is one place where economy of scale works in the retailers favor.

Now, and this gets to Ryan's point obliquily, setting up a store to run this way requires access to either help with technology, or someone with a technical bent and a lot of time to learn new stuff if they don't already know what they're doing.  Since many stores start almost like an "Our Gang" episode (hey -- let's put on a show in the barn!) that precondition is not often met.

Which begs the question;  Should the publishers tolerate (or even encourage) retailers to be able to stock their products if they can't demonstrate some minimal level of retailing competence?  Or should they act to raise the bar, perhaps losing a lot of "new business", but being more likely to see that the new stores that do open and stock their products are more likely to be the stores ready to compete and succeed in today's very challenging market?

Ryan


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## Mark CMG (Jan 25, 2007)

RyanD said:
			
		

> I've done extensive analysis of this issue, both in abstract, and in terms of actually investing in retail stores.
> 
> If the store uses a computerized POS system, and tracks its inventory on that system, and the buyer intelligently sets order points and target levels, and the POS system is programmed to generate either email or fax orders (which sound like a lot of big if's but all can be accomodated by QuickBooks, as well as several other POS systems I investigated), the time required to stay current and place orders amounts to about six hours a week.  Integration with most major shipping companies (UPS, FedEx, etc.) is so good now that you can usually configure your shipping account to track inbound shipments and notify you when there's a problem.
> 
> In return for that six hours (which is likely less than most retailers spend on the phone with distributors each week doing their purchasing), the average retailer can generate between 5 and 10% additional net profit annually.  Larger stores get an even better benefit - this is one place where economy of scale works in the retailers favor.





Please point out a couple/few gamestores currently in business that successfully run under this model.  I am sure other retailers will be interested to follow up on your findings given how much is in it for them to do so.


----------



## guildofblades (Jan 25, 2007)

>>Which begs the question; Should the publishers tolerate (or even encourage) retailers to be able to stock their products if they can't demonstrate some minimal level of retailing competence? Or should they act to raise the bar, perhaps losing a lot of "new business", but being more likely to see that the new stores that do open and stock their products are more likely to be the stores ready to compete and succeed in today's very challenging market?<<

Hi Ryan,

The first year after we went direct we sought sales through any store possible. But as we took a hard look at the market with all the data and experience we gathered over the years we did ultimately arrive at one conclusion. About 75% of existing stores are not worth our time to try and do business with. If that business comes to us, at a reduced discount (42%...and only 20% for drop shipped orders) and orders from us online, its no big deal to fill the order. The account has been paid and the lower discount somewhat justifies the bother. But we don't even remotely think about soliciting those stores. Instead we selectively target a much, much smaller grouping of stores that we're interested in doing business with and work with them with regards to POP shelves and signage, catalogs, fliers, etc. We have found that  a "good" store that is dedicated to trying to make money with each product line it decides to service (notice I said service, not simply stock) will easily gross x10 more revenue with the line than stores that don't. The ones that don't aren't worth expending any resources on at all. We can service the end consumer better than them directly. The good stores, however, do add value to our products and are certainly worth working with and trying to cultivate.

Thats been our experience in three years of only selling direct.

Ryan S. Johnson
Guild of Blades Publishing Group
http://www.guildofblades.com
http://www.1483online.com
http://www.1483online.com


----------



## Kristian Serrano (Jan 25, 2007)

RyanD said:
			
		

> I'd like to see a game that you can play either on the tabletop, or on the computer.  Ideally, you could move characters back and forth between the tabletop and the digital realm, but that might be impossible.  You should certainly be able to use one unified toolset to create adventure content that would work both on the tabletop and in the digital realm.
> 
> I'd move the game to a subscription service, with a marketplace for adventure content that 3rd party developers could tap into, and an open development model for the rules of the game and for game components, to maximize the value of everyone who would be interested in participating in that process.
> 
> I could see people playing with nothing more complex than some dice and some books, and other people playing a 100% digital game with no real-world component of any kind; and both groups would be playing basically the same game -- as well as several hybridized points along that continuum.



Wasn't that one of the initial concepts behind MasterTools?


----------



## RyanD (Jan 25, 2007)

Mark CMG said:
			
		

> Please point out a couple/few gamestores currently in business that successfully run under this model.  I am sure other retailers will be interested to follow up on your findings given how much is in it for them to do so.




As you can imagine, most of the stores that have evolved to this point have no interest in discussing their internal systems with competitors, so I cannot provide names or sources; which were provided to me in confidence.

I suspect that if you look for the more successful stores in your local area, you'll find stores using some or all of these techniques.


----------



## RyanD (Jan 25, 2007)

guildofblades said:
			
		

> We have found that  a "good" store that is dedicated to trying to make money with each product line it decides to service (notice I said service, not simply stock) will easily gross x10 more revenue with the line than stores that don't.




Games Workshop found the same thing.  In practice, they don't try to teach stores *why* GW wants them to do things, they just structure a system that forces stores to do the things GW wants.  If a store gets railroaded in this fashion, it often finds long term success (with careful management of inventory), whereas stores that try to "go their own way" with GW often find the line unprofitable after a certain point.  This attitude drives retailers nuts, and really good retailers probably lose sales they could earn if the system gave them more independence.  But like DMs, the number of really good stores is far less than the number of retailers who think they're really good retailers.

Ryan


----------



## RyanD (Jan 25, 2007)

amaril said:
			
		

> Wasn't that one of the initial concepts behind MasterTools?




Master tools was a child of many fathers, many of whom had fundamental disagreements about the desired end state.  By the time I was asked to help with the project, massive amounts of money had been spent, but little usable code had been produced.  It was a huge opportunity missed.

That said, my evolving ideas for hybridizing tabletop and on-line RPG experiences don't bear much resemblance to any of the MasterTools concepts - at least none that were seriously considered at the time MasterTools was in development.

Ryan


----------



## Mark CMG (Jan 25, 2007)

RyanD said:
			
		

> As you can imagine, most of the stores that have evolved to this point have no interest in discussing their internal systems with competitors, so I cannot provide names or sources; which were provided to me in confidence.
> 
> I suspect that if you look for the more successful stores in your local area, you'll find stores using some or all of these techniques.





The only stores I know of in this area that might function in that manner are actually part of a rather large chain of stores that aren't completely gamestores (Gamer's Paradise are part gamestore, part novelty shop), thus it isn't really part of this discussion (as their buying power is considerably stronger as a chain and with so many locations cannot function in a manner other than as you outline).  My own knowledge of individual gamestores in this area (Chicagoland) runs counter to your assertions.  What is, perhaps, the most successful gamestore in this area (Games Plus) does not follow your model.  It is a shame that you do not know of a couple of gamestores who would not mind their name being mentioned in regard to their general ordering practices, i.e. that would go on the record to say that they feel dealing directly with manufacturers/publishers is a more advantageous route than dealing primarily with distributors.  I actually have a hard time imagining that.


----------



## Upper_Krust (Jan 25, 2007)

Hi RyanD (and everyone)! 

I have been following this thread closely while embroiled in a discussion in the "WHAT IS NEXT BIG THING" thread.

I have been arguing that a purely pen & paper 4th Edition won't sell anywhere near as well as 3rd Edition, because it won't be that great of a leap this time around. Also with regards books that are more fluff than crunch what will be the great incentive to revisit them?

While exploring the online sector should continue, thats far from becoming a successor to tabletop D&D this generation of the game at least.

Which means that the next way forward must surely be along the lines of the boardgame format. A greatly simplified version of the game (akin to the D&D Boardgame) thats a marriage of board, minis and cards. Along the lines of the "new design release" you mentioned Ryan.

Personally I think such a vehicle could easily sell over 1 million units in the first year, possibly ten times that many. This could be achieved by broadening the brand extension as follows.

Start with:

*Dungeons & Dragons*

...then you target all the obvious:

Dungeons & Pirates
Dungeons & Dinosaurs
Dungeons & Vampires
Dungeons & Robots
Dungeons & Wizards
Dungeons & Ninjas
Dungeons & Zombies
Dungeons & Cthulhu

Then you can branch in multiple directions, mainstream...

Dungeons & DC 
Dungeons & Marvel
Dungeons & Halo
Dungeons & Dragonball Z

...more self-referential:

Dungeons & Drow

...to the unorthodox:

Dungeons & Harryhausen

...promotional idea:

Dungeons & Donuts (with Dunkin Donuts - buy the 'Beholder Cookie' get unique minis/cards)
Dungeons & Pizza (with Pizza Hut - buy the extra hot 'Dragon Pizza' get free unique minis/cards)

...want to court the young female demographic:

Dungeons & Dora (the Explorer)
Dungeons & Barbie
Dungeons & Tomb Raider

...3rd Parties can license the use of the name.

Dungeons & Conan (Mongoose)

Then factor in expansion sets (or even 'sequels')

Dungeons & Pirates 2: The Isle of Dread
Dungeons & Vampires 2: Castle Ravenloft

...I haven't even touched on a similar, but subtley different, idea for using the Star Wars license. 

Every boxed set retails for $39.95/£25, has about 30 prepainted minis, dice, flexible board pieces (by that I mean individual rooms and corridors rather than simply large board sections) which are also reversible, cards which do away with the necessity of book-keeping. Rulebook, Adventure Book, as well as blank cards, maps and character boards so that people can even create their own. As well as an Advanced Rulebook which presents optional rules for those wanting to make it a far more detailed roleplaying experience.

With each new boxed set you gain new classes, new NPCs, new feats, new magic items, new monsters, new locations, new adventures and potentially new themed rules (effects of vampirism in Dungeons & Vampires, sanity in Dungeons & Cthulhu etc.). But at the same time each has everything you need to start playing right away.

Its an insidious way of getting D&D into peoples hands, and you can't say well I don't want to play dumbed down D&D because the Advanced Rulebook can cover every aspect/feature of the game not present in the basic Rulebook.

*Does anyone think that wouldn't be a massive seller? If so, why not?*


----------



## Wraith-Hunter (Jan 25, 2007)

Just wanted to jot down a quick thank you to both Ryans for sharing your insight into the market. I find it very fascinating, and disturbing at the same time. You would think an industry full of nerds would be on the cutting edge of information management and use of technology.  But having been involved in various retail operations I can say it does not really surprise me. 

Thanks for taking the time to share these insights with us.


----------



## guildofblades (Jan 25, 2007)

>>Just wanted to jot down a quick thank you to both Ryans for sharing your insight into the market. I find it very fascinating, and disturbing at the same time. You would think an industry full of nerds would be on the cutting edge of information management and use of technology. But having been involved in various retail operations I can say it does not really surprise me.<<

It often seems that on both the manufacturer and retail levels that all the creativity goes into the games. Which on the face of it, seems like a good thing for the games and the people who play them. But on a business level most of those people have to look up from their game books and designs sometimes and realize that same level of creativity and effort must also be applied to the management of their businesses.

On the information technology side of things, its not always easy to implement as small business, manufacturer or retailer alike. Unless one of the partners just happens to come from a programming background, they have to hire to have this stuff done. And paying contract programmers is not cheap for a whole bunch of under capitalized businesses. The Guild of Blades was forced to start down the path of information management. When we finally decided that building a lasting and stable business through use of the distribution tier was nigh to impossible we ventured into self distribution, focusing efforts on direct sales to both retailers and consumers, effectively letting all products follow the path of least resistance to the hands of the gamers. And suddenly we found ourselves in command of a level of detailed information that we had not had access to, which was essentially filtered out of the picture when dealing through distributors. And we started to think, boy, if I could just do a zip code comparison of sales per title between our mail order sales volume and to that or retailers in the same zip codes and surrounding ones, that could tell us a LOT. And what we found was ultimately that strong sales to one would support stronger sales to the other. And that was just one example of using that data of many potential ones. 

We are in the process of building our own custom CRM (Customer Relations Management) software so we can automate the collection and compilation of data into the formats best suited to our needs. The next interest set of data comparisons we'll be able to do is compare the user base of our online MMOs and the zip codes of our users against the existing mail order sales and store sales by zip code and see where the overlaps are.

I think once we have all of our system in place we might start to reach out to other manufacturers and online retailers to see if we can get data dumps of their customers and sales volumes to combine together with ours to continually build a geographical map of that data. I think it will tell us some very, very interesting things about the hobby market. I doubt we'll ever be able to negotiate a data dump for the leading computer game retailers, but at the very least I should be able to compare zip code data from the hobby side and compare that against the zip code locations of major chain stores for computer games. But we'll see. We may be able to find some enterprising companies in the computer game market that'll allow us to work with their data in exchange for getting access to the results.

Anyway, yes, its difficult for the smaller one man operations to integrate the use of POS systems and CRM software and build custom applications to truly leverage the data they have available to them. But I believe doing so will become increasingly more important as a key element of running a successful company in our industry at all three tiers and the need for those data system is going to make it much more difficult for under-funded companies to get a start in the business and survive. A sad thing considering the Guild of Blades got started more than a decade ago on less than $100. lol. I do foresee some business opportunity here for service IT professional service providers who can specialize in going in to set up and customize these systems for small companies who lack the staff experience to implement them themselves.

Ryan S. Johnson
Guild of Blades Publishing Group
http://www.guildofblades.com
http://www.1483online.com
http://www.thermopylae-online.com


----------



## JVisgaitis (Jan 26, 2007)

Upper_Krust said:
			
		

> Does anyone think that wouldn't be a massive seller? If so, why not?




A couple reasons.

1. You're diluting your target market and selling your soul to release a ton of supplements to people that may not even care. DIe hard fans would easily get disgusted by this gross type of market mongering and move on to something else. I'd be the first to leave if this was the case. Also, just because there's a game with a pirate on the box, doesn't mean someone who likes pirates is going to buy it.

2. D&D is good at one thing: being D&D. No matter how appealing Dungeons & Dora might be to little kids, that's not what its about and it further tarnishes the brand. When people hear Dungeons & Dragons, there is a certain expection built up over the past 25+ odd years. Supplements like you are discussing certainly aren't it and that hurts the overall brand. Remember what happened to everyone's beloved Star Wars in recent years...?


----------



## AdmundfortGeographer (Jan 26, 2007)

JVisgaitis said:
			
		

> Supplements like you are discussing certainly aren't it and that hurts the overall brand.



I dunno, Monopoly has had a successful run at putting out a specialized Monopoly for nearly large city in the US that hasn't seemed to hurt the overall Monopoly game.


----------



## JVisgaitis (Jan 26, 2007)

Eric Anondson said:
			
		

> I dunno, Monopoly has had a successful run at putting out a specialized Monopoly for nearly large city in the US that hasn't seemed to hurt the overall Monopoly game.




It's still the same game. Your only changing the names of the locations not the heart and soul of a game that's been out for decades.


----------



## Upper_Krust (Jan 26, 2007)

Hey JVisgaitis dude! 



			
				JVisgaitis said:
			
		

> A couple reasons.
> 
> 1. You're diluting your target market




The target market is everyone. Roleplayers, Wargamers, Tabletop enthusiasts, Collectors, Kids, Families etc.

So surely I am expanding the market, not diluting it. Does the Forgotten Realms also dilute the target market, or does it expand it?

Basically what I am talking about is Dungeons & Dragons in a box, but with some clever branding/marketing we can flavour each set to appeal to a different sub-sector to get them hooked.

As I see it, its no different from bringing out a themed adventure. 

Secrets of Saltmarsh - Pirates, Ghosts, Sea Creatures
Castle Ravenloft - Vampires, Death Knights, Werewolves

If someones campaign is pirate themed then they are going to be more inclined to buy Secrets of Saltmarsh than Castle Ravenloft. How is that any different to what I am suggesting?



			
				JVisgaitis said:
			
		

> and selling your soul to release a ton of supplements to people that may not even care.




Can we not give them the chance to care? Did you somehow care about Dungeons & Dragons before you had ever played the game!? I fell in love with the game through playing, not before. So your logic is flawed.



			
				JVisgaitis said:
			
		

> DIe hard fans would easily get disgusted by this gross type of market mongering and move on to something else.




Just like they are disgusted with the D&D Miniatures chain. Just like they are disgusted with Monster Manual II, Monster Manual III, Monster Manual IV, Monster Manual V?

Was there a mass exodus of gamers when Wizards announced Monster Manual V?



			
				JVisgaitis said:
			
		

> I'd be the first to leave if this was the case.




I think you are viewing the scenario through pseudo-Gygax-tinted spectacles. In fact I think even the great man himself would see the opportunity of putting D&D in every home in America and jump at the chance. 



			
				JVisgaitis said:
			
		

> Also, just because there's a game with a pirate on the box, doesn't mean someone who likes pirates is going to buy it.




So what? Do you buy everything with a dragon on the box/cover?

What we are talking about is being more direct in reaching people. A lot of it is of course smoke and mirrors. Dungeons & Pirates is nothing more than an Aquatic setting/Pirate themed adventure. Dungeons & Dinosaurs is basically Isle of Dread.

But logically, which is going to have the wider mass market appeal:

Dungeons & Dragons: _Secrets of Saltmarsh_

or

Dungeons & Pirates



			
				JVisgaitis said:
			
		

> 2. D&D is good at one thing: being D&D.




Where is a good rolleyes smilie when you need one.   



			
				JVisgaitis said:
			
		

> No matter how appealing Dungeons & Dora might be to little kids, that's not what its about and it further tarnishes the brand.




So if you bring out a Dungeons & Dragons chess set it somehow invalidates Dungeons & Dragons itself - is that what you are saying?



			
				JVisgaitis said:
			
		

> When people hear Dungeons & Dragons, there is a certain expection built up over the past 25+ odd years.




Yes but thats a good and a bad thing.

With my suggestion you get to keep Dungeons & Dragons but also branch out into other fields.



			
				JVisgaitis said:
			
		

> Supplements like you are discussing certainly aren't it and that hurts the overall brand.




I disagree, its just fear of change on your part.



			
				JVisgaitis said:
			
		

> Remember what happened to everyone's beloved Star Wars in recent years...?




No, what happened? They run out of movies but I doubt thats the point you are making?


----------



## DaveMage (Jan 26, 2007)

UK: I think that this is what they wanted the "d20" name to do, which is why you have d20 modern, d20future, d20past, d20spectaculars (has this come out yet?), etc.

Since such product offerings seem to be waning, it doesn't look like it worked out too well.


----------



## Upper_Krust (Jan 26, 2007)

Hi DaveMage! 



			
				DaveMage said:
			
		

> UK: I think that this is what they wanted the "d20" name to do, which is why you have d20 modern, d20future, d20past, d20spectaculars (has this come out yet?), etc.
> 
> Since such product offerings seem to be waning, it doesn't look like it worked out too well.




But d20 Modern or d20 Future (etc.) are not mass market products. In fact RPGs are not mass market products in general. They are specialist products.

I have the catalogue for the UKs largest retail chain (Argos) in front of me. It has videogames, boardgames and even card games. But theres not a whiff of roleplaying games.

But something more akin to a D&D boardgame (with board pieces, minis and cards) could potentially be a mass market product.


----------



## JVisgaitis (Jan 26, 2007)

Damn you for quoting me line by line... 



			
				Upper_Krust said:
			
		

> The target market is everyone. Roleplayers, Wargamers, Tabletop enthusiasts, Collectors, Kids, Families etc.




Having a target market that is everyone isn't feasible. Even a product as successful as the iPod isn't for everyone.



			
				Upper_Krust said:
			
		

> So surely I am expanding the market, not diluting it. Does the Forgotten Realms also dilute the target market, or does it expand it?




Sorry, my bad. You're diluting the D&D brand. 



			
				Upper_Krust said:
			
		

> Basically what I am talking about is Dungeons & Dragons in a box, but with some clever branding/marketing we can flavour each set to appeal to a different sub-sector to get them hooked.




To get someone hooked, they have to be interested in the product in the first place. I don't think Dungeons & Dora would be a successful product. What mom would buy that for her kid?



			
				Upper_Krust said:
			
		

> Can we not give them the chance to care? Did you somehow care about Dungeons & Dragons before you had ever played the game!? I fell in love with the game through playing, not before. So your logic is flawed.




No, that's what marketing research is for. You can't just say lets throw these ideas against the wall and see if they stick. It doesn't work like that. If you want to get more feedback on this, start a poll. 



			
				Upper_Krust said:
			
		

> Was there a mass exodus of gamers when Wizards announced Monster Manual V?




That's D&D. Dungeons & Dora isn't.



			
				Upper_Krust said:
			
		

> I think you are viewing the scenario through pseudo-Gygax-tinted spectacles. In fact I think even the great man himself would see the opportunity of putting D&D in every home in America and jump at the chance.




Sorry, I don't think so at all. I just don't think its a great idea. Like I said, start a poll. I'd be interested to see what other people say.



			
				Upper_Krust said:
			
		

> What we are talking about is being more direct in reaching people. A lot of it is of course smoke and mirrors. Dungeons & Pirates is nothing more than an Aquatic setting/Pirate themed adventure. Dungeons & Dinosaurs is basically Isle of Dread.




Maybe its just me, but I think it doesn't even have a good marketing name. What do Dungeons have to do with Pirates or Dora?



			
				Upper_Krust said:
			
		

> No, what happened? They run out of movies but I doubt thats the point you are making?




They sucked compared to the old ones and the Star Wars brand is severely tarnished because of it.


----------



## Ourph (Jan 26, 2007)

JVisgaitis said:
			
		

> A couple reasons.
> 
> 1. You're diluting your target market and selling your soul to release a ton of supplements to people that may not even care. DIe hard fans would easily get disgusted by this gross type of market mongering and move on to something else. I'd be the first to leave if this was the case. Also, just because there's a game with a pirate on the box, doesn't mean someone who likes pirates is going to buy it.
> 
> 2. D&D is good at one thing: being D&D. No matter how appealing Dungeons & Dora might be to little kids, that's not what its about and it further tarnishes the brand. When people hear Dungeons & Dragons, there is a certain expection built up over the past 25+ odd years. Supplements like you are discussing certainly aren't it and that hurts the overall brand. Remember what happened to everyone's beloved Star Wars in recent years...?




TSR was at its most successful when it was producing D&D action figures, D&D coloring books, D&D cartoons, a full fledged basic set, a D&D-based board game (Dungeon!) and a variety of other D&D branded items (including the geeky 70's style two-tone 3/4 length sleeve T-shirts with D&D book covers printed on the front....yich!    ).  I think, if you really would leave the D&D fold due to this kind of brand-name pimpage, you're probably in a very tiny minority (which would be made up for by the massive bucks selling all these other doo-dads would rake in).


----------



## Flexor the Mighty! (Jan 26, 2007)

JVisgaitis said:
			
		

> Damn you for quoting me line by line...
> 
> 
> 
> Having a target market that is everyone isn't feasible. Even a product as successful as the iPod isn't for everyone.




Good point.  I'm not sure the "everything to everyone" approach is going to work that well.


----------



## JVisgaitis (Jan 26, 2007)

Ourph said:
			
		

> TSR was at its most successful when...




That simply isn't true. Charles Ryan posted when D&D had its best year ever. I believe that was 2004 if memory serves.



			
				Ourph said:
			
		

> I think, if you really would leave the D&D fold due to this kind of brand-name pimpage, you're probably in a very tiny minority.




I guess I'm just not coming across clearly. I love all of that stuff. I have lots of the toys, the cartoon on DVD, etc. I have no problem with any of that. I feel that what Upper_Krust is proposing to me isn't what D&D is all about.

I'm sorry but if I see a lot of new products like Dungeons & Robots, Dungeons & Dora, and whatever else on the market, to me it would look like a thinly veiled attempt to cash in on the D&D name and I would find another game to play or join the grognard ranks or don my hat of d02.

BTW, Upper_Krust I'm sorry if the tone of my previous response seems kinda harsh. I'm just at work and I don't have a lot of time to coddle my words. My apology if that's the case...


----------



## Upper_Krust (Jan 26, 2007)

Hi JV! 



			
				JVisgaitis said:
			
		

> Damn you for quoting me line by line...




You could always see sense and agree with me. 



			
				JVisgaitis said:
			
		

> Having a target market that is everyone isn't feasible. Even a product as successful as the iPod isn't for everyone.




Obviously that was more sales pitch than accurate prediction, just like...

*"D&D in every home!"*

But the point is we are targeting as many areas as possible.



			
				JVisgaitis said:
			
		

> Sorry, my bad. You're diluting the D&D brand.




I think Ourph already answered this for me.



			
				JVisgaitis said:
			
		

> To get someone hooked, they have to be interested in the product in the first place.




Which is why we are targeting every possible avenue: Dragons, Pirates, Dinosaurs, Robots, Vampires, Zombies etc.



			
				JVisgaitis said:
			
		

> I don't think Dungeons & Dora would be a successful product. What mom would buy that for her kid?




Funnily enough there is a poster here on ENWorld whose daughter is a big Dora fan and they both have great roleplaying adventures using her various toys and what have you. I'll see if I can find the thread...unfortunately not - anyone know the thread I mean and have the link to it?

I don't see Dungeons & Dora being the same exact style as Dungeons & Dragons, Dungeons & Pirates, Dungeons & Dinosaurs etc (after all there needs to be an age limit on board games with small pieces). But it could be a really cool (for 5 years olds) box of adventure props, glove puppets and so forth.

So while I don't see every boxed set (especially those further afield from the norm like Dora) adopting the exact same boards/minis/cards format they could all stick to the same rudimentary principles.



			
				JVisgaitis said:
			
		

> No, that's what marketing research is for. You can't just say lets throw these ideas against the wall and see if they stick. It doesn't work like that. If you want to get more feedback on this, start a poll.




Good idea.



			
				JVisgaitis said:
			
		

> That's D&D. Dungeons & Dora isn't.




Wouldn't you be curious to see Dora's stats to know if she and Boots could defeat Orcus or not?



			
				JVisgaitis said:
			
		

> Sorry, I don't think so at all. I just don't think its a great idea. Like I said, start a poll. I'd be interested to see what other people say.




Me too. I will start a poll tomorrow (I have to go out shortly).



			
				JVisgaitis said:
			
		

> Maybe its just me, but I think it doesn't even have a good marketing name. What do Dungeons have to do with Pirates or Dora?




Dora is an explorer...do I need to draw you a map? Shes practically a 5 year old Lara Croft. 



			
				JVisgaitis said:
			
		

> They sucked compared to the old ones and the Star Wars brand is severely tarnished because of it.




Looking at the box office figures those movies still seemed pretty popular!


----------



## Lanefan (Jan 26, 2007)

JVisgaitis said:
			
		

> That simply isn't true. Charles Ryan posted when D&D had its best year ever. I believe that was 2004 if memory serves.



The previous poster was referring to TSR's best year; TSR didn't exist in 2004.....

Lanefan


----------



## Ourph (Jan 26, 2007)

What Lanefan said.    



			
				JVisgaitis said:
			
		

> I'm sorry but if I see a lot of new products like Dungeons & Robots, Dungeons & Dora, and whatever else on the market, to me it would look like a thinly veiled attempt to cash in on the D&D name and I would find another game to play or join the grognard ranks or don my hat of d02.




I guess I'm not coming across clearly.  I think that attitude makes you part of a very small minority of D&D fans.  Most people who like the game could care less what other products have the name D&D attached to them as long as the product they like and have grown accustomed to doesn't get replaced by those other entities.


----------



## Upper_Krust (Jan 26, 2007)

Hi JV! 



			
				JVisgaitis said:
			
		

> That simply isn't true. Charles Ryan posted when D&D had its best year ever. I believe that was 2004 if memory serves.




Actually Ourph said when TSR were at their most successful. Not D&D.



			
				JVisgaitis said:
			
		

> I guess I'm just not coming across clearly. I love all of that stuff. I have lots of the toys, the cartoon on DVD, etc. I have no problem with any of that.




I was planning a Dungeons & Dragons: Fortress of Fang boxed set and a Dungeons & Dragons: Animated Series boxed set. We need a Venger mini after all! Coolest villain since Darth Vader.



			
				JVisgaitis said:
			
		

> I feel that what Upper_Krust is proposing to me isn't what D&D is all about.




I thought it was about having fun.



			
				JVisgaitis said:
			
		

> I'm sorry but if I see a lot of new products like Dungeons & Robots, Dungeons & Dora, and whatever else on the market, to me it would look like a thinly veiled attempt to cash in on the D&D name and I would find another game to play or join the grognard ranks or don my hat of d02.




If you don't try it, how do you know if you'll like it or not?

Also, you keep raising the Dungeons & Dora idea like I'm suggesting it should replace the Forgotten Realms, when it would simply be a fun RPG-esque game for very young kids (and their parents). If D&D in some small capacity can help families interact, have fun and play together then I really don't care if some grumpy gamer elitest somewhere is metaphorically turning over in their grave.  

...not saying you are that grumpy gamer elitest. 



			
				JVisgaitis said:
			
		

> BTW, Upper_Krust I'm sorry if the tone of my previous response seems kinda harsh. I'm just at work and I don't have a lot of time to coddle my words. My apology if that's the case...




No apology necessary mate (you didn't sound harsh at all). I am enjoying this friendly discussion.


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## JVisgaitis (Jan 26, 2007)

Upper_Krust said:
			
		

> Wouldn't you be curious to see Dora's stats to know if she and Boots could defeat Orcus or not?




Um... no. But it would be funny seeing Swiper statted as a Rogue/Assassin.



			
				Upper_Krust said:
			
		

> Looking at the box office figures those movies still seemed pretty popular!




Not arguing with box office results at all, but you can't tell me that the prequels had a positive influence in growing the cult following of Star Wars.



			
				Ourph said:
			
		

> Most people who like the game could care less what other products have the name D&D attached to them as long as the product they like and have grown accustomed to doesn't get replaced by those other entities.




Can't argue with that and I probably wouldn't find another game, but I would be thoroughly disgusted.



			
				Upper_Krust said:
			
		

> ...not saying you are that grumpy gamer elitest.




Not grumpy, but I probably am a bit of an elitest.


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## Lanefan (Jan 26, 2007)

JVisgaitis said:
			
		

> Not arguing with box office results at all, but you can't tell me that the prequels had a positive influence in growing the cult following of Star Wars.



Scary though it is to say it, I know a few people who joined the "cult following" *because* of the prequels...

The prequels did their bit to keep the SW brand alive, and expand it.  That there's a SW Celebration IV next May in Anaheim that'll be as big as GenCon Indy should be proof enough of that; I'd go so far as to suggest the prequels *did* grow the overall fan base and by a considerable amount...to the dismay, no doubt, of a minority of original-trilogy purists.

That said, I'm not sure the various "Dungeons and ..." ideas would do the same unless they stuck pretty close to genre.  "Dungeons and Pirates" would work, as would "Dungeons and Sherwood (Robin Hood)".  "Dungeons and Anime" would be a very big stretch.  "Dungeons and Thomas the Tank Engine" would be laughable, and only serve to harm the greater franchise.

Lanefan


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## PatEllis15 (Jan 26, 2007)

JVisgaitis said:
			
		

> Not arguing with box office results at all, but you can't tell me that the prequels had a positive influence in growing the cult following of Star Wars.




Well, they added my boys, 8 and 4 to the cult.

Place the 6 movies on a table and ask which one they want to watch (well we don't let my 4 year old watch Episode III), and they will pick them in the following order 9 times out of 10:

Episode II
Episode I
Episode VI
Episode III
Episode IV
Episode V

I keep trying to tell them that Empire is best....

What adults seem to forget is that the original movies captures most of us when were not yet in high school.  The prequels did the same for the kids of today, whether we like them or not.

Not sure how Dungeons and Elmo would play out (Is that Imix?!), but I'm all for expanding the brand.  We need a replacement generation for D&D.  Star Wars has that repalcement generation already....

Pat E


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## mmadsen (Jan 29, 2007)

Ourph said:
			
		

> Most people who like the game could care less what other products have the name D&D attached to them as long as the product they like and have grown accustomed to doesn't get replaced by those other entities.



I couldn't disagree more.  How many times have you heard, "I only like old ________, before they sold out," with reference to Metallica, or The Cure, or whatever cult interest a small group of hardcore fans used to have?  People feel easily betrayed by brands that shift away from their initial market.


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## Ourph (Jan 29, 2007)

mmadsen said:
			
		

> People feel easily betrayed by brands that shift away from their initial market.




There is only one _Metallica_.  You're talking about replacement of one product with an altered product, which is something I specifically ruled out in my earlier comment.  There's a difference between a product shifting away from its initial market and replacing the old product and a brand expanding itself to include new markets while still maintaining support and production of the original, unadulterated product.

Most D&D fans aren't even going to notice, let alone care, let alone care enough to quit playing D&D if WotC markets a Dungeons & Dora boardgame targeted at 4-8 year old kids in addition to producing the same D&D game we are all familiar with.


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## The Grumpy Celt (Feb 26, 2007)

RyanD said:
			
		

> I think there's a good chance, probably 50/50, that we'll see a 3.75 kind of release in 2007...




Apparently Winter Fantasy ended without any decelerations or announcements. So, it likely won't be released this year, but an announcement may be made later.


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