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5 months ago ::
Jan 24, 2013 - 4:13PM
#111
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Date Joined:
Oct 25, 2010
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Since 2000 WoTC spams a splat out every month. After 5years you are going to have 60 odd books which is usually around 50 more than you can really use so sales taper off and then they do a new edition. Short term they get a cash influx every 3-4 years, long term they fracture the player base.
You can't sustain that rate of splat book spam and maintain quality. Once you have the 3 core books, a few class splat books a PHB2 and an extra MM or 2 you don't really need much more. My 3.5 "core"
Yeah basically the WotC style is equivalent to strip-mining the consumer. It's just too much, too fast.
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5 months ago ::
Jan 24, 2013 - 4:14PM
#112
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Date Joined:
Apr 15, 2001
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Not in terms of being able to sell something. It might matter for some people but D&D has had 4 major varieties of mechanics and you could probably dig up some more if you went back to pre 1979.
Mechanics absolutely matter, brother. My point was that those that had a problem with 4E often didn't have a problem with it mechanically, they had a problem with it because it had the D&D logo. D&D is a finicky thing, and that's probably because everyone has a different history with it. All old news.
The playtest is an excellent example of how far afield the various views on what constitutes proper Dungeons & Dragon-ess can be. You see it whenever you visit these forums.
You've got decades of mechanical garbage and sacred cows bogging down the system to the point of being less than a joy to utilize (all editions), you've got corporate interest (understandably) shaping the face and certain mechanical aspects of the game (saw it with the miniautures in 4E and 3.5), and then you've got a group of unfortunate souls (with their own opinions on D&D) trying to bring it all together into a coherent and ultimately playable game.
Again, all old news.
Anyway, yeah, mechanics matter. If you don't have a playable game, you have a smaller market. Lots of people involved in the playtest have expressed interest in a more universal system that they can just use to run anything fantasy related. Splat and fluff are for setting books, not rule books.
What if people want the sacred cows and "mechanical garbage". I want D&D not D&D the Gathering gotta collect em all.
Reducing a character to a list of dice rolls and modifiers is not role playing*
*pg 30, AD&D 2nd Ed DMG, 1989.
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5 months ago ::
Jan 24, 2013 - 4:20PM
#113
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Date Joined:
Aug 12, 2006
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After 4th edition you can't simply go back to the good ole time. There's a sizeable part of the fanbase that likes 4e and wizards has to take that into consideration.
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5 months ago ::
Jan 24, 2013 - 4:35PM
#114
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Date Joined:
Apr 15, 2001
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Someone is going to miss out though erleni. I'm not sayin bring back THACo and level limits and you can't please both camps. They are putting an effort into balancing D&DN (4th ed influence) but to sell it to the pre 4th ed players they need some amount of sacred cows.
Sacred cows have been killed before in every D&D cycle but there is a limit on how many one can kill.
Depending on where you draw the line in the sand they will lose some amount of pre 4th ed and 4th ed players regardless. You're not going to please everyone.
Reducing a character to a list of dice rolls and modifiers is not role playing*
*pg 30, AD&D 2nd Ed DMG, 1989.
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5 months ago ::
Jan 24, 2013 - 4:50PM
#115
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Date Joined:
Feb 13, 2012
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I'm one of those old coots from the seventies, and I can assure you I have not been pleased by any of the back bending "WotC" has been doing on my behalf. I see very little of orginal D&D in any playtest since the first packet. And, I don't really want to go back to "O" D&D, anyway. I was away from the hobby for a long time before coming back with 4e and the Encounters program. If I'd come back to re-prints and what we've seen so far of Next, I'd probably have played for a few weeks or months, enjoyed the nostalgia, and gotten bored again.
So, a game that's not even remotely close to finished wouldn't hold your interest?
Wouldn't even have attracted my notice if the AD&D reprints had been out and people had been up for playing them. It's only because I found Encounters and 4e that I have an interest in D&D going forward, rather than just as something I did way back when. Playing D&D or AD&D again would be like watching an old movie you vaguely remember liking or re-reading an old book. It's something I might do as much as once a decade. Not really something to build a business on, but I suppose they can make some money off it at the moment - and maybe again in another 10 or 20 years, maybe with 3e and 4e reprints.
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5 months ago ::
Jan 24, 2013 - 4:57PM
#116
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Date Joined:
Nov 18, 2004
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After 4th edition you can't simply go back to the good ole time. There's a sizeable part of the fanbase that likes 4e and wizards has to take that into consideration.
Could you please quantify that? Because my suspcion is that the number isn't substantial. I haven't found any evidence that it is and the indicators I've come across lead me to believe that it's really insubstantial.
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5 months ago ::
Jan 24, 2013 - 4:59PM
#117
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Date Joined:
May 25, 2012
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Case in point, I never left the "good ole time". I have been playing D&D since Tsr owned the company. I have never stopped in over 25 years. All of these other systems have come and gone in 8 years or so - in fact I missed whole editions of the game and only tried 3e after 4 e. was on the market. I learned of 4e and it's early abandonment as WOTC's flagship last year. Today is the old days for me. I like the TSR brand of D&D and now have reprints to continue doing just what I like. Playing Advanced Dungeons and Dragons. If Next is the new flash in the pan so what? if it Sucks ( so far I think it does) so what? How does that effect me? It doesn't. The biggest thing Wotc has done for me and Old schoolers like me is Offer the reprints and the Pdf's of AD&D products.
If Next is a game I recognize as D&D I might give it a try, but if It's strays far from it's roots: I.E. the D20 system I recognize, I'll watch it pass on by and ignore it just like Iv'e been ignoring Wotc's offerings for the last 12 years.
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5 months ago ::
Jan 24, 2013 - 5:09PM
#118
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Date Joined:
Jan 10, 2012
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With D&D you only get what you put into it. The mechanics of the system alone don't make game.
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5 months ago ::
Jan 24, 2013 - 5:14PM
#119
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Date Joined:
Apr 15, 2001
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Case in point, I never left the "good ole time". I have been playing D&D since Tsr owned the company. I have never stopped in over 25 years. All of these other systems have come and gone in 8 years or so - in fact I missed whole editions of the game and only tried 3e after 4 e. was on the market. I learned of 4e and it's early abandonment as WOTC's flagship last year. Today is the old days for me. I like the TSR brand of D&D and now have reprints to continue doing just what I like. Playing Advanced Dungeons and Dragons. If Next is the new flash in the pan so what? if it Sucks ( so far I think it does) so what? How does that effect me? It doesn't. The biggest thing Wotc has done for me and Old schoolers like me is Offer the reprints and the Pdf's of AD&D products.
If Next is a game I recognize as D&D I might give it a try, but if It's strays far from it's roots: I.E. the D20 system I recognize, I'll watch it pass on by and ignore it just like Iv'e been ignoring Wotc's offerings for the last 12 years.
Check out my DDI idea then. Would you pay for new AD&D material and would you play other versions of D&D on occaison if it basically came free with DDI?
community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/758...
Reducing a character to a list of dice rolls and modifiers is not role playing*
*pg 30, AD&D 2nd Ed DMG, 1989.
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5 months ago ::
Jan 24, 2013 - 6:56PM
#120
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Date Joined:
Aug 16, 2012
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Someone is going to miss out though erleni. I'm not sayin bring back THACo and level limits and you can't please both camps. They are putting an effort into balancing D&DN (4th ed influence) but to sell it to the pre 4th ed players they need some amount of sacred cows.
Sacred cows have been killed before in every D&D cycle but there is a limit on how many one can kill.
Depending on where you draw the line in the sand they will lose some amount of pre 4th ed and 4th ed players regardless. You're not going to please everyone.
Zard, that's going to be the case, regardless. There are too many generations with too many ideas as to exactly what constitutes D&D. If they build a primo system, then at least they've got that to hang their hat on. However, even if they do their best to pander to every gamist, history fanatic, and everyday gamer they'll still get something wrong in someone's opinion. You can't please everyone. Hell, when it comes to a game like D&D... you can't please anyone. Something will always, always, always be wrong, and even niggling details can set a D&D fan's teeth on edge. Trust me, I know. I'm one of 'em, afterall. So are you, so's everybody here.
The history is important, but there's too much for even a legion of writers and D&D historians to analyze and unobtrusively insert into the game. Even if they did take the time to try, they'd screw something up somewhere along the line, and someone would end up getting butthurt over it.
When it comes to the sacred cows... most players don't even know where they come from, most don't care. Even the guys that argue most strongly against the sacred cow barbeques sometimes have no clue as to the origins of the tropes they're arguing to keep in the game. Seriously, ask around about the origin of alignment. See how many folks know just how it came about. Hell, ask about Rangers and their spellcasting. Not many know exactly why they can do it... in every setting, regardless of whether or not it's setting appropriate.
The tropes helped shape the game, but they're just so bloody confused nowadays. To some, they're an annoyance. To others, well, they're the glue that holds the very universe together.
Anyway, yeah, back to my main point: If they build a good system, at least they've got a good system. They'll never be able to please everyone outside of that one solitary arena.
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