Another new edition for Dungeons and Dragons

[Baphomet69]

Reaperbryan - thanks for the links. I'm now mildly, skeptically intrigued (hey, its a start...). I may even flip through the core books when the hit the shelves.

 

Though it's really going to have to be something now that I've fallen for BRP... ;)

[psyberwolfe1]

Let us first start with this as required reading about D&D Next.

Mearls and Cook have pretty well outlined their ideas about the new direction of D&D. Having played every edition of the game 4th has left me the coldest. Having read that entire PDF I'm super excited about this new edition. The real key to this new edition is to understand that it looks like they are creating a way to make all editions valid. All of the editions share common characteristics and boiling it down to the commonalities is what will fix D&D.

 

The problem is the D&D brand is broken and its player base is severely fractured. The OGL ensured that 3.x would live forever and made it possible that 1st and 2nd editions could see new material from indie producers. 4th was clearly a move to bring it all back in house but it back fired. Mearls and Cook seeing this know they must create One Edition to Rule them all, one edition to bind them. If D&D is to survive they must end the edition wars and create a core product that can thrive.

[Digital [email protected]]

The D&D brand is not in peril. Sales volumes of books are way higher than they were in the 80's and 90's. D&D does not have any real long term competition. Pathfinder may be great, I have never played it because power creep had destroyed D&D 3.x which is what Pathfinder is based off of. Even if it it the best game ever written, people stop buying books. Once people stop buying books you make a new game or product or you go out of business.

 

The fantasy realm has the largest player pool so that really has to be your flag ship. There are many exceptions out there but to my knowledge those are all well established worlds with an already existing fan base. For instance you are not going to make a game on a world similar to Shadowrun or traveler and get enough players to build a company around it. You also have the challenge of having a large and diverse enough staff to develope multiple game lines.

 

My point is D&D fans might be split, but the D&D brand is still the most viable in the industry. There is not even a close second. Hasbro is the biggest threat to D&D as they have the legal right to bury it because it is not profitable enough. Chances are it is too valuable and they would sell D&D for the cash.

[Bruunwald]

I read that article in - shock - an actual paper newspaper at Starbucks a few weeks ago.

 

Thing that peeved me about it was the same thing most such articles peeve me about: it was too D&D-centric. I get that D&D is the big name everybody outside of our collective hobbies recognizes, and the article was told from that perspective. But the article, like most mainstream articles, failed to deliver relevant details such as the fact that other companies, most notably Paizo, have already been allowing for testing and player input. Instead, it glossed it over by calling such activity rare and not naming any names. It also failed to really give any mention of the fact that another brand was outselling D&D, instead falling back on the only partially-true cliche that online gaming is eating into fanbase. These articles never delve any deeper than that, and so they give an impression that online gaming is more of a threat than it necessarily is, causing even our own community to fly into a panic.

 

All of this stuff they failed to really go into, is totally relevant, because of the special relationship of Pathfinder/D&D. Not to mention ironic. Yet, once again, WoTC gets notice and credit for something that isn't really their idea, and that they are adopting as a means of mitigating their own shortsightedness and arrogance. (I'm looking at you, completely unfair patent law that allows that greedy, idea-bereft company to gobble up almost every card game to hit these shores.)

[Akiosama]

I think one other thing that needs to be added to this discussion about "continuing to play the stuff that's already in print" is that the availability of product - the original stuff or new material - influences what the general player population plays. Yes, there are a lot of people who like older editions of D&D - in fact, I just heard the words "You're wrong for playing anything not 1e." Personally, I grew into the game on 2e, which still holds a lot of charm for me, but I do think that 3.x was a very good system, too.

 

The thing about 3.x that makes it even better as a system is the OGL. While I maligned the OGL when 3.5e was the current edition, because it seemed like everyone was writing 3.5e stuff and publishing it. There was so much out there to keep track of, and it made the DM's job that much harder, unless they were willing to take a stand on which splatbooks were valid - and this is even after limiting books by which campaign setting they came from, sometimes. (Curse you, Forgotten Realms.)

 

But now, it's really the OGL that's making it possible to have the RPG environment we have - at least when it comes to the decision regarding 3.5e v. 4e. Play what you want! Pathfinder, as well as many other publishers, big and small can still support 3.5e in their own ways. They can make games similar and market them to an audience that will be at least somewhat familiar with the mechanics (Spycraft or Fantasycraft, anyone?). They can still publish stuff for generic D&D 3.x. It's still very accessible, in ways that 1e and 2e aren't.

 

I think while people may have their own opinions about 4e, it's going to switch to 3.x v. 5e in the end. The lack of support of older editions, and the accessibility will be killers for 4e, despite there being quite a few products out there now. Once 5e gets going, even if it's not that great, I can't see 4e maintaining any sort of major presence once WotC stops making 4e product, especially given the lack of OGL for 4e.

 

I really wish WotC hadn't dropped the .pdf versions of their out-of-print 1e, 2e, and 3.x products on sites like Drivethrurpg.com. While it's not necessarily a lot of money for WotC, it did allow them to keep previous editions alive, and keep the D&D name going for people who enjoyed the game irregardless of which edition was current. My guess, however, is that the products were pulled in favor of supporting 4e, and that making it harder to get older editions would push newer players towards 4e, where the actual money was to be made.

 

And proof of support of previous editions killing the player base for those editions in this sort of product? Look at all the editions of Warhammer and Warhammer 40k out there. Despite being able to 'play with the materials already out there', and prevalent griping about how 'new editions ruin the game', I rarely see people play with a previous editions ruleset, even if they own most of the books for that edition. It seems that almost as soon as it is released, the player base, at least in my area, shifts to the new edition.

 

Granted, this may not hold as true for actual RPGs as opposed to the miniature stuff, but I haven't seen a 1e or 2e group in a while, and most of the 3e players are playing Pathfinder now. There are a few 4e games, though, and I thought that was good to see for the future of D&D as a franchise.

 

One other thing to consider, is that this can work in the other direction too. BattleTech, for example, was a pretty dead franchise once FASA was bought out by Microsoft and support for the non-video game version practically ceased, but now that Catalyst Games (formerly FanPro) is publishing for it again, it seems to be regaining some popularity on the gaming table.

 

Support for the game by the industry is important - it gives players a more common base to work from, and it's the players that drive this whole endeavor.

 

My 2 yen,

 

Akiosama

 

EDIT: Hmm... I didn't know about the new GSL - the OGL for 4e. Anyone know if it's being used much by writers out there?

[Gailbraithe]

EDIT: Hmm... I didn't know about the new GSL - the OGL for 4e. Anyone know if it's being used much by writers out there?

 

No, it's not. It totally sucks. Basically if you publish under the GSL then WOTC can force you to stop publishing anything you've put out and destroy any remaining copies in your warehouse. Say you created a supplement called Akiosama's Guide To Paladins and did a small print run of 500 copies. They sell out really fast because it turns out someone wrote an awesome review on RPG.net, so you order up another print run of 2000 books. Meanwhile WOTC sees all this internet buzz about your paladin book and decides they are going to release their own paladin book, but they don't want to compete with yours. So they send you a letter saying you have to stop publishing and selling Akiosama's Guide To Paladins. Which means you have to destroy that second print run. And guess who gets to eat the cost of that 2000 book print run? That's right, you! You get to eat that cost!

 

This is why Paizo published Pathfinder (its also why Necromancer Games abandoned D&D and went with Pathfinder instead). First WOTC made them sit through endless delays as they dithered about what the new OGL license would look like, and then when they finally revealed it the honchos over at Paizo we're like DO. NOT. WANT. You can't run a successful business when one of your competitors can force you to eat huge finacial losses whenever it tickles their fancy. It's suicide.

[Akiosama]

Thanks Gailbraithe.

 

I stand by my response as written.

 

My 2 yen,

 

Akiosama

[psyberwolfe1]

Yeah the GSL is from the Hasbro braintrust. The 3.X OGL actually forces OGL producers to make something of quality. Otherwise someone will make their product better.

[themudhead]

Or, you can come up with your own system. Getting ready for the Iron Kingdoms Roleplaying game by Privateer Press. Looks to be interesting, unlike 5e.

 

D&D is dead. Long live D&D.

[Heisler]

Iron Kingdoms would be interesting if I thought that Privateer Press would support it, I think its going to be strictly a second tier market for them and releases will be few and far between. If it happens otherwise I will be pleasantly surprised.

[MonkeySloth]

Privateer has a video on their site outlining the first 4 books of the RPG--which is pretty decent support for a game especially considering all of their miniature game supplements and magazines count towards fluff and support because the RPG is basically the same system as the wargame.

[Gailbraithe]

If its anything like the Iron Kingdoms stuff they released for D&D 3.0 then it will have awesome amounts of fluff but horrible, clunky and poorly written game mechanics. I really like the Iron Kingdoms fluff, but the mechanics are just unusable,

[Heisler]

Again, when Privateer Press makes it happen and its a good product then I will believe it. They promised us four books the first time too and it was literally years between a couple of those books and we only ever got three. If they do it and its good I'll be happy.

[Adrift]

My honest to goodness problem with 4e is simple. When they announced it at Gen Con the promise was that everything was going to be simpler, more streamlined, etc. In practice, 4e characters have a ridiculous amount of options, monsters are complicated as hell to run, and combats last hours & hours...despite our groups best efforts to expedite the process. If you're running a group of 3 players, everything is fine. But 4+ players at your table at higher levels and the game turns into a non-stop storm of immediate interrupt actions on both the player and monster side of the table.

 

I love that they made all the classes fundamentally valuable to a party and that it is much harder for people to munchkin the system...even the two power gamers in my group struggle around it. But, as time would have it, the more feats they release the more loopholes exist for munchkins to do what they do best.

[Dr.Bedlam]

Adrift makes an excellent point... one of my major beefs with 4E was the sheer complexity of keeping track of effects, interrupts, buffs, DOTs, and everything else. They TRIED to improve things, sure, but make it simpler? No.