Quote from: noisms;686455Does nobody else agree with me that D&D is at the moment stuck in a deeply uninteresting and pretty uncool (I hate that word, but bear with me) rut? Fantasy/SF is probably at a decades-long high at the moment in terms of popularity - in fact it may be more popular than it has ever been, with the success of Harry Potter, Game of Thrones/SoIaF, Hunger Games, etc. - but the Dragonlance style high fantasy tropes and orcs, elves, dragons and whatnot definitely don't seem to be part of the zeitgeist at the moment. Everything is either grimdark (SoIaF), weird (China Mieville, etc.) or rooted in the real world (Harry Potter).

Totally.  Ironically, early D&D tended to be grimdark, and I think an interesting strategy for revitalizing the brand would be to re-emphasize that aspect of the game - which would also appeal to traditionalists.

My hope is that Next leans this direction, but I haven't read the rules really well enough to make that judgement.

Quote from: flyerfan1991;686475Let's be honest with ourselves for a moment.

I'm sure they'd care about a $50M brand.  And I think D&D can be at least a $50M brand, if managed properly.  A large part of that may be just the IP value of the brand.  Keeping the RPG current in many ways may be a loss leader to license the brand for computer/video games.

Quote from: flyerfan1991;686475If Paizo keeps doing their thing and maintains their momentum, the RPG community will be better off than relying upon the whims of Hasbro's bean counters to survive.

Meh.  I'm not a 3x fan, and I think that, in the larger scope, PF will maintain itself as a niche.  I think there's just too much barrier to entry.

What I see as more likely is that Hasbro decides to sell off either WotC or just D&D, and a smaller shop that *will* be happy with smaller numbers ends up buying it and running with it.  I don't know if that's Paizo, for the reasons I've given above.

Quote from: robiswrong;686446I think Hasbro wants the big play.  They want a hundred million dollar market at a minimum.  Certainly more than 12.  And they know that to do that they need to *grow* the market, and they pretty clearly didn't think that 3.x (however much people liked it) would grow the market.

4e was an attempt to do so.  I think it was a fine game, personally, just not a very awesome D&D game.  But it clearly didn't give them the results or even the trajectory they wanted.

So I think they're mostly going back to basics.  They want to make a game that's easy for people to pick up, and that focuses less on number crunching.  They're trying to figure out why people liked D&D, and hit those marks, rather than put out more of what the existing niche wants (which is basically Paizo's strategy).

Great post.

You can see WotC's change of strategy as far back as Essentials. They knew 4E wasn't growing the market. Maybe they hoped for a big uptake of WoW players and that didn't materialize. Whatever the reason, with Essentials they were already looking to the two most promising pools of potential players: lapsed TSR D&D players (or whom there are literally millions), and casual gamers. That's why Essentials character options were simplified. That's why the books were cheaper. That's why the core classes were made more traditional. That's why the red box cover was lifted from the TSR era.

When Essentials didn't revive 4E, it was canned so WotC could put a new edition on the market whose core design and market principle was to appeal to those two groups. Going after existing D&D players is a secondary consideration. And in fact, listening too closely to hardcore players will hurt their primary goal of growing the game. And WotC has more or less admitted as much.

Quote from: noisms;686455Does nobody else agree with me that D&D is at the moment stuck in a deeply uninteresting and pretty uncool (I hate that word, but bear with me) rut? Fantasy/SF is probably at a decades-long high at the moment in terms of popularity - in fact it may be more popular than it has ever been, with the success of Harry Potter, Game of Thrones/SoIaF, Hunger Games, etc. - but the Dragonlance style high fantasy tropes and orcs, elves, dragons and whatnot definitely don't seem to be part of the zeitgeist at the moment. Everything is either grimdark (SoIaF), weird (China Mieville, etc.) or rooted in the real world (Harry Potter).

It seems like D&D could ride the wave of the genre's increasing presence on the mainstream, but it might need to ditch a lot of sacred cows to get there.

Quote from: robiswrong;686503Totally.  Ironically, early D&D tended to be grimdark, and I think an interesting strategy for revitalizing the brand would be to re-emphasize that aspect of the game - which would also appeal to traditionalists.

My hope is that Next leans this direction, but I haven't read the rules really well enough to make that judgement.

Yeah, it's baffling. When I see the artwork that Paizo and WotC put out, I just shake my head. Aren't they aware of AGoT? Even LotR game art tends to be a lot darker than D&D or Pathfinder. Where are they getting their memes from? Obviously not the massive, mainstream fantasy realm of #1 bestsellers and blockbuster movie franchises.

Quote from: Haffrung;686509Yeah, it's baffling. When I see the artwork that Paizo and WotC put out, I just shake my head. Aren't they aware of AGoT? Even LotR game art tends to be a lot darker than D&D or Pathfinder. Where are they getting their memes from? Obviously not the massive, mainstream fantasy realm of #1 bestsellers and blockbuster movie franchises.

Some of the art seems to be catering to anime fans, but I don't really know what I am talking about.

Quote from: flyerfan1991;686475If Paizo keeps doing their thing and maintains their momentum, the RPG community will be better off than relying upon the whims of Hasbro's bean counters to survive.

Quote from: tzunder;686499Too right. On which note we can safely say that our entire hobby is a niche, and enjoy it..

Thing about niches is without new blood they tend to get smaller. Just look at the historical hex and counter wargame hobby. Used to be massive. Games selling 200,000+ units. Clubs in every college. Then the publishers kept catering to the same aging demographic of hardcore players until it become a totally inaccessible hobby, with three map and 2,000 counter games that take 12-40 hours to play. Print runs of 1,000, mostly bought by solo collectors. RPGs are heading off the same cliff without popular commercial revitalization.

Quote from: Haffrung;686514Thing about niches is without new blood they tend to get smaller. Just look at the historical hex and counter wargame hobby. Used to be massive. Games selling 200,000+ units. Clubs in every college. Then the publishers kept catering to the same aging demographic of hardcore players until it become a totally inaccessible hobby, with three map and 2,000 counter games that take 12-40 hours to play. Print runs of 1,000, mostly bought by solo collectors. RPGs are heading off the same cliff without popular commercial revitalization.

Exactly.  This happens a lot in video games, too.  I call it the genre lifecycle, and it goes something like this:

1) New game idea comes out, is refreshing and innovative if a bit clunky.  Picks up some fans
2) Someone else (usually Blizzard) takes the ideas of step 1, and refines the hell out of them.  This game becomes a breakout hit.
3) People now start making more games in this mold.  Since most of the game designers are also players, they try to "advance" the genre by adding new features.  This keeps the old players happy, and the game is still accessible enough for new people.
4) The new features start adding up, and the genre becomes less accessible to new players.  Old players become highly discriminatory towards even minor differences
5) Natural attrition starts taking the players of the genre.  With no new players, the genre starts to dwindle in sales and eventually becomes a minor niche

This has happened with a ton of video game genres.  It can be countered, but doing so takes a lot of deliberate, thoughtful work.  I see a lot of the same thing with RPGs.

Quote from: flyerfan1991;686475Even if everything broke the right way, like if by some miracle a good D&D movie were released and not the smoldering piles of lion crap that Courtney Solomon has been involved with, it would still be a stretch to make D&D a 100 million dollar brand.

If they can't make any headway with the D&D ip, will they sell it or shelve it?

All the while with Courtney Solomon continuing to destroy the value of the D&D ip.  :rolleyes:

Quote from: noisms;686455Does nobody else agree with me that D&D is at the moment stuck in a deeply uninteresting and pretty uncool (I hate that word, but bear with me) rut? Fantasy/SF is probably at a decades-long high at the moment in terms of popularity - in fact it may be more popular than it has ever been, with the success of Harry Potter, Game of Thrones/SoIaF, Hunger Games, etc. - but the Dragonlance style high fantasy tropes and orcs, elves, dragons and whatnot definitely don't seem to be part of the zeitgeist at the moment. Everything is either grimdark (SoIaF), weird (China Mieville, etc.) or rooted in the real world (Harry Potter).

It seems like D&D could ride the wave of the genre's increasing presence on the mainstream, but it might need to ditch a lot of sacred cows to get there.

Completely.

A lot of the "nu-D&D" fanatics who berate TSR fans for being "suck in the 80's" and "out of touch with modern kids" seem unaware that they're stuck in the late 90's.

Quote from: Haffrung;686509Yeah, it's baffling. When I see the artwork that Paizo and WotC put out, I just shake my head. Aren't they aware of AGoT? Even LotR game art tends to be a lot darker than D&D or Pathfinder. Where are they getting their memes from? Obviously not the massive, mainstream fantasy realm of #1 bestsellers and blockbuster movie franchises.

This is what you mentioned in a post earlier:

Quote from: Haffrung;686504Maybe they hoped for a big uptake of WoW players

So, it is pretty obvious isn't it?

Quote from: robiswrong;686517...5) Natural attrition starts taking the players of the genre.  With no new players, the genre starts to dwindle in sales and eventually becomes a minor niche

This has happened with a ton of video game genres.  It can be countered, but doing so takes a lot of deliberate, thoughtful work.  I see a lot of the same thing with RPGs.

I wonder how Games Workshop manages it with its warhammer games.

Quote from: xech;686522I wonder how Games Workshop manages it with its warhammer games.

Not sure.  I haven't looked at that hobby enough to really gauge it.

The key with genre lifecycle is the increasing complexity of the game, generally to appease the old players of the genre.  If the complexity isn't significantly increasing, then there's not an issue.

At a minimum, the complexity for entry into the hobby/genre needs to be kept low, even if there are ways to increase the complexity for more 'advanced' players.

Quote from: soviet;686199Pathfinder is sort of the third party candidate that got lucky and found themselves winning the election. They'd be crazy to try to compete with wizards on their own terms by developing a whole new edition. Their customer base consists primarily of people who are happy with 3x, don't want to see any big changes, and are actively annoyed with WotC. Paizo's best move is to keep doing what they're already doing and maybe release some glossy new supplement to capitalise on the whole 'fuck WotC' protest vote crowd.

There was no luck involved at all. There was a lot of worry and concern once Dragon and Dungeon was yanked from them. They made the call to stick with what they could (they didn't have the option to "go 4e" like many people believe - since they were still neck deep in producing 3.x stuff with a lot of their freelancers - me being one of them.) It wasn't about competing with WotC (backed by Hasbro). It *never* was. It was purely about survival.

They certainly had *no idea* that Pathfinder was going to take off like it did. Take a look back at their publishing history - they were doing AP's for 3x for some time, it was the bread-and-butter of the whole venture. When Dragon and Dungeon got yanked, they joined the rest of the crowd with creating their own 3.x kitchen-sink campaign world with some rules adjustments (not nearly enough imo).

And this resonated with the 3.x crowd for all the reasons already mentioned: Good customer service, good production, good quality art, good feedback with the fans.... compared to WotC.

FWIW - I like Golarion fine. I don't like the Pathfinder system (and I've run it since before the public beta. With several multi-year campaigns.) The system has rot still in it.

Quote from: tenbones;686524When Dragon and Dungeon got yanked, they joined the rest of the crowd with creating their own 3.x kitchen-sink campaign world with some rules adjustments (not nearly enough imo).

Who else published a 3.x kitchen-sink campaign world, during the 4E D&D era?

Quote from: xech;686522I wonder how Games Workshop manages it with its warhammer games.

It basically doesn't cater to older players. The whole business works on sucking in new players, selling them a lot of expansive items, and then discarding them in favour of new customers.

Quote from: ggroy;686527Who else published a 3.x kitchen-sink campaign world, during the 4E D&D era?

Not in the 4e era (though I'm sure I could dig one or two up) but in general.

Green Ronin
Malhavoc
Kenzer and Co.

oh you know the list...

They took advantage of the OGC - and Paizo *followed* suit. The best thing that *ever* happened to Paizo was 4e. If 4e never happened, Paizo would be around, certainly, but Pathfinder would have had a rougher start.

I'm sure one could argue the same thing for the rest of the "indie" gaming industry. My opinions is the rise of all these other cool (and not-so-cool) gaming systems is reactionary to the thing that is 4e. It shocked a lot of people that were mired in 3.x to go out and look at other things. Some went out and invented new things in the hobby.

4e was great for some people. Not for D&D. IMO<--- naturally.