Quote from: Haffrung;687938People who aren't char op fiends and theory-wanks, who are happily playing an edition of D&D that pretty much works okay for them and their friends - they're the majority of D&D players

Yay!

Quote from: Piestrio;687849For you maybe.

I'm fully capable of imagining a person with angel wings doing cool shit and adjudicating that in a role-playing game.

Man, why the hostility? What the fuck did I say? I just explained my preference. You disagree and that's fine but do you have to turn everything into a pissing contest?

Quote from: Benoist;687859You have large feathered wings. You have a flying movement speed of 18', and can hover for short periods of time. Because your society has been stagnant for millennia, and receded long before the rise of Man, you process your experiences and learn from them slower. -10% Experience. Level limitations include Fighter 5, MU 6, Ranger 4, Paladin 6. There are no thieves, nor druids, nor clerics amongst your people. They are so few they abide by the laws of the aviaries or die. The Gods have long been silent to them, but for very few dedicated Paladins, the elite of the Aviaries, who are the incarnation of the winged spirits of the Dying Light in the world, and very rare travelers (rangers) who have decided to mingle with the natural world and defend it, rather than stay in the aviaries to serve the Dying Light.

/done.

Okay, that was pretty cool and I like it. But whether it's in the books or a house rule race you'd still have to determine that at character generation and write down somewhere. Which was my point, some things you can establish in play but some are better off marked beforehand.

But for some reason what seems like the simplest thing seems to be pretty controversial. Live and learn.

Quote from: vytzka;688023Man, why the hostility? What the fuck did I say? I just explained my preference. You disagree and that's fine but do you have to turn everything into a pissing contest?

Didn't you know? The idea the RPGs should have a set of rules that a generally followed is actually conspiracy by the minmaxer swine to destroy RPGs ;3

Quote from: Benoist;687919Well, if they trust these forums as a representation of what actual gamers think about the game they like and play, then they're setting themselves up like they did for late 3.5 and 4e by giving the whiners of sites like ENWorld way too much importance in the first place. It's on them at this point.

I would take what Mearls' says... anything he says really, with an ENORMOUS grain of salt, though.

After all, it's because of that listening that we got 4e in the first place.  I think that Mearls is smart enough to not fall for that a second time.

The suits, on the other hand, aren't going to be gamers, and those are the ones to be concerned about.  However, the appeal of selling a modular system, where people buy multiple sets to get what they want, that will appeal to the suits.

Quote from: gamerGoyf;687962Two, bro if your keep going on about how black that kettle is consider looking in the mirror first. You deep desires for what RPGs should be like aren't necessarily more representative of what attracts players than anyone else's ;3

We're not talking about what I prefer, we're talking about how WotC is designing and marketing Next. We know the following:

1) WotC has said they listened too much over the last 10 years to people who were already fans, and not enough to people who were interested in D&D but had never played.

2) 4E was very popular with system-wanks, and with some of the char op crowd. It was the most popular RPG while it was still being supported. WotC first ratcheted back the char op to something more traditional with Essentials, then canned the whole edition. That suggests that WotC is aiming its sites higher than simply being the most popular iteration of D&D among existing fans, and that the barrier to growth is inaccessibility.

3) The playtest rules themselves offer only moderate character optimization. More than B/X D&D, but far less than either 3E or 4E. Next offers character generation streams that are simpler than anything seen in D&D since the Mentzer Basic edition.

4) On RPG boards, the char OP and system-wank crowds are already hating on 5E, saying it offers them nothing other versions of D&D can't do better. And they're correct.

You may very well not be the target audience for Next. And it sounds like that hurts your feelings. Makes you mad. But there's no need gripe and moan that it won't be an appealing game for anybody.

Quote from: vytzka;688023Man, why the hostility? What the fuck did I say? I just explained my preference. You disagree and that's fine but do you have to turn everything into a pissing contest?

This:

QuoteYou know, it's harder to rely on your imagination the further out from human/historical baseline you deviate.

is not a statement about your preference.

That was my point. "For you maybe"

Maybe you have problems imagining stuff "the further out from human/historical baseline you deviate" (which is what you're saying yes?) but it's not a universal truth.

Basically, it struck me as incredibly odd and I pushed back. Especially odd with your response, where you basically repeat what I said and call me hostile for saying it.

To paraphrase:

You: It's hard to just imagine far-out stuff

Me: Maybe it's hard you you, but not everyone.

You: Why so mean!? I just said it's hard for me!

Me: 0_o

No reason to wilt.

Quote from: flyerfan1991;688078After all, it's because of that listening that we got 4e in the first place.  I think that Mearls is smart enough to not fall for that a second time.

The suits, on the other hand, aren't going to be gamers, and those are the ones to be concerned about.  

It's probably a good thing that the suits aren't gamers. Gamers aren't exactly the most rational or objective people about these things.

Here's how I expect the decision to scrap 4E and completely re-think D&D came about:

Hasbro Suit: I looked at the numbers, and this isn't what we had hoped for. You guys told us that 4E would bring in a whole new cohort of gamers from online games.

WotC R&D Guy: Well it has. Just not as many as we'd hoped.

Suit: So how do you guys plan to grow this game? Looks like you're just chasing the same group of existing players. And those other guys - what are they called?

R&D: Paizo.

Suit: Yeah, they took a big chomp out of the 3rd edition die-hards.

R&D: Yeah, but we can get them back -

Suit: Forget about getting them back. How are we going to grow the game? You've seen the marketing data in the powerpoint presentation on Monday. How do we get those two biggest pieces of the pie chart - the customers who have played D&D at some point, but stopped playing, and those who know about D&D and want to play, but haven't. Tabletop gaming is booming right now. Look at the boardgame line. Why in the hell isn't D&D seeing some of that love?

R&D: Well, with 4E we worked on making the game more balanced, with all sorts of player options, and -

Suit: Listen, forget about that shit. Stop thinking like a gamer for a minute and look at the big picture. I said why isn't D&D seeing growth among those people lining up to buy the boardgames and getting together with their friends to play face-to-face every week?

R&D: But 4E was meant to be appeal to those guys with the tactical grid play.

Suit: It didn't work. The reason the boardgame market is growing isn't because there's some great upswing in the number of people who want to play games with 230 pages of rules, that take 2 hours just to get started. As a game gets more complex, its potential audience gets smaller and smaller. You've seen the data. 4E and Pathfinder might be fantastic games for those who are already hardcore gamers. But if we can't break out of that audience, D&D is finished as a viable, commercial game in the Hasbro stable.

R&D: That's why we created Essentials, to bring back the lapsed players and make D&D more accessible.

Suit: Too little too late. Essentials was still 4E, and 4E missed the mark with our audience. You gotta figure out a way to get those lapsed players and the potential new players back into the D&D hobby.  Here's the market data. This is your audience. Design a game for them. Now get to work.

Quote from: flyerfan1991;688078However, the appeal of selling a modular system, where people buy multiple sets to get what they want, that will appeal to the suits.

The Next designers have said most of the supplements won't be books of player crunch, but rather themed add-ons that offer different dials and switches to DMs. For example, a pirate book, an ice-age book, etc. that have variants for classes, environmental effects, available items.

I'm too far removed from the direct market for the product to know, have any of the designers expressed passion for DnD Next? Not how it will be balanced or appeal to gamers, but personal passion and drive to create a thing they love personally?

I don't think you're a dying breed. There have always been some pretty hardcore minmaxers. They are just able to be far more vocal these days.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;684982It just seems that, especially recently with the announcement of Next, that everyone is about the numbers.  Almost to an obsessive level.  Nothing else matters, not the environment, not the game world, not the NPCs, not the stories, none of it matters anywhere near as much as making sure that DPR is calculated for each class/race combination and compared to monsters and each other so arena battle simulations can take place like some sort of RPG version of Deadliest Warrior.

I think that is just because they know how to talk about that. Complaints along the lines of "these numbers need to change by exactly this much" seem far more interesting and relevant to talk about than "this class isn't cool enough." It isn't that they don't care about the thematic stuff, they just don't know how to talk about it.

Quote from: Haffrung;688147It's probably a good thing that the suits aren't gamers. Gamers aren't exactly the most rational or objective people about these things.

Here's how I expect the decision to scrap 4E and completely re-think D&D came about:

Hasbro Suit: I looked at the numbers, and this isn't what we had hoped for. You guys told us that 4E would bring in a whole new cohort of gamers from online games.

WotC R&D Guy: Well it has. Just not as many as we'd hoped.

Suit: So how do you guys plan to grow this game? Looks like you're just chasing the same group of existing players. And those other guys - what are they called?

R&D: Paizo.

Suit: Yeah, they took a big chomp out of the 3rd edition die-hards.

R&D: Yeah, but we can get them back -

Suit: Forget about getting them back. How are we going to grow the game? You've seen the marketing data in the powerpoint presentation on Monday. How do we get those two biggest pieces of the pie chart - the customers who have played D&D at some point, but stopped playing, and those who know about D&D and want to play, but haven't. Tabletop gaming is booming right now. Look at the boardgame line. Why in the hell isn't D&D seeing some of that love?

R&D: Well, with 4E we worked on making the game more balanced, with all sorts of player options, and -

Suit: Listen, forget about that shit. Stop thinking like a gamer for a minute and look at the big picture. I said why isn't D&D seeing growth among those people lining up to buy the boardgames and getting together with their friends to play face-to-face every week?

R&D: But 4E was meant to be appeal to those guys with the tactical grid play.

Suit: It didn't work. The reason the boardgame market is growing isn't because there's some great upswing in the number of people who want to play games with 230 pages of rules, that take 2 hours just to get started. As a game gets more complex, its potential audience gets smaller and smaller. You've seen the data. 4E and Pathfinder might be fantastic games for those who are already hardcore gamers. But if we can't break out of that audience, D&D is finished as a viable, commercial game in the Hasbro stable.

R&D: That's why we created Essentials, to bring back the lapsed players and make D&D more accessible.

Suit: Too little too late. You gotta figure out a way to get those lapsed players and the potential new players back into the D&D hobby. Essentials was still 4E, and 4E missed the mark with our audience. Here's the market data. This is your audience. Design a game for them. Now get to work.

I consider the meeting was more along the lines of:

Suit:  Magic the Gathering makes a lot of money, why don't you?

D&D Team:  Well, our product [yadda yadda yadda]

Suit:  Fix it.  Make more money.

D&D Team: We had this plan to co-release with an electronic version that would entice the MMO players, but we've hit some snags.

Suit:  Fix that.  Make more money.

D&D Team:  Well, we have this idea for D&D Next....

Suit:  Will it make more money?  If it doesn't, we're going to release Drizzt Monopoly, with a Baldur's Gate expansion.

Quote from: flyerfan1991;688153Suit:  Will it make more money?  If it doesn't, we're going to release Drizzt Monopoly, with a Baldur's Gate expansion.

:rotfl:

Quote from: Exploderwizard;688156:rotfl:

And don't think that this hasn't been floated, either.  Hell, look at all the other variants of Monopoly they produce.  This is what Hasbro calls "board game development".

I think it's too early to judge who Next's gamers will ultimately be.

Specifically because it doesn't yet exist in the market.  It only exists on the internet. YMMV, but I find that group gets surprised fairly frequently.

Quote from: flyerfan1991;688153I consider the meeting was more along the lines of:

Suit:  Magic the Gathering makes a lot of money, why don't you?

D&D Team:  Well, our product [yadda yadda yadda]

Suit:  Fix it.  Make more money.

D&D Team: We had this plan to co-release with an electronic version that would entice the MMO players, but we've hit some snags.

Suit:  Fix that.  Make more money.

D&D Team:  Well, we have this idea for D&D Next....

Suit:  Will it make more money?  If it doesn't, we're going to release Drizzt Monopoly, with a Baldur's Gate expansion.

It isn't the job of R&D to figure out who their market is and how to commercialize their product. That's what product management and marketing is for.

You start with an audience. Who is going to buy your product?

Then you find out the needs and wants of that audience. Why should they buy your product?

Only after those questions are answered by the suits, do the R&D types get to work on creating the product to suit that particular market and those particular needs. If WotC has been letting R&D define the audience and the audience needs for D&D, then they are a pretty fucked-up, amateur company.

I rather pictured the suit as being a Hasbro guy.

And they tend to suck at business decisions.  They strike me as a Disney - surviving by IP and market penetration alone.