Just been in the local game stores -one has the Eberron, and FR sourcebooks are (for the 1st time) in the sale - £6-8 off, the other has Dragonlance stuff at half-price. The assistant said it's gonna be one long push before the new stuff arrives, the attitude being all hail the new flesh, the king is dead, long live the king.

Even here, it's started.

Quote from: HaffrungCare to make a rational rebuttal?

I'll wait for a rational complaint.

Quote from: RPGPunditThe folks who didn't buy into 3e were mostly story-based Swine who were responsible for the collapse of the roleplaying hobby?

RPGPundit

Huh? I know lots of old-school players who didn't buy into 3E. Casual gamers who don't like detailed tactical combat, players who don't like power-gaming, older gamers who were turned off by the whole dungeon-punk-superhero style of 3E, and people who just don't like change and like to play the same game they grew up with.

There's a whole fucking board of old-schooler D&D players who didn't make the jump to 3E - and for largely the same reason the 3E die-hards are getting their backs up about 4E - the game is changing to appeal to a different demographic. They didn't like the new style of play, thought nothing was wrong with the old game, and they didn't want to change.

Quote from: RPGPunditThe folks who didn't buy into 3e were mostly story-based Swine who were responsible for the collapse of the roleplaying hobby?

Hold up, Pundit: you've stated on your blog that your favourite version of D&D is the Rules Cyclopedia, that you played a bit of 3.0 but never made the leap to 3.5, and that a clear majority of your D20 game involved games other than D&D. I'll accept that you bought into D20, but I wouldn't call that buying into 3E - at most, I'd say you bought into it for a bit, decided that you preferred RC D&D, and reverted to that, a bit like one of your hypothetical D&D-playing Swine might try 3.0 for a bit, decide it wasn't for them, and go back to 2E.

Quote from: Caesar SlaadI'll wait for a rational complaint.

I didn't make a complaint, just an observation: that some 3E players are balking at switching to 4E for the same reasons that 1/2E players balked at switching to 3E. And that the designers at WotC are no more (or less) dickheads for chalking up some 3E die-hards as losses as they were for chalking up some 1/2E die-hards as losses.

This is getting almost comical. Why do 3E loyalists feel their game should be more sancrosanct than 1/2E was?

Quote from: grubmanI've stopped talking about 4E because almost every discussion ends in a fight...but what the hell.

I'll cut ya!

Quote from: HaffrungThis is getting almost comical. Why do 3E loyalists feel their game should be more sancrosanct than 1/2E was?

:haw:

...only that old-school play STILL is possible with 3e. It´s just in the modules, baby.

The spells and items are all there.

Quote from: RPGPunditThe folks who didn't buy into 3e were mostly story-based Swine who were responsible for the collapse of the roleplaying hobby?

RPGPundit

Yeah, sorry to dog-pile you pundit, but that seems like an odd assertion. I mean, I don't think story oriented gamers were big on 3e, but they certainly weren't the only gamers, or the only D&D gamers not to buy in.

Quote from: HaffrungExcuse me if I don't take your word for it. From the comments I've seen by industry insiders, the RPG industry was in decline ten years ago, the publication of 3E saw a spike in sales, and now the decline has steepened. The average age of players is getting older. The market is getting smaller. That's why WotC has to go after the younger gamers to bring in new customers (just as they did with 3E).

Have you ever read Dancey's account of WotC buying out TSR?

There was a deliberate strategy to make 3e appeal to 1e fans who felt that 2e had been too watered-down.  That's why they added back the barbarian, monk, etc.

3e was very carefully designed to appeal to both new players and old players.  That is why it was such a big success.

What Grubman is saying, and I agree with, is that 4e is being designed mostly to appeal to new players - at the expense of alienating current ones.  And given that the hobby overall is graying, that is a huge risk.

WotC is assuming that if they add on the trappings of WoW and throw some stuff on the Internet that the hobby will suddenly be more appealing for the youth market.  But personally, I think they are wrong.  I think that the vast majority of kids today just aren't interested in PnP RPGs anymore.  There are too many other entertainment options available to them now.

So, if 4e does not succeed in appealing to more kids than 3e did, where does that leave things?  Even if a relatively small group of 3e customers decide not to go with 4e, then that's still a pretty big hit to sales.  That's why no one in their right mind tries to alienate their existing customers.

Quote from: jgantsHave you ever read Dancey's account of WotC buying out TSR?

There was a deliberate strategy to make 3e appeal to 1e fans who felt that 2e had been too watered-down.  That's why they added back the barbarian, monk, etc.

3e was very carefully designed to appeal to both new players and old players.  That is why it was such a big success.

What Grubman is saying, and I agree with, is that 4e is being designed mostly to appeal to new players - at the expense of alienating current ones.  And given that the hobby overall is graying, that is a huge risk.

WotC is assuming that if they add on the trappings of WoW and throw some stuff on the Internet that the hobby will suddenly be more appealing for the youth market.  But personally, I think they are wrong.  I think that the vast majority of kids today just aren't interested in PnP RPGs anymore.  There are too many other entertainment options available to them now.

So, if 4e does not succeed in appealing to more kids than 3e did, where does that leave things?  Even if a relatively small group of 3e customers decide not to go with 4e, then that's still a pretty big hit to sales.  That's why no one in their right mind tries to alienate their existing customers.

All sounds points.

But from a business points of view, I can't see Hasbro resigning themselves to WotC riding a greying and shrinking demographic into the sunset. If they can't revitalize D&D, they'll probably just shut it down as a pen-and-paper product.

So the problem lies in deciding which of the elements long standing players are okay with changing, and which they'll balk at. Trouble is, 3E is already a compromise of sorts (though an unequal one) between grognards and the superheroic tactical-miniatures market. You have the grognards who are cool with DM authority, and like a lot of the colour and elements of old-school D&D they remember from their own youth. And then you have the players for who D&D is all about battle boards, feat chains, and hard-coded rules that everyone has to follow. I don't think it's feasible anymore to straddle those two models. I also think it's clear which one is the dominant model in the marketplace.

There's no way WotC can come up with a game that:

A) Is different enough to justify a whole new edition, and the costs associated with buying new books,

B) Will not alienate the players who are already happy with 3.x,

C) Attract enough new customers to keep the game vital.

So the question is how many players who are happy with 3.x are they willing to alienate? I really don't know. Despite Dancey's comments about 3E bringing a lot of 1E players back into the fold, my sense is the number of players who didn't make the switch is significant. Just pulling a number out of my ass, maybe a quarter. Was that a big loss for WotC in terms of dollars? Probably not. Those guys were probably more self-reliant than average, and didn't buy a lot of books in the first place. Then there's natural attrition - players drop out as they get older. All else being equal, when it comes to hobby gaming a younger customer is always preferable to an older one.

My point is, the move to 4E isn't such a different situation from the move to 3E as a lot of the 3E diehards are making it out to be. WotC has shown in the past that you can revamp D&D, lose some long-standing players, and still come out ahead. Will it work this time? I don't know. If the well really is dry for bringing in new blood, and the game is much more reliant on a hardcore of existing players than it was seven years ago, then D&D is in its dotage already, and WotC is unlikely to remain the publisher of the game for much longer anyway.

Quote from: Settembrini...only that old-school play STILL is possible with 3e. It´s just in the modules, baby.

The spells and items are all there.

Hmmm, well maybe the "feel" of 3e will still be possible in 4e? In the modules, at least.

If you don't like the idea of trying to get some kind of "3e feel" out of 4e, then you are now in the shoes of those of use who don't like the idea of a "1e" or "classic" feel from 3.x.

Quote from: jgantsSo, if 4e does not succeed in appealing to more kids than 3e did, where does that leave things?  Even if a relatively small group of 3e customers decide not to go with 4e, then that's still a pretty big hit to sales.  That's why no one in their right mind tries to alienate their existing customers.

I'm not an expert by any means, and I fully admit that any opinion I offer is not only probably biased, but also ignorant of many details.

But I'd predict that if 4e doesn't do a good job of grabbing internet players, we might see one more modification that swings D&D to be even more internet based. If this fails, then I bet (as the name of this thread) that D&D as a PnP game is dumped and it is made into a full fledged online game like WoW.

Who knows, maybe they'll develop this fully online WoW-like game soon (maybe even now).

But in any case, I would say that if the PnP/internet D&D 4e effort doesn't generate "serial" profits, we might see it die within 2 years of its release. In the end, it seems to me like this is the goal of 4e...to start edging customers toward a recurring monthly paying group of customers, not just people who might buy a book and the cost ends there.

Quote from: Goblinoid GamesHmmm, well maybe the "feel" of 3e will still be possible in 4e? In the modules, at least.

If you don't like the idea of trying to get some kind of "3e feel" out of 4e, then you are now in the shoes of those of use who don't like the idea of a "1e" or "classic" feel from 3.x.

If I can DM a 1e module off the cuff with 4e, I´ll be playing it.
All I know thus far sugests that won´t be possible.

Quote from: jgantsWhat Grubman is saying, and I agree with, is that 4e is being designed mostly to appeal to new players - at the expense of alienating current ones.

Can you give me some examples?

Seanchai