So I've seen a lot of threads and comments criticizing WoTC for publishing D&D 3.5 books, or even pre-criticizing the company for imagined flaws in as-yet-unannounced 4e books.
In the interest of full disclosure, I've been playing TSR or WoTC products for around fourteen years; the bulk of that play time has been spent with 2nd Edition, but I played 1st Edition, and the various D&D box sets (Basic, Expert, the blue and red boxes...etc.). Currently the D&D campaigns I run use 3rd Edition Core rules as their foundation.
Now, to my mind, roleplaying has always been a fringe hobby, marginalized and always under threat of diminishment or extinction. So, while I'm typically uninterested in supplements or periphery books, I'm perfectly happy if WoTC can produce them and turn a profit on them, because it means that they'll be able to continue to publish roleplaying products without bleeding money. Which means the hobby will remain strong, and new players will continue to flow into our community. So, when 3.5 was published, I didn't have any interest in it, but I don't begrudge WoTC it. If there are roleplayers out there that are interested in the updates to the 3e rules that 3.5 offers, I'm glad that they're able to purchase 3.5 books and I hope that it helps them better appreciate our hobby. And, as importantly, I'm glad the sale of those books helps keep companies like WoTC afloat and interested in publishing roleplaying materials.
So, when I see posts like "don't buy the new books" it upsets me. That attitude strikes me as intolerant and detrimental to the hobby as a whole. I understand that people are uncomfortable with vaguely menacing corporate entities assuming responsibility for their favorite systems and making changes they don't like; I feel that way myself. But I'm comforted by the idea that the people creating these systems are geeks like myself, and no suit will ever be able to corrupt the flow of ideas between intellectuals, regardless of the number of pies into which they stick their greasy fingers. But, more than that, I'm comforted by the fact that I needn't ever buy another roleplaying product if I don't want to, and all the old systems are just as viable now as they were the day they were published. After all, isn't one of the most wonderful things about RPGs the fact that you can alter at will absolutely any facet of any system that isn't to your liking, and create elements wholecloth that the system's designers never imagined?
This is a long post, but there's one other thing I wanted to mention. Several people have complained about 3e being too nit-picky and rules-oriented, to the point that it interferes with roleplaying or dictates player's actions. For me, the crux of the issue is this: 3e provides rules for specific situations (Bull Rushing, or concealment, for instance) that a rules junkie can reference if he desires, but that are just as easily ignored or created on the fly by a DM who likes to play looser and faster with the rules. And the idea of feats somehow limiting the actions a character can take, or of the new classes and the feat system somehow making characters ridiculously powerful, just seems completely alien to me. I guess I've never experienced those problems and don't have any context to understand those complaints. For me, if a character group is becoming "too powerful" it simply means that I'm not providing appropriate challenges. It's easy enough to modify any monster or encounter to increase or decrease the level of danger and challenge they'll present to the PCs. But, I'd really love input and some elaboration about those complaints.
Anyway, sorry for rambling. As a side note, this whole community (which I stumbled onto completely by blind luck) is amazing, and it's so great to know that there are other, old school, hardcore pen and paper RPGers still out there even in the WoW era.
-Alan
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Re: Commercializing your favorite RPG
Mon, September 24, 2007 - 7:22 AMI don’t think I can disagree with you more. First I don’t think that having standards and refusing to buy books that are crap makes you a bad gamer. In fact I think it is time we hold game companies to a higher standard and buy only the games that we like, from companies that display good business practices. Second gaming is not in danger of extinction. There are probably more kids out there playing RPGs than playing water polo, I don’t think they are going to stop making water polo equipment any time soon. There are stores where the only products they carry are gaming products… It’s hardly a fringe hobby, and has not been a fringe hobby for at least a decade or more.
My post about fourth edition was not criticizing the quality of the game but the tactics of Wizards in putting it out at this time. I don’t know one person that said “Gee 3.5 is getting kinda stale I hope they make a 4th Edition soon” Releasing 4th Edition at this time (which from all the news articles on it I have read is a total incompatible re-write not just a revamping of 3.5) is just a tactic intended to make 3.5 obsolete so they can increase sales and grab a bigger market share. To further add insult to injury there is rumor that there will be an on-line component to 4th Edition that you have to subscribe to (and pay a monthly fee) to get future supplements.
I also believe it is possible to make a profit by selling the same game system for decades if you think about the system… design it well, and make it flexible enough to evolve. Two prime examples of this are Hero System and GURPS. Yes both games have multiple editions but each edition is basically compatible with past editions with minor changes that are more like corrections and errata rather than sweeping changes. Both Hero Games and Steve Jackson Games are profitable companies, and they have no where near the sales that Wizards has. Why then does Wizards need to have more sales?
Bottom line is… Wizards is being greedy. They want more than their fair share of the gamer market. Not buying there products will send a message to them letting them know we don’t want our hobby tainted by such lowly tactics. If what you have said in this post is true and you want our hobby to thrive than you will do what I intend to do. Buy books from other companies and not Wizards. Their tactics in trying to drive out competition is much more damaging to the hobby than me not buying their books -
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Re: Commercializing your favorite RPG
Mon, September 24, 2007 - 2:05 PMFirst, thanks for replying to my post, I'm glad there's an open forum where people can discuss and debate issues important to gamers without flying into a rage or acting unreasonably.
Ok, let me take your points one by one. I didn't and wouldn't ever state or imply that someone was a bad gamer. That's a subjective judgement and I'm not a judgemental person. I did say it was a little intolerant to demand that people who enjoy products like the 3.5 rules or who might enjoy the upcoming 4th Edition rules not buy them. People should be (and, luckily, are) allowed to purchase whatever products they like without being railed against or denounced by other members of their community. Personally, I very likely won't buy the 4th Edition books, and didn't buy the 3.5 Edition books, but if there are people who find them interesting and valuable to their roleplaying experience, I'm certainly not going to tell them not to buy those books. They're perfectly capable of making decisions about how they spend their money without my input. For instance, if someone demanded that you or I immediately sell our 2nd edition books and buy only 4th edition books, we'd certainly resist and would probably feel insulted. So we're in no position to tell someone that's interested in 4th Edition to not buy those materials and only buy 2nd Edition materials.
As to your point about roleplaying not being a fringe hobby, and not being in danger of extinction: I certainly hope you're right. To be honest, I don't genuinely believe that RPing is in danger of extinction, I'm just a little paranoid about that possibility because RPing IS a marginalized hobby. There are still powerful social stigmas that roleplayers are forced to deal with: there's a big difference, for instance, between declaring you're a sports fan and declaring that you're a roleplayer. By "marginalized" and "fringe" I mean simply that roleplaying exists in a niche rather similar to water polo, the example you mentioned. It's not, by any means, a national pasttime. I'm not in any way denigrating the hobby that I enjoy most, out of all my passions. I'm simply reflecting the reality that RPing isn't embraced the way that hobbies like poker, football, and other interests are. It's unfair, it's ridiculous, it's absurd and incredibly irritating...and it's the way things are.
Now, about Wizards acting "greedily" or attempting to snatch "an unfair market share". Those terms are irrelevant and meaningless in a business atmosphere and, in my opinion, in any context. Wizard, as a company, is interested in making as much money as it's possible. It's the nature of capitalism. If they make products that people aren't interested in buying and if they're unsuccessful in marketing those products, they won't turn a profit, they'll become financially unviable, and they'll be forced to close their doors. So, if they're capable of publishing products that people want and will buy (3.5 Edition rules, which from all accounts are selling well) they'll naturally claim a "market share" equivalent to the success of their products. So I really don't know what you're saying. Are you saying that gamers as a whole are unintelligent and easily manipulated, and so we'll buy inferior products (as you purport 4th Edition rules will be, though of course you have no experience with that product)? And that WoTC is being greedy by taking advantage of a mentally inferior group of consumers? I seriously doubt that's what you mean to say, but that's the implication of saying that WoTC is "claiming an unfair market share". They'll claim whatever share of the market gamers allow them to claim by buying their products. If Steve Jackson Games is able to claim less of the market, clearly they're either publishing inferior product or not marketing it as well as WoTC. Does that mean then that WoTC should stop trying to make whatever money they can? A business' task is to produce as much income as possible. If you have a problem with that, then you should be targeting free-market capitalism as a concept, and not WoTC. Steve Jackson Games and other games companies are just as interested in making money as WoTC. They're just less successful at it. And those companies produce new iterations of their games too, and make changes on a similar scale. But, even if WoTC were making more, sweeping changes to their systems, is that a bad thing? Are you saying we should pay more money for fewer changes: in other words, should we spend more money for less product, for new books that are in most major, important ways exact duplicates of previous products that we've already paid for?
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Re: Commercializing your favorite RPG
Tue, September 25, 2007 - 10:36 AM
I'll jump in for a moment, with a sort of middling-ground position.
As Alan noted, these businesses are... well... /businesses/. If they don't take care of the business aspect, they go *OUT* of business. So, turning a profit, increasing their profits and their market-share, etc... all are a *NORMAL* part of business.
Note that smaller companies *DO* fail (all too often!). Granting WotC as the 800-lb gorilla, and WW as the 200-lb chimpanzee, the rest of the industry are just so many spider-monkeys... quick, but essentially weak and exceedingly vulnerable. To that extent, I agree that the industry is VERY "fringe:" only 2 companies with notable size and mainstream distribution channels... this is NOT a robust industry! Just in the past few years, we almost lost (off the top of my head) Shadowrun and HERO; there's a new "Runequest" but the reviews indicate a different-ish game (prior fans are voicing lots of disappointment -- it may be a fine game on its own merits, but it doesn't seem to meet the expectations of the RQ grognards). Whither Traveller, these days? Me, I'm hoping that RSB's "Nobilis" stages a comeback... but I've (sadly) stopped expecting it. Etc, etc, etc...
So, let's go back to the Gorilla-cage (D&D). Why don't I like the move to 4e? Aside from the possible issue of making important bits subject to some (speculative, and provocative) "online" and/or "monthly subscription" strategies (I'm betting on those to be wildly off-base, BTW -- oh, sure, there will be online components, but then again there already ARE online gaming things...), my biggest gripe about new versions coming out so often is that it means there's nothing new for the version I settled on. I settled on 1st edition for years and years; I picked up a bit of 2e at garage-sales & the like, but never moved my campaigns there (and more and more, I gamed non-D&D). I created my own adventures instead of buying modules, and my own monsters when MM, FF, & MMII didn't have what I wanted. That was fine for me; I didn't need 2e, though I increasingly found fewer and fewer 1e players: the new generation was mostly in 2e, and a goodly portion of even my generation had moved to the current edition. But, I made do... when D&Dnostalgia struck, I still had 1e, but mostly I played other games. Then I became a parent, and doing things for the best benefit of my kids became important. With 3e out -- and going gangbusters -- I had to admit that if I settled *THEM* into my familiar 1e, I'd be cutting them off from 90% (or more) of the gaming world. So, will-he/nil-he, "he" (I) went and bought the 3.0 PHB/DMG/MM. Rather to my surprise, I found that I liked it. Of course, it still had many of the same problems (class/level/hitpoint mechanics bug the crap out of me, and Vancian magic is an abomination, yadda yadda yadda...); but it served my needs: I got to teach my kids about RP'ing, and the game they learned was one they and their friends could buy and run on their own. When she got to high school, my oldest found 3.x players there already (needless to say, there were no 1e players...) .
Which brings us to my biggest gripe with 4e: the degree to which it *destroys* my existing gaming environment. 3.5 (or any mechanically-3.x system, including a hypothetical "3.5.5" or "3.6" or the like) is still essentially playable by any 3.x player, with any 3.x character. 4.0, and the Hasbro/WotC marketing muscle, will guarantee that 3.x goes the way that 1e went; that the supplements (and in time even the players) will vanish from the scene. It'd be like if there were an "800lb gorilla" in the automotive world, and they brought out a new line of cars with incompatible fuel, and stopped making gas cars; as the infrastructure shifted (say, to hydrogen) my own gasoline cars, while mechanically-fine, would become increasingly non-viable to meet my basic transportation needs. 4.x is going to make my 3.x games increasingly non-viable for meeting my D&D needs.
This time, I'm done having kids. This time, D&D has lost me for good. That's fine; they don't need me. They'll keep on marketing to their 14-25 age-segment, and I'll game in other systems (that frankly, I prefer anyhow -- I moved to RQII back in 1980, for skills-based mechanics and Power-driven magic, and to Ars Magica in the 90's for the Medieval-esque "wizards in towers" feel) .
But, make no mistake about it: D&D is entirely the property of WotC. We gamers don't "own" it at all; we own our own campaigns, is all. If WotC thinks 4e is the way to go... they have every right to go that way. They're just going there without me (and apparently without Fearghus (and I think without Alan)). I'm not joining any anti-4.x crusade, I'm just ignoring the line.
- Steve
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Re: Commercializing your favorite RPG
Sat, September 29, 2007 - 12:32 PMGreat post, you make a lot of great points.
I agree that it's painful when new systems emerge and the responsible company stops printing supplements for your current system. For me personally it's never been particularly important, because I'm perfectly happy creating anything I need or desire for a game myself, and in most situations would rather do that than buy a supplement anyway. Usually I buy the core books and invent periphery material from whole cloth. But I appreciate your point: for those that do enjoy supplements, the emergence of a new edition is a bad thing, and tough to swallow. -
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Re: Commercializing your favorite RPG
Wed, October 3, 2007 - 7:08 PM
> ... I'm perfectly happy creating anything I need or desire for a game myself,
> and in most situations would rather do that than buy a supplement anyway ...
My problem is that I no longer have the time to do so. Married, 3 kids, yadda yadda yadda... These days. I'd really rather spend my gaming time *gaming* than fiddling with mechanics (not that I don't have 100+ pages of rules-tweaks, adventures, etc... ) .
Also, my primary reason for being in the D&D system -- AT ALL -- is for compatibility with other gamers. If I'm stuck at 3e while the rest of the D&D gamers in my area are avid for 4e (or 5e or...), then I've got no real reason to play *ANY* D&D anymore...
Ever.
- Steve
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