Continuation of the D&D brand (from a business perspective)

[Reverent-One]

But AoO's are easy to avoid, and always have been. They don't make you anymore of a threat.

So how does one avoid the fighter's AoO's then?

You shouldn't have to declare that you have engaged an enemy. Your actions and ability to harm the target should be evident on their own.

Which is likely why the fighter marks an enemy by attacking them.

[Kurald Galain]

But you aren't more of a threat. You're back to the old problem of enemies just walking around you.

I think this is inherent in the approach of having a game board and individual initiative. In 2E the fighter could just declare that he's standing between the orc and the wizard.

[bloodtide]

I wondered- how many of 4E's design decisions can be traced to perceived problems with older editions?

And how serious those problems actually were.

Thus- it might be handy to identify which things they are somewhat unlikely to change back.

A lot.

The modern versions of D&D, 3E and 4E, were all written by the old ''I did not have fun in that one game session'' type players. There was a huge effort to 'fix' all the things that single individuals found wrong with the game, based only on their individual gameplay. There was no over all fix, other then to 'fix the bad stuff'.

For example if a player in OldE polymorphed, they dropped all there stuff. You can just see a player whine 'my stuff'. So for 3/4E they added the cheat of 'oh all your stuff comes with you. Now some players did whine as they could not polymorph into a bird and take their maul+5 with them, but most players just accepted the limits like that and kept playing. But as there were 10 or 11 complainants, they change the whole rule system.


The other big overall problem that started with 3E is the idea that the DM is 'just a player' and is 'a slave to the rules too'.

[Crow]

A lot.

The modern versions of D&D, 3E and 4E, were all written by the old ''I did not have fun in that one game session'' type players. There was a huge effort to 'fix' all the things that single individuals found wrong with the game, based only on their individual gameplay. There was no over all fix, other then to 'fix the bad stuff'.

For example if a player in OldE polymorphed, they dropped all there stuff. You can just see a player whine 'my stuff'. So for 3/4E they added the cheat of 'oh all your stuff comes with you. Now some players did whine as they could not polymorph into a bird and take their maul+5 with them, but most players just accepted the limits like that and kept playing. But as there were 10 or 11 complainants, they change the whole rule system.


The other big overall problem that started with 3E is the idea that the DM is 'just a player' and is 'a slave to the rules too'.

Careful. That attitude will draw you a lot of ire around here and on other message boards. But it also serves to prove your point to a degree. Vocal minority and all.

That said, I agree for the most part. Our group never experienced the massive balance problems in AD&D that people on message boards insist are so terrible as to demolish *every* game of D&D ever played. I would venture that the majority of groups never had the problem either.

[nyarlathotep]

I think a big problem of D&D is that it focuses too much on giving players tonnes of options. You have rules creep all the time, but late 3rd Edition wasn't funny anymore, and 4th seems to head in the same direction since day 1.
It's not so much that individual abilities are unbalanced, it's the completely unpredictable synergies between abilities from widely different sources that causes many of the big problems.
The major problem here is, that churning out tonnes of character options is WotCs main business model here. In older editions you had kits, but you could put three or four of them on a single page. In the late 3.5e books, it was five to six pages for each PrC.
I think with TSR and many of the smaller publishers, they are in the business for the love of the game. It has to make some profits and pay the employees, but there's some general interest and care for the product. With WotC, the game is a means to generate maximum profit, so you need a very high quantity of sells. A neat and tidy game, that would be relatively easy to balance and run, is just not in the companies interest.

To be fair the huge number of options is what some people love about 3.5. Finding cool synergies and combinations was part of the fun, but it wasn't necessary to play as there were also plenty of strong out of the box classes like ToB and ardent.

Careful. That attitude will draw you a lot of ire around here and on other message boards. But it also serves to prove your point to a degree. Vocal minority and all.

That said, I agree for the most part. Our group never experienced the massive balance problems in AD&D that people on message boards insist are so terrible as to demolish *every* game of D&D ever played. I would venture that the majority of groups never had the problem either.

Hmm? In my experience people say that AD&D was more balanced than 3.5 or 4th ed the rules are just clumsy at times. Though I see the uppity player designing 3.5 to a degree. In particular a player who enjoyed playing blaster wizards but didn't understand the rules behind how everything functioned.

[Crow]

AD&D had many of the potential problems that 3e had, like god mode wizards, but there were some ways to deal with them. It got worse in 3e as they removed a lot of wizards' limiting factors. Still, most groups probably didn't have as much trouble with it, even in 3e as some people claim.

[Kurald Galain]

The modern versions of D&D, 3E and 4E, were all written by the old ''I did not have fun in that one game session'' type players. There was a huge effort to 'fix' all the things that single individuals found wrong with the game, based only on their individual gameplay. There was no over all fix, other then to 'fix the bad stuff'.

This is probably true. The philosophy has slowly changed from "random or nasty things can happen, deal with it" to "everybody must be at maximum efficiency all the time, because it's not fair otherwise".

[nyarlathotep]

AD&D had many of the potential problems that 3e had, like god mode wizards, but there were some ways to deal with them. It got worse in 3e as they removed a lot of wizards' limiting factors. Still, most groups probably didn't have as much trouble with it, even in 3e as some people claim.

True and most groups also didn't have as much trouble with optimizers as boards claim.

[Tyndmyr]

It's not even a flaw, it's a misunderstanding of not just one edition, but multiple ones. Such misunderstandings are conterproductive to the purpose of this thread, so debunking them is not derailing it. If you can't stand my points, no one is making you read my posts.

This thread does not exist to "debunk common myths". In marketing, perception IS reality. The existence of an obscure mechanic in 3.5 is not part of the perception. It is not likely to matter at all to the company, or do anything to help them.

Quite a lot, I'd say.

There was an insightful article by a 4E developer, that at one point was creating a 3E convention session. It was, basically, a team of characters around level 15, vs a big dragon; the intent was that players could walk in unprepared, play the fight for about an hour, and move on.

The problem he ran into is that casters can prepare way too many spells at that level, and that this (1) requires too much prep time, and (2) results in option paralysis. His reaction was to remove all their lower-level spells, and instead write "spells of this level are too weak to help you against a dragon" (and also, take just a few high-level spells and prep them multiple times each). This is basically why 4E characters are limited to just four encounter powers, and are expected to drop lower level powers when they get to paragon.

Of course, this facilitates one particular style of convention play, which doesn't necessarily match up with people's home campaigns.

I agree heartily with this. I feel like a lot of what people bash about 4e was a direct attempt to fix what people complained about for 3.5. Specifically imbalanced classes and the like. I mean, for all I like 3.5, it got it's share of bashing as well. No edition is entirely free of it.

And while simplified char creation is a fantastic idea for convention, or even one shot play...I don't feel like it's always appropriate for everything. Convention play often differs wildly from persistant group play. It's very easy for designers to draw too general a conclusion from a specific instance. His fix was fantastic for the circumstance he was in, but isn't appropriate for all games everywhere.

[Reverent-One]

This thread does not exist to "debunk common myths". In marketing, perception IS reality. The existence of an obscure mechanic in 3.5 is not part of the perception. It is not likely to matter at all to the company, or do anything to help them.

I never said the thread was about was about debunking common myths, but if we're going to make predictions based on previous decisions (as nihil8r was doing), understanding those decisions is key.

[kyoryu]

And while simplified char creation is a fantastic idea for convention, or even one shot play...I don't feel like it's always appropriate for everything. Convention play often differs wildly from persistant group play. It's very easy for designers to draw too general a conclusion from a specific instance. His fix was fantastic for the circumstance he was in, but isn't appropriate for all games everywhere.

And I do think it's accurate to say that 4e is pretty well streamlined for convention-style play. It's not hte only thing you can do with it, of course, but it's kind of the path of least resistance.

Now, from a business perspective, I see D&D having a few issues:

1) Acquisition of new customers
2) Monetization of customers

Monetization is a big issue, as D&D is historically a game that doesn't have a lot of recurring costs. In AD&D, players would need, what, a copy of the PHB? The DM would need a DMG, probably a PHB, a MM, and maybe some campaign settings or adventures? Throw in a couple of dice and minis and you're done, and NO MORE MONEY FOR WOTC/TSR.

Compare this with M:tG where every single player has an incentive to pretty much constantly buy more stuff. Much, much better business model.

The shift away from fluff, campaign settings, and the like is pretty clearly because it's better to make something that everyone at every table can use (extra powers) rather than something that 1 person at 1 table in 5 can use (campaign setting and fluff).

The problem with this (IMHO) is that much of the richness of the game came from that fluff. Even if it's not the biggest seller, it has the effect of drawing the other players into the game and keeping them there, so that they'll keep playing the game - and buying the things that do have widespread appeal. MMOs have figured this out with the free-to-play model - most players play for free, but the *average* income tends to be higher than subscription games.

So, from my perspective, the business of D&D has to start out with a solid analysis of customer acquisition and retention, and work from there. Since DMs provide the richness of the game world, they need to be supported, so that the cash cow players will want to buy supplements.

[nihil8r]

i agree kyoryu, which is why i think hasbro would prefer a collectible version of 5e

[stainboy]

There was an insightful article by a 4E developer, that at one point was creating a 3E convention session. It was, basically, a team of characters around level 15, vs a big dragon; the intent was that players could walk in unprepared, play the fight for about an hour, and move on.

The problem he ran into is that casters can prepare way too many spells at that level, and that this (1) requires too much prep time, and (2) results in option paralysis. His reaction was to remove all their lower-level spells, and instead write "spells of this level are too weak to help you against a dragon" (and also, take just a few high-level spells and prep them multiple times each). This is basically why 4E characters are limited to just four encounter powers, and are expected to drop lower level powers when they get to paragon.

Of course, this facilitates one particular style of convention play, which doesn't necessarily match up with people's home campaigns.

This is a good example. The prep time issue is a real problem, but fixing it introduced other problems. The new problems weren't immediately obvious to the designers (who spend more time running oneshots and convention games than the average customer), or to the playtesters (who were playing basically a series of one-shots).

On the other hand, I think a new edition would be improved if designers got hit with a rolled-up newspaper every time they mentioned "option paralysis." If you want to sell splats they're going to have options in them. 4e seemed to start out very concerned about option paralysis (at least I assume that's why PHB1 rogues were only allowed to use light blades) but now 4e has, what, close to 2000 powers? Even if fretting about analysis paralysis weren't insulting, it's not a decision the designer gets to make. The need to sell new products decides that for them.

[kyoryu]

On the other hand, I think a new edition would be improved if designers got hit with a rolled-up newspaper every time they mentioned "option paralysis." If you want to sell splats they're going to have options in them. 4e seemed to start out very concerned about option paralysis (at least I assume that's why PHB1 rogues were only allowed to use light blades) but now 4e has, what, close to 2000 powers? Even if fretting about analysis paralysis weren't insulting, it's not a decision the designer gets to make. The need to sell new products decides that for them.

The bigger part of the problem of option paralysis is not just the number of options, but the options you have to choose between at one time. While 4e may indeed have 2000 powers, at any given time you only have to choose between 10 or so of them.

Feats are much, much messier, in that at any point you probably have at least a hundred to choose from.

The bigger issue with lots of options is that typically there's a few reasonable ones, and a lot of options that are simply outclassed. Also, you start to get weird synergies that blow other options out of the water - and as the number of choices increases, the harder it gets to cross-check all of the possible options with each other.

Which is great if you get tons of enjoyment out of the character-building subgame, but not as awesome if you're mostly interested in the at-the-table subgame.

[stainboy]

4e has as much of a character building subgame as 3e does. The goal is different because it's more focused on combat, but there are as many build-advice threads on the 4e board as on the 3e board.

I'm not saying you can't improve a game by organizing information better. That's a presentation issue though. It's a job for an editor, not a designer. (Mearls's blog post about printing a stock fighter build before the real fighter sort of says this too.)

[Tyndmyr]

4e has as much of a character building subgame as 3e does. The goal is different because it's more focused on combat, but there are as many build-advice threads on the 4e board as on the 3e board.

I'm not saying you can't improve a game by organizing information better. That's a presentation issue though. It's a job for an editor, not a designer. (Mearls's blog post about printing a stock fighter build before the real fighter sort of says this too.)

This is correct, from what I can tell. Yes, the power spectrum is wider in 3.5, and I'm a lot better at the 3.5 metagame than I am the 4e one...but it'd be foolish to deny it exists. I believe TO types had found an infinite combo within a week of publication, actually. While the classes are similar, choices certainly still exist, and despite the efforts at balance, the choices will never all be equal...that's not really a possible thing.

On a side note, 4e IS usually pretty good on presentation. This is a good thing, and one that I wish 3.5 would have had more of. I really wish SpC had an index of it's spells by class list, for example. Option paralysis is not a problem that annoys me...what annoys me is not being able to locate my options.

[stainboy]

The difference Mearls seems to be talking about is that 4e organizes information at a design level. He wants to organize information at a presentation level. Instead of making two fighters with different levels of complexity, he wants one fighter with an optional pregen build.

I'm a bit leery of the implementation. His stock fighter could easily be a trap (like the sample 1st-level builds in 3e), or the writers could be so invested in it being viable that they make every other choice a trap (like nonstandard races in early 3e). But conceptually I think he's headed in the right direction.

E: There's also the concern that last time Mearls talked about players choosing their own level of system mastery, he meant "players who couldn't figure out how to make a 4ePHB1 fighter." We don't know if he was just constrained by 4e balance or if he actually wasn't interested in anything more complex than the Essentials mage.

[kyoryu]

This is correct, from what I can tell. Yes, the power spectrum is wider in 3.5, and I'm a lot better at the 3.5 metagame than I am the 4e one...but it'd be foolish to deny it exists.

Of course it exists. I just believe that it's less dominant than it is in 3.x. That's neither a good nor a bad thing.

I believe TO types had found an infinite combo within a week of publication, actually. While the classes are similar, choices certainly still exist, and despite the efforts at balance, the choices will never all be equal...that's not really a possible thing.

Nor is it necessarily a good thing. Not all choices need to be equally optimal, but it should be reasonably clear how to get a viable build, if you don't want to scare off newcomers or those not interested in the character-building subgame.

[Reverent-One]

Hasn't he already mostly implemented that though, in the Essentials material? All he'd have to do is take the slayer or knight and pre-choose the at-will stances and feats as well, and that would cover the idea of the basic fighter he laid out in legends and lore.

[stainboy]

Yeah, that's my concern. The fighter with options could be the 4e fighter and the pregen fighter could be the Essentials slayer, which doesn't offer anything to customers who don't like the 4e status quo.

Or the fighter with options could be the Essentials slayer and the pregen fighter could be a straight-up orc from Basic. Mearls talking about different levels of system mastery is all well and good, but it's hard to evaluate without knowing what those levels are.

[bloodtide]

Careful. That attitude will draw you a lot of ire around here and on other message boards. But it also serves to prove your point to a degree. Vocal minority and all.

That said, I agree for the most part. Our group never experienced the massive balance problems in AD&D that people on message boards insist are so terrible as to demolish *every* game of D&D ever played. I would venture that the majority of groups never had the problem either.

More ire, oh well.....

I played AD&D for years and never had much of a balance problem either. Character death and loss was just an accepted thing, no single character could ever be all powerful, and nothing was overly broken.

But again that's only for say 80% of us gamers, then you have the 20% who have a problem with anything/everything and are never happy. Even worse is when this is looked at through business eyes: they ask person x, 'why don't you play D&D?' and they get told something like ''Fighters are too boring and need spells..er powers''. And then they make the D&D game like that.

Lots of bad stuff could happen to you in AD&D. Take teleport. No matter how well you knew a spot, there was always a chance(roll 100 on 1d100) that you'd miss the target and the character would die. At least 90% of all gamers I've met were fine with this risk, and I've seen dozens of characters die from missed teleports over the years. But there is always one or two players that whine ''I put a lot of time and effort in to creating my character so it's not fair if that character dies from a single random dice roll''.

I can't see D&D ever going back to the 'Hardcore' days. Far too many newer players have been influenced by the video game 'save' idea.

[Curious]

-Snip-

No, people won't go back to 'hardcore' mode because it's nonsensical. What is the point of always having a 5% chance of dying when teleporting? It adds nothing to the game; either you avoid it, and go on as usual, or you get unlucky and your character dies for no reason. It has no purpose but to show how 'gritty' and 'unfair' your world is. Just pointless.

[stainboy]

The idea is that it's a last resort. In theory you use Teleport to get away from something more likely to kill you than Teleport, but if you just need to get to the next town you walk there.

I don't have any opinion on whether this works or promotes fun games though.

[Kurald Galain]

The bigger part of the problem of option paralysis is not just the number of options, but the options you have to choose between at one time. While 4e may indeed have 2000 powers, at any given time you only have to choose between 10 or so of them.

It's still a change, though. Playing from the PHB1, you choose between 3 or 4 powers on one page. Playing now, you choose between 10 powers from 4 different sources.

You know, I'm starting to realize that I liked 4E better when it was just the PHB1. Maybe add the PHB2 to get eight more classes; but I'm starting to feel the game wasn't actually improved, at least to me, by the plentitude of splatbooks, dragon magazine, and HOFL series.

Feats are much, much messier, in that at any point you probably have at least a hundred to choose from.

That's true. I think there's a fanmade addon for the character builder on the web that filters out the majority of feats and some of the more pointless powers.

But it's not just character building: option paralysis also occurs during gameplay. Certain people feel compelled to try and pick the "best" power during any given round, and may spend too much time thinking about small differences.

[Crow]

No, people won't go back to 'hardcore' mode because it's nonsensical. What is the point of always having a 5% chance of dying when teleporting? It adds nothing to the game; either you avoid it, and go on as usual, or you get unlucky and your character dies for no reason. It has no purpose but to show how 'gritty' and 'unfair' your world is. Just pointless.

You have a small chance of being struck and killed by a drunk driver every time you walk or drive to the grocery store in real life. I guess we should remove that because it's just pointless and nonsensical. <== This is a joke.

But in all seriousness, tell me why there *shouldn't* be risks in dealing with the swirling, primordial, all-powerful forces of magic? You're talking about forces which allow you to break the rules of the universe and alter reality to your whim. Shouldn't there be some risk involved?

[flumphy]

You have a small chance of being struck and killed by a drunk driver every time you walk or drive to the grocery store in real life. I guess we should remove that because it's just pointless and nonsensical.

But in all seriousness, tell me why there *shouldn't* be risks in dealing with the swirling, primordial, all-powerful forces of magic? You're talking about forces which allow you to break the rules of the universe and alter reality to your whim. Shouldn't there be some risk involved?

Yes, if we could remove the possibility of being struck by drunk drivers in real life, we should. (And kind of tried with Prohibition, but that didn't exactly work...) I don't think many sane people in real life finds the possibility of random, violent death positive or exciting.

In games, where death isn't real, I can kind of see the appeal for a certain subset of gamer, but the fact is that such a random death doing a routine thing isn't very fun for most people. It's anticlimactic. It doesn't further the story. At least in a tough random encounter, the death was caused by some vicious monster, and probably due to lack of skill/experience/preparation rather than pure bad luck. Yes, random death happens in real life, but if you want realism, then why in Kord's name are you playing D&D?


Anyway, on topic, I won't pretend that I have much business sense. I will say that the only thing that would get me buying WotC products again is a new edition that was less of a video game and less of a war game. If I wanted to play either of those, I'd be playing them, not some feeble attempt to compete with them.

[kyoryu]

I can't see D&D ever going back to the 'Hardcore' days. Far too many newer players have been influenced by the video game 'save' idea.

Unfortunately, neither can I. It's not the game model for all games, but it's a valid one, and, IMHO, a fun one.

Also, a *lot* of baggage is left over from those days in the system as a whole, which caused (again, IMHO) a lot of the balance issues in later editions. It didn't really matter if wizards were godlike at higher levels in AD&D, because it was so amazingly unlikely that they'd ever make it there. But with DMs being unwilling to kill characters, that is no longer a factor.

No, people won't go back to 'hardcore' mode because it's nonsensical. What is the point of always having a 5% chance of dying when teleporting? It adds nothing to the game; either you avoid it, and go on as usual, or you get unlucky and your character dies for no reason. It has no purpose but to show how 'gritty' and 'unfair' your world is. Just pointless.

Congratulations. You have an opinion. Others might say that games with no fear of death ever are pointless, and nonsensical. I'd hope that people could try and see the point of the other side rather than reflexively insulting them.

And, as was said before, it's *not* pointless. It's a calculated risk. Of course, this is also part of a game where things like random encounters *make sense*.

You know, I'm starting to realize that I liked 4E better when it was just the PHB1. Maybe add the PHB2 to get eight more classes; but I'm starting to feel the game wasn't actually improved, at least to me, by the plentitude of splatbooks, dragon magazine, and HOFL series.

I think I agree with this statement. I will say I like the HOFL expertise feats better, as they add more flavor to the weapon types rather than just being a math bonus. I don't like "math bonus" feats that add no flavor.

[Tyndmyr]

You have a small chance of being struck and killed by a drunk driver every time you walk or drive to the grocery store in real life. I guess we should remove that because it's just pointless and nonsensical.

I am all for the removal of this.

Life is a very poorly designed game in some regards.

But in all seriousness, tell me why there *shouldn't* be risks in dealing with the swirling, primordial, all-powerful forces of magic? You're talking about forces which allow you to break the rules of the universe and alter reality to your whim. Shouldn't there be some risk involved?

It's not just about risk. It's about fun. Look at the 3.5 risk involved in a teleport...you might end up in the wrong place. This is a FUN complication that can also be a risk. It can lead to all sorts of interesting places.

Death tends to be less interesting. A flat chance of death is mostly just a penalty, not an improvement to the game in itself.

[eepop]

I guess I am in the middle on the teleportation issue.

I do not like when there is no chance of failure when teleporting and people teleport every time they need to move more than a mile.

I do not like the "you're in a solid object, you are dead" style of teleportation failure.

I do like the "you end up somewhere completely not where you expected, and guess what, you have new problems because of it" style of teleportation failure.

[Yora]

That's what Mouse Guard does. You don't exactly fail at anything. You either succeed at overcomming an obstacle, or you have to face another obstacle as the consequence of your failure. It's only during climactic encounters, when the obstacle is "stay alive", that the characters can actually reach the end of the road.
But that's a completely different concept of an RPG than the "deal damage until one side runs out of hp" approach.