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  1. - Top - End - #181
    Ettin in the Playground
     
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    Default Re: Continuation of the D&D brand (from a business perspective)

    I don't feel like responding to all of your post right now, except to say that the things that make Conan, Indiana Jones, and James Bond special in the scenarios you used is that the reader/viewer is led to believe that there actually is a threat of real death to the character. Even if we know in our hearts there isn't, we activate our willing suspension of disbelief to have an enjoyable read.
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  2. - Top - End - #182
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    Default Re: Continuation of the D&D brand (from a business perspective)

    Quote Originally Posted by Eric Tolle View Post
    Well, it is for you, anyway. And there's players who feel that genital circumference tables and having a female player's character be raped by a hundred orcs "because she failed her Hide in Cover roll" adds a lot to D&D. But I'd say it's a mistake to assume that One's preferred play style is objectively the best for the majority of players.
    Please do not conflate old-school gaming with FATAL.

    While the point you are trying to make is valid, that specific comparison just isn't cricket and I think it actually hurts the debate as a whole more than it gains for your side of the argument.
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  3. - Top - End - #183
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    Default Re: Continuation of the D&D brand (from a business perspective)

    Hey, could we perhaps formulate an RPG specific law similar to Godwin's Law? Namely, as an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving FATAL approaches 1 (100%)

    We can also cement "reductio ad fatalis" and "argument ad fatalis" to the list of RPG specific informal fallacies, along with Stormwrack and Oberoni.
    "It's the fate of all things under the sky,
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  4. - Top - End - #184
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    Default Re: Continuation of the D&D brand (from a business perspective)

    The more I think about it, the more I'd like to see a 5th edition D&D that's a modular set of rules based around a core mechanic and core classes. Go ahead and give me two combat systems, one that's quick, easy, and doesn't require minis, and one that's got all the tactical options with 5' steps and rules for determining cover and AoOs. Give me two standard sets of spells, one that's nice and has minor consequences, and one that's hardcore and has deadly teleports and haste that ages people.

    Heck, they could sell the "add-on rules" as $10, 50-page paperbacks. And the book could just say, "to use these rules, replace chapter X of the PHB with this book." Then they're making something that both players and DMs will buy, and they can make more segments of the market happy.

  5. - Top - End - #185
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    Default Re: Continuation of the D&D brand (from a business perspective)

    That's a pretty interesting idea.

  6. - Top - End - #186
    Eldritch Horror in the Playground Moderator
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    Default Re: Continuation of the D&D brand (from a business perspective)

    And one Wotc might actually go for, considering it means they basically get to sell us the same game twice.

  7. - Top - End - #187
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    Default Re: Continuation of the D&D brand (from a business perspective)

    Quote Originally Posted by Frozen_Feet View Post
    Hey, could we perhaps formulate an RPG specific law similar to Godwin's Law? Namely, as an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving FATAL approaches 1 (100%)
    And the person making the comparison automatically loses the argument. That's the other half of Godwin.

    Of course, to say that there's no roleplaying in old school games is simply not true. It's a strawman. The roleplaying is probably of a different sort than many people are used to, but it's not the same as there being NO roleplaying.

  8. - Top - End - #188
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    Default Re: Continuation of the D&D brand (from a business perspective)

    Quote Originally Posted by Frozen_Feet View Post
    Hey, could we perhaps formulate an RPG specific law similar to Godwin's Law? Namely, as an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving FATAL approaches 1 (100%)

    We can also cement "reductio ad fatalis" and "argument ad fatalis" to the list of RPG specific informal fallacies, along with Stormwrack and Oberoni.
    It does provide a horrifying example, though, that preferred styles differ wildly. Someone out there apparently did think, "yknow, this roleplaying thing is pretty good, but what it needs is...". If that ain't proof of subjectivity, I don't know what is.

    The idea of a hardcore ad-on module is a solid one, though. I'd buy it. I LOVE the idea of D&D catering to different playstyles through addition of extra rules/books. I feel that's an attitude that fits the game very well.

  9. - Top - End - #189
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    Default Re: Continuation of the D&D brand (from a business perspective)

    Quote Originally Posted by Tyndmyr View Post
    The idea of a hardcore ad-on module is a solid one, though. I'd buy it. I LOVE the idea of D&D catering to different playstyles through addition of extra rules/books. I feel that's an attitude that fits the game very well.
    Agree. Though I do have to caution that too far in this direction leads you right into the world of GURPS and Hero, which while moderately successful in their own rights, are also suffering from the downturn of the RPG market and the economy in general.
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  10. - Top - End - #190
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    Default Re: Continuation of the D&D brand (from a business perspective)

    Quote Originally Posted by Tyndmyr View Post
    The idea of a hardcore ad-on module is a solid one, though. I'd buy it. I LOVE the idea of D&D catering to different playstyles through addition of extra rules/books. I feel that's an attitude that fits the game very well.
    As someone who wouldn't buy it, I still think it'd be a great idea. One thing I really dislike is rules creep and alternate class mechanics. Having a clear speration of the core rules and add-on rules could make life a lot easier.
    Quote Originally Posted by Frozen_Feet View Post
    Hey, could we perhaps formulate an RPG specific law similar to Godwin's Law? Namely, as an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving FATAL approaches 1 (100%)
    From this day on, it shall be known as the Law of Frozen Feet.
    Last edited by Yora; 2011-07-22 at 04:09 PM.
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  11. - Top - End - #191
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    Quote Originally Posted by Hoddypeak View Post
    The more I think about it, the more I'd like to see a 5th edition D&D that's a modular set of rules based around a core mechanic and core classes. Go ahead and give me two combat systems, one that's quick, easy, and doesn't require minis, and one that's got all the tactical options with 5' steps and rules for determining cover and AoOs. Give me two standard sets of spells, one that's nice and has minor consequences, and one that's hardcore and has deadly teleports and haste that ages people.

    Heck, they could sell the "add-on rules" as $10, 50-page paperbacks. And the book could just say, "to use these rules, replace chapter X of the PHB with this book." Then they're making something that both players and DMs will buy, and they can make more segments of the market happy.
    I like this idea as well.

  12. - Top - End - #192
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    Default Re: Continuation of the D&D brand (from a business perspective)

    Quote Originally Posted by Hoddypeak View Post
    The more I think about it, the more I'd like to see a 5th edition D&D that's a modular set of rules based around a core mechanic and core classes. Go ahead and give me two combat systems, one that's quick, easy, and doesn't require minis, and one that's got all the tactical options with 5' steps and rules for determining cover and AoOs. Give me two standard sets of spells, one that's nice and has minor consequences, and one that's hardcore and has deadly teleports and haste that ages people.

    Heck, they could sell the "add-on rules" as $10, 50-page paperbacks. And the book could just say, "to use these rules, replace chapter X of the PHB with this book." Then they're making something that both players and DMs will buy, and they can make more segments of the market happy.
    This sounds really nice. However, I do play Fudge, which does this to an extent that even GURPS and Hero don't approach, and probably like the idea a lot more than most. Also, two sets? I'm thinking variable subsystems that can all interact with each other. Pick one of two in column A, pick one of five in column B, pick one of three in column C, so on and so forth.
    I would really like to see a game made by Obryn, Kurald Galain, and Knaight from these forums.

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  13. - Top - End - #193
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    Quote Originally Posted by Knaight View Post
    Also, two sets? I'm thinking variable subsystems that can all interact with each other. Pick one of two in column A, pick one of five in column B, pick one of three in column C, so on and so forth.
    I'm not locked in to two sets of rules. You could certainly have more. For instance, in terms of combat rules, I can see three or more sets being reasonable. A quick method that draws on OD&D or AD&D, a more detailed miniatures based set that follows the 3.X or 4e style, and a set for large-scale mass combat. I'm sure other people can think up more ways they'd like to see it go too. But the more sets you have, and the more detailed the rules are in each set, the more room there is for broken combinations to unexpectedly show up.

    If I were in charge of designing an edition and went this way, I think I'd lay out the possibilities for these types of things, and then narrow it down to two or three options in a few places to start with, knowing that over time, as 5e runs its 8+ years, more sets can be added in. Then I'd put all the simple versions together into a PHB or a boxed set and call that Basic D&D. That would be the simple combat rules, the simple skill system and no-skill system options, and the kindest magic system. Then, I'd sell books with an AD&D title for the other sets, as they'd be more complex and rules heavy, and thus "Advanced."
    Last edited by Hoddypeak; 2011-07-23 at 09:32 AM.

  14. - Top - End - #194
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    Default Re: Continuation of the D&D brand (from a business perspective)

    Quote Originally Posted by Fhaolan View Post
    Please do not conflate old-school gaming with FATAL.
    FATAL is it's own strange bird, a grotesque exaggeration of certain extreme elements in roleplaying not specifically D&D oriented.

    But on the other hand, I've seen enough sexual harassment, misogyny and enforced gender stereotyping justified either through "That's what the rules say" or "that's how our it was historically" (usually with very little knowledge of history), that I'd say a fair dose of sexism is standard fare in classic games. It's not necessary, but it's common, in part due to the culture of older gamers.

    Of course to me classic gaming is also: the guy relating excitedly how his character was slowly dismembered as he fled through his first and last dungeon; The custom random encounter table where there was an equal chance to meet any monster (roll of 186: the first level party on the road encounters a liche- they all die); DMs eagerly installing everything from Grimtooth's Traps in a dungeon; the DM getting annoyed that the players can't figure out the simple riddle solution to the trap, and "no you can't just disarm it, tell me exactly what you're doing"; parties of ten players, 20 characters, and 60 henchmen and hirelings; extensive lists of magic items, and no character backgrounds; writing a BASIC program to print out hundreds of PCs; and the Bard getting mugged by another players demon henchmen, while the paladin is carefully far down the hallway.

    Oh yeah, you didn't need the rape scenarios, there were so many other ways classic D&D could suck.


    Quote Originally Posted by Tyndmyr View Post
    It does provide a horrifying example, though, that preferred styles differ wildly. Someone out there apparently did think, "yknow, this roleplaying thing is pretty good, but what it needs is...". If that ain't proof of subjectivity, I don't know what is.
    And the thing is, if someone had asked that DM, he probably would have denied that he was engaging in harassment, or that he was doing anything other than standard D&D.

    Of course back in the day, the idea of standard D&D was a lot more flexible than it is today. We grabbed anything that took our fancy, and stirred it into our games. Classic D&D included stuff from Arduin Grimore and Traveller, if someone wanted to take a Jedi Knight through Greyhawk, well that was what the psionics rules were there for, and so on. This is why I don't get a lot of the purist attitude; it's like someone saying beef connsume is the only REAL soup, and adding vegetables to broth renders it not-soup. I really blame Third Edition for that attitude.

    The idea of a hardcore ad-on module is a solid one, though. I'd buy it.
    By hardcore I take it you mean "3D6 in order, don't bother putting on the character sheet a section for background and personality? Your character is created in front of the dungeon? Because that's what a lot of hardcore games I saw boiled down to.
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  15. - Top - End - #195
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    Quote Originally Posted by Eric Tolle View Post
    By hardcore I take it you mean "3D6 in order, don't bother putting on the character sheet a section for background and personality? Your character is created in front of the dungeon? Because that's what a lot of hardcore games I saw boiled down to.
    You say that like there was no way someone could possibly play a character with a personality in those game...
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  16. - Top - End - #196
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    Quote Originally Posted by Crow View Post
    You say that like there was no way someone could possibly play a character with a personality in those game...
    Not impossible, but usually when your characters life-span is measured in rounds, you don't bother.

  17. - Top - End - #197
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    Default Re: Continuation of the D&D brand (from a business perspective)

    Reports of the speed and frequency of old school character deaths have been greatly exaggerated.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Nerd-o-rama View Post
    Star Wars canon is one of those things where people have started to realize that the guys in charge are so far off their rockers that it's probably for the best to ignore them.
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    OH GOD THEY'RE COMING! RUN! RUN, TURKISHPROVERB, RUN!

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  18. - Top - End - #198
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    Default Re: Continuation of the D&D brand (from a business perspective)

    Quote Originally Posted by turkishproverb View Post
    Reports of the speed and frequency of old school character deaths have been greatly exaggerated.
    Yes, I know, that's part of the joke.

    Sometimes I wish there was a sarcasm text.

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

    Yea? Look at the wording of my post. Remind you of anything?
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    Quote Originally Posted by Nerd-o-rama View Post
    Star Wars canon is one of those things where people have started to realize that the guys in charge are so far off their rockers that it's probably for the best to ignore them.
    Quote Originally Posted by Triscuitable View Post

    OH GOD THEY'RE COMING! RUN! RUN, TURKISHPROVERB, RUN!

    Quote Originally Posted by Maxios View Post
    GENERIC FLAMING COMMENT, POSSIBLY INVOLVING YOUR MOTHER !

  20. - Top - End - #200
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    Default Re: Continuation of the D&D brand (from a business perspective)

    Quote Originally Posted by Eric Tolle View Post
    But on the other hand, I've seen enough sexual harassment, misogyny and enforced gender stereotyping justified either through "That's what the rules say" or "that's how our it was historically" (usually with very little knowledge of history), that I'd say a fair dose of sexism is standard fare in classic games. It's not necessary, but it's common, in part due to the culture of older gamers.
    I wouldn't say that it was the culture of older gamers as much as it was the culture of the 70's-80's when most of those games took place. Having lived through that time as an adult, I can attest that the misogyny and enforced gender stereotyping was a common theme outside of games as well.

    Quote Originally Posted by Eric Tolle View Post
    Of course to me classic gaming is also: the guy relating excitedly how his character was slowly dismembered as he fled through his first and last dungeon; The custom random encounter table where there was an equal chance to meet any monster (roll of 186: the first level party on the road encounters a liche- they all die); DMs eagerly installing everything from Grimtooth's Traps in a dungeon; the DM getting annoyed that the players can't figure out the simple riddle solution to the trap, and "no you can't just disarm it, tell me exactly what you're doing"; parties of ten players, 20 characters, and 60 henchmen and hirelings; extensive lists of magic items, and no character backgrounds; writing a BASIC program to print out hundreds of PCs; and the Bard getting mugged by another players demon henchmen, while the paladin is carefully far down the hallway.
    Unluckily, I've seen people do similar stuff to the highlighted with modern games within the last ten years. And these were *not* old-school gamers. Mind you, they were teenagers and possibly testosterone had something to do with it.

    And nowadays they just download someone else's program to generate hundreds of PCs. Probably on their 'smart' phone.

    Quote Originally Posted by Eric Tolle View Post
    Of course back in the day, the idea of standard D&D was a lot more flexible than it is today. We grabbed anything that took our fancy, and stirred it into our games. Classic D&D included stuff from Arduin Grimore and Traveller, if someone wanted to take a Jedi Knight through Greyhawk, well that was what the psionics rules were there for, and so on. This is why I don't get a lot of the purist attitude; it's like someone saying beef connsume is the only REAL soup, and adding vegetables to broth renders it not-soup. I really blame Third Edition for that attitude.
    I agree with that, mostly. Though I think it's an attitude that actually started with 1st edition AD&D with some of Gygax's writings. He would occassionally put things in Dragon magazine about how you should only use officially sanctioned AD&D stuff or you weren't playing D&D anymore. Third Edition was really bad for it, I agree.
    Last edited by Fhaolan; 2011-07-23 at 11:02 PM.
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  21. - Top - End - #201
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    Default Re: Continuation of the D&D brand (from a business perspective)

    Quote Originally Posted by Gamer Girl View Post
    I think They should do a nice 50/50 between fluff and crunch. Really, it's not so hard..for each piece of crunch, make fluff for it.

    But I too think WotC made a bad, bad mistake with going for all 'big expensive hard cover books'. I've bought lots of other d20 stuff to fill the void they left. And what gets me is...it's not that hard to put out cheap soft cover books...yet WotC completely dumped the idea.

    Good example:

    My group was just about to head to a thinly detailed city, where I have nothing planned. I needed a bit on inspiration. So head to the book store where on the self are the five big hard cover WotC books that I already have. But also in the self I find a D20 'Wererats', a nice little paperback 50 pages for $11.00. I've never cared much for wererats, but I buy it anyway. It has lots of fluff about wererats, and then some were feats, classes and such too. Just flipping though it I get the idea of using the 'Rat Lord' wererat druid as an 'urban avenger'. And with the book I'm able to write up a nice adventure for the next game, using all the fluff backed up by the crunch. And the game works out great!

    All for $11...not $30 for a hardcover WotC book. Just think, if WotC put out a were book for each one...that's $11 times what? five? ten? I would have bought them all over time.


    And why does not WotC put out adventures anymore? That would be a great way to make money...nice, soft cover under $20 adventures.
    I'm pretty sure that the large ammount of random softcover books released one after another if what ran TSR out of business.
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  22. - Top - End - #202
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    Default Re: Continuation of the D&D brand (from a business perspective)

    Quote Originally Posted by Tyndmyr View Post
    Things like healing surges are quite widespread in 4e, and really have no direct correlation in 3.5. Yes, non magical healing options exist, but they're not really anything like a uniform, widespread system for all in the style that healing surges are.
    True, but healing surges are a good thing! They encourage the party to continue with the adventure instead of pausing to rest at every fight, don't unduly penalize the PCs if they're on a deadline of some sort (my favourite type of adventure, though sometimes it's hard to balance)... And honestly, Hit Points were NEVER purely physical endurance, except maybe in the earliest editions - even back when I played AD&D 2nd Edition they were described as a combination of vigor, heroic spirit and dodging ability.

    Besides, anyone complaining about martial characters being "unrealistic" should try and read some chivalric romances or mythological stories. Rama killed an entire army of demons with his bow, Charlemagne's paladins were notorious giant-slayers, many Arthurian knights fought dragons and fantastical beasts toe-to-toe, Robin Hood's feats of archery are legendary... Really, if anything, 4th Edition is the first edition to do this sort of thing right.

    And those who complain about the playstyles being too similar... Well, they're just plain wrong. Sure, most everyone works under the same resource management system, but that's entirely different from playing the same. A Wizard and a Warlock both play very differently from a Fighter and a Rogue, for example.

    Quote Originally Posted by bloodtide View Post
    All of us 'classic' D&D gamers only want to play D&D 0-3E, the modern gamers want the wow of 4E, and all the others don't even want to play a role-playing game. So no classic gamer will pay money for wow D&D and no modern gamer will pay for hard and unfair D&D.
    Er... You probably shouldn't generalize. I've played D&D over a lot of editions - specifically original D&D, AD&D 2nd Edition, 3.0/3.5, and now 4th -, and I can honestly say 4th Edition is the first edition I've really liked - warts and all.
    Last edited by The Troubadour; 2011-12-22 at 04:05 PM.

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