Monte Cook IS working on 5th edition...

[fectin]

4E is doing wonderfully and is introducing far, far more people to the hobby, by itself, than any other edition or even Pathfinder.

nerds really, really seem to want their personal favorite to be some kind of objectively good thing

[Leper]

in light of sales of D&D vs sales of Pathfinder, and discussion had with people; it seems he is just echoing the voices of the crowd.

If you have any genuine sales figures, I'd love to see them. All I've seen is Lisa swearing she's outselling her biggest competitor in "the markets she checks," and the results of an ICv2 "survey" of a small portion of the market that had absolutely zero numbers associated with it.

So, one 'lady' who has every reason to lie about her product, (and surely Paizo never lies about their products or actions ever,) saying "markets she checks" (which do not distribute WotC products because WotC distribution is all in house) Paizo is outdistributing WotC products.

and

"We called a buncha people up and asked them what they say, but did not ask for any numerical information whatsoever. We asked for pure anecdotal "feeling" instead of numbers, and also surveyed only a portion of a portion of a portion of the market. (brick and mortar stores only, game dedicated stores only, and a selection only of those stores, and weren't real picky about who in the stores we talked to but we totally swear they were management or told us they were!)

how many people say: "4th isnt D&D just a new game with D&D slapped on the cover?"

Quite a lot. A lot of people say "black people are all lazy criminals who like fried chicken and watermelon."

All that shows is that a lot of people are ignorant idiots who like to say a lot of things about subjects they don't genuinely know shit about and have no intention of learning.

...Also that fried chicken and watermelon are really fucking good and that transcends cultural boundaries.

someone finally having the balls to say...if we keep moving away from everything D&D was, we will not be making D&D anymore, it will just be something with D&D name on it.

Wait. What?

A. "everything that makes D&D into D&D" has absolutely fuck all to do with mechanics, and it makes me incredibly sad when people genuinely believe that it does.

B. Since when does it take balls to say "we should really stop innovating (or at least trying to) and go back to pumping out the same stagnant pablum we made before and we have been spoon feeding to the market forever because it was a safe source of money from the exact same people as always"?

C. It does, however take balls to say "we're going to go back to a market share we lost in massive PR snafu that has already moved on to another producer and have high brand loyalty that is only exacerbated by a PR campaign based on (subtly) confirming and encouraging hatred against us and tell them they can totally come back and give us their money again." It also shows an astounding lack of understanding of the situation, and quite possibly some unrecoverable brain damage.

in light of that 40 years, and the games anniversary that would be something very dumb to do.

Something very dumb, or something you just don't want to happen?

does this mean some of those "sacred cows" were actually pillars holding the ceiling up and it has now begun to fall?

No. It means they have the-WORST-fucking-PR team ever, and the very predictable results of not coddling a stereotypically unpleasable fanbase with a massive entitlement complex have come to pass.

does it mean D&D shouldnt try to be EVERYONE'S game, but stick to the area it worked best in?

That depends. I'm assuming "the area it worked best in" is the area you personally want it to return active support for, and you assume that can only be done by returning to outmoded design precepts that strongly limit its equity, tolerance for error, flexibility, intuitiveness, perceptibility and (in the end) marketability.

A game that targets only its current audience is one that is geuinely doomed to death. This is especially true in a market that is shrinking because its medium is one that is becoming increasingly obsolete, AND because its intractable "grognard" old guard would rather mock a younger generation who plays differently than they do instead of foster them and (HORROR!) attempt to understand why they enjoy playing the games they do.

spells we can easily see why going back makes sense,

Honestly, after spending a lot of time playing 4th, I feel 4th was a step back in some very important and positive ways.

nobody can fly in 4th unless they are in combat.

I can see you have not spent a lot of time playing 4th.

that is the way it looks at first and MANY other glances with its silly "powers system".

Oh, okay, so all we need to discuss anything at length and with an air of authority is a cursory glance and hearsay. Well, this is the internet, what do I expect?

I don't know if you're old enough to remember internet discussions of D&D circa 2000, but if you are, then you might note that they sound a lot like the ones in 2008. We just switch out "diablo" for "wow" and we can pretty much cut & paste. (Someone actually did this a couple months ago. It was seriously one of the best troll attempts I have seen in a long time.)

Look, I get that you don't like 4th. I won't claim to understand exactly why, although if you'd like to discuss it rationally at some point, I can guarantee you I am more genuinely and sincerely interested in listening to you and understanding why than any person currently working at WotC. I think that probably belongs elsewhere, however--at least in another thread.

a game system should not remove SoD before you even play it.

If you can remove or enforce an individual's suspension of disbelief before they can play, you're not a game designer, you're a psionicist. And frankly, we don't need psionicists making games, we need game designers making games.

i mean the power system looks like it is right off of and out of the DDM game.

Actually, it looks like it's right out of ToB.

and a miniature game is not what people came to want. after 1979 when AD&D and BD&D came out, the miniature game was left behind by the players and an RPG was born.

Allow me to share something with you: My very first game was in the mid 80s. It was BECMI, and my first character was a halfling right out of the red box.

(as a side note, we played BECMI because according to the DM it was "real D&D" and not like that "bullshit AD&D which we don't play and don't even ask. Also, don't tell your mom I said bullshit." Yeah, I've been listening to edition wars for a long time. No one's managed to say anything I haven't heard some iteration of before in nearly 20 years.)

We played with minis. We played without minis. We played with minis again. When we payed attention to facing then by god we needed them. Once facing was gone, then we didn't need them because placement generally meant nothing. That was not always a good thing. It generally meant that combat was shallow, repetitive, and not at all fun. We enjoyed RP more not because RP was great but because we just fucking hated how badly combat played.

And when combat became more complex (by system changes or just rare circumstance) we wished to christ we'd had minis. I don't know how many times I heard "But I thought you/I/they were over here!" over the years, but it's at least three metric fuckloads... which is 2.5 times larger than an imperial standard fuckload, so quite a bit.

looking at 4th, its predecessors, and DDM, and 4th resembles DDM more than any of the RPGs that bare its name.

I can't claim to be familiar with DDM... but then it seems you can't claim to be all that familiar with 4th, so... discussing this point further seems moot.

and you have to admit.. HASBRO needed someone that wasnt a part of 4th to take it apart.

No. They need someone genuinely objective that is a competent designer. Monte is neither objective nor a competent designer. A competent storyboarder, passable writer, an excellent self-promoter, and unsurprisingly he's bought into his own hype.

Let me assure you of something about Monte: he's not listening. If you talk, he'll hear you, but he's not listening, and I find it unlikely he ever will. If you agree with him he'll just break his arm patting himself on the back at how "in touch he is" and if you disagree, he'll chalk you up to "the unwashed gaming poser masses" who think they know design as well as he does. If you get what you want out of 5e, I assure you it has little to do with it being what you wanted.

look at the intro to 4th at the people that were making 3rd bashing it. it didnt seem right.

You're right. It wasn't right. It was a shitty, insensitive thing to do, and fundamentally retarded. You don't minimize edition wars (which are an inevitability) by buying into them and encouraging them. You want to say WotC was wrong and idiotic about this? I'll agree with you so goddamned hard that I'd clone myself 9 times so I can agree 1000%. I'd like to punchfuck the idiot who thought it was a good move.

now you have someone that didnt make 4th disavowing it in a way, so Monte seems like just another voice in the crowd...one of the 99% if you will. though more like 70% of D&D players/users that dont like 4th.

Aside from finding your numbers highly suspect, what you're failing to note is that they're repeating the exact same mistake... they're just starting earlier.

also "sticking to the roots" means less people needed since it takes more work to create something new, than to adapt something old.

I don't think that's an argument in favor of anything (other than attempting another blatant moneygrab) for a number of reasons.

it just seems like a way to get past edition players, "grognards" of pre-4th, back on board and excited about what may come.

Honestly, this is never going to happen in any meaningful way.

Beyond this, it's important to understand that you (and I!) are not the future of the hobby. Some day we are going to die. At that point it is very likely we will stop purchasing books. Our tendency to squabble and bitch and moan at people who don't want to play the game like we do really only drives other potential customers away. Certain people's tendency to think "if you're not playing a wizard, ur doin' it rong" drives off more. Yeah, I realize I am (and most certainly have been in the past) just as guilty of this and many other faults as anyone else here, so don't think I'm trying to look down my nose at you or claim some sort of moral superiority. I'm just pointing out that only trying to keep or reclaim old market shares leads nowhere but the death of the game.

[Leper]

you are jsut another of those retards that dont understand the game, because you see "teh game" as what the book holds the most rules for.

I'm not about to support most of Yep's post, and certainly not his tone, but...

I would like to ask you to take a minute and look really hard at this statement of yours.

[shadzar]

in light of sales of D&D vs sales of Pathfinder, and discussion had with people; it seems he is just echoing the voices of the crowd.

If you have any genuine sales figures, I'd love to see them. All I've seen is Lisa swearing she's outselling her biggest competitor in "the markets she checks," and the results of an ICv2 "survey" of a small portion of the market that had absolutely zero numbers associated with it.

well WotC believes those ICV2 statistics and you can see the change in thinking after them by reading the articles from WotC after each of those releases.

http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/20178.html

http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/20743.html

you may not give weight to those little charts, but the companies do...that means Lisa and Greg BOTH.

alos voices of the crowd dont require numbers.

word of mouth has much greater effect than numbers. (see New Coke)

[Leper]

If you have any genuine sales figures, I'd love to see them. All I've seen is Lisa swearing she's outselling her biggest competitor in "the markets she checks," and the results of an ICv2 "survey" of a small portion of the market that had absolutely zero numbers associated with it.

well WotC believes those ICV2 statistics and you can see the change in thinking after them by reading the articles from WotC after each of those releases.

http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/20178.html

http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/20743.html

you may not give weight to those little charts, but the companies do...that means Lisa and Greg BOTH.

alos voices of the crowd dont require numbers.

word of mouth has much greater effect than numbers. (see New Coke)

*sigh*

Okay, let's break down the ICv2 "article" again.

"We don't have access to any numbers. Amazon won't release figures. Paizo won't release figures. WotC won't release figures. Distributors won't release figures, and honestly even if they did it wouldn't matter because we still won't have WotC numbers because all their distribution is in house.

"What we do have is anecdotal 'feelings' unaccompanied by any attempt at actual data collection collected from a small portion of a (sadly) dwindling portion of a niche market that completely bypasses any attempt at looking at the whole of our niche market or even to accurately get information to the very tiny portion that we decided to look at."

Can you honestly tell me that if they'd said "4e is outselling the entirety of the rest of the market by a huge margin, and are metaphorically shitting right in Lisa's open mouth" using those exact same methods, that you would accept it with the same fervor you are now because what it says now is what you want to hear? (pssst. that's called confirmation bias.)

I'm not refusing to accept it because I don't like what it says. Honestly, I don't give two shits what it says. I have fun at my table with my players no matter what any imaginary majority says about my game of choice, I always have and always will. I refuse to acknowledge it as anything other than bullshit 'statistics' and sensational 'journalism,' because that's exactly what it is.

I'd genuinely love to see some numbers and figures. Not because I think they'll turn out in my favor (as Mr. Yep seems to think they will) but because I am actually genuinely curious and would like to take a look at some market trends.

As for the "belief" and "change in thinking..."

I honestly think you're drawing some mistaken conclusions based on what you want to read from the data rather than what was there.

ICv2 says "pathfinder's gaining! they're tied!" WotC releases some Essentials stuff.... that they'd already been planning to release for a very long time, and then SLOWS THEIR RELEASE SCHEDULE, up to and including the cancellation of products. (while Paizo steps up theirs) Really, if you give credence to someone beating you in a market, you do not slow your release schedule because the vast majority of market sales come from new product.

Likewise, if you genuinely think you're winning, speeding up your release schedule is not a big deal, as it's more likely to result in shitty untested releases that are bad for overall quality--this assumes, of course, that you give two shits about quality, and I have plenty of opinions as to how that applies to Paizo.

ICv2 says "Pathfinder's gaining! we say they won!" WotC FURTHER SLOWS its production schedule. Once again, this is not the move of someone who thinks ICv2 is anything other than the internet version of a jizz rag tabloid.

Did they finally start to show some very minor signs of having some PR capability? Yeah. It's a shame it didn't happen about 4 years sooner, but what are you gonna do?

Did it happen because of this? I honestly can't say one way or another. Correlation does not imply causation.

[CraigM]

I'm just waiting for the FATE version of D&D that Monte appears to be making.

(*runs*)

[shadzar]

I'm just waiting for the FATE version of D&D that Monte appears to be making.

(*runs*)

we are all waiting to see the fate of D&D that Monte is making.

lets just hope the outcome is not FATAL for D&D when it arrives.

[CraigM]

lets just hope the outcome is not FATAL for D&D when it arrives.

At least then we'd know all the information we'd (ahem) NEED to know about Tieflings.

[Stubbazubba]

Leper, welcome. Shadzar is our hazing ritual. Now that you've been through it, you can put him on ignore like the rest of us and engage in meaningful discussion. Well, meaningful might be a bit of a stretch, but it at least displays a modicum of intelligence.

[Falgund]

- Meet Shadzar
- Ignore Shadzar
- Profit

No "???" step.

[tzor]

D&D will exist because it makes a profit; even if it's a relatively thin profit.

That is completely incorrect, and I say this not because of any college course, but understanding how corporations think in general. There are a whole bunch of numbers that define a company. While the "bottom line" is important, it's actually not the only number in making corporate decisions. In general, however, those divisions that pull in the greatest amount of profit for the company have more leverage in various decisions that take place at the corporate level. But a poorly profitable division is on more or less equal footing in regards to these decisions, neither of them are making the larger profits of the highly profitable division.

If D&D were to be shut down, it wouldn't be because of marginal profitability or slight marginal non profitability. Headcount reduction tends to hit harder those divisions that are less profitable (you could spread the pain around all the profitable divisions or you could just axe that one division that isn't as profitable ... often the later is what happens). Resource reallocation is another (the resources are better spent in the division that returns the better profits). In companies that go through buy/consolidate cycles (and Hasbro is one) you get companies with desirable and less desirable divisions, eventually closing the less desirable division. Wizards was purchased more for Magic than D&D.

All of this is bringly abstract, let's look at some numbers. Hasbro Q3 misses on weak domestic sales

Oct 17 (Reuters) - Toy maker Hasbro Inc's quarterly results fell short of analysts' expectations as a dip in sales in the company's home market offset strong international growth.

Hasbro's results were in sharp contrast to those of larger rival Mattel Inc , which reported strong sales growth both in its domestic and international markets on Friday.

For the third quarter, Hasbro's net revenue in the U.S. and Canada fell 7 percent, hurt by declines in its boys, girls, and games and puzzles categories, while international revenue rose 23 percent.

The company earned $171.0 million, or $1.27 a share, compared with $155.2 million, or $1.09 a share, last year.

Net revenue rose 5 percent to $1.38 billion.

Analysts had expected the company to earn $1.30 a share on sales of $1.45 billion, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Shares of the second-largest U.S. toy company and maker of Nerf foam toys and Transformers action figures closed at $34.75 on Friday on Nasdaq.

Needless to say the stock isn't looking good. The press is probably woprse than the real situation, but that is probably not as important.

It's realy hard to say what the medium term effects would be. Shutting down less profitable divisions in an attempt to get "improvements" in the P/L - Blanace Sheets is certainly within the realm of possibility for this company.

In any event, when you have a company that has "Barbie," barely profitable is not good enough. The board isn't gaming nerds, and that's two strikes. The only solution is to shut up, run silent, run deep, and pray that management just doesn't notice you are a low lying fruit that can be pruned.

[Whipstitch]

Barbie is a Mattel product, actually.


But anyway, yeah, in business a lot of things come down to opportunity costs and Hasbro's games and puzzles division simply hasn't been a point of strength over the last couple years although one would think that is more attributable to lagging sales on their big name board games than relative small fry like D&D. I personally don't see any reason to fly off the handle and start spouting doomsday rhetoric given that I simply don't know very much about the situation, but I will say I wouldn't be surprised if the games division isn't allowed to stay on the backburner while Hasbro tries to figure out how to cash in on bronies and develop products that at least haven't been all but proven to lack crossover appeal.[/i]

[tzor]

Barbie is a Mattel product, actually.

Duh, Freudian slip. Hasbro is the home to Joe, not Barbie. Well now I know. (AND KNOWING IS HALF THE BATTLE ... UGH)

Here is the complete brand list.

As I said, I think D&D is going to go under the radar for a while. But on the other hand I can also see them pulling the entire dev crew alltogether, for a variety of reasons. A lot of the brands requires no R&D staff whatsoever. My point that it is possible; not that it was likely or guarenteed. When you are talking about corporations, any stupid thing is always possible.

[Prak]

You know... I hate to say this, but the best thing Hasbro could do with their game department is tell WotC to write up a simple systemed generic game system (ie, file the serial numbers off of d20 and fix a few things, and have a seven year old with a baseball bat instructed to whack the designers when it doesn't understand a mechanic), and put out a savage worlds type product, and market it as a new family game night thing, with commercials showing Dad as the ref, running his family through scenarios, and an occasional "Junior runs a game, and Dad plays Dadoor the Barbarian and goofs around"

[Swordslinger]

No. They need someone genuinely objective that is a competent designer. Monte is neither objective nor a competent designer. A competent storyboarder, passable writer, an excellent self-promoter, and unsurprisingly he's bought into his own hype.

Let me assure you of something about Monte: he's not listening. If you talk, he'll hear you, but he's not listening, and I find it unlikely he ever will. If you agree with him he'll just break his arm patting himself on the back at how "in touch he is" and if you disagree, he'll chalk you up to "the unwashed gaming poser masses" who think they know design as well as he does. If you get what you want out of 5e, I assure you it has little to do with it being what you wanted.

Well said.

Monte is not a big hope for an edition. In fact, the guy has still not even managed to figure out why constant bonus accumulation is bad for the game. He has no concept of staying on the RNG at all.

Man people here are looking for a game that promotes horizontal achievement over vertical and other good design practices. Monte is not your man. All that guy knows how to do is toss bigger bonuses at stuff. Yes, he's probably going to toss out the majority of 4E and pretend it didn't happen, but he's not going to be making the game any better. 5E is simply going to be Monte Cook's version of Pathfinder.

We played with minis. We played without minis. We played with minis again. When we payed attention to facing then by god we needed them. Once facing was gone, then we didn't need them because placement generally meant nothing. That was not always a good thing. It generally meant that combat was shallow, repetitive, and not at all fun. We enjoyed RP more not because RP was great but because we just fucking hated how badly combat played.

I've got a love/hate for minis. On one hand, it creates tactical combats that are often more interesting. On the other hand, it seems to really tune the focus of the game away from roleplaying and more to just managing the combat minigame.

At high levels especially minis feel out of place, when characters play more like superheroes than anything else. Flight especially is very taxing on the battlemap as it can't present 3D battlespaces very well. It also makes combat feel very rigid.

That being said, that feel actually worked well for 4E which made things much more low power than the prior edition. For high level 3E, where it was typical everyone had flight, the battlemap was almost irrelevant. In that case, miniatures were more of a hindrance than a benefit. In fact, given each mini had it's own height that wasn't represented graphically, nobody seemed to be seeing the same thing anymore and it was a constant exercise in corrections "No, that guy is 40 ft above you!" and don't get me started on trying to calculate what happens when someone tries to use a cone spell in 3D.

If the game is intended to play that way, then I want a much more abstract system, similar to Mutants and Masterminds, where minis aren't used and locations are a bit more arbitrary. At that point the game should be less about trying to hold a chokepoint Spartan style and more about crazy mobile anime style combats with people bouncing off walls and crap.

[fectin]

So basically you want Exalted?

[tzor]

Note to self, accidentally deleted original reply. Must resist urge to KILL SOMETHING.

I've got a love/hate for minis. On one hand, it creates tactical combats that are often more interesting. On the other hand, it seems to really tune the focus of the game away from roleplaying and more to just managing the combat minigame.

I have a love for minis; it's more of a left brain / right brain thing for me. It's hard to roleplay an abstract collection of stats and abilities. Having a mini allows me to visually focus on an abstract visual representation of the character, even if the visual representation isn't always the exact perfect thing.

This is a feature I also use as a DM. Having an ettin attack the party is one thing. Having an ettin attack the party by putting my mini of a three headed ettin with the heads of the three stooges is far more effective.



(Note: back when I painted this in the early 80's I only had testor's paint, I was a crappy painter, and yes it's worn through use.)

[shadzar]

(Note: back when I painted this in the early 80's I only had testor's paint, I was a crappy painter, and yes it's worn through use.)

that is all anybody had back then, because that is all you would find at Kmart and Roses. there really wasnt even the craft aisle for apple barrel or other acrylics back then

[Swordslinger]

So basically you want Exalted?

Preferably a game that works better than exalted. But the general style of not worrying about battlemaps and exact placements when you're fighting dragons the size of houses is a good thing.

[tzor]

(Note: back when I painted this in the early 80's I only had testor's paint, I was a crappy painter, and yes it's worn through use.)

that is all anybody had back then, because that is all you would find at Kmart and Roses. there really wasnt even the craft aisle for apple barrel or other acrylics back then

Actually, at the time that was the only type of paint you found at the hobby stores, since it was mostly for model painting and models were still a major percentage of a hobby store's inventory. Most craft item paints are still sold in very large containers for the average a few minis a month gamer requirements. Even then caft stores didn't show up until much later.

[Doom]

Dang, it's a shame you're so far away, I'd love to plunk that down on my table during an encounter.

[hogarth]

Hey guys, not sure if this belongs in the Mike Mearls thread anymore, now that Monte's taken over. But here's the new article.

http://www.wizards.com/dnd/Article.aspx ... l/20111018

Things of note:

-This article could be summed up in three words: Yay old monsters. Having said that, I don't know what meets the criteria for revival and how we fix the armies of FU old monster guys out there.

I got as far as this:

"We reminisced about a lot of old-school monsters that hadn't been updated to the latest edition—or the latest two editions. Or even three."

And then I realised he doesn't know what he's talking about. The vast majority of "old-school" monster have been updated for 3E (and Pathfinder) in the Tome of Horrors (including the gorbel and peryton as illustrated in the article). Maybe he means "officially" updated, but who gives a crap about that?

[A Man In Black]

And then I realised he doesn't know what he's talking about. The vast majority of "old-school" monster have been updated for 3E (and Pathfinder) in the Tome of Horrors (including the gorbel and peryton as illustrated in the article). Maybe he means "officially" updated, but who gives a crap about that?

The peryton is in Monsters of Faerun, as well, so whatever.

[OgreBattle]

I think their goal is to draw in all the grognards that left when their One True edition was replaced by the next one. Anyone who likes 4e is already going to be a DDI subscriber or just play the game already, so don't need to cater to them.

If it's working or not, I don't know. I've been having fun with 4e though so I do find his tone annoying.

[Whipstitch]

Seems nitpicky to give him guff about the peryton pic given that he expressly referenced it as a creature he had a hand in cutting from the first run 3E Monster Manual and that he had mixed feelings about it. Whether it was printed later in other products doesn't really have much bearing on the anecdote. Ultimately, I don't think extending an olive branch to the grognards is really a big deal even if some would view it as opportunistic at best.