D&D 5e has failed

[CapnTthePirateG]

Which would be great except there's a bunch of crap you could do to easy cit down on it.

Stop writing abilities that give people X more fire damage if you don't want nonspecialists to lag behind or fire mages to own. Incidentally, this is part of what made 4e a terrible game - character creation was "pick a keyword, then dumpster dive through all the books for bonuses to your keyword. Then get really bored because all you can do is necrotic damage."

Stop tacking on new, wacky subsystems in addition to older ones

Define your abilities. Stop leaving open-ended stuff like illusion and charm or having powers whose existence is "dumpster dive through the monster manual and steal powers".

This is pretty basic shit that game developers, for whatever reason, cannot bring themselves to do.

[Kaelik]

Define your abilities. Stop leaving open-ended stuff like illusion and charm or having powers whose existence is "dumpster dive through the monster manual and steal powers".

This is pretty basic shit that game developers, for whatever reason, cannot bring themselves to do.

Maybe because they want to make good games that are fun to play?

I guarantee 4e would not be a worthwhile game if each character could do damage of 14 indistinguishable flavors, including charm damage and illusion damage.

[CapnTthePirateG]

Define your abilities. Stop leaving open-ended stuff like illusion and charm or having powers whose existence is "dumpster dive through the monster manual and steal powers".

This is pretty basic shit that game developers, for whatever reason, cannot bring themselves to do.

Maybe because they want to make good games that are fun to play?

I guarantee 4e would not be a worthwhile game if each character could do damage of 14 indistinguishable flavors, including charm damage and illusion damage.

True. I meant something more along the lines of "Here is Trid Phantasm" which I see getting brought up as illusion rules that work, as opposed to "some shit about interaction" where nobody can tell you what the fuck an interaction is or when it occurs.

I would not be too sad to see charm go and have domination effects be the standard of mind control, but that might just be me.

[ishy]

I think the core problem is that a game is similar to software. The more lines you write, the more bugs you're going to have. To complicate matters, you're writing your program in English, which isn't airtight the way C is. And then you *explicitly* allow for creativity. Every feat, class power, monster, table, etc is like adding new lines of code.

Every TTRPG is bug-riddled RAW in the sense that you can construct situations, character builds, etc where the math works out to something that indicates whoever wrote the rule clearly did not consider this situation.

In my experience, part of the problem is that designers write the rules as if they were writing code. They forget that people tend to bring their own predispositions to the game and don't even bother reading most of the rules.
At most they've glanced through it and study it when they run into problems.

Look at people arguing in favour of 5e, they usually get everything wrong about 5e and whatever system they are comparing it too.
When pointing out how bonkers the Vision And Light rules are, people have been arguing at me, that I was wrong because the rules can't be that bad. (people who have been playing and DMing the game for years).
Hell, one time I was talking to someone who has published official adventures and he didn't believe me when I told him that a level X PC is a level X CR.

[Smeelbo]

What's the best way to push miniatures then? Is there a way for D&D to develop a 'tactical tournament game' scene (something more like Mordheim than warhammer 40k)?

They've tried a few times without much success, but I think it's totally doable, just do a mix of what Pathfinder and Heroclix do

No, that ship has sailed, never to return.

When D&D Miniatures was a "thing," they sold in packs of 8 random miniatures for $9.99 at the beginning, to $11.99 MSRP at the end. That works out to about $1.25 per mini, quite doable. As commons were often things you needed multiples of, like goblins or skeletons, it made sense to buy packs of miniatures. Better yet, because of the D&D Miniature combat game that used those figures (as distinct from D&D), high value rares could in effect subsidize the cost of the commons.

In the current model for pre-painted plastic miniatures, there is only one manufacturer, WizKids, who makes miniatures for both Paizo and D&D. They come either in packs of single random miniatures for $3-4 each, or in packs of 4 random miniatures for $16. Worse they are crappy miniatures: bad sculpts, poorly painted and made of brittle plastic that breaks easily. There is no tactical miniatures game associated with the minis, so game-desirable rares don't subsidize the cost of commons. Since Paizo sells individual miniatures directly from their website, stores have zero incentive to buy packs and break them open for singles. You can get a set of 6 PC minis for $30, but they are not very good.

$4 each for crappy random minis? The suck.
A little over a dollar for a better random mini? Workable.

And kids these days have no patience for painting miniatures.

Obviously, some day 3D printers will solve the problem, but until then...

Smeelbo

[Lago PARANOIA]

Also, the actual wargame portion of the D&D miniatures snorted malted roach killer. You can't discount that as a factor, either.

[erik]

Obviously, some day 3D printers will solve the problem, but until then...

Smeelbo

Okay, I'll bite. How is Smeelbo going to solve the miniatures problem?





Heh, anywho, D&D miniatures were pretty sweet while they lasted. I got tons of pre-painted minis that filled almost all the gaps I needed filled for my D&D needs. Unfortunately with those needs filled my interest waned. It was harder to justify buying random packs or even individual minis at a certain point. I think overall I actually made money or at least broke even on minis since I was able to sell off minis I didn't need or want (especially thanks to Drizzt and a Large Red Dragon).

I don't think it's fair to say that ship has sailed and shall never return. Someone could provide good minis at reasonable prices. It was done for years by WotC and could be done again.


[edit]
Whoah, I just looked at the 4e minis and a lot more than a few are essentially repainted 3e molds, some slightly tweaked. Holy fuck, those cheap bastards.

Drow Sergeant


meet Eladrin Fighter


Incidentally I wound up painting my Drow to look kind of like the Eladrin. I almost never needed Drow minis, but elves came up a fair bit, so I de-Drow'd a bunch.

[Smeelbo]

Also, the actual wargame portion of the D&D miniatures snorted malted roach killer. You can't discount that as a factor, either.

What mattered was that enough people played Malted Roach Killer that the demand for under-pointed figures drove prices for singles to the point that it made sense for a store to open a case of miniatures, sell the high end ones for profit, and sell off the commons at less than a dollar each. Without high-end rares, that doesn't happen, and the end price of a figure is the same as the average price of a figure. This is a major factor in the success of MtG.

It may have snorted cayenne, but the war game served an important purpose.

Smeelbo

[erik]

This is truth. Some of my minis that I resold were able to sell for more because they were useful in the tournament meta of the time. Enough people were playing for that to matter. I hated getting multiple Gauth minis but they sold for like 20 bucks, so hey.

[Username17]

For reasons I don't really understand, getting pre-painted miniatures from China was bizarrely cheap in the first decade of the 21st century. Then it just stopped being like that. I don't know what was going on then, and I don't know what made it stop being cheap. I imagine it has something to do with changes in Chinese slave labor and export subsidy policy. In any case, colored plastic army men have been cheap to produce in the past and will be cheap to produce in the future as well. They just don't happen to be at the moment.

In any case, there's the D&D Attack Wing thing going on now. You get 6 Hobgoblins for like $25. That's pretty stiff, but it also comes with a maneuver dial and cards that I guess you might care about if you played Attack Wing. It's made by WizKids, and some people seem to like it OK. It's not much of a cross pollination with D&D tabletop RPG, but it seems like it's doing alright at the moment.


I don't know what the maneuver dial means or what the cards do.

Basically, D&D seems like it's doing the things it needs to do. It's make books that advance metaplot while also expanding the game. It's tying new products into existing world lines. It's having a miniatures game that ties in to the official setting and also produces minis that you can use in tabletop RPG games. These are all good ideas.

It's just, none of these things are done well. Tyranny of Dragons had very little material in it, and it was shitty. Instead of being a series of combination world-books, power creep books, setting books, story books, and adventures... it was a quarter-assed piece of DOA crap outsourced to some people who didn't even know how the RPG in question was supposed to work. Attack Wing should be something that D&D players covet for the models, but it really isn't.

About the only thing I can think of that they should be doing that they aren't is to be making more product that is also better. Because right now we're in "This food is terrible! And the portions are so small!" territory.

-Username17

[Smeelbo]

In any case, there's the D&D Attack Wing thing going on now. You get 6 Hobgoblins for like $25. That's pretty stiff, but it also comes with a maneuver dial and cards that I guess you might care about if you played Attack Wing. It's made by WizKids, and some people seem to like it OK. It's not much of a cross pollination with D&D tabletop RPG, but it seems like it's doing alright at the moment.

We haven't sold even one, even to the girl who buys everything dragons.

Stopped ordering it months ago.

Smeelbo

[Orion]

If I wanted to get a bunch of minis to play 3.5 with (don't care about brand), what would be the cheapest way to get a decent pile of PCs, goblins, orcs, demons, skeletons, animals, and elementals?

[violence in the media]

If I wanted to get a bunch of minis to play 3.5 with (don't care about brand), what would be the cheapest way to get a decent pile of PCs, goblins, orcs, demons, skeletons, animals, and elementals?

Reaper's Bones miniature line has plastic copies of their metal minis for about $2-3 each for most of the medium-sized creatures, but they're unpainted.

You can also try purchasing individual D&D minis through a place like Cool Stuff. Some will be as cheap as $0.99 each, but $1.25-$1.99 is more likely. Overall, you can get most of what you want for $1-$4 per mini this way.

Other than that, try to get lucky via Craigslist or Ebay. Some old board games might have useful minis in them as well (e.g. HeroQuest).

[erik]

Pretty much what vitm said, but I'll throw a couple more site links. Still, cool stuff inc has been my go-to place more than any other in the past, granted that was several years back. They also were who I went to for selling my minis as well.

miniatures market
troll and toad

It is nice that many of the rares which used to be real expensive have come down to 4-8 bucks. Uncommons and commons have come up to meet them unfortunately. There's still a bit of remaining stupidity in pricing though. I mean, wow, $50+ bucks for the gelatinous cube mini is quite crazy, especially considering what a crappy model it is. You can buy a sack of 2" rounded glass cubes that look almost exactly the same for a fraction of the price. Or something like this which could even hold a mini in it.

[OgreBattle]

For reasons I don't really understand, getting pre-painted miniatures from China was bizarrely cheap in the first decade of the 21st century. Then it just stopped being like that. I don't know what was going on then, and I don't know what made it stop being cheap. I imagine it has something to do with changes in Chinese slave labor and export subsidy policy. In any case, colored plastic army men have been cheap to produce in the past and will be cheap to produce in the future as well. They just don't happen to be at the moment.

In any case, there's the D&D Attack Wing thing going on now. You get 6 Hobgoblins for like $25. That's pretty stiff, but it also comes with a maneuver dial and cards that I guess you might care about if you played Attack Wing. It's made by WizKids, and some people seem to like it OK. It's not much of a cross pollination with D&D tabletop RPG, but it seems like it's doing alright at the moment.


I don't know what the maneuver dial means or what the cards do.

Basically, D&D seems like it's doing the things it needs to do. It's make books that advance metaplot while also expanding the game. It's tying new products into existing world lines. It's having a miniatures game that ties in to the official setting and also produces minis that you can use in tabletop RPG games. These are all good ideas.

It's just, none of these things are done well. Tyranny of Dragons had very little material in it, and it was shitty. Instead of being a series of combination world-books, power creep books, setting books, story books, and adventures... it was a quarter-assed piece of DOA crap outsourced to some people who didn't even know how the RPG in question was supposed to work. Attack Wing should be something that D&D players covet for the models, but it really isn't.

About the only thing I can think of that they should be doing that they aren't is to be making more product that is also better. Because right now we're in "This food is terrible! And the portions are so small!" territory.

-Username17

A friend of mine who has a friend that runs a toy factory says they prefer getting Japanese contracts because they can 'accidentally' make more Naruto gashapn than ordered and sell the extras for their own profit. Something like DnD has little value in China so they'd rather give them rip off prices to fulfill their order.

[momothefiddler]

5e tabletop D&D had eight full-time employees when they fired two editors in January.

Where can I find a citation on this? I'd like to pass it on to someone but cannot find it.

It doesn't help that "staff" is totally a thing in D&D.

[Username17]

5e tabletop D&D had eight full-time employees when they fired two editors in January.

Where can I find a citation on this? I'd like to pass it on to someone but cannot find it.

It doesn't help that "staff" is totally a thing in D&D.

Here's one of them.

Jennifer Clarke Wilkes and I were laid off on Wednesday the 28th. Our positions were eliminated, reducing the D&D team to eight people working directly on the tabletop game.

Who makes up the 8 still working on the RPG? Mike Mearls, Rodney Thompson, Jeremy Crawford, Greg Bilsland, Chris Perkins, Peter Lee, Matt Sernett, Adam Lee. The 8 does not include art or brand staff, including community manager Trevor Kidd, brand/marketing managers, Organized Play program managers and the like, which brings the number up to about 13.

Best bit:

We don't have any part time employees. The 25 full-time were folks that worked directly on Pathfinder products in design, development, editing and art. Currently, we are pushing 60 employees in the company and growing. In the next few months, we will be hiring more editors and developers to support Pathfinder. 2014 was our best year ever in both sales and profits. Still going up!

-Username17

[Lago PARANOIA]

They also shortpack the characters that everyone wants, or make them available only as exclusives (they do this really hard with GI Joe, to the point that they pretty much don't make them for mass retail anymore, and if you want to get Cover Girl (and who doesn't), who was a figure subscription service exclusive, then you have to pay $100 or more on eBay! Yay!). Exclusives are, almost always, an evil, evil thing.

Belatedly, I didn't even realize that the title of Shortpacked! referred to this concept.

Belatedly belatedly, that's fucking crazy. I think we've found a company that hates money even more than Capcom.

[rasmuswagner]

They also shortpack the characters that everyone wants, or make them available only as exclusives (they do this really hard with GI Joe, to the point that they pretty much don't make them for mass retail anymore, and if you want to get Cover Girl (and who doesn't), who was a figure subscription service exclusive, then you have to pay $100 or more on eBay! Yay!). Exclusives are, almost always, an evil, evil thing.

Belatedly, I didn't even realize that the title of Shortpacked! referred to this concept.

Belatedly belatedly, that's fucking crazy. I think we've found a company that hates money even more than Capcom.

Disney is trending that way. They have, not just failed to produce but actually pulled, Gamora from their GotG action figure line, Black Widow from Avengers, any Leia but slave Leia...basically any female character. They even re-issued "Black Widow drops on the motorcycle from the Quinjet" in two new versions - one with Steve, one with Tony.

[Previn]

If I wanted to get a bunch of minis to play 3.5 with (don't care about brand), what would be the cheapest way to get a decent pile of PCs, goblins, orcs, demons, skeletons, animals, and elementals?

Print up paper ones. Cheap, easy, quick and tons of art you can use. Let your players rip /m up when they kill one.

[Eikre]

If I wanted to get a bunch of minis to play 3.5 with (don't care about brand), what would be the cheapest way to get a decent pile of PCs, goblins, orcs, demons, skeletons, animals, and elementals?

Do as Gygax did and buy those themed several-dozen packs of Army Man-esque plastic figure. Skeleton warriors, medieval knights, forest animals, giant insects, and dinosaurs can all be provided in this fashion. Anything more obscure might need to be furnished at higher expense, but it's worth mentioning that the rust monster et al are based on more fanciful lines of those kinds of toys.

[Username17]

The front row is of course the Rust Monster, the Land Shark, and the Owlbear as drawn in the AD&D Monster Manual.

Sick Sad World.

-Username17

[Eikre]

Honestly kind of surprised that nobody's ginned up to make new molds of those little guys.

I mean, not for people to actually use as D&D models, mind you; just to put up on those miscellaneous geek merchandise sites (Think Geek, Lootcrate, whatever) with an explanation of the joke so that "I Am The Products I Buy" assholes can use them to bolster their self-identities.

[Windjammer]

Back to 5e and its staff.* As of May 21, Rodney Thompson has left WotC - of his own volition, apparently. He announced it online, rationalizing it as a choice in favour of greener (if unspecified) pastures and prospects elsewhere.

There was a short tweet in response by Mearls saying, 'I wish Rodney luck with whatever it is that has come up'.

Now either Thompson was let go, and the way it's played out online is to disguise the fact.

Or he really did leave, to the effect that his own boss had no clue why or as to its timing.

In case it's the latter, that speaks volumes for the current mood in the design team. Can't say much for Thompson, he was a main drive behind Saga supplements, I think, but I never paid much attention to his output.

Thoughts?

*Edit. This is a useful breakdown of the layoffs over the years.

[Username17]

You'd think that being the face of Saga would be the kiss of death for your career. You'd think that having been the guy who had to write all the web articles dialing down expectations on 5th edition by walking back all the feature promises that Mearls couldn't deliver on would be the end of a career as well. This is a man who has been with WotC since the Bush administration and has never had his name associated with success.

But RPGs are not like other industries. The talent pool is extremely vast but the recruiting pool is extremely small and nepotistic. Wizards of the Coast could be recruiting Polish physicists to check their math and South African historians to discuss the race relations and politics of their fantasy worlds, but they don't. Instead they hire from their own gaming buddies in the Seattle area.

Because of the cliquishness and total lack of people from outside being even considered, there seems to be basically no level of fucking up that will result in actually being forced out of the industry. Fucking anyone could be drafted to revive the world of darkness line, but it's actually licensed back to Richard Thomas (one of the three guys most responsible for driving it off a cliff in the first place). SKR is a hopeless chucklefuck whose very name is synonymous with stupid design decisions and bad writing, and WotC has hired him back as some sort of brand manager.

So the bottom line is that the simple fact that I wouldn't hire Rodney Thompson to write a church bulletin, he probably could get work with any of a number of other game companies (including vidya game companies) simply because he's an insider and has been for a long time.

The other issue of course is that the last guy who said they left voluntarily without telling Mearls first was Monte Cook. And he ran off to go make and sell Numenera for real moneys. And it was actually quite a lot of moneys, and he probably had a couple hundred thousand in take-home from that. Now, some of the people in house are trying to do the same thing while keeping their WotC job (because apparently WotC either has no non-compete clause in their contract or can't be bothered to check on those things), but it wouldn't surprise me at all if someone tried to repeat the Monte Cook experience.

Basically, if there were any justice in the industry, Rodney Thompson would have been fired like 8 years ago and never worked as a game writer again. But there isn't, and he probably has a gig lined up to sell more RPG products directly to whatever tiny niche of people would throw money at E20 or Onyx Path or whatever piece of vaporware that promises to keep a niche open. If I had to guess, I would say that just like 13th Age tries to keep 4e alive for the tiny number of people who care about such things, that Rodney figures that he can kickstart SAGA compatible shovelware and make more by direct sales than he made working for a dwindling tabletop D&D division in WotC.

-Username17