TTalent's page

How many pages? I'd like a page count for the short fiction.

I ordered from amazon recently and got a 5th printing.

The distinction that Paizo got the OGL for free and WotC paid for TSR's assets - who cares? WotC expected to be paid for the OGL indirectly by industry growth. TSR shareholders were compensated more directly, but in both cases people are using whatever they can given the resources available. You can't effectively patent a rules system. The OGL's value is in the compatibility it promises, which is marketing.

I have absolutely no problem giving businesses unreasonable sums of money. My beef is not with WotC trying to profit - my beef is with its tactics. I subscribe to Paizo and buy way more adventure paths than I'll likely have time to play. But I like the idea I could play them, and I know what I'm getting. With randomized card packs and miniatures, I'm encouraged to buy more not to gain options, but because they're trying to act like a slot machine - if I keep pulling the lever and they infrequently reward the behavior, hopefully I'll end up getting what I wanted in the first place. I think it's bad business. Make money by creating and communicating value - not by trying to game impulsive behavior with a bunch of filler crap.

TTalent wrote:

Let's make it simple. Let's look at Pathfinder vs. 4E sales for 2012. Or, if you like, for six months in the past and six months in the future from today. Look at popularity on amazon.com. I'll stand by my statement. When 3E came out, people didn't fracture off a 2E company that would then increase in sales until it overtook WotC. 4E has somehow managed to do what no other edition before it has done in 35 years -- to be overtaken by an upstart.

You're right! I wonder if that thing called the OGL had anything to do with that!

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I don't think it's a terrible game. I think it introduced new elements that didn't appeal to certain people and that were very difficult to work around if you didn't want to use them. A huge amount of the PHB is taken up with lists of powers - if you don't like that system and you shrug it off -- suddenly half the pages you paid for are worthless.

That almost sounds like the spells system from 3e!

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As far as an apology goes, yeah I'd like to hear WotC say, "We made 4E to try and connect with WoW players. We didn't capture the WoW audience. We alienated people who like the face to face interaction. We regret that. This is what we've learned. This is how we're going to move forward." WotC doesn't owe me an apology unless they want my money.

No, they don't owe you an apology, period. You're acting over-entitled, and that alone is a pretty good reason for WotC to focus on other, better customers.

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If they don't want my money, that's fine. But if they want my money, they need to admit that producing randomized fortune card packs was a bad idea.

I don't see how, and I really doubt you'll be able to provide a good reason yourself.

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They need to admit that *requiring* miniatures was a bad idea.

Again, why? And why should they apologize to you for it?

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That MMORPG combat roles and very specific powers was probably not the best idea for a table top

...

If I'm not mistaken, the best customers are the customers who buy the most product. I'm single, no kids, and I'm in the top 10% in terms of household income, counting only my salary. I own several hundred RPG books, and I've been playing for over 10 years. WotC employees can't pay their mortgages with good will. They need dollars. I'm saying I want an apology if they want my dollars. You can disagree with how I decide to spend my money, but it's my choice. You can disagree that WotC needs my money . . . maybe they don't . . . maybe they can just use a daily power or a wish spell. Good luck with that.

You're right, I think the powers system is similar to the spell system. I'm okay with the spell system when it's limited to a few classes -- not when it applies to *all* classes.

Certainly Paizo has profited from the OGL. Certainly WotC profited from Gygax & Arneson's work in the 1970s. What does this have to do with 5E? What does this have to do with 4E? 3E profited from Paizo's first adventure paths. Wizards created the OGL because they thought it would profit everybody -- including themselves.

I think you make the same mistakes in judgment that a lot of fans do - assuming that Hasbro is responsible for all of WotC's functional decisions with regards to the D&D brand.

You also make some really unsupportable claims, like the idea that 4e is obviously worse than 3e. That's ignorant. Not only is that a wildly subjective claim, but even trying to look at it objectively (in the sense of product moved or brand growth) is impossible without an expert's eye for the strength of the market in general and the external factors that have been at play for the last five years.

Finally, they don't owe you or anyone else an apology. They may end up delivering one, but it will be to appease you rather than because you deserve it. They said, "We're going to make the Dungeons & Dragons that we think should be made, and we know we're going to lose some customers in the process, but that's how the world works." They shouldn't have to apologize for wanting to take bold strides, and it's kind of shameful that you would ask for one.

If you don't want to contribute your input to whatever comes next, that's fine. It's your call. But you're being offered the opportunity to influence the direction of the hobby, however slight. It's preposterous that you would find something to criticize about that offering, but I suppose that some people can't get past their own sense of misplaced indignation.

Let's make it simple. Let's look at Pathfinder vs. 4E sales for 2012. Or, if you like, for six months in the past and six months in the future from today. Look at popularity on amazon.com. I'll stand by my statement. When 3E came out, people didn't fracture off a 2E company that would then increase in sales until it overtook WotC. 4E has somehow managed to do what no other edition before it has done in 35 years -- to be overtaken by an upstart. I don't think it's a terrible game. I think it introduced new elements that didn't appeal to certain people and that were very difficult to work around if you didn't want to use them. A huge amount of the PHB is taken up with lists of powers - if you don't like that system and you shrug it off -- suddenly half the pages you paid for are worthless.

As far as an apology goes, yeah I'd like to hear WotC say, "We made 4E to try and connect with WoW players. We didn't capture the WoW audience. We alienated people who like the face to face interaction. We regret that. This is what we've learned. This is how we're going to move forward." WotC doesn't owe me an apology unless they want my money. If they don't want my money, that's fine. But if they want my money, they need to admit that producing randomized fortune card packs was a bad idea. They need to admit that *requiring* miniatures was a bad idea. That MMORPG combat roles and very specific powers was probably not the best idea for a table top RPG. If they don't want to do that - if they're proud of those things - that's fine with me. Now that Paizo is around, I don't care if WotC drops D&D all together. That would open up more of the market to Paizo, and frankly, I trust Paizo way more than I trust WotC.

I don't feel entitled to anything from WotC-- they're not giving out hardback books for free. I pay for them, and I'm entitled to and I deserve whatever I can I pay for.

Look at the product reviews on Amazon -- the 4E PHB has 3 stars. The Pathfinder Core Rulebook has 4.5. Maybe WotC should be apologizing to themselves.

Nobody needs an invitation from WotC or anybody else to influence the direction of the hobby. WotC isn't doing me any favors by asking me to spend my time telling them what to do for 5E when 4E fumbled the ball.

IceniQueen wrote:

The only thing that keeps WoTC failing right now is Hasbro, To me it was stupid to let Hasbro buy them out. Hasbro has not a clue about RPG's. They hardly know about games period and those that run the company do not understand the industry or those that are apart of it.

Am I the only one skeptical about claims that Hasbro has any substantial input into D&D's development (beyond possibly setting targets?)

They bought WoTC because of Magic. In my (limited but not non-existent) experience, parent companies rarely have much input into wholly owned subsidiaries and when they do it's the flagship products.

I specifically link to and have a quote in the post where WotC is pitching to Hasbro. WotC is financially responsible to Hasbro, and Hasbro is responsible to shareholders. Hasbro has ultimate control over what WotC does. They can pull the plug at any time. WotC can only do things that Hasbro wants, and Hasbro is responsible to shareholders to either make the stock price go up or to pay out a dividend. Hasbro might give WotC creative freedom because micromanaging from the top can hurt the bottom line. But at the end of the day, WotC knows that it needs to hand over a load of cash to Hasbro, otherwise (a) people get fired or (b) products get killed, and that pressure is going to dominate decision making. Hasbro doesn't fund D&D b/c they love and have passion for the game. They fund it because they believe they can get 3 gold coins for every 1 they invest.

I guess this is as good a place as any to post my feelings about 5E D&D.

4th Edition
* I own a bunch of the books (hundreds of dollars)
* I played it for a summer back in 2008 and again in 2010.
* My biggest gripe is the powers system. I feel that the action descriptions are too specific. When I play, I feel like Ken or Ryu on Street Fighter --"Haduken! Haduken! Haduken!"
* When I read the intro to the D&D 4E PHB, I felt like it was a sales pitch.
* Ever since 3E, WOTC has been mentioning miniatures more and more as a necessary part of the game. They've never appealed to me, and I resent the emphasis.

These are all typical reasons why "old school" D&D players dislike 4th. I have friends who like 4th. I think 4th can be an enjoyable game, but it's (a) not free enough to appeal to me, (b) obviously focused on taking my money, and (c) not executed as well as Pathfinder (e.g. adventure paths?).

I think mechanics changes resulting in (a) was a misplaced reaction to the growing popularity of WOW. I think (b) is caused by the difference between these two links:

http://www.google.com/finance?q=hasbro

http://www.google.com/finance?q=paizo

And (c) is what happens when you dump a bunch of passionate, talented people who have been working on D&D for years.

I'm a good candidate for D&D 5E to target. I have enough disposable income to buy every 5E D&D product they can make. I am willing to buy more than I'll use, just so I have the option of using it. Just so it can look pretty on my shelf. Paizo is doing well because they're selling me more products than I actually use. Congratulations on the subscription model -- it's a way of getting more money out of me without making me feel like I'm being targeted.

Why would I play D&D 5E? Pathfinder already has such a huge lead in terms of content for the modified 3.5 system. Am I going to buy yet another Forgotten Realms campaign guide? I haven't even had time to read the 4E one yet. If I wanted to play Forgotten Realms, why wouldn't I just grab my 3E Guide and use it with Pathfinder?

Why should I even trust WOTC? Why should I believe that 5E isn't just another money grab? Mike Mearls needs to answer these questions before I'll have any enthusiasm for 5E. 4E was the nail in the coffin as far as my relationship with the WOTC brand. If Mike Mearls wants me back on board, he needs to stop talking around the issue.

I see this in Silicon Valley all the time. You have business focused on getting return for their investors (e.g. companies founded on the premise they will be sold after 12 months), and you have businesses focused on building a product they love ("lifestyle businesses" which never make anybody super wealthy, but which offer people work that they enjoy doing every day).

Lisa Stevens has one of the biggest Star Wars collections in the world, so I can believe she's a pretty big nerd, and that her criteria for success as a business is more than just financial.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Goldner

What about the CEO of Hasbro, Brian Goldner?

I googled for "brian goldner dungeons and dragons" and I find this:

http://www.enworld.org/forum/5765766-post205.html

There seems to be evidence that Brian Goldner likes making CCG's because they are profitable, but I don't see anything suggesting that he plays Dungeons and Dragons or that he cares at all about it as a cultural institution.

"Sometime around 2006, the D&D team made a big presentation to the Hasbro senior management on how they could take D&D up to the $50 million level and potentially keep growing it. The core of that plan was a synergistic relationship between the tabletop game and what came to be known as DDI."

Systematically, WOTC is set up to fail, because the way it gets funding is to pitch business plans premised on making as much money as possible. This is why there are D&D "Fortune Cards" -- because Hasbro wants to make money, and since they're used to making money w/ randomized card packs (a.k.a. CCG), they're going to try and make D&D into a randomized card pack. This is why D&D has randomized miniatures.

Executives make money using one method, and they try to apply that method across the board, regardless of whether it makes sense in the context of adding value to the product. They say stuff like "leveraging existing strengths." But at the end of the day, they're crapping on the product to try and make more money. Owners of Hasbro stock think this is fine -- that's why Goldner has his job.

But consumers hate it. And if you don't have shareholders to answer to, you can't feel very good at the end of the day when you make a crappy product, especially if you're making a crappy product and not getting rich at it.

In the 5th edition announcement, Mike Mearls says:

"Our mission is to ensure that D&D enters its next 40 years as a vibrant, growing, and exciting game."

I hope he can enter the next 2 years as a vibrant, exciting game. Much less the next 40. If you read between the lines, he's saying that D&D 4E won't be a vibrant, growing, and exciting game in the next 40 years. He doesn't discuss why. He doesn't acknowledge the failure. He doesn't say anything specific enough to make me believe that he recognizes what needs to be fixed. All he's saying is that WOTC wants me to spend more money on yet another set of rules with vague specifications. Since he's not saying what the problem is, I have no idea what 5E is fixing, and therefore I have no idea why I'd want to buy it.

"By involving you in this process, we can build a set of D&D rules that incorporate the wants and desires of D&D gamers around the world. We want to create a flexible game, rich with options for players and DMs to embrace or reject as they see fit, a game that brings D&D fans together rather than serves as one more category to splinter us apart."

This sounds nice, but it doesn't mean very much. There's already oodles of content to embrace and reject in previous editions. Why do I need more? WOTC would have done better to delay announcing 5th Edition until they actually had some concrete value to offer. I have zero confidence WOTC will deliver a compelling product, both due to the performance on 4E and due to the systematic challenges they face as part of a publicly owned corporate structure.

"There is a lot of work to be done, and I’m hoping you have the time, energy, and inclination to pitch in."

Why would I have the inclination to pitch in? Why would you expect me to? To help make Hasbro profit? The book "How to Win Friends and Influence People" says to admit when you're wrong, because when someone believes that you know you were wrong, then they can believe that you can change your behavior and fix things -- they can believe you have good intentions even if the execution isn't perfect.

D&D 4E isn't a terrible game, but it's obviously a worse game than 3E. You can see this just by the rise of Paizo and Pathfinder. By not acknowledging the problems with 4E and by not apologizing for the damage 4E has done to the D&D brand, WOTC is sending me the message that they don't truly care about what I think. They may say they want my input on 5E, but their attitude towards 4E says otherwise.

Mike and Hasbro can hope all they want, but without offering some concrete value and without expressing a meaningful, specific opinion about what makes D&D good -- why would I waste my time playtesting? I could be playing Pathfinder. Right now, the best thing WOTC can do for fantasy roleplay is to give D&D a rest. They should hire some of the people behind Eclipse Phase and revisit sci-fi. Whatever they do -- dump the powers system. That's what I could get behind.

What is Paizo's stance on obscenity?

The 2nd edition of the WMPRPG omits significant content from the 1st (e.g. evil aligned characters, devil references, promiscuity, etc.). Although I do remember in high school hearing about an online third party document -- the "Guide to Unlawful Carnal Knowledge." I seem to remember 3.5 re-introducing some of this stuff. I also remember there being a splat book --

"Book of Vile Darkness introduced several new mechanics relating to evil in Dungeons & Dragons, including rules for drug use, demonic possession, torture, and ritual sacrifice."

-- and I definitely remember that the 4th edition having a playable devil race.

So can we look back and say that the 2nd edition changes was a PR reaction to the RPG reporting of the 1980s? Obviously WotC and Paizo have a bottom line to look out for, and therefore the core books must conform to some kind of "PG-13." Is the lesson simply to separate out controversial topics into their own splat books?

If the age demographic has shifted upward, has content become more acceptable simply because fewer parents are auditing?

If you are a parent on this board, what is your position on gaming content when it comes to your kids, and how did you arrive there?

I'll finish by saying that I don't think Paizo needs to produce a taboo splat book in the near future. Too many other great opportunities on the to-do list (and 3.5 compatibility means people can still use the BOVD). But I am interested in what standards inform the editorial process.