Quote from: J ArcaneThe necessity of miniatures in D&D is widely overstated, and no more an issue with the present version than it has been with any prior edition of the game, despite the determination of the RC-fanatic types to distort the truth of the game's history.

Agreed, and even if the minis were necessary, one could easily substitute coins or home made counters for them. we actually have a sizable hardware cabnet full of minis (we jokingly refer to it as the hutch of shame) left over from the old days, but more often than not, we use coins.

Some sort of 2-dimensional representation of battle spaces is very important in 3.x - attacks of opportunity is the clearest reason, but also in general things are much better defined, which means people have a right to demand rules fidelity, and that is hard to achieve without an accurate representation of the battle area.

I wouldn't play 3.x without some kind of battlemat, counters, minis setup, whatever.

This was not true of OD&D, where my typical experience (after the mid-seventies, when minis were more common) was that every third fight or so might have one scene written out on scratch paper to clarify locations, and otherwise we just got by with verbal descriptions.

Gary Gygax never used miniatures in his OD&D or AD&D play, FWIW.

A lot of people experience the shift to 3e as a shift to a relatively greater need for miniatures than they felt in earlier editions of the game. J Arcane apparently is able to read our minds and discern false consciousness underneath this experience, however. I suppose he might reply that if you look at the rules the widely observed playstyle difference isn't supported by them; I don't agree (the Men & Magic combat system and spell descriptions are so abstract compared to 3e I hardly even know how to credit the claim, actually).

Quote from: Calithena- My original thought was totally not 'here's what I want' but 'here's a thought about how to suck the most money possible out of the public', which is what I take it is Ha$bro's goal with their product.

WHAT FUCKING PRODUCT?! As far as we even know, there might NEVER be a 4th edition D&D.  This whole "Ha$$$bro is going to make a surprise 4th edition of D&D next tuesday and it will rob your wallet, beat you, and stick a lead pipe up your ass!!!" thing is nothing more than hateful violent attacks by people who despise D&D already, and make up slander in the hopes that others will hate it too.

Quote- Since I don't want such a product myself, have no way to continue the discussion in terms of better information, and don't feel like fighting with all of you, that's all I've got to say. I'm having way more fun developing my next D&D campaign instead.

If you're really looking for "better information" fucker, you could start with the REALITY that all of these ideas are just bullshit conspiracy theories plucked from the fucking air and have fuck all to do with the truth about either Hasbro or D&D.

RPGPundit

Hee. Now I'm a 'fucker'.

I wasn't offering a conspiracy theory, I was telling you what I would do to rape your wallet if I were in charge of Ha$bro.

Which is not what I myself want for the game.

I think though that my OP on the thread, though it seemed amusing through the haze of whiskey I posted it under, was actually an old idea, and that what I'm seeing here is a lot of vitriol being rehashed from old arguments that I wasn't actually in.

Anyone got any new ideas about what WotC might do with a 4th edition to push more product?

Quote from: Aosthis is by and large why I don't think it will happen- there are no kids, not really, and WoTC still needs YOUR buck. I think it would be insane for them to desert their core audience.

If there aren't any kids, then the discussion is moot. Hasbro has to develop some type of ongoing profit stream from this thing, or they'll drop it. And the licensing and merchandizing and whatnot is going to make the property a bitch to sell.

They don't sell enough books for them to be profitable enough to float the whole show. I wish they did. I wish they could print low-cost, high-volume printruns of all their best campaign material, set in whatever rules--or whatever variation of their rules--they like. I wish even the niche stuff like Dark Sun or Spelljammer could stay in print, with updated rules and living campaigns and all that groovy stuff forever. That would be supporting their core audience. But they've already announced, in every way that they can, that they can't do that. It's too expensive.

OK. So how do you make money in what used to be a publishing business when the publishing is too expensve? Think about the 'market.' The people that play D&D. Apparently, Hasbro also thinks there aren't any kids coming up to play, because they're trying different things to stimulate this market. But regardless--consider the folks sitting down this weekend and slinging dice. Are they all playing the current edition of the game? No. There's no mechanism for obsolescence in rg, so your fighting your own past success. Does everyone at the table have all the books and accoutrements for playing? No. That generally falls to the GM. Roughly 20% of your market is fully vested in any particular game at any particular moment. Do these GMs have all the books and accoutrements for all the kinds of D&D games there are? No. Well--a few. 1% or less of the market buys everything produced.

So if you're going to make sure that your content providers get paid, you have to figure out how to exploit more than 20% of your market. And how to make sure more of their gaming dollars go to you than to Domino's. The problem with D&D is that it runs off GM dollars, GM imagination, and GM effort. And since most GMs don't require much product to run an enjoyable game, you have to figure out more ways to keep them them shelling out.

Set up all supplementary material as a subscription service. Thus, you have a small income based simply on GMs and players that want the elan of being "up-to-date." You can spend that money however you want to once they given it to you.

Kids need dice, but that ship has sailed. Dice are cheap and plentiful. Miniatures are also plentiful, but not cheap. Pre-painted plastic figs are easier to produce every day, and also yield some profit. We already make miniatures--which, incidentally, are slightly out-of-scale with that vast plethora of other peoples' miniatures, thus compelling purchase if we make this larger scale "official." So since we're making them anyway, and we can make them any scale we want, let's sell them to our loyal GMs. We know folks like to play with them. If the GMs won't buy them, maybe the players will. If they won't, then we'll quit.

Kids need people to play with. Let's integrate RPGA with our other subscription service. We get a little more money, they get a value-added. service.

Kids sure like that WoW. So let's set up our own masssive environment, and let it work like a computer game, and have a module that's an on-line game table, and have a chat-oriented 2nd-life style module for them to set of in-person games. Each built as added features of the original D&D subscription.

The point is to turn their market into card-carrying D&D Players. The distinction being that D&D Players pay the cost to be official, and the other guys are just guys who play D&D in their basement.

I don't want to make this about loving the game, or the edition, or making the game more or less appealing. I definately don't want to make it about play styles that do or don't favor miniatures. I think the model I present would be appealing for a lot of players, and could be made increasingly appealing by good decisions as they build it. But however you look at it, if D&D is going to remain viable as a high-prduction value entertainment, more people have to spend more money on it.

Quote from: CalithenaAnyone got any new ideas about what WotC might do with a 4th edition to push more product?

I suspect they'll probably just go back to the usual "making stuff people actually want to play and doing it better than anyone else by a ridiculous margin".

Helpful.

TWO things :

 1) There won't be any likelihood of a so-called D&D /D20 4th edition till at last sometime in 2010. (Pundit is right about that)

2) The spine numbers on all the current WOTC D&D /D20/ D20 Modern line of books makes NO fucking sense. We tried ONCE , just out of curiosity to organize their books that way - it looked frakking ridiculous.

 SO, what we've gotten used to doing at the store is this :
 Top shelf , from left to right : D&D Players's handbook (I & II), Dungeon Master's Guides I & II , Monster Manuals I-IV  THEN... all D&D/D20 books in alphabetic order by the title as written on the spine of the book. UNLESS, its tied into a specific setting color and format of the book cover - we have those at the end of the section...ALSO in alphabetic oder . So by setting its : Eberron, then Forgotten Realms...etc.

- Ed C.

If WotC has paid attention, what they could do is devise a very basic version of the game. Strip out most of the complexity in combat, reduce the number of classes (and maybe even races; classes could be the generic ones from Unearthed Arcana), make a short list of skills, feats, and spells that are "essentially D&D," perhaps even make certain skills and feats hardwired into certain classes (and maybe even races). Release it as a an inexpensive standalone product. However, also make it the first section of a larger book, one that introduces increasing complexity in successive chapters, thus making it easy for the individual gamer to choose just how complex they want their game to be. If tournament play is a concern, establish that certain sections/chapters are required for those who want to play at RPGA events, or make different events for different levels of complexity (maybe using the basic D&D nomenclature) - i.e. announce in event descriptions that "this is an Expert adventure for levels such-and-such."

This could be a way to please more of the fanbase out there, and perhaps draw in new players. Will it happen? I doubt it. But I think it'd be cool.

That's a pretty good idea, Colonel. Stratify the game more but make all lines interacting.

One problem with the 'minis a gogo' idea I was playing with is that you have to get DMs to buy into the thing, so that they'll want to entertain others.

Quote from: CalithenaThat's a pretty good idea, Colonel. Stratify the game more but make all lines interacting.

I think the mistake of the past was that the two main versions of D&D that existed concurrently - basic and AD&D - weren't entirely compatible with each other. They were very similar, yes, but were generally perceived as separate games. The way I outline would at least make whatever version was being played basically the same game as any other. I figure the game always has been stratified, and continues to be so - it's just that at the moment that stratification is divided up between "official" D&D and d20/OGL games like Castles & Crusades. As a corporate entity, WotC should at least try to bring as many D&D players back under the D&D banner as they can, even if means some stratification has to be built in to the game. It's gonna happen anyway.

Quote from: CalithenaAnyone got any new ideas about what WotC might do with a 4th edition to push more product?

Marketing.

Quote from: CalithenaHelpful.

Seriously? You find it less helpful than your posts?

Seanchai

hey, he's offering suggestions.  

marketing.  how?  to whom?  pulling your IP back into the company seems like reverse-marketing to me.

hasbro's a big company.  they're not going to want to keep wizards (or d&d) if it doesn't keep making good money.  and as unpleasant as calithena's idea could be to us, it would be appealing to a toy company executive, like exists at hasbro

Quote from: SeanchaiSeriously? You find it less helpful than your posts?

I do.

It's like answering with "duuuh.... write some books." Divorced of context or explanation a one word answer is almost meaningless.

Here's my take on the near future of D&D:

Next D&D Experience con, WotC announces they are releasing D&D 3rd edition, Revised. No, not 4E, 3ER. Third edition revised turns out to be a slimmed down, streamlined version of the game with changes similar to those found in Star Wars Saga.

Only core books are available in print. Other material, such as supplements for prestige classes, feats, settings, optional rules etc. are all available online with a monthly subscription. Your subscription also entitles you to use the special Virtual D&D software.

This nifty program allows you to play D&D over the internet on a special WotC server. The program allows characters to be uploaded, does all the die rolling, has maps etc. GMs even have access to special interactive adventures already loaded into the game. (Just like any commercial scenario or module, except the GM just clicks on the map and the room/encounter details pop up on his screen. He can click a button to send the players a description of the room). Basic IM/voicechat capabilities are included as well.

At the same time, WotC will continue to produce supplements and setting material for 3.5, which is largely compatible with the new system.

In 2010, Fourth Edition will come out and will be completely different.