What would WotC need to do to win back the disenchanted?

[BryonD]

This... I would certainly be bored with playing the same rules for 30 years.

...

I prefer to see changes and therefore attempts to improve the game. They don't always work out perfectly of course, like I dislike rituals and the stealth rules still confuse me, but overall I like the direction they're taking. I loved the switch to 3e, despite having to leave behind all my books, same for 4e. I can't wait to see what 5e has in store as I've really enjoyed every edition of D&D, in fact the only thing I really didn't like was 3.5 as it wasn't enough of a change to justify the cost outlay.

I strongly agree with the spirit of this.

I found 3.5 to be worth the rather small outlay. But, that's a trivial distinction.

Obviously, the "I like the direction" is the important point of divergence.

May I presume that if you DON'T like the direction that 5E takes, you won't follow it? I'd certainly hope you wouldn't.

 

[renau1g]

Of course, but I will more than likely buy the core books (presuming they follow that distribution method) and give it a chance in play. If I hate it I certainly won't just hand over my money blindly to WotC. Oh, I was fine with 3.5 after the fact, but it was the only edition that I played that I (and my group) bitched about having to buy... it was still worth it in the end.

 

[BryonD]

Of course, but I will more than likely buy the core books (presuming they follow that distribution method) and give it a chance in play. If I hate it I certainly won't just hand over my money blindly to WotC.

Yeah, my core 4E are around here somewhere......

Oh, I was fine with 3.5 after the fact, but it was the only edition that I played that I (and my group) bitched about having to buy... it was still worth it in the end.

Fair enough

 

[dmccoy1693]

What will it take to get me back? 5th edition.

I'm not a 4E hater. I've tried it and it doesn't excite me. Its not bad and I am glad it is the perfect game for others. And I may just pick up the dark sun book. But really, the edition wars wore on me, and the game doesn't really inspire me. I'll just wait for 5th edition. Once I've been away from D&D for awhile, once I've played Traveller and Pathfinder and whatever else may come my way to their ends and I have had my fill of them, whenever the new hotness is relaunched, I'll rejoin all my other lapsed brethren and play again.

I missed 2nd ed (and even 3.0) for the same reason. I'll miss 4th as well.

 

[Wicht]

FWIW

Quest for Fun!: Pathfinder Rising

Whats really amazing is when you look at that graph he shows and then it dawns on you that the red line is Pathfinder, not 4e.

But of course, its silly to think that Pathfinder could ever outstrip 4e in sales. Can't happen we are constantly told.

 

[renau1g]

I would think it's very, very wrong to consider the sales of 1 store to be indicitive of the trends of the industry. Sample size is too small. Also, a comparison should be conducted for a years prior sales as the PHB was out a year or so before the PF book. That would be more apples to apples comparison.

 

[Wicht]

I would think it's very, very wrong to consider the sales of 1 store to be indicitive of the trends of the industry. Sample size is too small. Also, a comparison should be conducted for a years prior sales as the PHB was out a year or so before the PF book. That would be more apples to apples comparison.

Of course it is. And the answer to which sold more the year before is of course, 4e. Though, of course, that would be because the owner of the store refused to stock Paizo for a while as he was upset at their distribution model iirc. And it goes without saying, of course, that it is simply inconceivable that a little company like Paizo could compete, nationally, against a behemoth like WotC or that Pathfinder would ever draw more fans in then DnD which has the brand name recognition. WotC, I am sure is laughing at the thought that the sales in one small store would ever indicate trouble for them, especially when the store owner self admittedly prefers to play in Pathfinder himself.

But still, when I first saw the chart, I didn't bother reading the labels and assumed blue was Paizo, and thought, "Oh look, they are selling pretty good there," and then I read the actual descriptions, reread the blog post and realized that the red line was not the "industry leader" at all, but the "little guy." I was pretty surprised and so commented as such.

Back to the original topic, having given the matter more thought, if WotC made OGL products to support Pathfinder, I would probably buy every one. Especially if they also had the DnD brand name on them. I recognize of course that is an absurd desire, but then it struck me that what some of the other posters had said before was true: basically, WotC either has to make a better product than Paizo does to win back my business, or they have to in some other way draw me away from Pathfinder. Because, honestly, at the moment, the Pathfinder rules set is meeting all of my gaming needs but one. And that lone thing is the nostalgia factor. But give me a few more years and even that might be met.

 

[Herschel]

I never said a young warlord is never possible, I implied it would be rare exception compared to the commonly understood archetype.

In fantasy genres, most young 'warlords' are arguably not Warlords at that stage of their life -- they are infantry soldiers, barbarian adventurers, or some other equivalent of a class. They all have different skill sets and professions starting out. They evolve into warlordness = in game terms, class x that gets a warlord theme later on. That is the common fantasy archetype of a warlord, which plainly, 4E does not model. That's it, that was the point of that one post you picked on.

Again, your view differs not only from the game, but from popular entertainment and fantasy. Your view is your own, not supported by the sources of the class.

And that's cool, you're obviously entitled to your view on what it means to be a "warlord". You're just incorrect in your assumption of the archtype as it applies to the game. In the game, these are the "people" who are born to or aspire to leadership from a young age. D&D finally adressed that archtype properly.

The assumption that all the young warlords were something else also didn't hold water in the real world. The nobles were elevated to those positions automatically. They were the ones trained from an early age to be one.

 

[howandwhy99]

We already have that. The actual mechanics are not under copyright. That is why we can have S&W, LL, OSRIC, and others. What we can't have is the cool unique flavor that is the essence of D&D to go along with it- Mordenkainen, Tenser, Greyhawk, you know, the good stuff.
All those trappings are tied into the brand name and belong to whoever owns D&D.

Those older mechanics already exist in OGL form. See OSRIC and the other retro-clones. What's missing? (And if someone really wants the Players Option point-buy rules to be OGLed, I'll ask How could anyone want that!?)

Also, this is a bit like saying, what would be really awesome would be for WotC to give away all it's property for free. While true - that would be awesome - I think it's a bit unrealistic to actually hope for.

There are many, many, many rules from Chainmail to pre-THAC0 to Wilderness Survival which are not derivative of the d20 OGL. Like it or not 3.x's OGL SRD is very different than even 2.5 D&D. There are many rules and very good ones at that which could never be put into OSRIC or many of the clone systems because of that lack of derivation. Heck, I would say OSRIC is far from copyright compliant in the States as it stands.

My own preference isn't even for any kind of clone game, but rather a clear explanation of why each of those rules are actually suggestions/guidelines for a code meant to be hidden behind a screen and why each has been designed the way they were. I'm much more of a toolkit DM, than system purist. I like the code-breaking aspect of roleplaying as extraordinarily ridiculed as it is. No code is the one true code, but neither are they the rules of the game.

 

[diaglo]

to get me back.

I would need a hand written letter from the President of Hasbro personally asking me to return as a customer.