Minimalist D&D

[AbdulAlhazred]

The big benefit of talking Modular is that D&D can be expanded in to far more products. Modular design grants some of the flexibility required to add and remove chunks of rules where necessary depending on the physics and cultures of the gaming world(s) in question.

Perhaps this is Mearls way of floating the concept to his team, his consumer audience and his bosses in a relatively safe environment. We can be certain it started conversations in his office and here in the forum/blog world of nerd gamers. Any guesses if his bosses took a moment to read this? I am guessing they do not have expert level knowledge of a broad array of table top RPGs - at least at the president and VP level in Hasbro.

- Rob

I seriously doubt that anyone outside of WotC is even in the loop. They look at quarterly reports that say "we're developing X and reinvesting Y amount of cash into it" and the PHBs look at the numbers and say "yeah, OK, that's fine" or "No, we need the cashflow, lay off a few people and just stick with what you have now". They don't have the time or interest to get involved in the details of products. At the very most they get a marketing pitch filled with pictures that show how investing in new thing X will up market penetration Y% based on Z market study.

Not that Mearls has no bosses, but they're going to be people inside WotC and his pitch is just going to be "hey, we've tinkered with the product, is it possible to budget 2 people for 30% of their time to do a prototype and get marketing to do a couple focus groups?"

I think 'modular design' is a decent concept in terms of having a game engine that you can use for various games, that's all d20 was after all. I don't think it is a great way to design a specific game. Each SKU you add to your product line is a cost and chances are it cannibalizes sales of some existing product if it is basically just a minor variation. If the market has a lot of segments that can make sense, like Intel has a dozen variations of each CPU chip, but it gets harder to see that as a good business strategy when you are looking at two FRPGs aimed at essentially the same market.

People often cite TSR and its parallel versions of D&D (Basic and Advanced) but they forget 2 things. First of all Basic came into existence purely due to internal TSR politics (Gygax didn't let anyone else near AD&D with a 10' pole and other designers were unhappy and wanted a crack at doing a better game). Secondly TSR went belly up BECAUSE it generated too many overlapping products and couldn't manage its inventory as a result. Basic, while a decent game, was a business mistake. 100% of the people who played it would have played AD&D essentially. It eventually redeemed itself as an entry-level product, but it would have served that role better had it been 100% compatible with AD&D and wasn't really until 5 years after the first Basic product rolled out that they pushed it into retail and used it for that. My feeling is WotC is still quite aware of the TSR lesson. They've been quite leery of pumping out tons of adventures, settings, and variant rules over the last 12 years.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

I seriously doubt that anyone outside of WotC is even in the loop. They look at quarterly reports that say "we're developing X and reinvesting Y amount of cash into it" and the PHBs look at the numbers and say "yeah, OK, that's fine" or "No, we need the cashflow, lay off a few people and just stick with what you have now". They don't have the time or interest to get involved in the details of products. At the very most they get a marketing pitch filled with pictures that show how investing in new thing X will up market penetration Y% based on Z market study.

Not that Mearls has no bosses, but they're going to be people inside WotC and his pitch is just going to be "hey, we've tinkered with the product, is it possible to budget 2 people for 30% of their time to do a prototype and get marketing to do a couple focus groups?"

I think 'modular design' is a decent concept in terms of having a game engine that you can use for various games, that's all d20 was after all. I don't think it is a great way to design a specific game. Each SKU you add to your product line is a cost and chances are it cannibalizes sales of some existing product if it is basically just a minor variation. If the market has a lot of segments that can make sense, like Intel has a dozen variations of each CPU chip, but it gets harder to see that as a good business strategy when you are looking at two FRPGs aimed at essentially the same market.

People often cite TSR and its parallel versions of D&D (Basic and Advanced) but they forget 2 things. First of all Basic came into existence purely due to internal TSR politics (Gygax didn't let anyone else near AD&D with a 10' pole and other designers were unhappy and wanted a crack at doing a better game). Secondly TSR went belly up BECAUSE it generated too many overlapping products and couldn't manage its inventory as a result. Basic, while a decent game, was a business mistake. 100% of the people who played it would have played AD&D essentially. It eventually redeemed itself as an entry-level product, but it would have served that role better had it been 100% compatible with AD&D and wasn't really until 5 years after the first Basic product rolled out that they pushed it into retail and used it for that. My feeling is WotC is still quite aware of the TSR lesson. They've been quite leery of pumping out tons of adventures, settings, and variant rules over the last 12 years.

I largely agree with this analysis and I think that Basic (in its various incarnations under TSR) was the worst kind of entry product.

You could not take your basic characters and rules knowledge and start into AD&D, at least not by the Raw. Also since you had a full and independant progression did you have to.

For a basic product to be truly basic then any rules knowledge has to be seamlessly transferable to hte advanced game and the same with characters.

I believe it could be done in 4e quite easily. It could probably be done in any previous incarnation of D&D but it was not.

 

[catastrophic]

I think modular design would be a disaster in general. The idea that everyone can have what they want, and design can simply serve endless playstyles might be pleasant, but it isn't realistic from a design pov past a certain point, and can cause a lot of sales and fanbase issues as noted.

However, if there is an argument to be made for an alternative, yet compatable version of dnd, then a minialist approach is certainly it, and a minimalist take on 4e, or a minimalist adjunct to a 5e based on 4e principles would not be that hard to pull off, depending on definition, and could do double duty as an entry point into the hobby.

Now, in theory, this is what essentials was, but in practice, essentials had multiple agendas at play, and it shows, and too much complexity to fit this criteria. There's also quickstart stuff on the wotc website which is pretty simple and free, something people often forget.

But my point is that I don't think modular design is viable in general, or to service the, frankly not often rational criticisms made by 4e's harshest critics. And it's hard to imagine such variety genuinly adding to market share.

However, if there is an exception to all of that, it would be a stripped down, streamlined version of the system, that doubled as a newbie-friendly introductory product.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I think modular design would be a disaster in general. The idea that everyone can have what they want, and design can simply serve endless playstyles might be pleasant, but it isn't realistic from a design pov past a certain point, and can cause a lot of sales and fanbase issues as noted.

However, if there is an argument to be made for an alternative, yet compatable version of dnd, then a minialist approach is certainly it, and a minimalist take on 4e, or a minimalist adjunct to a 5e based on 4e principles would not be that hard to pull off, depending on definition, and could do double duty as an entry point into the hobby.

Now, in theory, this is what essentials was, but in practice, essentials had multiple agendas at play, and it shows, and too much complexity to fit this criteria. There's also quickstart stuff on the wotc website which is pretty simple and free, something people often forget.

But my point is that I don't think modular design is viable in general, or to service the, frankly not often rational criticisms made by 4e's harshest critics. And it's hard to imagine such variety genuinly adding to market share.

However, if there is an exception to all of that, it would be a stripped down, streamlined version of the system, that doubled as a newbie-friendly introductory product.

I think eventually there will just be a rehashed game, and yes, it will be an 'introductory' game, with rules derived mostly from 4e but couching things more in older terms. It will really just serve to streamline the game and practically speaking it will be 5e. However I think they are smart enough to want to take it slowly. If they do want most fans to be playing their version of D&D then they are going to talk through what they are doing. Nobody will be surprised, the game won't please most people 100% or some people at all, but they will be able to say 'see, this is what you told us you wanted.'