Jester of the FoS wrote:
I still love going to my old 2e Monstrous Manual when I need an idea for a monster or need some lore. New editions should change the mechanics, not the story.
One of the lines about new editions and having to buy all the books again is that "WotC is not making you throw away all your old books". But if the lore and mechanics change that's pretty much what they're doing. I can still use my 2e campaign setting books and monster mythology books for 2e, 3e so they still have value. If the game world changes though, those stop having value.
Mortavius wrote:That's what I mean when I say this 5E system seems to be a new rules set pasted on top of an old edition. I know they said they were going back to previous editions for inspiration, but it also seemed to me they were saying they wanted to take the best stuff from *all* the editions. So far, I haven't seen much from 4E make it in except the odd rule here and there.
I agree, a new edition should not change the story or try to reinvent the D&D world. This is one of the problems that plague long standing gaming systems such as Warhammer and D&D, when a new edition comes out and some creature or whatever (or even a established campaign realm like Ravenloft) is left out of the new rules they sort of cease to exist in the game world which makes no sense. It also leaves gamers stuck with models or accessories that are no longer compatible with the current game edition. If a monster existed in an earlier edition why should gamers suddenly be forced to pretend it doesn't in the current edition? Wouldn't it make more sense to just improve the game mechanics with the potential to convert older editions rather than change the established mythology for every new edition?
I fully believe that D&D is all about the characters, Campaign settings, realms and in game history that have been developed during the real world history of the game. This is what the D&D brand name means. Game mechanics are just a method of getting into the established story. I hope they streamline and make game rules that please everyone and draw consumers in the new edition but what I would like to see, especially since the developers are talking about old editions, is re-solidifying the core D&D mythology. Do you think authors like R. A. Salvatore, Margaret Weis, or Tracy Hickman care about which game mechanics are in the current edition? No they care about fundamental changes to the core mythology of the D&D universe that can potentially disrupt or derail their writing efforts.
"authors R.A. Salvatore and Ed Greenwood are also collaborating with D&D’s designers on new game content"
http://www.forbes.com/sites/davidewalt/ ... d-dragons/
The fans of D&D became so due to love of the story lines involved, not necessarily due to the ease or difficulty of the current rule set.
In your opinion, is the new edition just trying to update the D&D game mechanics (combine old editions and fix rules, make game mechanics better, gameplay smoother and tweak errors,) or is it trying to reinvent D&D? (New rules, new monsters, new worlds, realms ,mythology etc.)
With the loss of Monte Cook are there any other previous writers of Ravenloft material still employed by Wizards of the Coast?
So I was reading this in depth article of D&D, its history and development (fascinating! I highly recommend the links below) called Magic & Memories: The Complete History of Dungeons & Dragons by Allen Rausch for GameSpy
Part 1:
http://pc.gamespy.com/articles/538/538262p1.html
Part 2:
http://pc.gamespy.com/articles/539/539197p1.html
Part 3:
http://pc.gamespy.com/articles/539/539628p1.html
Part 4:
http://pc.gamespy.com/articles/539/539972p1.html
Part 5:
http://pc.gamespy.com/articles/540/540509p1.html
When I came across Allen Rausch writing about this from Bill Slavicsek Director of WOTC RPGs
"the many buckets concept":
[The late '80s saw the launch of Forgotten Realms (still D&D's most popular setting), and DragonLance. The runaway success of those lines, particularly Forgotten Realms and its popular signature character Drizzt do'Urden, begat a slew of new world designs. There was the post-apocalyptic Dark Sun, the highly political Birthright, a response to White Wolf's successful Vampire: The Masquerade game called Ravenloft, and the extremely avant-garde Planescape, among others. Unfortunately for Williams and TSR, this strategy, while presenting the initial appearance of success, is actually a strategy for long-term loss. The marketing term is "Brand Extension," but Bill Slavicsek director of RPGs, miniatures and R&D at Wizards of the Coast, just calls it the "Many Buckets" theory.
"Picture it this way," Slavicsek says, "it's raining money outside and you want to catch as much of it as you can. You can either make a really big bucket or waste your time and attention by creating a lot really small buckets -- either way, you're never going to make more rain." In plain English, TSR, by putting out a lot of product lines instead of supporting the main Dungeons & Dragons line, fragmented the marketplace. The same audience was giving the same amount of money to TSR every year, which had taken on the additional financial burden of creating, producing, and supporting hundreds of products. It needed to grow the marketplace, and these brand extensions weren't doing that.
The many settings also contributed to something called "Brand Dilution." The original Dungeons & Dragons brand stood for something. You knew essentially what you were getting when you bought a D&D product. All of these new settings began to play havoc with the rule sets and philosophy of the game. As the settings grew more popular, they began to diverge from one another, advancing along their chosen philosophical paths, essentially becoming their own separate games.
In not too many years, players had stopped identifying themselves as D&D players and were instead identifying themselves by the setting they played in. A Planescape player was very different than a Forgotten Realms player, and their rule systems were beginning to become incompatible with each other. More significant from the company's point of view, though, was that players would never buy a product set in any other setting than their own. Far from catching more money in their small buckets, TSR was actually making the audience smaller! Eventually, though, as they combed through the numbers, they came to an extremely difficult conclusion. Slaviscek describes it succinctly, "We had to stop leaking into so many buckets." Before they could even begin turning the brand around, bring in new customers, and make Dungeons & Dragons healthy again, they were going to have to cut off as much of the dead wood as they could -- and that was going to hurt a lot of people, both inside and outside the company.
If they were going to stop the audience fragmentation and bring players back together again, they were going to have to kill the majority of the Dungeons & Dragons settings. That meant that things like Ravenloft and Dark Sun and Planescape were going to be shutting their doors forever in favor of a new product strategy.]
He is basically saying by diversifying the D&D universe into different campaigns such as Planescape and Ravenloft, TSR fragmented their consumer base into niches which then decreased sales because they customers were only buying products for the line they were interested in. WOTC viewed this as a poor business strategy which lead to the demise of TSR. So instead their goals are to get the fanbase back consolidated (and buying all same the products.)
I see this as the permanent end of specialty campaigns such as Ravenloft in favor of a more centralized D&D canon world such as they tried to do with Ebberron in 3X. While it might make good business strategy for WOTC this strikes me as extremely ironic though because the story lines, characters, and campaign worlds such as Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms, Dragonlance, Planescape and Ravenloft is what made D&D so extremely popular and turned it from a relatively obscure wargames specialist hobby to a mainstream pop culture phenomenon during the Advanced Dungeons and Dragons 2nd Edition years. As emphatically stated in that article, the WOTC company business model is to move away from fragmentation of the consumer base and focus on community products.
Why would they ever print something new for Ravenloft then? 
I think the only reason D&D3X editions got any new Ravenloft material was because of the Open Gaming License in effect and third party publishers. Is there any hope for that in this new edition?
Will we ever see a new Ravenloft product? will the Ravenloft Realm be forgotten or pieced apart with little or no reference to its long standing history?
I no longer play currently and could care less about the latest edition game mechanics (certainly not enough to start buying new stuff and playing again under new rules and converting all of my old Ravenloft stuff) but I for one would be willing to buy any new material that supported Ravenloft campaign story development. Sadly, I think that is extremely unlikely considering their current business model. There just won't be any new Ravenloft material.
Meh... so, it's the "Baldur's Gate 2/KotOR/NWN" romance rules.
