Dungeons & Dragons: Vierte Edition

[Roland]

Nein, das bezieht sich nicht auf 4E, dafür fehlen mir Zahlen und der Vergleich über einen längeren Zeitraum. Es ist ein generelles Bild, aus ein paar Auflagenstärken, die ich über die Jahre zu hören bekommen habe und unseren Verkaufszahlen.

Generell wird die Quote für Abenteuer natürlich schlechter, je länger das Grundregelwerk am Markt ist. GRWs werden über die gesamte Lebensdauer des Spiels verkauft, von Abenteuern gibts oft nur eine oder zwei Auflagen, deswegen ist der Vergleich nicht ganz fair.
Ein bedeutendes, deutsches Rollenspiel hatte GRW-Gesamtauflagen im hohen fünfstelligen Bereich, während Abenteuerauflagen im niedrigen (oder sehr niedrigen) vierstelligen Bereich lagen.

Genaue Berechnungen könnte man nur durch den Vergleich der Auflagen und Verkaufszahlen möglichst vieler Verlage anstellen.

[Greifenklaue]

Ein Preview auf`s Player's Handbook 2.

-> http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/4ex/20090216

[Greifenklaue]

GSL revised

-> http://greifenklaue.wordpress.com/2009/03/03/dnd-4e-gsl-revised/

Necromancers Kritik zur 4e

What the problem ISN'T:

1. The core mechanic. I think this is streamlined and great.
2. The skill system. This is a great advancement, in my view.
3. The combat rules. Again, generally a nice, clean system that keeps with the tradition of the game.

I think as a general matter the rules and the system of the game is an overall improvement.

Some possible sources of the DISCONNECT

1. Races. The addition of dragonborn and tiefling. This smacks you in the face right away that this isnt classic D&D. The change of elves to elves and eladrin.
2. The art. Is every picture of a dragonborn for goodness sake? This sure didnt help make us old timers feel we were playing D&D.
3. The classes. This, to me, is the biggest one. Abandoning the original classes, not including all the key classes in the first PHB, and giving so many and an equal number of powers to all classes--essentially making a fighter like a wizard and a wizard like a fighter. This was a huge change and it is what does the most damage to the feeling that you are still playing D&D, in my view.
4. Anti-buffing. D&D has always been about buff spells and things like that. Their absence just feels funny. Not sure how big of a deal it is. I do like 4E's focus on the character supplying the fun, not the buff.
5. Many classic magic items have gone away or been re-concepted.
6. Higher power of 1st level. Many old schoolers want the low level fragile start to a campaign.
7. Its all about the grid. I think this is a big issue. I think we need to free ourselves of the constraints of the grid.
8. D&D isnt checkers. Too many powers involve teleporting and swaping squares on the grid and pulling and sliding and pushing and moving and hopping. Boing! That said, increasing movement in combat is a good thing. But 4E got out of hand.
9. Multiclassing. People love their fighter/mages and their fighter/thieves, etc. 3E did a good job with this, but it got crazy with people exploiting mutliple classes. I'm not sure 4E solved that problem. It went in the other direction. I think we need a multiclass solution.

Some POSSIBLE issues that I think are good for the game, but take some getting used to:

1. Healing surges. I like these and I like the idea of short and extended rests.
2. Saves are all 10s? Really? Yeah, it works. But it sure feels funny.
3. Redoing alignment seems funny. Generally, I like the idea of "unaligned" but I think they went too far in taking out auras and detectable alignments.
4. Tiering into heroic, paragon and epic. I think that is a great way to look at things and help re-structure where certain powers come in. Generally, you just dont go past paragon play.

-> http://necromancergames.yuku.com/topic/10448/t/The-4E-Old-School-disconnect.html

[Argamae]

I think he's got some valid points there.  [84]

[Wandervogel]

Was soll die Wortklauberei? Gleich ist nicht steigerungsfähig.

Sag das Herrn Orwell...

[Greifenklaue]

Nochmal ein paar Links:

Bericht zur Prerealease-Copy des PHB 2: http://www.gnomestew.com/gnome-gnews/gnome-stew-has-a-pre-release-copy-of-the-phb-2-article-coming-on-the-13th

Sky Hunter
-> http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/4ex/20090309

Feats
-> http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/4ex/20090306

[Greifenklaue]

Das deutsche D&D 4: Schweigen als Marketing-Strategie

Der RolloAlmanach heizt auch nochmal die Gerüchteküchte an...

[Argamae]

Scheint nix dahinter zu stecken.

[Greifenklaue]

Nee, glaub ich auch nicht.

Das scheint eher ne mies übersetzte Website zu sein von den Wizards.

Das Gerücht von mir gefällt mir besser, hab ich aus einer guten Quelle - und mittlerweile haben auch andere aus anderen Quellen davon gehört.

Hier noch eine Liste der 3rd Party Publisher: http://www.enworld.org/wiki/index.php/4E_3rd_Party_Publishers

[Greifenklaue]

DnD 4e - Erste Worte von F&S

DnD 4e geht vom Netz!???!

[Glgnfz]

Ach was! Es dauert nur noch Tage bis sie ihren eigenen Online-PDF-Verkauf starten!

Das ist alles, was dahinter steckt.

[Greifenklaue]

Wolfgang Baur zerlegt das PHB2

-> http://greifenklaue.wordpress.com/2009/04/14/dnd4-wolfgang-baur-zerlegt-das-phb2/

[Greifenklaue]

Weniger eine News, sondern eine Stellungname von Joseph Goodman zur Marktsituation:

"Hi everyone,

I really like gaming, game stores, and playing games, and it is for these reasons that I traditionally do not discuss the business side of the industry in public forums. In the 3E era I kept my head down and just focused on publishing good product. This worked out pretty well, and now many gamers perceive Goodman Games as one of the more successful RPG publishers. All this happened without "Joseph Goodman" being well known. You know who runs Malhavoc and Green Ronin and Necromancer and Paizo, but I routinely encounter fans who have no idea why Goodman Games has "Goodman" in the name. That's how I like it.

Now, eight years into the business, I feel compelled to write my first personal note on the business side of things. Welcome to "Joe Goodman's first commentary on the business." I write this primarily to portray what I consider to be the facts of certain elements of the business, particularly the success of fourth edition D&D.

First, a little background. I own Goodman Games but don't run it full time. Goodman Games has an outstanding staff who do most of the product development, run the tournaments, handle the shipping, etc. I personally have a full-time "business job" at a Fortune 50 company, where I manage a large staff running a billion-dollar division. Goodman Games is an extremely enjoyable outlet for my love of the hobby, but it's not how I pay my bills. I do it for fun because it is something I absolutely love to do. I wrote my first RPG at the age of 10, self-published my first work at 17, had my first professional contract at 18, had my first staff writer job at 21, and have been involved professionally in the gaming industry ever since.

I believe brick-and-mortar hobby stores are the lifeblood of the industry. This is for a couple of reasons. First, it is these stores that introduced me to the hobby, along with many other gamers. Sword of the Phoenix in Atlanta, GA was the store I shopped at for years. It was there that I discovered not just D&D, but also Ral Partha and Grenadier miniatures, Warhammer 40,000, Space Hulk, and many of the other games that I played obsessively as a child. Hobby stores are the single best way to introduce new gamers to the hobby. No online experience can match this.

Second, hobby game stores serve as community centers. It's not even "the best" game stores that do this; even the ones without gaming space have bulletin boards, well-connected staff, and affiliations with local cons. When you move to a new city or discover a new game, the hobby store is the best place to find new friends to play it with.

Third, speaking as a businessman, hobby stores are by far the largest market for games. The online market (including print, PDF, and POD) simply can't compete. As Goodman Games has matured into one of the standard stocklist items for typical game stores, I have seen my overall sales base grow steadily while online sales have dwindled. Online sales now make up a tiny fraction of Goodman Games sales. Yes, PDF sales are the fastest-growing sales segment, that is true, but the hobby market is HUGE compared to the online market - orders of magnitude larger. If you support retailers, they will support you, and that effort pays off tenfold. (There's a reason Wizards could pull their entire PDF backlist without blinking an eye. Those of us with good retail distribution are among the few observers to understand this.)

It is because of this belief in game stores, and my own personal retail experience, that I focus many of my product development and marketing efforts on strategies that benefit not just Goodman Games, but also retailers. These strategies have included Free RPG Day, a first of its kind in this industry; my annual May sale, which no other RPG publisher does; and the DCC spinner racks which I supplied to hundreds of retailers a couple years ago. These are the promotions consumers can see; there are many others, behind the scenes, that retailers have seen.

I mention these retailer promotions because they are feedback channels that don't exist for other publishers. There isn't another third-party RPG publisher that has shipped spinner racks to several hundred stores and gotten feedback on how it affected sales. There isn't another third-party RPG publisher who runs an annual sale through distributors. And so on. As a result of these efforts, I get feedback through a number of different channels. Sales numbers are a form of feedback. Personal conversations with retailers are a form of feedback. But direct retailer feedback is a significant feedback channel for me, and one that I believe is much more significant for me than for most other third-party publishers. Those of you who follow these forums have seen my Game Store Review Thread, and have a sense of just how frequently I visit stores.

It is based on these feedback channels that I evaluate the industry. These are my "senses," if you will. Goodman Games is not an imprint that publishes through other companies, multiple steps removed from distributors and even further removed from retailers. Goodman Games is not a company founded on online and subscription-based revenue streams. Goodman Games is a different sort of company from the rest. Goodman Games -- and Joseph Goodman -- are about as close as you can get to the pulse of retailers, within the third-party RPG publisher segment.

And now to the question at hand: How is 4E doing?

4E is doing well, very well. I'll define the parameters of "well" below. First, let's dispel a couple myths.

Myth #1: "We can publish the same book in 4E that we did for 3E, and use that as a yardstick for sales." Simply not true. Log on to dndinsider.com and you'll understand why. You have to understand Wizards' digital initiative (and its many ramifications) if you intend to publish 4E books at all. Sales of many categories have changed based on what the digital initiative provides customers free of charge. Sales of character record books in 3E and 4E are apples and oranges, not suitable for comparison, and there are other categories affected as well.

Myth #2: "Distributors do not support 4E." Simply not true. The pre-orders on Dungeon Crawl Classics #53, #54, and #55 were larger than anything I had seen in years. More recently, Level Up #1 sold out its first wave of distribution sales in under 48 hours, then sold out the second wave of distributor restocks a week later, and distributors continue to place huge restocks. There is significant distributor support for 4E.

Myth #3: "Retailers do not support 4E." Simply not true. This sort of claim is where the debate breaks down, because one gamer can say, "4E isn't selling at my local store," and it's hard to refute that. Store-by-store experiences do indeed vary widely, and the truth is that there are many individual stores where 4E isn't selling well. It is these stores, and gamers who trumpet these stores, that have led to many claims regarding 4E not selling. What can I say to refute that? I will rely on my credibility regarding direct retailer feedback.

I've personally visited 47 different game stores so far this year. Yes, 47 -- see viewtopic.php?f=1&t=5197 for some details. Next time someone tells you "4E isn't selling at my local store," remind him that he's discussing 1 store. Aside from those personal visits, I've spoken on the phone with probably 100+ other game stores, gotten direct feedback via a Dungeon Crawl Classics sale (see list of stores in the download at http://www.goodman-games.com/dcc-sale-09.html ), sponsored another year of Free RPG Day (see list of stores at http://www.freerpgday.com/stores.htm ), and run two Worldwide D&D Game Day promotions involving every store participating in Worldwide D&D Game Day (see http://www.goodman-games.com/WWDDD5-23.html and http://www.goodman-games.com/WWDDD3-21.html ). There are hundreds of stores that participate in each of these events individually, probably thousands overall if you compile the various lists. Naysayers who post claims of "4E doesn't sell well at my local store" seem to omit these massive lists of supporting retailers.

Back to myth #3: "retailers do not support 4E." Simply not true. Why not? Because Joe Goodman says so, and I know more about game stores than you do. Show me someone with the same list of credentials regarding direct retailer feedback, and I'll back down. Until then, the statement stands.

With these myths dispelled, let's discuss the meaning of "doing well." First, some historical context. Before I founded Goodman Games, I wrote a book on the history of this industry. It was something of a research project that turned into a book. I was planning to start a game company, and I wanted to do it right, so I researched the history of the three primary publishing categories. Most of the gaming history that gets published these days is product-focused, with an emphasis on creators, artists, inspirations, and the like. My research was focused on the business strategies of the companies involved. For example, in the early 1980's when Games Workshop got the license to produce official D&D miniatures from TSR, they did absolutely nothing with it and effectively used it to shut down their competitors so they could launch their own fantasy miniatures line. Has anybody else here studied the retail locator lists in White Dwarf magazine over the 1980's? Cross-reference the independent hobby shops listed in the early 1980's against the addresses of the GW company shops listed in the late 1980's. It's fascinating; you can see the pattern of how GW opened shops in close proximity to their hobby accounts. If you ever want to learn actual TSR sales figures, do your homework and find all the lawsuits against them. It's all public record, and I've read it all. Dave Arneson sued TSR three times for unpaid royalties, and each of the court filings lists TSR sales figures for the years where he challenged.

All of this research (which I ultimately decided not to publish) forms the historical context for my opinion of D&D 4E. Dungeons & Dragons has had two, and exactly two, peak years. The first was 1982. The second was 2001. The mid-80's were a declining period, and the 90's were a trough. From a business perspective, the creatively-much-admired 1970's were really a low point for D&D. Fast growth, but very low sales volume compared to the years to come.

From 1974 to 2009 is 35 years. Or, roughly two generations. D&D has roughly one peak every generation. 35 years total, 2 of which were great, and the other 33 of which were "okay."

But what do people compare 4E to?

One of the two best sales years in the past 35 years of D&D. Not the other 33 years.

Is 4E doing as well as 3E sales in 2001? Definitely not. That was the high point in a generation.

Is 4E doing as well as D&D sales in the times of 1974-1981? 1983 through 2000? And approximately 2002 through 2008?

Yes.

So, is 4E doing well?

Yes. In the 35 year history of D&D, we stand at a high point. D&D is selling more copies, reaching more customers, supporting more game stores, than it has during most of its history.

Will 4E do as well as 3E?

Maybe. But frankly, who cares? That's like asking if 4E will do as well as AD&D did in 1982. Or as well as 2nd edition did. Or as well as the little white box. Anybody who's ever had a job where they're accountable for sales numbers -- and I've had a lot of these -- knows that there are some marketing events that simply hit the ball out of the park. 3E was one of those, and it will be hard to top for a generation to come. It was a once-in-a-generation feat, just as D&D sales in 1982 were a once-in-a-generation feat. For twenty years following 1982, D&D sales never recovered their peak. Twenty years. From the vantage point of 1983, was D&D dying? In 1983, you could have said that. The twenty-year decline was starting. But D&D went on to have another peak in 2001.

From where we stand now, at the very beginning of 4E, I see a long, strong run ahead of us. Just as in 1982, it may be another twenty years before the generational peak of 3E is reached again. Or it could be next year, when the economy improves. Just as in 1983, who can say?

In the meantime, there are thousands of game stores clamoring for 4E product. And I'll be here publishing it for a long time.

That's all from Joseph Goodman, signing off from business-oriented posts for another eight years."

-> http://www.goodman-games.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=6207&p=25324#p25324

Das löste einiges an Reaktionen aus, die wiederum Alex Schröder in seinem Blog gut zusammenfasst:

-> http://www.emacswiki.org/alex/2009-06-21_Goodman_Games

[Argamae]

Sehr interessant. Wie man das jetzt deuten will oder ob man es überhaupt deuten muß, lasse ich mal dahin gestellt. Wenn Joe sagt, daß Goodman Games einige Dinge anders gemacht hat als andere Third-Party-Verlage, dann hat er einfach nur Recht. Und sie haben sowohl in inhaltlicher Qualität wie auch spieler- und Einzelhändler-orientiert einfach einen klasse Job gemacht. Wenn sich einer nach so langer Zeit mal zu einem Thema äußert, zu dem er bislang nie etwas sagen wollte, wohl aber die entsprechende Sachkenntnis dazu besitzt, dann ist seine Kreditwürdigkeit bei mir erst einmal sehr hoch.

[Wormys_Queue]

Ich muss zugeben, dass mir der Beitrag eher aufgestoßen ist, vor allem, weil er ja meines Wissens nach als direkte Reaktion auf einen Beitrag von Clark Petersen von Necromancer Games zu verstehen ist, der wesentlich skeptischer klang. Da fand ich die Arroganz, zu behaupten, er hätte ja alleine die Weisheit mit Löffeln gefressen, extrem deplatziert. Vor allem weil ich davon überzeugt bin, dass er seinen Wissensvorsprung speziell vor einigen der von ihm genannten Unternehmen deutlich überschätzt.

Das heißt natuerlich nicht, dass er nicht recht haben kann, was den grundsätzlichen Verkaufserfolg der 4E angeht. Und wenn sich die Goodman-Produkte besser verkaufen als je zuvor,ist das natuerlich wunderbar. könnte aber auch daran liegen, dass ihm gerade im Bereich Abenteuer einiges an (wichtiger) Konkurrenz abhanden gekommen ist.