[Slide_Eurhetemec]

Whether or not either of us agrees with the idea that something can do okay for itself in sales and still be a financial flop is moot; the fact remains that, for the most part, it is true. Just ask Nintendo, Coca-Cola, Pepsi, movie producers, video game companies, WotC...

That's nice and all, but there's no evidence 4E is "New Coke" in terms of lack of success. The only evidence we have largely points the other way. They discontinued 3E before 4E was ready, too, it's how WotC roll. I know you're very keen on this hyperbolic "EPIC FAIL BROHEIM!" deal with 4E, but really it's just a garden-variety "not as successful as hoped", sorry.

I agree with Cirno, though, I like SR, I don't like the sort of crunch that it's subsystems often have.

[Sipowitz]

Unfortunately, DnD 4E is a great example of just how wrong the blogger is on his claim that games are shifting towards simpler rulesets and that more complex games are dinosaurs. While DnD 4E was a great simplified rule system, it ultimately was an epic failure for WotC on the financial front and is one of the primary reasons why Pathfinder is so successful.

Please don't spread myths

First off, it was not an "epic failure" financially. It didn't do as well as 3E did, but it did well - in large part because of a massive revenue stream people overlook - the DDI - which alone makes more money every single month than any given sourcebook would (net, not necessarily gross - but net is what matters). So that's a myth.

Second off, the simplification is not why it was less successful - a combination of two factors was, neither of which had ever been the case before:

1) The OGL meant that Pathfinder could exist, legally untroubled, and simply continue the previous edition. This had never happened before. If people could have legally, easily, happily made 1E books when 2E came out, 1E would have survived a lot longer, perhaps indefinitely. Similarly, if 3rd parties had been able to legally, easily continue the 2E line, 3E wouldn't have been nearly as big a hit. Only with the OGL and the so-called "OSR" (which was in large part thanks to the OGL) was Pathfinder viable.

2) Terrible, terrible, awful, insulting marketing which drove players directly into the arms of Pathfinder. Again, no previous edition change had marketing that insulting or dumb, which gave so many people incorrect opinions about 4E, still repeated to this day (not least that it's "like an MMO" - nonsense, if it's like any computer game, it's Final Fantasy Tactics - it's actually most like Earthdawn).

We'll see how well Pathfinder does post-5E D&D. I'm guess it'll do okay for a year or two, then gradually fade out, as Paizo quietly release adventures for 5E (probably dual-statted for Pathfinder and 5E, at least at first), and possibly Paizo sourcebooks for 5E, too (given 5E will have a 3E-like OGL, we hear).

I know, right?
What RPG company out there wouldn't want to be making half a million a month off of their web based service?
Or after the announcement of 5e the number of new accounts for the DDI increased 25%.

 I disagree with #2 though.  I know people like to point to that, but I am in the camp of it being "what my spellcaster isn't awesome anymore, how dare they!" and "what we have to work together as an actual team instead of a gaggle of individuals, how dare they!"

This doesn't even get into the cubicle politicking that goes at WotC.

[SlowDeck]

Whether or not either of us agrees with the idea that something can do okay for itself in sales and still be a financial flop is moot; the fact remains that, for the most part, it is true. Just ask Nintendo, Coca-Cola, Pepsi, movie producers, video game companies, WotC...

That's nice and all, but there's no evidence 4E is "New Coke" in terms of lack of success. The only evidence we have largely points the other way. They discontinued 3E before 4E was ready, too, it's how WotC roll. I know you're very keen on this hyperbolic "EPIC FAIL BROHEIM!" deal with 4E, but really it's just a garden-variety "not as successful as hoped", sorry.

I agree with Cirno, though, I like SR, I don't like the sort of crunch that it's subsystems often have.

I never said that it was. I said that it was an epic failure because they dropped book production. 3E is a bit different, in that they didn't fully drop it but instead introduced a half-edition due to overwhelming rules issues. 3.5E ran its full run of book production before being ended; there really wasn't much left they could have added to that edition when they were done. 4E didn't even yet have all of the books that WotC had promised for it when they dropped it; that right there is evidence in favor of it being an epic failure. Combined with a lot of the former customer base playing Pathfinder, the fact that WotC immediately began supporting all of its old editions right after dropping 4E (WotC is selling quite a few 2E and 3E books right now), and the fact that the next edition underwent public playtesting... all of that combined is what supports the idea it's an epic failure.

There's a large difference between "not as successful as hoped" and "we're dropping this without even producing all of the books we said we would and supporting all of its predecessors." The fact WotC went with the second speaks of a desperation to make back lost profits and keep customers interested while they scramble to come up with a new product. In fact, I know of exactly two times where the new version has been dropped like that and the older version(s) support: New Coke and Windows Vista.

Huh. Maybe we better stop arguing about this one. Because right now, evidence is kinda mounting that 4E actually is the New Coke of DnD, and that's a possibility I'm not comfortable with.

And, yeah, coherent rules that are simple and get the job done? I can get behind that easily.

[ProfessorCirno]

The thing with Shadowrun crunch is that it is largely inelegant.  As you said, Slide, so much of it is caught up in these mini-rule lists that don't really interact with each other (or do so in very odd ways).  Every "thing" seems to have it's own subsystem, and each subsystem has it's own level of complexity, and none of them really build towards anything specific.

My general saying for mechanics is: "It should relate to the play, and it should be clever.  Lacking these both, it should stay out of the way." 

An example of a GOOD mechanic, at least for me, would be Edge recharging when you do something extremely noteworthy, clever, heroic (aka "stupid that works"), etc.  Why?  Because a character with high Edge is gonna be doing this stuff.  It builds the character through the mechanics: you're super lucky, so the game pushes you to USE that luck and act super lucky.  If you hoard your Edge and never spend it, you'll never recharge it, and you'll thus not really get great usage out of it.  I noted that heroic is "stupid that works."  Isn't that what Edge basically does for you?  It lets you do something otherwise stupid and make it heroic?  The game says "Ok, you have this metacurrency of BE AWESOME.  And when you do something super awesome, it recharges."  It's a feedback loop that gets you into the mindset of playing that "better lucky then skilled" guy.  It relates to the play.




Also New Coke is a pretty bad example to use for "Epic Fail." The lesson of New Coke was "customers are stubborn and kinda dumb and will cut off their nose to spite their face given the chance."  New Coke, absent of the "new" title, was given overwhelmingly positive feedback both in Coke closed tests and open market tests.  The reason New Coke failed is because people built up a brand loyalty to their idea of "COKE" and felt any change on that was a personal insult.  If you really want to declare that 4e was New Coke, you are saying "4 was proven the more popular game with players, but despite that, many players rebelled against it because they didn't like the idea of change."

Of course, since you have the sales numbers, you can post those and prove this matter one and for all.

You have the sales numbers.  Right?

[SlowDeck]

Also New Coke is a pretty bad example to use for "Epic Fail." The lesson of New Coke was "customers are stubborn and kinda dumb and will cut off their nose to spite their face given the chance."  New Coke, absent of the "new" title, was given overwhelmingly positive feedback both in Coke closed tests and open market tests.  The reason New Coke failed is because people built up a brand loyalty to their idea of "COKE" and felt any change on that was a personal insult.  If you really want to declare that 4e was New Coke, you are saying "4 was proven the more popular game with players, but despite that, many players rebelled against it because they didn't like the idea of change."[

Of course, since you have the sales numbers, you can post those and prove this matter one and for all.

You have the sales numbers.  Right?

Which is exactly what happened in the case of 4E. In fact, that it did well and wasn't a bad system was actually part of my point.

The reason it was an epic failure? It didn't even complete a full run of book production. WotC didn't even produce all of the books they promised, and then turned around and started immediately selling predecessor products. The fact they immediately started selling products from prior editions points to the idea that, despite the sales of the product, WotC was not making enough money off it to justify continuing it. The fact they pretty much dumped it in favor of its predecessors is what makes it an epic failure. The same is true of New Coke; it wasn't an epic failure because it was a bad product, but because of customer actions and the company pretty much dumping it in favor of the prior version.

And that was my point much earlier when I brought it up: That a lot of these pen and paper roleplaying games with more simplified rules are not bad products, but still are not the products actually making the big splash in the market. The whole thing was to make a point about how the blogger's claim that simplified rules systems are the future of pen and paper RPGs doesn't match reality. Reality itself? It's saying, right now, that the future is the same over-complicated game systems that have always dominated the market.

So the sales figures would never be presented by me because they're not even relevant to the conversation. It doesn't matter how well 4E actually sold compared to 3.5E; it matters what actions WotC chooses to make. It matters what game currently has the most growth and customers. It matters how complex those rules systems are. It doesn't matter, and will never matter, if one edition of DnD sold more than the other.

What matters is that WotC's choices in response to player stubbornness turned 4E into a memorable failure that makes it look like the company was either lacking in profits or so ashamed of what they produced that they couldn't even finish the number of books they promised. That is how it is an epic failure in spite of the sales it had. That is how it is a financial disaster in spite of not actually doing bad financially. Because WotC chose to make it such. Not because of any sales figures. Just like New Coke.

[Automaton]

There is no like button in thi forum but I'm liking The Wyrm Ouroboros's post anyways.

Well put, 100% agree, and I'm gonna leave it at that, just so not to spend any more time and attention to Mr Grant, which is exactly what he wants.

end.

[ProfessorCirno]

Ah, but you aren't learning the lesson from New Coke.  The product is irrelevant.  People want to play their brand.  D&D is not popular because people want a super crunch heavy game, it's popular because people identify as "D&D fans."   The same over-complicated game systems that have always dominated the market are not doing so because they are "over-complicated," but because the are "the same."

Also, I would point to the increasing average age of players in this hobby as a rather clear sign that things are not going well for the very crunch heavy games.  I'm sure model trains were assured of their popularity at one point, too.

...Also also, last I checked, the top games were basically D&D, D&D Again But With A Different Company, FATE, Edge of the Empire (NOT a very crunchy game), and Iron Kingdoms, with FATE and EotE at 3rd and 2nd.  While it's impressive that D&D remains in the top despite not actually releasing, uh, anything, it's a rather clear indicator that those over-complicated super crunchy games are NOT the ultimate answer.  Mind you, this is only going by ICv2 numbers, which rather pointedly do not reveal everything, so take it with a fair amount of salt.

[SlowDeck]

I can't argue that part about brand 

I do think the average age bit is potentially a false lead; the problem is that it could be indicative of the failure of complex roleplaying systems, or it could just be reflective of the growing average age of the populations of certain nations (which, in turn, is revealing that quite a few systems are inherently set up to fail without a large youth population).

And, to be honest, I do have to agree that overcomplicated rules are not the answer. My main problem with the blog is the claim that they should go by the wayside. One quick look at the problems Savage Worlds is having, along with the problems Shadowrun is having from attempts to simplify the system, reveals that simplification isn't always the answer either.

But, meh. End of the day, I bet everyone is going to be thrown for a loop by what comes out on top.

[Patrick Goodman]

C'mon, kids...at the end of the day, this is why we can't have nice things.

[JD]

C'mon, kids...at the end of the day, this is why we can't have nice things.

This

Plus, you guys flew off the rails. This was about SR rules being bloated to the point where we just fake it. I dare you to show me a table where the GM doesn't fake most of the decisions. There! Prove me wrong!

I played D&D first edition. I've been there the whole way. Shadowrun is the only RPG I still play. You may not agree, but I know whereof I speakest, when i say that 500 pages for the CORE rulebook is just silly.

And don't forget your beer.

[SlowDeck]

I don't think I've seen anyone on the topic actually dispute that SR could use some trimming in the rules department. Plus, the core rulebook is a lot of fluff; I suspect the actual content you need only makes up 400 pages of the book. And even then, you're probably not going to use most of the book due to character specialization. Unless you're the GM, of course, but even then you can just fudge it and ignore the sections you don't want to reference.

[The Wyrm Ouroboros]

Plus, you guys flew off the rails. This was about SR rules being bloated to the point where we just fake it. I dare you to show me a table where the GM doesn't fake most of the decisions. There! Prove me wrong!

Um, okay.  My games.  My friends' games.  Almost every game I've ever played in or run.  Soooo ... yeah, pretty well gone.  Are SR 4e and 5e, well, kind of haywire?  Yes, and I thought they should have refined and selectively expanded 3e instead of overhauling the entire thing for 4e in order to attempt to tap into that 'rules-lite' market - which I dunno if they're getting it anyhow.  SR did continue to grow, however, through an economic downturn that's seen every other game have to cut back, so I guess they did something right.

Yes, I agree that there is a lot of stuff in SR4/5 that's crazy - but that was never my point.  Nor was it my point that there are always house rules, because yeah, there are - but that doesn't mean the GM 'fakes most of the decisions.'

I played D&D first edition. I've been there the whole way. Shadowrun is the only RPG I still play. You may not agree, but I know whereof I speakest, when i say that 500 pages for the CORE rulebook is just silly.

Anyone over 35 has the potential to make this claim, so ... 'yeah, ain't provin' anything'.  Core rulebooks of long-running games actually include a lot of optional rules in sidebars and the like, plus examples of game-play that have been built over the years, fiction, History Of The World Part V, all that sort of thing.  You want something a little odd, look at the HERO system - where they broke a perfect-working system and then separated the core rulebook into two books.  Any long-lived and well-loved game that's got sufficient amounts of options (cyberware, bioware, spells, vehicles, different 'realms' in which to play - and SR has 4, really - the list just goes on and on) is going to be big.  If they include 'mood music', i.e. more than a four-paragraph piece of fiction at the start of a section, then yeah, it expands further.

So ... *shrugs*  Again, YMMV.

[Shamie]

This is a bizarre objection. Have you played RPGs other than SR or D&D? Honest question. I can think of dozens of games that fit that profile. Most modern games, even - Savage Worlds, FATE, Tri-Stat, nWoD, Cortex+, even good ol' Cyberpunk 2020 has vastly cleaner, neater and more refined rules than SR5 does.

The reason he is not giving an example there is because anyone who has actually played many RPGs will absolutely not need one. If you want to refute any of my examples, I'm going to expect details, by the way, not hand-waving.

i would refute NWoD as a "simple" system as you can actually make it as complicated as you want with the blue splats but i would add "New New WoD" which is a copy of many aspects of fate for better or worse (mostly worse IMO)

as for the blog post i would say that:

Point 1, "dinosaurs" : Meh, is an opinion which it sounds like one of a person who found the new shiny thing. Sure there are a lot of Rpgs with simpler mechanics but it just a taste. i have play the "simpler" systems in which some fine details of rules are just hand-waved. I have play the simpler one and i have found that some are poorly conceived or flawed in belief as any rules heavy game. Its like food, its a matter of personal taste.*

Point 2 "Complexity": Sure, i agree shadowrun and specially the riggers is a complex thing to handle it. Many people agree that the SR5 could have been put together better.

Point 3 "Redundant": i dont get it, so having rule for treading water is bad? You dont want it, dont use them. Sure the basic conception of SR is urban landscapes but you could play anywhere or any kind of game in the setting of shadowrun. Maybe a company of mercenaries in singapur with a boat and then the treading water rule would come handy. Besides is far easier to ignore a rule than to make it.

Point 3 "Math": i agree and disagree. I agree because the rules of grenades are beyond the scope of my mental capabilities to understand. Im horrible with distances, i live in a country that even use meters as a metric and i cannot tell you what a meters is really. And i hate the whole grenade rules as it is way to much complex for me. However i also know this is my fault and not the game, could the game use more simpler rules for granades? sure but should a game which normally uses math stop using it for people like myself who have this crippling math adversion?.... no

Point 4 "DEAD MAN’S TRIGGER": i cant see the issue with it. So im not gonna comment.

on that note, i suddenly notice that everyone apparently hates the chunky salsa rule, why is that?

On D&D, i think D&D is not a good system. The "feeling" it tries to replicate could be done with any number of other systems but D&D just Stockholm syndrome our lives until we come to accept it and like it 

[Dinendae]

Point 3 Im horrible with distances, i live in a country that even use meters as a metric and i cannot tell you what a meters is really.

1 Meter = 3.2808399 Feet, or slightly over 1 yard!

[Michael Chandra]

on that note, i suddenly notice that everyone apparently hates the chunky salsa rule, why is that?

The problem is that grenades damage went up with 6 points, but their damage drop-off has remained the same. This means that suddenly Chunky Salsa happens far more easily, AND the grenades are far more lethal while we're at it.

If the HE grenade exploded 1m to your left, and 2m to your right was a wall, then a HE grenade would do 8P+0, because 1+2+2=5 so no rebounding blast to hit you. If it exploded 2m to your left, and 1m to your right was a wall, it'd do 6P+2P, so you'd eat 8P/-2. Nowadays, that 8P/-2 has both parts of it boosted with 6, so you're facing 12P+8P, meaning you get hit by 20P/-2. And in the first situation, which had 8P+0 in SR4, you'd now take 14P+6P, so also 20P/-2. Now Armor might have increased, but that only gives you perhaps 2 extra hits on the soak, while the damage went up with 12. So you take 10 points extra damage due to Chunky Salsa.

Another situation: You're in a sidestreet that's 6m wide and the grenade explodes in the middle, while you're 1m away from the wall: In SR4 it'd go 2m to you and hit you with 8P, 1m, rebound, 1m, 4P, and vanish before it reaches the center. Same for the rebound from the other side, which takes 3+3+1m to reach you so the blast stops before it can reach you, you resist 12P/-2.

Now the SR5 scenario: 2m to reach you, 2+2m to reach you again, 2+2+4+4m to reach you after that is too far so this side of the blast hits you at a 2m drop and a 4m drop. The other direct goes 8m before reaching you, which means the HE grenade BARELY dropped. If you had been a bit closer to the grenade when it went off, you'd get hit thrice by blasts. Now you simply resist the same 20P/-2 from earlier, with the same consequences, and if you had been slightly worse out of position, it'd have hit you with even more.

A Fragmentation Grenade, meanwhile, in a 12m-wide street, would hit you thrice. If you're 1m away from the wall and it explodes in the center, we're talking a 5m drop, 7m drop, and another side with a 17m drop, so that's 18x3-5-7-17=25P/+5. In SR4, it'd only reach 12m, so it would only hit you with 12P/+5.

And this is outside scenarios. Inside an office or a corridor in a corp-facility...


There are, however, easy fixes to this. First of, a GM can houserule that Chunky Salsa counts as overlapping explosions, so all but the strongest hit are halved. That'd change that 25P/+5 to a full 13P blast, a secondary 11/2=6P and another secondary 1/2=1P, meaning 20P/+3. The 20P/-2 from the earlier scenario would become 16P/-3. Still painful as hell, but less of an instant-killer.

Second, Chunky Salsa only works when the barriers last. However, let's face it, construction is cheap. Those office walls? Those would be drywall, so the grenades easily tear through it. You're in an alley and the GM doesn't want to murder you? Well, he could always have a few windows look out into the alley, and the blast now channels through a really cheap window and destroys someone's living room. So then only exterior walls without windows become a real problem for Chunky Salsa.

Third, even with the new matrix, people are paranoid about wireless. So Wireless grenades would nearly-never be used, because if a hacker gets into it, bam, you're dead. Even people who only turn them on before throwing them, would be vulnerable if a Hacker got marks on their PAN before and now sets it off with an out-of-turn Free Action. So nobody would use these, except for corporate hit-squads with DR7 comms and a decker on their side.

Motion Sensor grenades, meanwhile, are dangerous as hell to anyone who does not have a really good Throwing Weapon skill. So gangers would never use these, meaning that nearly never do you have to worry about any grenade other than a timed one. And Corp Security would NEVER throw grenades (or even be issued any) indoors due to collateral damage.

There's also one other thing: Run&Gun now has an Interrupt Action where you can run away from a grenade. Of course that means they still flush you out of cover, but unless your enemies got a LOT of grenade throwers, you're likely simply walking into a firing zone without dying horribly.

Anyway, with those things in mind, keeping use sparse, keeping chunky-salsa risks low, and giving the players the time to get scared and scram, grenades still are lethal, still are very dangerous, still put you at significant risk, but lose the ability to wipe out an entire party without them having any chance to get out. You're in a basement and the door in front closes just after a few grenades are thrown through? Take the Initiative hit and run back around the corner, so you don't get massacred by the blast. Even a Motion Sensor grenade would no longer be an instant-party-wiper unless the party is dumb as bricks and ran out of movement allowment.