Xaeyruudh's Index

Popular Opinion

Advertisements

This is one of several thoughts/suggestions regarding the upcoming fifth edition of Dungeons & Dragons (5e). Relevant news items: nytimes and wizards.

I think you (meaning whoever is calling the shots with regard to 5e) are doing the right thing here… or maybe part of the right thing, or starting to do the right thing. Time will tell.

Pay (better) attention to customer desires.

We’re writing your paychecks, in some sense. Up til now, you’ve been pushing us around and we’ve been taking it. Well, ever-decreasing numbers of us have been taking it, with ever-increasing complaints.

You don’t necessarily need to resurrect role-playing, or even tabletop role-playing. Yes, video games are a problem, but not as big of a problem as they’re being made out to be.

Your biggest challenge has been that you’re only concerned about customer opinion when you start losing significant amounts of revenue. When the money is coming in, you’re on top of the world and you couldn’t care less what anybody thinks about anything.

Is that harsh? No, I think it’s actually stupidly mild. Why are you asking for customer input now? Because it’s painfully obvious that you screwed up, and you don’t want to lose your shirt over it. I’m not actually trying to be a snot, but why didn’t you ask for customer suggestions before 4e? Because times were good then, or at least quite a bit better than they are now. Yea, I have hindsight on my side now, but the point stands. You should have asked back then. You should have had a better grasp of everything you’re hearing from customers now… back then. Even before 2e, for that matter.

You seem to be on a schedule of cranking out a new edition, regardless of the old one’s success or failure, every several years. This is lame. Revise the rules when customers raise valid concerns in support of a revision… not whenever you want to give yourself a pay raise. We may be lemmings, buying anything that says D&D on it, but we’re not complete idiots. It might take some of us a few years, but we all eventually start feeling ripped off.

That, more than mechanics, is what you need to fix. See, D&D isn’t broken. WotC is broken. Players can help you with improving D&D, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg of your problems.

Advertisements

Advertisements