And by D&D, I mean all its favors- OSR, 3.x and its copies, and now to a lesser extent the 4th edition version. Add together these make up most of the game sales and nearly all the online discussion one sees on forums and blogs (unless they are dedicated specifically to something else).
It's a difficult question, likely with a number of different answers. It would be fun to actually dig into it in a solid investigative fashion and determine what those answers are. But I don't have the time, money or contacts. And I doubt anyone else does (that would be willing to do so, and then willing to release the information). But that doesn't mean we can't make a good guess.
We know from previous WotC information that it isn't driven by play style as such. So that can be dismissed.
Other possible answers:
Market Penetration
D&D was the first to market, made the biggest splash, and from there on has the largest production budget and the largest amount of supporting materials on the gaming shelves (or in online catalogs).
The power of this simple fact cannot be underestimated. The same basic factors resulted in VHS winning over Beta, Windows over MAC, etc. The examples are nearly endless. You don't have to offer the best product, just the widest selection for use with your product.
Appeals to our Worst Nature
D&D combat is meant to be predictive, safe and lengthy (something clear in the writings and statements of Dave Arneson and Gary Gygax, such as this one to pick one example). So safe adventure with controlled danger that the player can still pat themselves on the back for. That's a easy draw, nice reward for little risk.
Add to this simple greed. The very act of leveling, and the fact that D&D offers a lot of levels to level through. The endless search for money and magic items. MMORPGs based their entire business model upon these things, but D&D was the first to offer it.
We see this in passing statements by D&D GMs and Players, such as
The abstract concept of treasure appeals directly to the players, by
tickling their normal greedy impulses. This goes back to my thinking
that D&D is about providing an acceptable venue for expressing one's
less civilized urges. I.e. if a scenario doesn't invoke at least one
of the Seven Deadly Sins,
you may need to rework the premise. Greed is one of the easiest ones
to work with in D&D thanks to all the gold pieces lying about the
dungeons."
We see these concepts often expressed in reviews of non-D&D products, where any that offer dangerous combat are seen as 'unheroic' for some reason or those without treasure and extreme ranges for advancement are said to be boring or incomplete.
Return to Childhood
This is most telling in the OSR movement, but really works with version of D&D. It's all still going home, it's fun to go back and do those things you enjoyed as a kid. Even if you've actually forgotten what you did, or have covered it up with the rose glasses of middle age.
It's safe, it avoids the disappointment and effort of dealing unknown game designs. And it carries with the advantages of the above two points as well. What's not to like?
All the above have resulted in stagnation in the larger hobby. It feeds upon itself in a nearly endless loop,
- D&D has the largest supporting material meaning it has more players, and the OGL allows even more material which in turn attracts even more players.
- Old timers returning to old games means new players are likely to get introduced to the hobby with these old games, meaning that no one ever looks for something different or better.
- And appeals to greed and reward without cost? That almost goes without saying. Such things never end, they only ask for more.
And thus here we are. And here the hobby is likely to stay. It wouldn't be changed by a better product. It would take a change in the moral character of gamers themselves, but IMO the influence is working the other direction.
There will be other games, but they will have little hold or influence. On the bright side, if this hobby should die (be it from more sophisticated MMORPGs or other means), it would likely be a good thing.
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3 comments:
I've been thinking about this post for a couple days now. I think your points are valid, but I would add a couple more.
D&D really is a simple system at its core, and its fluff really just generic fantasy with an occasional proper name thrown on it. The fact that they change the setting every decade and only few lorewhores really notice sort of demonstrates that. (I don't even remember what the current "official" setting is called.)
Any other system that is based on "roll a single die and beat a number" is, mechanically, just a D&D copy. Even "exploding" dice are just renamed Crits, in the end. Its hard to dislodge the first mover when all the competition offers are "me too" mechanics.
Meanwhile, D&D hasn't really made serious inroads anywhere outside it's spawning pool. D&D video games come and go, but are generally lackluster. The D&D MMO is a joke. Don't even start on the D&D movies. Anywhere their original mechanical concept doesn't apply, D&D doesn't gain any traction.
For that reason, I think 4E was a terrible idea -- it kept the same basic underlying mechanic, but then welded on that whole fluff/ability/whatever mess that Powers are. It hobbled the core classic mechanic that was the foundation of D&D. I'm not surprised (in hindsight of course) that a lot of people have rejected it and gone OSR in an attempt to decouple Powers from the game.
I think there is a tendency, in game design, to keep tacking on idea after idea in an attempt to create a more robust, expansive system. I know that's been the case with my efforts over the years. But after nearly 20 years of cranking out various systems/mechanics/iterations, what I'm discovering is:
1) I can't beat D&D at their own mechanic. If you want a single die roll vs a score mechanic, theirs works as well as anyone else's. 90% of the big names out there, when it comes down to it, are really just D&D clones with minor tweaks that typically make them more cumbersome and less accessible. House rules work just as well and are cheaper than buying a modified clone.
2) Of the systems I've made that worked well, all were fundamentally different than D&D, from the dice rolls (or lack there of) on up. A lot of them I've seen (either before or since) in other board or table top games. Games that are typically classics and have yet to be dislodged after decades of dominance.
3) Of the "original" mechanics I've some up with, very few were improved by iteration. I got lucky with some creative spark, and the mechanic was simple and elegant out of the gate. Which is why it was fun and others enjoyed it as well. Anything iterative usually just added complexity that others couldn't always understand or had a boring learning curve. If I couldn't explain it in its entirety in a single sentence, it rarely was any fun.
Ironically, after two decades of iteration, revision, and experience, the game I am working on now looks almost identical in form and function to the original mechanic I ad-libbed on the carpet in my bedroom with my brother with my legos and the handful of d6s I stole from monopoly. Before I'd heard of D&D and knew "the right way" of doing things. Its taken that long to realize I don't need to derive my mechanic from theirs and still have a functional game.
Maybe the RPG industry will figure that out some day. Or maybe a new "industry" will emerge with a different fundamental base. Maybe the industry can't get away from OSR because, at its roots, that's all it really is anyway.
You make some good points, but I really don't think the single die roll is that big of a part to D&D's (and its copy) place in the market.
It likely doesn't hurt.
Nor do I think that a stripped down core is the secret, Pathfinder is basically 3.x and 3.x is anything but stripped down.
I will agree that 4th edition went too far however. Even so, I think it would have been successful if not for the OGL and the 3.x clones out there.
In my personal experience, the success of D&D in all its iterations comes down to legacy. I started playing tabletop rpgs at a time when D&D was as close to a mainstream pastime as it would ever be, so it was natural that it would be the game I started with. I branched out to other game systems, some of which I greatly prefer to D&D. However, I have made two major moves in my life, once to go to university and once to start a job. Both times, I had to rebuild my circle of friends and find a new gaming group. Each time, I found myself pulled back into D&D. It was the common denominator, the lingua franca of the hobby. Much as I might wish otherwise, in a fringe hobby such as ours, compromises must be made to keep a playing group together and D&D is the very epitome of compromise.
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