OK, d20 has been around now for, what? two years or so? The question before the panel now is, will is still be around after ten years or will d20 fade away and only D&D remain, if that? Now we can all get pretty wild with this, like a meteor crashing into WotC HQ and stuff, so let's try to keep the speculation down-to-earth, OK?

I don't get the impression that WotC are in this to make a fast buck. I think they are in it for the long haul.

Most of the d20 stuff I have seen looks very well polished and WotC have done an excellent job of promoting the product and getting other publishers to produce their own d20 titles.

Will it last? Yeah I think it could, why not. Role-players may be a fickle bunch but I think that d20 has gained a level of support from players that should keep it profitable for WotC.

I don't know how profitable d20 is for WotC or what their sales targets are but so long as they are making money and hitting targets then it's in their interest to keep pushing d20.

If new d20 settings keep on hitting the shelves and players keep on buying product then there is no reason why d20 won't continue.

It's feasible that the d20 bubble will burst at some point and I'm sure that WotC would take that as an ideal time to bring out d20 2nd Edition, rejuvinate interest in the product and start the sales cycle again.

Cassidy wrote: Will it last? Yeah I think it could, why not. Role-players may be a fickle bunch but I think that d20 has gained a level of support from players that should keep it profitable for WotC.

It's feasible that the d20 bubble will burst at some point and I'm sure that WotC would take that as an ideal time to bring out d20 2nd Edition, rejuvinate interest in the product and start the sales cycle again.

Hello,

There are two questions here: one of publishing and business, and one of use and play.

Regarding publishing, I think the bubble burst a while ago. The only reasons that's not common knowledge are (a) that distributors carry disproportionate influence in the three-tier system, and (b) that retailers are more interested in moving what they've ordered already than cutting their losses. Just because you see lots of D20 on the shelves doesn't mean people are making money from it.

Regarding use and play, I think that D20 is here to stay - in exactly the same sense that GURPS and Fudge are around, as generic templates with specific local features that serve certain specific needs. I don't think it's special either for positive or negative in these terms.

(Note: I'm treating D20 here as a customizable system, usable via the OGL for publishing and playing stuff; I'm not talking about D&D at all.)

Best,
Ron

Regarding use and play, I think that D20 is here to stay - in exactly the same sense that GURPS and Fudge are around, as generic templates with specific local features that serve certain specific needs. I don't think it's special either for positive or negative in these terms.

itsmrwilson wrote: I wonder, though, if GURPS is gaining many new players, or if it's just holding current players. I know a lot of players who went through a "GURPS phase," but it didn't last. I think if d20 doesn't have that effect, it'll be because d20 has the ubiquitous presence of D&D as its flagship.

To answer the first question:

Yes, I think that D20's here to stay. Few things in role playing games have matched the conteraversy that D20 has created. Why would that indicate long range succecc? Because it's the system that thousands of people have started learning with (Pyron sheepishly raises his hand). It is being promoted by the bigest game company in the world, and it's system type are being transferred to every available genre. Will there be a new D&D system to replace it? If the sun shines on the horizon untill that day, it will. My point of view is that as sucessful/unsuccecful as it may become, it has already dove deep into webcomics, forum discussions, and gaming groups.

Even if D20 products are never played in the future there will still be people who go into dusty gaming stores, and look around. In the corner will be a large yellow paged book that says Star Wars D20 REVISED on it, and that aged gamer will smile bring the tome to the counter and ask, "How much?"

The clerc will say, "Oh, I don't seem to have, recorded, the price on that object. I'll take 15 dollers for it, though"

The gamer will hand him the cash and smile.

"Do you have friends lined up to play that with, lad?" the man will ask.

"No. I just want this book to remember the good old days."

The clerk will have to smile.

itsmrwilson wrote:
I wonder, though, if GURPS is gaining many new players, or if it's just holding current players. I know a lot of players who went through a "GURPS phase," but it didn't last. I think if d20 doesn't have that effect, it'll be because d20 has the ubiquitous presence of D&D as its flagship.

Ozymandias wrote: This means the system, rather than remaining a static entity which may or may not be occassional updated by the single company that owns it, the d20 system can be constantly reinterpreted and reinvented by each person utilizing it for game design.

As for the bubble having burst, ... Good products designed for the d20 system are still selling extremely well, Crap products aren't selling at all. I'm not sure therefore this is so much a case of a bubble bursting as it is the consumer simply becoming more discriminating.

Jack Spencer Jr wrote: This is an interesting point, although it does not make d20 unique since this is how FUDGE works, isn't it?

Of course the real question is the long-term impact on the dice industry.

Greetings eogan,

eogan wrote: Is d20 surviving merely by coopting its competition?

Jack Spencer Jr wrote: This is an interesting point, although it does not make d20 unique since this is how FUDGE works, isn't it?

That would be the bubble bursting, then. The bubble is that anything with "d20" on it will automatically make money. This is not true. And that is as it should be (barring, of course, everything with d20 on it being a work of quality)

Kester Pelagius wrote: The folks at WoTC, in my uninformed opinion, tried to lay claim to the Brooklyn Bridge by saying they owned it and asking everyone who used it to affirm their rights to ownership. Which seems to have happened. Now, I would imagine, there are no "competitor" systems using a d20 system mechanic. Or are there?

If you, as a game designer wanting to see your work published, were going to create a system would you want to design a new resolution system from the ground up, or just use d20 as a compromise and quickie short-cut? And why?

Hello,

Oh, my friends! Hero Wars (now Hero Quest) utilizes a D20 to brilliant and distinctive effect. It was published in 2000. I think it's clear that using a d20 in one's system and being a D20 game are two different things.

(I dunno why I keep using a capital D for D20 as a system. Totally arbitrary, don't mean nothin' by it.)

Let's talk about bubbles, and about "performance." Publishers get their money from distributors, and they have a widespread, and fatal, tendency to equate sales to distributors with sales to customers. They also tend, just as fatally, to equate sales to customers as sustained and interested potential future sales. Neither of these is valid.

Right now, this minute, retailers across the land are sick to death of D20 products. They're piled up on the shelves. They don't ... fucking ... sell. (Shock! What is he saying! Obviously doesn't know what he's talking about.)

But this doesn't get communicated for two reasons.

1) Retailers need to move their currently-owned product, badly. Almost all retailers buy on margin, which means that anything that doesn't sell is a dead loss, and an ongoing dead loss. Hence, they do what they can to move it, up to and including insisting that it's "hot," and even believing it.

2) Distributors exert a great deal of power and pressure when it comes to retailers ordering role-playing games. You may think that consumer demand drives retailer orders, and that those retailer orders drive distributor orders, but in reality, the reverse is largely true ... with the predictable proviso that customers usually don't cooperate, leaving retailers staring glumy at loaded shelves.

I am saying that the perceived amazing performance of D20, as a game product over the long term, is a strict and solitary function of retailers listening to distributor (and certain promoters') blandishments. Lots of hype and enthusiasm, and lots of distributor ordering = tons of games on the shelves.

The RPG marketplace takes time to be expressed, which is all the more subtle because everyone involved insists on using a comics model (success/failure in weeks) rather than a gaming one (success/failure in months or years). As publishers and distributors count their takes, the retailers are the ones facing the customers with a wad of deep-ordered books and pamphlets. And to their dismay, they sell just like any other game does, over the long term - the good ones do, and the shitty ones don't.

Did we see a quickie consumer response? Sure! D&D3E came out - of course there was a positive consumer response, especially from those sorts of gamers who moped around wishing for old D&D again (35-40year olds), and those to whom old D&D would appeal but they'd never seen it (young teens). But that's a D&D response, not a D20 one.

Does that mean that D20 "sucks" and that it'll dry up and blow away? Nope. It is a fine and groundbreaking system of ~1987. It's a rather good basic RPG system of its type, and functional generic systems are hard to come by, especially nicely-spiced Gamist ones. It's here.

Think clearly, folks. Don't mistake the three-tier dynamics or marketing hype for what's really happening. Those of us who attend GTS (the GAMA Trade Show) or frequent industry forums know what retailers think of D20, and with the exception of certain excellent basic products (high color, well-known names, solid company backing), they are beginning to realize that they were had.

A "bubble" refers to a period when a product, priced beyond its long-term consumer value, still sells very well. This applies to non-D&D D20 products in terms of the year of the system's initial release, now long gone. It also applies to retailers buying from distributors, not customers buying from retailers. Sure, you can see wads and wads of D20 stuff lining the shelves - but that doesn't mean squat about what's selling, especially in the long term (which retailers almost never track).

That bubble has indeed burst.

Best,
Ron

P.S. All of the above has about fifty unstated nuances and assumes knowledge of a few things that I didn't explain at all. I will not be gentle with publishers who respond to this post as if it were a complete argument. Ask before you descend with wrath.

We have a game store here in Champaign-Urbana called the Dragon's Table. As far as I can tell, the owner is a pretty shrewd fellow. A year or more ago he would get in multiple copies of all the new d20 stuff coming out. Nowadays he seems to get one copy of a new release, or zero copies with special orders if asked. D20 Modern would be the only d20 thing I've seen him get multiple copies recently. Meanwhile, he's willing to risk buying 6 or 8 copies of products like tri-stat Silver Age Sentinels. (I think he just got M&M in, I might have to drop buy to see how many he ordered.)

Now admittedly, that's anecdotal evidence, but it seems to support what Ron is saying.

Ron Edwards wrote:
Let's talk about bubbles, and about "performance." Publishers get their money from distributors, and they have a widespread, and fatal, tendency to equate sales to distributors with sales to customers.

Hi Chris,

That's correct - but the key, as I emphasized before, is time. Time to see those re-orders, time to interact with retailers to encourage the re-orders, and time to interact with customers who actually play the game. I'll focus on the final point: actual play takes months to build up the desire, to organize, and to play long enough for word on the game's quality to move to other role-players. In some cases, years.

It also involves ignoring the initial spike of sales, which is a really hard thing for most people to do. Once a person moves 500-1200 copies of a self-published game into distributor warehouses within a few months after release, the giddy feeling of success and taking the market by storm and being able to pay the printer for the next book are overwhelming, to many.

Add to this the difficulty of retailers consistently ignoring both of the above points, and their tendency to be desperate about the nigh-worthless stock stuffing their shelves (and representing debt that can lose them their lease within six weeks).

I tend to think of this mistake as being a widespread industry phenomenon among all the tiers as well as among consumers, rather than a characteristic "rookie" thing. Some cunning few use it to their advantage in a kind of scorched-earth new-edition new-hot-game way; most others sputter along in one form of debt or another based on failure to understand "sales."

Best,
Ron