4E, PF, and us - from my PoV

If we/I disliked 4E so much, why didn’t we switch to Pathfinder (PF), or an OSRIC type game?
There’s no single answer for that.

First off let’s say that money had a part in it.
For us to stop playing D&D and play another game, we individually would have to invest in at least one player’s book each, plus the GM would probably need more. Even PF having an SRD wouldn’t make that as easy as would be preferred. We all prefer to have a book to read versus a pdf on a tablet.
Having 4-7 people spend $40+ each when many of us aren’t in a position to just casually spend that much forced us to pass.

Second, 3E had developed a large bunch of power gaming munchkins, and rumor had it that PF fed them more.
We met so many people who played that just abused the hell out of the game, making the most insane and over the top PCs. And PF gave them more options?
So we labeled the game as munchkin-bait, and passed.

Third, rules and math and math and rules make a game un-fun.
Pathfinder had been described at 3.75E, meaning it updated the 3.5 rules set.
While we heard it made changes to a lot of the game itself, we heard nothing about improving high level play. So we passed. (In case you’ve not read it on this blog before, we loved 3E until it hit high level play, at that point the game became progressively slower.)

Fourth, we were burned out on reading rules.
While this isn’t as big as the others, reading yet another giant book of rules just felt distasteful.
Rules fatigue made us pass, even though we didn’t know the extent of rules difference from 3.5 to PF.

Fifth, and quite importantly, getting players means playing the latest editions.
At the time we saw PF as a niche game, and not the D&D competitor it is now. And it was being played by munchkins, people we didn’t want at our table.
You really can’t play anything but the newest games unless you know the right kind of people. This applies to OSRIC as well.
So we had no choice but to pass.

Later we would find out that PF had grown beyond its original munchkin player base, but it was too late to grab our interest. The window had closed.
While we heard encouraging words from those who played PF and we trusted their opinions, there wasn’t enough to light any fires of interest.

I did buy the PF core book, but that’s as far as our group has gone. I’ve opened a few times, casually read some things, said “just like 3E”, and closed the book.

But what I want to know is, happened to 4E?
Why did a whole edition change so radically that the designers had to know it would cost them players?
Why did they stop releasing product, effectively handing their player base over to PF?

I’ve heard rumors, guessed at some things, and read internet postings by people who are on the inside or were once on the inside of the decision-making processes.

Individually, these rumors mean little. But if more than one hit about the same time, then the damage grows.

First rumor: World of Warcraft was killing tabletop gaming.
That’s not quite right. Easy access online gaming was and is killing tabletop gaming.
Why read complicated books and hope others join you someday when you can just tap a button on a tablet, phone, console, or PC?
Starfleet Battles was a huge game 25 years ago, but it is dead now. No one wants to play a game for hours that requires hours and hours of reading to play, especially if there is something easier and faster to play on an electronic system.
The amount of work that is needed to play a pen and paper game can be over the top when compared to playing a casual MMO (unless you play hardcore).
Tabletop gaming is losing more and more players to MMOs and those who do play are getting older.

Second rumor: 4E tanked.
Sure the core books sold well, but most books afterwards sold progressively fewer than the book before.
Even the novels, supposedly a nice bit of income for WotC/Hasbro, weren’t doing well.
I only owned seven 4E rulebooks, and four of them were Christmas presents. Guess what the other three were.
While I haven’t interviewed or surveyed anyone, I believe this to be a common thing. 4E just didn’t click with enough established gamers to create a sustaining force for it to continue.

Third rumor: There were legal issues about D&D and D&D-related properties (such as PC-games and movies) that threw a lot into question about who owned what.
This may mean nothing, and my research into it is slight, but I include it because of the timing. If one of these lawsuits crippled the profitability of the D&D brand, that loss of revenue has to be made up.
WotC stopped releasing books around this time. Was it because the books didn’t sell anymore, or did they not want to write a bunch of books any receive nothing for it if a lawsuit ruined things for them?

Now add in a few things like the total lack of a real OGL/SRD (which gets others to support your game with their stuff), the all-but-needed online-only tool for $10 a month (no thanks), broken promises (online PDFs and a virtual tabletop), and so on and you have yourself a bad situation for a game that leads an entire market.
Mix all of that together and you get yourself a nasty downward spiral.

Third Edition created a new golden age of D&D. The D20 system lured other publishers to use it with the OGL and new publishers appeared just to use that OGL. This created a larger and larger player base.
Fourth Edition threw it all away, including our interest in D&D.
Pathfinder wasn’t for us either.