Until it is justifiably flushed…

That sucking sound you hear is the last breath of 4th edition going to a sewery grave.

This also marks the last time you will ever see me discuss 4th edition on this site. Ever.  God, how I hated that game.

Wizards announced today, to no one’s surprise, that there is a new game under development. It is not named, but “5th Edition” is the logical choice so I will use that until something official comes along.

Today is a clean slate for me. “Dungeons and Dragons” holds a special place in my heart and the various articles on the Wizard’s site and the New York Times   indicate that WOTC may finally get a clue.  This brings me endless joy at the thought of  high-quality, well-funded games with a great design.  WOTC’s decision to have a long beta period with comments from many players is a strong selling point for me. At the very least it will kill some of the more glaring bugs in previous editions before it gets out of beta. Gamers are smart and that much collective intelligence is surely a boon to a new game.

The “Pathfinder” comparisons are already flying because of the public beta/design project. I say “so what?” It works and it will produce a better game. I am all for it.  That said, it had better be a truly open beta. Getting feedback from the grovelling sycophants begging to get a look at the new edition or those that have existing relationships with Wizards is a recipe for failure.  This “idea incest” is counter-productive and produces products the greater gaming community does not want.

You should speak with the gamers that shave, get laid without using a credit card and pay mortgages.  These people and their children are the future of gaming. The vocal minority of super-fanboys is a just that, a minority. Respect them but do not let the inmates run the asylum.

Since WOTC is in a listening mood, I think now is the time to make my voice heard.  I am not really concerned about the system or rules because the collective gamer-brain will sort that out. No, I am talking about business decisions that really annoy me.  Here is my list of things WOTC needs to avoid in the new edition.

• The word “collectable.”  It is an RPG. I am not buying random card packs/widgets/dice. Sell me supplements and, if they are good, I will buy them. Period.
• Strip-mining 1983 for fluff/campaign  ideas. We do not need another “Forgotten Realms” edition. You know there are people under the age of 30 that have fresh ideas. Find some.
• Lousy software.  Leverage technology that works and never promise something you cannot deliver. The online game table is in the running for the “Duke Nukem Forever” vaporware award.  Also, subscription models suck. I want to own something, not rent content.

“Dungeons and Dragons” is the most famous and best financed RPG in the world.  It is a critical component of the overall game community’s health.  Wizards of the Coast has a responsibility to the franchise, their shareholders and the fans to get it right this time.

So, please get it right.

Trask, The Last Tyromancer

If you think movies are alone on this, the recent release of Star Wars: The Old Republic, Bioware’s highly anticipated MMO, had an official budget of $200 million though some experts claim it closer $300 million. Regardless of this range, even at 200, The Old Republic still holds the title as the most expensive game ever made. Such an achievement was hardly considered noteworthy fifteen years ago. Something recently changed. The last Call of Duty made more money at launch than any other entertainment title in history. This serves to show that costs reflect sales. If something makes a lot of money, suddenly the price to make that something goes up as well. Despite some game companies claiming that piracy is killing the PC market, it hasn’t stopped Blizzard from making over $700 million a year from World of Warcraft. Back when console and PC games were in their infancy, an expensive game would cost about $100,000. Doom broke that trend by doubling that number. Six years later and Sega had spent close to $70 million on Shenmue. That’s $200,000 to $70 million in only six years. That set the trend moving into the new millennium. When you list the most expensive games adjusted for inflation since Pong, Shenmue is the only game older than 5 years. Let me reword that to stress the point; of the ten most expensive games ever made, nine were made since 2007.

The issue here is that the costs of games haven’t changed. I remember buying Silpheed for $48 and Xenogears for $35. Games still cost the same, but now they need to sell a lot more to recoup their money. Thankfully there are more consoles and PCs on the market than ever before, so companies at least have the comfort in knowing more people are able to purchase their products. However, this increases the pressure to move more units, resulting in game companies instigating draconian measures against piracy. It’d also help if a game didn’t suck or be wrapped in less than six hours.

Both game companies and movie studious believe the solution is attacking their own consumer base, believing that pirates and consumers are different people when they are not. They try to impose laws, implant DRM, but this is a failing model. No matter the security put into a game, finding a crack online takes less than week…tops. Movie studios have also failed to make any progress. Like games, movie ticket prices haven’t increased to reflect bloated production costs. But instead of investigating why this is, companies have gone after the consumers. The actual cause is rooted in the technology industry itself.

The big effects houses are charging per second the same as some movies’ entire budget. There is so much bureaucracy involved, with every level taking a bite, film studios are trying to find ways to keep costs down. But they are not looking at the source of the problem. With hundreds of effect shots, Duncan Jones made Moon for $5 million. Last week, I bought a game called S.P.A.Z. for $15. I wrapped the crapfest that was Homefront in four hours; S.P.A.Z. took me thirty-seven and I had fun. It doesn’t need to make a hundred million to break even.

This week, studio heads shelved the live action Akira film because of its proposed budget. At once a $180 million production encompassing two films, its last compromise had it suffering through an $80 million single film. Now the studio is demanding another reworking down to $60 million, claiming attendance issues and the rise of home theaters and piracy as the cause. Although bringing the cost down is the solution, they are going about it by reworking the script to make it cheaper. That is not the way to solve this problem. Toy Story cost $30 million. Four year later, its sequel cost three times more. It’s an animated film; what changed? Just over a decade later, that budget would again double for its third installment. And this is not an aberration. Kung Fu Panda cost $150 million. If you think it’s because of the quality of animation, you’d be wrong. The last Madagascar looked like crap and it still cost $150 million. Back in 2004, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow was promising a unique cinematic experience at a bare bones price. When the film was taking too long to produce its visual effects, its budget was doubled to bring in outsiders, and the film ultimately failed to make a profit, through it would have if it was allowed the time to finish on its own.

I can only hope that these by big companies realize that they could be under threat as artists find new ways to produce quality without them. Do you remember when Star Wars: The Phantom Menace lost the visual effects Oscar to The Matrix? In 2010, Image Engine, a smaller effects house out of BC specializing in commercials, did the effects for District 9, probably on behest of its director who once worked for them. The result was a $30 million film that made $260 million and was nominated not only for best visual effects (alongside Avatar and Star Trek) but also Best Picture as well.

If companies want to fix the problem, they need to go after the people making the films and games so expensive, not trying to attack consumers as being the source of the problem. There was once a time where a film breaking a $100 million was the badge of success. Now, your film bombs unless it clears $300 million. With the theater experience so ultimately disappointing, and theater owners not attempting to remedy this, we may be approaching not so much an industry crash, but depressing and quiet frump.

As for games, this may never be resolved. As long as games pull sales that movie studios would kill over, the costs to develop those games will continue to increase. Thankfully, we have organisms like Steam to allow smaller companies the opportunity to make their presence known. Outside of the Star Wars MMO I recently purchased, the last three games I played cost me less than $15 and were all released by independent companies. I put more faith that they will justify their expense than a game that cost three times more that I wrap in two days.

“I got a look at the new D&D game under development. I think you are going to like it because the system and ideas are really keen. Too bad I cannot tell you any more than that because of the ironclad NDA I signed.”

 

That is not good journalism. Hell, that is not even good blogging. It is great grass-roots marketing though. Hints of great things without providing one whit of  significant information that might invite criticism.  By signing the NDA these sites  announced to the world that they are beholden to “Wizards of the Coast” for access and unwilling to defy the corporate juggernaut of gaming.  In short, they sold out.

Now, an argument that the sites in question do not aspire to any journalistic standards and this is probably true. That said,  there is a patina of independence around blogs that implies some detachment and balanced analysis of games that evidently does not exist here.

For my part, I consider livingdice.com to be a journalistic, if amateurish endeavor.  I rant often (clearly labeled as such), but when it comes to actual reporting of current events I strive for a fair and detached approach. I also take my integrity very seriously. Gaming is a fun hobby for me, but I would never whore my standards out just to see a new game early.

So, here is the deal I will make with my readership. I will never report on any upcoming game release that requires an NDA.  Either the company lets me see the game with no strings attached or I simply do not write about it.

I cannot promise you will like my scribblings, but be assured that I am beholden to no one.

Trask, The Last Tyromancer

Hotel choices opened up a bit this year with a new J.W. Marriott, but I did not see any pressing reason to move from the old Marriott. I am sticking with the old, but reliable choice next year.

Convention attendance was up, a statement supported by a glowing Gen Con press release and my observation. Some game areas overflowed with gamers and even the hallways struck fear into the claustrophobic.  Nice to see the growth.

Apple conquered the tabletop gaming world with the iPad. Note I did not use the present continuous tense implying an ongoing process. The battle is over and Steve Jobs won. I sat down at RPG tables with seven players and seven iPads. They were everywhere!    One company in the exhibitor area produces 4E modules for the iPad and I expect other companies to follow with their own implementations.  Even I am tinkering with an idea for a website to support tabletop gaming from Internet connected devices. Anyone want to invest? ;-)

Game companies like to announce their new products to the public at Gen Con and this year was no exception. Most of these announcements popped up at GTS back in March, but a couple deserve special comment. The resurrection of a Wizards of the Coast pre-painted miniature line and new miniature game caught me a bit off-guard. After months of “we are out of the pre-painted miniature set business,”  WOTC jumps back into the market. Whether this is careful planning or a response to the Wizkids/Paizo set coming out later this year is unclear.

Honestly, I think WOTC did a 180 when they noticed people still played the “dead” miniature game and the RPG players clamored for new miniatures. I am not a fan of 4E for too many reasons to discuss here, but I always thought the D&D miniatures line was an excellent product with a lot of utility for the price. That said, I also look forward to the Paizo/Wizkids effort.  Competition in a market brings a smile to my face…and my wallet.  Give me your best shot guys and may the best product line win my money.

Fantasy Flight ran demos all weekend of their new “Star War” miniature game. Players guide miniature star fighters around a maps using small dial devices to issue secret moves and templates to move the planes.  I am a Star Wars geek and love “Wings of War”.  Of course it is not called “Wings of War” game mechanics but the resemblance is uncanny. Fine with me, game companies lift mechanics from each other all the time and if I can get in an x-wing to blast some tie fighters, I am all for it. Hope the price is reasonable.

The 2011 Ennie Awards did contain some useful insights.  This is a rare admission from me because I despise the Ennies as utterly pointless.  Actually, I dislike all  populist award exercises like American idol and the Academy awards as well. I find them shallow, more marketing budget penis-comparisons and populist mediocrity than valuable analysis.  That said, as an indicator of the trends in  the greater game community they have some value. A prominent loser this year struck me; Wizards of the Coast. Of course, they placed in several categories but only achieved victory in the “Best RPG Related Product” category. Paizo clearly led the field this year and even some smaller products like Evil Hat’s Dresden Files RPG beat WOTC  in the  ”Best Rules” category. Is the glow off the D&D brand?  Time will tell, but I am certain that WOTC made some strategic errors over the past few years that are coming back to haunt them. The young wolves are baying for the old alphas’ blood…

Speaking of old mistakes, WOTC also announced sales plans for previous D&D editions as PDF files. Nothing really firm yet, but it is nice to see WOTC finally getting a clue that selling legitimate copies of old games with some piracy impacting sales is a better plan than abandoning the market to pirates entirely. Just a suggestion for WOTC; make the PDFs relatively cheap. I would put the price cap at $5.00 max.  Charging $9.99 (or some other ridiculous price) for a second-edition builder book is a recipe for failure.

My rant is at an end. Now that my life is back in order, expect more regular posting.

See you at Gen Con 2012!

Trask, The Last Tyromancer

Most often, digital games have to force you down path, even one you don’t like or that makes little sense. By having players act heroicly, a GM can make assumptions and direct a group down a linear path, all the while offering the illusion that they’re making this by choice. This is dependent on a GM knowing his players and having the experience to understand their motivations. Console/PC game designers don’t have that luxury, forcing many of them to create a linear path players can’t work around. One company legendary for breaking this trend is Rockstar, makers of many games I don’t own (not one). Check my previous editorial as to why (I like being a good guy). However, I have to give them credit for designing worlds with complete player liberation in mind. I would only rate one other company as having a greater mastery of the open world concept, a company offering you the chance to truly be a hero, my boys up north, Bioware.

I never played any of their Star Wars games. I ran through Dragon Age and although I enjoyed the experience, the clichéd setting and convoluted conversations left me a little cold. Then came Mass Effect. The first entry was a thoroughly enjoyable experience with interesting characters and an expansive setting that could take you 40+ hours to complete. The game had a linear plotline concealed in an open-ended universe where you traveled across deep space, doing missions, upgrading characters, and generally making life annoying for the galactic baddies. There were three romantic options and the possible deaths for up to two characters. By the end of the game, you left a distinct impression on the setting with certain choices that could affect your life and the lives of others in potential sequels…but they would never do that, would they?

I mean when did a game ever give you THAT much freedom? Grand Theft Auto had linear adventures you could take at leisure, but the ending was generally fixed. Silent Hill had multiple endings though only one was actually good. One exception to this was Westood’s Blade Runner. Here was an audacious undertaking where a game randomized certain elements of its story each time you started it, greatly affecting how your character acted. These random elements included whether or not your character was a replicant. This led to over a dozen diverse endings, each well structured and sensible. I remember one involved you killing the last few replicants you’d been assigned to retire in the ruins of the old city, moments after your partner had been taken out by an explosive device. On a later run, the game ended with you and a teenage girl driving out of town after killing that same partner whom was convinced you were a replicant (in one play through, she was right, in another, she wasn’t), your original assignment being completed off screen by Gaff. This was as close as I’ve seen to a game that shared the freedom of a pen and paper RPG. But Blade Runner had one thing on its side—it was self enclosed. There was no sequel. When you make a sequel, most games are forced to acknowledge a “canon” story. Speaking about one of my favorite underrated games, Drakengard, you were presented with five different endings. The only way to unlock one was to play to the conclusion of another. Each ending revealed more of the story, introducing more characters, and concluding in a different ending. This culminated in the fourth ending which exposed the most and resolved the most, the side effect being the death of every character in the game including your own (the fifth ending is just weird, and I won’t get into it). When Drakengard 2 was made, the designers had to acknowledge one of the endings of the prequel as their canon ending (they chose the first). Drakengard 2 also had three endings, each different, but since Cavia recently folded, we’re unlikely to see a third entry.

The Wing Commander games were another example, notorious for their branching plotlines and diverse endings. I had decided at the end of Wing Commander 3 which ending I preferred. By the 4th installment, I discovered that certain characters that lived had actually died, those that died had lived, and I ended up with another love interest, only for her to dump my character before the start of the game. Pen and paper RPGs don’t have to do this. No matter how many months or years a game runs for, players can affect the setting and know that their decisions won’t be erased by the vengeful hand of retroactive continuity.

This brings me back to Mass Effect. By the end of the first game, you had options to affect the leadership role of the human race, as well as who shared your bed at night. The fates of several of the characters were decided by you. You would expect the game designers to acknowledge one sequence of events for the sequel, but instead, they decided to create a game that remembered your choices from the previous installment (with help by some skillfully inserted questions) and permitted you to continue with your personalized experience. Not only could you import your love interest and all the people you saved, but every sub plot you affected came back as well. To pile it on further, the sequel introduced ten new characters, any of which could be killed by the ending. Of these new characters, eight were potential love interests, should you be single going into this game or elect to abandon the previous love interest.

By the end of Mass Effect 2, there are so many different variables present; it makes you doubt the capacity of its final installment. ME2 skillfully had you hire a new group of characters. Your love interest from the first game only appears as a minor role in the second. The characters you could have killed barely show up at all. This allowed the designers to create continuity with your personalized game without the need to include hundreds of hours of superfluous content. But how could they get away with that in part 3? Do they expect us to reset the switch again, make all new friends and select yet another love interest? I look forward to seeing how ME3 plays out. It may be the first game that creates a nonlinear personalized experience over many installments, something Bioware appears to be attempting with Dragon Age 2 as well.

I love this. I can safely without a doubt that Mass Effect 2 was the most enjoyable game I ever played. Bioware has raised a bar so high, most other games suck now in comparison. When I play a new RPG or shooter, I wonder why they couldn’t do what Mass Effect did. What a shame.

In comparison, my personal Amethyst game has been running with few interruptions since 2001. The game has been broken up into three arcs, separated by 500 and 5000 years respectfully. Events from the first game affect new characters in the second and third. Through it all, only one player has remained since day one, having created a character for each game, seeing his decisions resonate for millennia in game time.

Beat that, Bioware.

My RPG sessions usually run several hours and excitement rises and falls as the campaign unfolds. Of course a good game master wants every moment of the adventure burned into the player collective memory, but sadly some encounters just do not work out as planned. The game continues but no one talks about that encounter the following week.

That said, there are occasions when the game master’s dark schemes, player creativity and PC capabilities coalesce into a moment that is memorable across games and campaigns.  In six months the player still chat about “that night” when it all went right.

Saturday night I ran my “Nightbane”  game and experienced  two such moments.  Forget everything else that happened that night, those two moments were worth all the preparation time and running a game for six hours.  I promise brevity in my tale. Rehashed game sessions are not that interesting unless you were in the room.

Our four heroes leave a café and head towards their vehicles in Santa Monica, California.  After several weeks of near-constant encounters with bad guys, street gangs, mysterious black helicopters and American Indian magical traps they had a new mission to “terminate with extreme prejudice” a local thrall of the dark forces.

Peacefully walking down the street, Templeton Peck (yes, it is an homage to “Face”), the spy PC takes a direct hit from an energy weapon. 70% of his hit points disappear in an instant. Sniper!

One PC runs across the street towards a likely sniper location, Templeton heads towards his car and the other PCs run down an alley where a strange odor greets them. The first PC is a mystic with the wrong skills and has no idea about the odor. The second is a soldier with some demolition skills. He hesitantly asks the following question,” What does it smell like?”

Answer: “AN/FO”

PC: “Is there a dumpster nearby?”

GM: “Yes. It looks new and is very large.”

Of course the dumpster has a car bomb’s  worth of explosives set to go off by remote control. I know it, the player knows it and this is the moment:    The   “ohmygodwearescrewed”  moment. Priceless.

Better start testing out those demolition skills.

Nearly simultaneously, various PCs make rolls looking for the sniper with the particle beam rifle and get lucky. He lurks on the ninth floor, fourth window from the left. One PC already charged the building and heads for the stairs.  Everyone else is more concerned with the 500 pounds of high explosives in the dumpster. Templeton coolly describes his actions.

Templeton: I take cover behind the car, open the back door and take out the LAW.

Dumbfounded GM: A what?

Templeton: A LAW rocket

GM: Hmmm. Forgot you had that.

The moment: Behold Templeton Peck in an impeccable suit, a spy with no concept of subtlety, unlimbering a LAW in middle of a crowded street in broad daylight with security cameras everywhere.  If you are going to drop your pants in public after months of playing a campaign based on stealth and intrigue, you might as well go big.

Templeton takes aim and launches the rocket.  I planned a careful escape for the sniper. Instead he became flesh confetti in one painful instant.  Of course, this took out most of the ninth floor and the power pack for the particle rifle detonated and took out another floor.

An internet star is born. The “Rocketman” terrorist is the new Internet meme. T-Shirt vendors already have his dramatic shot on cheap cotton hanging on street corner racks right next to Che Guevara.  Che is for posers. Rocketman outsells the dead commie 5 to 1.

I do not know of any other hobby that produces such moments. Sure, sports allow the occasional heroics and computer games let you make the high score, but RPG moments are better than those moments and I will spend a great deal of my life chasing these moments. They are well worth the effort.

Trask, The Last Tyromancer

As website traffic goes, 10,000 is a very small number compared to other sites on the Internet. Still, it is a good number for a relatively small niche like tabletop gaming.  On a personal note, I started this site with the express purpose of not focusing entirely on the few largest games in the industry,  “Dungeons and Dragons” in particular.  I could easily double my traffic by simply focusing on 4E to the exclusion of all else. This is not a slight against WOTC or their products, just a belief that D&D is a tabletop game, not the tabletop game. There are so many more great games  out there that fade into the shadow of a few giant companies, both in board games and RPGs. I hope to shine a bit of light on these gems when I can.

I want to take this opportunity to thank my co-blogger Stuart for all of his help and all the other contributors that kindly added their own thoughts and opinions to the site. And of course, everyone that drops by to read our scribblings deserves our heartfelt thanks as well.

Going forward, Livingdice is looking into creating some original game content, possibly for publication. This is still in the early stages, but we have some ideas…

Check back with Livingdice.com again soon. We are just getting started!

Trask, The Last Tyromancer

Think about it. We (role-playing gamers as a collective body) sit around all day and think of ways to do all kinds of carnage and mischief.  I set off several WMDs, blew up a few power plants, assassinated several evil overlords, spied on the villains, kidnapped more than a few enemy agents for information and saved countless peasants from destruction in dozens of different role-playing game campaigns.

It is time to leverage that experience in the battle against our nations enemies!

Imagine a group of gamers, given a set of parameters like; “You have $50,000, four days and a party of players, plan an attack.” Wrap some rules around it, offer a fig leaf of story and run it 50 times at a major game convention. I promise there will be dozens of crazy and guaranteed-to-fail plans implemented in under 20 minutes. Then there is that one plan that is absolutely brilliant and just might work….

Yes, I am certain highly intelligent, extremely well-trained soldiers and academics sit around every day and discuss this very thing. My issue is that they are highly trained and well-educated. These professionals know the limitations of every weapon, technique and strategy available to your average terrorist. Knowing all that, they choose the “best” option given their years of experience that is most likely to succeed.  Stupid or foolish ideas do not make it past the first round of analysis.  I think this is a terrible oversight, ignoring the incredibly stupid ideas that “just might work.”

Professionals are predictable. It is the amateurs that are truly dangerous.

This is our gift as gamers. Gamers create  stupid and foolish and completely original plans better than anyone. Out of the box thinking is for the non-gamers of the world. Gamers live out of the box in every game.  Doing battle with a giant spider in a zero-g environment?  I have a plan for that.  Need to sneak into a building filled with evil aliens, steal the secret plans and get out while blaming an innocent third-party? I have a plan for that. Need me to figure out the best way a terrorist might attack a target? Give me a map and 20 minutes and I will have a plan for that. Lots of caffeine gets you an answer in 10 minutes.

I cannot claim credit for this idea. Novels (Ender’s Game), movies and other media have variations on “the gamers are playing a real event/simulation” trope. That said, it just seems like such a good fit for the tabletop role-playing game hobby that the next time I play a convention game, I will check out the plot and game parameters very carefully. You just never know….

Trask, The Last Tyromancer

I initially thought this post would take a “tough love” tone and re-hash all the dire medical consequences of no exercise  to encourage gamers to exercise.  While all true, that message is everywhere. You cannot open a magazine, watch the evening news or visit a doctor without receiving the “speech.” You know, the one where you die young, suffer horrible diseases and never get a date due to your sloth.

Clearly this approach is not working. So I have a new suggestion for gamers; exercise because it makes you a better gamer and is good for the hobby.

Though you may not care about your own health or the social consequences of your sloth, at least do it for the games!  Exercise increases blood flow and reduces stress, both contribute to a clear head and a clear head means better tactics. Even RPG gamers with no need to win per se still need great tactics in combat and clever subtlety in the role-playing encounters.  Do not think of it as exercise so much as sweating towards a competitive edge. It is no different from researching a powerful character build, painting miniatures or building a lethal CCG deck. All are critical preparations.

The benefits of your exercise to the hobby are both tangible and intangible.  Tangible benefits include more dates for physically fit gamers which leads to more children and that leads to more gamers.  Combine that increase with the longer lifespans associated with exercise and the gaming  population will explode.  The hobby grows! Intangibly,  the pasty,  obese (or scrawny) stereotype of gamers will fade into history.  This is a longer term goal, but I think it is the most useful benefit of a physically fit gamer population. A better public image!  Geeky gamers may be, but at least they are healthy.

So as not to appear the hypocrite, here are my current exercise habits. I work out 4-6 hours per week with a heart rate monitor that guides my workouts.  I started exercising regularly about 5 years ago and now consider myself in adequate physical condition (for those interested in objective measures, my resting heart rate is 46  beats per minute and my “V02 Max” measurement is 169. Look up these measures if you like, but they fall in average range for my age (very late 30s)).  I will never be an athlete, but at least I can run a couple of miles without my heart exploding and that is enough for me.

One final item I that I must mention in the interests of full disclosure; exercise is unpleasant for the first few months.

That is a simple truth that far too many exercise experts fail to mention. These gym rats  always say “working out makes me feel great!” This is true, after you are in OK shape. Getting to that happy place requires sweat, soreness and probably some pain.  At least, that was my experience. Fair warning.

All that said I am not an expert, just a gamer pleading for others gamers to try different lifestyle choices for their benefit and the overall hobby. DO NOT run out and start exercising without talking to a doctor and doing some research beforehand.   Ignorance is a recipe for pain and injury!

So ends my rant and I hope to see fewer gamers at Gen Con trudging up stairs and more running up them!

Trask, The Last Tyromancer

Look at the current D&D landscape; 4th edition sold well, but divided the gaming community. Many longtime players ignored it or launched into endless edition wars in forums.  Others embraced the new version. Wizards recently made changes to the line and moved to the “Essentials” edition geared towards beginners. More infighting began and the community fractured again.  If that was not enough, now there is a push to use CCG booster packs in the game (Fortune Cards).  More fracturing and angry words resonate across the internet at the announcement.

Infighting aside, Wizards has D&D branded products everywhere, including:

MMORPG

Subscription website

Fortune Cards

Novels, too many to count

Comic books

Soda

Pillaging old campaign settings and repackaging them for a new edition(Dark Sun)

It all needs to end…for a while.

I absolutely want Wizards to make money with D&D. Profits equal more product, marketing (such as sponsored conventions, online events, etc) and a thriving RPG community.  That said, Wizards pushes the brand too hard, too often and too desperately for my taste. Brands require management and excessive exposure and licensing leads to the brand deteriorating. A famous example of this is “Star Trek.”

Star Trek rose from the ashes of cancellation in the late 1980s with “Star Trek: The Next Generation.” It was very popular and it spawned “Star  Trek: Deep Space Nine.”  DS9 did very well and along came “Star Trek: Voyager”. Still pretty good, but relied a bit too much on  Jeri Ryan’s ass for its ratings.  Still “Voyager” limped to a completion and did well enough for another series: “Star Trek: Enterprise.”

May Gene Roddenberry forgive their trespass.

Awful does not come close and horrific is inadequate. Enterprise flat-out sucked. Sucked so badly it killed Star Trek as a television franchise. So Trek rested and rose again with new vitality with the “Star Trek” movie, created by a new group of talented writers. Writers without three TV series worth of baggage.  Trek endured.

It is this same death spiral I see with D&D today. More and more product pushed to a very loyal consumer group without regard to the consequences. I think WOTC’s brand management is more interested in short-term profits than long-term health of the brand.  It is my assumption that pressure from Hasbro to wring more profits out of the brand during the recession is part of the reason, but I may be wrong. Regardless,  I want D&D to endure and the best way for that to happen is a hiatus.

Two years, bare minimum of no new product. Nothing. No board games, no comic books, no releases of any kind. Shut it down.  Move all the existing staff to new projects.  They did a great job, but you need to drill new wells before the old one runs dry. After one year, hire a group of talented writers from outside the company and start building a new version of  ”D&D.” Call it “5th Edition,” since everyone will call it that anyway and let your new writer’s stable go crazy. Nothing is off the table except what came before. Stop pandering to 40 year-olds that want more “Forgotten Realms” material and start pandering to 13 year-olds! Stop revising 2nd Edition campaign settings and create fresh, original worlds to play in. Be original!

My rant is at an end. I love D&D, but too much of a good thing is still too much. A hiatus will breathe new life into the brand and guarantee its survival for years to come.

Trask, The Last Tyromancer