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It's time for a D&D Theme Park
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<blockquote data-quote="Benjamin Olson" data-source="post: 8931918" data-attributes="member: 6988941"><p>That video's definitely what I thought of with Evermore. </p><p></p><p>To summarize <em>some</em> key points (based on memory from months ago) for those who don't have the three hours: Evermore has never really come together, has, as the primary attraction, interactions with costumed cast members and occasional landmark events which, while very cool for a few frequent visitors, may well not really be happening when you are there. They are very good about making amazing, in no way typical, experiences happen for any visiting influencers or media, which is why many of us have gotten positive impressions in whatever stray references we've seen to them. The owner-managers, while not exactly villainous (they mostly just seem pretty desperate to make a cool but expensive and probably unworkable business work), are occasionally a little sleazy and generally rather manipulative of very dedicated employees, as well as volunteers. Construction stalled out on most things long ago.</p><p></p><p>Now, while the specifics have to do with being a small park in Utah put together with millions of dollars rather than the billions of dollars of a major theme park, there is some hard truths in the story about what any "D&D park" could be. Honestly it is a lot closer to "park as roleplaying game" than any imagined not-Disneyland with rides and a giant corporation behind it is want to be, and the hard truth is that "you can do whatever you want" games do not lend themselves to theme parks, which are best at providing a buffet of set experiences. Evermore staged something for one of their media visitors where they dug up a magic sword that had been buried for them to find. That's awesome, but obviously that's not the sort of thing you can just have guests be doing, if you don't want your park destroyed in a week. Evermore's experiments with having free-wheeling, impromptu storytelling with costumed employees have, while sometimes amazing, resulted in both problematic demands of employees and safety concerns, as well as a vast number of underwhelming dud experiences.</p><p></p><p>So sure, a megacorporation could make a D&D-<em>themed</em> theme park happen. And if enough people like that aesthetic it might be successful. But a conventional theme park experience is less like playing a tabletop game than playing a somewhat anti-social MMO, where you cue up to do a bunch of set, pre-programmed experiences, possibly with some friends, and there are a bunch of randos around trying to do mostly the same pre-programmed experiences in a different order. Evermore highlights all the reasons why tabletop gaming, a gaming experience curated by a live person to react to whatever you want to do and create a story starring you and your companions, sadly, does not translate well into a theme park.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Benjamin Olson, post: 8931918, member: 6988941"] That video's definitely what I thought of with Evermore. To summarize [I]some[/I] key points (based on memory from months ago) for those who don't have the three hours: Evermore has never really come together, has, as the primary attraction, interactions with costumed cast members and occasional landmark events which, while very cool for a few frequent visitors, may well not really be happening when you are there. They are very good about making amazing, in no way typical, experiences happen for any visiting influencers or media, which is why many of us have gotten positive impressions in whatever stray references we've seen to them. The owner-managers, while not exactly villainous (they mostly just seem pretty desperate to make a cool but expensive and probably unworkable business work), are occasionally a little sleazy and generally rather manipulative of very dedicated employees, as well as volunteers. Construction stalled out on most things long ago. Now, while the specifics have to do with being a small park in Utah put together with millions of dollars rather than the billions of dollars of a major theme park, there is some hard truths in the story about what any "D&D park" could be. Honestly it is a lot closer to "park as roleplaying game" than any imagined not-Disneyland with rides and a giant corporation behind it is want to be, and the hard truth is that "you can do whatever you want" games do not lend themselves to theme parks, which are best at providing a buffet of set experiences. Evermore staged something for one of their media visitors where they dug up a magic sword that had been buried for them to find. That's awesome, but obviously that's not the sort of thing you can just have guests be doing, if you don't want your park destroyed in a week. Evermore's experiments with having free-wheeling, impromptu storytelling with costumed employees have, while sometimes amazing, resulted in both problematic demands of employees and safety concerns, as well as a vast number of underwhelming dud experiences. So sure, a megacorporation could make a D&D-[I]themed[/I] theme park happen. And if enough people like that aesthetic it might be successful. But a conventional theme park experience is less like playing a tabletop game than playing a somewhat anti-social MMO, where you cue up to do a bunch of set, pre-programmed experiences, possibly with some friends, and there are a bunch of randos around trying to do mostly the same pre-programmed experiences in a different order. Evermore highlights all the reasons why tabletop gaming, a gaming experience curated by a live person to react to whatever you want to do and create a story starring you and your companions, sadly, does not translate well into a theme park. [/QUOTE]
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