DerekSTheRed
Explorer
Does D&D Next need to launch with a new Living Campaign? The first Living Campaign was Living City during the AD&D days. With the launch of 3rd Edition, WotC also started Living Greyhawk. When 3rd Edition gave way to 4th Edition, Living Greyhawk was ended and Living Forgotten Realms was introduced. Now that D&D Next is about to drop, will WotC create a new Living Campaign? A better question in my mind is whether they should create a new one?
Initially the RPGA encompassed all organized play for multiple RPG systems but charged a membership fee. Then WotC made it free, but ended all non-WotC games. The idea was to make the RPGA part of the marketing of D&D. In addition to Living Campaigns, WotC also created non-living organized play campaigns like Legend of the Green Regent, Mark of Heroes, Xen'drik Adventures, and finally D&D Encounters. With Living Forgotten Realms play dwindling even before the announcement of Next (WotC has stopped devoting servers to record the sessions), I've begun to wonder if campaigns like D&D Encounters serve WotC better than the Living Campaigns. Encounters allows WotC to push their latest product while fans get a free taste before buying.
Pathfinder also has a Living Campaign encompassed in its Pathfinder Society. I wouldn't be surprised if many fans of Living Greyhawk moved to the Pathfinder alternative much like some fans of 3E moved to Pathfinder instead of 4E. This brings into question whether Living Forgotten Realms dwindled because of its changes away from Living Greyhawk (which had massive appeal relative to all other Living Campaigns) or if the dwindling 4th Edition player base would have hurt any Living Campaign regardless (or some combination of the two).
Another interesting wrinkle is to look at the place D&D Insider has in WotC relative to the RPGA. When Paizo was publishing Dungeon, WotC got a licensing fee regardless of how many magazines of Dungeon sold. At the same time, the RPGA was producing free modules that anyone could download. Once Dungeon became part of an online subscription model, the RPGA's free adventures were in direct competition with a product WotC was selling for a fee. It doesn't seem like that's a situation that was sustainable, and I'm not surprised the free content was sidelined. If WotC plans on publishing more adventures to support D&D Next, I would expect WotC will try to make money off of them. I can already imagine the internal memo in Wotc arguing against a Living Campaign since the marketing goals are already accomplished via Encounters and the demand for modules in support of Next can be sold instead of given away.
As a fan of Living Campaigns, this would make me sad. I ran a gameday for Living Greyhawk and attended conventions where I played LG modules in attempt to make my mark in a shared campaign setting. Part of the fun was the stories of PCs affecting the regional canon. I've just finished reading the excellent "BDKR1: The Unofficial Living Greyhawk Bandit Kingdoms Summary" by Casey Brown. As someone who played LG in the Bandit Kingdoms, it brought back a lot of good memories.
Looking back, LG provided me with a lot of incentive to buy WotC products. This was mainly due to the arms race players engaged in against the regional triads. As Casey points out, LG encouraged min/maxing for survival by lowering gp rewards and having very tough fights along with probably one too many fights per mod. In order for a PC to survive, his player had to buy the book with the latest broken rules to exploit before they were nerfed. And of course the modules had the latest over powered monsters so essentially WotC sold to both sides of the conflict (like any good arms dealer would do).
LG was able to support play at home, at a gameday, or at a convention. When LFR was started, it undid the regional system. The regional system caused a lot of problems, but in hindsight it was probably the thing that made going to conventions and participating in convention only events that could change canon fun. The fact that LFR made it difficult to interact with the Forgotten Realms novel line also prevented canon from being altered too much. LG had an extensive amount of existing canon that the players were given free reign to do as they please. LFR didn't have that luxury. As a result, convention attendance for LFR suffered.
I'm sure one could make an argument that convention play shouldn't be important to WotC. Or at least smaller convention play anyway. WotC could have special convention modules for the big cons only. They could even setup a system in which a player could bring his own PC to the table provided he met certain guidelines. I just don't see that as appealing as the convention with Living Campaign modules. Pathfinder Society is being played at these types of conventions and if they work to generate interest for their product, can WotC afford to not compete in this arena?
I believe the best policy for WotC would be to create a new Living Campaign, launch it with D&D Next, and set it up with lessons learned from LG and LFR. The new campaign would need to support home games, gamedays and conventions, be in a campaign setting with lots of rich canon, don't let other products interfere with the canon (like new novels), include a modified regional system to encourage player participation and con attendance, and do so in a way to maximize interest in D&D Next before converting that interest into sales.
One way to convert interest into sales would be to require a D&D Insider subscription as part of high level play in the Living Campaign. Essentially the first taste at low level is free, but to play your PC past a certain level would require a subscription. This business model would bring us full circle to the time when being an RPGA member required a fee. Maybe then WotC will offer other games systems a chance to participate (with WotC taking a cut of course)?
As I said, I'm a fan of Living Campaigns when they are done right. My concern is that WotC will put out a half-assed rehash of LFR and then act surprised when it fails. When it comes to Living Campaigns, a bad one is worse than none at all. Either go big or go home.
Initially the RPGA encompassed all organized play for multiple RPG systems but charged a membership fee. Then WotC made it free, but ended all non-WotC games. The idea was to make the RPGA part of the marketing of D&D. In addition to Living Campaigns, WotC also created non-living organized play campaigns like Legend of the Green Regent, Mark of Heroes, Xen'drik Adventures, and finally D&D Encounters. With Living Forgotten Realms play dwindling even before the announcement of Next (WotC has stopped devoting servers to record the sessions), I've begun to wonder if campaigns like D&D Encounters serve WotC better than the Living Campaigns. Encounters allows WotC to push their latest product while fans get a free taste before buying.
Pathfinder also has a Living Campaign encompassed in its Pathfinder Society. I wouldn't be surprised if many fans of Living Greyhawk moved to the Pathfinder alternative much like some fans of 3E moved to Pathfinder instead of 4E. This brings into question whether Living Forgotten Realms dwindled because of its changes away from Living Greyhawk (which had massive appeal relative to all other Living Campaigns) or if the dwindling 4th Edition player base would have hurt any Living Campaign regardless (or some combination of the two).
Another interesting wrinkle is to look at the place D&D Insider has in WotC relative to the RPGA. When Paizo was publishing Dungeon, WotC got a licensing fee regardless of how many magazines of Dungeon sold. At the same time, the RPGA was producing free modules that anyone could download. Once Dungeon became part of an online subscription model, the RPGA's free adventures were in direct competition with a product WotC was selling for a fee. It doesn't seem like that's a situation that was sustainable, and I'm not surprised the free content was sidelined. If WotC plans on publishing more adventures to support D&D Next, I would expect WotC will try to make money off of them. I can already imagine the internal memo in Wotc arguing against a Living Campaign since the marketing goals are already accomplished via Encounters and the demand for modules in support of Next can be sold instead of given away.
As a fan of Living Campaigns, this would make me sad. I ran a gameday for Living Greyhawk and attended conventions where I played LG modules in attempt to make my mark in a shared campaign setting. Part of the fun was the stories of PCs affecting the regional canon. I've just finished reading the excellent "BDKR1: The Unofficial Living Greyhawk Bandit Kingdoms Summary" by Casey Brown. As someone who played LG in the Bandit Kingdoms, it brought back a lot of good memories.
Looking back, LG provided me with a lot of incentive to buy WotC products. This was mainly due to the arms race players engaged in against the regional triads. As Casey points out, LG encouraged min/maxing for survival by lowering gp rewards and having very tough fights along with probably one too many fights per mod. In order for a PC to survive, his player had to buy the book with the latest broken rules to exploit before they were nerfed. And of course the modules had the latest over powered monsters so essentially WotC sold to both sides of the conflict (like any good arms dealer would do).
LG was able to support play at home, at a gameday, or at a convention. When LFR was started, it undid the regional system. The regional system caused a lot of problems, but in hindsight it was probably the thing that made going to conventions and participating in convention only events that could change canon fun. The fact that LFR made it difficult to interact with the Forgotten Realms novel line also prevented canon from being altered too much. LG had an extensive amount of existing canon that the players were given free reign to do as they please. LFR didn't have that luxury. As a result, convention attendance for LFR suffered.
I'm sure one could make an argument that convention play shouldn't be important to WotC. Or at least smaller convention play anyway. WotC could have special convention modules for the big cons only. They could even setup a system in which a player could bring his own PC to the table provided he met certain guidelines. I just don't see that as appealing as the convention with Living Campaign modules. Pathfinder Society is being played at these types of conventions and if they work to generate interest for their product, can WotC afford to not compete in this arena?
I believe the best policy for WotC would be to create a new Living Campaign, launch it with D&D Next, and set it up with lessons learned from LG and LFR. The new campaign would need to support home games, gamedays and conventions, be in a campaign setting with lots of rich canon, don't let other products interfere with the canon (like new novels), include a modified regional system to encourage player participation and con attendance, and do so in a way to maximize interest in D&D Next before converting that interest into sales.
One way to convert interest into sales would be to require a D&D Insider subscription as part of high level play in the Living Campaign. Essentially the first taste at low level is free, but to play your PC past a certain level would require a subscription. This business model would bring us full circle to the time when being an RPGA member required a fee. Maybe then WotC will offer other games systems a chance to participate (with WotC taking a cut of course)?
As I said, I'm a fan of Living Campaigns when they are done right. My concern is that WotC will put out a half-assed rehash of LFR and then act surprised when it fails. When it comes to Living Campaigns, a bad one is worse than none at all. Either go big or go home.
