This. I guess one question is whether or not Dungeon would be interested in getting submission proposals for some of these. I've been kinda jonesing for a 4e version of Castle Amber myself.
2008 Global Brand Study US and Canada and part of Europe.
Aided Awareness 89% (brand recognition)
80% WOW
89% D&D
54% have played D&D
94% think D&D is the same or better than other games (WOW, etc)
This would appear to demand explication. 1 in 2 people (150,000,000 in the United States alone) have not played D&D. Exactly what is the scope of this study?
It's still a nice number, but it's people specifically clicking through to WotC's website to grab Penny Arcade content linked from the Penny Arcade site. The real question is how many of those people clicked through to another page.
I disagree with what you say about one or two gaming sessions being an accurate portrayal. In one or two gaming sessions you haven't even gained a single level.
Two session would constitute a 10 to 16 hour commitment of time. I may not have experienced "everything the game has to offer", but if I spend 16 hours with your game and you haven't given me a reason to continue playing... well, your game has a problem (at least as far as I'm concerned).
To go on to say, as you do, that you need to play enough to experience everything the game has to offer (all three tiers of play? more than that?) is absurd.
To put this in perspective: 16 hours constitutes 20 episodes of an hour-long TV show. For many shows, that's a full season. So basically this conversation boils down to:
"I gave that show a chance, it just didn't grab me."
"You need to give it a chance! If you watch enough of it, you'll like it eventually!"
"I watched an entire season of it."
"No, no. You have to watch at least 15 seasons of the show before giving up on it!"
That's simply not a reasonable expectation. It certainly fails to match up with any reasonable definition of "giving it a chance".
One episode was called Dungeons & Dragons, in the latest episodes featured
John Henry painting miniatures and later even playing a combat against various monster, including a Mind Flayer. He has shown the ability to roll whatever dice result he wants, making the Vorpal Sword he's using particularly overpowered.
That doesn't surprise me. Somebody on the creative team is clearly a gamer. They've been referring to AI tanks as "ogres". (Which isn't a D&D reference: It's an OGRE reference.)
With respect, I'd strongly argue that this was also the attitude with OD&D, 1e, 3e and 3.5e. (2e tended towards more story-based railroads when it came to the modules, IMO.) It's hardly new.
(Re: "Kick in the door, kill the monster, take it's stuff")
You can certainly argue that, but it wouldn't be true. In OD&D and AD&D1 combat was treated as the last resort of the competent. In the very first supplement ever published for the game, Gygax redesigned the XP rules in order to further reduce the rewards for combat (and, thus, further de-emphasize the role of combat in the game).
4th Edition certainly didn't invent this (inaccurate) catchphrase. Nor is combat itself some sort of newfangled innovation. But making combat the increasingly central design tenet of the game is a post-WotC development.
This is a trend-line which predates 4th Edition, however. It's a design methodology that dates back into 3rd Edition's development cycle. And, from a purely outsider's perspective, it seems to have accelerated in response to the realization that the D&D miniature line was more profitable than the rulebooks.
If WotC is serious about moving away from that design ethos, I think it's all for the best. About the only thing that could help the game more would be if they released any honest-to-god gateway production version of the game instead of the pay-to-preview sets that have been published since 1991.
One thing I would say is that the VTT should decide what it is. Is it a virtual tabletop or is it a mapping program. The major problem I have with Maptool is that it tries to do both and loses a lot of functionality in the process.
If I recall correctly, there was going to be a dungeon designing program that was separate from the VTT. You would then import the dungeon into the VTT.
I have a question for the Rouse, but I'm not sure if its a brand or a design/development question:
At what point do you think the game designers will have to "break rules" to fill space in books? There are jokes around about the Martial Controller or the Ranged-Weapon Defender, but stuff like a Race with a negative stat or Large size, or a Ritual with casting times in the Combat-Encounter zone, or specific rules for killing gods (or a god) and time travel? Essentially, is there an end-point for design for WotC that can be reached, or has there been discussion of books going out into a decade of print after the original Core?
Actually, it would have to beat everything comparable already on the market. And that's just one of the many compelling reasons it should be the last tool they develop (if ever).
It's still a nice number, but it's people specifically clicking through to WotC's website to grab Penny Arcade content linked from the Penny Arcade site. The real question is how many of those people clicked through to another page.
Not by any of the players I knew. Nor, by inference, by the authors of many of the 1e modules, which were always heavy on the critters to kill.
In the very first supplement ever published for the game, Gygax redesigned the XP rules in order to further reduce the rewards for combat (and, thus, further de-emphasize the role of combat in the game).
In addition to the podcast files themselves (in .mp3 format), the Wizards site also hosted new art by Mike Krahulik (Gabe of PA) (and, for the first series of podcasts, also art by Scott Kurtz, creator of PvP) depicting scenes from the PC action in the respective podcast episodes.
So people could go from the PA site to the Wizards site to get sound and art showing Mike playing Jim Darkmagic, Jerry Holkins playing Omin Dran, and Scott Kurtz playing Binwin Bronzebottom. I think that the art itself is close enough to be considered PA (and PvP) content.
Actually, it would have to beat everything comparable already on the market. And that's just one of the many compelling reasons it should be the last tool they develop (if ever).
<Derail>
That's why I was asking about a licensing or partnership with an existing VTT producer. The idea being, WotC adds a service for subscribers (say an extra $1/mo. for players, $2/mo. for DMs) that gives you access to all of the 4e rules via the compendium within (ex.) Fantasy Grounds. If WotC included tokens with that, and cross advertised with SmiteWorks you'd probably nab quite a few people who are on the fence about DDi.
</Derail>
I was just hoping The Rouse had some insight for us
You can certainly argue that, but it wouldn't be true. In OD&D and AD&D1 combat was treated as the last resort of the competent. In the very first supplement ever published for the game, Gygax redesigned the XP rules in order to further reduce the rewards for combat (and, thus, further de-emphasize the role of combat in the game).
4th Edition certainly didn't invent this (inaccurate) catchphrase. Nor is combat itself some sort of newfangled innovation. But making combat the increasingly central design tenet of the game is a post-WotC development.
<snip>
If WotC is serious about moving away from that design ethos, I think it's all for the best.
Changing this design ethos would likely be a mistake. If you have detailed rules for fighting, then players will fight. Abandoning the centrality of these rules in what is clearly a fighting game is probably a bad idea. The real change in design ethos is the move to fun-driven (opr impact-driven) design rather than task-simulation-driven design. My guess is that when one sees the Robin Laws chapter of DMG2, we'll see far more of this ethos at work.
On a related note, while films, television, novels, and other media products based on D&D is great, these leave out significant aspects of RPGs that would genuinely inspire many to join the hobby: the co-authorship of narrative and the immersion in the first-person element of the story. Highlighting these aspects of RPGs is something that makes specific D&D appearances in other media so valuable. The best example of this was the D&D scenes in the last episode of Freaks and Geeks. This episode captured the empowering nature of the game, even for those new to the game.
