Draogn's Eye View 7/31: Transmedia Experience

[Sunseeker]

Nope. Not even that. The Justice League is still a group of iconic characters all together. And D&D ain't that. D&D (as a game) is not eight to fifteen iconic characters... it's whatever characters you come up with.

So D&D as a brand is much closer to the DC Universe brand as a whole. Hundreds upon hundreds of characters... 95% of which not a single person outside of DC's fanbase would recognize or know the name of.

So how does DC market their Universe? It's the DC logo itself... and they have a small number of iconic characters that are the face of the brand. They're the ones that do the heavy lifting to the unwashed masses. And it's implied that while everybody might be able to recognize Supes, Batman and Wonder Woman at face value... there's whole tiers of other characters and concepts within the Universe to get to know and explore.

But you still need those figureheads to represent the brand. You can't just put out images of dozens of random, obscure superheroes on the shelves and expect the public to notice them and accept them as distinctly DC Universe Superheroes. People just won't care.

D&D is the same way. You want someone to recognize something as distinctly Dungeons & Dragons... you have to put a face on it that people will come of recognize. And whether that's Drizzt, Mordenkainen, the beholder, or Venger... you need to have them in place.

Sure, but even by your own statement there is more to D&D than a few big names. The beholder, a dragon warding off adventurers seeking treasure, Batman and Superman may be the big names in DC, but the far and away majority of DC comic lines are the second stringers. You can only market Superman so much before that well runs dry.

To another point, any primary characters in any D&D story are the "iconics" of that story. Take my prior reference to the comic line centered around the group of adventurers. In the whole of their world they may not be big names, but within their own stories they are quite the big names. You don't really play D&D to hear about the stories of other adventuring groups, when you play D&D you are the stars of your own story.

 

[Klaus]

The diversity of D&D's representations in general over the years certainly outweighs the similarities. What's more, beholders (or whatever) have a similar issue to the goblins: spelljammer beholders and FR beholders and GH beholders and Eberron beholders are different kinds of creature, and their visual cues should be different depending on which kind of beholder you're going with.

Apart from the fact that, in-story, beholders have a variety of "bloodlines", with each claiming to be the "truest" beholder type, they're more similar than different. "Beholder", with its spherical shape, single eye, large mouth and ten(ish) eyestalks on top of its body. Put those in a creature, and it's a beholder in FR, GH, DL, DS, RL, Eberron, etc. There's no "difference" to beholders from world to world (aside from the odd cultural one).

Back to goblins for a second: D&D hobgoblins have always been described as orange-skinned (commonly with blue noses), with tusks, and a miliatristic outlook and garb. You see an orange, blue-nosed, tusked humanoid in armor and you think "D&D hobgoblin". That's brand identity work correctly.

 

[Remathilis]

The diversity of D&D's representations in general over the years certainly outweighs the similarities. What's more, beholders (or whatever) have a similar issue to the goblins: spelljammer beholders and FR beholders and GH beholders and Eberron beholders are different kinds of creature, and their visual cues should be different depending on which kind of beholder you're going with.

Remember that a setting without rules and guidelines as to what a "beholder" constitutes cuts both ways...

 

[I'm A Banana]

Apart from the fact that, in-story, beholders have a variety of "bloodlines", with each claiming to be the "truest" beholder type, they're more similar than different. "Beholder", with its spherical shape, single eye, large mouth and ten(ish) eyestalks on top of its body. Put those in a creature, and it's a beholder in FR, GH, DL, DS, RL, Eberron, etc. There's no "difference" to beholders from world to world (aside from the odd cultural one).

The cultural differences should be relevant to the art, because the art should evoke the world and setting and play potential of these creatures. A beholder is a sphere with eyestalks and a maw? That's like saying a human is two legs, two arms, and a head. It erases important distinctions that show the diversity of the game, and makes it homogenous with the knock-offs.

A Spelljammer beholder might be behind a bar, or blasting away other beholders in space. An FR beholder should be swathed in shadow and surrounded by minions. A GH beholder should be an alien weirdness deep beneath the earth. Those moods and those palettes and those associated items and backgrounds convey a potentially infinite variety.

Back to goblins for a second: D&D hobgoblins have always been described as orange-skinned (commonly with blue noses), with tusks, and a miliatristic outlook and garb. You see an orange, blue-nosed, tusked humanoid in armor and you think "D&D hobgoblin". That's brand identity work correctly.

I'm not sure that that's the case. Surely they didn't bank on that with 3e's hobgoblin artwork, and anyone who grew up on that hobgoblin probably wouldn't recognize the 2e hobgoblin or the 4e hobgoblin as the same critter (let alone the same critter as each other).

Rather than promote any one of those images as THE D&D hobgoblin, I'd like to live in a world where those are all potential hobgoblins.

Remember that a setting without rules and guidelines as to what a "beholder" constitutes cuts both ways...

Heh!

But that's kind of my point: FR is a setting and can have rules and guidelines as to what an FR beholder is. D&D isn't a setting, its a network, a platform. D&D isn't a setting any more than HBO is a setting or Hasbro is a setting or The Cartoon Network is a setting.

 

[bogmad]

The cultural differences should be relevant to the art, because the art should evoke the world and setting and play potential of these creatures. A beholder is a sphere with eyestalks and a maw? That's like saying a human is two legs, two arms, and a head. It erases important distinctions that show the diversity of the game.

Thing is, I don't think anyone is disputing this. DL goblins may have different clothes and do a little body modification on themselves, but they're still variations on the base form. Dark Sun dwarves aren't even totally distinct from FR dwarves, they're just what happens to your base dwarf after a magic apocalypse and years of "evolution"
Having a standard and variations on it doesn't seem antithetical to D&D.

Having totally separate worlds and completely unrelated versions of monsters was never a guiding principle with previous editions of D&D; different interpretations came about because designers and artists were making it as they went along.

The brand's been around long enough now that all that creativity has created a default identity that it seems WotC is trying to get a grasp of, yes, for business and marketing reasons partly. It's a task I don't envy

 

[Klaus]

A Spelljammer beholder might be behind a bar, or blasting away other beholders in space. An FR beholder should be swathed in shadow and surrounded by minions. A GH beholder should be an alien weirdness deep beneath the earth. Those moods and those palettes and those associated items and backgrounds convey a potentially infinite variety.

And has anything been said -- in the article or in the thread -- that prohibits this? Sorry, but it seems you're looking for shackling restrictions where they aren't. All of those are still possible, while maintaining brand identity.

I'm not sure that that's the case. Surely they didn't bank on that with 3e's hobgoblin artwork, and anyone who grew up on that hobgoblin probably wouldn't recognize the 2e hobgoblin or the 4e hobgoblin as the same critter (let alone the same critter as each other).

2e: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_egME-wKAc1g/TBYdeVo50oI/AAAAAAAAAhI/O1ujhQfqbYI/s1600/dd-b1-9.jpg
http://mondaynightdnd.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/hob02.jpg

3e: http://cdn.obsidianportal.com/assets/46122/MM35_PG153a.jpg


4e: http://fc05.deviantart.net/fs41/i/2009/045/9/f/hobgoblin_headhunter_by_fhoop.jpg
http://cdn.obsidianportal.com/images/132294/sinruth.png

 

[DEFCON 1]

To another point, any primary characters in any D&D story are the "iconics" of that story. Take my prior reference to the comic line centered around the group of adventurers. In the whole of their world they may not be big names, but within their own stories they are quite the big names. You don't really play D&D to hear about the stories of other adventuring groups, when you play D&D you are the stars of your own story.

That is an untenable marketing position for a "brand".

As I said in my original post in the thread... yes, for those of us "in the know", we are the stars of our own story. But you can't market the brand that way. People outside of D&D don't recognize some random fantasy character that is meant to represent one of our characters and have those people say "That's D&D!"

Now... if you took that same random fantasy character, gave him or her a name, identified him or her as a Fighter or Wizard, and had them come from the Forgotten Realms of Dungeons & Dragons, and had that same picture and character show up in place after place after place... THEN people could see that picture down the line and possibly be able to say "That's D&D!"

This isn't about marketing our individual campaigns or marketing the roleplaying game... it's about presenting and marketing Dungeons & Dragons as a whole. And you need your Superman up front and center... so that in the future after everyone knows automatically without thinking about it which brand Superman is a part of... you can put Superman next to some obscure character so that it too will eventually be able to be identified as part of the brand.

But without the foundation, that doesn't succeed nearly as well.

 

[dd.stevenson]

All I ask is that you be careful of collapsing the brand of D&D, with the worlds of D&D. D&D is a brand. Forgotten Realms is a world. Erberron is a world. Dragonlance is a world. Okay to be precise, they are settings with their own distinct world, but I think you get the gist of what I'm saying. Sure, they are all worlds under the brand of D&D, but in my mind, each is distinct. Now, I don't get to make the rules for D&D, but my belief is that each world should have a distinct tone, flavor and vision.

Question for you, Jon. Do you think that the core rule books (that's the Player's Handbook, Dungeon Master's Guide, and the Monster Manual) should have a unified tone, flavor, and vision? A distinct tone, flavor, and vision? Or should they be a mish-mash of all supported D&D worlds past and present? Or should they go beyond the published settings and show the scope of what artists can do with the descriptions without respect to consistent brand identity?

 

[Jon Schindehette]

Which one should be in an MM? Well, that depends on the MM's goals.

and now you are sounding just like me

How do you try to capture the diversity of all the different worlds in a single example. The answer is, you can't. But you can work to keep some consistency within the expressions. If you've got a video game, a comic book and a TRPG product all set in FR, then keep the vision consistent - so those folks that love it, get the same experience no matter which expression they interact with. If you've got a video game, and novel and an animated short set in DL, then do the same thing. A product that goes across all the worlds, like the core rule books??? That's a good question. I had actually proposed to R&D that we do the core rule books without art at one point. So that they could be setting and world agnostic. That didn't set well with most folks. So now, they have to decide which setting will be used as the point-of-view, so that I can choose how to depict the monsters in the MM.

...which means I get to have lots of discussions about why the goblin looks like "X". That's okay, I can think of nothing better than to spend my time talking to passionate fans about something we both love. I also know that of the 20 million + fans out there, I can never make all of them happy. That is a sad thing for me, but it's an impossible task. In the end, my goal is simple - try to represent the brand that I love the best way that I can.

 

[bogmad]

A product that goes across all the worlds, like the core rule books??? That's a good question....
....
So now, they have to decide which setting will be used as the point-of-view, so that I can choose how to depict the monsters in the MM.

So now it looks like we're not going to get core rule books with art that reflects a variety of the worlds? I understand the need for a consistent vision, and I'm not even upset if all the art in the MM is from a Forgotten Realms base design. I would however, like to see a variety of art styles represented, especially in the other core rulebooks. I've already seen a lot of complaints about the one default tone for fourth edition; why do that again?

The MM? Ok, I could see a lot of the default monster illustrations being similar styles, but it'd be nice to get some line drawing mixed in with nice painted "realistic" depictions every now and then, if only to give the imagination a chance to breathe.

Covers and promotional materials, sure keep that all similar, but why not let folks be surprised by the breadth of possibilities once they delve deeper inside?