Alternate History: Magic The Gathering Never Exists. What Changes for D&D?

[Nifft]

M:tG never existed? Then D&D 3.0e would be based entirely on Pokemon, of course.

Cheers, -- N

PS: "I put two skill ranks in Speak Language (Pikachu)."

 

[Nightfall]

Nifft,

Nah it will be more like Naruto.

 

[Melan]

After years of lagging sales, TSR releases 3rd edition AD&D in a last desperate attempt to stay afloat. With very little goodwill from existing consumers, and failing to grab the imagination of young blood, the game is unsuccessful, and not even the relative success of relaunched Greyhawk is able to save it. After a lengthy agoiny during which the old company is strip-mined of its still valuable assets, it goes under, leaving its IP to multiple media companies.

The novels line, which controls the crown jewel (Forgotten Realms) and a few steady sellers (Dragonlance et al), remains successful after having shed its RPG origins and establishing itself as just another part of fantasy generica. Under good management, they remain the main driving force of fantasy mass literature for years. In 2002, a successful deal opens the way for D&D paraphernalia, which, riding on a wave of nostalgia, become a smash hit among new people, although they re synonymous with the novels, and not games.

The rights to make computer games end up in the hands of Bioware, who also controls access to the actual game system. Unable to strike a good deal for the FR content, Bioware eventually finds that computer gamers don't find D&D ideas sacrosanct, and starts to introduce more and more changes into the underlying rules apparatus, Vancian magic being the first casualty. By 2003, D&D is just a brand name of generic fantasy CRPGs and a successful second tier MMORPG.

The scraps are picked up by a number of small publishers. Enthusiastic and delusional, their dreams are brutally crushed as these relaunches prove to be dismal failures. Planescape and others enter into the ranks of cult favourites, lovingly remembered by the very few.

With the fall of D&D, gaming takes a big hit and - with no MtG and other hits - several hobby stores go under. Palladium becomes the market leader with the remarketed Palladium Fantasy RPG, and White Wolf manages to grow by capturing a few dissatisfied D&D gamers. The Scarred Lands RPG is targeted at the people who never liked "kiddified" D&D, and becomes a grognard favourite almost instantly. In 2007, the gaming hobby is smaller, older, although not beholden to corporate interests.

Hobby culture is both similar and different. The people who started with 1st edition AD&D or the basic editions mostly keep to themselves, seeing TSR's fall as a proof of having been right all along. A handful become vocal Scarred Lands fans, some rediscover New Palladium, but most stay with the games they've always loved. The biggest number of "grognards" is made up of disenfranchised 2nd edition fans, who feel betrayed by both old TSR and its successors. A large site called Olden Lore springs up, and after a number of highly vitriolic flamewars, consolidates itself as the main voice of AD&D gaming. On these boards, discussions mainly concern themselves with analysing, appreciating and debating over the corpus left behind by TSR. IC (In Canon) and OOC (Out of Canon) threads represent the bulk of discussion, but there is a strong feeling of separation between the two. Many people who take an active part in the discussions are non-gamers, just people into novels, character stories (a form of fan fiction) and cooperative worldbuilding. In 2007, cooperative worldbuilding is the main online face of what was once gaming. Consistency and thoroughness are the marks of the professional, while people gaming willy-nilly, while tolerated, are not really welcome.

***

God, that was much more depressing than I intended. Hold me. :\

 

[Glyfair]

And then does what Microsoft did with Battletech: it keep the computer rights and license the rest off to someone who will continue to make the PnP RPG and promote your brand - while not frustrating your computer game design goals from time to time through IP approval.

Nitpick here, Microsoft has never owned the rights to any non-computer Battletech. The rights went from FASA to WizKids, who then licensed it to FanPro.

As for guessing, I have no idea. I remember the time prior to MtG being a pretty poor time for RPGs. There were a lot of innovative ideas floating around, very few of which captured enough imaginations to last long.

 

[Steel_Wind]

I'm not one for what-if scenarios, but I have to disagree with this. M:tG had very little to do with the preponderance of kids getting into computer games. That was pretty much completely the natural evolution and convergence of console systems - Atari, Nintendo, Sega, and Sony - and affordable widespread home computer usage (with all the benefits of CPUs) in the US and Japan. While D&D and M:tG both had influences on console gaming, it's grossly inaccurate to say that either brand acted as a primary feeder to get kids into video games. They may have acted as a primary feeder for console RPGs, perhaps - but until recently that was a very small slice of the video gaming market.

I'm not suggesting it acted as a Feeder to computer games. I'm saying that by not being a feeder to D&D and RPG spin-offs, most of those kids who played M:TG skipped over D&D in its entirety and the card game wrecked the market.

Many did move onto computer games - just as many RPG fans did. This was not a feeder effect as you point out. The reason this migration occurred is not a direct causation at all and is due to other sources.

The point - however - was that they skipped RPGS entirely. And that's why M:TG was a disaster.

 

[LightPhoenix]

Magic:TG was a disaster for RPGs. Kids who got into it skipped over RPGs entirely and went straight to computer games. Whereas before AD&D had been the main "feeder game" with players learning RPGs from AD&D and then churning off to play different systems - all of that just plain broke in its entirety for three years+. The echo of that effect on those companies who relied on churn from TSR to provide them with new customers took the hit later - but they got hit by the same bus.

I'm not suggesting it acted as a Feeder to computer games. I'm saying that by not being a feeder to D&D and RPG spin-offs, most of those kids who played M:TG skipped over D&D in its entirety and the card game wrecked the market.

Many did move onto computer games - just as many RPG fans did. This was not a feeder effect as you point out. The reason this migration occurred is not a direct causation at all and is due to other sources.

The point - however - was that they skipped RPGS entirely. And that's why M:TG was a disaster.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding, but that seems to be exactly what you are saying.

I understand what you are saying about the MtG effect, however I don't think that it can be stated with any sort of confidence that those kids playing MtG would have been RPGs in general, or played D&D specifically. They are two very different types of games, mechanically and financially. It seems to me that there is a hidden implication that all gamers will like all games, and naturally anyone who liked MtG was a latent RPG fan. I don't think (ie opinion) that's the case at all. Look at athletes as a similar example - while certainly some atheletes do enjoy multiple sports, and enjoy all sports on some minimal level, that doesn't mean a soccer player would gladly play football, or that the existence of soccer is responsible for the lower number of rugby players.

I also understand how you are saying D&D was a feeder game for RPGs in general. I'm tempted to say that it's more dependant on who you started gaming with, but given that D&D was and still is the most popular RPG, I don't think I can really present that argument with any sort of decency. Perhaps if RPGs were more widespread and there was greater variety, that may be the case, but right now it certainly seems to be.

I'm also going to point out at this juncture, though not directed at you Steel_Wind, that at the time TSR was bought out, Interplay had the rights to D&D computer games and Bioware didn't even exist. In fact, Interplay had the D&D license until 2001, when Shadows of Amn was released. Were WotC not to go and acquire TSR due to a MtG flop (ugh, rampant what-if speculation), I personally think that D&D games wouldn't exist at all today how we know them. I think the property would have been in so much turmoil, regardless of who acquired it, as to inspire very little confidence in publishers investing in the D&D brand. Atari (who owns it, not Bioware) probably never would have took on the D&D license (after five years of possible further decline), it either being not available or no one willing to pay for it, and Bioware probably would have gone on to make another game based on their own intellectual property - possibly even a spiritual successor to Fallout 2.

 

[paradox42]

Eventually the buzz dies down, but the market is no longer in jeopardy as the move to selling in toy stores worked since your product is available where people go looking for your product. By today all toy stores world wide have large setions of RPG books. Even Disney has gotten in on the market releasing RPGs for the 7 - 12 age market and catching children prior to them playing the more advanced DnD style games.

Without yet answering the original topic, I have to comment on this. As a boy growing up in the 80s, I distinctly remember sections of D&D and fantasy books being in the local Toys-R-Us back in the first heyday of D&D. MADD and the satanic hysteria effectively killed those, and RPG companies avoided trying that avenue for years because the toy-store market had been poisoned. It wasn't because none of them saw what a success they could be if they sold in the right place; it was that the right place had suddenly become the worst of the wrong places.

In your scenario, given the upswing in religious fanaticism in recent years, with RPG books and sets back on the shelves of mainstream toy stores- the anti-D&D hysteria starts up all over again and history cycles back to what it was around 1992, by today. That's my take on it anyway.

 

[Steel_Wind]

Maybe I'm misunderstanding, but that seems to be exactly what you are saying.

I understand what you are saying about the MtG effect, however I don't think that it can be stated with any sort of confidence that those kids playing MtG would have been RPGs in general, or played D&D specifically.

We disagree. If you cannot see the correlation between the runaway success that was M:TG and the corresponding nosedive in AD&D sales from 93-96, nothing I say is going to avail.

If you don't agree that AD&D at the time and D&D in general at all times has been the primary feeder game to the RPG hobby, then I think you are just dead wrong and there isn't anybody in the industry who shares that view.

I'm also going to point out at this juncture, though not directed at you Steel_Wind, that at the time TSR was bought out, Interplay had the rights to D&D computer games and Bioware didn't even exist.

This in incorrect. BioWare did exist at this time and they were working on BG1. As well, you are mistaken that Interplay had "the rights" to D&D computer games.

What they had was the right to make some licensed AD&D products, including "Neverwinter Nights 2" (yes - you are reading that right - it was called NWN2 in the license at the time) and a Planescape game.

Key to the license which Interplay had was that it was only exclusive with respect to a narrow brand. It was not a carte blanche exclusive license over all of TSR's IP or even the FR - which is the license that Infogrames got when it bought Hasbro Interactive.

In fact, Interplay had the D&D license until 2001, when Shadows of Amn was released.

Incorrect. Interplay continued to have the Baldur's Gate license after this point. What Hasbro sold to Infogrames related to new games. Ultimately, several years later, Interplay lost the BG license when it went under.

Interplay sold NWN to infogrames at the end of 2001.

Were WotC not to go and acquire TSR due to a MtG flop (ugh, rampant what-if speculation), I personally think that D&D games wouldn't exist at all today how we know them. I think the property would have been in so much turmoil, regardless of who acquired it, as to inspire very little confidence in publishers investing in the D&D brand. Atari (who owns it, not Bioware) probably never would have took on the D&D license (after five years of possible further decline), it either being not available or no one willing to pay for it, and Bioware probably would have gone on to make another game based on their own intellectual property - possibly even a spiritual successor to Fallout 2.

You are rewriting history here completely in a way which doesn ot accord with reality. That just is not the way the way it happened at all.

BG1 was a huge hit in 1998, as was its direct add-on, Tales of the Sword Coast the next year and BG2 sold even more in 2000 with ToB extremely well in 2001.

Third edition had not told a single copy when BG1 was released and BG2 was released before 3e. All of these titles were based on 2 ed and set in the FR.

What the computer brand shows from 1998 onwards is that the demand for a high quality party based computer game using the AD&D brand was a license that was *extremely* valuable and which enjoyed massive sales far beyond what the underlying supposed PnP market was justifying.

Third edition had absolutely nothing to do with the value of that license. It still doesn't.

Elevation partners = the present owner of BioWare, were in negotiations with Atari in the spring of 2006 for the purchase of the D&D brand computer game license. This is what leads me to believe that at some point BioWare would have bid for it. That is not to say that they would have got it.

 

[Nifft]

Third edition had not told a single copy when BG1 was released and BG2 was released before 3e. All of these titles were based on 2 ed and set in the FR.

Third edition had absolutely nothing to do with the value of that license. It still doesn't.

Quite the opposite, in my anecdotal experience.

It was BG2 and ToB that got me and some of my friends back into D&D. I honestly hadn't touched D&D since AD&D (1e). The fact that 3.0e came so close on the heels of BG2:ToB got me to read it, then buy it and play it.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Steel_Wind]

Quite the opposite, in my anecdotal experience.

It was BG2 and ToB that got me and some of my friends back into D&D. I honestly hadn't touched D&D since AD&D (1e). The fact that 3.0e came so close on the heels of BG2:ToB got me to read it, then buy it and play it.

Cheers, -- N

That is not to say there is no value to WotC in spin off sales.

The point is that there was a perceived great value in the D&D brand regardless of edition. Be it 2E, 3E, 3.5 or 4.

D&D as a brand and the unique D&D monsters are bigger than the rules sets themselves. The value to the licensee is in the brand name and setting IP - not the crunch.