An open letter to Randy Buehler

[Shemeska]

But it has no impact on the development of D&D itself, merely an impact on their digital products division. The DDI being delayed doesn't mean D&D is delayed, since the former is merely an additional resource for the latter.

When it's a gigantic money drain, it impacts things. Development and budgets don't take place in a vacuum.

 

[The Little Raven]

When it's a gigantic money drain, it impacts things. Development and budgets don't take place in a vacuum.

No, they don't, but they also don't always impact eachother. Budgets for individual products are usually kept entirely separate from eachother. We've seen no evidence that the DDI's delays have impacted the budget or development cycle for D&D, so I don't see what purpose it serves to imply that it has.

 

[Spatula]

Before Dungeon went online, we'd get maybe one thread a month about each issue. Possibly a thread or two about the AP, but, usually not much than that.

Now, we get a thread devoted to every single article in every single issue. That's a great deal more attention being paid to the magazine. If they did post an overview, it's quite likely it would be on the front page of En World news within minutes. It would be read by a large number of gamers and probably dissected in numerous threads. At least one anyway.

In other words, a truckful of people are going to read this. Many of which are players and not DM's. So, there is some validity to his concern that it would be widely disseminated very quickly.

And what's stopping these players from simply downloading or reading about the adventures themselves, each of which also has its own its own discussion thread and gets featured as a front page news item? They can already do that, they don't need anything more from WOTC to spoil the AP for themselves.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

And thats great for him. And M:TG.

But not so good for us D&D customers. He's got alot of street cred, so to speak, magic wise. I see nothing yet that makes me want to have him around RPG's....

Of course, most of this "Street cred" revolves around him constantly pissing off Magic players, so...uh...well, let's see how he does with D&D players now

 

[Alnag]

I find it funny (as in odd, not in ha-ha) that a lot seem to focus on the overview issue, when the modules themselves are quite sub-par, even for WotC.

I agree. I am not impressed with those modules. I even suspect WotC, that they can't produce overview because there is none, at least yet. They will just loosely tie adventures together as they go.

IMO they really want adventuring path but for good AP you really need a good opening otherwise everything else is lost. If you don't see any MacGuffin or something than you are essentially screwed allready. No twists or anything will save it later.

I've recently heard some WotC staffer claiming,that we are bitching for more RP a story in those adventures but actually don't like it, if they do it. But hell at least some basic narrative tricks are really necessary for campaign.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Of course not. I wasn't implying that it should be one or the other. If you insist, I will spell it out.

I find it funny (as in odd, not in ha-ha) that a lot seem to focus on the overview issue, when the modules themselves are quite sub-par, even for WotC. I mean, without an overview, decent modules can still be made to work. An overview won't help much if the modules are crappy - unless you rewrite big parts yourself, in which case you do not really need an AP IMO.

I tend to agree that it's odd that these modules haven't recieved even more criticism than they have, and/or that people even really care about them. They really just don't seem to be very good.

I suspect, though, that the reasons they haven't are part of the same reason that people want an AP - Specifically, they believe these are just the beginnings, and that things may well get better in time, as writers find their feet and the supposed AP gains more direction.

An overview would inarguably help people to guage whether it's worth sticking with them and hoping the quality will improve, or whether they should just dump them. Also, for me, and I suspect many others, a lot of the recent Dungeon and Dragon material has been quite highly varied in content and tone, ranging from the genuinely sinister and somewhat epic, to stuff that comes across as nerdy and hokey, and would certainly cause my players a lot of eye-rolling. So again, an overview of the AP, and where it's going, what sort of villains we're going to deal with, and so on, would really help determine whether this is something that's worth paying any real attention to. I don't want to follow an AP, only to find the ultimate baddies are pretty much a "dumb joke" or worse, that the whole thing turns into a particularly tedious and unimaginative series of dungeon crawls, or a combination of the two.

 

[El Mahdi]

I agree. I am not impressed with those modules. I even suspect WotC, that they can't produce overview because there is none, at least yet. They will just loosely tie adventures together as they go.

IMO they really want adventuring path but for good AP you really need a good opening otherwise everything else is lost. If you don't see any MacGuffin or something than you are essentially screwed allready. No twists or anything will save it later.

I've recently heard some WotC staffer claiming,that we are bitching for more RP a story in those adventures but actually don't like it, if they do it. But hell at least some basic narrative tricks are really necessary for campaign.

Yeahhh. I've been kind of meh about most of the adventures also, and not just the ones in the AP. There have been some real standouts (like Ari's The Last Breaths of Ashenport), but most so far have been kind of so-so.

Personally, I've always felt that Dungeon Magazine was kind of hit-and-miss. I kept buying them, however, for those rare, really awesome adventures. But today, with the collection of published adventures I have, the stacks of Dungeon I have, plus free adventures I've downloaded from WoTC over the last few years (not to mention all of the fan sites with original adventures for free download), I really don't need the magazine anymore.

It sucks, but it's a fact of (business) life; keep improving or die. Harshly Darwinian but still a fact of life. If overviews and outlines are becoming the norm with adventure paths, then you need to provide overviews to compete. There's just no way around this for a publisher. If full size maps are becoming the norm, and you have the means to do this with negligable increase to production costs, then that's exactly what you need to do to remain competitive. If adventures suddenly started providing full size battle maps as standard, then you need to get with the game or fall by the wayside. If your customers are saying you just aren't providing enough "wow factor" (whether unanimous opinion or not), then you aren't providing enough "wow factor" and better start trying harder. If your format is not DM friendly, and this affects your sales (don't know if it is, probably hard to tell while their free), then you need to listen to your customers and change your format. Telling your customers that feedback and critiques are just ". . . fears about the lack of a compelling archvillain, or a logically complete structure, or major NPCs, or a real hook are all misguided" does come across as insulting, whether intended or not. The statement "Those “grand reveal” moments won’t be nearly as impactful if they’ve leaked out via plot summaries and/or an overview of where the Path is going.", also feels this way to me, despite the fact that game publishers have been providing just this with their adventures for years, including WoTC.

I really don't understand this kind of response to customers of a fan driven product and company.

 

[rounser]

D&D is, and has always been, a highly abstracted game. That's why things like AC, hit points, and most of the mechanics do not map cleanly to real world traits, since they are an abstraction whose purpose it is to prevent simulation of things to slow to a crawl.

Not so. Regardless of HP, compared to your average card game or board game, an RPG is extremely specific. It's only if you compare it to other RPGs that you can make the case that D&D might be abstract. Comparing it to other types of games makes your argument a furphy. Try again Mourn.

Ah yes, the idea that a martial commander who is more adept at leading troops then just beating ass has no right existing in a game that features a guy singing while his friends fight a dragon rears it's head again.

A D&D party is not an army. Heroes are not soldiers, and don't take orders from their peers by default. There is no archetype to back it up, which is why the name is so terrible (actually meaning something else that doesn't apply). For a core class, it's bad design (although it would be fine as something clearly optional, confined to a supplement).

Yeah, silly rules like hit points and AC and levels, all of which are huge abstractions to avoid issues like infection, hit location, and the like.

HP may be an abstraction, but it follows world logic. Once you accept it as a construct, it's consistent. Minions having 1 HP depending on who their facing is inconsistent, and challenges verisimilitude. It also manages to make HP in general even more of an arbitrary game construct than it was before, which is quite a feat (and not one to be proud of). There are other ways they could have achieved the same result without causing such suspension of disbelief issues, so this is lazy design IMO.

Oh, just like how people back in 1e and 2e would take "elf" or "dwarf" for the bonus to Dexterity and Constitution. This attempt to paint the newest editions as the only ones to attract power gamers is silly, since history demonstrates the game's ability to attract gamers that only pay attention to the crunch from the outset.

It's a death of a thousand cuts. No, 3E and 4E didn't invent min-maxing, but they have made it much more of the central focus of the game for the reasons I've mentioned before. We didn't have "builds" back in 1E, or at least, not anywhere near what's about now. You can rail against this by splitting hairs, but it still doesn't make it any less true.

Or they harken back to spellbook construction in all previous editions of D&D, since two wizard builds can be entirely different based on the spells they have selected

Why, there's a hair being split now! Never mind that wizards might not have much control over what spells they find, making your argument mostly irrelevant. Must....defend...4E...at...any....cost....

 

[Kishin]

Maybe D&D will become more like M:tG (or already has become that way), in that people will take their Dragonborn for the +2 strength modifier just the way they'd put a Derelor in their deck for being a cheap casting cost 4/4, and just think about the crunch effect...stuff the flavour. Arguably it's already begun with 3E and it's "builds". They harken to M:tG deck construction.

Except the concept of 'builds' in RPGs, at least what they represent, have existed in RPGs forever. What do you think your 1E Fighter with the 18 strength, the 16 Con and the 8 Int and Cha?

We didn't have "builds" back in 1E, or at least, not anywhere near what's about now.

The degree is irrelevant here; the concept existed. All that's changed is that the systems have evolved more mechanical options, which have added complexity to the idea of builds. The fundamental idea is still the same.

Why, there's a hair being split now! Never mind that wizards might not have much control over what spells they find, making your argument mostly irrelevant. Must....defend...4E...at...any....cost....

Your argument involves an equal level of hair splitting in its 'wizards might not have much control over what spells they find' (situational, at best), and then spreads a delicious icing of childish edition war insult hurling on it, so perhaps you are not the best one to make credibility an issue.

 

[Nifft]

If you insist, I will spell it out.

Look, you did make that comparison. It might not have been what you meant to say, and that's fine, but it is what ended up in your post.

Compare: "I want to have a discussion too, but I want to correct your English more than I want to have a discussion."

- - -

Anyway, I'm more interested in the over-view than the modules because, as has been pointed out, WotC has a spotty reputation for modules. However, I'm always looking for Epic plot hooks to steal, particularly from those who know better what to expect in terms of support from future publications.

Cheers, -- N