As a disciple of two of Wizards' flagship games, it's actually pretty interesting to compare the marketing strategies of D&D to Magic: the Gathering. While D&D seems to have had a mixed record in terms of profits, Magic by many accounts is a huge cash cow for the company. They seem to have hit upon the perfect formula - many avenues of introduction to the game, an extensive and well-supported organized play program, design efforts to ensure a smooth transition from beginner to expert players, a rotating format that encourages players to buy new cards four times a year, and absolutely stellar design, development, and creative work from the Magic team.*
The obvious avenue for Wizards is to adapt some of Magic's innovations, and I think we've seen quite a lot of that throughout the cycle of both 4E and 5E. 4E's exception-based power design which made use of many keywords is reminiscent of Magic card design, and the focus on tight mechanical balance could also be seen as an outgrowth of Magic's carefully controlled metagame. In 5E, with "Princes of the Apocolypse" set to follow up "Tyranny of Dragons," I think we're seeing D&D's equivalent of Magic's quarterly set releases, which debut a new setting with different mechanical themes every year. Similarly, the "push" of Adventurer's League and the casual Encounters leading into more hardcore Expeditions mirrors Magic's Friday Night Magic and more competitive tournaments.
Mark Rosewater (MTG lead designer and spokesman) has often cited the computer game Duels of the Planeswalkers as a big contributor to Magic's growth. For those unfamiliar, it's a game on Steam for about $20 that leads a new player through the basics of playing Magic, then offers a "campaign" or "open dueling" mode. It's gotten some great reviews, too, with the 2014 version averaging a 4.5/5 on Steam. For a Magic player, it's really easy to point an interested friend (often one who already plays video games) to Duels of the Planeswalkers and let them have a great time learning the game. Ironically, Magic's "real" online version is less well liked - it's well known as having a bad UI and being somewhat buggy.
Obviously this isn't a model that D&D can follow directly. There are numerous problems with adapting the social, tabletop, imaginative game directly to a video game format without changing the game greatly. But what if there was a way for D&D to adapt the Duels of the Planeswalkers model?
... enter DungeonScape.
Now, first of all, I'm in the beta and it's pretty bad at present. The interface is a bit hard to use and it's super buggy - I'm swimming in incomplete copies of characters generated when I hit the "back" button during character creation, and my characters often end up with every ability score above 15 - at level 1. However, I'm willing to trust that Trapdoor will proceed with their bug squashing and deliver a pretty usable product. Even at its current stage, I can see the potential for DungeonScape to be my group's go-to tool for creating characters as well as looking up rules at the table. I'm even more excited about what the app could offer for DMs - certainly combat tracking and information management integrated with my players' characters alone would make the app a worthwhile purchase.
But that's what DungeonScape offers an enfranchised DM like myself. What could it offer a new group?
First of all, the app's character builder is much easier to pick up than the no-art Basic Rules PDF available at Wizards' website. At this point, I think it's a safe bet that the Basic content will be available in DungeonScape for free, and what better introduction to D&D than downloading a free app and immediately diving in to creating your own, unique character (with pretty pictures!)? Even better, based on this blog post it looks like the Trapdoor folks are offering a "personality quiz" character building mode as well. It's a short step from asking yourself "what D&D character would I be?" to wanting to play that character.
However, I think the most potential comes from DungeonScape's suite of DM tools, including the ability to download an adventure complete with supporting materials. Sure, an aspiring D&D player can pick up the Starter Set from Barnes and Noble or Amazon for $12-$20, but that takes some time, effort, and advanced planning. What if someone could say "I want to play D&D," download DungeonScape, pick up Lost Mine of Phandelver, tell his or her friends to get the app and run the character builder, and run the adventure? What if the app had a "new DM mode" that had extra hints (popups, etc.) for the first-time DM? I believe this would take a large step toward solving the problem the Angry DM describes in his rant here, which boils down to a lack of guidance for new players and players who want to become DMs. What if becoming a DM was as easy as downloading a cheap app that taught you how as you did it?
Obviously, I think that would be pretty great. It could make a big difference toward growing the hobby and introducing new players to our wonderful game. And honestly, I don't think it would be difficult to implement at all. Most of the ideas I mention above are already planned to be part of DungeonScape - all they'd need to complete the package is some hints and perhaps a DMing mode geared toward new players. With the Basic Rules (and maybe even the first part of Lost Mine of Phandelver) free on DS, it'd be easy to get someone hooked for the price of an app that's already being created.
Who knows. Maybe that's what WotC's been planning from the beginning.
*Naturally, the Magic community is just as divided as that of D&D, and just about every Magic player, including myself, would probably have at least one point to argue among the "innovations" I listed. Nevertheless, with what seems to be a huge, consistent growth (nearly every large set is cited as outselling its predecessor), it's clear that Magic is on to something.
The obvious avenue for Wizards is to adapt some of Magic's innovations, and I think we've seen quite a lot of that throughout the cycle of both 4E and 5E. 4E's exception-based power design which made use of many keywords is reminiscent of Magic card design, and the focus on tight mechanical balance could also be seen as an outgrowth of Magic's carefully controlled metagame. In 5E, with "Princes of the Apocolypse" set to follow up "Tyranny of Dragons," I think we're seeing D&D's equivalent of Magic's quarterly set releases, which debut a new setting with different mechanical themes every year. Similarly, the "push" of Adventurer's League and the casual Encounters leading into more hardcore Expeditions mirrors Magic's Friday Night Magic and more competitive tournaments.
Mark Rosewater (MTG lead designer and spokesman) has often cited the computer game Duels of the Planeswalkers as a big contributor to Magic's growth. For those unfamiliar, it's a game on Steam for about $20 that leads a new player through the basics of playing Magic, then offers a "campaign" or "open dueling" mode. It's gotten some great reviews, too, with the 2014 version averaging a 4.5/5 on Steam. For a Magic player, it's really easy to point an interested friend (often one who already plays video games) to Duels of the Planeswalkers and let them have a great time learning the game. Ironically, Magic's "real" online version is less well liked - it's well known as having a bad UI and being somewhat buggy.
Obviously this isn't a model that D&D can follow directly. There are numerous problems with adapting the social, tabletop, imaginative game directly to a video game format without changing the game greatly. But what if there was a way for D&D to adapt the Duels of the Planeswalkers model?
... enter DungeonScape.
Now, first of all, I'm in the beta and it's pretty bad at present. The interface is a bit hard to use and it's super buggy - I'm swimming in incomplete copies of characters generated when I hit the "back" button during character creation, and my characters often end up with every ability score above 15 - at level 1. However, I'm willing to trust that Trapdoor will proceed with their bug squashing and deliver a pretty usable product. Even at its current stage, I can see the potential for DungeonScape to be my group's go-to tool for creating characters as well as looking up rules at the table. I'm even more excited about what the app could offer for DMs - certainly combat tracking and information management integrated with my players' characters alone would make the app a worthwhile purchase.
But that's what DungeonScape offers an enfranchised DM like myself. What could it offer a new group?
First of all, the app's character builder is much easier to pick up than the no-art Basic Rules PDF available at Wizards' website. At this point, I think it's a safe bet that the Basic content will be available in DungeonScape for free, and what better introduction to D&D than downloading a free app and immediately diving in to creating your own, unique character (with pretty pictures!)? Even better, based on this blog post it looks like the Trapdoor folks are offering a "personality quiz" character building mode as well. It's a short step from asking yourself "what D&D character would I be?" to wanting to play that character.
However, I think the most potential comes from DungeonScape's suite of DM tools, including the ability to download an adventure complete with supporting materials. Sure, an aspiring D&D player can pick up the Starter Set from Barnes and Noble or Amazon for $12-$20, but that takes some time, effort, and advanced planning. What if someone could say "I want to play D&D," download DungeonScape, pick up Lost Mine of Phandelver, tell his or her friends to get the app and run the character builder, and run the adventure? What if the app had a "new DM mode" that had extra hints (popups, etc.) for the first-time DM? I believe this would take a large step toward solving the problem the Angry DM describes in his rant here, which boils down to a lack of guidance for new players and players who want to become DMs. What if becoming a DM was as easy as downloading a cheap app that taught you how as you did it?
Obviously, I think that would be pretty great. It could make a big difference toward growing the hobby and introducing new players to our wonderful game. And honestly, I don't think it would be difficult to implement at all. Most of the ideas I mention above are already planned to be part of DungeonScape - all they'd need to complete the package is some hints and perhaps a DMing mode geared toward new players. With the Basic Rules (and maybe even the first part of Lost Mine of Phandelver) free on DS, it'd be easy to get someone hooked for the price of an app that's already being created.
Who knows. Maybe that's what WotC's been planning from the beginning.
*Naturally, the Magic community is just as divided as that of D&D, and just about every Magic player, including myself, would probably have at least one point to argue among the "innovations" I listed. Nevertheless, with what seems to be a huge, consistent growth (nearly every large set is cited as outselling its predecessor), it's clear that Magic is on to something.
