And let the thread-crapping without any real knowledge of the game commence! A grand tradition!
I don't think this is something interesting. I think this is unnecessary.
"Unnecessary?" Like anything we talk about in these forums is "necessary". It's a game. Some will find it fun, others won't. Criticizing it as "unnecessary" is strange and odd to say the least. Do you "need" this to enjoy your D&D rpg? No, but you might enjoy it anyway. Or not, who cares?
Agreed. Stuff like this makes me think that the RPG is just a loss leader for their other products.
What exactly about a dice game makes you think that? Some D&D fans love having alternate ways to engage in the hobby, like card games, dice games, board games, video games . . . . what's wrong with ANY of that? Did you say the same thing when "Sword Coast Legends" (latest video game) was announced? Should WotC avoid all novels, comics, miniatures games, board games, and cool t-shirts? Should they bother trying to get an awesome movie made? Like "unnecessary" above, this complaint mystifies me.
Why wouldn't WotC want to expand the D&D brand into areas folks might really dig? And licensing most certainly DOES bring in more money (at least potentially, if done well) than the core RPG. Doesn't mean the core RPG isn't a priority for the company, as implied.
Dragon Dice for a new millennium?
Ugh. They're trying to make "Dragon Dice" a thing again? Whats next Spellfire?
Dragon Dice was actually a pretty cool game that was very successful, but for a variety of reasons didn't have legs. And, just like TSR mismanaged the rpg itself, TSR mismanaged their hit collectible dice game, killed it, killed the burgeoning collectible dice game "genre" (at the time), and further weakened the company towards collapse. But the game itself was fun.
IMO, the biggest problem with Dragon Dice was that if you got into it, your collection soon became unwieldy as dozens or even hundreds of polyhedral dice are a bugger to store and organize.
I never played Spellfire, was turned off by the poor artwork used (if you're going to recycle art for your card game, at least use the good stuff!). The game has a bad rep online, but lasted five years, four editions, and 12 expansions . . . somebody was playing it and having fun!
I think, lacking any real information about the new game, a questioning comparison to Dragon Dice is fair enough, both are D&D themed collectible dice games. But automatically assuming that, a) Dragon Dice = bad, therefore b) new game I know nothing about must also be bad, is just being lazy.