D&D Multimedia Poll - What Else Should Wizards Do?

[JEB]

We've been overdue for a D&D cartoon, with a style like Avatar: The Last Airbender - light enough for the kids, deep enough for teens and grownups, and well-written, with strongly defined characters reflecting D&D archetypes. And cross-pollinate its storylines with D&D proper, maybe even having a crossover adventure module.

Likewise, I'm surprised there hasn't been a really great D&D PC game in so long. Seems you could easily convert some of the classic D&D adventures, like Tomb of Horrors, into a series of dungeon-crawl games. Or just go back to the Baldur's Gate/Planescape: Torment formula...

Among other options, I'd also like to see a bigger push for D&D comics. Maybe comics tapping into more of their classic campaign settings, other than Forgotten Realms or Dragonlance?

Also agree with the suggestions for more boardgames (bonus points if these can double as 5E adventures) and a live-action TV series (Dragonlance would be great here). And the suggestion for pushing into non-U.S. markets (a D&D manga, perhaps?), though that could be tricky.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

We've been overdue for a D&D cartoon, with a style like Avatar: The Last Airbender - light enough for the kids, deep enough for teens and grownups, and well-written, with strongly defined characters reflecting D&D archetypes. And cross-pollinate its storylines with D&D proper, maybe even having a crossover adventure module.

The problem here is the one I keep repeating, but people seem keen to ignore - the sort of people creative and talented enough to come up with a truly brilliant cartoon like Avatar are not the sort of people who want to be bound to someone else's IP.

It's not impossible, and I could easily envision such a cartoon, but you would really need to find and convince the right people, and that would not be trivial in the least.

Likewise, I'm surprised there hasn't been a really great D&D PC game in so long. Seems you could easily convert some of the classic D&D adventures, like Tomb of Horrors, into a series of dungeon-crawl games. Or just go back to the Baldur's Gate/Planescape: Torment formula...

See above - the sort of studios which have the talent to make this kind of thing sing do not want to be bound to other people's IP. You would have to either create a studio, or locate one which was on the cusp of brilliance, but still poor enough to want to use your IP rather than a look-a-like one.

To be clear, this isn't a theory of mine, either - this has been explicitly stated by multiple studios and publishers - they'd rather take a risk on their own IP, which they own and which can never be taken from them, than go with slightly more certainty from an existing IP (the main exception being Star Wars, because that's bigger than god).

Furthermore, D&D has issues here because it is the original IP that caused studios to start worrying about this - the reason we have Dragon Age is because of all the annoyance WotC caused BioWare with the D&D license.

Among other options, I'd also like to see a bigger push for D&D comics. Maybe comics tapping into more of their classic campaign settings, other than Forgotten Realms or Dragonlance?

This on the other hand seems more viable - very few comic books today use new original IPs, and thus comic book writers/artists are much more likely to be happy to use your IP to tell interesting stories.