Does the D&D brand depend on a RPG?

[nerfherder]

I've read a few people predicting that D&D 4e could be a MMORPG or DDM, rather than a pen & paper RPG.

Would the value of the D&D brand diminish greatly if there wasn't actually a current D&D RPG being produced any more? Or would it remain pretty much the same?

Note - the question assumes it wouldn't go up. If you think that it would, please enlighten me!

 

[Odhanan]

Well, I guess the value of the D&D brand (and by value I mean cash $$$ value) could be increased if the new treatment succeeds in enlarging the customer base.

Not that I would care at that point. If there isn't a D&D tabletop RPG anymore, I don't think I'm going to be a client for whatever 4E might become. I'll still play with friends, buy some PDFs to fuel my cyclic need for new blood and publish some OGL stuff whenever the fancy strikes, and I'll go on with my tabletop gaming as the old grognard I would then have officially become. *shrug*

 

[JoeGKushner]

With games on the computer ranging from way back in the day to games on the X-Box and still on the computer today, I think that if the paper version of D&D disappeared that the brand would still have a lot of strength in the minis, movies, novels, and video games with perhaps a renewed focus on board games that you could buy in Toys R Us like Heroscape.

 

[el-remmen]

Since most people don't know what a tabletop RPG is or how it works - and most people you mention D&D to assume you are referring to either a board game or a computer game - my guess is that by making that mistaken impression the correct one, I think the profitability and notoriety would only increase.

 

[kenmarable]

I think it's be as successful branding as if Hasbro stopped making Monopoly board games and turned it into a TV game show. Sure it could use all of the same names and they could even find some host that looked just like Rich Uncle Pennybags (sorry, Mr. Monopoly now) and millions of people might watch it, but I think it really wouldn't be MONOPOLY.

Same thing with D&D. They could transition it, but at the end of the day, it wouldn't really be what D&D has always been and whatever everyone in society (from consumer to anti-RPG religious fanatic to average person on the street) thinks of as D&D. In fact, since so many more people know the brand from its history not any current developments (because they are outside of the hobby currently), trying to re-build it into something else and bring even some of those people in as new consumers would be nothing but an uphill battle of "No, that's what D&D *was*, D&D *now*is something completely different." with the typical response being "Then why'd you call it D&D if it's not D&D?"

The "This isn't your father's D&D" style ad campaign can only go so far in countering that historical baggage. Plus, that sort of "historical baggage" is the sort of thing businesses sink millions upon millions of dollars to build. Just yesterday a local radio DJ here was on location at some event and said the event director was "geeked". When the person said she didn't know what "geeked" meant, he replied "I don't mean playing Dungeons and Dragons. It means being excited." Yeah, it's the usual jab at gamers, but it's still showing some random DJ can just throw it out there offhandedly. It's part of the popular culture and running against that sort of public conception rather than with it is effectively burning millions of dollars worth of branding. That'd be up there with New Coke. It'd be FAR more effective (in both results and costs) to somewhat shape the public conception (e.g. by trying to remove the social stigma, say by pointing to celebrity gamers or getting movie placements) than trying to utterly redefine it.

In the end, a modified brand (like "Dungeons and Dragon Online" and "Dungeons and Dragons Miniatures") or even an altogether new brand, would be far more successful than outright rebranding D&D itself as something other than a tabletop RPG.

That being said, this is pretty academic because I think notions that 4e will be an MMORPG or even DDM are way out there in the realm of plausibility. There are many possible scenarios that WotC could pursue to boost D&D profitability, and going solely MMORPG or DDM with no tabletop component are certainly not it. At least in my opinion, and I guess we'll see.

 

[Mark CMG]

I've read a few people predicting that D&D 4e could be a MMORPG or DDM, rather than a pen & paper RPG.

That is sort of a mixed up sentence. I think "4E" implies it is the next generation of the D&D RPG. If you are asking if WotC might stop producing D&D RPG materials and begin pushing a D&D MMORPG or simply push their D&D DDM, I guess it is possible but I think they would be quite happy allowing the D&D brand to include all three of those types of games.

 

[kenmarable]

Since most people don't know what a tabletop RPG is or how it works - and most people you mention D&D to assume you are referring to either a board game or a computer game - my guess is that by making that mistaken impression the correct one, I think the profitability and notoriety would only increase.

That's funny. It's just anecdotal, of course, but my impression is the utter opposite. Most people may not know how a tabletop RPG works, but they have a fuzzy idea of what D&D is - it's the game you play with dice in your basement pretending to be wizards and stuff. Not that I ask random people all the time, but since I'm not shy about talking about my gaming, I talk to quite a few people from all sorts of backgrounds about it. I have *never* met anyone who thought D&D was either a board game or a computer game. In fact, I don't think I've talked to anyone under the age of 60 or so who hadn't heard of D&D. But that's just my anecdotal evidence for what it's worth.

 

[Desdichado]

Heh. This question looks familiar.

I'll summarize what I said about this issue on another messageboard recently--I actualy almost hope that that's exactly what does happen. I know, I know--sounds weird, but think about it for a moment. I probably won't be playing any MMORG type D&D, but if the game is really good; who knows? It'd be nice to have the option. And if that's where D&D goes, that means that the regular rpg hobby becomes "frozen" at the SRD level, so to speak, and because of the OGL, it can continue forever, supported by third party companies.

That means that I can keep playing what I want to without worrying about getting pressured into upgrading when a new edition comes out by my groups, because there won't be any new editions coming out. I can still get new material--presumably of high quality if I spend to time to look for it--because the OGL is non-revokable and will always exist, and if that's the "final" version of the rules, then folks will still publish using the OGL from time to time. It may be bad for the hobby overall in the long-term, but for me personally, it's a hard scenario to beat.

However, I don't think that's necessarily likely. I think it's more likely that WotC/Hasbro are gathering up all their licenses back in house in preparation to put the D&D brand up for sale.

Hmmm. Guess that wasn't a summary. In fact, that ended up longer than my reply to this idea on the other messageboard, as a matter of fact. Oh well.

 

[Mark CMG]

That means that I can keep playing what I want to without worrying about getting pressured into upgrading when a new edition comes out by my groups, because there won't be any new editions coming out. I can still get new material (. . .)

Just to explore this statement a bit, I think times have changed rather radically in regard to how much real pressure a company can exert to promote changing over to a new edition. Ten, fifteen, twenty years ago it was actually much harder, or seemingly so, for most people to get even core materials for older editions. You might happen to know someone who had given up hobby gaming an had a box of stuff they didn't want or stumble across a book or two at a used bookstore or garage sale but finding a large selection even at a decent sized gamestore was hit and miss. New people would come to the hobby and find the most available materials were the most recent editions of games. People replacing their books or who had been non-buyers in games where the people who owned the books moved away or went to college might finally start spending money would primarily have just the newest editions of thier chosen games available. Nowadays you do a quick search online, make an electronic payment, and have boxes of gaming materials from almost any system in any edition on your doorstep the next day if you like. I do not think games have the same level of built-in obsolescence they once had and that makes pushing new editions a much harder sell.

 

[T. Foster]

If D&D the pen & paper rpg disappeared and the brand was represented in the marketplace only by the MMORPG, CRPGs, DDM, and perhaps a mass-market boardgame version of DDM (something along the lines of TSR's old Dungeon! boardgame, or a simpler version of FFG's Descent) to be sold at Target and Wal-Mart I doubt the world at large would even notice -- and, as el-remmen already said above, I'd guess most people assume that's what it is already (that plus costumed LARPers running around in the woods and/or steam tunnels). That there are actually people still playing D&D the way it was done in the 80s (gathered around the table in the basement with the funny-shaped dice, etc.) would probably come as a great surprise to most people, including not a few who actually used to play that way back then.