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Enchanted Trinkets Complete--a hardcover book containing over 500 magic items for your D&D games!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="kenmarable" data-source="post: 3476400" data-attributes="member: 40359">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.</blockquote>

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