[Dragon] D&D versus d20 content

[diaglo]

Absolutlely! And I would do just that if Dragon was no longer devoted to D&D/D&D-related d20.

plus it is more environmental friendly... less trees slain to bring us this news... Darn the Empire.

 

[Wombat]

This discussion is taking an interesting twist, so here is my 2 cents...

Dragon is and should remain a D&D (or at least D20) magazine. That is its purpose, that is its fan base. General magazines have not survived very long -- Pyramid is sort of an exception, but there is very, very little non-GURPS material presented there, other than utterly non-statted articles. I was a fan of Different Worlds back in the day, but it lost out due to no focus, ergo almost no subscriptions. White Wolf was general, until it turned into White Wolf: INPHOBIA! which, oddly, was the death knell for the magazine. Oh well, exception to every rule, I suppose. Be that as may be, Dragon would not pick up any appreciable number of new readers if it went more general, while it would probably cheese off its core fans.

OTOH...

Although I play a heavy variant D20 game, I have not used or enjoyed a single article in Dragon (other than 1 or 2 comics) for the last 5-6 issues. I am not interested in the minis, I did not change to 3.5, I don't run plane-spanning campaigns, I have no need for most of the PrCs published, and I find the magazine utterly unsuited for my taste and needs. Don't even get me started about the fiction.

I am, however, an exception. Most people who play D20 games like Dragon. As such it should continue as it is. It may have lost my subscription, but that is only a single voice and there will be 1 or 2 others who will start to pick it up at the point that I drop it. No, the magazine should definitely retain its focus.

 

[Faraer]

I would like Dragon better, and the RPG culture would be healthier, if Dragon covered non-d20 games. I don't like buying house organs (and rarely buy Dragon, for other reasons). But I understand its need to focus and specialize and don't see why it would want to change the kind of magazine it is.

I don't agree that rules-heavy articles are more generally applicable than others. Taking a bunch of mechanics and making up an in-world basis for them seems ass-backwards worldbuilding. You're just as likely to find a mechanic that doesn't work in your world as a non-mechanical point of difference. And catering to the rules-loving contingent of RPGers is a total dead end in terms of expanding the medium of roleplaying. Similarly, 'world-specific' articles are no less generally useful (assuming a relatively normal D&D-fantasy world) than ones with no labelled setting but obviously an implicit one.

 

[WizarDru]

And catering to the rules-loving contingent of RPGers is a total dead end in terms of expanding the medium of roleplaying.

I'm curious, how does/has the medium of role-playing significantly expanded in the last 30 years, in general, other than the rules? I mean, I was playing a deep, immersive RP-heavy political game in 1987, and a very heavily story-driven game by 1984. I'm just curious how the medium could be changed, and what you mean. Most of the changes I think of in the RPG arena are all tied to rules.

 

[Faraer]

I'm not saying roleplaying has 'advanced' -- it's not a technology (well, it is...), playstyles aren't necessarily better than others (though I think some are!), and we have plenty of examples of roleplaying-over-rules games from the earliest days, not least Ed Greenwood's Company of Crazed Venturers campaign.

I mean 'expand' in terms of the audience: you have a guaranteed audience who eat up the continual rules-heavy stuff who have been successfully and actively coralled by Wizards, a different demographic who buy the stuff less often whose wants are catered to less well, and a much larger potential (but theoretical) audience who would love the medium of roleplaying but be bored stiff by huge rulebooks and endless 'crunchy bits'. It would certainly be a risk to break out of the current sensibility-niche, which Wizards has largely not attempted to market to.

To some extent the popularity of rules stuff is a self-fulfilling prophecy. When new players see what's published in Dragon their ideas of what roleplaying is about are bound to be shaped by it. The 3E philosophy of feats and combat maneuvers micromanaging the story rather than leaving more to the DM and players is a specific choice, not an inevitability of the medium, and I suspect only a minority of RPGers have lucidly thought about these questions and whether what they're doing is achieving what they want. Rules certainly do influence how campaigns are played, but so does the general culture, the type of people playing, how those rules are understood, the advice given in books and the attention paid to different topics, etc.

 

[Alzrius]

and a much larger potential (but theoretical) audience who would love the medium of roleplaying but be bored stiff by huge rulebooks and endless 'crunchy bits'.

Even assuming this audience exists as a viable market for profit (and it is, as you said, a theoretical audience), it is virtually impossible to cater to.

The people who love the role-playing medium are a wide and diverse group, with some playing a gritty survivalist campaign, others playing a political intruige campaign, still others playing a swashbuckling campaign, etc. Putting out material that would appeal to that group as a whole is extremely difficult.

It isn't just about crossing the different genres either. In my experience, people who favor the role-playing over the roll-playing have very detailed campaigns already. Given that, and given that a fluff-heavy book would itself be detailed, they would thusly have no use for such a book, since it has no direct bearing on, or use in, the campaign they have made for themselves. A book all about the intruiges and peoples in Silverymoon would be great, but if you're doing a political intruige campaign set elsewhere, and have already charted out a group of NPCs and a timeline, such a book is virtually useless to you.

Given that, it's easy to see why crunch is considered more reliable than fluff. The former translates easy, since mechanics assume nothing inherent to the setting, while the latter is very specific and difficult to use widely.

It would certainly be a risk to break out of the current sensibility-niche, which Wizards has largely not attempted to market to.

Rightly so, in my opinion. You'll never please a majority going in that direction.

To some extent the popularity of rules stuff is a self-fulfilling prophecy. When new players see what's published in Dragon their ideas of what roleplaying is about are bound to be shaped by it.

I wouldn't go that far. I'd say their ideas of what role-playing is would rather be shaped by the people they game with and how they game. Saying the magazines shape the minds of new role-players is akin to saying television shapes the minds of our youth - it assumes that people are empty vessels waiting to be filled with the first ideology that comes along.

The 3E philosophy of feats and combat maneuvers micromanaging the story rather than leaving more to the DM and players

I don't think this philosophy ever existed. Certainly no more than, say, being able to cast spells lets you micromanage the story. It didn't ruin wargames for the wargamers, and feats and such don't ruin D&D storytelling for us now.

I suspect only a minority of RPGers have lucidly thought about these questions and whether what they're doing is achieving what they want.

If that were true, this debate wouldn't be perennial.

Rules certainly do influence how campaigns are played, but so does the general culture, the type of people playing, how those rules are understood, the advice given in books and the attention paid to different topics, etc.

The problem is that almost everything you listed after "rules" is (with the possible exception of how they're understood and the advice given) not something you can effectively market in a monthly magazine.

 

[Faraer]

I don't see how 'mechanics assume nothing inherent to the setting', unless they're rules for something the rules handle already. Otherwise the mechanic translates to a power, monster, or whatever that has a game-world existence (what you're calling 'fluff'). I think whether an article is targeted at players or DMs is a far bigger factor in popularity than its mechanical content.

Obviously I'm not saying magazine contents wholly dictate people's thinking on RPGs, but there's no doubt that people's worldviews are influenced by media! Otherwise art, and propaganda, wouldn't work.

3E assigns detailed mechanics to some elements AD&D and many other RPGs leave to narration. That is part of its (gameist) philosophy, and though you're right in inferring it's not to my taste, I'm not saying it ruins storytelling.

Also obviously, the people who discuss on messageboards are a tiny minority of roleplayers.

Since I'd like the RPG medium to expand -- modestly, I'm not talking mass market -- I'd like it to be marketed to a wider demographic and a wider range of sensibilities, and since only WotC/Hasbro has the money to do that, I'd like them to...

 

[woodelf]

Actually, regarding the "There are no RPG magazines, only D20 ones..."

I can think of at least three off thet top of my head: Pyramid (Online 'zine, granted), Knights of the Dinner Table (Not just a comic! Has an admitted Hackmaster bias, but it covers other stuff too, including a lot of small-press stuff), and Games Unplugged, which covers games from a number of publishers.

Pyramid: http://www.sjgames.com/pyramid/

Knights of the Dinner Table: http://www.kenzerco.com/periodicals/kodt/

Games Unplugged: http://www.gamesunplugged.com/

Has Games Unplugged changed to have actual articles *for* games, or is it still just reviews and other stuff *about* games? Likewise, the last issue of KotDT (which, btw, was a couple of months ago--i haven't seen a new one in a while, has it been replaced by the knew Knights title (i forget the name--Illustrated Knights, or something to that effect?), or have i just had bad luck finding it at the FLGS?) that i saw still only had actual articles for games for HackMaster, though it's articles about games are pretty good, if sparse. And Pyramid doesn't count, for the simple reason that it's not a magazine--it's a website. Websites are fine ,nda i love Pyramid, but i can't stick it in my backpack and read it on the bus. Nor loan it to a friend (without first printing it out, or, i suppose, burning it to CD).

 

[woodelf]

I'm curious, how does/has the medium of role-playing significantly expanded in the last 30 years, in general, other than the rules? I mean, I was playing a deep, immersive RP-heavy political game in 1987, and a very heavily story-driven game by 1984. I'm just curious how the medium could be changed, and what you mean. Most of the changes I think of in the RPG arena are all tied to rules.

I think what he means is that the *market* isn't gonna be grown with rules--those who are into rules-heavy games are already playing RPGs (since the RPG they're most likely to stumble into, and thus play, is rules-heavy), and those who aren't playing RPGs, if they can be attracted to them at all, will be attracted by something very different from the market-leaders today. Which pretty much means rules-light, since the market leaders are all at least middling-complex. It probably also means designed for one-offs (rather than campaigns), minimum prep, and perhaps no GM.

 

[Alzrius]

I don't see how 'mechanics assume nothing inherent to the setting', unless they're rules for something the rules handle already. Otherwise the mechanic translates to a power, monster, or whatever that has a game-world existence (what you're calling 'fluff').

You're missing my point: mechanics assume nothing inherent to the setting because they don't tell you anything "fluff" about the character. Say you have rules for a fire-mage PrC. You can still use that PrC in your campaign however you want. Are they a secretive organization of protectors? A group of pyromaniacs? Something else? The mechanics of the PrC (and anything else) stand on their own however you use them in the campaign. Hence, rules assume nothing inherent to the setting.

I think whether an article is targeted at players or DMs is a far bigger factor in popularity than its mechanical content.

I disagree, since DMs can use "player" content for their NPCs, and for whatever reason, even players like reading about things like new monsters, etc.

Obviously I'm not saying magazine contents wholly dictate people's thinking on RPGs, but there's no doubt that people's worldviews are influenced by media! Otherwise art, and propaganda, wouldn't work.

Influenced isn't the same thing as setting it entirely. I still feel that people will feel what they want to, and outside influences are only as functional as people let them be. Someone who believes in role-playing over roll-playing isn't going to be swayed to having a regular subscription to Dragon no matter how great its new mechanical articles are.

3E assigns detailed mechanics to some elements AD&D and many other RPGs leave to narration.

This comment opens up a horribly nebulous mire. You're inferring that the fact that 3E does this to be a bad thing. But you could just as easily say that its that 3E does this that makes it superior to all those other RPGs. Some people may like it that they have more structure to things that were formerly left without mechanics. I certainly do. This one is much to relative to make a judgement call on.

Also obviously, the people who discuss on messageboards are a tiny minority of roleplayers.

True, but you could just as easily say that we're the sample for the larger whole. A smaller percentage of a homogenous group is generally accurate for the larger whole. I think that the debate that goes on here is a pretty good sampling of how the entirety of the relevant community feels about this.

Since I'd like the RPG medium to expand -- modestly, I'm not talking mass market -- I'd like it to be marketed to a wider demographic and a wider range of sensibilities, and since only WotC/Hasbro has the money to do that, I'd like them to...

Frankly, I think WotC is doing that by having things such as d20 Modern out there, to say nothing of the SRDs for d20 Modern and d20 fantasy.

As for encouraging a different kind of RPG, WotC won't do that, and they're right not to. Why compete with themselves, even a little? It's simply not possible for them to cover the entire market, so they're better off building up a single unified base of customers and not trying to deviate from them.