Draogn's Eye View 7/31: Transmedia Experience

[SkidAce]

What this article says to me is directly tied to the differences between people on the inside of Dungeons & Dragons and the outside of Dungeons & Dragons. And truth be told... the people on the outside are the ones who are going to win this battle.

Those of us on the inside of D&D know deep down in our hearts that every game and every campaign world is different. My game isn't your game isn't his game isn't her game. Every single aspect is different or can be made different if you so choose. Each of our games is the ultimate form of "special snowflake" syndrome. That's D&D's strength-- I can make the game into ANYTHING I want... and up through the 80s, that mantra held true. Campaign settings up the wazoo, changing anything and everything.

But guess what? We don't live in that world anymore. And all of our "special snowflake" ideals don't make money for people anymore in a "transmedia" world.

Why? Because like it or not... for the people outside our world... "Dungeons & Dragons" *is* ONE THING. Just like World of Warcraft is one thing. Just like Harry Potter is one thing. Just like Game of Thrones is one thing. Nobody on the outside realizes, knows, or cares that D&D can be anything and everything to any one of us. We might think Forgotten Realms is millions of miles away from Eberron, which is millions of miles away from Dragonlance, which is millions of miles away from Nentir Vale... but to everybody else? No. They're all "D&D". THAT'S the brand. That's what they have to sell. They can't market and sell Forgotten Realms *and* Eberron *and* Dragonlance *and* Nentir Vale *and* each DM's individual personal world. It's not possible. WotC can't sell our individual "special snowflake" worlds, because that's just a nebulous talking point to people who are on the outside. They NEED to bring some cohesion to the game so that saying something is "Dungeons & Dragons" actually MEANS something.

That might seem like an anathema to those of us on the inside... that they want to strip our individuality from our games and put us all into one giant group called "D&D players"... but in this day and age that HAS to happen if they want to be able to make the brand accessible to people.

I mean hell... Paizo markets everything through their Golarion lens. Pathfinder is Golarion, Golarion is Pathfinder. And they do that because they know that the idea that "Pathfinder can be anything you want it to be!" doesn't work anymore. Not in this day and age.

Dungeons & Dragons is the brand. Just like Transformers is the brand. Just like the WWE is the brand. One unifying vision that allows people on the outside to look at something and say immediately "that's a D&D product!"... rather than look at something and have us hope against hope they could possibly identify it as "that's a Dark Sun product!" or "that's a Ravenloft product!"

But gods knows... the likeliness of THAT actually happening for anyone on the outside of our tight little circle is practically nil. We might not like it... but we have to just suck it up that we can't remain special snowflakes and now have to be a part of group.

D&D players.

No sir, I don't like it.*




*But I think you are correct in a depressing sort of realistic viewpoint way....sigh.

 

[Jon Schindehette]

Interesting discussion...as always.

All I ask is that you be careful of collapsing the brand of D&D, with the worlds of D&D. D&D is a brand. Forgotten Realms is a world. Erberron is a world. Dragonlance is a world. Okay to be precise, they are settings with their own distinct world, but I think you get the gist of what I'm saying. Sure, they are all worlds under the brand of D&D, but in my mind, each is distinct. Now, I don't get to make the rules for D&D, but my belief is that each world should have a distinct tone, flavor and vision. The idea of Ebberon and Dark Sun having the same look, feel and tone seems ridiculous to me. In my world, if I had complete freedom, I would make every world it's own "special snowflake" as was mentioned earlier. Does that mean that a goblin in FR would be completely different than a goblin in another campaign world? Maybe. I think that depends on the flavor, mythos, and role the goblin plays in each distinct world. Since I'm focused on FR at the moment, that is where I'm living. Once we get the relaunch of FR underway, and I get pointed towards a new world to flesh out. I'll be digging into those worlds and trying to bring the visuals back in alignment with the vision of the world.

The whole point of my article was about bringing the stories of D&D into as many experiences of the brand as possible. If you love drizzt, wouldn't you want to experience Drizzt the same way, in whatever experience you engage in? Or would you prefer to see Drizzt (or enter the name of your favorite character or monster) completely differently every time you engaged with the brand? Think about the screams and hollers that go up every time one of the comic companies change an outfit of a superhero. You hear bellows of "that is really stupid, why don't they stick with the outfit from _____". That is the point. Providing you a common and consistent touch point within the brand. Whether it be the look of a character, a consistent story arc, or even a specific look of a monster within a world.

...and don't forget. If you limit yourself to the TRPG experience, you get to have your world look and be what ever you want. Isn't that cool!?!

 

[Sunseeker]

Interesting discussion...as always.

All I ask is that you be careful of collapsing the brand of D&D, with the worlds of D&D. D&D is a brand. Forgotten Realms is a world. Erberron is a world. Dragonlance is a world. Okay to be precise, they are settings with their own distinct world, but I think you get the gist of what I'm saying. Sure, they are all worlds under the brand of D&D, but in my mind, each is distinct. Now, I don't get to make the rules for D&D, but my belief is that each world should have a distinct tone, flavor and vision. The idea of Ebberon and Dark Sun having the same look, feel and tone seems ridiculous to me. In my world, if I had complete freedom, I would make every world it's own "special snowflake" as was mentioned earlier. Does that mean that a goblin in FR would be completely different than a goblin in another campaign world? Maybe. I think that depends on the flavor, mythos, and role the goblin plays in each distinct world. Since I'm focused on FR at the moment, that is where I'm living. Once we get the relaunch of FR underway, and I get pointed towards a new world to flesh out. I'll be digging into those worlds and trying to bring the visuals back in alignment with the vision of the world.

The whole point of my article was about bringing the stories of D&D into as many experiences of the brand as possible. If you love drizzt, wouldn't you want to experience Drizzt the same way, in whatever experience you engage in? Or would you prefer to see Drizzt (or enter the name of your favorite character or monster) completely differently every time you engaged with the brand? Think about the screams and hollers that go up every time one of the comic companies change an outfit of a superhero. You hear bellows of "that is really stupid, why don't they stick with the outfit from _____". That is the point. Providing you a common and consistent touch point within the brand. Whether it be the look of a character, a consistent story arc, or even a specific look of a monster within a world.

...and don't forget. If you limit yourself to the TRPG experience, you get to have your world look and be what ever you want. Isn't that cool!?!

But Jon, your article spent it's bulk talking about ONE character's D&D experience. It did not talk about "brining the stories of D&D into as many experiences as possible". It talked about one story, with one character, with one experience. And yes you had token references to Eleminster and that other guy, but the general bulk of your article focused on Drizzt.

Drizzt is not the be-all, end-all of the D&D experience, and a lot of us don't want him to be.

D&D as a brand is probably closer to Justice League than it is Superman. It's a story about a group not a story about an individual.

 

[Morrus]

If you love drizzt, wouldn't you want to experience Drizzt the same way, in whatever experience you engage in? Or would you prefer to see Drizzt (or enter the name of your favorite character or monster) completely differently every time you engaged with the brand? Think about the screams and hollers that go up every time one of the comic companies change an outfit of a superhero. You hear bellows of "that is really stupid, why don't they stick with the outfit from _____". That is the point. Providing you a common and consistent touch point within the brand. Whether it be the look of a character, a consistent story arc, or even a specific look of a monster within a world.

But I love that Batman has so many different interpretations. I don't see that as a bug!

I like some of the interpretations, and not others; but I like them all being there for me to choose from. I like Dark Knight Returns Batman, and I like Tim Burton Batman, and I like Nolan Batman. I love Batman TAS Batman, and JLU Batman! I even enjoy 1960s Batman!

 

[I'm A Banana]

Interesting discussion...as always.

All I ask is that you be careful of collapsing the brand of D&D, with the worlds of D&D. D&D is a brand. Forgotten Realms is a world. Erberron is a world. Dragonlance is a world. Okay to be precise, they are settings with their own distinct world, but I think you get the gist of what I'm saying. Sure, they are all worlds under the brand of D&D, but in my mind, each is distinct. Now, I don't get to make the rules for D&D, but my belief is that each world should have a distinct tone, flavor and vision. The idea of Ebberon and Dark Sun having the same look, feel and tone seems ridiculous to me. In my world, if I had complete freedom, I would make every world it's own "special snowflake" as was mentioned earlier. Does that mean that a goblin in FR would be completely different than a goblin in another campaign world? Maybe. I think that depends on the flavor, mythos, and role the goblin plays in each distinct world. Since I'm focused on FR at the moment, that is where I'm living. Once we get the relaunch of FR underway, and I get pointed towards a new world to flesh out. I'll be digging into those worlds and trying to bring the visuals back in alignment with the vision of the world.

Totally on-board so far!

The whole point of my article was about bringing the stories of D&D into as many experiences of the brand as possible. If you love drizzt, wouldn't you want to experience Drizzt the same way, in whatever experience you engage in? Or would you prefer to see Drizzt (or enter the name of your favorite character or monster) completely differently every time you engaged with the brand? Think about the screams and hollers that go up every time one of the comic companies change an outfit of a superhero. You hear bellows of "that is really stupid, why don't they stick with the outfit from _____". That is the point. Providing you a common and consistent touch point within the brand. Whether it be the look of a character, a consistent story arc, or even a specific look of a monster within a world.

I think part of what the D&D brand is to me is Diversity. Because of the game's hyper-local nature, because each group of 5 people takes it in their own direction, because it is something you make with your friends, it reflects the user very intimately -- this is part of the emotional hook the game has on people. You make it your own. So, to a large degree, someone who comes at the D&D brand lookin' for orcs shouldn't see one consistent orc, they should see a million different orcs, because D&D is every orc you can imagine. It's whatever orc works best for you.

As long as it remains true to that, D&D can be inconsistent, because it will remain authentic. The most valid cries of "This change is stupid!" arise because the proposed change lacks authenticity. It's inorganic, artificial, and top-down. It neglects to recognize the thing that people like about how it was before.

You'll get cries of "this change is stupid!" no matter what, but the difference between Peter Jackson's LotR and the Star Wars Christmas Special, or between Christopher Nolan's Batman and Joel Shumacher's Batman is that the change is authentic and organic: it is true to its own local environment. Heck, even the campy 1960's Batman gets a pass for pretty similar reasons: it's honest about its origins and its goals.

If there's a *reason* for Drizzt to be red (maybe you put Drizzt in an ancient Greek-style play where the colors are representative of emotional states? I dunno), it can be earned. If the reason is because red action figures sell better (or whatever), that's not organic or authentic, and you'll get more resistance, and more supported resistance.

An off-brand Lego Drizzt gets to be cartoony and blocky, because that's authentic to the Kree-O environment. A movie Drizzt can be played by Vin Diesel, because that's authentic to the movie environment. If you put Drizzt in a suburban sitcom, that might be jarring, because ?????, but if you put him in a weekly dramatic serial, that works more with the tone.

...and don't forget. If you limit yourself to the TRPG experience, you get to have your world look and be what ever you want. Isn't that cool!?!

Totes. But it's a little bigger than that.

For one, the tone is set by you guys. When the game only shows one type of goblin, it is inferred that this is the type of goblin you are meant to play with in this game, it's the goblin the game is made for, the type of goblin that is supported. If that goblin's not for you, then maybe you start to consider playing other games. Changing things from the core assumptions is a lot of work, after all, and not always worth it if there's some other company doing most of the work for you.

For two, there's licensing situations. It's probably above your pay grade, but things like the GSL's "you can't redefine elf" work in favor of that consistent feel, but strictly against the expectation that we ALL get to redefine "elf." It limits the products that can support D&D by supporting different ways to play D&D.

For three, it demotes the changes we make to our own games -- the very changes that make those games so awesome -- to off-book, house-rule territory, to something players should worry about and be cautious of, to something like D&D fan-fiction. But D&D is itself kind of like fan-fiction, and rather than claim some sort of internal canon, it'd be smarter, I think, to embrace the idea that these things are varied and flexible and manifold.

Which ultimately means that trying to tie D&D itself to a consistent feel seems inauthentic, driven more by brand fundamentalism rather than by the needs of the game, and so it's leading to a lot of "This is stupid!" cries against the idea. Trying to make D&D strictly consistent is like turning Drizzt into a wacky comedy sit-com dad. It violates some of the reasons that people like the thing.

PS: Thanks for engaging, and apologies for the long-windedness, this is clearly a bit of an axe to grind for me personally for some reason.

 

[DEFCON 1]

But I love that Batman has so many different interpretations. I don't see that as a bug!

I like some of the interpretations, and not others; but I like them all being there for me to choose from. I like Dark Knight Returns Batman, and I like Tim Burton Batman, and I like Nolan Batman. I love Batman TAS Batman, and JLU Batman! I even enjoy 1960s Batman!

Yeah... but all those interpretations only came about because the iconic aspect of Batman had been established for years before people started screwing with it.

If Drizzt had even 1/10th the cache and public knowledge of Batman... then sure, screwing around with the imagery and character would be much more accepted. Except that right now... almost nobody outside the circle of D&D knows who Drizzt is. Until you establish the iconic or "default" in the public's eye... you can't then change it to vary things up.

The brand of D&D needs iconic or default imagery or characters in order to actually establish the brand as a whole... a brand that people outside of D&D will recognize as D&D. Once that happens... then yeah, put out an Ultimates version of Drizzt for a new generation. But putting two competing Drizzts side by side ain't gonna cut it.

 

[Morrus]

Yeah... but all those interpretations only came about because the iconic aspect of Batman had been established for years before people started screwing with it.

If Drizzt had even 1/10th the cache and public knowledge of Batman... then sure, screwing around with the imagery and character would be much more accepted. Except that right now... almost nobody outside the circle of D&D knows who Drizzt is. Until you establish the iconic or "default" in the public's eye... you can't then change it to vary things up.

The brand of D&D needs iconic or default imagery or characters in order to actually establish the brand as a whole... a brand that people outside of D&D will recognize as D&D. Once that happens... then yeah, put out an Ultimates version of Drizzt for a new generation. But putting two competing Drizzts side by side ain't gonna cut it.

Sure. But that's where WotC's and my interests diverge. I don't need Drizzt to be a mainstream cartoon character or an action figure or appear on a lunchbox. But I can see why that need is there.

 

[DEFCON 1]

D&D as a brand is probably closer to Justice League than it is Superman. It's a story about a group not a story about an individual.

Nope. Not even that. The Justice League is still a group of iconic characters all together. And D&D ain't that. D&D (as a game) is not eight to fifteen iconic characters... it's whatever characters you come up with.

So D&D as a brand is much closer to the DC Universe brand as a whole. Hundreds upon hundreds of characters... 95% of which not a single person outside of DC's fanbase would recognize or know the name of.

So how does DC market their Universe? It's the DC logo itself... and they have a small number of iconic characters that are the face of the brand. They're the ones that do the heavy lifting to the unwashed masses. And it's implied that while everybody might be able to recognize Supes, Batman and Wonder Woman at face value... there's whole tiers of other characters and concepts within the Universe to get to know and explore.

But you still need those figureheads to represent the brand. You can't just put out images of dozens of random, obscure superheroes on the shelves and expect the public to notice them and accept them as distinctly DC Universe Superheroes. People just won't care.

D&D is the same way. You want someone to recognize something as distinctly Dungeons & Dragons... you have to put a face on it that people will come of recognize. And whether that's Drizzt, Mordenkainen, the beholder, or Venger... you need to have them in place.

 

[Remathilis]

Yes, all of those things are and can be (and have been!) D&D goblins.

I guarentee you slap all but two of those on a T-shirt and then put the D&D logo over it, you're heading for a lawsuit.

The issue with the art department is solvable, but they need to stop thinking about D&D as having a goblin that has a consistent look, and start thinking more about how The Forgotten Realms (aka: magical High Fantasy) has a goblin that has a consistent look, and Greyhawk (aka: Sword & Sorcery Pulpishness) has a different goblin with a different look and Dragonlance (aka: epic storytelling fantasy) has a goblin with a different look, and Ravenloft (aka: Gothic horror fantasy) has a goblin with a different look, and that all of these different looks and styles are under the umbrella of a D&D goblin.

Indulge me. What makes a Dragonlance goblin different than a Greyhawk or Forgotten Realms one? What unique traits and visual cues differ them? More importantly, which do you put in the Monster Manual, or are we going to have 7 pages devoted to different types of goblin? Or are we going to have a boring stat-block devoid of ecology, culture, and even description so that it can be used as a goth-goblin, a tolkien goblin, or a Eberron goblin?

 

[I'm A Banana]

I guarentee you slap all but two of those on a T-shirt and then put the D&D logo over it, you're heading for a lawsuit.

That's partially because it's kind of dumb to just slap a piece of art on a T-shirt. If you want to slap a goblin on a D&D T-shirt, you should first ask yourself: what kind of goblin should go on this particular D&D T-shirt? What kind of T-shirt are you making? What message do you want to send about D&D? Who is your target audience? There's context for these decisions.

Indulge me. What makes a Dragonlance goblin different than a Greyhawk or Forgotten Realms one? What unique traits and visual cues differ them? More importantly, which do you put in the Monster Manual, or are we going to have 7 pages devoted to different types of goblin? Or are we going to have a boring stat-block devoid of ecology, culture, and even description so that it can be used as a goth-goblin, a tolkien goblin, or a Eberron goblin?

Goblins in DL are shamanic, primitive people who are wandering nomads. They practice canine-shaving (males), head-shaping (a la certain stone-age tribes), and tattooing (under the eyes, for females). They're typically bald. So artwork of a DL goblin should emphasize the naturalness and the body-modification. Furs and wooden weapons and weirdly shaped heads.

Goblins in FR are cave-dwelling, dirty little raiders. They sometimes take slaves, they are strictly male-dominated. So artwork of an FR goblin should emphasize the dirty, smelly, makeshift nature of the creature, and if the critter is wielding a weapon, it should probably be a guy. Something like mean little unwashed hobos with rusty chivs.

Goblins in GH are kobold-fighting nocturnal mercenaries who organize into militaristic bands and flock to the banners of the more powerful warlords. They're the thick swarm on the earth, threatening to overrun it if given adequate direction. So artwork of a GH goblin should include militaristic overtones -- shields and helmets and armor as well as wicked-looking weapons, standards emblazoned with icons of wicked and unpleasant things. It should also feature moonlight or starlight or otherwise poor lighting conditions, where the things in the darkness are numerous and indistinct.

Which one should be in an MM? Well, that depends on the MM's goals. I'm a fan of an MM with context and specificity, so I'd say pick one. FR seems to be 5e's vanguard, so lets go with that, and lets present a specific goblin tribe that functions as an iconic FR-style goblin. Maybe call it "The Warren."

Not really. If you go back to the early days, D&D dragons had a specific look. You can check your 1e MM, the D&D cartoon, and interior artwork from adventures and see that blue, green, white and black dragons looked pretty much the same for years (red is a different matter, because few products used the "dangling tentacle beard" of the 1e MM). Pit Fiends, mariliths, bulettes, umber hulks, mind flayers, beholders, etc, are also pretty consistent throughout decades of D&D. None of what Jon mentioned is a particularly new idea, and has been done since the beginnings of D&D (art style aside, the beholder in the cover of OD&D is to the modern beholder in the same way that 1938 Superman is to modern Superman).

The diversity of D&D's representations in general over the years certainly outweighs the similarities. What's more, beholders (or whatever) have a similar issue to the goblins: spelljammer beholders and FR beholders and GH beholders and Eberron beholders are different kinds of creature, and their visual cues should be different depending on which kind of beholder you're going with.