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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="Black Knight" data-source="post: 2288969" data-attributes="member: 1114">Great! Now I gotta toss all my video games.Back on topic... I am not a publisher, but I am a game designer. Has the market gone bad? Nope. The consumers have gotten smarter (no offense meant to any consumers here). They realize that a great deal of the insipid drivel they were being force fed over the last 30+ years is exactly that. They have refined their tastes and are now looking for the "higher quality than McDonalds meals", though those kids' meals are still the staple of PnP gaming.Should there be an evolutionary step or revolution in PnP gaming? Should... probably, will it come soon... probably not. The most major advances I've seen in my years of gaming is:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">the evaporation of the "evil game" tag that drove gaming into a subculture to begin with. THAT is a major step for the industry. Heck, even the largest openly Christian chain store in the world (also the #1 company in the world, by sales volume) stocks roleplaying games on its shelves (if you are lucky enough to live by one of these Wal~Marts, bring every gamer you know to buy from there... Wal~Mart will stock more RPGs to meet the demand).</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">better quality (physically and content) products are more a norm than the rough gems in the past (look at TSR/WotC, Palladium, and SJG products pre- and post-White Wolf)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">the PDF format is riding the wave if the internet</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">the OGL made it possible for smaller or unknown companies/designers to break through the draconian walls of gaming and into something of a cult status (not to pick on anyone, but guys like Keith Baker and Mike Mearls)</li> </ul>Video games advance as fast (or try to) as the technology they are played on. PnP games don't have that requirement (all you really need is imagination). However, I see some publishers (especially electronic publishers like Code Monkey and Ronin Arts, and companies like Fluid Entertainment) taking advantage of the ambient technology around the gaming table and bringing it towards the game. Laptops and desktops are more common now than 30 years ago, so their use is also moving towards the game table (I have 3 GM's Screens, 2 dice rollers, and about a dozen other automated generators for when I get stuck on NPC and location names).Should our industry cater to the lowest common denominator, like hip-hop, Paris Hilton, and video games? Or should we take the "high road"? MY answer to both is a resounding "NO!" A middle ground is a good place to go. It's taken us 30 years to get this far, from obscure sub-culture of war gaming to underground counter culture to polite common acceptance. Take a page from Sam Walton's book on business, Wal~Mart was not built in a day.</blockquote>

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