Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="eyebeams" data-source="post: 5320609" data-attributes="member: 9225">Okay.First, we need to face the fact that the D&D brand is a shambles thanks to mismanagement before its current ownership, misunderstanding of how it might be leveraged into other fields right up to the present, faddish thinking, a poor appreciation for D&D's strengths and recently by a culture of design and development that has trouble disguising contempt for its predecessors. The first mistake was treating D&D as a unitary brand. D&D is a lousy brand. The general public either doesn't care about it or looks down on anybody who does. TSR and to a lesser extent WotC sold D&D down the river by letting others present D&D as a stupid hobby for losers.D&D is an excellent intellectual property development framework. In its own bungling way, TSR realized this but made the mistake everybody does, which is that a general D&D brand sold books. It doesn't. Dragonlance sells books. The Realms sells books. The Realms sells video games. Without worlds, D&D is worthless outside of a certain gaming niche.The development culture is committed to the idea of D&D as brand that sells everything, but D&D can only reliably sell a game called D&D, and not well enough for some, because D&D was an 80s fad. It looks like it should sell more and sell everything. It doesn't, can't.WotC kind of knows this. Part off the company manages D&D as if using D&D for anything other than a game was a big mistake pawned off by "failed novelists," even though that wasn't the mistake -- the idea that there are D&D novels that are valuable outside of being Dragonlance or Realms novels was.But telling fans alienated by a completely different department of TSR (management and legal) that game designers from the last regime were crappy arts majors with chips on their shoulders was a great success from a propaganda POV, and focused a hatred that fans still indulge and which, given the dearth of worldbuilding IP development down Renton way, seems to be part of the orthodoxy over there. Eberron didn't suck, but WotC managed to make it suck by making it the dumping ground for leftover high concept pitches. WotC managed to make the Realms even worse than it had been under TSR's rough management. And yes, Paizo's Golarion, the transplanted fruit of WotC's development style, also sucks. In all cases, extremely talented people probably created amazing stuff, but a bad process whittled it down to something boring.This goes beyond worlds, to mood, appreciation of genre -- WotC and its heirs blew it, even with access to some of the best talent around. For example, outside of WotC Monte Cook created Ptolus, an amazing alternate World of Darkness and a worthy companion to D&D's implied setting through a "Donaldsonian" lens.Under WotC, Monte made a bad guy with babies chained to his armour so you would know he was evil, and Feat: I Rogered a Zombie.So in some sense, WotC has given up. When seeking refuge in Game Design Uber Alles it's natural that you'd see some rapid improvements along that front combined with no small amount of self-indulgence and eccentricity masquerading as objective improvement, but when applied to a fiction-creating machine like an RPG, the very concept of the objective improvement is risible. Each new design convolution alienated fans even more because fans like many different kinds of story-cranking machines -- not just the latest, but the ones they've learned to operate and can easily customize. The designers don't care much about worlds so there's little in the way of a unifying point for fans, who bond when they share experiences in fictional places. Why adopt a new edition when it doesn't act as a rallying point? Why not play something else -- hack, clone, whatever?So I would start the job with some trepidation.Here's the cheesy mission statement that goes on my office wall:The goal of D&D is to create unique stories and worlds that transcend their origins in genre and medium, through a game and creative process that makes every level of their creation intriguing and fun.Some of you will immediately think that by "story" I mean the naive simplification of narrative common among simpletons in the popular screenwriting and story gaming communities. This deficiency is a clear indication as to why you need more people with Arts degrees hanging around. This is not about some stupid tinkertoy story-building exercise. This is about class-and-level, raucous, multiple POV D&D, where we freely range from grave matters to goofy comedy, and screw pacing and structure.But man, I've got some work to do. First, I have to repatriate all versions of D&D. I'm sending missionaries to the OSR and 3e (and 2e) holdouts, giving them WotC resources (boards, archival material, etc.) and bringing them back to talk about what makes D&D cool for them. I want one place where hobbyists can make their own version of D&D within the WotC "ecosystem." I believe that with the right arrangements and electronic tools I can help players make better versions of D&D and support them better than they can outside. Yes, that *does* include Pathfinder.This is part of a general plan to get serious about social networking and support. Part of this plan requires aggressive acquisition of the best third party tools. I don't want to pay a bunch of guys to develop a virtual tabletop or map in house. I want to buy what other guys have made when it already works. I want to get the cream of small shop agility. And when that's done, 'llI integrate it all with a first class website that helps people play, plan, communicate and share campaigns. It even includes art archives to use, printout minis, maybe even a PoD service.This DDI+ is of course free for basic functionality. Because not doing that would be silly. And of course, due to official apps it's all cross-platform, letting you manage your game entirely in the cloud.I'll make it clear that we love all versions of D&D, from 0 to 4 and everything in between, but we can only support one version (4 and successors) ourselves. We need a community to take care of the rest and would encourage these conversions. I need people playing any kind of D&D because D&D fandom is where I find out which ideas work, and which suck. But these are not ideas for "the brand." D&D is a game, a series of related, cool games with a thriving hobby community. But like Marvel and DC harvests from comics to other media, I'm interested in what kind of stories and worlds arise out of D&D. But I don't want a bloody "D&D Movie." D&D gives us the Forgotten Realms. You can do cool stuff with the Realms. Film TV, games. Or Dark Sun. But these would not be "D&D" brands in the sense we might think of otherwise. They would be brands of their own under a D&D umbrella that stays firmly in the background. D&D is a foreground brand *only* for tabletop and hybrid games.D&D is for Games. D&D Worlds and Stories Are for Other Media.I know that by moving through this model where I need an authentic core hobby buy that hobby is not the main revenue mainspring will take some fighting with Hasbro. They probably won't get that supporting a diverse D&D community will eventually be awesome for them. Games are where ideas begin -- prototypes, new worlds, new plotlines -- and the lessons learned there get sent to other media.But what about the RPG? I've told you we'd support every version, create a new, semi-free DDI, but what do I do with the RPG?First, we need one implementation of the current D&D that's easy to buy. A red box and weirdo expansion sets? Booster packs? What the hell is wrong with you people? I know I called for a new Red Box back in the day but guys, if you were listening then you blew it! Do you honestly think anybody has any at a glance comprehension of how the line works now? Christ. Anyway, D&D ought to come in three sets segregated by level that includes almost everything you need to play to level 30, including a campaign framework and representative adventure. It explores different aspects of game play much as BECMI did.In addition to these, we release strategy guides/players' manuals and GM guides. These are not enormous tomes, but quick references that zero in on a few subjects and provide some optional expansions.I like 4e, but 4e has problems letting itself be interesting. D&D has nine goddamn alignments, (Lawful Good as the only extension of Good is fascist) strange spells and magic items I care about. It has some elements that are not strictly purpose-built, but cool. D&D could also use new art direction that doesn't alienate everybody, a discussion of play style beyond dungeon versus not-dungeon and GUMSHOE's system for investigation.And yes, we do worlds. But we start the way the Realms did -- allusions in Dragon, testing the waters, maybe even releasing adventures that could be set there and seeing how they float. This will probably lead to several tiers ranging from full in-house management to officially recognized fan support, and several places in between. At the top, the worlds have their own continuity and theme gatekeepers. Below that it's a bit more freewheeling.So that's the plan.</blockquote>

Verification