D&D 5E Mike Mearls explaining his view of D&D and how it should be merchandize

[Rod Staffwand]

DUNGEONS & DRAGONS

Rules for Fantastic Medieval Role Playing Adventure Game Campaigns

Playable with Paper and Pencil and Miniature Figures and pdf Downloads and Apps and Monthly Online Distributed Content and...

 

[Celtavian]

They may not be competition for CCGs or video game, but they do compete for time and money with those. If I'm hanging around with friends for four hours I can either play D&D or a few board games or card games or Artemis or something. There's finite hang time.

And you'll pick what you enjoy regardless of the time investment. If you make D&D as easy as a board game like Monopoly or a video game, you aren't going to have much of a game. Monopoly can be learned while playing and is extremely simple. Video games have everything created for you.

You play D&D because you enjoy the kind of game it is, not because of the amount of time you have to invest in it. I'm not saying simplifying it doesn't help some, but it will never be like a card game, video game, or board game. No one will choose to play one of those over the others based on time to learn investment. World of Warcraft was and is an all consuming part of your life when you play it, especially if you raid. Doesn't make people go, "I can spend less time playing D&D, so let's do that."

I think their data isn't based on correlation. It's not a choice of "D&D or video game." My friends and I play both. It has nothing to do with time investment. A cool video game is fun on its own in a completely different way than D&D. There is literally no role-playing or character development in a video game. It is all gear advancement and graphical world immersion in a very linear and repetitive fashion. This can be fun at times, but doesn't replace what D&D provides. That is why we play both. The people that play video games rather than D&D are not doing so because of the time to learn factor or anything of the kind. They are doing it because they prefer video games and will always prefer video games.

I think D&D will always be a niche hobby with limited profit potential that attracts a small segment of entertainment dollar. They will find other people willing to play with them wherever they can. It's a very unique hobby that attracts a certain type of person. It will never be otherwise no matter how it is marketed. I hope Hasbro isn't basing their expectations of D&D on the strange idea that it can be mass marketed to a larger population. Maybe Mearls is talking about attracting the younger crowd to develop a new generation of gamers.

 

[pemerton]

I hope Hasbro isn't basing their expectations of D&D on the strange idea that it can be mass marketed to a larger population.

No. Mearls plan is not to mass market the RPG. His plan is to mass market other stuff carrying the D&D logo, the FR logo, etc.
[MENTION=55961]goldomark[/MENTION] has the right idea in post 28 upthread: the apps that Mearls is alluding to aren't apps that make it easier to play D&D; they are apps that people will buy from WotC because they are bored and want something to do while waiting in line at the airport; and the reason people will buy them from WotC is because they carry the D&D, FR etc logo.

 

[Jester David]

And you'll pick what you enjoy regardless of the time investment. If you make D&D as easy as a board game like Monopoly or a video game, you aren't going to have much of a game. Monopoly can be learned while playing and is extremely simple. Video games have everything created for you.

You play D&D because you enjoy the kind of game it is, not because of the amount of time you have to invest in it. I'm not saying simplifying it doesn't help some, but it will never be like a card game, video game, or board game. No one will choose to play one of those over the others based on time to learn investment. World of Warcraft was and is an all consuming part of your life when you play it, especially if you raid. Doesn't make people go, "I can spend less time playing D&D, so let's do that."

Mearls went into this a little more where he talked about playing the game without actually playing the game. The meta where you build characters and plan your current and future PCs, sketch out possible campaigns, make monsters, and the like. He used the Car Wars game as an example, but any crunchy RPG works.

It's a valid way to get enjoyment out of an RPG. I have a player that does that when his work sends him on long road trips.
However, it's still a barrier to entry. Because if the game expects you to sit down for 30-90 minutes to make a character before you can play, then that's hard to get started. I have players that love to play but don't think of the game away from the table and levelling up their character is a chore because it means slowly going through all their choices and options.

That's hard enough at the best of times, but gets trickier now when casual entertainment is so accessible.
You can spend 30 minutes building a character or playing Candy Crush.

Playing has the same rough competition as before, but prep has so much more.

 

[BryonD]

The thing that seems missing to me is just HOW are they going to market the next airport app with D&D on it without better support for the TTRPG?

I get that ultimately we as a market are pretty trivial. But it doesn't advance the brand to let too many people move to and stay with other RPGs. If it is completely unimportant and they are relying upon established cultural awareness, then why bother spending any funds on 5E in the first place?

It is very far from safe to presume that "Dungeons and Dragons" will be the #1 RPG 2 years from now.

It all becomes a form of circular logic. If the game itself is important only for how it provides a foundation for the (theoretically) highly valuable brand, doesn't that still mean that the game itself is important?

 

[delericho]

Damn those programs for being simultaneously hard and time-consuming while being easy to bang out.

Did you not see the bit where I explained the difference? Or are you willfully misrepresenting me?

... there's a world of difference between something put out at zero or low cost for a few people to mess around with and with no great expectations, versus a polished product intended for sale to tens of thousands of picky fans.

 

[delericho]

I get that ultimately we as a market are pretty trivial. But it doesn't advance the brand to let too many people move to and stay with other RPGs. If it is completely unimportant and they are relying upon established cultural awareness, then why bother spending any funds on 5E in the first place?

The best answer I've seen to that is that Mearls and his team were able to persuade upper management that they could get one last big payday from the game by developing a new edition. And, indeed, it does seem they're right.

It all becomes a form of circular logic. If the game itself is important only for how it provides a foundation for the (theoretically) highly valuable brand, doesn't that still mean that the game itself is important?

Ah, but is it important that it exist in order to provide that foundation, or does it also need to be being built up and supported?

 

[Irennan]

The best answer I've seen to that is that Mearls and his team were able to persuade upper management that they could get one last big payday from the game by developing a new edition. And, indeed, it does seem they're right.



Ah, but is it important that it exist in order to provide that foundation, or does it also need to be being built up and supported?

Wow, if this actually is their take on D&D, then the future of the RPG and its settings will be truly sad. Hearing all this talk about valuing some random D&D-branded apps, t-shirts or other little, meaningless (IMO) stuff over the RPG is so damn discouraging.

 

[BryonD]

The best answer I've seen to that is that Mearls and his team were able to persuade upper management that they could get one last big payday from the game by developing a new edition. And, indeed, it does seem they're right.

This gets back to "whose definition of 'big' are we using, and what is that definition".

Ah, but is it important that it exist in order to provide that foundation, or does it also need to be being built up and supported?

I certainly think the later. When you are talking about years or possibly even decades, the cultural background seeps through. Millions of people who would consider thinking about D&D, have a general concept of what it is because the community exists as part of the background. If the HeroMaker RPG comes out in 2017 and takes gamer world by storm and becomes the #1 RPG by a long shot (comparable to D&D in the past) then before 2027 the geek jokes on sit coms will be dropping the name Heromaker, not D&D.

 

[I'm A Banana]

And you'll pick what you enjoy regardless of the time investment.

What impossible magical world do you live in where the possible time investment of say 4-8 people is not a relevant barrier to entry? Does it have unicorns?