Ryan dancey hints that DnD will become a board game....

[Jack99]

I see there's still confusion from Morrus posting that article for Gaming Tonic.

Could you enlighten me?

 

[Wormwood]

Once again he did not say board game, he said family game.

...

Imagine if you will the following.

I remember getting the Moldvay Basic Set at Christmas (82?). It *was* marketed as a family game---everything you needed in one box (rules, sheets, adventure and dice).

My dad and I read the rules, everyone rolled up characters Christmas Day and we explored the Caves of Chaos as a family. Granted, we only played as a family for two sessions (DMing my parents was difficult with their schedules), but my brother and I managed to keep playing all the way to the Lost City before I moved on to other groups.

But making the game 'family friendly' is something I can't imagine anyone* objecting to.

*(I'm kidding, of course, Some gamers just want to watch the hobby burn)

 

[Mark CMG]

D&D has been a quasi-wargame/roleplaying game hybrid since its inception and its emphasis on roleplaying grew through the Eighties and early Nineties. With the 2E "Player's Option" books through 3.XE, and on through 4E, elements were added that could easily suggest its emphasis on wargaming and boardgames had grown. Some would say that the roleplaying elements were increasingly outpaced in the RAW in those periods. It's hard as someone who plays all manner of tabletop games, thousands of them since the early Seventies, not to recognize this. Sure, any particular aspect of the game be emphasized more fully than others through playstyle choices regardless of the RAW, but the objective focus of the RAW remains what it is based on page/word count for each element, mitigated only somewhat by text that would suggest a favoring of one playstyle or another in any given release.

What I would like to see for a D&D roleplaying game going forward is a greater than 50% focus on roleplaying in any game/release that wishes to flat out call itself a roleplaying game. That seems reasonable. I'm also comfortable with a game that wishes to include more of some other element owning its base design by being labeled as a hybrid. It seems somehow false to me for a game to label itself as one type of game if it is being designed primarily as some other type of game, and I don't mean that it need be done so falsely in a purposeful manner. I'm cognizant that it is just as possible that a designer believes they are designing one type of game but then presenting another because of some misconceptions about what makes one type of game what it is. With the release of several D&D boardgames over the last year or so, it certainly seems like that philosophy is being embraced. I'd also love to see a more formalized D&D wargame come to the fore again, like DDM or Chainmail. I'm hoping that all types of D&D games expand and revitalize the tabletop gaming hobby and bring in new players that freely crossover from one type of game to another. The important thing is to be clear in how games are presented and labeled, to not confuse the marketplace, if you want satisfied customers and a community that can interact across types of gaming platforms. We will see what happens next.

 

[AeroDm]

People talk as if "D&D boardgame" and "D&D tabletop RPG" are mutually exclusive.

Imagine a world in which WotC does put out a good D&D boardgame, and they also have a full-fledged TTRPG in the market. I would not be altogether surprised if the boardgame were, by some measure, considered more "commercially successful" than the TTRPG.

There is a difference between "making a D&D board game" and "making D&D a board game." They've done the former several times to significant acclaim, but linking the flagship product to a board game is very different. The way I read the OP, it is pretty clearly suggesting the later.

 

[Agamon]

Could you enlighten me?

Last line of this post.

Someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but Russ didn't play (especially considering he's allowed to speculate), it was Gaming Tonic.

 

[Matt James]

It's not a board game folks.

 

[Jack99]

Last line of this post.

Someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but Russ didn't play (especially considering he's allowed to speculate), it was Gaming Tonic.

Thanks. I can see the post has been edited after I read it. Maybe it was added in


This short message was brought to you by Tapatalk and my iPad

 

[Argyle King]

Would you play if he is correct?

I would not

 

[Li Shenron]

Would you play if he is correct? Keep in mind he is an important figure in dungeons and dragons and not just some opinionated person.

Ryan dancey...
I think that commercially successful TRPGs of the future will be constructed more like a family game – something that can be unpacked, learned quickly, and played with little prep work. These games will give people a lot of the same joy of “roleplaying” and narrative control that they get from today’s Hobby Game TRPGs but with a fraction of the time investment. Wizards is already experimenting with this format, as is Fantasy Flight Games. It seems like a good bet that there is a substantially profitable business down this line of evolution.

I think he is talking about the starting package of the game, not the game design.

The first time I ever played D&D was with a box remake version of OD&D. The package was presented somewhat similarly to a board game, because it had a map board, figures, dice, and booklets. It was conceived as a starting point so that people could try out D&D with only a couple of days preparation for the DM and no real preparation for everybody else.

The first time I ever DM'ered a game of D&D, I owned the three 3.0 corebooks and I had been reading them for weeks, but none of my players had the books, and only a couple of them had played older editions of D&D. I just gave them an hour or so intro to the game, and then we spent another hour to make the PCs, and then we played our first session. It worked but it required me to be well prepared ahead, and I don't think this could have been done in a "family setting" where the family just takes the game back home from Walmart and at the end of the evening they already played their first adventure...

I'm not worried this means anything for D&D other than putting more effort to provide the game in a more casual-gamer-friendly starting package.

EDIT

Also... me too would absolutely love to have a "casual gamer's" session of D&D. You know like, you had an evening out with your friends at the theatre/pub/sports and it's still too early to go to bed... how about a short & casual 2-hours standalone adventure of D&D that requires no preparation at all? I would love that every now and then!

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

D&D doesn't need to be a board game, but IMO D&D does need a board/family game as an introductory tier. Many of the boxed sets have come close, but not quite there.

I think you want a product the casual board/family game player can pick up that is labeled D&D, and that they can play and say they have had a D&D experience, without it being the "full meal deal". It needs some similarity, variety, and replayability like D&D, and if thy player then makes a transition to D&D they should be able to see that it is the same game, just with significant complexity added -- something the current D&D boardgames, and many of the historical ones like Dungeon, lack.