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

[Zaukrie]

If they are going to attract a whole new audience, they need to do something different. We are 4+ editions in, and the audience is shrinking. I think it is a no-brainer that they need a version of the game that you can buy at the store and be playing 45 minutes or less later. Would this be the "complete version" of the game? Of course not. There would also be an extended version aimed at all of us.

but if they don't get a good entry level, family type game, then the game is probably destined to shrink and mostly disappear over time.

 

[Twowolves]

Imagine if you will the following.

D&D The Boxed Set.
Includes: Dice, 2 page Quick Start Rules, 6 Pregenerated Characters, battlemat, tokens or miniatures, (2) Easy to Follow 16 page Adventures, Players Guide, Campaign/DM Guide, character sheets.

When you open the box you go grab a pregenerated character, read over the quick start rules and follow one of the adventure. You are up and running in the time that it takes to open the box, select a character, and read the Q/S rules.

When you finish the adventure, you can play the second adventure or you can go look at the Player's and DM Guide for the expansion rules of the game (Character Creation, Creating Adventures, Monsters, etc.). When you finish reading those books you should have had time to run both adventures and have enough materials to adventure for a few levels. Make additional adventures available for sale or through DDI, maybe even a solo adventure.

You market the "crap" out of this boxed set, and that is how you "hook" a new generation of players to the game.

You mean, something like THIS?

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

You mean, something like THIS?

Still not quite there. The rules are quite a bit too heavyweight for a family game for instance. You need a 5 page rule set.

I'd say there are a few things it would need, a 5 page intro rule set, a non-DM mode of play, and of course pregens for everything. Really Castle Ravenloft is FAR closer to this than BB or RB are.

What you'd want to do is an iteration of the rules, like a new edition or something, and then make those new rules in such a way that they had a really simple core, and some add-ons for the advanced people. Then you'd package it up as a family game with just the simple core "here's how you fight" part. Monsters on cards, powers on cards, dungeon built with tiles as you explore,

Want to play a more advanced game? Well, here. We have these different add-ons: More tiles, more characters, more powers (IE another game but maybe done as an add-on) and we also have this coupon for DDI where you can go and learn the OTHER rules, the ones that add in all the fully moderated RP and tell you how to BUILD a dungeon, add new things to it etc. You get a month free when you buy a game or add on. You can also buy the "D&D Infinite Adventures" box or whatever that has it all in a book or 3 with more tokens/minis etc. Then you can sell printed adventures with any tiles and pogs you need as well.

So you have one continuous system that covers all the range from family game you start in 5 minutes up to full up modern rules heavy FRPG, with a couple gradiations inbetween.

I remember my dad would play TFT with us, which was a real simple system that was a mini-game, but you could run it as an RPG, so he'd just add little stuff to it and run simple adventures. box that concept.

 

[Disparue]

I came into RPGs from HeroQuest. My friends and I kept making more and more rules and magic items for that game. One of my friends made a huge grid-map on sheets of bristol board. Now imagine our amazement when we found the AD&D dungeon masters guide at the local library.

I can see a very stripped down version of the rules set working as an entry into 5E. I glanced at essentials and it seemed like they had a choose your own adventure that helped introduce you to that game (I haven't really played 4E so I'm not that familiar).

As it is we currently play a very stripped down version of 3rd edition. We often get players who've never played before and my goal was to be able to fit most of the rules onto the character sheet with a five minute explanation and a sheet of paper that explains their class abilities (we have a sort of pre-gen list of spells for new players if they want to play a wizard or cleric).