The future of RPGs

[Steel_Wind]

I would not rate the OGL as "groundbreaking". It simply made official things that had been done since the days of Judge's Guild.

It served to wipe out a lot of WotC's competitors (or more to the point, their competing product lines). But really, in terms of overall effect on the macro market, I don't think its done much. Shuffled some money between existing piles. I don't think the RPG market is much bigger as a result (though there have certainly been winners and losers).

D&D Minis are not a "new collectible game". VERY few people on Enworld are using these for skirmish games- but get them to use during the play of RPGs.

As to whether or not the skirmish game is popular overall as a function of the minis purchasers, I don't know.

If the test is "groundbreaking" (in the REAL sense as M:TG was) well... something like that's unlikely to happen in the next 3 years - or the next 10. It might not happen for 30 years. Who knows?

Lightning like that rarely strikes often.

A more realistic view is to take a look at market trends are and what's loomin, new and important.

And right now - that's minis. No doubt about it.

 

[MerricB]

A couple of notes: if you want something as groundbreaking and massive as Magic, you're not going to find it here. It's going to be a surprise to almost everyone. Thus, I'm not really interested in such speculation.

I'm more interested in things that have occurred recently that will affect gaming as we know it.

Now, on to D&D Miniatures...

I am not talking about the actual skirmish game. (The groundbreaker in that area was MageKnight). I'm talking about the actual effects of the miniatures on the RPG.

Wizards' RPG division survives primarily on the sales of the core rulebooks. The bulk of their profits come from those sales. They make a small amount of money from each supplement they release, and even less from adventures. Supplements and adventures give the designers something to do, regardless (so they can update the core rulebooks when necessary), but they also keep people aware of D&D and buying the core rulebooks.

Not everyone buys these supplements. Why not? In many cases, they're adding to the complexity and options of the game. My belief is that most D&D gamers run a campaign based primarily on the core rulebooks and a few additions they create themselves. They don't actually need the supplements to improve the quality of their game play.

However, there is a big difference between the supplements (which add complexity) and accessories (which aid the playing of the game). Character sheets, dice, DM screens and miniatures are all accessories. They help you play the game.

Traditional metal miniatures only appeal to the really dedicated gamers. Well, casual gamers might pick a few up, but for a really good collection, you need to spend about as much time on the miniatures as the role-playing.

The plastic miniatures appeal to the casual gamer - there's no additional time required. Obviously, they'd be even better if they were non-random, but see Merric's Law of Miniatures.

There is actually another reason for them to be random, and it helps Wizards: you create a pointer to the D&D supplements.

For your "core book" gamer, the Cleric of Lathander mini is just a pretty miniature of a cleric which can be used to aid their D&D game. However, on examination of the stat card that comes with the miniature reveals an unusual feat: "Divine Vengeance", and a note explaining that it comes from the Complete Warrior.

Now, many "core book" gamers will just ignore that and move on, but some will say, "I wonder what that does" and thus buy the Complete Warrior. The sales of the supplements are improved because a miniature mentioned them as a source.

This is an even more obvious link in the case of new monsters. A figure sourced from Monster Manual III sends a very strong pointer to its owner to investigate MM3.

It's worth reading the design interview for MM3. Wizards used a new process in designing the book (a very good one, I think). One factor that was on their minds was that some of the monsters should make good miniatures.

I'm sure that's one reason there are so few Huge or larger monsters in MM3: they are almost impossible to turn into miniatures.

Related to this is the problem of getting people into D&D. The miniatures provide a convenient entry portal because they are very close to the board games which people play growing up. (That's an excellent reason for the grid in the mini game, btw - it makes it much more accessible to the beginner).

So, those are my views on what Wizards is doing to try to help the future of Pen & Paper D&D.

Against that, the main competitor is the MMORPG. Although the role of the DM is subsumed by the computer, one of the chief draws of RPGs, interaction with other players, is present in a MMORPG. With the speed of broadband, people can actually speak to each other whilst playing these games. Hmm.

So, as to the future of D&D, that is a major factor looming: something that is almost a RPG, but with much less preparation time required.

Sure, I know many of us like games with far more freedom than is possible in a MMORPG, but consider how many people play D&D simply as a "kill and loot" game! That's a major competing factor, I think.

Cheers!

 

[Orius]

(snipped miniature analysis to save bandwidth and all that.)

I think you make a good point, and I think WotC may very well be doing something like this: realizing that D&D won't generate huge amounts of cash like M:tG or Pokemon cards, but they can generate a good sum of money by pumping the mini line. Hell, the skirmish game itself doesn't really matter much, it might take off if goes more mainstream and the minis show up in toy stores, but really I think more people are buying the minis for use in a D&D game. At least I hope WotC will pump up minis for money and profit off it rather than reprint the Core Books everytime sales start slumping.

Using it to sell other books might be a good plan too. Your cleric of Lathander example is good, not only might it help sell copies of Complete Divine, it might also help drive sales of Realms products.

The biggest downside to this is the collectable aspect of it. My biggest worry is that minis of monsters that are fairly unique to D&D will end up rare and harder to obtain, which kind of sucks if I want to use the monster in an actual tabletop game, and not sub in some sort of placeholder mini for it.

 

[Ranger REG]

Hmm. So where does the future of RPG lie? The way of the dodo and 8-tracks? Or can it reclaim the top spot of sellable leisure game in this digital/information age?

You touched upon one thing, MerricB. I think RPG should now emphasize "out-of-the-box playing." To have everything you need to prepare in little or no time and begin play ... right there, right now. If that means bringing back a starter adventure into the rulebook, so be it. If that means writing adventures so that even a two-year-old can run the game, so be it (and I don't mean "dumbing it down" but rather be "DM-friendly," especially newbie DM).

 

[delericho]

My predictions...

Personally, I would be surprised if, three years from now, we aren't busy counting down to 4th Edition (or playing it already). I also fully expect it to be tied a lot more closely to the miniatures, for the funds.

I wouldn't be surprised if 4th Edition had a collectable bestiary (so, instead of a big Monster Manual, you get a small sample of monsters in the DMG, and have to buy miniature boosters for the rest), and a collectable grimoire (ditto spells in the PHB). The main challenge I would see in Wizards implementing this would be in persuading DMs to (a) buy lots of miniature boosters and (b) accept players bringing new and unseen spells to the table, with all the balance issues that would threaten.

Mechanically, I expect 4th Edition to be similar to 3rd, but with a few layers of complexity shaved off. Oh, and earlier comments about "out of the box playability" are almost certainly correct.

In terms of the RPG market as a whole, I expect things to be much the same as they are now. Wizards will still be huge relative to everyone else, with White Wolf closest (probably with a 2nd edition of Exalted in the works, to move to the new WoD ruleset), and then the rest. d20 will remain the dominant system, but by no means the only game in town.

I don't expect to see anything groundbreaking, but if I did, I would be making money off it already

 

[Orius]

I wouldn't be surprised if 4th Edition had a collectable bestiary (so, instead of a big Monster Manual, you get a small sample of monsters in the DMG, and have to buy miniature boosters for the rest), and a collectable grimoire (ditto spells in the PHB). The main challenge I would see in Wizards implementing this would be in persuading DMs to (a) buy lots of miniature boosters and (b) accept players bringing new and unseen spells to the table, with all the balance issues that would threaten.

Ugh, I certainly hope not. Certainly not in a way that would make monsters and spells from previous editions obsolete or very difficult to use in the new game.

 

[delericho]

Ugh, I certainly hope not. Certainly not in a way that would make monsters and spells from previous editions obsolete or very difficult to use in the new game.

I didn't say it was a pleasant thought (it's not), but the powers-that-be at Wizards have a responsibility to maximise shareholder value, and if they can make this fly it would certainly help towards that.

There is one other beneficial side-effect. If you cut the Monster Manual to a quarter of its size, cut two-thirds of the spells from the PHB, and do the same to the magic items in the DMG, you're getting to the point where you can fit everything into a single book, called simply "Dungeons & Dragons". This becomes especially likely if you remove several options and subsystems, and everything above 10th level.

This allows you to drastically reduce the start-up cost ($30 instead of $90), and would allow the creation of a Warhammer-style starter set (containing the rule book, a sample adventure such as Sunless Citadel 4e, and all the miniatures and dungeon tiles needed to run it, plus dice, sample characters, and so on). All of which would help in bringing new players to the game.

You can then produce a book of advanced rules, covering levels above 10th, adding back races (Gnomes, Half-elves and Half-orcs), classes (Bards, Paladins, Druids, Wizards), multiclassing, alignment, and various other things that have been removed from the game. I propose such a book might be called "Advanced Dungeons & Dragons", or something like that.

(The reason I propose that the options listed above be moved to the advanced book is that those elements are harder for newbies to grasp than others. The races are the non-Tolkien ones, multiclassing and alignment can be quite hard to grasp, and I've found that Sorcerers are much easier to explain than Wizards. I'm assuming, of course, that the Vancian magic system isn't ditched in favour of a mana system, which I think is by no means certain.)

I would also predict a fairly major increase in the power of characters at low levels (so newly-minted 1st level characters would have power equivalent to current 3rd level characters, or thereabouts). There are few things as discouraging to a new player to have his wizard killed by a stray arrow in the first round of combat, before he's even had a chance to act.

I could, of course, be utterly wrong. I do, though, expect to see a move towards more ties to the miniatures, more ease of use for new players and, if possible, a lower entry price.

 

[Aaron L]

Oh god I hope that doesn't happen. I despise miniatures AND collectible games.

 

[mhacdebhandia]

I think that many smaller-than-d20 (in terms of market share) roleplaying games will move towards modularity, the way that GURPS and World of Darkness already have this year.

Now, obviously GURPS was always modular, because point-based systems usually are, but the Fourth Edition increases this to a large extent. Using, for example, the Innate Attack advantage to represent a robot's onboard minigun, Cyclops' optic blast, or a dragon's ability to breathe fire is one form of modularity; the other, more influenced (I think) by the d20 market, is the use of the Infinite Worlds setting as an explicit framework in which to place every GURPS campaign.

When it comes to the new World of Darkness, it's even more modular. Finally, White Wolf have taken the step of standardising the creation of human characters (in the World of Darkness corebook) and treating their supernatural PC types as, effectively, templates you whack on a human character.

Excellent idea, which you can see the beginnings of in, for example, the two-step Aeoniverse character creation system in Adventure!. Separating the supernatural effects of Inspiration (or eruption, in Aberrant, or whatever Trinity called it) from the process of creating a normal human was a significant departure from the old World of Darkness games, in which vampires, werewolves, and mages were created in a single step, which had the effect of blurring the line between abilities the character had before their transformation and those they possessed afterwards.

It also facilitates crossovers, which may still be something the White Wolf staff don't care for on thematic grounds but which is something that a not-insignificant proportion of their fanbase did even when it was difficult. Like the d20 guiding philosophy of choices and options rather than restrictions, it's a good decision to allow for what your customers want to be doing with your products anyway.

I cautiously predict that neither Werewolf: the Forsaken nor Mage: the Awakening will introduce too many concepts for which there is no equivalent in the rest of the World of Darkness. For example, I'd be surprised if we see the recurrence of problems like "How does this werewolf's Gift affect a vampire, if he doesn't have a Gnosis score?" In fact, I'll even more cautiously predict that both werewolves and mages will have humanity scores - signs point to mages' struggling with their disconnect from humanity (which makes them appear insane to mundane humans) as a major theme of the new game.

As for the industry in general, I wouldn't be at all surprised if new licensed games and sourcebooks are not-insignificantly likely to be released as GURPS or Unisystem (or whatever) products - probably not nearly as many as will be d20 books, but I think the new high-profile GURPS edition (and the improvement in production qualities it brings with it) will encourage more companies and authors to look beyond the d20 market.

More generally, I expect many companies to conform to the Wizards of the Coast all-hardcover production standard - GURPS and the World of Darkness are two which have already announced as much. Look to see the larger d20 companies falling into line on this one.

I also would not be entirely surprised to see more falling-off of the d20 market where it's likely to be as profitable to do so. AEG's ceasing to support Legend of the Five Rings as a d20 game before too long, and instead focusing upon a Third Edition of the original game. I think changes like this are likely to become more common - though perhaps AEG is a special case, considering how freely they ignore the general d20 design standards for Spycraft (and I mean this to their credit, in most cases, since they have the courage to innovate).

I would expect more publishers to concentrate on striking a balance between establishing their own standards for their d20 and OGL games and remaining close enough to the D&D standard to be useful to the wider market. I wouldn't be surprised if, for example, Monte Cook would like to make Arcana Unearthed/Evolved even more different from D&D than it already is, but contents himself with simply forging his own path within the context of broad compatibility - the Book of Iron Might, for example, sounds like a good example of a combat supplement done Malhavoc's way but still compatible with both D&D and Arcana Unearthed.

 

[MerricB]

You touched upon one thing, MerricB. I think RPG should now emphasize "out-of-the-box playing." To have everything you need to prepare in little or no time and begin play ... right there, right now. If that means bringing back a starter adventure into the rulebook, so be it. If that means writing adventures so that even a two-year-old can run the game, so be it (and I don't mean "dumbing it down" but rather be "DM-friendly," especially newbie DM).

It's probably important to realise that the Player's Handbook isn't the introduction to D&D - it's the Basic Game. That does have simple adventures and is playable out of the box.

However, I'm going to wait until I possess a copy of the Basic Game before commenting on whether a further, intermediate product is required.

Cheers!