The future of RPGs

[MerricB]

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.

Consider the Basic Game; and then consider the possibilities of an Expert Game.

Magic: the Gathering actually possesses such a structure.

There is the Starter Set, which introduces you to the basics of the game.

There is the Core Edition (currently 8th edition), which introduce you to the main rules and a subset of the abilities.

Finally, there are the Expansion sets, which uses complicated rules and abilities.

To some extent, D&D mirrors that approach (see here: The Future of D&D) with its Stage I, II and III players. The question is if Stage II (the Core Rulebooks) are slightly too advanced compared to the Stage I player (with the Basic Game).

Cheers!

 

[Ranger REG]

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.

But with all due respect, not everyone started with the "red box" (though it was intended more as a Gygax vehicle than an intro to AD&D). Most especially during the 90's, when TSR stopped producing it. Granted, they released a D&D Cyclopedia book, but even that never caught on.

 

[ssampier]

D&D on the Moon!

2019, we return to the moon. This time astronauts do not play golf, but instead play (an very abbreviated) D&D session.

They leave several d20 dice on the surface.

 

[MerricB]

But with all due respect, not everyone started with the "red box" (though it was intended more as a Gygax vehicle than an intro to AD&D). Most especially during the 90's, when TSR stopped producing it. Granted, they released a D&D Cyclopedia book, but even that never caught on.

I wasn't talking about the old Basic D&D sets; I was talking about 3E.

The introductory product for 3.5E is the new D&D Basic Game. I think it fulfills your playable out of the box requirements as well as leading on to the more advanced Core Books.

Cheers!

 

[Greatwyrm]

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.

Link

The guy working on Cyberpunk 3e had mentioned this as well. Skip down a bit to the section where he compares video games to the set-up times for rpgs. Some interesting ideas and observations there.

 

[wingsandsword]

delericho

You just described the most sure-fire way to make sure I don't buy 4e, and that a great, great many existing D&D gamers would agree with that one. The idea of a "collectable roleplaying game" is something we've laughed at and joked about in these parts, in the vein of "never in a million years."

They can't move too far from the existing d20 framework, because if they decide to adopt a whole new game system, not only can players keep playing their 3.x just like 1e/2e or OD&D players keep going, the OGL means that 3rd party companies can keep supporting it indefinitely. Mongoose's Pocket Player's Handbook could give way to a whole new 3rd Party PHB which is little more than a reprinting of the PHB sections of the SRD with new fluff, character creation guidelines and a way for the gaming public to keep playing the game they want instead of having to collect D&D in booster packs.

Sure, Hasbro/WotC has pulling power to try and sell the game, but if they alienate their core loyal customers, and try and replace them with Joe Average who buys D&D in booster packs at Wal-Mart at $4 a pack, I don't see 4e surviving. At best it would create a massive schism in D&D as d20 players play the older game with it's buy-just-3-rulebooks model, and newer 4e players collecting Spell Packs, Feat Packs, Magic Item, Class Packs ect. looking for that elusive rare Wish, Vow of Poverty, Holy Avenger, and Bladesinger cards. In the long term, it might even lead the leading d20/OGL company whose PHB became the de facto standard into becoming a new superpower in gaming.

 

[delericho]

Collectable D&D...

One significant problem with the collectable monsters/spells/magic items model I proposed is that you need a fairly stable core set of each for use by DMs in preparing adventures and (perhaps more importantly) for writers of pregenerated adventures. And while they can produce collections of each (perhaps a few months after the boosters come out and/or omitting the rares), you can't guarantee that people would have them, leading to problems writing adventures.

In the absence of a solution to that problem, I don't think it could work.

The statement that a lot of current players wouldn't switch over to a game featuring such a collectable motif is also very valid, and almost certainly true. Although, I wonder how much of that is people's innate distaste for and distruct of collectable materials? Consider for the moment how many supplementary books of spells you have (Magic of Faerun? Complete Book of Eldritch Might? Relics & Rituals?). In all the time you've had them, has your group used even 25% of the material from any of these?

I also wonder what percentage of D&D players actually would switch over automatically, since they fall into the category of players who play casually, probably in RPGA games, and without using supplements of any sort (Not that there's anything wrong with any of these, except that they don't spend a lot of money on the game). If that market crosses over, and there's an influx of kids, then are we really that necessary? (Hopefully, the answer is 'yes', especially since the kids aren't guaranteed.)

 

[delericho]

Starter Sets

Consider the Basic Game; and then consider the possibilities of an Expert Game.

...

The question is if Stage II (the Core Rulebooks) are slightly too advanced compared to the Stage I player (with the Basic Game).

Indeed. I'll certainly be taking a look when the new Basic Set comes out (I run quite a few demo games), but my concern is that the jump will be just too much.

I suspect that the most effective way to bring new players into the hobby will always be for an experienced player (or, better, two) to run them through a couple of demo adventures. I do this reasonably often, and usually find that they are aware of D&D, and are keen to play. But, as soon as they see the three core rulebooks, they start to get worried.

Now, I don't have time to run more than a couple of demos per group, and there aren't any other local groups I can move them on to. What is really needed is a product to graduate a group like that from demo adventures to playing (and running) for themselves.

For that reason (and that reason alone), I would like to see 4th Edition try to get down to a single core rulebook, with a reduced number of options, and a reduced range of supported levels. Adding the missing options should then be achieved with an Advanced rulebook (of books), for folks who play already. I think there would be a distinct advantage of getting new players using the same core rulebook as everyone else as soon as possible, but by the same token, it is necessary that doing so doesn't turn them away.

(Of the starter sets I've seen in my time playing the game, the best was the Basic/Expert/Companion model used in D&D way back. The biggest flaw there was that it was a distinctly different game from the AD&D everyone else played. In any event, times have changed, and I don't know if the same structure would work today.)

 

[Chris Durham]

We're still feeling the reverberations from MTG in the way that the game is marketed, and I'm not jusst talking minis. Options are the collectible currency. As D&D has become more of a system than the melting pot of dissociated rules it sometimes was in previous editions, it has taken on a "mix-and-match" quality similar to CCGs. It's a bit more evolved, but whereas in MTG I might have a creature that's +2/+3 and replace it with another that's +2/+2 with trample, in D&D, if I don't like my basic cleric, I have a bunch of prestige class options to choose from. The more books I have the more options I have. I know it's always been this way, but the sourcebooks these days are so focused on options to standard game mechanics that that's what people look at them as. Buying options, just like a new booster pack. Gone are the days where a regional sourcebook was just information on that region and some key characters. Now there are Prestige Classes, spells, feats, races. We're just buying the crunch and the fluff becomes secondary. Now, I say that lovingly. I do it myself, but personally I love the fluff. But we have to ask ourselves: Would we buy it without the crunch?

This is actually a digression from my actual point. The thing is I love the way the game is marketed right now (with the possible exception of the minis, which I'm suspicious of). The problem is that over the next few years I can see the game devolving further into this CCG Model. The further it goes, the worse off the game will ultimately be.

At the other end of the spectrum is the MMORPG which lacks the human touch, fun as it may be. Without leaps and bounds in artificial intelligence (large enough to make computers creative), MMORPGs can't replace the human end of gaming, and I wouldn't want them to anyway.

Unfortunately we as the audience are less in control of our hobby than the marketing departments of the gaming companies. Even the designers are slaves to marketing these days. Such is the way of the 21st century. There's one thing that can fix it, but it won't happen in 3 years. Maybe the next decade. A smaller company has to buy D&D. Monte Cook has said it before and he's absolutely right. As long as the game is a tool to fill shareholders' pockets, it will completely devolve into "Wal-Mart fare." A smaller company, with the welfare of the game in mind and reasonable expectations as to what the bottom line should be from a niche hobby is the only real hope for the game as we know it.

Oh yeah, and they should bring back the TSR name.

 

[Ranger REG]

Link

The guy working on Cyberpunk 3e had mentioned this as well. Skip down a bit to the section where he compares video games to the set-up times for rpgs. Some interesting ideas and observations there.

Read the article. Much like the Dragon "Knight vs. Samurai" article, no clear-cut winner. Although the statement in which pen-n-paper score point, I don't think that inter-office manuevering is limited to software development companies. It can also happen in RPG design studios like WotC where every employee are designers who have other skills.

Maybe we should get some insight from other people like Sean K Reynolds who is now working in a software development company designing CRPGs.