A Third Golden Age. Seventh Edition. A Cooperative League of Gaming Superfriends.
59. For the DMG to include a very succinct publishing history, overview, listing, and small world map of
all the D&D Worlds, including the obscure ones such as Birthright, Pelinore, Jakandor, and Council of Wyrms, so that the next generation would have some chance of connecting with those. These would also serve as 'campaign models'. The lesser-known worlds would only be a short paragraph, with a tiny photograph of their world map.
60. Each D&D World is reset to their 'classic' date, and all previously published D&D adventures, from all editions, and from all worlds, are expected to be mixed and matched and adapted for use by each DM (with clear guidance for changing names and other fluff, and changing certain monsters and geographic features, to match the essential qualities and map of each setting)...so that D&D is again an adventure-driven experience. (For example, officially, some Mystara adventures took place a decade before, or a century after, the classic date of 1000 AC. That 'traditional timeline' would still continue to exist, but in the rebooted Mystara, any and all adventures from any and all editions and settings would be 'expected' to serve as adventuring material in the here and now. Several semi-official localizations could be given for each adventure.)
61. So as to instill the principle that each gaming group's version of a WotC setting is an alternate timeline, WotC officially recognizes a few key 'enthusiast versions' of each of the published worlds as parallel worlds. For example, "
The GAZF D&D World of Mystara" and "
The grodog's D&D World of Greyhawk". Having recognized other timelines, the "WotC D&D Worlds" would be then conceptually freed up to follow their own path which is different from the existing enthusiast timelines and amateur lore.
62.
BX1: The Islandia Campaign, a mini-setting by John Wheeler, is published after all. TSR had agreed to release it as as a BECMI D&D sourcebook, and announced it, but it was cancelled. Here's the
Acaeum article. Here's
my interview with one of the players from Wheeler's home campaign. And
my interview with D&D product manager Bruce Heard, where he says: "
Islandia was never actually written as a product. This was a proposal submitted by outside people that a well-meaning in-house manager decided to summarily dump into Mystara since it didn't fit anywhere in the AD&D worlds (none of the AD&D product managers really wanted it so I got it instead, gee thanks)... and, following some major foot-dragging, the pesky proposal went away. As such it was never really incorporated into the Mystara world."
63. The slated, but cancelled Hackmaster comedic versions of each D&D world are released, such as Jame Mishler's HackWurld of Mystaros. Here's
my interview with the author, James Mishler.
64. The Zeitgeist-licensed Blackmoor books are released at D&D Classics. (BTW, thanks to the WotC crew for making the D&D Classics site possible.)
65. The official 'enthusiast sites' (
Burnt World of Athas,
Vaults of Pandius,
Birthright.net,
Dragonlance Nexus) are prominently linked from the WotC website. They used to be there, but now I don't see them anymore. The official Spelljammer (Beyond the Moons) and Planescape (Planewalker) sites appear to be defunct. The excellent
Secrets of the Kargatane, the first 'official fan site' is now only in archive mode.
66. The WotC-designated 'enthusiast logos' from Jim Butler's day are dusted off and offered at the WotC site. And WotC facilitates another amateur logo contest for each world, so that we have two to choose from.
67. All issues of Imagine Magazine (the TSR UK magazine) are made available at D&D Classics. That would make the evocative British-flavored D&D World of Pelinore available for a new generation.
68. The really old and
rare D&D books, such as Palace of the Vampire Queen, are released either at D&D Classics (if the IP is owned by WotC) or by a third-party publisher, both in original form, and updated for 5th edition.
69. All issues of Dragon, Dungeon, and Polyhedron are made available.
70. WotC seeks out 1970s and early 1980s-era gamers and game companies, and commissions a series of campaign models, but with 5e under the hood. There could be a single volume which contains an overview and world map for several settings. Same for homebrew worlds of authors which were glimpsed in the 'generic' Dungeon magazine adventures. Here's
a list of early D&D or D&D-influential worlds:
- 1. Aquaria (Mentzer)
- 2. Arduin (Hargraves)
- 3. Barsoom (as part of the Greyhawk campaign; not for Warriors of Mars, which was not a RPG)
- 4. Blackmoor (Arneson)(Temple of the Frog and the First Fantasy Campaign)
- 5. Edwyr - (Blacow) (co editor of TWH, author of the fourfold way classification of gamers)
- 6. Forgotten Realms (Greenwood)
- 7. Glorantha (Stafford)(initially more D&D-like?)
- 8. Gorree - Mark Swanson (co editor of TWH)
- 9. Greyhawk (Gygax)(quasi-published as part of C&C's Great Kingdom uber-setting, as well as referred to and partially described in modules, magazines, and the core D&D rules themselves)
- 10. Holmes Original Campaign (Holmes)
- 11. Kalibruhn (Kuntz)
- 12. Known World (Mentzer & Shick). Unlike the later "Mystara" conception, "Urt" of the BECMI boxed sets wasn't hollow, had a different political map (as seen in the Masters Set), and was the same size of Earth, and set in Earth's Jurassic prehistory.
- 13. Lendore Isles (Lakofka)
- 14. Middle Earth (often imitated, obliquely referenced in the original core rulebooks, and originally used by Bledsaw before Wilderlands)
- 15. Midkemia (Feist)
- 16. Minaria (a board game, but with its own campaign setting easily used in D&D)
- 17. "mythic Earth" (the real world with magic added to it, which many people essentially did and Chivalry & Sorcery officially did)
- 18. Rythlondar (VanDeGraaf and Scensny)
- 19. Tekumel (Barker)(not D&D, but its rules are heavily influenced by D&D)
- 20. Toricandra (Jeff Grubb)
- 21. Trollworld (St. Andre)(not D&D, but its rules are heavily influenced by D&D)
- 22. Warden (Ward)(not D&D, but it had cross-overs with D&D characters)
- 23. Wilderlands (Bledsaw)(all Judges Guild products). James Mishler's "Wilderlands of High Adventure" is an alternate version of the "Wilderlands of High Fantasy".
- 24. Star Strands (Steven Marsh)
71. WotC pays the Gygax Estate for unfettered access, and hires Eric Mona and the grodog to compile all of Gygax's campaign notes, and the notes and recollections of his players, and publishes a coherent, thoroughly Gygaxian re-boot of Greyhawk called "Gary Gygax's D&D World of Greyhawk". The 'traditional timeline' as seen in actual TSR and WotC Greyhawk products would continue to exist, but GGWoG would be its own Parallel Greyhawk timeline.
72. If WotC (Hasbro) won't do these 72 things, then Paizo, Green Ronin, Malhavoc, Pelgrane, Ryan Dancey, Morrus, and an international consortium of past and present D&D authors and artists unite as a worker-owned co-operative which is authentically devoted to the love of the game. This "
Mondragon of Roleplaying" enacts as much of our Pie-in-the-Sky list as can be accomplished without access to the D&D brand...and more. If 5e remains closed-sourced, the Co-op simply leaps over 5e (and 6e) and issues its own ultra-D&D which distills Pathfinder, 13th Age, and other D&D offshoots into a sort of "D&D Seventh Edition". The market access of Paizo, the business acumen of Dancey (who loves the game), and the combined efforts of dozens or hundreds of rpg luminaries (from the 70s, 80s, 90s, 2000s, and today) makes for a third Golden Age of roleplay (the 70s/early 80s being the first golden age, and the 3e/d20 era being the second). Gaming is offered as a freely-given cultural service. Like 'gaming monastics' or a 'gaming family', the authors and artists put all the money they receive from their work (such as sales and kickstarters and donations) into a pot, and receive a basic dignified income, like
these Duke grad students have recently done (and which me and my friends have done for the past couple years--we're the Columbia CommonWealth). The creators would receive their daily bread so that they are freed up to do what they do best--make rpg games and rpg art and rpg-related novels and organize rpg cultural events. When, in 20 years, the darkish corporatist bent has continued to run D&D into the ground so that it's no longer a profit for Hasbro, this "Community Supported Gaming" co-operative buys the D&D IP outright. The laid-off WotC workers would be welcome to join the co-operative.
