What has Wizards been doing right?

[Dausuul]

As far as I can tell, Wizards has great creative people and crap management (or at least the D&D side of it does). I have been highly impressed with the quality of the products they've released over the past year, especially the past few months. Essentials is awesome; the Rules Compendium, well, rules; I quite liked the Lords of Madness minis; we've seen some really, really good articles in Dragon in just the last week or two; and so on.

I continue to believe the D&D brand is in deep trouble, but it's got nothing to do with the quality of the product and everything to do with strategy, management, and timing. I think the 4E products coming out right now are the best stuff this edition has yet seen.

 

[JoeGKushner]

While I am unimpressed with the amount of repeated information in the Essentials line, the actual builds for the characters and the 'promise' of evergreen tiles is a solid one.

 

[possum]

They finished out the Star Wars Saga Edition on a high note, and before the line was really played out. All in all, SWSE was a stellar effort.

I don't know about that, personally. While Unknown Regions was a very good book, as were all of the books released in the final half year of the line, them cancelling the line kind of crosses that bit of good out for me.

I really liked the Dark Sun books, as well as the Encounters events. That's what I have.

 

[ShinHakkaider]

Castle Ravenloft was the only WOTC product that I bought since the 4E Books and it's a fun board game. I have fun playing it with my 9 year-old and we're both looking forward to the next one Wrath of the big red Flaming Dragon (I forget his name).

 

[Treebore]

Overwhelmingly negative post removed by admin. Nothing wrong with being unhappy with WotC, but as the original poster asked, this isn't the thread to discuss that in. Thank you. ~ Piratecat

 

[Shadowslayer]

What have they been doing right?

Well, they produce a game and some cool accessories to go with it...that me and my buddies get together once a week and have a hell of a good time with.

That's all I need from them, and they deliver in spades.

 

[Harlekin]

Me:

Going back to early 2010, Underdark and The Plane Above were two of the best theme books that WotC has put out in years - both very well done and packed with lots of interesting fluff. Being generallly indifferent about psionics I was ambivalent about Player's Handbook 3, but I thought it was overall well-executed with a couple nice variations on the rules (psionic powers and hybrid classes, in particular).

I thought they did an excellent job with the Dark Sun books, both the Campaign Guide and Creature Catalog - which was nice to get for less than $14 on Amazon!

As for Essentials, the Rules Compendium may be the single most table-useful book that I've ever seen produced for D&D, and that is going back almost 30 years. I also liked the Monster Vault - the tokens are a nice option to have and despite my feeling that the digest size doesn't work well for the Heroes books, I like it for the monster format.


What about you?

I agree, Wizards has produced a stellar lineup of outstanding gaming books this year, among the best product ever produced for D&D (I'm thinking of Planes Above and the Monster Vault). So one could say, they got the most important thing right?

 

[the Jester]

Almost all of their physical releases are good or better, with a couple of notable exceptions.

Unfortunately, it seems that what they do well is increasingly... not their focus, and instead they are turning more fully towards the parts of their business that they do very poorly (e.g. anything digital).

 

[MortonStromgal]

Betrayal on the Castle Ravenloft

This is a step in the right direction. Had they simplified the movement more and added some sorta monster movement (like Arkham Horror for example). This could be the new D&D Adventure game and possibly do as well as the old red box with enough tweaks (ie simplify enough to sell to monopoly players)

As much as it may piss off the old D&D fans, I see releasing a new themed board game every six months with everything you need to play and compatible with the other board games as a win. Don't reprint the old ones either, when you sell out your out. You may recycle some of the stuff in it for a future board game but keep it fresh.

Box one may be
The Dungeon of Ultimate Doom lvl 1-10
Fighter, Rogue, Cleric, Wizard (2 builds of each), 4 pre-painted plastic minis
Dungeon tiles with markings for how enemies will move
1, 10 part campaigns taking you from level 1-10
20 one shots, 2 for each level (can be swaped for appropriate campaign adventure)
Cardboard Monster Tokens for all the Monsters
1 set of dice

Box two may be
Bandits in the Forest of No Hope lvl 1-10
Druid, Warden, Shaman, Ranger (2 builds of each), 4 pre-painted plastic minis
Forest tiles with markings for how enemies will move
1, 10 part campaigns taking you from level 1-10
20 one shots, 2 for each level (can be swaped for appropriate campaign adventure)
Cardboard Monster Tokens for all the Monsters
1 set of dice


so on and so forth, then when you have covered the basics go back and do dungeon for lvl 11-20, wilderness for 11-20 etc etc. And feel free swap out a class or two.

 

[Plane Sailing]

moved to rpg industry forum