WotC's Nathan Stewart: "Story, Story, Story"; and IS D&D a Tabletop Game?

Forbes spoke to WotC's Brand Director & Executive Producer for Dungeons & Dragons, who talked about the 5th Edition launch and his vision for D&D's future. The interview is fairly interesting - it confirms or repeats some information we already know, and also delves a little into the topic of D&D as a wider brand, rather than as a tabletop roleplaying game.

In the interview, he reiterates previous statements that this is the biggest D&D launch ever, in terms of both money and units sold.

[lq]We are story, story, story. The story drives everything.[/lq]

He repeats WoTC's emphasis on storylines, confirming the 1-2 stories per year philosphy. "We are story, story, story. The story drives everything. The need for new rules, the new races, new classes is just based on what’s going to really make this adventure, this story, this kind kind of theme happen." He goes on to say that "We’re not interested in putting out more books for books’ sake... there’s zero plans for a Player’s Handbook 2 any time on the horizon."

As for settings, he confirms that "we’re going to stay in the Forgotten Realms for the foreseeable future." That'll disappoint some folks, I'm sure, but it is their biggest setting, commercially.

Stewart is not "a hundred percent comfortable" with the status of digital tools because he felt like "we took a great step backwards."

[lq]Dungeons and Dragons stopped being a tabletop game years or decades ago. [/lq]

His thoughts on D&D's identity are interesting, too. He mentions that "Dungeons and Dragons stopped being a tabletop game years or decades ago". I'm not sure what that means. His view for the future of the brand includes video games, movies, action figures, and more: "This is no secret for anyone here, but the big thing I want to see is just a triple-A RPG video game. I want to see Baldur’s Gate 3, I want to see a huge open-world RPG. I would love movies about Dungeons and Dragons, or better yet, serialized entertainment where we’re doing seasons of D&D stories and things like Forgotten Realms action figures… of course I’d love that, I’m the biggest geek there is. But at the end of the day, the game’s what we’re missing in the portfolio."

You can read the full interview here.

 

[Trickster Spirit]

I fully agree. It's all about THEIR story, but they're not giving us the tools for OUR stories.

Has any edition of D&D ever provided ALL of the tools necessary for that?

Let's say YOUR story is about a world where psionics play a major role. 2E, 3.0 and 3.5 didn't have psionics at release either, and 4E didn't introduce psionic classes until PHB 3. 5E

And psionics is a relatively "big" subsystem - let's say you want to tell stories about a party where the characters are all dragons? If you're not playing 2E or willing to convert Council of Worms to your edition of choice, they're not giving you the tools you need for your story. A story where people use Incarnum to save the world? If you're not playing 3.5 or willing to convert Magic of Incarnum to your edition of choice, they're not giving you the tools you need for your story. A fairy tale story where the playable races are gingerbread men, nutcrackers, tooth fairies and ? No edition of D&D has ever given you all the tools you need for your story.

Anyone with an imagination to speak of can come up with a story that's not covered by the rules of D&D. So where should the cut-off be? Do we say psionics and playable dragons make the cut, because more people bought those books in past editions, but for incarnum and playable gingerbread men, you're on your own?

5E's like any other edition. You start with the core, which is pretty recognizable the "core" of D&D, and then new things get tacked on to it. Maybe those new things are the things you're interested in, maybe they're not. Psionics is a good bet, though depending on how long you're willing to wait for those rules before jumping ship for another RPG, perhaps not in a timeframe while you're still playing the game.

The design team isn't cackling with glee every time someone asks for a splatbook and they joyously refuse. It's just that they've just put out a pretty complete core ruleset, and aren't going to bend over backwards to fill in every single niche expansion product just because someone would buy it. This is the slow and steady wins the race edition, which was built on fan input - when the general consensus is the game needs a psionics expansion (or playable dragons, or Incarnum, or a FRCS, or whatever) to move forward, I expect we'll see it soon after.

 

[sandvirm]

I'm entirely happy without Psionics. I've never been attracted to the flavor. However I think they should be included in the core PHB for one reason: it would increase the chance they are balanced with the core classes, unlike every previous edition.

 

[Mirtek]

Has any edition of D&D ever provided ALL of the tools necessary for that?

Any other edition has provided a lot of books that were not focused on a specific storyline.

when the general consensus is the game needs a psionics expansion (or playable dragons, or Incarnum, or a FRCS, or whatever) to move forward, I expect we'll see it soon after.]

There was a general consensus this game needs a PotA?

 

[Mistwell]

It is not because the core books sold well at launch, and there are reasons* why they sold well, that the rest will sell well. See 4e for that.

5e, as a RPG, looks like a stillbirth. A shame. D&D has a special place in my heart. Right new to beer and scotch.


*Two years without anything being published, a long playtest that made people curious, a promise to return to pre-4e paradigms...

You're cute.

 

[Zaran]

Any other edition has provided a lot of books that were not focused on a specific storyline.
There was a general consensus this game needs a PotA?

I'll expand on that question a little more. There was a general consensus that the game needs storylines?

 

[Mercule]

Yeah. I'm going to go ahead and give benefit of doubt for the "only" in that key sentence. He spent a good chunk of time bragging up how well the core books sold, so that fits. I'm curious, though, whether the better word to insert would be "primarily", rather than "only". I hope not.

At its core, D&D is a game that exists (IMO) to enable me to interactively tell stories with friends. In that regard, I agree with Nathan ("Stories, stories, stories"). My disagreement comes in that I think the key differentiating factor for D&D is that it's there to tell stories that occur on my world, not a published setting. Published settings are a great plus, but not core. Ditto for published adventures.

I say that as someone who is using a published adventure (PoA) on a published setting (Eberron) due to having next to no time to prep. I lament my inability to play D&D to its "fullest", though. Functionally, I'm just peachy with them publishing "campaign in a box/book" type products, due to time constraints. However, I really, really don't like them being tied to the Realms. Hopefully, they keep coupling fairly low (PoA/Phandelver). I also hope they hear fans asking for a bit more support for other settings.

D&D should never, ever become synonymous with Forgotten Realms. There should be a concerted effort to ensure FR is seen as only one implementation of D&D and not as the primary vehicle.

Once you go beyond settings, I really can't see much that's missing. Psionics is the only glaring hole.

 

[SilverfireSage]

It is not because the core books sold well at launch, and there are reasons* why they sold well, that the rest will sell well. See 4e for that.

5e, as a RPG, looks like a stillbirth. A shame. D&D has a special place in my heart. Right new to beer and scotch.


*Two years without anything being published, a long playtest that made people curious, a promise to return to pre-4e paradigms...

If D&D 5E is a stillbirth, what are all of the other RPGs?

 

[Random Catchphrase]

It sounds more like it is loosing momentum and goodwill.

Look at PotA. It is behind the core rule books in rank and it just got out. http://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-Books-Fantasy-Gaming/zgbs/books/16211/ref=zg_bs_nav_b_2_25 According to novelrank, it is #468 on amazon and sold 226 books. http://www.novelrank.com/asin/0786965789 Considering it just launched and it is their only product released in the last 4 months and probably their last until GenCon, I do not see this as encouraging.

The PHB is ranked #189 and sold 600 copies. http://www.novelrank.com/asin/0786965606

Compared to january were 4,000 PHB were sold, 5,000 the first month it launched, it doesn't look like the train is gathering momentum.

Maybe those numbers are irrelevant if you do not plan to support the RPG and just want to sell video games. A shame when you just like RPGs.

You should include recent pathfinder releases here, so we can understand what those numbers mean.

 

[Mirtek]

I'll expand on that question a little more. There was a general consensus that the game needs storylines?

I believe immediately that there was a consensus that a storyline would be good. I can't believe that there was a consensus that only storylines would be good

This also seems to fly in the face of an statement in an earlier interview that they don't want to produce books which are bought to collect dust on the shelf. Yet an AP is of much more limited utility than a FRCS. The AP will be taken from the shelf for the AP only, a FRCS for any FR game.

 

[darjr]

Love this. I'm only getting more and more players and GMs. In part because the treadmill is over. Great googly moogly just look at the growth of this very forum this long after release.