You are in charge of WOTC.......

Move it to the East Coast. It's been in the Midwest and on the West Coast for long enough. :p

Hire Ryan Dancey back to figure out how to expand the market.

Get cracking on a new level of gaming experience integrating tabletop play with electronic accessories.

Start sponsoring regional gamedays everywhere.

Write my own stuff and get it published through them, but otherwise leave the D&D people to what they're doing.

Hire back some of the greats in the industry. If they'll come back.
 

log in or register to remove this ad


I would loot the company treasury into my own personal slush-fund; then quickly move to consolidate my position through a network of cronieism and influence-peddling. Then as the company slowly sank, I'd sell it off in bits and pieces, diverting the proceeds into off-shore accounts.
 

One: Commit whoe-heartedly to the sucess of D+D. Don't rest on your laurels. Realize what made you popular to begin with, and realize what caused D+D to almost sink into oblivion. (I personally would like D+D to be more "Fantastic" and less "Gritty", but that's just me..)

Two: DON'T release 4.0 for a good long while. The transistion from 3.0 to 3.5 was too soon, and a HUGE pain in the *** for most people I've talked to.

Three: Create a Character Generator that ACTUALLY WORKS. I dislike making charactes anyway, but now it's actually a chore. (It's not at the Ars Magica level yet, but it's not far off!!) An "Electronic Support" division might not be bad, either.

Four: Commit to quality products, at a reasonable price. Realize that people actually USE stat blocks provided, and that they need to be correct. (It's up the DM to fudge if s/he chooses to!!) Realize that it's NOT OK to butcher the English language in your products, even if it is "just" a gaming book.

Five: Create "Actual Play" groups to go and run min-adventures at local stores. They could supply pre-generated characters, dice, advice, and maybe some other little extras provided by WotC. (An "Actual Play CD/DVD" (as mentioned by other posters) would be a good start. (I know they have their own take on this already, but it doesn't seem to be high-visibilty.)

Six: And I'd get behind the "Complete Book of Squirrels" AND "Squirrels of Legacy".
 

KenM said:
Having a whole bunch of fans go out and spend money on a new set of core rules so soon would distance them.

Distance them? Try alienate. If 4th ed comes out, I won't buy. I am happy with 3.5.
 

If I were in charge of WotC (Do I have to be owned by Hasbro as well?) I'd...

1) 2-3 Campaign Settings per year with a very high level of production quality. Similar to the producton quality that White-Wolf has been putting into thier new Storytelling System releases. Each campaign setting would contain multiple short stories (very short ones) & very nice full-color imagery that conveyed the feel & theme of the setting.
I would avoid massive rules changes except where warranted by the setting itself (i.e., no Gnomes in Dark Sun). Conversely, I'd make liberal use of substitution levels & new classes based on the CS. 3-6 PrC's for the CS; balanced within the CS but not necessarily with the rest of d20. Include a list and suggestions for integration of the DMG PrCs and PrCs/Monsters from other sources. Multiple full-color maps would also be included.

To go with the release of the campaign setting, I'd follow up the ECS with:
A free 10-issue webcomic featuring good art and a decent story arc.
Races of/Power of/Player's Guide to (CS)
Monsters of (CS) - a general monster/template guide to the CS with power groups and perhaps different takes on the setting.
A Fiction Dualogy featuring the ECS
A short story anthology featuring the ECS
3-5 Adventures (published for free, if possible)
Pre-painted plastic miniatures.

2) 2-3 Largish general d20 adventures per year. A major NPC or two from this adventure would also be released for the miniatures game. Each adventure would contain a handful of unique magic items, a PrC or new take on an old class, a couple NEW monsters or races.

3) 4-6 books per year exploring various unexplored aspects of d20 with the intention on expanding horizons and risky ideas.

4) 2-4 books per year expanding upon previously popular campaign settings.
* A further 2-3 adventures (not free this time; but still cheap) in the campaign setting.
* Another trilogy of novels set in the campaign setting
* As always, there would be a miniature tie-in

5) 1-2 DM and/or Player advice books (ie, step-by-step class creation or monster creation), maybe some anthologies of feats/PrCs/equipment/spells that got released a couple years ago along with some new material as well).

6) 1 Monster book (general) per year and 1-2 smaller but more specialized monster books (like the Illithiad, Sea Devils, or Draconomicon).
* As always, there would be a miniature tie-in

7) 2+ "Complete" books but based around certain themes rather than classes. Combat focuses on combat options, new rules, streamlining rules, experemental rules, feats, PrCs, some new equipment, some new spells, and tip/tactics for existing classes (like, how to make the armored mage concept work).
* As always, there would be a miniature tie-in

Well, that's my take. Its a lot of adventures, but settings need adventures (even if those adventures don't make any money).

The DVD idea above is excellent. You could give those away with miniatures game starter packs as well. 2-3 page expose's can be purchased in 'mainstream' gaming mags that also contain this DVD.

I might also try to develop a PDF publishing arm for the company that would release free/cheap adventures and or/campaign add-ons. If real releases were put into PDF, I'd make them simultaneously available and the PDF would have to be as cheap as a physical book purchased on Amazon.com. It'd be nice to find a way to get people who purchased both the PDF and the physical book a rebate of some kind.

I would also encourage the fans out on the 'net to come up with adventures or d20 concept expansion books of thier own; Publishing the cream of that crop, with royalties to the author, using my PDF arm of WotC.
 


I'd make a big, big push to get the RPG experience ported to the internet. I'd have a powerful application developed that would also utilize VOIP technology. But, then again, I'm geeky.
 

For the most part, I think they're doing a great job and would continue doing what they're doing, with just a few changes:

First, I'd listen to the fans and release 3.5 versions of the popular defunct campaign settings in some form or another.

I'd enforce strict editing of the products, and take the Blizzard approach of releasing things "when they're done". The MMIII would have never made it out the door in its current state on my watch.

I'd never do anything like the campaign setting search...it caused too much bad blood and showed a lack of faith in the in-house design team.
 

A few ideas...

- Give a nice hardcover sourcebook to all the Greyhawk fans. I think it deserves it, even as a one-shot piece. It it sold remarkably well, then follow it up with more books.

- Sell miniature sets exclusivley for RPers. These would be in the form of mini adventure packs, with reprinted miniatures from the various DDM expansions. Throw a special insignia on the bottom of them that deems them "RPG only", so they could not be used in regular tournament play. This way if a DM wants a bunch of goblins, they could but a goblin horde set. If they wanted to run a dragon module they could buy the red dragon cave set, which would feature the red dragon and some nice map tiles.

- A book dedicated 100% to the fine art of dungeon crafting. A random generator, room examples, new traps, slimes & molds, and some sample dungeons.

- More adventures and complete campaigns.

- Fewer junk books (Weapons of Legacy :\) and lower prices on the others. Lower the price of the 3 core books to $25 instead of $30.
 

Remove ads

Top