Is WotC's layoff policy creating a D&D death spiral?

[Josh_Kablack]

Flatline: largely agreed. I'll drop $10 on a good fit mini for a game I'm excited about and then spend multiple hours of my own time painting it. And while I like having appropriate minis for monsters when I run, that's just not practical so even with thousands of Mole's to pick through I end up abstracting heavily. Anything with an appropriate base size and vague appropriate sculpt will do. Any large quadraped may get used as an enemy knight, a centaur archer, a dire wolf or similar critter. And small biped could be a gnome, a halfling or a sprite, etc, etc.


Lago: Tweet was seriously the reason I bought 3.0 in the first place. I have a lot of respect for the work he had done prior to D&D. Of course I think we all wish he and his team had gone through the PHB spells a bit closer.

[TheFlatline]

I've seen the accessory kits for Warhammer figs, so something similar is easily doable in D&D. If you do it as a character generator tie-in, you drop the fig plus six accessories into a matchbox and ship it out the door for 12 bucks.

I know it's kind not purist, but resin kits are becoming even more of an option as the detail on resin keeps increasing. If that could keep the price under 10 bucks, I suspect you'd sit on a goldmine. That's a potential extra 40 bucks per game at more or less impulse buy prices.

I dunno... it seems that'd be a far better solution than the direction WOTC is taking with their figs right now.

[TheFlatline]

So I've been begged and harangued to resurrect my GrimDark game, and in doing so I stumbled on something else Wizards could do, for relatively low overhead, that could help immeasurably in their online presence. Maybe they already do it, but if so, I don't know about it.

A wiki-suite designed ground up to run help organize games. Tear it open for free users (ad supported of course), and DDI users have more storage space, ad-free displays, and can link in domain names to their particular wiki. Set up a calendar with RSS feeds that pipe out announcements, email lists that can do the same thing, and a forum that's set up with your standard "announcements by the DM, read only", "Off topic", "out of character" and "in character" forums permissions ready to go. Underneath all that, you have the D&D official forums right there on every single wiki tying it all together. DDI users can customize the look and functionality of the wiki, free users get the basic toolset.

As the DM, you can post documents, schedule game sessions in a manner similar to exchange (you can block out availability in your calendar and someone proposing a session can see that instantly), post in and out of character documents easily, and allow players limited contribution abilities.

I'd also offer in every campaign core book a one-time code that unlocks campaign-specific shit for your game's wiki. In-game calendars, a semi-interactive map of the overworld, a one or two sentence overview of major towns and locations, and a route-planner, that will show you how long it will take to get from point A to point B, using foot, horses, cart, caravan, and teleporting mage. Players can access this stuff, but can't add it to their own wikis if they ever start a game without first picking up the book or paying a nominal (5-7 dollar) fee for the code. This way Wizards even gets residuals on used book sales.

I love the idea of a gaming wiki, but christ it's a pain in the ass to set up. A centralized, dedicated template that's modular enough to add premium content to it would be stupidly useful for gamers. I know there are some wiki solutions out there, but none of them strike me as being geared to get you generating content within say 20 minutes of your first clicking "join". Wizards could do that totally for D&D.

[Saxony]

Unless the Wizards online presence is zero; I do not believe a wiki would help them.

Wikis suck terrible ass. And most DnD players are steeped in face to face storytelling tradition. Putting campaign information on a wiki - and expecting players to read it in their off time - would not be effective.

Remember; most current DnD players are grognard social misfits who only play the game their way and have been doing so for years.

A wiki for 5th Edition would be a good idea however if we think DnD will attract new players in that stage. In general, new players are geeks or even internet geeks. Geeks understand wikis and Internet geeks have probably made or edited articles before.

Side note: MediaWiki sucks terrible, terrible ass. It's Wikipedia's software and it's optimized to work for millions of users and millions of pages. No one else beside Wikipedia needs to have such an incomplete product for efficiency (Like terrible, terrible privacy and admin rights implementation). Wizards might find a different wiki software suiting their needs. Don't use MediaWiki for your Wiki!

Side note 2: Uncyclopedia is the parody of Wikipedia and it is awesome. Wikipedia is also awesome.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Sorry, I completely overlooked your reply. I would've said something much earlier if I didn't.

Lago->

Online tabletop apps already exist. A lot of them already do. I personally use Screen Monkey, but the most popular one is Open RPG.

Seriously, there is already an existing tool that does every single one of what you're asking - with one exception:

A smartphone app. And people would be stupid to make a smartphone app anyway. Seriously. Try chatting via a Smart phone for 4 fucking hours and tell me if you enjoyed it.

And they don't sell very well. Because again, only very few people who do tabletop want to do RPGs online.

A tabletop D&D thing is one of those things that sound great on paper, but the vast majority of existing RPG players will never use it, and the vast majority of WoW or regular video game players will never be impressed by it. Besides which, the former group who are really inclinded to do online RPGing already use tools like OpenRPG and ScreenMonkey anyway.

Really, the idea that online tabletop apps will save D&D needs to die. It's been done before. The reason why WoTC stopped developing theirs isn't just because they were incompetent. It's because they probably realized that people have already created most of the tools they were planning to develop years ago, and few of those made money. It's certainly not worth $15 a month when OpenRPG is for free.

Here are my responses, in no particular order.

1) The online tabletop application is not for people who already play tabletop games. Playing online will always be shitty compared to doing it face-to-face; this is why the Wii still sells like hotcakes and people still throw LAN parties.

The online tabletop application is for people who aren't already playing. This board seriously underestimates what a massive pain in the ass it is to play D&D even if you want to. Even if you want to play the game just finding people interested in playing with you is an enormous pain in the ass. This has happened many, many times before to countless other RPGs. Why is D&D any different?

Having a stripped-down but easy-to-use version of D&D to play is better than the pencil-and-paper version for a lot of people.

2) The lack of penetration of online tabletop programs is, get this, because they aren't being advertised. This holds true even for gaming nerds. Seriously, go to a hobby shop or whatever and ask how many of them have even heard of OpenRPG. I would be surprised if even half of them have heard of it. OpenRPG is freeware, it's aimed towards people who generally have a superior substitute, and it's a useless product unless you've already spent 30+ dollars on something unrelated to it.

If D&D produced a program specifically for their system and advertised it constantly in their books then people would frickin' know about it and they would use it.

3) Smartphones are the way of the future. Even if the primary 'thing' isn't smartphones, trust me when I say that computers that have access to the Internet are becoming more and more portable. The online tabletop application should be able to be done on an iPhone or something similar. You're right in that the technology isn't there yet and prognosticating stuff that hasn't been made yet is dangerous, but since 5E is going to happen like 2-3 years from now it seems like a pretty safe bet.

4) The online tabletop application is not supposed to make money. Seriously, it's not. It's to keep momentum for your game going so people won't go four months between games and give up on your edition. It's to convince shut-ins and people in a new city to keep buying D&D products because they're reasonably assured that they'll be able to play a game. This indirectly creates money.

5) 15 dollars a month is way too much. It should seriously be not more than 3 dollars a month. Or fuck, you can even make it free. They have to subscribe to DDI/buy books anyway. I recommended making it a part of DDI to make the service look sexier, but if you want to uncouple it from subscribing to DDI (which is probably a wise idea actually) it's not like it still won't make you money.

[Lago PARANOIA]

I do not believe a wiki would help them.

A wiki is another form of advertising. It connects topics of interest in such a way so that people who wouldn't normally come across a subject might stumble upon it from another.

5E D&D should definitely have a wiki. To get people to come here, this is where the official D&D FAQ and errata are stored. To get people to stay, the wiki should definitely have stories about other peoples' campaigns/setting interpretation/characters and rate them by some subjective contest measure. The wiki should also have lots of information about all of the supported campaign settings without actually making owning the book useless.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Here's another idea of mine that 5E should use to help advertise the game, though this is more of an ongoing thing.


Seriously, the people who run the primary campaign setting should make adjustments to it over the course of the edition. Seriously, every year they should release a thin softcover detailing the changes and four to five years in they should release another hardcover campaign setting book that has all of these accumulated changes.

The people who run the setting should make a HUGE deal of players getting to change the events of the setting at the RPGA. Like they have some metaplot going on for a bunch of games, they run a lot of them, then have the staff compare all of the outcomes. And here's the important thing: the people who run the campaign setting actually need to stick to what happened at the event. If someone's pet NPC got killed, they go with it. If some PC(s) did something particularly heroic, heinous, or noteworthy they should get the players' permission and fucking put the character into the game. If the capital city of the 'good guy' faction got overrun then they fucking go with it.

[Zinegata]

1) The online tabletop application is not for people who already play tabletop games.

Except that the people who aren't playing tabletop games are already playing WoW or some other online game. All of which are shinier than what a tabletop online app can ever hope to become, and whose math is automated.

And even if you don't like shiny graphics, there are ASCII-based MMOs and other stuff that take away you market.

2) The lack of penetration of online tabletop programs is, get this, because they aren't being advertised. This holds true even for gaming nerds. Seriously, go to a hobby shop or whatever and ask how many of them have even heard of OpenRPG. I would be surprised if even half of them have heard of it. OpenRPG is freeware, it's aimed towards people who generally have a superior substitute, and it's a useless product unless you've already spent 30+ dollars on something unrelated to it.

Advertising is an issue - except that D&D did in fact advertise DDO. And the online response rapidly went from "Yay!" to "Oh, other stuff already exists?".

Seriously. When DDO was first announced Gleemax was flooded by deluded fanboys who thought their online tabletopping needs were finally going to be addressed... only to find out that such apps already exist, and that the experience is totally different from what they expected.

There is a difference between "lack of advertising" and "advertising but people still don't buy it because it's not what people actually want".

3) Smartphones are the way of the future. Even if the primary 'thing' isn't smartphones, trust me when I say that computers that have access to the Internet are becoming more and more portable. The online tabletop application should be able to be done on an iPhone or something similar. You're right in that the technology isn't there yet and prognosticating stuff that hasn't been made yet is dangerous, but since 5E is going to happen like 2-3 years from now it seems like a pretty safe bet.

"Smart phones are the way of the future" is honestly a motherhood statement that ignores a basic principle of technology: New stuff doesn't cause old stuff to stop working. Just because smartphones arrive doesn't mean that computers will be gone any time soon (if ever).

Again, try chatting via an iPhone for 4 hours straight. This isn't about technology. This is about the fact that an iPhone (or even Ipad) is simply too small to type comfortably in. Even Netbooks already have serious ergonomic issues in terms of typing.

4) The online tabletop application is not supposed to make money. Seriously, it's not. It's to keep momentum for your game going so people won't go four months between games and give up on your edition. It's to convince shut-ins and people in a new city to keep buying D&D products because they're reasonably assured that they'll be able to play a game. This indirectly creates money.

An online tabletop game experience will generally not add any "momentum" to an edition. It will just convince most gamers that playing online sucks, and that most of the "roleplayers" they meet via Facebook are jerks.

There are only a handful of DMs I know of that have the skills to do online RPG play. And most of us are already pretty averse to playing with random strangers. It takes a very specific type of skillset to run an online game. And most tabletop RPGers frankly don't have these skills, and neither do most MMO players.

[Saxony]

I do not believe a wiki would help them.

A wiki is another form of advertising. It connects topics of interest in such a way so that people who wouldn't normally come across a subject might stumble upon it from another.

5E D&D should definitely have a wiki. To get people to come here, this is where the official D&D FAQ and errata are stored. To get people to stay, the wiki should definitely have stories about other peoples' campaigns/setting interpretation/characters and rate them by some subjective contest measure. The wiki should also have lots of information about all of the supported campaign settings without actually making owning the book useless.

You didn't read my entire post. I agree a wiki for 5th Edition would be a good idea.

A wiki for 4th edition or 3.5 Edition might cause some positive effect, but I don't think it will be huge. Being a DnD geek and having set up a Wiki on my own, I think my opinion carries about medium authority when I say that positive effect will be small. I should have said "A wiki would not help them much".

Let me reiterate I believe a wiki for 5th Edition is a good idea.

[Qaenyin]

Depends on the stereotype you're aiming it at. Most old players won't need a wiki, they'll have either their books or PDFs of said books or whatever available immediately in triplicate on double sided printouts and etc.

If you attempt to use it to bring the game more into the mainstream you run into the issue that mainstream likely wouldn't be interested in DnD because of the complexity of the game. This is much the reason why WoW dominates the MMORPG market. People don't like to have to read things, they don't like to have to plan ahead and they don't like to have to put deep thought into their decisions.

I doubt WotC or anyone else could ever bring DnD into the mainstream. PnP gaming is just not "in" and likely never will be.

Best aim that someone could hope for I think is trying to bring back the players that they lost when they published the mess that is 4E. I think expecting much more than that is unrealistic.

[MfA]

I see potential for growth from technology ... printed electronics and OLED can in principle make for very cheap flexible displays (seems to suffer from a perpetual "in a couple of years" syndrome though).

If they can ever make flexible displays cheap enough to let you just roll out one on the table to let you play prescripted modules with most DM tasks being automated, as well as all the math, I think it could get some more people in. As long as you stay on the rails most complexity can be hidden.

[TheFlatline]

Unless the Wizards online presence is zero; I do not believe a wiki would help them.

Wikis suck terrible ass. And most DnD players are steeped in face to face storytelling tradition. Putting campaign information on a wiki - and expecting players to read it in their off time - would not be effective.

You have completely missed out on my point. I don't give a shit if they have the D&D wiki of doom set up (though it might be useful).

I'm talking about setting up easy-to-use frameworks so that individual DMs can create online pages for their games like this:

http://black-crusade.wikispaces.com/

Without having to spend weeks just setting up the framework.

There is literally hundreds of hours of work put into this game's online presence, through wiki, through the player database, and through two or three other online resources. Granted, it's a LARP with like 20-30 players at any given time, so that kind of time expenditure has a payoff on the back end.

If D&D gave each DDI user their own campaign wiki, already set up with forums and calendars and major configurations done and ready to go, and then allowed players to "join" the wiki pages, and then linked all that in with character generators, map generators, and campaign-specific goodies/tools/references (that you unlock with a code you either buy or get in a core campaign setting book), and allow the players and the GM to focus on content creation instead of having to build the f*cking thing, you'd see an increase in probably at least DDI membership, which is monthly revenue.

I can do all of this pretty easily right now, and for relatively cheap, but it takes time and effort to set the framework up, often more time and effort than is justifiable. But if I can just point to a URL and say "go here the day before we meet to catch up, and you'll get an auto-email reminding you of the next session a few days before that", that's a powerful tool for me.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Except that the people who aren't playing tabletop games are already playing WoW or some other online game.

What? Don't tell me you've bought into that dichotomy that if someone is a MMORPGer then they don't like tabletop games.

While I do think that there are people who played tabletop games who switched over to MMORPGs because they're easier to get the number-crunching experience out of (and we will probably never get back), I think it's a strawman to claim that people who like WoW wouldn't like tabletop RPGs. For fuck's sake, we have at least four people here (Kaelik, Crissa, Roy, and JE) who play an MMORPG and D&D at the same time.

Why do people who play MMORPGs play jRPGs for example? Why do people who play MMORPGs play online first-person shooters? Hell, why does TGD's group of MMORPGers still play D&D?

The 'The groups don't overlap, no point in trying to grab them' argument doesn't make logical or empirical sense. It's like going 'people who buy Dragon Quest merchandise up the wazoo won't buy Final Fantasy merchandise'. Yeah, that's certainly true for some, maybe even MOST fans but it doesn't make any sense to dismiss that subset.

only to find out that such apps already exist, and that the experience is totally different from what they expected.

1) Why was the experience different from what they expected?

and

2) Why was this a bad thing?

There is a difference between "lack of advertising" and "advertising but people still don't buy it because it's not what people actually want".

You're getting the cart before the horse here. The online tabletop app isn't supposed to advertise the online tabletop app, it's supposed to advertise the D&D brand in general.

Did DDO do its job of reinforcing the D&D brand and getting people to move books? I really don't know. As far as I know it was being aimed at people who were already interested in D&D. Like, I saw advertisements for it on mudconnector and Nuklear Power but DDO wasn't a 'this will make buying our D&D books more fun!' application so much as a 'spend money to enjoy DDO in of itself!'. While I'm sure that DDO almost undoubtedly picked up some virgin fans who liked the product and decided to indirectly check out more of D&D, I don't think it had big enough numbers to make a difference. I mean, Neverwinter Nights had sales in the millions and I don't think it would've picked up more than two or three hundred thousand people who never played a tabletop RPG before who decided to give it a try. Let alone stick with it.

An online tabletop game experience will generally not add any "momentum" to an edition. It will just convince most gamers that playing online sucks, and that most of the "roleplayers" they meet via Facebook are jerks.

Emphasis mine. Why do you say that? I do most of my D&D gaming online nowadays using MU*s. While I personally prefer doing it face-to-face, running a D&D session online does have its advantages.

It takes a very specific type of skillset to run an online game.

It's flat-out harder to run a game face-to-face than it is online, especially without the aid of computers. Once you have all of your materials together, actually running the game is the easy part.

And honestly most people tend to inflate their DMing skills in real life. Most DMs I've played with (and I probably come off as this type) are: "Um, so, that's the plot so far. What do you guys want to do?" The face-to-face snobbery doesn't make any sense to me.

[Zinegata]

What? Don't tell me you've bought into that dichotomy that if someone is a MMORPGer then they don't like tabletop games.

I'm not claiming that WoW or MMO players will never be tabletop players.

I'm claiming that most of them never will. And 4E is resounding proof of how a system tailor-made to attract the MMO crowd totally failed to grow the D&D base, and instead shrank it.

The mistake people are making is real simple. There are around 12 million WoW players. This is a big market. People think that by targeting this market, they will grow the D&D market.

But it isn't happening. Because very, very few people are being converted from WoW to D&D. Sure, you're targetting 12 million WoW players instead of the existing 6 million D&D players. But if you only get 1 out of 12 WoW players to play the game (and this is already hugely optimistic), while losing your regular D&D players, you still lose out on absolute terms.

1) Why was the experience different from what they expected?

and

2) Why was this a bad thing?

The primary medium of communication in an online RPG is the written word. The primary medium of communication in an tabletop RPG is the spoken word.

Not everyone good at writing is good at speaking, and vice versa.

Or try this: Get a skilled tabletop GM who doesn't know how to type properly to GM online (many people don't know how to type properly).

Seriously. Try it.

That you casually dismiss the massive typing problems when using a Smartphone tells me that you haven't really studied actual user behavior, and that forcing them to type on a keypad with like twelve buttons when the average computer keyboard has over 100 will result in a drastically poorer experience.

You're getting the cart before the horse here. The online tabletop app isn't supposed to advertise the online tabletop app, it's supposed to advertise the D&D brand in general.

Why would someone buy a tool to play D&D if they don't even know that D&D *is*?

You are making no sense now.

Did DDO do its job of reinforcing the D&D brand and getting people to move books?

Again, DDO failed largely because people quickly realized free alternatives existed. And the experience generally sucked for them.

[Roy]

Except that the people who aren't playing tabletop games are already playing WoW or some other online game.

What? Don't tell me you've bought into that dichotomy that if someone is a MMORPGer then they don't like tabletop games.

While I do think that there are people who played tabletop games who switched over to MMORPGs because they're easier to get the number-crunching experience out of (and we will probably never get back), I think it's a strawman to claim that people who like WoW wouldn't like tabletop RPGs. For fuck's sake, we have at least four people here (Kaelik, Crissa, Roy, and JE) who play an MMORPG and D&D at the same time.

Why do people who play MMORPGs play jRPGs for example? Why do people who play MMORPGs play online first-person shooters? Hell, why does TGD's group of MMORPGers still play D&D?

Actually, I neither play D&D nor an MMO anymore. The former I stopped because of too much bullshit I had to filter out (all the 4.Fail/Paiziltards, the low magic bullshit, the clueless fuckers...) and the latter I stopped for similar reasons (too much fail getting in my way) but all of it coming from the devs. I mean really, when you make a game so that there's only one right way to play it, and then work on erasing the singular way remaining you shouldn't be surprised if people say 'wait, no reason to play anymore?', keep their money in their pocket, and go do something else.

I've also never played WoW. And while MMOs are enough alike so as to be mostly interchangeable, 'playing an MMO and D&D at the same time' and 'playing a specific MMO and D&D at the same time' are still two different statements.

With that said, MMOs are easier to get the number crunching out of. So are single player RPGs. They don't do the other part well though, at all. So for me, it's not filling the same niche. And it's not filling the same niche for anyone who cares about more than mechanics. If a person does only care about mechanics, then a tabletop game wasn't really the right game for them anyways so those players aren't really 'lost'. Now if they say fuck this, too much bullshit in starting a game, and THEN they go play some CRPG so they can at least get something they want, then you could fairly call them lost.

I also started playing DDO well after I got into tabletop and stopped tabletop before I stopped DDO for reasons unrelated to DDO.

Now I doubt DDO will ever get off the train tracks, headed straight for a cliff. D&D might recover with 5th edition... I doubt it though. As it is I would still say it's more likely I'd return to tabletop than return to DDO.

The 'The groups don't overlap, no point in trying to grab them' argument doesn't make logical or empirical sense. It's like going 'people who buy Dragon Quest merchandise up the wazoo won't buy Final Fantasy merchandise'. Yeah, that's certainly true for some, maybe even MOST fans but it doesn't make any sense to dismiss that subset.

The crowd that is only interested in mechanics will not give a fuck about tabletop games. But the sorts that have a non zero interest in the other aspects of the game you might be able to get.

Did DDO do its job of reinforcing the D&D brand and getting people to move books? I really don't know. As far as I know it was being aimed at people who were already interested in D&D. Like, I saw advertisements for it on mudconnector and Nuklear Power but DDO wasn't a 'this will make buying our D&D books more fun!' application so much as a 'spend money to enjoy DDO in of itself!'. While I'm sure that DDO almost undoubtedly picked up some virgin fans who liked the product and decided to indirectly check out more of D&D, I don't think it had big enough numbers to make a difference. I mean, Neverwinter Nights had sales in the millions and I don't think it would've picked up more than two or three hundred thousand people who never played a tabletop RPG before who decided to give it a try. Let alone stick with it.

DDO was originally aimed at a fairly small subset of a decent sized, but still fairly small market. Namely the people that like both D&D and MMOs. I don't recall any efforts or attempts to use DDO to actually get people into D&D. And if that was one of their marketing slogans, it failed pretty badly as the rules only somewhat resembled D&D to begin with, and only moved further away over time.

If you look at the DDO forums, you'll see their PnP forum is very inactive. About 10 people post there, and that's it. Most of them don't give a fuck about D&D tabletop. It's just another grind game to them.

Even the people that do give a fuck about D&D tabletop recognize that it's just another grind game. So aside from very basic common sense stuff like 'Con is not a dump stat for anyone, ever' and 'Heavy Fort is absolutely required for your continued existence' PnP experience means fuck all when it comes to designing and playing a DDO character, and if anything it will actually get in the way a lot. Especially if you don't remember context. Example: The primary use of Dexterity is Initiative boosting, however small. DDO has no Initiative. Consequently Dex is worth a lot less. If you don't remember that context you'll waste a lot of stat points.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Why would someone buy a tool to play D&D if they don't even know that D&D *is*?

Look, Dungeons and Dragons isn't a thing like World of Darkness or Dragon Quest where despite being a 'thing' to the tune of millions of people there are a lot of people who don't know what it is. Dungeons and Dragons is a cultural icon at this point. You could ask some random adult or teenager to name you three 'things' about Dungeons and Dragons and while you'd get mostly stereotypes you'd at least get an answer.

The thing is getting people to actually want to try it out. Now there are a myriad of reasons why someone would refuse to try out D&D. For one thing, if you're talking to a 'D&D? That's for smelly manchildren' person then there's really no point in targeting them. Which is why most advertising of D&D should go to children (who haven't formed the negative stereotypes yet) and to nerds (who have already been labeled by the negative stereotype).

So now that you get to this subset, what would convince people to give people a try on the game? That's a complicated question and beyond the scope of my reply to you (though if you'd like I'd be happy to start a new thread on it), but I can name a lot of things that prevent people who would like to try D&D but don't.

Example problems with example solutions.

• D&D is too mathy and requires too much reading. Solution: Release a version of it that's no more complicated than a board game and gradually increase peoples' game mastery rather than throwing them into the shark pool. While starting 4E is a decrease in difficulty from 3E, it still might be too much. I recommend having a boxed set like Essentials had but kept to the simplicity of DragonStrike. Essentials is already too complicated in my opinion.
• Finding enough people who want to play is too much trouble. Solution: use that online tabletop application to find people who want to play and also make it easier for you to play.
• The D&D backstory for campaign settings aren't intuitive or interesting for building stories off of. Solution: Write a new campaign setting. Not that Eberron shit, but something sketched really broadly. As in countries arranged by elements (like in A:TLA), wizard academies that are ripoffs of Harry Potter, a pantheon based off of 'real' deities, etc.

[Lago PARANOIA]

I'm not claiming that WoW or MMO players will never be tabletop players.

I'm claiming that most of them never will.

1) Tabletop RPGs compared to MMORPGs. Do you think that the apt comparison would be a betamax deck compared to an mp3 player, where the latter is a completely superior product to the first? Or do you think that a better comparison would be a car to a bicycle, where even though the former has vastly superior advantages to the latter the latter still has enough of its own advantages that car-owners still buy bicycles?

2) If you think that Tabletop RPGs compared to MMORPGs are the second one, why do you think that car-owners still buy bicycles? I mean, cars are much more comfortable to use, have less demanding physical requirements, can go faster, are perceived as being safer to use, can transport more people at once, can transport a lot more people at once, etc..

What do you think are the advantages of tabletop RPGs compared to MMORPGs? Why would someone who is neither an MMORPG or a tabletop RPG player pick the latter?

[Saxony]

MMORPG's are easier to play. Point and click. Press buttons. Rinse, wash, repeat. Look up a build on the internet if you want; it'll be child's play to follow it and probably simply to play it (You might need to refine your typing speed for the really tough stuff). Look up which areas are the best on the internet. Follow advice. Kill stuff easier. Kill more stuff. Reroll. Kill stuff again. Rinse, wash, repeat.

DnD is not as easy to play or understand. You have to read the basic rulebook sometime. New magic systems require more reading. You have to read a lot of books eventually. Even if an internet build tells you which books to read, you still have to read them to verify and understand the builds. And eventually you'll want to read at least the feats and prestige class and item sections of every book you contact so you can make builds on your own. Spell Compendium and Magic Item Compendium come to mind as particularly annoying examples.

In MMORPG's, every character option you can ever make is displayed in a GUI format right in the game. You'll have to read an internet article to understand the two or three "viable" builds, but that's it. You'll have to find good equipment eventually, but just going with whatever seems good will tide you over until you hit maximum level in 2-3 months.

MMORPG's have better balance. If there is something seriously unbalanced, the developers will fix their game within the month or even immediately. Everyone plays the same game and there are way less arguments of "Not in our game, that's overpowered!". Game developers actually balance the game for you.

MMORPG's have much better graphics. They actually have animations. This requires less imagination for players.

Summary: DnD is harder to play and learn. MMORPG's are easier to play and learn.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Okay, Saxony, now in your opinion what are the good things about tabletop games compared to MMORPGs? I play D&D but not an MMORPG; other than nostalgia, reinforcing social ties, or hatred for the genre, give me some reasons why I would want to play a tabletop RPG.

By the by, Saxony, a lot of those things you mentioned can be fixed, or at least mitigated, by doing things we've been harping about on these boards for awhile.

- Releasing a version that is D&D that can be picked up after 30 minutes to an hour of explanation. Like DragonStrike. Note that I didn't say that you want to make the entire game like this. Just the version you're marketing to people who think the gameplay is too complicated. Seriously, instead of that shit they did with Essentials by releasing a boxed set 2 years after opinions have had time to crystalize and non-fans see fans of the game badmouthing the edition, they should've released a boxed set from day one. And I don't mean that shitty-ass Keep on the Shadowfell module. That was so bad that the FAQ had to fix typographical errors, Mike Mearls is still apologizing for the skill challenge system, and it even got panned on critical-hits.com which is like the biggest shill website ever.

- The turnaround for grievous fixes does need to be fairly quick. But I think that 4E D&D went way overboard with its errata. People seriously don't like being told that their ranger can't multiclass pit-fighter anymore after it being legal for almost two years. Aside from that, the seriously one-hundred page plus of errata looks bad. Having 20 pages of errata and FAQ looks good because it makes it look like the devs are paying attention. Having 150 pages of it looks bad because it looks like the devs aren't good at their own system.

- D&D needs to be a lot more art-focused than it was in the past. Contrary to popular opinion, nerds LIKE exercising their imagination. If they didn't then fanfiction.net and deviantart wouldn't be a thing and no one would really care if Kirk was better/worse than Picard. That said, I think that D&D oftentime asks people to use their imaginations too much. Seriously, if you read the Dragonlance or Forgotten Realms campaign settings, you have no fucking idea what Last Home or Thay looks like. The ratio for 'serious' crunch-heavy books needs like a half of page of art for every 1.5 pages. For less crunch-heavy books the ratio needs to be a page of part for every page of writing. I'm not kidding.


I have my own ideas about how the direction of D&D should go. I mean beyond the mechanical interface and advertising, which I have talked about extensively. I mean a fundamental change in the operating philosophy about how a tabletop game should be organized and ran. But that's another story.

[Zinegata]

Sheesh, and people complain when I make three replies in a row.

Look, Dungeons and Dragons isn't a thing like World of Darkness or Dragon Quest where despite being a 'thing' to the tune of millions of people there are a lot of people who don't know what it is. Dungeons and Dragons is a cultural icon at this point. You could ask some random adult or teenager to name you three 'things' about Dungeons and Dragons and while you'd get mostly stereotypes you'd at least get an answer.

Emphasis mine. Again, how would they know the tool is for playing D&D, when they only know D&D from stereotypes. Seriously, how many non-geeks are even aware of what a tabletop gaming session actually looks like? How many are even aware of the D20?

They will not want to try a tool with this D20 thing, because they don't *know* what playing D&D actually leads to.

As to specific points...

D&D is too mathy and requires too much reading. Solution: Release a version of it that's no more complicated than a board game and gradually increase peoples' game mastery rather than throwing them into the shark pool. While starting 4E is a decrease in difficulty from 3E, it still might be too much. I recommend having a boxed set like Essentials had but kept to the simplicity of DragonStrike. Essentials is already too complicated in my opinion.

In which case you'll create 4E. Or the new Castle Ravenloft game.

The problem is - as Arkham Horror demonstrates - people who get hooked on these simpler gamers generally stay with those games. Arkham Horror players are not picking up the Chtulu RPGs for instance.

Finding enough people who want to play is too much trouble. Solution: use that online tabletop application to find people who want to play and also make it easier for you to play.

Again, there have been a lot of attempts to do this before. And they all failed.

Matchmaking in MMOs is already a very sophisticated system. Matchmaking tabletop players would be far more complex, and would have to take into account other non-gaming aspects to make them mesh.

The D&D backstory for campaign settings aren't intuitive or interesting for building stories off of. Solution: Write a new campaign setting. Not that Eberron shit, but something sketched really broadly. As in countries arranged by elements (like in A:TLA), wizard academies that are ripoffs of Harry Potter, a pantheon based off of 'real' deities, etc.

I've known like, two campaigns in my entire gaming experience that used a published setting. Everybody else wants to make their own.

1) Tabletop RPGs compared to MMORPGs. Do you think that the apt comparison would be a betamax deck compared to an mp3 player, where the latter is a completely superior product to the first? Or do you think that a better comparison would be a car to a bicycle, where even though the former has vastly superior advantages to the latter the latter still has enough of its own advantages that car-owners still buy bicycles?

They are not even in the same product class.

I would compare tabletop rpgs to mmorpgs this way:

Tabletop RPG is shooting practice targets with a rifle.

MMORPG is playing Doom.

While they are both forms of entertainment, they are completely different in how you do it. And their only point of commonality is theme (using guns).

So while some people may like using guns both in real life and in their computer, this is probably a rare intersection of interests.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Emphasis mine. Again, how would they know the tool is for playing D&D, when they only know D&D from stereotypes. Seriously, how many non-geeks are even aware of what a tabletop gaming session actually looks like? How many are even aware of the D20?

Because once you get past the initial phase of 'oh, this game sounds fun, I'd like to try it', you need to provide an opportunity for them to actually try it.

Seriously, how many 'lesser' tier games have you seen where they look really sweet at first glance but you don't give a try because know ahead of time that actually getting people to play is way too hard. The fact that someone gets excited about D&D through a comic/advertisement/game and then realizes that they won't actually get to play the tabletop game anytime soon is a huge disincentive. If you advertise the fact that, hey, unlike the previous editions of D&D we will make it a lot easier for you to be hooked up to a game then you eliminate this barrier towards people becoming interested in your product line.

I got my start with 3E D&D through Winter's Edge, an online MUSH as opposed to a tabletop session. If that or Tenebrae MU* wasn't there for me then I probably would've given up on D&D two months or so after buying the core books.

The problem is - as Arkham Horror demonstrates - people who get hooked on these simpler gamers generally stay with those games. Arkham Horror players are not picking up the Chtulu RPGs for instance.

And why is that a problem? Yeah, there will be some people who will only want the simpler version of the D&D game, but seriously how do you expect to provide exposure otherwise?

Is Coca-Cola's bottom line hurt by offering Cherry and Diet Coke? Yes, they probably sell fewer Coke Classics by offering the above products, but they sell more Cokes overall by offering those alternate product lines. That's the ball Coca-Cola should keep an eye on; taking away Diet Coke because some executive feels all crybaby about that one outselling Coca-Cola classic is just bad business.

But you know what the weird thing is? The fact that the Coke trilogy sells so well and has such a good reputation is why they can sell things like Lime or Vanilla-flavored Coke. If they only sold Coca-Cola classic then those alternate product lines would probably not sell as well as they would in the Cherry/Classic/Diet trinity because they had fewer fans and fewer market exposure.

Again, there have been a lot of attempts to do this before. And they all failed.

Matchmaking in MMOs is already a very sophisticated system. Matchmaking tabletop players would be far more complex, and would have to take into account other non-gaming aspects to make them mesh.

And why do you think that they failed? Do you think it's because people who want to play D&D can find groups they're comfortable with whenever so the service was unnecessary? That's what it sounds like you're saying.

As far as the matchmaking system goes, you obviously don't want to just throw people together and go 'here you go, boy!' It seriously needs to be as systematic and detailed as possible--and I find it very hard to believe that MMORPGs have a more complex system for hooking people up to games. You're looking for people to roleplay with, not people to go farm twenty bear asses with. That typical shit of 'Hume WHM 75 LFG' will not fly.

Seriously, a typical 'looking for' profile should be something like this:

• Name
• Experience playing this or other tabletop RPGs
• Level of hack-and-slash looking for
• Level of detail looking for in roleplaying poses
• Favorite campaign setting to play in and why
• Which books do you want/don't want to use
• Favorite kind of characters to play
• Times that you're available to play
• Character you'd like to play for a game (character sheet optional)
• Background of your favorite character
• Sample pose (limit 500 characters)
• Notable Awards/bravo-zulus/recommendations

While they are both forms of entertainment, they are completely different in how you do it. And their only point of commonality is theme (using guns).

So while some people may like using guns both in real life and in their computer, this is probably a rare intersection of interests.

I take issues with your analogy. Tabletop RPGs are a LOT more similar to MMORPGs than Doom is to shooting rifles. Seriously, a broad sketching of the accepted evolution is MMORPG <-- cRPG <-- D&D. The skills are actually astoundingly similar, too. In both genres you have concepts like leveling up, equipment selection, role division, tactical maneuvering around a battlefield, resource management and so-on. Yes, that's a superficial statement and can apply just as easily to Final Fantasy XI as Wizardry.

But that's kind of the point. You already have an audience that's receptive to European heroic fantasy. You already have an audience that groks many if not most of the fundamental mechanics in tabletop RPGs. You already have an audience that's interested in playing with groups to some level. You already have an audience that at some level is willing to suspend their disbelief enough to put themselves in the role of an alien being for several hours and have fun with it.

I mean, seriously, why wouldn't you give it a try? That whole 'WoWers will never understand how sophisticated and mentally challenging and engaging our tabletop RPGs are' stereotype is just masturbatory, crybaby bullshit on behalf of our gang. And I wouldn't mind this elitist biscuit party so much if people weren't using that as a fucking excuse why they're letting D&D circle the drain.

[Zinegata]

Because once you get past the initial phase of 'oh, this game sounds fun, I'd like to try it', you need to provide an opportunity for them to actually try it.

Again, that's what actual tabletop experiences and existing tools like Open RPG are for. And no, they haven't caused an explosion in the D&D fanbase.

Because frankly, we probably haven't even gotten most people to the "Oh this game sounds fun" level yet. And certainly not the "I'd like to try it" phase either.

And why is that a problem? Yeah, there will be some people who will only want the simpler version of the D&D game, but seriously how do you expect to provide exposure otherwise?

By admitting that D&D is, in fact, a fringe hobby that will never really gain widespread mainstream acceptance.

To admit that to show them Arkham Horror and tell them "D&D is like this!" is actually lying to them.

To recognize that to make D&D grow, you have to target a niche market who are attracted to many of the very pitfalls that prevent it from gaining mainstream acceptance.

Is Coca-Cola's bottom line hurt by offering Cherry and Diet Coke? Yes, they probably sell fewer Coke Classics by offering the above products, but they sell more Cokes overall by offering those alternate product lines. That's the ball Coca-Cola should keep an eye on; taking away Diet Coke because some executive feels all crybaby about that one outselling Coca-Cola classic is just bad business.

D&D is not an FMCG (fast moving consumer good). Marketing FMCGs is totally different from marketing a product like D&D. Everyone can fucking drink. That's why it's a consumer good. Not everyone gets how D20s can be used to play a swordsman. That's why it's a niche hobby.

Also, what Coke is doing is called a broad-market strategy, meaning that they are trying to hit every segment of the market. Which is again fine if you're a consumer good, but totally retarded if you're a hobby game.

And why do you think that they failed? Do you think it's because people who want to play D&D can find groups they're comfortable with whenever so the service was unnecessary? That's what it sounds like you're saying.

They fail because you have to collect information about players before you can do matchmaking. And most of the time, players simply don't want to give information.

Moreover, even existing MMO matchmaking services aren't that good. The only reason why a lot of players grit through their groups is because they get loot in the end.

I take issues with your analogy. Tabletop RPGs are a LOT more similar to MMORPGs than Doom is to shooting rifles. Seriously, a broad sketching of the accepted evolution is MMORPG <-- cRPG <-- D&D.

D&D: You use dice, perform calculations, to play magic tea party. CRPG: Computer does it for you, you just point-and-click instructions to play computerized magic tea party.

Real shooting: You manipulate a device, perform calculations and estimates based on conditions, to shoot an arbitrary target. Doom: You point and click to shoot an arbitrary target.

Analogy stands. Stop imagining that MMOs, CRPGs, and Tabletop RPGs are similar experiences. They only have the same theme.

But not every historian plays wargames. Not every WW2 buff plays WW2 shooters. At best, theme may slightly increase the likelihood of use, but it is far from a guarantee and certainly not something to base your entire marketing around.

[PoliteNewb]

I've known like, two campaigns in my entire gaming experience that used a published setting. Everybody else wants to make their own.

I'm curious about other people's experiences with this (homebrew setting vs. published setting). I have to say, I think your experience is atypical, Zine.

I've run both...like, lots and lots of both. I enjoy worldbuilding and doing funky new settings...but honestly, when I sat down with my peeps, at least half the time we based it in the Forgotten Realms just because it was so much frigging easier. We didn't care about canon or any of the major NPCs...it was just nice to know "ok, Waterdeep's up there, and Corymr is down here, and if we're looking for a major villain, the Zhents are probably up in that shit".

Lazy? Hell yes. But when time is limited, it's nice to just have a world with published maps and crap that most of the gaming group is familiar with. My group had all read the FR novels, so we all knew the setting. If your crew all reads Fritz Leiber, setting a campaign in Nehwon would probably save you a lot of time explaining things and ad-libbing.

And hey, some people like ad-libbing and ass-pulling. But I think there's a sizable contingent of gamers that like to have some of the groundwork already done.

How successful was Eberron? And it wasn't even that great, IMO.

[Zinegata]

I personally have never used a default setting. Of the DMs I play with, a mere two campaigns have used a published setting (one Eberron, one Ravenloft).

Forgotten Realms I've heard some people use, but I haven't actually seen those guys play in a while.

[Saxony]

Okay, Saxony, now in your opinion what are the good things about tabletop games compared to MMORPGs? I play D&D but not an MMORPG; other than nostalgia, reinforcing social ties, or hatred for the genre, give me some reasons why I would want to play a tabletop RPG.

Tabletop RPG's have face to face storytelling. They have writing down notes (very novel in comparison to an MMORPG which saves all quest info for you). They have plots. Not only that; you can influence the plot by being creative. NPC's actually sound like real people because the DM is playing them right then.

Tabletop RPG's are also 10x more interesting. I don't play MMORPG's because they are just "Look up best build and grind until you hit max level, then go into player vs. player combat". In Tabletop RPG's, the only limiting factor is imagination and you actually have a plot AND character growth to excuse combat rather than just character growth excusing combat.

And then there's role playing. Some people say you can role play in MMORPG's but, uh... that's just a text chat with pretty avatars. Acting shit out face to face is exciting. It's a collective performance. Some people are ambitious and have a large presence, some people are fun to play with because they aren't trying. You can get a higher confidence because of it.

Ultimately, (good) DnD is much more interactive than MMORPG's. Because of this, you can learn something about yourself and explore philosophical concepts. One can change an entire world through the course of a campaign. How you change it and how others change it can be very interesting ethically or morally.

In (good) DnD, the player is also the author and the game developer. In WoW, you grind the monsters made by Blizzard in the areas made by Blizzard or maybe you fight some other players in virtual arenas made by Blizzard.

Summary: In DnD, you play in thought exercises. In WoW, you grind.