YOU are never going to write the "(Next) D&D Next"

[Josh_Kablack]

Plus, he's barely functional as a social human being, so there's that, too. .

Pretty sure that one is actually a prerequisite for being a successful game designer.

[ishy]

Plus, he's barely functional as a social human being, so there's that, too. .

Pretty sure that one is actually a prerequisite for being a successful game designer.

Really? In my experience the better game designers usually are not as socially capable.

[RadiantPhoenix]

Plus, he's barely functional as a social human being, so there's that, too. .

Pretty sure that one is actually a prerequisite for being a successful game designer.

Really? In my experience the better game designers usually are not as socially capable.

I think that was what Josh meant.

i.e.: [being barely functional as a social human being] is actually a prerequisite for being a successful game designer.

[shadzar]

Mikes polls are all ... social engineering at work. They're not there to ask a question, the intent is to frame the debate about each article.

7) How does the gray render I’ve described here fit with your sense of the iconic D&D creature?

There's only one correct answer, that the Grey Render is not iconic. It's just not. It's a filler monster for 3e named after a singularly inconsistent mechanic.

wait, this was actually a question? he was working in RPGs and allegedly played D&D prior to 2000, and thinks this thing existed prior to 3rd?

i surely have never heard of it, iconic monsters are the stupid mind-flayer, beholder, displacer beast, Tiamat, gelatinous cube, those that have been there since the beginning or have been talked about BEFORE WotC came to the game. ANYTHING done by WotC could not be considered iconic because that invalidates anything that came beore WotC, and again that which came before WotC is what gives them D&D to play with. Elminster, Drizzt, Strahd... these are iconic.

Mearls and Wyatt seem to have a god complex or think they are gods gift to D&D, when they and WotC are just a shit stain on the tighty whities of the universe of D&D.

they are worse than Gary, because at lest he had good ideas and was able to create a game, while Mearls and Wyatt needed this thread in the 90s. does the game Mearls worked on before WotC even still exist? did Wyatt ever do anything except get hired as the crony of someone at T$R?

to borrow form Monty Python, they seem to be acting like, "I am your King", to which every is responding with, "I didn't vote for you." They think they are the leaders of the industry, and somehow other people in the "industry" agree, but the consumer thinks they are a joke, so the whole industry has failed.

i tell you what... i still prefer the days when the game was good enough by itself. not reading Dragon until the CD-ROM, not going to cons, i never knew who Gary, Mentzer, etc were, and didnt care. Still don't really. if i ever met any of them it wouldnt be all that much of an impression. Asking Gary things on DF, the only question i really had was about the dice and which pattern was decided on the D&D d4s (vertices or edges for number placement) to which he replied "it doesnt matter cause they are only caltrops". is it because of Dragon and cons that so many people worship these designers now, when those who only bought the product in the past could care less who these fucktards were? is it the internet these people like MEarls seem to think they are worshiped because their name is out there more than could have happened in the 70s~80s?

doesnt this also remind anyone of the "ze game will remain ze same"video, and people jsut telling everyone they will have to relearn D&D and think of it as something else?

to Mearls or anyone else thinking "grognards can be fanegled" into just accepting a new edition, there is a barrel of cocks with your name on it, so start sucking away. you will get more done with your time. it is the new flaky gamers that can be conned into just accepting anything that has no value by slapping the name or logo onto something.

delusions of grandeur...Mearls should understand this if not he can look at the MTG card where a rabbit thinks himself a dragon... that is what these people are.

[Voss]

iconic monsters are the stupid mind-flayer, beholder, displacer beast, Tiamat, gelatinous cube, those that have been there since the beginning or have been talked about BEFORE WotC came to the game. ANYTHING done by WotC could not be considered iconic because that invalidates anything that came beore WotC,

You're confusing iconic with original. They are unrelated concepts. Now the grey render obviously isn't an iconic monster (just a convenient one with a transparent bit of background that justifies shoving it into any encounter), but saying something can't be iconic because it didn't exist at the beginning suggests you don't believe a Mustang or Porsche can be iconic because they didn't exist at the beginning of cars.

i never knew who Gary, Mentzer, etc were, and didnt care. Still don't really.

I'm glad I wasn't drinking when I read this. So many spit-takes.

[shadzar]

i am confused about what iconic means? no one had read a thing about 3rd editin before it came out yet Regder, Lidda, and cricket-bitch are somehow iconic when nobody had ever heard of them before. WotC is the ones who don't know what iconic means. iconic means a symbol, it is earned not jsut granted at "birth". 1 day old Hercules wasnt iconic because nobody knew about him. those monster that everyone talk about are iconic ones, not just because WotC wants to use a keyword for some monster template called "iconic" in lieu of "epic" or whatever other keyword that they want to use.

you ask anyone that played before the internet hit popularity and that is how you collect the iconic names. WotC jsut trademarked many of the names that T$R hadnt already because they created them. mind flayer itself isnt trademarked but the other word is, and either way it is a rip off of Cthulu created by Lovecraft.

the chevy bowtie is iconic because it stands the test of time, like the nike swoosh thingy, the star pattern on converse, etc.

the point is Mearls in his delusions of grandeur or Greg Leeds, or James Wyatt, think they are gods gift to gaming and just get to decide what is iconic. (see Lidda et all). hell this is the fucktard that thinks a dwarven rapper belongs in the game just to appeal to low-income consumers.

[Kaelik]

You're confusing iconic with original.

You are confusing shadazar with someone who has actual opinions based on anything besides meaningless unjustified WotC hatred.

[Mask_De_H]

dean, you seem to fundamentally misunderstand the concept that the Den in and of itself does not grant higher design credentials. K and Frank made the Tomes when the Nifty Board and gleemax were still a thing. Frank and AH and OtakuSensei worked in the biz. The only major home grown talent we have is Koumei and she is very much sui generis.

Merely being here does not make you a better designer. Learning from the good designers, cutting out the bullshit and actually making something makes you a better designer.

[sabs]

And for the most part Koumei makes stuff for herself, which she then posts for other people to use, or not.. what ever it's chill.

Frank can't help himself. He's like the Barney of Roleplaying. If you make a comment about needing X system to do Y, he just says, "Challenge Accepted" and will write several pages of it for a while. Until the feed back pisses him off, or he feels like he's written enough to show he could finish it if he felt like it. Sometimes (AS, End of the Matrix) he actually does finish it.

AH is a writer who just likes to write. His ability to write mechanics that are good.. are medium. I mean, he's had to apologize for Ghouls, Karma gen, and parts of the Matrix 2.0 book. But when he's on a roll, he's a very good writer.

[Koumei]

The only major home grown talent we have is Koumei and she is very much sui generis.

I actually wouldn't say I'm unique or anything else implied by sui generis. Look at all the shit stuff I've written. I just have vast amounts of free time and enjoy creating "stuff", so churn out masses of content, and some of it happens to be good.

I bet if everyone here had that much free time, everyone would have some gems amidst mountains of shit. Except (fill in user name for favourite person to insult!), he's always useless.

Which can be a handy thing for getting published content: the free time to make loads of stuff, then other people can judge it and decide what is worth taking to the printers.

[Sashi]

I have a much simpler proof that "you" will never make D&D next.

People won't accept D&D Next Unless it's printed up by WoTC, or whoever owns the D&D license. Even Pathfinder is Pathfinder, and not D&D.

WotC is not hiring designers for D&D.
Even if WotC was hiring, probably only 3 people on this forum would even qualify to apply for the position.
You are not one of those 3 people.

[tussock]

i am confused about what iconic means?

"Ideal singular representation of a broader concept."

The Troll is the iconic closet-troll, it's even in the name. Tordek is the iconic 3e Fighter. Regdar is the literal poster-boy for 3e, the face-of-the-game "character" because marketing demanded a white male human for that job (which designers hated, thus all the art of dead and dying Regdar in the books). Elminster is the iconic arch-mage (and quest-giver NPC) in the Forgotten Realms. Etc.

The reason you can't call a Grey Render iconic isn't strictly that it's new (though that doesn't help it), but rather that it's not a good representative of anything. Gnolls, fine, they're iconic, an animal-headed caricature for the darker parts of human history. Dragons: eponymous. Rust Monster: iconic random PC-screwing mechanic (and in 4e a sure sign that there are no ways to provide lasting setbacks to team-player).

Note: I still have no idea if that was an actual quote I'm dissecting here. Someone may like to check.



#Design.
If this place was to produce better designers, we should take up the Joesky tax.

http://joeskythedungeonbrawler.wordpres ... ple-blogs/

[Dean]

dean, you seem to fundamentally misunderstand the concept that the Den in and of itself does not grant higher design credentials.

Nah. You misunderstand the difference between correlation and causation.

[DSMatticus]

Frank can't help himself. He's like the Barney of Roleplaying. If you make a comment about needing X system to do Y, he just says, "Challenge Accepted" and will write several pages of it for a while. Until the feed back pisses him off, or he feels like he's written enough to show he could finish it if he felt like it. Sometimes (AS, End of the Matrix) he actually does finish it.

Projects take both a lot of thinking and a lot of raw work hours, but those two things totally aren't uniformly distributed. Early design has a lot of problems you solve with clever ideas (edit: this frequently means ideas you think are clever and pat yourself on the back for, but whatever you get the idea), and people enjoy that for its own sake (especially when it aligns with their own interests). The thought:work ratio is super high and you can enjoy working on the project for its own sake because the work you're doing is mentally engaging. But as the project moves on, that thought:work ratio drops and the tasks before you become way less interesting and occupy way more time and personal enjoyment becomes an increasingly less powerful motivator. Commercial projects solve this problem with what is known as a "paycheck," but making enough money off of TTRPG's as an indie dev to recoup the value of your time is pretty hard and absolutely not a sure thing.

I'm really not surprised that a huge number of indie TTRPG's are rules-lite. They are much more resistant to the "this isn't fun anymore" development collapse that happens to people pissing away their free time on maybe-one-day-I'll-release-it projects.

[shadzar]

i am confused about what iconic means?

"Ideal singular representation of a broader concept."

The Troll is the iconic closet-troll, it's even in the name. Tordek is the iconic 3e Fighter. Regdar is the literal poster-boy for 3e, the face-of-the-game "character" because marketing demanded a white male human for that job (which designers hated, thus all the art of dead and dying Regdar in the books). Elminster is the iconic arch-mage (and quest-giver NPC) in the Forgotten Realms. Etc.

The reason you can't call a Grey Render iconic isn't strictly that it's new (though that doesn't help it), but rather that it's not a good representative of anything. Gnolls, fine, they're iconic, an animal-headed caricature for the darker parts of human history. Dragons: eponymous. Rust Monster: iconic random PC-screwing mechanic (and in 4e a sure sign that there are no ways to provide lasting setbacks to team-player).

Note: I still have no idea if that was an actual quote I'm dissecting here. Someone may like to check.

i wasnt asking a real question....

and i wouldnt put it past mearls or wyatt to say something like that since they seem to think D&D didnt exist before d20 and cant understand in all the working of DDN that some people just don't like the d20 system.

i would say minotaur as the "evils of man" fits better than a gnoll, but they are all the same thing, bull, goat, dog faced, etc....

the point i was making was more that MEarls, Wyatt, et all think they were voted in by gamers to herald the game as if chosen by peers and the consumer approves of all their actions, when in fact they are nobodies that applied for a job position. they are the burger king cashier. they don't do anything to make you want a Whopper(tm) they just provider the task their job was required as they were hired to do. thus why Mearls and Wyatt like Bill S expect to be worshipped as something special just because they got their hands or name in something D&D, when all they produce is worthless shit. they only have their jobs stil because last year HASBRO stopped doing the layoffs, but have again started, so we might get lucky to see both Mearls and Wyatt layed-off this holiday season as a gift to gamers. IF they are good enough to rally work on games, then they will find a new job to do so elsewhere.

they think THEY are iconic, just like Monte Cook who has a little following, or Tweet who designed 3rd, but neither of them are working on PF, so they really don't matter. game designers are a dime a dozen. that Monte game he is doing wont last very long and he even knows it which is why he is doing another one. he didnt make enough money off the first to keep it going! buying GE doesnt make someone become Rockefeller over night. painting a can of soup doesnt make you Andy Warhol either. Mearls, Wyatt, Monte, Tweet, these are all nobodies riding the coattails of Gary and Dave. their cult following will die off and they will not be remembered and nothing form Tordick to whoever the other one is will be remembered except as a joke and a bad CYOA DVD-video.

back to the point of the thread, they cant make a new D&D because there cant be a new one. it doesnt need replacing. IF they made another game that could take its place, it would be another game, NOT D&D. D&D is already made, they have no chance of going back and making it.

the Model T will never be a Mearls or a Wyatt, or even a Trollman, it will always be a Ford.

[erik]

I think the majority of people talking about the next D&D in this thread don't mean literally the next licensed D&D edition. They mean the next dominant Fantasy TTRPG which usurps D&D Pathfinder.

Now, in reference to actually making the next licensed D&D edition, that is a losing proposition anyway. Do we really need a 5th or 6th edition bound to stupid legacy crap from before anyone knew how to make decent RPG by today's standards? I mean, you already have your array of D&D editions to choose from and tweak as you see fit. You get diminishing returns by rehashing the same game over and over. Do it enough and you just fragment the player base to oblivion. I'd rather be moving beyond magic missile, clerics and color coded dragons entirely.

I'm at the point where I'd be considerably more excited about a Magic:The Gathering TTRPG, or a novel fantasy setting than another edition of D&D or Pathfinder/3e clone. The D&D brand is essentially dead to me.

[shadzar]

well D&D should have stoppped being made prior to 200 then. you cant make it with "new standards" because it wasnt made for that, just make something else to try to take over the RPG world. no matter the edition, people have D&D, they dont need a new one. the edition treadmill broke as 5th will learn.

[Username17]

That being said, the idea that a Grey Render would be considered "iconic" under any definition of the term is utterly laughable. I can't even remember what level those fuckers are. If I wanted to use a rending monster, I'd use a Girallon, because at least those things look as dangerous as they are. I have never seen anyone use a Grey Render in any game. It's a completely uninteresting brute monster.

Anyway, WotC explicitly only hires from among the gamers who happen to be in arms reach, living in the Seattle area. They have been drafting up new "talent" through the ranks of their own gaming tables since the mid nineties. Fucking Bruce Cordell got his start in Monte Cook's farm league tables back in the AD&D days. Since no one here lives in Seattle that I know about, no one is going to make the next D&D version unless and until WotC opens up a Bay Area, Europe, or Australia office.

-Username17

[Blicero]

I have never seen anyone use a Grey Render in any game. It's a completely uninteresting brute monster.

For what it's worth, they pop up a lot in the first Neverwinter Nights game and/or its expansions. That's probably the only place I've seen them used, though. I also remember being struck by a moment of brief but intense pathos the first time I read about how Grey Renders adopt families. It's kind of a charming sidenote.

[zugschef]

For what it's worth, they pop up a lot in the first Neverwinter Nights game and/or its expansions.

I've played these games and I still can't remember that stupid monster. ^^

[hogarth]

Anyway, WotC explicitly only hires from among the gamers who happen to be in arms reach, living in the Seattle area. They have been drafting up new "talent" through the ranks of their own gaming tables since the mid nineties. Fucking Bruce Cordell got his start in Monte Cook's farm league tables back in the AD&D days. Since no one here lives in Seattle that I know about, no one is going to make the next D&D version unless and until WotC opens up a Bay Area, Europe, or Australia office.

I think you're underestimating the willingness of people to move to get a job. I mean, if people are willing to relocate to work at Paizo (and they have), I don't see why they wouldn't for WotC.

I'm puzzled by your comment about Bruce Cordell: according to his blog, his first publication credit is on the "Space Master Companion II". Are you saying that Monte Cook got him that work?

[nockermensch]

I have never seen anyone use a Grey Render in any game. It's a completely uninteresting brute monster.

For what it's worth, they pop up a lot in the first Neverwinter Nights game and/or its expansions. That's probably the only place I've seen them used, though. I also remember being struck by a moment of brief but intense pathos the first time I read about how Grey Renders adopt families. It's kind of a charming sidenote.

This. The only situation I'd ever use a Grey Render is if I wanted to make a Big Daddy / Little Sister encounter in D&D. For everything else, there's Trolls and Girallons.

[Username17]

Anyway, WotC explicitly only hires from among the gamers who happen to be in arms reach, living in the Seattle area. They have been drafting up new "talent" through the ranks of their own gaming tables since the mid nineties. Fucking Bruce Cordell got his start in Monte Cook's farm league tables back in the AD&D days. Since no one here lives in Seattle that I know about, no one is going to make the next D&D version unless and until WotC opens up a Bay Area, Europe, or Australia office.

I think you're underestimating the willingness of people to move to get a job. I mean, if people are willing to relocate to work at Paizo (and they have), I don't see why they wouldn't for WotC.

I'm puzzled by your comment about Bruce Cordell: according to his blog, his first publication credit is on the "Space Master Companion II". Are you saying that Monte Cook got him that work?

ICE isn't WotC. Bruce Cordell isn't even listed as an author for that book on the Amazon link he provides. I assume he was a "contributor" in the same way that I'm a contributor to some Knights of the Dinner Table issues.

Regardless, right now WotC explicitly says they aren't even interested in interviewing you for a position if you don't live in the Seattle area. It doesn't matter whether you are willing to relocate, they aren't willing to interview you in the first place if you'd have to.

Wizards of the Coast, a subsidiary of Hasbro, Inc., and the world's largest publisher of adventure games, including Magic: The Gathering® Trading Card Game and Dungeons & Dragons® Role-playing Games has an exciting opportunity for a Sr. Technology Project Manager to join our team. Only local candidates need apply.

Wizards of the Coast, a subsidiary of Hasbro, Inc., and the world's largest publisher of adventure games, including Magic: The Gathering® Trading Card Game and Dungeons & Dragons® Roleplaying Games has an exciting opportunity for a Sr. Project Manager to join our Marketing Project Management Team. Only local candidates need apply.

Wizards of the Coast, a subsidiary of Hasbro, Inc., and the world's largest publisher of adventure games, including Magic: The Gathering® Trading Card Game and Dungeons & Dragons® Role-playing Games has an exciting opportunity for a Sr. Marketing Art Director, Dungeons & Dragons to join our team. Only local candidates need apply.

Emphasis added.

Go to their job postings, they are seriously only interested in Seattle-based talent. It's very weird.

-Username17

[Chamomile]

I once used grey renders because a caster boss needed backup dancers and I felt like I'd overused trolls and girallons. So that's what grey renders are. The B-team you trot out to stop the A-list from getting overexposed. Iconic!

[RobbyPants]

I bet if everyone here had that much free time, everyone would have some gems amidst mountains of shit. Except (fill in user name for favourite person to insult!), he's always useless.

Yeah, I hate that guy.

Projects take both a lot of thinking and a lot of raw work hours, but those two things totally aren't uniformly distributed. Early design has a lot of problems you solve with clever ideas (edit: this frequently means ideas you think are clever and pat yourself on the back for, but whatever you get the idea), and people enjoy that for its own sake (especially when it aligns with their own interests). The thought:work ratio is super high and you can enjoy working on the project for its own sake because the work you're doing is mentally engaging. But as the project moves on, that thought:work ratio drops and the tasks before you become way less interesting and occupy way more time and personal enjoyment becomes an increasingly less powerful motivator. Commercial projects solve this problem with what is known as a "paycheck," but making enough money off of TTRPG's as an indie dev to recoup the value of your time is pretty hard and absolutely not a sure thing.

Yeah, this sums up pretty much any fantasy heartbreaker I've ever attempted in the last 17 years, and I never even had ambitions to actually get it published!

This is why I've found myself favoring writing lots of house-rules and new content for 3.x. I get a lot higher thought:work ratio. As an added bonus, if I feel like being an ass and ignoring criticism, I can blame problems on the underlying system! "It's not my fault, man! It's out of the scope of the project!"

It certainly won't produce a high quality game, but it's a hell of a lot more fun and doable for an hour or two a night between having a job, raising two girls, and renovating a house.