This week on UnderDiscussion we officially upgrade frequent guest Hooligan into the third host of UnderDiscussion, and what better way to do that than with an actual play of one of the best games of 2011: Quarriors! Slacker joins us for a surprisingly long game of what is usually a snappy dice game. This one clocks in at just under fifty minutes.
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Just a quick little contest that only requires you to answer one question: What’s your favorite episode of UnderDiscussion of 2011? Answer in the comments section of this post. The prize will be a $10 gift certificate to DriveThruRPG. I’ll select a winner at random (using Random.org) next week, so be sure to answer before 11:59am central time on Tuesday Jan 24th 2012.
Now that I’ve detailed two important ways of growing awareness of D&D as a brand that people will want to buy, let’s look at how I think the launch of the fifth edition should be handeled.
D&D needs an intro box AT LAUNCH
It’s no secret that I work in at a Friendly Local Gaming Store, and while that doesn’t give me insight into the inner workings of the RPG business it does give me some experience in how RPG books get bought and sold in a real world environment. Or more specifically, how they’re not.
At least once a month I have someone ask me where they should start with RPGs. I always point them to the Pathfinder Beginner Box and to the D&D Red Box. I personally feel that these are two very important products for their respective lines. RPGs can be daunting to get into. Without an intro product an employee has to explain that an RPG group will need 2-3 books, plus dice to start out with and pray that the customer doesn’t ask why there are all the extra books setting next to the ones that were just suggested. Almost everyone I’ve ever talked to about getting into RPGs looks at the shelf of books and says “I need all of those?” Explaining that you only need three $40 books plus a $6 set of dice at the bare minimum doesn’t exactly entice people. But the beginner box does.
The Pathfinder Beginner Box is a perfect example of an intro product. It has dice, it has the quick start rules right on the character sheets, it has an intro adventure, it has minis, it has a play mat, it has a solo adventure that guides you through how to play, and it has a rule book geared toward younger players that doesn’t condescend at you. It has all of that in a single box that I can point to and go “That’s all you need.” This kind of thing needs to be a launch release. Yes, D&D needs to put out a core book and a campaign setting at the same time, but those products need to be an addition to the intro box, and as we discussed before, it needs to be tied into the cartoon that you’re releasing at the same time.
Speaking of the core book, D&D needs to stick to a single form factor, and I think the form factor should be the one they went with for essentials. They’re smaller and easier to transport if all you need is just the character stuff from that book, they’re easier to shelf in big box stores (an important consideration if you want D&D to become a core Hasbro brand) and they’re cheaper, leading to more sales. While I think you could sell both hard and softcover versions of the core books I personally believe that there is more of a market for a cheaper softcover and would only release the hardcovers later as a premium collector’s edition product. The core book should be everything a player needs to play: The rules, the character classes, the basic equipment. Leave magic items for a later book, they should be an addition th the system, not a core part of it.
So far we have a intro product for those who are just getting started and a core book for players who know what they’re doing and just want to play, now we need game mastering stuff, and there are three products that should exists. The first is a game mastering guide. The 4e guide and the Paizo Gamemastery guide both do an excellent job of filling this role and should be emulated. Don’t but game rules in this book, that’s what the core book is for. This book should be all about advice on running the game and dealing with players of all stripes.
The next thing that should exist at launch is a monster box. Yes, a box. It should have all the pawns or tokens that exist in the included monster book. It gives great value for the dollars spent and is difficult to pirate compared to just a regular monster manual.
The third thing (and honestly the least inportant) is the generic fantasy setting that you want to be the flagship of the line. I aassume it will be Forgotten Realms. Do not release this as a player book and a GM book, that just irritates everyone. Release it as one large book, and keep it as crunch free as possible. There’s no need for a thousand more “=2 to X because you’re from region Y” feats. Just include the good stuff from the setting.
I think that this setup would serve the D&D brand well as an introduction to a new edition.
Dungeons and Dragons is the oldest and most well known RPG on the planet. That is a fact. Most people don’t know what the hell D&D is. That, sadly, is also a fact.
D&D is is one of the biggest tabletop RPG brands in existence, but your average person on the street doesn’t know anything about it other than it might be a computer game of some sort, it’s nerdy, and it could very well be satanic.
I have a humble suggestion for correcting this.
D&D Needs a well written and well drawn cartoon to spread awareness.
First, I’d like to point out that I personally think that the fact that D&D doesn’t currently have a cartoon is negligent at best and criminal at worst. The fact that someone from Hasbro Marketing wasn’t sitting in the Limo outside of WotC waiting for the ink to dry before mining the 30 years of IP they had just acquired for ideas is something that I think all their shareholders should wonder about. But this is a positive article, so let’s stay positive.
A D&D cartoon would accomplish two things. First, it would spread awareness of the D&D brand. Yes, people know of D&D, but they don’t know about D&D. A well written D&D cartoon would link the concepts of fun and adventure with the brand in the minds of people who had never been exposed to the game itself. It also puts the brand in places that will get it more attention: DVD sales. Once the first season is produced then it’s on video shelves of big box stores like Best Buy and Walmart, places that don’t generally stock D&D books and games. That puts the brand out there, and it makes it easy for grandma to buy it as a gift. Little kids don’t know they want D&D, but if they watch an awesome cartoon they’ll want EVERYTHING D&D.
Second, it gets D&D into the hearts and minds of kids. This seems like the first point, but it’s a seperate thing. Kids don’t have money to spend, their parents do. But as someone who grew up watching Power Rangers I can tell you that I didn’t have a Megazord under the christmas tree just because Mom thought it looked fun. Kids will watch a kickass D&D cartoon and want D&D toys and D&D DVDs and D&D games. This is where you will see you’re biggest increase in customers and the biggest surge of new players of the tabletop game, but only if you manage it well.
The D&D cartoon would need to be timed with the release of a new D&D Red Box. The art on the box needs to be from the cartoon (make the same guy fighting a dragon, but make the guy the fighter from the series and BAM! nostalgia for the old guard and a hook for the new.) The PreGens in the box need to be the characters from the cartoon, their powers and abilities need to be things that the kids can see them do in the show. Maybe the archer has a bow of light, that bow NEEDS to be on that character sheet. The monsters in the new cartoon red box all need to be drawn in the style of the of the cartoon. It needs to scream “You already know you like me! Buy me and play me!” to the kids that watch.
“I get it,” you say “This is a great marketing tool, so what else is new?” I’m glad you asked.
You’re going to want to make sure that the cartoon kicks ass on many, many different levels. You want to appeal to as many different demographics as possible. (I believe the popularity of My Little Pony with the “Bronies” should be evidence enough of the importance of cross-demographic popularity.) I’ve got a number of steps that can be followed to ensure the cartoon’s success.
Hire People from the community to develop the cartoon.
This one is the easiest. You’re going to want the D&D community to be on board at the ground level, so you’re going to want to have some people who are well respected and well known in the community to help develope the ideas and polish the concepts that will go into the cartoon. My suggestions would be people Like Tracy Hurley from Sarah Darkmagic and Brian Patterson from d20Monkey. They both have a lot of good insights about the game and the issues surrounding the game. I think they both would be excellent for developing the core ideas of the characters and the world that the show takes place in. (Also, I’d love to see the cartoon in Brian’s art style.)
Hire the writers of Avatar: The last Airbender
Now that the core ideas of the show are developed hire people who have a proven track record for writing amazing fantasy cartoons. They can take the ideas and characters and run with them, weaving the same sort of immersive and critically acclaimed stories that got them on this list.
Hire voice actors popular with the cross demographics
This one is another easy one. Nathion Fillion: Popular, well known, geek cred. He’s the fighter. Felicia Day: Popular, well known, tons of geek cred. She’s the leader of the group. Seth Green: Sacrastic, well known, plays with toys for a living. I smell rogue, don’t you? There are a thousand big geek names that I could throw out. Vin Diesel, you know he’ll need a cameo at some point. Tim Curry, he’s already in the booth recording his lines for the first season’s big bad.
Use as much D&D as possible
What I mean by this is D&D is almost 40 years old at this point, there is so much to draw upon, don’t just rely on the same old tired “bad guy has a dragon” crap that is in every other fantasy show. Set the damn thing in Greyhawk or (my personal choice) Eberron. Have the big bad be a Mind Flayer. Have them have to run from a beholder at first level. Visit White Plum Mountain or Waterdeep. Trek through a desert with a Tri-Kreen guide. Use it all!
So, with yesterdays’s really negative post on my part out of the way, I want to have a positive outlook on the 5e of d&d. With that Here’s the first of my Humble Suggestions.
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The D&D virtual table top has been a promised product for a long time (it was, in fact, one of the key selling points of the 4e announcement.) Now, from what I understand, one of the major contributing factors to the absence of a real VTT was the death of the designer. That was an unfortunate occurrence, but it shouldn’t have been the end of the VTT. At that point, if they felt that the VTT was going to be a core part of 4e (and to be fair, uniting distant gamers and letting them play from all over the world is an awesome goal) they could have dipped into some of that fat Hasbro cash and just straight up purchased an already successful and developed VTT program like Dundjinni. They didn’t do this, and their reasons will never be known to me, so lets look forward to what they sould do now that they’ve decided to develop a D&D for all seasons.
The D&D Virtual Tabletop needs to be released on not only ALL platforms, but also be CROSS PLATFORM.
They need to develop the VTT not only for the PC, but for the Mac, the iPad, the Wii, the Xbox 360 and the PS3 (sorry linux people, I’m one of you but I have to acknowledge that we’re less than 1% of the market. Hopefully the PC version will have no trouble running under WINE.) They want to bring gamers together, so they should make the D&D VTT as (hardware) system neutral as possible. Imagine being able to play from your couch on your xbox while at the same time someone else is playing on their iPad in a park halfway around the world, while a third person has it up on their PC or Mac on the Moon! (Ok, most likely not the moon. The lag, good god the lag…)
This idea works for a number of reasons. First, it shows that you really are trying to reach out to everyone. No one can go “well, they don’t want my money because they refuse to develop for my system.” No one gets left out, everyone can play. Uniting the hobby one step at a time.
Second, it makes you more money. The only reason there are platform exclusive video games anymore is either because the studio developing is owned by the console manufacturer or they have been paid by the console manufacturer. Look at your own success with Dual of the Planeswalkers. You have that out on xbox, ps3 and steam, and if the promo card giveaway at the FLGS that I work for is any indication then it’s selling like crazy on all three platforms. No one is going to buy a system just for the VTT, so why not try to get it on the systems they already have?
Third, it makes you more money. No, that’s not an accidental repeat. Console gamers and iPad owners are both used to paying for DLC and the VTT is a promise to both the gaming community and your masters at Hasbro of nearly limitless DLC. You want an example? Ok. So the VTT will come with a pack of standard monsters, your orcs, your kobolds, your skeletons, things that every fantasy RPG has in abundance. You can, for example, sell not one, not two, but a minimum of three packs of DLC to the person running the games. Pack 1: Chromatic dragons (these packs will have both 3d models for people on consoles and PCs and awesome 2d artwork for iPad and other users) Pack 2: Metallic Dragons and Pack 3: Great Wyrms! Right there, three packs that you will sell the hell out of, and that’s just dragons.
Some of you may have noticed that I mentioned that you’d be selling monster packs to just the GM. “Well, what about the players?” Simple, Rules packs and character avatar upgrades.
The VTT should, out of the can, support the current edition of D&D, it is after the D&D VTT, but it doesn’t have to stop there. You could, with little effort, support every edition of D&D ever published. You’re trying to win hearts and minds, and what better way than to support everyone. If the rules packs cost everyone who wanted to run or play something easy like 99 cents (app priced) they you have no problem justifying every player and GM has to have the rules set. “But this just supports D&D.” Yes, until you release an SDK and pen it up to other 3rd party developers (you have said that you want 5e to be more open to the third party.) Imagine FATE or Savage Worlds rules sets available for people to purchase, and because they’re using your setup, you still get a cut. That is the definition of Win-Win my friend.
Forth, it puts it right in front of gamers who might have never even thought of playing D&D.
Full stop.
An all-platforms VTT gets D&D in the faces and eyes and minds of the newest generation of gamers. The generation that you not only want, but NEED to keep the game alive. It puts it in the minds of people with proven access to disposable income (they’re on a game console or iPad after all) and it does it in a way that could easily convert them into tabletop gamers that you just can’t replicate with a banner ad. If they play some VTT games they might think about buying the books and playing face to face. If they don’t then they still might enjoy playing on the VTT. You win either way.
Next time I suggest how to broaden the awareness and gets kids hooked all at the same time.
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