With all the talk of D&D becoming more like an MMO, I am reminded of way back when, many moons ago before Neverwinter MMO and D&D online were things, there was Neverwinter Nights 1 & 2. Mostly designed as single player video game experiences but they had a "DM Mode" where you could design dungeons and monsters and run the game for multiple players online, so if they brought back that type of game play for future version of D&D I might be ok with it.
The downside for me would be they would either do it as a monthly subscription or do it as a free to play with a metric ton of play to win/loot box mechanics.
A design your own adventure in an MMO seems fine if you like that sort of thing (I’ve no idea If DND online or WoW let you do this at the moment). But as you say you’d have to pay for it. Starting from the premise of turning DND from a $100m business to a $1b business, turning it into an MMO with the cash making mechanics you suggest seems to be the strategy.
If the intent is to monetize DnD more then, here's a novel idea. Publish more content!
FFS the publishing rate for 5e is anemic at best. Where's the lore books? Where's prestige classes? Where's tier 4 campaigns? Where's equipment and crafting rules?
You are correct. No one wants a "video gamey" experience. Imersive storytelling should be left to the storyteller and not unreal engine graphics.
FFS the publishing rate for 5e is anemic at best. Where's the lore books? Where's prestige classes? Where's tier 4 campaigns? Where's equipment and crafting rules?
The difficulty here is that new content needs creative ideas. It takes a decade or more to build a company that can foster creativity and put those creative ideas into print.
WOTC just bought all the creativity of the 1980's and 1990's and has been repackaging that for the past 20 years. There is currently no one comparable to the creativity of Ed Greenwood at WOTC, No Margaret Weiss or Tracy Hickman, No RA Salvatore. For sure there are no Gary Gygax, David Cook, Brian Blume ... and on and on.
The names we all know in 5e are just people who make the mechanics - like Jeremy Crawford is the "rules designer". Nothing against that - but it's not "content'. It's just taking existing content and making different mechanics for it.
This is the bottom line - WOTC is outright hostile to creatives and has driven them away. Looking back at lawsuits with various creatives and even moreso now with the OGL debacle - a new name with fresh content would run from WOTC as fast and far as possible.
The corporate structure of WOTC has eliminated creativity from within and the OGL debacle has scared off third party creativity. In summary - D&D will just be the same recycled ideas for the next 10 years that have already been recycled in 3e, 3.5e, 4e and 5e.
FFS the publishing rate for 5e is anemic at best. Where's the lore books? Where's prestige classes? Where's tier 4 campaigns? Where's equipment and crafting rules?
The difficulty here is that new content needs creative ideas. It takes a decade or more to build a company that can foster creativity and put those creative ideas into print.
WOTC just bought all the creativity of the 1980's and 1990's and has been repackaging that for the past 20 years. There is currently no one comparable to the creativity of Ed Greenwood at WOTC, No Margaret Weiss or Tracy Hickman, No RA Salvatore. For sure there are no Gary Gygax, David Cook, Brian Blume ... and on and on.
The names we all know in 5e are just people who make the mechanics - like Jeremy Crawford is the "rules designer". Nothing against that - but it's not "content'. It's just taking existing content and making different mechanics for it.
This is the bottom line - WOTC is outright hostile to creatives and has driven them away. Looking back at lawsuits with various creatives and even moreso now with the OGL debacle - a new name with fresh content would run from WOTC as fast and far as possible.
The corporate structure of WOTC has eliminated creativity from within and the OGL debacle has scared off third party creativity. In summary - D&D will just be the same recycled ideas for the next 10 years that have already been recycled in 3e, 3.5e, 4e and 5e.
You are spot on, they seem to have completely run out of creative ideas and just want to get royalties out of 3rd parties for supporting the product. Maybe they didn't even plan to produce anything beyond a generic set of the core 3-books for OneDnD and just rake in the cash from the other publishers and kickstarters. I've only got a couple of 5E books but they are more like Dragon Magazine anthologies and rehashings of older edition books than anything new..
FFS the publishing rate for 5e is anemic at best. Where's the lore books? Where's prestige classes? Where's tier 4 campaigns? Where's equipment and crafting rules?
All of this and more has been done, and sometimes very well, by 3PP.
WOTC has been amazingly consistent at keeping canon 5E bland and flavorless. To some degree, I don't blame them: 5E's adaptability and universality is a big part of what's made it so hugely popular. It's instantly accessible, and that's kept the numbers of players (customers) increasing.
But of course, the downside, is that everything starts to feel very samey, after a while. Without DM customization, every adventure, regardless of location, is going to feel like Generic Fantasy World.
(I think the exception is Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft; while not quite overflowing with flavor and atmosphere, it's far more specific and evocative than almost any other WOTC product.)
Some of your examples are things they've deliberately NOT done - crafting rules and prestige classes, for instance. 5E is by design meant to be a streamlined, comparatively simple version of the game, and WOTC has (again, consistently) chosen to not put out splat books full of intricate, more complex rules for gritified playing. Lore books and Tier 4 adventures don't sell well, unfortunately. So, again, this is all being done by 3PP.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
A design your own adventure in an MMO seems fine if you like that sort of thing (I’ve no idea If DND online or WoW let you do this at the moment). But as you say you’d have to pay for it. Starting from the premise of turning DND from a $100m business to a $1b business, turning it into an MMO with the cash making mechanics you suggest seems to be the strategy.
If the intent is to monetize DnD more then, here's a novel idea. Publish more content!
FFS the publishing rate for 5e is anemic at best. Where's the lore books? Where's prestige classes? Where's tier 4 campaigns? Where's equipment and crafting rules?
You are correct. No one wants a "video gamey" experience. Imersive storytelling should be left to the storyteller and not unreal engine graphics.
The difficulty here is that new content needs creative ideas. It takes a decade or more to build a company that can foster creativity and put those creative ideas into print.
WOTC just bought all the creativity of the 1980's and 1990's and has been repackaging that for the past 20 years. There is currently no one comparable to the creativity of Ed Greenwood at WOTC, No Margaret Weiss or Tracy Hickman, No RA Salvatore. For sure there are no Gary Gygax, David Cook, Brian Blume ... and on and on.
The names we all know in 5e are just people who make the mechanics - like Jeremy Crawford is the "rules designer". Nothing against that - but it's not "content'. It's just taking existing content and making different mechanics for it.
This is the bottom line - WOTC is outright hostile to creatives and has driven them away. Looking back at lawsuits with various creatives and even moreso now with the OGL debacle - a new name with fresh content would run from WOTC as fast and far as possible.
The corporate structure of WOTC has eliminated creativity from within and the OGL debacle has scared off third party creativity. In summary - D&D will just be the same recycled ideas for the next 10 years that have already been recycled in 3e, 3.5e, 4e and 5e.
You are spot on, they seem to have completely run out of creative ideas and just want to get royalties out of 3rd parties for supporting the product. Maybe they didn't even plan to produce anything beyond a generic set of the core 3-books for OneDnD and just rake in the cash from the other publishers and kickstarters. I've only got a couple of 5E books but they are more like Dragon Magazine anthologies and rehashings of older edition books than anything new..
All of this and more has been done, and sometimes very well, by 3PP.
WOTC has been amazingly consistent at keeping canon 5E bland and flavorless. To some degree, I don't blame them: 5E's adaptability and universality is a big part of what's made it so hugely popular. It's instantly accessible, and that's kept the numbers of players (customers) increasing.
But of course, the downside, is that everything starts to feel very samey, after a while. Without DM customization, every adventure, regardless of location, is going to feel like Generic Fantasy World.
(I think the exception is Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft; while not quite overflowing with flavor and atmosphere, it's far more specific and evocative than almost any other WOTC product.)
Some of your examples are things they've deliberately NOT done - crafting rules and prestige classes, for instance. 5E is by design meant to be a streamlined, comparatively simple version of the game, and WOTC has (again, consistently) chosen to not put out splat books full of intricate, more complex rules for gritified playing. Lore books and Tier 4 adventures don't sell well, unfortunately. So, again, this is all being done by 3PP.