I am not a D&D player, or "D&Dhed" as I have been found of saying since 1982, so this whole discussion of the latest "4th Edition of D&D" has been kind of amazing. While reading the problems people are having with this or that rule, or rule expansion, or rule expansion setting, not a few, as in not more than a handful of the MANY problems expressed, have been adverse to why some role-players do not like D&D. It's simple, it's just a brand name, owned by a privileged few and funded by other people with money who think games and plastic shelves amount to the same the same thing, a product.
Role-playing games work best when creative minds are behind them. Not just the best organized, nor the aptly-financed. The semi-nod to the very creative-impulse that inspires role-playing games and by-product products that WotC gave back in 2000, the OGL, actually revitalized the game industry. To be specific it revitalized small press RPG publishing market. And it happened to make 3rd edition, err 3.214, err 3.416457... (whatever) a very good seller as well as kindling new interest in the adventure gaming industry as a whole.
The WOTC crowd has been somewhat slapped in the face for being so naive in its charity it would seem though for the time being. This is a process which the late Gary Gygax would understand but probably not wholly agree with-- He was about copyright and ownership not marketability after all. D&D has been re-invented at least three times to date, right. Actually it's been like 11 but hey who's really counting?
What are the reasons for the new 4th edition? Something to do with the last edition, well at least the later half, being "bloated." To me as a guy who likes to read fantasy and by-products, I think anything fantasy being bloated is a good thing. Too many authors authors coming out with new "products" based on this (or that) system, means people with money to spend on such leisure have plenty to choose from . Somewhere though, someone, with a nicer office and commitment on a mortgage say just north of Silicon Valley, heard from a higher up that not enough plastic figures from a distributor where being ordered, but that the current owner of sed trademarked item already had a contract for more plastic figures a couple o years ago. And this benevolent provider was willing to make these figures, and our heroic small press publisher, viable for the right terms.
The picture above is anaccurate. But so is the picture of RPG's being funded by Hasbro for any longer than a couple years before it realizes that RPG's are not going to sell like boardgames. Of course the collective mind at Hasbro isn't dumb enough to throw the baby D&D (TM) out with the bath water so the small publishing firms will get their shares, just a little later. But why? Is it to slow the "need" for the next edition? Or is it to retain exclusive profits on this edition? This above is the first question we "gamers" need to asking ourselves.
The next question we need to ask ourselves is, does any product having this much control on our industry and its communitites really doing us any good?
Some are saying that D&D is getting for the "On-Line Age." Oh but there already are D&D franchises on-line, as well as 114 other "fantasy settings" available on-line. By the way, about 80% of the other Virtual Reality role-playing sites are doing better than ony of the D&D sites to date. So where are these fans going to come from. I may be wrong here, but I think we tabletop role-players who thought that Magic: The Gathering was going to swell our ranks have had to rethink that. Us tabletoppers bought both games, and the Magic crowd moved on to Pokiman.
All this said, my prediction is that "4th Edition" will pick up in a bit, namely when the other publishers are allowed to do supplements. 5th edition though is going to have come with GPS and Passports to make the "adventure" any more vaible to anybody.
Tags: PerytonGamers DungeonandDrago Ns 4thEdition
