Friday 20 January 2012

Obligitary D&D post

As I'm sure you know by now, WOTC are bringing out a new edition of D&D and doing a limited edition of the AD&D core rules. Right then. 5e.

Old market, old game, old art.

Same market, same game, same art.

New market, new game, new art.
Firstly D&D 5E should look largely like this:

Camile Rose Garcia
More D&D5e art here.

And you should be able to pick up quick-start rules with a baggie of Gamescience dice and a nifty crayon for 3.99 from here:

Starbucks
and here

Hot Topic

and here

Tate Modern.
5e should be Hipster D&D, for 2012. Sod the grogs and the geeks, they'll buy it anyway (or not).*

Put it on sale in gallery stores as a gift item because it contains art by contemporary artists and illustrators - tour with the art. Variant covers.

Put it on sale in coffeshops because people can pick it up, play it as a casual activity and get hooked (and sit around and drink more coffee).

Put it on sale in teen clothing stores because that's where teens spend cash. Oh, and make it girl friendly - charisma is not a dump stat.

Relying on specialist game-stores and comic-book shops is just preaching to the converted (i.e same/same).


Oh yeah, WotC also  announced limited edition AD&D reprints, nice.

*Realise that each edition has its own fanbase. D&D can be a brand not a single game. Each gaming table is it's own niche. Time to embrace the long-tale inventory (re) release the PDFs!

2 comments:

  1. Good choices for art!
    I'd like to see them make it FREAKING WEIRD so that people are kinda afraid of it again --- but in this jaded era that is probably asking the impossible.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I think you've hit the nail on the head there Limpey. Generic fantasy is so mainstream, every next hollywood blockbuster is full of fantasy tropes - it's become hugely bland to the outsiders who don't care about the subtleties of high/low fantasy dungeonpunk/tolkienesque - it's all the same.

    D&D has to do something different to stand out, to be interesting again.

    ReplyDelete