Art

This is one of several thoughts/suggestions regarding the upcoming fifth edition of Dungeons & Dragons (5e). Relevant news items: nytimes and wizards.

I don’t know anything about the history between TSR/WotC/Hasbro and artists, but judging by what I’m seeing in a lot of D&D products I have to conclude that you’ve driven the good artists to hate you. So the first piece of advice is that you should stop doing that. Also:

No more interior art.

Keep the maps; those are good, but other interior art does not help anything.

It’s not that art is bad, per se. Certain types of art, in particular, would be great. Portraits of (in)famous NPCs and locations, renderings of certain spell effects, historically significant battle scenes, and so forth. They should not, however, be in the campaign setting book or regional sourcebooks, and especially not in adventures.

Instead, art should be on a dvd, sold alongside but not bundled with the printed material. In the name of whatever you hold sacred, don’t bundle it. Why? Because you obviously won’t have a whole dvd’s-worth of images to go with each sourcebook… and I will not pay $10 on top of the base product cost for 5 digitized watercolors that look like a 5-year old might have just tossed a couple buckets of colored water at the wall. And because —if it’s good— some people who don’t even play D&D will be interested in the art. You’ll make up the cost of producing these dvds by charging no more than $20 and making sure we’re getting more than our money’s worth. Rule of thumb: if it looks like fingerpainting, I’m not going to buy it… ‘cuz I can do fingerpainting, myself.

As far as watercolor that a 5-year old couldn’t do, very little of what I’ve seen in D&D books, since the beginning of D&D, has been as good as http://bcduncan.deviantart.com/gallery/. And no; I’ve never even met her, but she’s an amazing artist. Your art director(s) should spend a couple lunches every week, if they don’t already, browsing deviantart and other art communities. I’m sure many of the artists would be willing, or even eager, to be featured in a collection of art and role-playing materials in exchange for a fair price.

Maps

This is one of several thoughts/suggestions regarding the upcoming fifth edition of Dungeons & Dragons (5e). Relevant news items: nytimes and wizards.

This is one of my pet peeves. Hey… these are my suggestions, so you get to hear about my pet peeves. Everybody else can tell you about theirs.

Stop changing the maps.

I’m looking at you, people-who-did-the-3e-FR-map. Expand and improve, but don’t move things around just so it will fit better on the page. I’m not a cartographer, so I can’t tell you in technical terms what a huge screwup that is, but I can tell you as a gamer… and based on what I saw on the forums, I wasn’t alone in my reaction.

You pissed me off, by giving me a map which is superficially appealing but which forces me to decide which version of the Realms I want to play in and renders either the earlier or later maps completely useless. This was compounded by 4e, when you changed the map again. I sense a pattern developing, and I don’t like it.

If you released updates of the 1e/2e maps with each new edition, the ship of my objection would lose a lot of the wind in its sails. However, you did not, which means avast, ye scurvy knave! Walk the plank!

RSE

This is one of several thoughts/suggestions regarding the upcoming fifth edition of Dungeons & Dragons (5e). Relevant news items: nytimes and wizards.

Do I really even need to address this? Is this really something that needs to be explained?

Apparently so, since as of 4e you’re still relying on them.

Stop.

Just stop. %#&$!*&^%$ing stop! It damages the setting, while contributing nothing positive. Nothing. I would try to google this, to see “your version of the story” but the thing is… it doesn’t matter what you think. You’re wrong. Quit explaining new rulesets with catastrophic events. No, it doesn’t explain anything. It does not create a context for the changes. It’s not creative, no matter how many geniuses worked on trying to explain it.

If you need a spellplague or a mass-ungodding to explain why you’re changing something, that’s a huge blatantly obvious indication that you shouldn’t change that thing. DMs and players see these indications, given how huge and blatantly obvious they are, even if you don’t see them.

This really translates to the biggest thing you should change in 5e:

Stop being freegin idiots.

Dear WotC: You have some smart people there. Quit making us think they’re all single-digit-IQ morons because their names are attached to ridiculously stupid decisions that are your fault.

Somewhere around age 12, when school counselors started asking me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I got this idea in my head that working for TSR would be the coolest job ever. Roll dice and play games all day! Write adventures and sourcebooks! Go to cons! Be a nerd and be proud of it!

Today, I would rather drive a garbage truck for a living than work for WotC. I think I could be the Dirty Jobs guy on tv before I would take a job at WotC that didn’t include total ownership of the company and freedom to fire everybody above the rank of Chambermaid. (I’m pretty sure that while that’s probably not an actual job title at WotC, the job duties are roughly the same)

So here’s an IQ test: what does that tell you? All of us are sitting out here sighing and nodding in understanding. You, in the suit, sitting at the cherry wood desk in an office with a view… what does it mean to you when someone realizes, without ever meeting you in person, that scraping sewage out of a cesspit would be less crappy than working for you?

It may seem that I’ve veered off the original topic of RSE, but the real topic here is intelligence. If the right people had it, none of us would be in this mess.

Retconning

This is one of several thoughts/suggestions regarding the upcoming fifth edition of Dungeons & Dragons (5e). Relevant news items: nytimes and wizards.

Don’t retcon. When you royally screw up, don’t screw up again by attacking it with a giant magic marker. Doing that just makes you look childish… or like the government. Here’s how you fix it.

When you screw up, acknowledge it and talk to us.

It’s the DM’s right (and I would argue responsibility) to remove stupid things from the game. However, DMs are people too, and we don’t always see things from your point of view. In fact, since you know what you’re going to be releasing in the next year or so, and we don’t… you should assume that we never see things from your point of view. We are completely in the dark about your intentions. We do, however, remember your screwups in the past. This is not a positive situation for either side.

So when you get a bunch of negative feedback on something, you should make a tactful “press release” —to DMs and players, not to the Wall Street Journal— acknowledging that you’re seeing that some folks dislike this particular event in this particular setting. Give us some creative suggestions about how we can (A) put a spin on the event to minimize the negative impact on play and create some interesting opportunities out of it, or (B) eliminate that specific event while still using the other material in that sourcebook. This allows us to (1) see that you’re sensitive to our reactions, and (2) get as much value as possible out of each sourcebook without trashing the book or the entire edition in frustration because it seems like everything that comes after that depends on this wacko event that we have no intention of including in our game.

If you need a practical example, consider the players that you flat-out repulsed with the Time of Troubles. Not only were you changing the rules of the game they had enjoyed up until that point, but you were also trashing the Realms at the same time with this bizarre the-gods-are-duking-it-out-on-faerun-and-every-mage-is-a-wild-mage-now plotline. That was a big deal. 4e was even worse.

This ties in with RSEs, addressed elsewhere… ideally, you’ll stop making these stupid mistakes, but when they sneak in at least respect the setting and your customers enough to help us work around them.

The Old Days

Glancing through the Cyclopedia of the Realms (the 1e campaign setting) I was struck again by the difference between the original setting and the modern Realms.  Manshoon is only 16th level, Elminster is only 26th.  The Knights of Myth Drannor, responsible for much derring-do in the Heartlands, are mostly around levels 4-9.  Waterdeep has around 100k residents instead of 10 times that amount.  Dragons are “the most dangerous creatures of the Known Realms.”

I’m not complaining about the development that’s taken place.  We have a whole lot more monsters to play with now, and more spells, and more NPCs, and more more more.  Cool.  I’m just saying those were the good ol’ days, and they have a certain powerful appeal.

And I think part of this appeal is consistent with the Points of Light philosophy; the 1e Realms was more consistent with this idea than later versions have been.  Back then, meaning 1357 DR, “civilization is still a novelty in much of this world.”  What a difference 15 years made.  Three (and a half) rewrites of the game rules inexplicably meant that the world had to be rewritten multiple times.  Part of it was unavoidable… as you crank up the power level of the Light, you need more powerful Darkness in-between.  But it didn’t stop there.

1e: This is the Forgotten Realms. (and there was much rejoicing.)

2e: This is the Forgotten Realms on crack… any questions?

3e: This is the Forgotten Realms on mushrooms… see our cool new maps?

4e: Mushrooms were clearly not enough WiNNiNG!  We’ve come up with (oh, after extensively polling customer opinions, of course, oh yes) a mixture of uh… some stuff, and… well, frankly we have no idea what it is.  But we’re calling it the Forgotten Realms because people buy FR products, and because it’s so badass!  Give us more money!  So we can invent new drugs!  5e will be freakin amazing!

Edit: Just 26 days after I wrote this, 5e was announced, with the accompanying request for player feedback, etc. *sigh*

I’m not criticizing the 4e rules.  Just the changes to the Realms.  Partly because the rules do seem to be decent.  Moreso because I’ve watched a couple of Encounters sessions (Dark Sun, not Realms) but I haven’t played or even completely read the 4e rules.  4e is different enough from the previous versions of the game to warrant having a different name, but I understand wanting to preserve the D&D label.  I’m also not criticizing the writers, who I’m sure were just doing the best they could with the orders they got.  No, this is aimed clearly at the head honchos.  The dolts in charge of turning the Realms into a steaming pile of [expletive deleted].

I don’t know what the creative process at WotC/Hasbro entails, and I don’t really care.  Here’s how it should work, in an easy 1-2-3.  The reality of it can’t resemble the following outline very closely, or we wouldn’t be having these problems.

1. Whoever is in charge of (makes all executive decisions regarding) D&D products at Hasbro plays and likes D&D.  Whoever is in charge of the FR brand (same meaning) is a player and appreciator of lore-heavy settings, because that’s what this setting is.  You don’t put a bike-hater in charge of selling bikes. Did you put a Realms-hater in charge of the 4e Realms? I think you did.

2. The Creative Dept, or R&D, or whatever you want to call it, keeps all ten fingers on the pulse of what Realms Fans want, through participation in forums like Candlekeep and the FR mailing list as well as polls conducted both online and on paper.  “Meet the Creative Dept” events at every Con where WotC makes an appearance, which should be a lot of Cons if you want to sell stuff, are a great time to conduct polls.  By Realms Fans I mean people who spend more than 50% of their game time in the Realms and feel strongly invested in the past, present, and future of the Realms.  Importantly, Ed Greenwood, the guy who wrote the first incarnation of the setting, needs to be part of the Creative Dept, or at least cordially and sincerely invited to participate in as many of their meetings with Authors as he cares to be involved in. Set the man up with his own private jet, or some good videoconferencing equipment; your choice. I get that you bought the Realms and you own the trademarks now… however, that does not change the fact that our loyalty is to him, not to you, and you’d be doing yourself a favor if you stopped publishing things he doesn’t like… because he has a knack for writing what we’re going to like… and you clearly do not.

3. When designing a new product, three forces come together in two stages.  First, the Hasbro guy/gal meets with the Creative Dept.  They arrive at a concensus regarding the type and scope of the product; hard/soft cover, pagecount, and which facet(s) of the Realms the product is going to cover.  Then the Creative Dept meets with the Author(s) and the Hasbro guy/gal butts out; they’ve had their say and their services are no longer required.  The Creative Dept presents the Author(s) with the guidelines (hardcover, 157 pages, about Waterdeep, for instance) and the polling data indicating what Realms fans like and dislike.  Together, they then iron out the details of what goes in the book.  Then the Creative Dept shuts up and lets the Author(s) discuss ideas to everyone’s satisfaction.  Quickly, the meetings end, and the Author(s) go to do what only Author(s) should be doing… writing.

I know, I said 1-2-3, but here’s a bonus.

4. When a new system of rules changes the game to the point where it’s basically a whole new game –like 4e– you don’t muck up an existing campaign setting, particularly a lore-rich one.  Worldshaking events in a lore-rich world are guaranteed to piss everybody off and guess what… justifiably so.  We’re right to be pissed off, and you are wrong.  You want to blow everything up?  Make a new world for it.  Worst case, if your finances are so screwed up that you can’t pay a designer to spend 30 minutes inventing a new world for you, then muck up something you haven’t touched in years.  Like Ravenloft, or Spelljammer, or Blackmoor.  Then watch in amazement as the people who really like your new rules and appreciate this revitalizing Kaboom you just dropped on an old setting start flocking to the new product line.  Meanwhile the players who are invested in the lore-heavy settings and enjoy them for what they are can continue to enjoy new products written for their setting.  This works best if you stop filling Setting products with ruleset-specific junk.  Note: those who love the new rules can and will modify your lore-heavy settings to use the new rules, and write fanfic and netbooks which you could theoretically license for a nominal royalties fee.  Everybody wins.

Specifically, with regard to the Realms, the following decisions were criminally misguided: the success of the plot to murder Mystra, the elimination of many other powers, the destruction of various nations and individuals across Faerun, the return of Netheril and Myth Drannor, and… I’ll undoubtedly expand this list as I read more of what used to be the Realms.  If you really want to glom Abeir and Toril back together again (the original cloning/separation and now the reunification are arguably also misguided) then have them meld on one of the previously unexplored continents, thus opening up new lore instead of killing existing plotlines.

I’m not condemning change itself.  There’s nothing wrong with innovation.  Creativity is good.  The 4e rules are innovative.  The 4e changes in the Realms —speaking as someone who’s played primarily within the Realms since the release of the gray box— are horristupidbad.